<!--quoteo(post=1687972:date=Sep 12 2008, 08:50 AM:name=TychoCelchuuu)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TychoCelchuuu @ Sep 12 2008, 08:50 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1687972"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->it takes just as much "strategy" to mine stone as it does to capture a munitions point on the map....First: the "new" RTS games that Steve dislikes, like WiC or CoH or SupCom, still have resources. The difference is that instead of telling your villagers which resource to gather and in what quantity, you decide in other ways. SupCom has buildings, CoH has points on the map that you control, and WiC has a set amount that you choose to allocate. The only difference is whether a villager or an engineer is getting the income.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I guess what I was trying to say is that in a traditional RTS, you need your economy to be flexible. The only way to really achieve this kind of flexibility is to have units whose sole purpose is to go to a certain point on the map and collect one of several resources. In RTG's collecting resources does not cost you anything (villager cost, villager time) whereas in RTS's collecting wood means you're likely to be short of gold and having a lot of gatherers means you're likely to be short on military units.
So much is lost when villagers are removed. In order to be able to continually produce counters and effectively have a diverse army, the player must manage their economy. By manager their economy I mean having the foresight to predict what they'll need and then sending villagers out to those resources. This gets back to the opportunity cost of collecting resources that I implied existed in the above paragraph.
This is where a battle for resources comes into play, and it's very different from how a game like DoW operates. There's also something to be said for the balance of villager and military. The very fact that this balance exists in an RTS and not an RTG opens up a whole new doorway that is not available in RTGs. It's not uncommon, in 3v3's, to see one teammate turtle and do nothing other than collect resources and boon an economy. He then supplies his teammates with resources. That could never happen in DoW/CoH/WiC.
In WiC there aren't even any resources. Since when was allocating a fixed amount of resources considered tactical or strategic (use whatever name you want, that's one argument I never cared about). Hell, if we use that criteria to define an "RTS" then Counter-Strike fits the bill. You kill things - you get money - you allocate the money. I mean, I'm actually dumbfounded as I type this out. I can't believe someone actually thinks WiC has some form of economic strategy.
<!--quoteo(post=1687984:date=Sep 12 2008, 09:29 AM:name=SentrySteve)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SentrySteve @ Sep 12 2008, 09:29 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1687984"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I guess what I was trying to say is that in a traditional RTS, you need your economy to be flexible. The only way to really achieve this kind of flexibility is to have units whose sole purpose is to go to a certain point on the map and collect one of several resources. In RTG's collecting resources does not cost you anything (villager cost, villager time) whereas in RTS's collecting wood means you're likely to be short of gold and having a lot of gatherers means you're likely to be short on military units.
So much is lost when villagers are removed. In order to be able to continually produce counters and effectively have a diverse army, the player must manage their economy. By manager their economy I mean having the foresight to predict what they'll need and then sending villagers out to those resources. This gets back to the opportunity cost of collecting resources that I implied existed in the above paragraph.
This is where a battle for resources comes into play, and it's very different from how a game like DoW operates. There's also something to be said for the balance of villager and military. The very fact that this balance exists in an RTS and not an RTG opens up a whole new doorway that is not available in RTGs. It's not uncommon, in 3v3's, to see one teammate turtle and do nothing other than collect resources and boon an economy. He then supplies his teammates with resources. That could never happen in DoW/CoH/WiC.
In WiC there aren't even any resources. Since when was allocating a fixed amount of resources considered tactical or strategic (use whatever name you want, that's one argument I never cared about). Hell, if we use that criteria to define an "RTS" then Counter-Strike fits the bill. You kill things - you get money - you allocate the money. I mean, I'm actually dumbfounded as I type this out. I can't believe someone actually thinks WiC has some form of economic strategy.
(edited to cut down on giant wall of text)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
See, that's a much better descrption of it. Still, I'd have to disagree. Predicting what units you need right now, what units you need in the future, and what units your opponent is predicting, etc can work just as well when you get rid of villagers. Let's take Company of Heroes for an example because I'm the most familiar with it. The Wehrmacht has to decide if they want to skip Tier 2 and tech up to Tier 3 or even Tier 4; they lose significant anti-tank ability for a while, and if they go T3 they barely recover it unless they go Blitzkrieg doctrine, but they make up for it in other ways. So they have to decide if the opponent is building vehicles or tanks, and if they are, how they want to counter it in the future. Then there are more immediate decisions: spend the manpower on the anti-tank gun, or the grenadier squad. Just because the resources come from a munitions point instead of a gold mine doesn't mean the choice is any different. And you do indeed have to focus on which resources to collect: some Panzer Elite players rush straight to the fuel to tech up to armored cars, whereas some Wehrmacht players jump on the munitions to spam Teller Mines. You capture the resource points with combat units, not with villagers, but who cares? You still have to decide on a certain resource and go for it. In fact, it's much more than that, because you have to decide when you go for the resources versus the attack, when to cut off the opponent versus when to reestablish your own supply lines, etc.
You say that "in order to be able to continually produce counters and effectively have a diverse army, the player must manage their economy," which is true, but you don't need villagers for that. It's just as important to continually produce counters and have a diverse army in CoH as it is in Age of Empires, and in fact I've never seen anyone win a game by spamming units in CoH like I have in Age of Kings (except maybe Scout Cars or Pios back before they fixed that).
I take an even bigger exception to your description of WiC. "Since when was allocating a fixed amount of resources considered tactical or strategic" makes it sound like there's no strategy at all in allocating a fixed amount of resources, but it's NOT fixed resources. It's CONSTANT resources, to a certain point. It's the equivalent of a self-sustaining economy in AoE; you can't build more units than you're losing, but you can swap out the units you're losing for different units. In AoE or some other RTS games, the idea is to move BEYOND the self sustaining economy and grow to the point where you can do MORE than replace the units you lose. In WiC, your economy is fixed at the level of self sustainment and the choice of what counters you build and what units you ignore is just as relevant.
locallyunsceneFeeder of TrollsJoin Date: 2002-12-25Member: 11528Members, Constellation
<!--quoteo(post=1687992:date=Sep 12 2008, 12:05 PM:name=TychoCelchuuu)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TychoCelchuuu @ Sep 12 2008, 12:05 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1687992"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I take an even bigger exception to your description of WiC. "Since when was allocating a fixed amount of resources considered tactical or strategic" makes it sound like there's no strategy at all in allocating a fixed amount of resources, but it's NOT fixed resources. It's CONSTANT resources, to a certain point. It's the equivalent of a self-sustaining economy in AoE; you can't build more units than you're losing, but you can swap out the units you're losing for different units. In AoE or some other RTS games, the idea is to move BEYOND the self sustaining economy and grow to the point where you can do MORE than replace the units you lose. In WiC, your economy is fixed at the level of self sustainment and the choice of what counters you build and what units you ignore is just as relevant.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> The point is real RTS's(as opposed to RTT/RTG) don't have self sustaining economies. You constantly have to make decisions to expand economy, production, or fighting units or else you will be left behind/vulnerable. In RTG's it's all about the rock paper scissors and micro thereof, there is no comparable higher level of decision making.
They're self sustaining if the decisions you make are just to expand in such a way as to keep the size of your army the same, taking into consideration losses. I mean obviously nobody does that because the other people will expand beyond that, but RTGs (we should really call them RTTs, the T being for Tactics, although that's probably even more confusing) simply limit the economies to "replacement" levels only. Which is really just World in Conflict, because almost every game (Company of Heroes, Supreme Commander, etc) have tech trees and go way beyond the pool of resources.
Tactics and strategy are almost the same thing in RTS games and strategy is present in ALL tactical decisions.
Strategy is the plan and tactics are the execution Keep that in mind.
Now think about your decision to build 12 vultures TvP. Why did you build the vultures? Years of practice have dictated that vultures are strategically necessary versus protoss units. That is the strategy you know about.
What do you do with the 12 vultures in mid-game? Well you get the bright strategical impulse to send them to snipe high templars. That is strategy. Tactics would be executing the strategy... and the templars.
Strategy is building a worker. Strategy is also KNOWING that you have to send the worker to mine the minerals. The actual right click which sends the worker to the mineral = tactic.
On another note, has anyone tried using the ZoneCom harvester offensively by putting zone troopers inside it? Its like having 4 mini mamoth tanks which also destroy infantry.
<!--quoteo(post=1688007:date=Sep 12 2008, 06:34 PM:name=aNytiMe)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(aNytiMe @ Sep 12 2008, 06:34 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1688007"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Tactics and strategy are almost the same thing in RTS games and strategy is present in ALL tactical decisions.
Strategy is the plan and tactics are the execution Keep that in mind.
....
Strategy is building a worker. Strategy is also KNOWING that you have to send the worker to mine the minerals. The actual right click which sends the worker to the mineral = tactic.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Comments
I guess what I was trying to say is that in a traditional RTS, you need your economy to be flexible. The only way to really achieve this kind of flexibility is to have units whose sole purpose is to go to a certain point on the map and collect one of several resources. In RTG's collecting resources does not cost you anything (villager cost, villager time) whereas in RTS's collecting wood means you're likely to be short of gold and having a lot of gatherers means you're likely to be short on military units.
So much is lost when villagers are removed. In order to be able to continually produce counters and effectively have a diverse army, the player must manage their economy. By manager their economy I mean having the foresight to predict what they'll need and then sending villagers out to those resources. This gets back to the opportunity cost of collecting resources that I implied existed in the above paragraph.
This is where a battle for resources comes into play, and it's very different from how a game like DoW operates. There's also something to be said for the balance of villager and military. The very fact that this balance exists in an RTS and not an RTG opens up a whole new doorway that is not available in RTGs. It's not uncommon, in 3v3's, to see one teammate turtle and do nothing other than collect resources and boon an economy. He then supplies his teammates with resources. That could never happen in DoW/CoH/WiC.
In WiC there aren't even any resources. Since when was allocating a fixed amount of resources considered tactical or strategic (use whatever name you want, that's one argument I never cared about). Hell, if we use that criteria to define an "RTS" then Counter-Strike fits the bill. You kill things - you get money - you allocate the money. I mean, I'm actually dumbfounded as I type this out. I can't believe someone actually thinks WiC has some form of economic strategy.
(edited to cut down on giant wall of text)
So much is lost when villagers are removed. In order to be able to continually produce counters and effectively have a diverse army, the player must manage their economy. By manager their economy I mean having the foresight to predict what they'll need and then sending villagers out to those resources. This gets back to the opportunity cost of collecting resources that I implied existed in the above paragraph.
This is where a battle for resources comes into play, and it's very different from how a game like DoW operates. There's also something to be said for the balance of villager and military. The very fact that this balance exists in an RTS and not an RTG opens up a whole new doorway that is not available in RTGs. It's not uncommon, in 3v3's, to see one teammate turtle and do nothing other than collect resources and boon an economy. He then supplies his teammates with resources. That could never happen in DoW/CoH/WiC.
In WiC there aren't even any resources. Since when was allocating a fixed amount of resources considered tactical or strategic (use whatever name you want, that's one argument I never cared about). Hell, if we use that criteria to define an "RTS" then Counter-Strike fits the bill. You kill things - you get money - you allocate the money. I mean, I'm actually dumbfounded as I type this out. I can't believe someone actually thinks WiC has some form of economic strategy.
(edited to cut down on giant wall of text)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
See, that's a much better descrption of it. Still, I'd have to disagree. Predicting what units you need right now, what units you need in the future, and what units your opponent is predicting, etc can work just as well when you get rid of villagers. Let's take Company of Heroes for an example because I'm the most familiar with it. The Wehrmacht has to decide if they want to skip Tier 2 and tech up to Tier 3 or even Tier 4; they lose significant anti-tank ability for a while, and if they go T3 they barely recover it unless they go Blitzkrieg doctrine, but they make up for it in other ways. So they have to decide if the opponent is building vehicles or tanks, and if they are, how they want to counter it in the future. Then there are more immediate decisions: spend the manpower on the anti-tank gun, or the grenadier squad. Just because the resources come from a munitions point instead of a gold mine doesn't mean the choice is any different. And you do indeed have to focus on which resources to collect: some Panzer Elite players rush straight to the fuel to tech up to armored cars, whereas some Wehrmacht players jump on the munitions to spam Teller Mines. You capture the resource points with combat units, not with villagers, but who cares? You still have to decide on a certain resource and go for it. In fact, it's much more than that, because you have to decide when you go for the resources versus the attack, when to cut off the opponent versus when to reestablish your own supply lines, etc.
You say that "in order to be able to continually produce counters and effectively have a diverse army, the player must manage their economy," which is true, but you don't need villagers for that. It's just as important to continually produce counters and have a diverse army in CoH as it is in Age of Empires, and in fact I've never seen anyone win a game by spamming units in CoH like I have in Age of Kings (except maybe Scout Cars or Pios back before they fixed that).
I take an even bigger exception to your description of WiC. "Since when was allocating a fixed amount of resources considered tactical or strategic" makes it sound like there's no strategy at all in allocating a fixed amount of resources, but it's NOT fixed resources. It's CONSTANT resources, to a certain point. It's the equivalent of a self-sustaining economy in AoE; you can't build more units than you're losing, but you can swap out the units you're losing for different units. In AoE or some other RTS games, the idea is to move BEYOND the self sustaining economy and grow to the point where you can do MORE than replace the units you lose. In WiC, your economy is fixed at the level of self sustainment and the choice of what counters you build and what units you ignore is just as relevant.
The point is real RTS's(as opposed to RTT/RTG) don't have self sustaining economies. You constantly have to make decisions to expand economy, production, or fighting units or else you will be left behind/vulnerable. In RTG's it's all about the rock paper scissors and micro thereof, there is no comparable higher level of decision making.
Strategy is the plan and tactics are the execution
Keep that in mind.
Now think about your decision to build 12 vultures TvP. Why did you build the vultures? Years of practice have dictated that vultures are strategically necessary versus protoss units. That is the strategy you know about.
What do you do with the 12 vultures in mid-game? Well you get the bright strategical impulse to send them to snipe high templars. That is strategy. Tactics would be executing the strategy... and the templars.
Strategy is building a worker. Strategy is also KNOWING that you have to send the worker to mine the minerals. The actual right click which sends the worker to the mineral = tactic.
On another note, has anyone tried using the ZoneCom harvester offensively by putting zone troopers inside it? Its like having 4 mini mamoth tanks which also destroy infantry.
Click right mouse button to attack the enemy!
Click right mouse button to attack the enemy!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Circle-strafing big tanks (slow turret) is also fun, needs more rightclick action <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
Strategy is the plan and tactics are the execution
Keep that in mind.
....
Strategy is building a worker. Strategy is also KNOWING that you have to send the worker to mine the minerals. The actual right click which sends the worker to the mineral = tactic.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thank you. Was gonna post something similar.