Well, feeling like a taking a break from XBOX 360 and Gears of War related tomfoolery this weekend,  I decided to revisit a genre that I used to be very well acquainted with - namely RTS or real-time strategy games.  Now the term was first coined during the marketing campaign for Dune 2, an early version of what we now know as Command and Conquer.  Harvest the resource, build buildings, build units and attack.  You had to place concrete hard standings before you could build, and you only select one unit at a time, this made play somewhat click-fest and a little slow paced at the same time.  I suppose one thing you could say is this lessened the effectiveness of the build a massive group of powerful units and send them in with no discreet tactics or strategy - just swamp the enemy.
 
There were similar games before Dune 2, but Dune 2 popularised these games.  For me Dune 2 was awkward to play though, frantically darting around the map trying to pick up units, having to lay concrete first for all buildings – realistic – but not fun.

I actually booted up DOSBOX this weekend and played a bit of Warcraft 1 and 2 to re-evaluate them. Warcraft was a big step forwards from Dune 2.  First of all the variety of buildings was extended and a sensible system of how many units you could control.  Farms were needed to feed more troops.  You also had two resources to harvest now – gold and lumber, both of which could be depleted.  There are maps where you have to mine several mines completely dry.

Now Warcraft did allow you to select several units, but it feels clunky, you have to hold shift and click on the individual units, and I think you could only group maybe four units together?  A step forward, but still a far cry from todays RTS in terms of play flow.  Another irritation was the fact that you had to place paths or roads to build buildings, making your towns look a bit like Milton Keines and meaning you had to sometimes spend extra money to build to place a building because you ran out of road.  None the less, it was very playable at the time.

I didn’t spend too much time on WC1, it’s quite choresome to play in some respects, at least by todays standards – I do recall the endgame was very unbalanced with a huge emphasis on who could conjure Demons and Elementals first having a massive advantage.

WC1 came out in 1994.  The next big title came in 1995 with Command and Conquer, which went back to the military theme, with harvester and troops with rifles.  C & C really popularised competitive multi-player, particularly ‘Red Alert’.  Red Alert was more popular than C & C, many thought it was a better game, but it had major balance issues.  It was significantly easier to win as the Soviets, and stopping a Soviet Heavy Tank rush was a major challenge for an alliance player.

I actually re-visited Warcraft 2, which was a little late arriving, but was a real contender with C & C.  Warcraft 2 is far better to play than WC 1, you can select units by dragging a box around them, and you can use the right mouse button to make them move – you can even set partol’s up so they will walk between two points constantly .  The fog of war in 2 is more sophisticated in 2 as well.  In WC1 when you visited an area you could see what was happening there.  In 2, it starts black, then when you visit an area and leave – it stays how you last saw it, so if the enemy builds more buildings or masses troops – you can’t see it until you visit it again.  

We also had another resource to harvest – Oil, and more variation between the available factions.  Not so much in the basic troops, but once you were up to the level of having Death Knights and their equivalent, and Ogre Mages there becomes a real choice as to which side you want to play.  It’s subtle at the start – Troll Berserkers are very different from the Elve equivalent, but the differences grow as you progress.  

I think Warcraft 2 became a lot more tactically interesting, and it doesn’t tend to reward building a massive army and throwing it at the enemy like earlier games tended to do.  It’s actually very playable today – through DOSBOX, although you may find issues with the mouse scroll speed on a modern machine.  I had to down-tune to the DOSBOX CPU speed to 10% to and turn mouse scroll speed down to slowest to make the map navigable.

Warcraft 3 upped the ante even more.  But for me WC2 was really where the genre became fun, and interesting.  Some people think Star Craft was the big jump, with three playable races – each very different, with a stronger early, middle and late game – it was an interesting model and in some ways set the scene for later games, but meh!
So that’s where we got them from, but how are more recent attempts?  Well, I played a demo of C & C for the XBOX 360 recently, it just didn’t work for me, I can’t play an RTS game on the console.   I manage fine on Tropico 3, but you can easily slow down the game to complex things and the controls are VERY clever and intuitive.  I can’t imagine a system that would work for me to control classic style RTS with twin sticks and a pad.

The last game I played was Lord of the Rings, Battle for Middle Earth.  It uses the modern Command and Conquer Engine but with Tolkein derived fantasy units.  I have to say it played very well, I enjoyed the single player campaign, both evil and good – the good campaign follows the film very closely.  The Moria Mines section is particularly fun.

Multiplayer wise it works, but… Well, I don’t like the dynamics of it.  I chose to play Isengard usually, because they have less units to choose from implies they might be simpler to play.  Playing Isengard is funny though – basically, you have to rush out every upgrade for your troops – then only send troops into battle fully upgraded, otherwise they just die from being breathed on.

The thing is the same issues with RTS in LOTR B for ME have always existed, the rush game, ‘zergling rushes’ and their equivalent.  The lack of actual strategy other than harvest as fast as possible , build the cheapest, strongest units and send wave after wave in.  The old, hold back – build defence, then build up air-strike capability – and air-strike your opponent to death, Warcraft 2 – Dragons, C & C Soviet Migs – common tactic.

In the microcosm of an RTS map, these bizarre, but simplistic tactics have a relation to real warfare, but I tend to think it’s probably tenuous at best.  You have to stretch the imagination to see the correlation.  You have to treat certain aspects as allegory and hazy representation.  

Is this a problem?  Well no, it’s a game, these games are essentially all evolutions of Dune 2: Battle for Arakis or whatever it was called.  Each step along the way – irritations have been removed, new ideas have been tried and sometimes discarded.  The game concept is Dune 2 though still, and it’s not a bad concept for a game.  In some respects you could argue that modern RTS games are a clear example of the success of ‘player-centric’ design.  Cack ideas don’t get used again, and solutions to the irritations that work get used again and again.

I also revisited another little known classic – called KKND, which is a sort of Red Alert’ish humans vs mutants post apocalyptic game.  It works fantastically and is very playable today – despite not even requiring windows 95.  The unit grouping, the selection of units and variation between the factions makes for a great play experience.  Even better than WC 2.  One criticism of it is that of other games in that victory tends to be on a see-saw.  As soon as the balance tips – it tips hard.  It does play well.  I played another game, but haven’t revisited it yet – War Wind, this played similar to Starcraft, with four playable races, but I’m not sure it might pre-date Star Craft.  The problem with War Wind was the levels played rather like puzzles with there often being only one solution to a level and winning involved dying a lot while you tried different methods.

I like the classic RTS recipe, KKND, WC 2 and WC 3 are favourites, Red Alert was VERY good… I never got into Star Craft – but I hear it’s fantastic….  But I wonder how far the model can be taken, in some respects we are still playing a game that was brought out in 1992 – Dune 2.  There are alternatives, I spent a long time playing ‘Shadow of the Horned Rat’ a Warhammer game which focused on squads over individuals and involved things like routes and cavalry charges – which simulated real warfare – at least classical battlefield warfare better.  I played through a lengthy campaign of Rome: Total War and that is a serious strategy game.  Weight of numbers doesn’t influence a battle much at all there – choice of units and how you control them is far more important.

The trouble with Rome, is it’s a bit heavy – the realism is great, but it’s hard to sit down and play without four hours spare.  What I’d like to play is something new, a new twist on the RTS genre or I can see ideas for this – maybe an MMORPG where you play an avatar who has to recruit people to build his army then issues orders and participates themselves?  Technically challenging to develop sure – but it’s a new take.  

Don’t get me wrong I love the genre, I think these games are great fun, but I also think it’s time for someone to leap out of the box and try something different…
Or have they?  Has anyone recently brought out an innovative take on the strategy genre that is worth me having a pop at?