Hello /vst/, I'm thinking about making a small RTS game, and I want to ask this board what makes an RTS an RTS. As to arrive to a distilled quintessence of the genre.
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Just do the damn thing. You don't have to be a Socrate to do anything.
>a distilled quintessence of the genre
APM matters
*meaningful* APM matters
>Give me your secret ideas
No
>Implying you will ever make that game
Don't make a asiaticclick
The only way to avoid "asiaticclick" (see: APM making a difference) is to make a turn-based strategy game. Go back to playing Civ 6 on easy.
asiaticclick is where APM isn't strategic and is mostly focused around dealing with shitty UI, bad pathing, etc. In other words it refers to shit like starcrap 1, which has atrociously shitty controls.
Commanding troops in real time is the destilled essence of RTS.
Basebuilding is optional.
APM is optional.
Resource harvesting is optional.
Unit production/choice is optional.
Unit abilites is optional.
behold, an RTS
Most RTSs are pretty much puzzle games, so I fail to see how you are disproving me Mr Diogaynes. King Arthur's world is pretty much Lemmings with knights. And it has enemy troops, unit and base construction.
Shut up Diogenes, nobody likes you
Unironically, yes. Add in a pvp or pve mode and you have an RTS.
Base building, resource harvesting and unit production are pretty much mandatory for RTS unless the game provides a creative replacement for those features. Without them, the game becomes real-time tactics. Also, there aren't really any RTSes (and even more so RTTs) where decent APM isn't nice to have for a player.
Real time tactics and RTS is the same thing.
WRONG
All RTS are also RTT, but not all RTT are RTS
The Strategy part of RTS doesn't actually mean strategy as in the military sense in 99% of games, and the developers of Supreme Commander recognized that most RTSs were infact RTTs, with basebuilding mechanics or similiar things added.
How then are not all RTTs also RTSs when the S is meaningless or a false name in a strategy military context?
strategy deals with "utilization" of resources.
tactics deals with team work type shit.
tactics is the micro layer under the strategy.
tactics is how well you can complete your goal with resources provided
and strategy at one layer above tactics is how well you can gather and utilize resources.
in game terms
"strategy" is an unbrella term vague, as even fps COD players employ strats to win.
but when you scale up "tactics games" they turn into 4x games.
How and when you call in and use armour and artillery is also "utilization" of resources, games like wargame lets you set up finite amounts of units for later use, and Men of war gives you resources to spend on units during the battle.
Are they RTSs then since resource utilization is a important part of their styles? As if you go all out with cheap infantery and don't bring armour nor artillery, you are most likely fricked mid to late game.
no such thing as rtt, RBT is a thing.
it needs at least 1 unit with a gun.
What in the world possessed you to make an RTS in current year? I advise you to forget about it and look for something actually worth pursuing.
I like the genre
Dunno what other reason you need fot a passion project
I see, carry on. The OP made it seem as if you were serious about it.
No asiaticclick with busywork mechanics.
I unironically got a BA in philosophy for writing 17k words about this last year. Two very serious professors ended up reading autistic ranting about what AoE2 and Brood War have to do with the autopoietic theory of biology.
RTS games are:
1. Real-time. Pause is fine, but time flows whether or not the player wants it to. It's not like a turn-based game in which players control the flow of time in the game world.
2. Have a specific type of player character, which (a) is made up of multiple 'organs' under the player's control - units/buildings, (b) feeds on the game world and transforms those resources into more organs.
An RTS game typically starts with the birth of 2+ such player characters, and typically ends with their fight to the death.
I like this definition a lot. Also, nice diagram.
To me, an RTS as distinguished from other strategy games of different kinds is that there is some kind of growth and expansion component to the gameplay, so you utilize something on the map to facilitate creating more assets to defeat the enemy with as opposed to merely replacing losses or being unable to replace at all. Whether or not that incorporates actually creating buildings or just capping points that spawn more units on a timer is more up to the designer and how complex you are looking to make it.
>Control dudes
>Get resources with your dudes
>Build buildings that make more dudes
>Make more dudes
>Improve your dudes
>Get even better dudes
>Fight enemy dudes with your dudes
>Last dude standing wins
First thing you must get right is contrast.
Units must be bright while the ground must be dark or vice versa. You MUST make every unit clear at a glance. RTS live or die by their readability and most devs SUCK at this.
Use outlines, use bloom, doesn't matter what tools you use but keep your units readily visible.
rts is pretty much strategy that its all programmed around cycles and timers.
as opposed to turn based games which do not really depend on timers attached to their counting loops.
but the counting loops start and stop depending on when the user ends his turn.
rts=counters "always on"
tbs= the game only counts after the user ends his turn and only counts one step.
RTS simply means real time and you control an army.
Ignore zoomers that seek to reinvent the wheel on what genres are.
To add where the creativity in the genre stems from and don't let zoomer strategylets tell you otherwise, is what exactly constitutes your army and the scale can be almost anything.
Economy and military are the two essential components of an RTS game. You win by gaining a critical economic advantage over your opponent. You want to spend the minimum amount on your own military while inflicting the maximum amount of damage on his economy.