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'Fourth sides' and not sucking
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aristurtle
Vehicle Drone


Joined: 13 Apr 2009

PostPosted: Tue May 05, 2009 3:07 pm    Post subject:  'Fourth sides' and not sucking
Subject description: Discussion on the theory of real-time strategy games
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You know, I've come to realize that for all the talk that this and other modding communities do about the technical side of things, there's very little discussion on strategy game design in general. So I'm going to start this thread, lay out my own opinions on the subject, and see if anyone has any others. (By the way, I realize that this is mostly stuff that many of you already know about, but I haven't seen it all written down, you know?)

I'll start with sides. Trying to cram a large number of factions into a strategy game is tempting for modders and professional game developers alike.

In the early days of RTS games, the sides were generally close to identical, as this was the easiest way to keep the game balanced. In Warcraft, for instance, every Human unit had an opposite number on the Orc side, and the difference between a Human Knight and an Orc Raider was basically only cosmetic. In Dune II, the three houses had exactly the same units and tech tree with one exception for each house.

This was unsatisfying, for a number of reasons, and beginning with Command & Conquer and Starcraft, game developers tried to make each side have a distinct playstyle, with varying degrees of success. In general, the more sides you attempt to put into a strategy game, the harder it is to make each side unique. (This is pretty obvious, of course.) If you only have two sides, you can contrast them pretty well. With three it becomes harder, and four is harder still. (Dawn of War is an example of failure at this: with all the expansion packs you can have fully seven "unique" sides, but how unique are they? The Chaos Marines are essentially Space Marines except eeeeeevil, the Sisters of Battle are essentially Space Marines after a mass sex-change operation, the Tau are basically Space Marines except robots, the Dark Eldar are, well, you get the idea.)

So we have the two rules of side planning in strategy games:

1) Each side must have a distinct style of play from the other sides.
2) Each side must look stylistically distinct from the other sides.
3) Each side must look coherent within its own side.

Exceptions abound, of course (World in Conflict comes to mind) but we'll go with this for now.

Now, "distinct style of play" will vary from game to game, of course. The sides will still need some similarity of play, because they're all in the same game, but the more similarity you try and keep common with the game, the harder it is to make them distinct. (I generally find that this affects the plot of strategy games as well: two-side strategy games usually have a "absolute good vs. unrepentant evil" thing going on while games with three or more usually have a more morally ambiguous "Oceania/Eurasia/Eastasia" feel, but I don't want to get into that right now.)

Take Red Alert 2, for example, because that's what most of us mod: Everybody gathers resources in pretty much the same way, and everyone needs power at their base. (So, everyone has the same resources to worry about). Everyone has a very similar tech tree. (Conyard->Power->Barracks->Warfact+Radar->Lab). Everyone has the same three base defenses (well, Yuri gets his anti-infantry and anti-air rolled into one building, but it's the same idea.) Everyone has a "big damage" superweapon and a "screw around with stuff" superweapon. Everyone has a basic tank, a powerful tank that requires a lab, a basic infantry dude, an anti-tank infantry dude, an anti-air vehicle, a basic naval unit, a long-range naval artillery, a hero who can demolish buildings, and an engineer. (Again, Yuri gets a few of these rolled into one unit because the developers were pressed for time.)

Regardless, the sides still manage to have a somewhat distinct style of play. The Allies have faster-building units, the Soviets have heavy, slow stuff, Yuri's got his mind control. Also, they all look stylistically different. The Soviets have their Tesla Coil and the Allies have their prism tower, and they serve pretty much the same purpose and sit in the same location on the tech tree, but one's got a laser and the other has lightning, and one has a network effect while the other is charged by a special infantry unit. They're similar, but they're at least different enough to pass.

Moreover, another basic rule of strategy game side planning is that each unit must have a purpose. Most of us started down the wrong path on that front when we started modding, I'm sure. Hell, Red Alert 1 is full of it all by itself. If your side has two kinds of tank, and one is better in every respect, the other one won't ever get built, and all it does is take up space on your sidebar. (This is why the Allied Light Tank was removed from RA2 before release.) We've all seen this kind of mod, and most of us have even worked on one, where the unit count per side ends up out of control, and there's no real reason for half of them to be there.

Now, some people can take this too far and imply that adding any units is a bad idea. That's not really it either. There's a limited number of gaps in the "unit purposes" thing in RA2, but there are enough to fit in a good number of them in your mod. But really, there's already a basic tank, basic infantry, etc. etc. for each side, so there's only so far you can go.

Enter the "fourth side". If you can add a fourth side to the game, after all, you get to redesign everything for it without overlapping your new units' purposes with those of existing units. However, then you run into the issue of making your new side unique, which is a much thornier problem.

You see, RA2's already almost reached the point where its sides are as distinct as can fit within the framework of the game. There's only so much behavior coded into the engine, after all. You can dig into the C&CTS tricks, and hey, that's a great idea, but they'll only take you so far.

First off, your side is probably going to have all of the following:
A construction yard.
A power plant.
An ore refinery.
A barracks.
--An anti-infantry defense
--An anti-air defense
--A wall.
A war factory.
A radar facility.
--An anti-vehicle tower defense
--maybe with an air-pad, maybe not, whatever.
A battle lab
--and a couple superweapons.

As units go, you're probably going to have some of these in there:
An ore harvester
A basic anti-infantry infantry
An engineer
A basic tank
A faster anti-air and/or anti-infantry vehicle
A basic anti-air infantry
A basic anti-vehicle infantry
An air unit.
A very powerful tank that you need to tech up in order to build.

It's not that you can't be original, it's just that it's very hard to leave out any of these things without making your new side terribly underpowered.

The real question, then, is: given the limitations of the game engine and the basic minimums imposed on you by design, how original can your new side really be?

It's hard, and the only solution is to first figure out the general feel of your new side and then come up with a number of unique units, or unique twists on the "mandatory" units.

It's made doubly hard by the limitations of the engine. I'm going to make a blanket statement here and I'm sure someone will find an exception, but: For all the new Allied and Soviet units that they added in Yuri's Revenge, every one needed some change to the game engine in order to work. Even the damn Guardian GI needed the "DeployedUncrushable" tag added.

In terms of unique tricks, you've got a limited selection in RA2. Off the top of my head, you can add subterranean units, flamethrowers, railguns, cluster projectiles, and a few others, but you may run out quicker than you think, especially if you're also planning on adding some units to the existing sides.

Wow, I just looked up at all that and realized that I might be writing too much. Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that making a new side (and making it not suck) is ztyping hard, and in YR it's very hard. I've been playing around with the Eagle Red stuff lately (I always liked Eagle Red, and I wish he'd stuck around for the whole RockNPatch thing, because his mod would have benefited from it more than most), trying to see if I could have both Yuri and his Asian Alliance in the game at the same time (and still have the game not suck), and the conclusion I've come to is that it may be possible, but it's certainly very difficult. You run into the limitations of the engine and the requirements of the basic C&C gameplay surprisingly quickly.

Anyway, I just wanted to weigh in on that and see if anyone else had any insights on strategy game design.

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Lt Albrecht
Defense Minister


Joined: 25 Jul 2007
Location: Hampshire, England. Creating RA2: Moscow's vengeance

PostPosted: Tue May 05, 2009 4:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

You can turn the things updide, down. I was considering doing it with the russkies in my private WWII mod, give them lumbering juggernauts at the start then let them get the t34/medium tank/lolsemispammablevehicle once they've teched up. You could also create a side whose basic units were expensive vehicles and only got infantry at higher tiers, starting with their "apocalypse tank" (with acceptable dps etc) and needing a battle lab to get grunts and basic AT with ironically higher damage/cost ratios. The only difficulty you've got is explanation and art. Are they a small race fielding robots? that could work, how about steampunks who only fight on foot once they have prooven themselves from aboard vehicles?

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Allied General
General


Joined: 19 Mar 2004
Location: United Kingdom

PostPosted: Tue May 05, 2009 5:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Well one significant step in modding is the exe hacks, which make 4th sides possible and you got some additional logic to play around with like new abilities, emp, different types of radiation, mutation, etc.

Generally I think every side having the same build style is fair unless that said faction say doesn't need power has no air force for example but it needs like proper online (i.e. xwis or whatever you use to get your game online) testing.

So many mods are released with no regards to online play.

Finally the limitations of the engine is a modder problem, if you think its not worth doing, the 4th side is never even tested or realised. If people keep on thinking this game is RA2/YR, therefore I must use only spam tactics and instant kill c4, etc then your modding is limited because the original game imo is flawed because online all you see is

- battlefortress guardian gi abuse/prism rush/ifv seal,
- rhino tank spam/flak track engineer/terror drone, desolator
- magnetron gattling tank spam
- base walking

Maybe its because the original game was intended for quick 10-20 mins games when I perfer big epic fights with diversfy units.

But meh this mentality you even see with big studios, look at ra3 and how empire is all about spamming tengus and shoguns.

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DaFool
Defense Minister


Joined: 07 Nov 2006

PostPosted: Tue May 05, 2009 6:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

are you talking just about yr, or all rts games?

Sides can be based on weight, so you have a scale from light to heavy, and then you can have sides based off of a particular strategy (Mind control etc). Subfactions are a great example of this.

Sides plaing differently is not always that big a deal. Look at warcraft 3, Supreme Commander, and pretty much any historical based RTS game. Many times, people just appreciate the aestetic differences.

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OmegaBolt
President


Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Location: York, England

PostPosted: Tue May 05, 2009 7:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Indeed. I dont generally choose to play a faction based on their units but what they stand for and how they look. For example I've always played as the Soviets or Nod, even if I would do better as another faction. It doesnt matter about winning IMO, its just about having fun and "role-playing" to a certain extent.

Plus, in a way, if factions are very similar, what they do have to separate them is all the more profound.

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aristurtle
Vehicle Drone


Joined: 13 Apr 2009

PostPosted: Tue May 05, 2009 8:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Yeah, that's a good point: aesthetic differences are very important, and two sides that look the same but play differently will probably be seen as less distinct than two sides that look different but play the same. But playstyle still must be noticeably different between them: we've moved on from Warcraft II, you know?

Albrecht, that's an interesting idea, one I hadn't considered. And it does sort of mimic the historical progression of Soviet WWII weaponry.

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Lt Albrecht
Defense Minister


Joined: 25 Jul 2007
Location: Hampshire, England. Creating RA2: Moscow's vengeance

PostPosted: Tue May 05, 2009 8:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Quote:
Albrecht, that's an interesting idea, one I hadn't considered. And it does sort of mimic the historical progression of Soviet WWII weaponry.

Many of the best ideas are from real life, after all. The ways people look at things are sometimes far too limited, you can shift things upside-down and still make them similar enogh to an extent to work. Has anyone considered a side based almost solely around airborne units, for instance? It'd be interesting to see some of these ideas played out. How about a side whose only income is stealing money from others?

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aristurtle
Vehicle Drone


Joined: 13 Apr 2009

PostPosted: Tue May 05, 2009 8:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Well, Generals balanced a side with no power plants, and it might be possible to balance a side that uses constructable oil-derrick type buildings instead of ore harvesters.

I kinda like what Total Annihilation/Supreme Commander did with resources, where you worry more about balancing income and output rather than producing, but I don't think it's possible in RA2 (since the Silo logic is gone).

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DaFool
Defense Minister


Joined: 07 Nov 2006

PostPosted: Tue May 05, 2009 8:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

actually, you can, and I did in one of my mods. It was based entirely off of oil derricks. Some buildings cost money to run while others (namely a limited few with build limits) produced it. The result was a steady and controlable income that could not truely be abused.

There are several layers to which sides can exist
Level 1
Cost/Benefit-See historical games where everything is exactly the same, including the art, where there are "civilizations" that may get like "20% faster" units but also "10% less health"
Level 2
Aestetic-See WarCraft 2. Both sides are exactly the same but differ in graphics.
Level 3
Combination-See Tiberian Dawn. Sides share things but also have unique things.
Level4
Unique-Sides share nothing in common, with the excpetion of those mechanics required by the game. See Generals, StarCraft

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Machine
Commander


Joined: 01 Feb 2007
Location: National Reference Laboratory for IPNV

PostPosted: Tue May 05, 2009 9:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Well another example of a game with very different unit planning for each of it's 4 sides.
Earth 2160, had 4 sides, each with a different build mechanic.
The LC (Lunar Corporation) used spatial construction yards, dropping their buildings to the ground from space, they also built them as towers of five segments, with each segment being a different building (barracks, factory, etc).
Their base defences were laser walls with mounted cannons on pillars.
The ED (Eurasian Dynasty) built their bases as one huge complex, in a space colony style, each building (module) had to be connected to the rest by tubes, tubes that were used to transport everything (the build mechanism was similar to having a construction yard).
Their base defenses were strong walls with mounted moving cannons that were able to move along the walls.
The UCS (United Civilized States) built their bases with independent buildings, and buildings were built by construction drones.
As base defences the UCS used modular bunkers, that could upgrade with four parts.
Finally the Aliens, didn't have buildings at all, with the exception of stationary defences. The aliens were the most different of the sides, as they were based on mitosis, yeah their basic builders replicate themselves and can morph into different units.
Stylistically the LC used only hovercrafts as their vehicles, and their infantry was composed by only females. The ED, used tanks and wheeled vehicles, and for infantry they had the biggest selection. The UCS only used robots, big mechs for their vehicles, drones as aircraft, and terminators as infantry.
The aliens used a combination of organic units as vehicles and infantry (actually they didn't have a difference between vehicles and infantry), and self replicating nanobots for aircrafts (based again on mitosis).
Finally resource wise, the game had 3 resources (water crystals, metals), and each faction only used 2, in addition to that the metal resource changed from map to map (representing a different metal, giving different attributes to the units of the sides that used metals). Also each side had a different way of recollecting their resources, as in most RTS, the UCS had to travel o their resource patch, recollect them, and go back to the base; the LC had mobile refineries, and the aliens acquired them by just being near them (though the amount of resources was collected per unit, when the meter was full the unit could mutate); I can't recall the exact method used by the ED, but I think their resource collectors didn't need to go back to the base to unload.

On a side note the game relied heavily on the concept of customizable units, giving you several options from chassis, weapons (usually more than 1 up to 4), armor, engines, and parts that gave the unit special abilities, however the aliens lacked this ability, and all their units were standardized (Which IMO made them suck, though their aircraft were quite cool).

Anyways most of this wouldn't be possible to do on RA2 or TS, but it shows that's totally possible to have vastly different sides, and still have a cohesive game.

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partyzanPaulZy
Commander


Joined: 03 Nov 2007
Location: laptop? ... otherwise the Czech Republic -> south Moravia Posts: long int Posts;

PostPosted: Wed May 06, 2009 2:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

One side can produce fast vehicles with weak armor, but strong attack, this can be combined with strong infantry and infantry support (the Allieds).

Other side prefers heavy units with weaker attack and weaker infantry.

Third side is tricky, likes to create chaos in enemy lines or even convert them to loyal mutants or pure mind-less puppets.

The fourth side can be unique in getting resources (Black Market, thiefs), hijacking vehicles,
this side can produce cheap units, tanks on one use, but exploding after destruction, introduce flames/acid, chemical weapons, guerilla tactic.

There are many elements in NPatched RA2YR to use, railgun logic, flamethrower, chemicals, paratroopers, subterrainian logic, cloak logic, mines, Napalm logic, advanced promoting system (into another unit with some limitations - never promote deployable infantry into non-deployable), pilots can catapult from destroyed plane (never use this on helicopters, if so, pilot will be stuck in "Blue Hell" - rocketeer would be able to attack, but you won't be able to kill him - even with AA). Also you can implement upgrade logic (you can built component towers or tank with upgrade after this, but you can't change those which are already built)
It's on you, how you will add them, just take cover on balance.

Look on the Robot Storm, they have 4 sides, hi-tech steamroller Allied Legions, guerilla Brotherhood (with motto better to sacrifice thousands to let billions living in socialistic freedom), machines from Nexus (kill all humans and hack their tanks) or his heavier brother Osiris (resistance is futile!). Every side use special tech, even 4th Osiris.

BTW, the 1st three §s are similar to how Dune sides from Emperor:Battle For Dune (esp. when House Ordos is in Alliance with Tleilaxu), RA2YR, etc.

Note to Earth 2160 (if it's that one on the Mars): United Civilized States turned into fully cybernetic side when computer killed all the colonists during hibernation....

So you have Feminime hi-tech side, Monarchistic absolutistic Eurasian side ("For Khan!"), Cybernetic side (no tanks, no humans) and Alliens,... I think I will get it when I have some time and free money. Rolling Eyes

Also there was one major difference between sides in Warcraft II: the magic (Death Knight could produce the undead while Knight couldn't).

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Deformat
Defense Minister


Joined: 17 Sep 2007

PostPosted: Wed May 06, 2009 3:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

4th side?

Yeah,well,one of my old mods planned to add the "Kalim" as a new faction to the mod,and add units and stuff to the YR.

Kalim was shown as an underground organisation for coming of a democratical Russia,instead of the commie state.It also featured to be a faction allied to the....Allies XD,but which in the end,turned to be their enemies.

They had some really primitive technology,in comparison to the other factions.


Other than that...

There is a mod at Revora which adds a new faction called "PHANTOM" which looks pretty smexy IMO.

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Machine
Commander


Joined: 01 Feb 2007
Location: National Reference Laboratory for IPNV

PostPosted: Wed May 06, 2009 6:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

partyzanPaulZy wrote:
Note to Earth 2160 (if it's that one on the Mars): United Civilized States turned into fully cybernetic side when computer killed all the colonists during hibernation....


That was the original storyline which was scrapped; it didn't include aliens as the main enemy, instead it was the remains of the UCS.
In the actual game the UCS space ship remained in orbit hidden as the computers predicted that the LC and ED would exterminate each other. However the aliens appear and they represent a biger treat to mankind, so they decide to help the rogue commanders from the LC and ED (main characters) to fight them.
In the final campaign you play as the aliens, considering that the main character was captured and assimilated by the aliens (lame). Until he comes back to his senses and uses his own aliens to fight the other aliens.
Also the game no longer took place on just Mars, it was across the solar system.

A shame actually since I would have loved to see the UCS going rampant, and the original storyline seemed much more interesting, instead we got a Starcraft rehash (the plot is basically Starcraft's plot with a male Kerrigan, that's redeemed at the end), and it ends with a cliffhanger Mad (though maybe you didn't get a cliffhanger end in higher difficulties, but I was to pissed with it, to beat it again).

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Street
Combat Engineer


Joined: 13 Sep 2007

PostPosted: Thu May 07, 2009 6:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Dawn of war cannot really be used as an example, its not like they designed the armies for the game, all the armies came from the table top game so the fact that chaos marines and space marines are so similar is because they are meant to be space marines affected by chaos.

But this topic has made me realise that I should do more planning when making a mod if I ever decide to go back and make one.

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OmegaBolt
President


Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Location: York, England

PostPosted: Thu May 07, 2009 8:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Sure, but there are a lot more vehicles and infantries in the table top game, than on DoW. They could have made Chaos a lot more diverse (not that I'm saying DoW is bad, its the best rendition of 40k I've seen).

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ApolloTD
Commander


Joined: 19 Nov 2003

PostPosted: Thu May 07, 2009 12:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

partyzanPaulZy wrote:
Look on the Robot Storm, they have 4 sides, hi-tech steamroller Allied Legions, guerilla Brotherhood (with motto better to sacrifice thousands to let billions living in socialistic freedom), machines from Nexus (kill all humans and hack their tanks) or his heavier brother Osiris (resistance is futile!). Every side use special tech, even 4th Osiris.


Heh, thats probably most simplified example of my sides i have seen #Tongue

and Osi isn't just a heavier brother to Nexus (they are so mortal enemies), more like half way between the other sides and has own motives and actual sides are more unique with branch system so faction isn't necessarily one specific role style only.

anyway i believe main thing about every new sides is find that whats their motivations, way of thinking, style, overall goal to achieve and once you work that out, you can begin design units and stuff to bring into life their way of thinking and especially the culminations of those thinking styles usually bring about the special techs which change playing style of each faction to be much different if otherwise can't achieve this enough.

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