I think that the AI used AMMs for awhile and they were creaming the humans. 

 

I wasn't talking about RTS, Harel. That's a different genre. I don't know how old you are, but I'm old enough to have developed my speaking habits in regard to gaming before RTS was on anybody's radar. There are strategy games, and then there are real-time games. Two separate categories. At one point, strategy games included only turn-based games. I still refer to them that way, while I refer to RTS as RTS. You are being petulant to find fault with that, to nitpick the semantics to no useful end.

Success at RTS games is a fusion of tactics and clock management, with a bit of interface efficiency thrown in on top. A well balanced RTS has plenty of strategy behind it, but execution at the tactical level is what really counts. The ability to carry out the strategy is more important than the strategy itself. The clock changes everything. Strategy is the deciding factor in turn-based games. It is merely one of several important factors in real time games. That distinction is significant.

Thus, the case could be made that RTS is not "pure strategy". Every RTS made to date that I've seen includes both strategy and tactics. In turn-based games, there is a separation. Games like Jagged Alliance and X-com are tactical. Games like Master of Orion and GalCiv are strategic. Each has a minor element of the other, but each has a main thrust. RTS games, the main thrust is clock management. The main path to success is not strategy, but practice. Success in multiplayer comes chiefly through map familiarity, and practicing to the nth degree, to where you already know the answers in advance, and success comes down to the tactical execution.

There is no "pure strategy" to RTS. That doesn't render RTS inferior in any way. It renders it different, and thus not applicable to my remarks.

The important difference between RTS and strategy games, in regard to graphics, in today's world, is the market size. RTS games have larger budgets because they sell more. They sell more because they have better graphics and are easier to play. Larger budgets allow for both graphics and gameplay, in a few rare cases.

All you have managed to do is to misread one word I wrote, and make a big deal out of beating up on a straw man you constructed around that. Then on that basis, you fling a number of insults and disdainful remarks my way? Impressive.


- Sirian

Chicken or egg? Wouldn't fancier, better graphics widen the audience? What you lose in old machines, you gain in graphically fussy customers. Or, perhaps more accurately, what you gain in old machines with lower specs, you lose from others who won't buy a game with fewer/lower graphics. Can't please all the people all of the time.

Multiplayer, in the post-Quake era, is what generates buzz among gamers. That's the main reason TBS games are relegated to niche markets. They don't do multiplayer, or they don't do it well. TBS games do not lend to the medium. Players sit around waiting, and that's no fun.

Multiplayer also leads to multiple sales. One person buys, then talks their friends into buying the same game so they can all play together. Then even if only one or two out of a pack regularly plays the game, a whole slew of sales have taken place.

What percentage of Warcraft III players actually play any multiplayer? A fraction of the total. That just happens to be the most vocal fraction, the ones who generate the buzz, the word of mouth that drives sales. It's a mystifying phenomenon.

Yet even Starcraft wasn't built in a day. Warcraft I was a sleeper. Starcraft was the third incarnation of that game concept, not something out of the blue. By the time you get to GalCiv III, perhaps Stardock will have made similarly correct decisions in how to build its franchises and brands, its products, and you can gain that special buzz attached to games that stood out in the minds of those who bought and played them, as gems.

Brand loyalty. In gaming, it's larger than most people imagine. We get so many crappy products, anybody who manages to deliver the goods will have a whole lot of repeat customers and start to generate buzz. Look at Half Life. They got it so right on the first try, they have a franchise on their hands after only one game. The average gamer is more savvy than the industry seems to credit us for.


- Sirian

Cari -

Thanks for the response. I can see that an AI will AMMs would have a quickly build a military rating that would cause them to become very aggressive.... maybe that one wasn't such a great idea.

Thanks,
Cypher

~SDC~