How to make an RTS and not an RTT

RTS games have always had a spectrum between strategy and tactics, AKA macro and micro. As of late we've seen a lot of successful tactical, hyper-micro RTS but few strategy-focused RTS. A strategist's job is to make decisions, not to carry them out. The main focus of a macro-RTS player should be getting enough of the right kind of units to the front, not what they do when they get there. Mouseclick speed should be less important than in most RTS. Someone with mediocre APM should still be able to be competitive in this game.

PA is trying to satisfy the demand for a truly strategic RTS. I think there's a lot to improve from TA/Supcom, which in my opinion still had too much micro focus. It's like the TA family has tried to take the RTS genre away from its focus on tactics yet fallen a bit short each time. Planetary Annihilation should try to place itself on the part of the spectrum inbetween Total Annihilation and Europa Universalis (which in my opinion is the purest RTS out there, as there's no tactics involved at all).

The question is how do you promote this style of play mechanically? How do you deemphasize micromanagement?

One idea off the top of my head is to lower unit damage output proportionally with HP. This would reduce the need for focus fire except in the case of one powerful unit mixed with lots weak ones. The optimal choice then becomes 'focus fire on the giant, then let the AI handle the Kbots', not 'focus fire on each Kbot in succession', which seems like an appropriate level of micro for this type of game. But it might have side effects, I dunno.

One game the devs ought to study is Rise of Nations. It pulls off the low-micro style better than any other RTS I've seen.

They already said that it will have a focus on macro wich I find a lot better. But yes that's what I tought too, it should be more strategic, not 100% micromanagement.

but it should be important how you move the units you have.
Meaning in the later game it needs to be important how you move your 100 units and in the early game it needs to be important how you move your 3 units.

Thing is you can't really get rid of micro completely, otherwise you could just play Gratuitous Space Battles instead.

I think of it like this, Strategy is making you plans and the setup to execute those plans, Tactics happen once the plan is in motion. Because someone famous once said something along the lines of "Plans don't survive the first Shot" and its true really.

Micro isn't bad when you can easily focus on it(without being required to tear yourself away from it every 15 seconds) and when it's not overwhelming it can be fun.

Mike

I agree with OrangeKnight here.

Micromanagement isn't just a problem with controlling units, it's a problem with your economy and production as well. The more that those tasks are automated, the more time you can spend executing your plans during battle.

Economy and production are the important things that tear you away from battle micro, making the cost of battle micro exceptionally high.

I don't mind microing anything else apart from always tediously having to do 300 clicks just to effectively use a unit, I find it silly. But otherwise everything else yes.

Yeah pretty much what OrangeKnight and Rachet said.

I don't mind doing some micro when I want to (or need to), but it shouldn't be forced. Likewise, I shouldn't be prohibited from doing it.

It can be fun leading a small crack team to take out an enemy's resources or rear while your main army marches along a predetermined battle path/plan. And similarly, doing some micro management should give you the potential to gain an edge in battles (e.g., in TA, concentrating fire on the most dangerous units, using maneuvers to avoid/minimize casualties, etc..)

Micro was fun when I played Mechcommander 2, but that's because I had a small handful of units and stayed with them the whole mission. I see the same, if not more, micro in other RTS' games where you control a lot more units, and I think that's why I am often turned off by many of them (at least competitively) because I am just not any good at trying to handle both combat micro and macro economy/production at the same time.

Now, if the AI could handle the specifics of combat, and my job is to get the right units in the right place and then let the little guys do their thing...that I think I could handle.

I think a key might be in not having any melee units. If being 5 meters versus 15 meters isn't much of a difference, then it won't be as beneficial to be trying to control within a meter because it'll be pointless, my micro won't have a higher resolution than the targeting systems of the enemy robits and stuff.

Now, getting to the other side of a hill or mountain wouldn't be micro...but trying to dance with weapon ranges and trying to outsmart targeting would be annoying.

Okay, now that I'm on my lunch lets get some nitty-gritty stuff here.

So, I'm going to use StarCraft2(henceforth SCII) and SupCom:Forged Alliance(henceforth FA) here, I would do TA but I actually never played it so I'll go with what I know. I'm no pro player, but I'd say I'm about average to slightly above average, just keep that in mind.

I think we can agree SCII is or has a heavy Micro Focus, which in the context I mentioned before, is fine, the problem I have with SCII is that it applies Micro to almost everything, or at least all the major aspects like combat and economy.

For Combat its doing the very specific control for the units, activating or reacting to the special abilities many units possess and building every unit more or less individually(each requiring 1 click).

For the Economy you have to deal with things like individually building workers(each requiring 1 click), managing working Saturation(don't want too many workers per mineral patch, never more than 3 in Gas) and just the general things that come with a worker based eco(waiting until you have exactly enough resources to start a unit/building/research).

And the problem is that you have to bounce around to make sure you micro everything all the time. In the end this isn't inherently bad or good, it's just one way of doing it. I can appreciate the work and training that goes in to being able to excel at that kind of thing, but it's not something I want to delve into in order to just make it up to the mid range of players you know?

Frankly I really enjoy the FA method, it stream lines a lot of things and allows you to focus more, not indefinitely but certainly with less interruptions. In FA you can almost not micro at all, or you can micro your SCII fingers right off!

A Big thing FA has that gives it an advantage is Strategic Zoom, it is really mind blowing just how much more aware you can be while still being able to give combat orders, expand your Eco and change your rally point all without having to move your screen or setting control Groups, it's one of those things you need to experience before you can fully appreciate it, but lets move on.

So whats different about FA Micro? Well for starters your Economy is much more streamlined, build the Extractor, build Pgens, then all you have to do is upgrade the extractors when you can, it's not so much automated as much as you don't have to babysit it nearly as much. Engineers can not only be queued, but set on a loop! so you don't have to mess with them except to give them orders(which can can do as part of the factory rally) or when you want to change something about the loop(start/stop it, add more engies or just cancel it all together) which frees you from checking on it constantly, or at least reduces the 'punishment' if you ignore it for a bit. So Eco in FA is pretty good(not without some flaws, but not so much related to the issue at hand) and doesn't need super huge amounts of attention.

But what about Combat and Units? Well, combat is something that's pretty different between SCII and FA, in FA you don't have to deal with special abilities, and because of the simulation aspect adds in some decent depth, thinks like flanking mean much more than just having a bigger arc then your opponent when turrets take time to turn to face new targets. Micro can't be used to make units noticeably better(stutter stepping marines comes to mind) beyond basic kiting and such maneuvers. But for all the depth that seems lost in FA compared to SCII, then you start to factor in the Scale, larger armies and huge maps mean lots of raiding, made easier via Strat. Zoom. There is less focus on microing individual or small bunches of units as much as just controlling your entire frontline. No less satisfying, just different.




Oh man that looked a lot more organized in my head....so yeah, if you need any clarification just let me know.....you prolly will need some xD

Mike

No, having played quite a bit of both games discussed I think I fully understand what you mean and agree.
PA should just be like FA in this respect, imho. It is fine and fits the game.

So as an example, it'd be like having a handful of Peewees versus an Intimidator (I haven't played SCII or FA enough to know units, sorry).

While minute adjustments to the path of the Peewee won't likely change it getting one-shot, by placing them at a wide arc on their approach angle, one of them may get close enough to get within the effective range of the long-range cannon. This would also be better than attacking side-by-side, where splash from the cannon could take out a bunch of them. At the same time, they'd also then be weaker if they ran across a patrol force...so your enemy could counter a slower turret with a stronger patrol pack that keeps the enemy busy while the big guns line up.

We control assault force composition, major positioning, etc...but we don't tell the units to take half steps to the left and right. Because of that, we have time to organize on the grander scale, and coordinate multiple thrusts at the same target, or be able to manage multiple types of attacks. Timing on the grander scale, but still timing.

That roughly what you're meaning?

Yeah, you explained it very well. I mean a lot of it comes into how things are balanced and such, using small units to outmanuver larger units didn't really work in FA due to how all the stats ramped up exponentially in Tiers 2 and 3 but the concept was easily capable of being carried out. Also depends on unit design too, for example my Juggernaut MKIII has a high top speed, but slow acceleration and turning speed, so already you know its fast to get to the battle and good at ambushing, but bad at being ambushed(so long as they aren't moving or are turning). To help emphasize that it can focus all of its in front, most of them to one side and only 2 to the back, so if you can get in behind them you have a clear advantage, especially if they've just stopped or turned.

So that's one way to make that kind of thing work.

Mike

I think a good way to reduce micromanagement would be to give specific units icons in the UI that let them go and do their own thing in an automatic fashion. I'll use examples from SupCom:FA.

Engineers:
- "Auto Build Mass" - Click it and the selected engineer will go to the nearest available mass deposit (or whatever the PA equivalent is) and build an extractor. Once completed, go to the next closest and do the same thing. None available? Go to the closest enemy mass extractor and try to capture it. Sure, the engineer will eventually get killed, but it's one less thing to have to micro. Build a few engineers at the start of the game, give them this command, and go worry about more important things.
- "Auto Repair" - Click it and the selected engineer will go to the nearest building that is not 100% health and repair it, and so on. If all buildings are 100% health, just chill in place.
- "Auto Reclaim" - Click it and the selected engineer will go to the nearest reclaimable object and reclaim it. Eventually the little guy will probably wander into a battlefield full of wreckage and get killed, but not before reclaiming plenty of mass and energy.

Spy plane:
- "Auto scout" - Simple, the spy plane will just randomly fly around the planet doing your scouting for you, and automatically return to an air repair pad anytime it's close to low on fuel or takes some damage from the enemy.

There you go, four things that will massively cut down on the micromanagement needed for certain aspects of the game and let you focus on the big picture.

EDIT: One more thing, maybe some icons somewhere in the UI that list how many units you have on each of these automatic settings. That way you can just periodically check to see, in case some units are destroyed and you want to replace them.

EDIT2: I'll add that for the engineers, this would obviously be far more beneficial for flying engineers than ground based ones, but could still be useful for both.

IMO that's too much automation and similar things can easily be done with far more control via queuing.

Mike

I can see why some people would choose not to use it, but it would be a nice tool to have at our disposal. For example, if you want to build mass extractors in a specific way, use unit command queuing. If you want to focus on other things but still build your economy, let the engineers do it autonomously. It definitely depends on what's going on in the game at the moment of decision.

Same with the scout planes. If you want them to to check out a specific area, order them to do so. Just want general info? Let them auto-scout.

I guess auto repair and auto reclaim won't even need buttons within a certain radius an idle engineer should automatically repair or reclaim wreckage.

letting them go over the entire map autonomously seems a bit silly though.

The mass building would be easily queued.
Auto scouting's usefulness depends on the implementation of line of sight, fog of war and radar maps, so that's a bit soon I guess.

I definitely like that idea, or at least the concept that an engineer who is idle should be programmed to find something to do autonomously on its own. Even with the "idle engineer warning" that SupCom:FA had (or maybe it was a custom UI, I forgot) it was easy to concentrate too much on the battle at hand and not realize you had engineers sitting around doing nothing.

I guess I'm so for this because engineers are fairly cheap in the grand scheme of things. Setting a few to go do their own thing could easily have a pretty high rate of return vs. cost without even having to pay attention to it.

That's the sort of thing I like; not having to micromanage my economy so I can focus on the big picture.

The key is to make systems where you as a commander make the key decisions, and have the computer automate the repetitive and mundane tasks. You must be able to make decisions and then leave the computer alone to execute those decisions, so that you have enough time to focus on a different planet / combat area. And then you need the tools to get feedback on your decisions, so that when you come back you can quickly see what went wrong.

See here for some more ideas on how this can be done.

The general idea is to have an emphasis on being able to execute high level strategy. This just means we make the interface as powerful as we can.

This doesn't mean there won't be any micro at all though. For example the commander is inherently a "hero" unit that benefits from some amount of micro, especially early game.

So would this kind of rule out the sort of automation I mention in my post?