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Strategy Games Refer ence: Andrew R ollings and Ernest Adam s Design, Chapter 10 on Game 1 Intr o duction The origin of strategy games is ro oted in their close cousins, b oar d games. Com puter strategy games have diversied into two main for ms: classical turn-based strategy games ! ! real-time strategy ga mes Real-time strategy gam es ar rived on the scene after turn-based strategy ga mes. 2 Themes Conquest (e .g., Age of Ki ngs). Engage in conict with one or m ore fo es. Exploration (e.g. , Sid Meie r's Col onizati on). Explore a new wor ld. Tr ade (e .g., the Tyco on seri es of games). More of ten than not, a strategy gam e blends these thr ee activ ities. The ex tent to which any par ticula r activ ity is do minant over the other determ ines the over all avor of the gam e. owever, the three activities are usua lly mutually H inter dep endent. 3 Conquest: StarC raft Star Craft uses co nquest as its primary m echanism . Explo ration and trade do feature in the gam e, but only as an enabler for the player to conq uer m ore ectively. e The player must explore the ar ea to b e conq uered and set up resour ce-pro cessing plants to allow reso urces to b e traded fo r weap ons and units. 4 Exploration: Sid Meier's C olonization Sid Meier 's C olonization is primar ily ab out ex plo- ration. The basic goal of the player is to ex plor e the new world. Secondary aims are to settle colonies and subse- s by the quently defend those colonies from attack displa ced natives a nd the other colonizing nation- alities. The thr ee prim ary activ ities of conquest, ex plo- ration, and tr ade ar e quite evenly distributed However, the enabler for conquest and trade is ex plor ation. ou can't trade or conquer b efore you've explored Y who to conquer or trade with. 5 Tr ade: Monop oly Tyc o on Monop oly Tyco on fo cuses on trade as the game's main activ ities. Players are req uired to trade to increase their value, while simultaneously pr eventing their opp o- nents f rom increa sing their value. Explo ration is not really used in Monop o ly , but it could b e argued that the comp etitive natur e of the game implies that conq uest is a small part of it: You can win only by defeating your opp onents. 6 Conquest Essence of conict is a contest b etween two or mor e opp onents. To achieve gam e balance, these conict relation- is- ships can b e r esolved with the use of an SPS (Sc sors-Pap er -Sto ne) mechanism . Exam ple from The Ancient Ar t of War: ! knights b eat barbarians ! ba rbar ians b eat ar chers ! archers b ea t knights serve that there is no co mpletely dom inant Ob unit. SPS is simple and can guarantee a f air relation- ship b etween all the conicting entities. 7 Conquest Consider the following scenar io : R ed Blue A H A H A H A H A H A H The red player has a squad of archer s. The blue player has a sq uad of ho rsem en. The hor semen can r ide down the ar chers en masse b efor e they can cause to o much dam age. Ar chers are less eective at close range. As long as the blue player can get through the ini- tial ba rrage of arrow s, he is assur ed v ictory As horsem en tend to b eat ar chers, we would ex p ect the blue player to w in. 8 Conquest Consider the following scenar io : R ed Blue P H P H P H P H P H P H The red player has a squad of p easants. The blue player has a sq uad of ho rsem en. Peasants ar e so undly b ea ten by the hor semen, ently than who can deal out damage far mor e eci the p easants. Blue w ins. 9 Conquest Consider the following scenar io : Red Blue H P H A P H A P H P H H archer s and 4 p easants. The red player uses 2 Red places his p easants in a row facing the ho rsem en, and his archers r em ain at a safe dis- tance b ehind the p easants. Blue player ha s a squad of horsemen. To r each the archers, the blue player's horsem an must r st defeat the p easants. While they are doing so, the archers are free to rain a rrows on the hor semen, causing much m ore da mage than the archers from the previous encounter. The delay caused by the p easants allows the archers to pick o the horsem en. Red wins. This is an ex ample of comp ound SPS eects. 10 Conquest Consider the following scenar io : Red Blue H A H P A H P A H A H H The r ed player has switched the p ositio ns of the archers and p easants. The com p ound eect is wasted her e. Blue w ins. 11 Conict Conict do es no t necessar ily have to involve phys- ical combat. Civilization III uses diplomacy as another metho d of intr o ducing conict to the gam e. Resp onse of the enemy leaders to your diplom acy over tures dep ends in large part on whether you have the force to back up your tough words. ho- has- Diplomacy isn't all ab out trash- talk and w contests it also allow s for the-biggest- missile the forma tion of diplom atic alliances and m issions of p eace. Diplomacy g ives the player an ex tra degree of freedom, and this allows for the creation of m ore devious and interesting g ame plans than would b e p ossible otherwise. Diplomacy, in this ca se, is a catch-a ll term to also include actions such as espionage and spy ing. 12 Exploration Games that fo cus on exploration o ften use the conquest activity in alm ost eq ual par ts. XCOM : Enemy Unknown depicted the secr etive invasion o f Earth by aliens. Players wer e aware of the m ap of the Earth, but O the lo cation of hidden alien ba ses and UF landing sites was a mystery until the player sent out a sq uad of XCOM soldier s to investigate the site. 13 Physica l Ex plora tion Investigating alien bases and landing sits requires physical ex plora tion the entire ar ea is shrouded in dark ness, revealed only w hen the player's sol- diers gain line of sight on an ar ea. This approach to im plementing exploration is used in m ost strategy games (known as the fog of war ). The physical exploration of the area r eveals aliens scouting the area, who do not hesitate to r e on the soldiers using their sup erior weap onr y. 14 Non-physica l Explora tion If the soldier s defeat the aliens at a site cleanly enough to b e able to recover some of their advanced technology, the second form of ex plo- ration co mes into eect. The XCOM squad takes the technology ba ck to the base, and the player can assign resear chers to unlo ck the secrets of the alien technology. When they have discover ed how the alien tech- no logy f unctions, the XCOM exp er ts can duplicate it, giving the player a b etter chance against the stronger aliens with even b etter technolo gy. In this case, we have exploration of no nphysical frontiers in this case, the frontiers of science. Explo ration of the frontiers of science is also called the tech-tr ee. 15 Tech-Tree A tech-tree allows you to ex plor e the fr ontier s of science. A tech-tree serves other purp oses in the gam e as well: it ser ves as a means of limiting and ra tioning the spread of technology. This can b e used to pace the gam e eectively so that the progr ession from (for ex ample) stone age to iro n age to machine ag e can b e m anaged in a somewhat realistic fashion. 16 Tech-Tree A tech tr ee can b e misused. In m ost RTS gam es, the sing le-player campaigns lim it which technolo gy upgr ades are available on a certain level. This is a rather heavy- ha nded way of ensuring that the campaign balance is m aintained and tha t the diculty level pr ogresses smo o thly. This a pproach prevents the more exp erienced player fr om blitzing the ear lier levels by upgrading his units to a greater level than the (usually scripted) computer opp osition. The pr oblem with this approach is that the imple- mentation of an ar ticial upgrade barrier really the susp ension of disb elief. jars The player ends up wo nder ing why she could no t upgrade her units to the next level, esp ecially when it was p ossible to do so on the previous level.