5punk

Post by **Grimmie** » November 6th, 2005, 3:23

Me and Joose had a tinker around in WCIII earlier, and Magic trickery does indeed work with Floorware version. He utterly thrashed me, only after I put up a mediorcre defence. Arf.

We've also both installed C+CGenerals ZH. I have the legit, and Joose has floorware. We will have a flounce around in that tomorrow (Today? 3:22am?!) and report back. Then yell at the top of our voices for forums to be made. Huzzah!

Post by **FatherJack** » November 6th, 2005, 4:13

pixie pie wrote:I was planning a post on asking what games actually count as RTS?

Think we're mainly on about clicky-build-farms-make-troops-ATTAAAACK! games we can play against each other with.

Or more accurately, "Umm, how do I build a farm, again?"...."Ah, you killed me"

pixie pie wrote:Football manager games? They take lots of strategy.. maybe?.. no? (I love them too much, its a sin.. (Fatherjack, managed to get FM2006 working floorwared. ))

From my experience with the multiplayer aspects of these, you effectively have to live in the same house as your opponent. Being a sibling or housemate of your adversary you can much more easily scream "Just make your fucking team selection already!" across the stairs than you can online. Games last days, if not weeks or months - it's a genre that's never quite translated well to the "just have a quick blast on Deathmatch" world.

Hmm, FM2006 - I had a go as England, just let Steve McLaren pick the squads and pissed all over the World Cup by clicking "Next". Managing Coventry City may prove somewhat more of a challenge, however...

Edit: Incidentally - what's the chronology of the C&C games? In my hunt for Warcraft III I've seen "Red Alert" and "Tiberian Sun" but have heard "Generals" mentioned here, too. The timeline (from memory) seems entwined with the Warcraft series, whereas the Age of Empires games (at least in my head) seem to stem from the Populous/SimCity branch.

Post by **Dog Pants** » November 6th, 2005, 9:50

FatherJack wrote:the Age of Empires games (at least in my head) seem to stem from the Populous/SimCity branch.

Only in that it has a tech tree stretched over a long time period. Other than that they're just another generic RTS IMHO.

While thinking about TA, it occurred to me that the advantage RTSs have over FPSs is that you only need two or three people to make an RTS enjoyable. A shooter ideally needs eight or more.

Post by **Grimmie** » November 6th, 2005, 11:21

Cor blimey. C&C Games split off in serveral directions. Tiberian sun is what many people believe to be the true C&C Universe, set on another planet.

Then there's the Red Alert series, which is set in an alternate World War II timeline, where hitler was crushed, but that allowed stalin/lenin/whoever to rise up and make a soviet attack.

I know a lot of people who've actually disowned Generals, because it doesn't follow in either of the traditional footsteps that TibSun or RedAlert laid out, but instead uses semi-real-life-applicable situations.. Sigh.

RTS, (Real Time Strategy) is basically that. The sims and Football Manager games are listed under "Management" or "God games", though calling and England coach god might be going a bit too far.

RTS is traditionally a mix of micro management* (Sort out your villages, gather resources, construct buildings), and unit-movement and tactics (Deciding what units are best for the job, infantry aren't good at taking out buildings, artillery isn't a good scout). And it's all played in real time, as opposed to Turn-Based games.

Famous examples are..
Age of Empires series
Total(e) War series
Starcraft/Warcraft series

*Not always Applicable: See Ground Control / Blitzkreig series.

pixie pie · Post by **pixie pie** » November 6th, 2005, 13:21

oh also.. Empire earth? anyone.. Not Empire Earth2 (That's pants). the old one.

Post by **Joose** » November 6th, 2005, 15:57

Grimmie wrote:Cor blimey. C&C Games split off in serveral directions. Tiberian sun is what many people believe to be the true C&C Universe, set on another planet.

Then there's the Red Alert series, which is set in an alternate World War II timeline, where hitler was crushed, but that allowed stalin/lenin/whoever to rise up and make a soviet attack.

I know a lot of people who've actually disowned Generals, because it doesn't follow in either of the traditional footsteps that TibSun or RedAlert laid out, but instead uses semi-real-life-applicable situations.. Sigh.

Um, not quite, Mr Grimster.

Timeline (in terms of the story, that is), It goes Red Alert, Red Alert 2, original C&C, then C&C Tiberian Sun. The idea being that Einstien travelled back in time and kinda "deleted" Hitler, intending to stop the world wars. Didnt quite work as planned, as it just ended up with Stalin going to war instead of Hitler. Thats the story behind RA and RA2. Then, at about the point where it catches up with what would be "modern day" C&C occurs, with the marvelously camp bad guy Kane, as some kind of terrorist deal. This stuff called tiberium is discovered (may have arrived on a meteor or something. Cant remember). This is the setting for C&C Tiberian Sun (still on earth). Kane resurfaces, but is then killed. They were going to continue the story with C&C Tiberium Sunset, or something, but I dont know what happened to that idea.

C&C Generals is in a completely seperate storyline, but all the others are connected. If you look carefully at the FMV scenes in RA (or it could have been RA2), you'll notice that Kane was actually one of Stalins lackeys.

Lesson Ends

Post by **Grimmie** » November 6th, 2005, 16:48

Fankyou, Joose

I knew there was a reason why my C&C Crazy friend disowned Generals.

Post by **deject** » November 6th, 2005, 19:12

I think the non-appearance of Tiberian Sunset has something to do with Westwod being bought out by teh EA...

Sol · Post by **Sol** » November 6th, 2005, 19:57

deject wrote:I think the non-appearance of Tiberian Sunset has something to do with Westwod being bought out by teh EA...

EA...Sucks ma balls.

I really like Tib sun, never bought the expansion pack though

Post by **TezzRexx** » November 6th, 2005, 23:57

I quite liked the realism of C&C Gens.

I also however hated red alert 2.

.

spoodie · Post by **spoodie** » November 7th, 2005, 11:08

ALL RTS GAMES SUCK!!!

well actually I'm sweeping up WC3 so I can give them another go

Post by **FatherJack** » November 7th, 2005, 21:33

FatherJack wrote:Incidentally - what's the chronology of the C&C games?

I should have said, "What's the order they came out in?" but the timeline of the story is quite interesting none the less.

Post by **deject** » November 7th, 2005, 22:31

FatherJack wrote:
FatherJack wrote:Incidentally - what's the chronology of the C&C games?
I should have said, "What's the order they came out in?" but the timeline of the story is quite interesting none the less.

I'm not 100% sure but I think this is how it goes:

Command & Conquer
Command & Conquer: Red Alert
Command & Conquer: Sole Survivor
Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2
Command & Conquer: Renegade
Command & Conquer: Generals

friznit · Post by **friznit** » November 8th, 2005, 12:02

RTS...not a lot of strategy in there IMO. I get very bored very quickly on these: Manic building, mine like a b'staad, build lots of units, watch them all die, repeat until map resources run out and everyones dead.

There are very few games out there that allow a truly strategic, operational or even tactical approach with manoeuvre warfare (a modern concept of breaking enemy cohesion and will to fight rather than grinding down their numbers).

Thusly, the Total War series, Earth 2150 series (after a fashion) and...well that's all I can think of in the 'RTS' genre.

Oh, although not an RTS per se, the CTI mod of Op Flashpoint is the best command led low-level strategy/tactics game out there IMO.

Woo Elephant Yeah · Post by **Woo Elephant Yeah** » November 8th, 2005, 12:06

You can tell he's in the horses

Post by **Dog Pants** » November 8th, 2005, 12:26

Turn based, not real time, but the Combat Mission series are quite good for realism (as far as someone who's never been in combat can tell).

I always get trounced by the computer and assumed it was just because it was hard. Then on a boring night shift in the Falklands my Flight Leiutenant decided he'd show me how it was done on my laptop.

I called him a noob and steered the game for him because he couldn't get a grasp of the interface. He achieved a resounding victory and made me look like a complete arse.

Bastard.

Post by **Joose** » November 8th, 2005, 12:37

Fallout Tactics was a good un, turn based wise. Ok, so you were often fighting mutants and robots, but the actuall fighting was handled in a fairly realistic fashion, which was nice.

As for stratagy games not being very strategic; I disagree. They may not be a realistic model of a real world battlefield, but then neither is chess. You still need an understanding of strategy to win.

Take, for example, my recent loss against Jinxx and Nickface in Warcraft 3. If they had used the model you describe of mine, build and rush, they would have been raped by my defenses. So they split up their base to several areas of the map, meaning I couldnt concentrate my attacks and meaning I spent a fair amount of time running about like a headless chicken trying to work out where they were. They then cut off my supply of resources, using flying units to keep me at bay. I had limited ranged units, which they concentrated on taking out first, meaning I couldnt stop their attack. Then it was just a case of waiting for me to run out of cash, and taking advantage of my now weak base.

No strategy? Or different strategy?

Nickface · Post by **Nickface** » November 8th, 2005, 14:08

I'd call it stupid luck.

friznit · Post by **friznit** » November 8th, 2005, 14:58

Woo Elephant Yeah wrote:You can tell he's in the horses

And I'm only just getting warmed up!

Point conceded Joose. However, there appear to be few RTS games balanced in favour sound tactical thinking and away from the click-mad resource-grab ground-rush. Incidentally, if my memory serves me right, in WC3 most of the resources are map features as well e.g. Cutting down trees for resources could ultimately leave a flank open to attack, which is a nice touch.

Maybe it also has something to do with the fact that I am generally crap at RTS's.

Oh, and further to my last post, the Chain Of Command Mod for OFP is also a great step in the right direction. This lets you actually command your units in battle (i.e. Issue a set of orders and let them sort out the minor tactical details of manoeuvre: finding, fixing and striking). This allows the commander to step back and make strategic, battle-winning decisions and not get sucked into the details of actually fighting. Unless you want to of course

Fantastic in multiplayer coop, even allowing for a woefully inadequate AI. Sadly there are simply not enough interested players these days

Sol · Post by **Sol** » November 8th, 2005, 16:16

Right i just installed C&C generals + ZH, any of you bastards want a game please poke me in the eye.

5punk

RTS

Right.. Well..

2 Cents incoming...ding...please allow time for the coins to