[GD-Design] RTS vs. turnbased

[Jan E. <ch...@in...>]

On Thu, 27 Feb 2003, Stefan Maton wrote:

>Hi,
>
>> It's still real-time.  I think Jan and myself think of "Wargames" as 
>> more like the turn-based stuff of yore, such as Panzer General and 
>> Wargame Construction Set and the stuff that Battlefront sells.
>
>I had some talks about turn-based games or not. I've been working on
>"Incubation" some years ago and I absolutely liked the turn based aspect
>of the game. There seems to be a fan base out there who *wants* those
>kind of turn based games but every time I talked about it to some
>publishers their reaction was : "Turn based ?!? No one wants to play
>that ! It's long and boring ! Make your game real time !"

Well, I think it depends in the target audience. If you aim for the more
hardcore staretegy gamers you would be better off using turnbased, as that
allows the players to focus on strategies, check unit stats, view terrain
in detail and other things that an RTS game just doesn't have the time
for. On the other hand, if the target audience is the casual gamer that
plays RTS games and does not bother with the strategic content, then
you're better off going RTS.

There are variations on turnbased gaming too:

1. the traditional turnbased. When it's your turn to move you click a
unit, move it as much as you want, see what it managed to do, get the next
unit, repeat. Typical game here is Civilization, Steel Panthers.

2. turnbased with action phase. During an orders phase you give orders to
your units, but they don't actually do anything yet. All action is
resolved during an action phase where the units move and all action takes
place. This seems to be very liked for more tactical wargames, as it is
more "fair". You can't use a single fast moving unit as a scout into
unknown territory and let it find all enemies, then follow up with the
"heavies" once you know the locations of the enemies. A good example here
is Combat Mission.

I myself prefer the latter category.

-- 
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