I've been thinking lately about how turned off I am by RTS games, and why I love TBS games much more, and I made a rather stunning observation about the nature of the average RTS game: they're nothing more than glorified games of Tetris! Think of how the simple gameplay of Tetris begins with a slow pace, allowing for more careful decisions and placement of tiles, and also how it progress in speed and requires less and less thought and more reaction or reflex based actions. This is the basic philosophy of RTS games. Start out base building and resource collecting, then prepare for an all out clickfest in the endgame. No wonder I hate RTS games! They tease you with a strategic setup to lure you in and then all hell breaks loose and it devolves into who can build the bigger army and overwhelm the opponent. If only RTS fans would realize that they're actually playing a glorified puzzler, maybe then the industry would stop churning out so many carbon copy RTS games and we could get some real strategy for a switch!
get beat up do ya
What the hell's wrong with Tetris you racist?!
What? I have been playing Tetris all this time? I can't disagree more.
I think you're right. Tetris is a very simplified RTS client, on a very basic level.
However, I don't think it is a bad thing like you assume between the lines. In fact, I think "good" or "bad" games exist only in each player's mind. And therefore, market forces will continue to determine what games are produced and what games aren't. What you think is a boring "glorified tetris", others love. Whether you like tetris, or RTS games or not, have only a minimum of impact on that.
Millions of people won't wake up one day and think "OMG! I've been playing TETRIS!" because they don't play Tetris. And while the individual player may love RTS games, he may also hate tetris. There is an infinite amount of enjoyment to be found in RTS games that you can't find in Tetris. So while Tetris is like an RTS game, it is also nothing like it.
Careful thinking about a choice of actions is just nowhere near as popular as instant responses to stimuli is. You can see this in areas other than computer 'strategy' games, such as the steady decline of scripted TV shows in favor of semi-organized camera gangs following hopelessly vain people around some vaguely themed set of situations.
Thankfully, the total game market is big enough for a nice little niche for people who want to be able to take several hours over 3 days to set everything up just so before we click the Turn button.
Can we avoid these silly topics? Subjectivity is just a clash of opinions, and no amount of agreement or disagreement can make either position right. In the end it all comes down to taste, nothing more.
TBS is little more than Risk with 1,000 variables you must track, yet no pressure nor micromanagement. Maybe that's why I struggle to like the TBS, because it's more like work. A lack of pressure makes TBS very bland to me, as I see the Drengin battleships inch across space one after another ... instead of the syncronized all-out invasion it should otherwise be.
Strategy without pressure is worthless. And with a suspended sense of time if a TBS, I have all the time in the world to craft my "uber-ultimate killer strategy." If I can't respond tactically while preserving my global strategy, then what sort of commander am I? And if I have no tactics then I'll never win, because tactics determine the result of the strategy. TBS promotes too much of the big picture and trashes the small.
why so much hate for RTS? If you don't like it then leave it.
I'd say you need just as much thought in every stage of tetris, just that the time you have to think is lower. The ability to think quickly is one of the key elements of intelligence. Solving a mathematical problem 100x faster than someone else means you are more intelligent (at least in regrads to mathematics), and its the same for Tetris and RTS. The physical aspect of RTS is totally overrated, you aren't limited by your physiology but by your mind unless you reach a really insane speed. Good RTS players are just able to analyze the situation faster and thus have more time to concentrate on doing things (and probably they are also better at thinking while doing things), while bad or average RTS players spent a lot more time doing nothing and from my experience even thinking nothing just starring at the screen.
I have more actions per minute than my brother in Supreme Commander but he has more than twice the actions per minute in Starcraft, if it was a physiological thing that couldn't happen as from a physiological standpoint both games are nearly the same.
That being said, I prefer TBS in singleplayer as it gives the AI enough time to think, so it isn't totally retarded.
RTS is like Tetris, only the puzzle pieces kill and maim each other.
So...what was the problem again?
The thread title is simply wrong. Tetris is (entirely) about spatial awareness, RTS games aren't. You act as though there're no cognitive processes involved when players make decisions in RTS games. Disregarding whether speed is a measure of intelligence, time at least adds an additional resource which does have important strategic implications. (And, in fairness, there are certain elements of strategy which are possible in a TBS but not an RTS because they're too tedious.) Even chess tournaments have clocks.
I enjoy both TBS and RTS games, but I really hate the "one true strategy game" debate that goes on between their followers. To put it in perspective, a lot of RTS players think you TBS people are just too stupid to keep up.
And these reality shows are like RTS games... how? If anything, these sitations are more like TBS games because they strip away the element of time which makes - nah, I'm not going to go there.
You asked to have these kinds of topics avoided, and then proceeded to write a lengthy post to validate my topic's worth. So . . . I don't get it.
Anyway, I think what you and others are pointing to could also be summarized as the difference between a regular chess match and a timed one. Both games are completely different although the only difference between the two is the amount of pressure. So the difference between RTS and TBS could be seen as such. But in respect to being a good commander, when a territory is invaded, particularly before modern technology, there is plenty of time to consider a proper reaction. You can't just jump from the outskirts of a country to it's capitol in a mere moment or two. War can be (and historically has been) a slow business. It doesn't make it any less threatening or urgent.
It also seems that proper unit counters and strategies need not be applied even when available in RTS because maxing out your units and rushing the opponent seems easier and just as viable a strategy (unless that changes on extreme difficulties--I wouldn't know).
Generally speaking, I prefer RTS to TBS, because RTS games tend to be over in 45 minutes. In a decent game of Civilization, that is one turn. That's all fine and good if I'm laid off, single, and have nothing better to do than job hunt and play games, but I have other things in life to do. Let's play a couple games of CNC3 every now and then and then go do other things.
Another thing I have noticed about TBS is the random element. Lots of rolling of the dice. In Civ 3, it was possible for an ancient spearman to take out a modern tank on occasion. In RTS, you see FAR less dice-rolling. In Warcraft 2, every time combat occurred, it was this simple: you had a 50% of doing 50% damage, or a 50% chance of doing 100% damage. That's it. A number of RTS games, I wouldn't be surprised if the only time the developers even used a random number generator was in the AI.
So, your only argument for preferring the type of strategy in TBS over that in RTS games is... realism? Here's the reductio: shouldn't, then, true strategy games consist mostly of human-management, which has been, and continues to be one of the central facets of warfighting? Unless you'd like to see developers take on Bureaucrat IV: The Price of Loyalty, obviously not. Why? Because strategy games do not simulate the reality of warfare, any more than chess simulates it. Rather, they provide platforms for exercising particular skillsets with the background of war as a means of motivating the use of those skillsets.
Not true. You can just as easily "rush" someone in a TBS as an RTS, the difference is that an RTS means that you can exploit your ability to think quicker than your opponent to make the rush successful.
All RTS = Tetris? Nonsense.
Having games slowly build up tension and then unleash it in a furious crescendo is a fairly standard pacing trick. It can be used in TBS games too. Hell, it can be used in a book.
massing a single unit usually works in singleplayer because RTS AIs are all very weak. Thats because from a AI standpoint of view RTS is a lot more complex than TBS and in TBS the AI can think a lot longer than it can in RTS.
But in good RTS (Starcraft, Supreme Commander) you need to constantely adapt and remix your army to have a chance to win.
Look at them... they think they're having fun... well they're NOT!!
LMAO at: What the hell's wrong with Tetris you racist?!
But in Tetris the blocks don't fight back...
Well, I'll admit no small part of my weakness for this silly family of arguments is nothing other than quibbling over terms. I'd not have bothered with any of it if the RTS genre had been called RTT (real-time tactics). I just haven't been able to think of "strategy" as ever having a right-now aspect to it--for me, it is long-term thinking by defintion. Tactics are what you use in "the now," while strategy is what you use when you're thinking about the future.
Well I gues i like This glorified Tetris!
When it comes to RTS games, people who rely on tactics tend to lose, and people who depend on strategy tend to win. Whoever finishes the overall objective is always the winner in an RTS game. Therefore, RTS is far more accurate than RTT.
RTS TBS
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LESS FILLING! TASTES GREAT!
in the time it takes for you to max out, your opponet can max out as well. then its two evenly sized fleets duking it out without strategy. the idea of an RTS is that you USE a strategy to defeat your opponet.
also, it is actually possible to jump straight from the border to a capitol, and is even possible to do so without even hitting the border in modern warfare. ever hear of suicide bombers? they tried it. we got lucky because they didn't manage to find the capitol building or the White House, but they did hit the PENTAGON. They had planes circling the White House's front lawn for crying out loud. It is very possible to go from the border to the capitol very quickly in modern warfare. especially in modern warfare, because of FREAKING MISSILES and TRANSPORT AIRCRAFT, which can drop paratroops directly into a city. In RTS, you need to have some form of fast strategic skill. In TBS, you don't need any whatsoever. TBS does not simulate real life worth shit.
You say RTS is glorified tetris? I say TBS is glorified TIC. TAC. TOE.
LOL!
I don't wish the death of the RTS genre. I just feel it has more in common with a shooter or action game than a strategy game. I haven't tried SupCom, and I should. I understand Starcraft to be a classic of the genre with meaningful differences between factions as well. But none of the dozen or so RTSes that I've played needed anything more than mad clicking and a rush to overwhelm. The whole experience leaves me underwhelmed.
I do think that it is a valid point to say that it takes a greater attention span to play TBS games, since there's typically a much greater learning curve and not a whole lot of "action." There's definitely a difference of investment too, in which case RTS definitely has the upper hand. I have a wife and 3 kids, so I totally understand the lack of time to invest in a game. But that only strengthens the argument that RTS games are for a larger, more casual audience, like a puzzler, and not necessarily paragons of strategy gaming. Hence, the connection to Tetris IMHO.
So what RTS games have you played? If you haven't played Supcom or starcraft, it sounds like you're basing your assesment off a dozen or so sub-par RTS games.
THIS MEANS WAR!!
I freakin love RTS games....and even if they are glorified tetirs games i have 2 responces. First...tetris is ill so im honored to play a game that may have some far off slight conenction in theory to it. and second of all, all games can be broken down into some little game of the past. What do you think FPS games are?....THERE GLORIFIED DUCK HUNT....and TBS...really.....like really?.....ur saying thats better then RTS....TBS is just tetris with a pause button so ucan look at ur next move.....WHY DONT U CHALLENGE YOURSELF A BIT
the main difference is time rate. and how cool it looks. all a TBS does is this:
click..... click..... click.... ooh, a ship moved!.... click.... wow, it rolled 2 damage!
in RTS, you can see ships all moving together, and even experience the joy of a good ol' fashun'd civil wah voll'y that decimates the opposing fleet. in my experience, a TBS doesn't really give that good of graphics, or of an experience. you don't get into the feel of the game, because you are always interupted by the turn changes. in an RTS, you can begin a project, skip on over to a fleet, tell them to obliterate something, go back to your project, tell them to obliterate the fleet that just foolishly tried to make a run past yours, jump back, jump to the battle again, etc. TBS gamers can't deal with pressure, because they refuse to admit time as a factor. in an RTS, you have the quick snap decisions like:
Boom, go there. boom, kill that. boom, build this. boom, go to this city. etc. its one after another after another. there is no waiting for the other person, or sitting around to make up your mind. you have to think on your feet.
A good RTS game to try: Age of Empires 2: Age of Kings of Sins of a Solar Empire. there is a number 3 in the AOE series, but only most people like it(even though I do) and number 2 is a general kick a$$ game. my fav civ is the vikings and the byzantines (one for land maps, the other for sea). It really capture the true enjoyment of the game.
also, try Joan of Ark's campaign - its a good starter after going through the tutorial.
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