Today I stumbled upon a blog post where the author argued that base building in today's RTS games is a chore and feels a lot like work.
Here's an excerpt:
Anyone else get that feeling when playing any of the recent mainstream RTS games? It was novel at first. But now, it is work. When you are playing anything but "no rush 5 minutes, n00b game"s, be it single player missions or multi player matches, you are building the base because you have to. Because it is your only way to build up an army. And, for the most part, you do it in a time constraint, fearing the coming onslaught of Red Helmeted Fanatic Zerglings under strict orders from Saruman to wipe you off the face of Middle Tib Sara. It's a chore on your way to the fight. Some might even go as far as calling it a hindrance.
http://theravencypher.blogspot.com/2011/01/all-work-and-no-play-make-rts-dull.html
After reading the whole thing it was clear to me that the author is greatly underestimating the strategic value of base building. In any RTS game, especially SC/SC2, base building is just as important in terms of strategic value as fighting and winning battles. Saying that base building is a chore and only exists as a way to get an army belies ignorance on the part of the player or is evidence of a poorly designed game. It only takes a couple of hours of playing Starcraft to realize just how integral base building is to the player's overall strategy and success.
Base building adds a whole new dimension to strategy. The author mentions games like DoW 2 and CoH that have eschewed elements of base building in favor of a focus on tactical maneuver and micromanagement. Although great games, I feel that they are strategically crippled and have not provided a convincing alternative to base building with their implementation of victory and control points.
This article is a classic example of "This guy doesn't know what he's talking about" and the author simply needs to think about the RTS games he plays.
What are your thoughts?
I think DOW2 successfully replaced basebuilding and focused on tactical elements, and that it ended up a better game than it would have if the reverse were true.
At the end of the day, basebuilding does add great value to strategic gameplay. Maybe a game that focuses on strategy isn't for the author of that blog. If you enjoy tactical elements more, then stick to games that focus heavily on that. Since both are available, it's not a matter of WHICH IS BETTER. It only matters how they are different, and what you enjoy more.
Determining which one is more fun is highly subjective and that's all there is to it.
I do think there's base-building done well and base-building done poorly. I'd have to say in the case of Starcraft 2 that it comes down the middle, definitely inheriting the late-90's standards of its predecessor which (while definitely top-notch for its time) are kinda bare minimums by today's standards.
The problem with Starcraft II, and I think his primary concern, is that the first 2 minutes of the game are 90% base-building and build-order. While there are a few tactics you can pull off (mostly cheesy gambits that will only work if you get lucky or your opponent is inexperienced), for the most part your early-game is just a 2-minute buildup to whatever primary army you intend to field. It varies only slightly, so you're mostly doing the same thing every game. That is, in my opinion, a tremendous waste of the first two minutes of the game where much more interesting things could be happening. Base-building doesn't have to be this way, and many other games have shown how it can be streamlined and integrated in such a way as to not dominate other aspects of the game.
This is only made worse by the fact that SC2 is very much dominated by a race for industrial efficiency. Good micro in battles means a lot, but at the end of the day if you can throw 20% more units down the enemy's throat it's going to take a lot more than 20% extra micro to overcome you. While a lot of games have this issue, it's extremely noticable in Starcraft because it's economy and base is such high-maintenance that it forces you to pull attention away from other aspects of the game. For a guy like me with over a decade of multiplayer RTS experience, I can multitask and handle it for the most part, but for people without that breadth of experience... Starcraft II is frustrating to play outside of singleplayer.
Anyways, I don't mean to rail against SC2, because it's really just indicative of a problem in lots of games in the genre. It's not that base-building is bad, it's that they just don't do it as well as they could and let it dominate rather than just be one aspect of the game. The first 2-3 minutes are often the worst for this since there's often nothing else to do except scout and build, and because scouting takes workers off of valuable resource acquisition, you won't have more than one of those in SC2... shame really...
I don't really view base building as a chore. However by far one of my least favorite thing about RTS games is peon management. I hate having to constantly produce worker units and tell them where to mine/build/etc. To me this the real chore that takes away from the game, although I have noticed that recent games tend to reduce this somewhat. Personally though I'd like to see the peon unit either go away completely or be something that you don't ever have to build more then one or two of.
I agree, it's very subjective. Personally, I don't like RTSs without base-building, but some people love them. It's just a matter of opinion.
Personally I'd classify that under the broad category of "base management", especially since peons almost invariably double as the unit that does the building.
I guess I'm on the other side of the fence. I loved the integrated base building of DOW but hated the lack of it in DOW 2.
Funny that you'd make this post today, when Impulse is having Achtung Panzer on sale. Go grab it, then try telling me to my face that RTSs without base building are 'strategically crippled'.
So-called "base building" is not only a chore, it's cruft held over from the early days of RTSs when they had to do *something* to pretend it was a clash between two armies rather than, at best, a couple squads on each side.
It's funny you mention DoW 2.
Because Company of Heroes, made two years before Dawn of War 2, by the same company, pretty much perfected base-building in an RTS in my opinion. You had your standard base blah-blah-blah, but then a lot of defenses with no real limit on them to really entrench yourself. Being able to build cover and pathing obstructions, and have it all work, pretty much makes Company of Heroes the best RTS I've ever played, far and away more interesting from the defensive side than stuff like SC and its ilk.
And then they went and made DoW 2, and I couldn't have been less thrilled. At first I was like "Omg, new engine, Company of Hero details, and 40k! I'm in heaven!" But then I saw they basically threw away most of the innovations they'd come up with in the last few years.
Putting the entire focus on troop movement and tactics demands that they're really deep enough to satisfy. But in DoW 2's case, it was the same basic squad setup all Relic fans are familiar with, combined with uber powerful hero characters ala Defense of the Ancients. The "tactics" therefore, revolve around dealing with the OPness of the heroes in comparison to your squishy (but completely necessary) troops while not getting flattened by the hero's support troops. Cue the kiting, Assault Squads, stuff with an AoE or knockback, long range weaponry, and of course, walkers.
It's a fun, spammy little mess...until the fight is over. Then there's nothing to do but go capture the next point, do some very minimal upgrades, and prepare to die some more.
In the end, that's why I don't like the ethos of removing base building, at least in DoW 2's case. DoW 2 games are static. They don't really change except based on player. In CoH, especially against the AI, the game could be drastically different just depending on if you chose to blow out a wall somewhere, or how you arranged your choke points (that's right, choke points YOU create, not that the map either has, or doesn't have.)
In a non-zerg game of Company of Heroes, the act of securing the map and your base slowed the game down...but it made for FUN when you or your enemy slowly rolled back the other's defenses. The pacing felt right.
In DoW 2, it's one engagement of small numbers of troops after another, or guys creeping in behind your base. There's less sense of escalation. If you really hurt someone early on in the game, it can be hard for them to come back from it. And there's rarely a grand, finale moment like assaulting a well defended base. The opposition just sort of trickles down to nothing while your guys shoot one super huge structure.
Or maybe they just skip the foreplay entirely, zerg your drop site the minute they get a half decent unit, and pretty much end the game right there. The pacing is frantic,, the combat is frantic...and I was just sort of left feeling hollow when games ended. When a game of CoH ends, I feel like I just had a feast, and the after dinner mint is going around looking at how FUCKED UP the battlefield is. DoW 2 barely managed to capture that sense of immersion. For all the DX10 shininess the Essence 2.0 engine delivers, it pretty much cut the physics and environmental detail down by half. Which were the best part of Relic games.
I would have enjoyed DoW 2 had I been prepared for how much like Defense of the Ancients it was going to be. I wasn't though. No one was. Even when they said base-building was out, we had no idea it was going to be quite like that.
As a result, I haven't been able to bring myself to even buy Chaos Rising. I should, being a 40k fan and all. I just can't bring myself to spend the money though.
To this day, I wonder what 40k would be like when done to Company of Heroes exacting standards. Sadly, I don't think I'll ever get to know, because Relic is convinced they've pioneered something better....which I'm obviously not in agreement with. And don't even get me started on the campaign. I couldn't believe how repetitive it was.
Kohan 2
Base building to a minimum, micro of units dramatically reduced and its a much better game for it. IMO one of the best RTS games because its about the strategic level strategy.
I guess it comes down to the player, I like TBS more, but thats because of the frantic micro built into many RTS games.
Yeah Kohan was my kind of RTS game. It had bases to build cool structures in but absolutely no peons to worry about (or at least I don't think it did).
One of the things I loved about DoW 1 was that it kind of had a more realistic sense of base building. I always had a problem with games where the entire invading force attacking a planet consists of 5 workers who build everything on site. If WW 2 was a RTS then D-day would have consisted of 5 guys landing on the beach and starting to mine, collect wood and build barracks to train troops on the spot. Somehow I don't think many wars start out that way. DoW 1 kept similar mechanics but used them in a much more realisitc way. You don't mine or collect materials in the middle of the battle field, instead you capture key points which justify more troops being commited to the battle ground. And you don't build tank factories right on the front line, you just build depots that are capable of servicing troops as they are flown in.
i think it would be interesting to have a base already built for you and instead have base management. this way you wouldn't have to place anything initially and you would just have to allocate limited resources and rebuild what gets destroyed.
later in the game you would create forward bases but it would be a single placement that would require you to allocate your resources to them thus giving you a stronger frontline at an expense to your main force. i think that would be an interesting concept.
I can't imagine a RTS without base building., the last one that comes to my mind is Command and Conquer 4.., OMG what did they do to that game., why oh why..
DW2 is a diferent kind of game, as people above already said it, it's not exactly a RTS to me, it's a strategy game made for the masses., it's a good game, it's just not an rts.
I will say this, I happen to be part of a great mod community for company of heroes, and we have done something different and interesting with the RTS genre.
www.omgmod.org
We have eliminated base building, and gone with a new system. Its about persistency and veterency. You use our browser launcher system to build your company, and our downloader to load battle files. It makes more sense you read about it. Then you play with the set number of troops you have placed from your company. Battles take between 30 to 60 min to play, and we have many custom maps done by very talented mappers. Its more of a tactics game, as good micro, and communication between your teammates can be victory or defeat. There really is nothing like it out there in the mainstream.
I have to say I like RTS's that dont focus on base building. C&C is just a race to have the best base, and if you don't have a certain level within two minutes you're screwed. Supreme Commander is very fun and quite epic, but it still a (slower) rush to the experimentals and tech 3 units. Two of my favorite RTS are Sins of a Solar Empire (it does have base building, but not in a sense compared to conventional RTS games), and the Total War games, which when played against human opponents, are the best true "strategy" games one can play.
Can't speak for the newer titles, but classic C&C titles had a lot more emphasis on field combat, getting out and collecting ore to fuel your war efforts. If you tried to hard-tech up to a high-end base you'd get your harvesters killed and wouldn't be able to afford any of the high-end units you just unlocked, and if you built a proper early-game army your base would be limited to half a dozen structures.
What i hate about the game companies these days is the fact that they're making RTS games short 'net games to allow people who cant learn to play,to play.
I LOVE the type of RTS games that take 1 or 2 hours of fingernail crunching to set up your base and infrastructure hoping to get it done before the AI's zerg you. After that.. another 10 to 20 hours to beat the game.
I really enjoy being able to goto a friends place.. set up the computer and network and get a good 20 hours game going while nibbling on junk food.
@RenshaiOh yes! Anyone remember Empire Earth: Age of Conquest? 15 ages to go through, a game with friends versus AI often took more than 10 hours on huge maps. You secured the map part by part and pushed the enemy deeper into his territory.
Or Empires, dawn of the modern world? I actually played a game with friends which took us 28 hours to complete. Man, that was epic.
Thats why I love sins. You can play games for hours and not have the feeling to have just wasted 2 or three hours because there are so many epic things to remember about the game one just played!
Well playing RTS with or without building bases is a personal preference. I like bases. I really liked DoW, I hated DoW2.
I have played most good base building RTS games made so far (all the way from Dune 2).
At the moment Starcraft 2 is the best amongst them (for me). Both Singleplayer and multiplayer. Although those 2 minutes in the start seem like you do nothing that is not true. Many games you take some of those starting workers and build your buildings somewhere hidden, or you do drone rushes on really small maps. Or 6 pool rush, or proxy gateways and many similar tactics. With already built base many, many opening strategies would not work.
What base building RTS games simulate is supply lines that are a real problem in real wars. It is not about building troops, it is about being able to support them. This is simulated through max supply and different resources that are needed to be collected.
In baseless games you are free from this. And I find it less fun.
you could of course go with an initial set up phase which had different mechanics
That then allows you to jump into the game 2 minutes in, when it starts to get interesting. It removes the skill around constructing the first part of the base (if you can build the base in 1:50 and it takes someone else 2:05 to do it, then you have lost that differential). It does provide the option of examining different resource packs to start with (e.g. 3 defensive towers plus a baracks vs no defensive towers and 2 barracks vs 1 defensive tower and a stable etc)
This somewhat eliminates importance of scouting. After the game starts you just enter his base and see right way the combination of buildings and know what is going to happen. In SC2 you need to stick around for a while (and it asks you to multitask which is the first difference in skill between players) and see the combination of buildings that are being placed, you look at their timings, you count the number or workers, you can harass. Or you can run into an empty base and the whole game changes after that.
Hmm, I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Myth: The Fallen Lords or Myth 2. They are indisputably great games that make pretty much every "greatest PC games ever" list. To be honest, I dont see how you can have an opinion on non base RTS games unless you have played those game since they did it best IMO.
The key to non base building RTS games is that your combat has to be REALLY good, and the combat has a lot to it. I think that DoW II was kind of fun, but the combat really wasnt anywhere close to what it was in either Myth games (Myth III was an abomination so I just ignore it) in terms of depth. This meant that I had fun playing DoW II for a few days but then it just got old.
Maybe the grand strategy element wasnt there in the Myth games, but it had the most tactical depth of any RTS I've ever played by a huge margin, so that made up for it. Dont get me wrong, I like strategy, but a really well done tactical game is fun too.
No mention of Sins of a solar empire? whaa?
you got your civic structure, factories, and defencive structures, but, there isnt really base building.
@KrazikarlMyth was awesome, I agree. But the secret behind myth was part its tactical finesse and part its campaign which really drew me in. (and Bungie rocked on that in it's golden years, marathon anyone?)
I'd say that it's kinda true. Mostly because the planet management and structure deployment could be construed as base building, but it's really not.
You're right in that there's not really any base building, because there's not really a single 'base'. Infrastructure is scattered around the player's empire. Incidentally, this makes it more efficient; you can have 'research' worlds, 'trade'/'processing' worlds, and 'forge' worlds, where there's lots of research stations/trade ports/refineries/factories/shipyards and what-have-you, but there doesn't really tend to be an even mix of everything at every world.
For the OP's question, I agree with Darvin. There's games that can do both very well, or very poorly. Supreme Commander 1, Total Annihilation, the older/original Command and Conquer games, none of these have 'tedious' base-building.
Off the top of my head, there's not really a large number of strategy games that have no base building; there's Homeworld 1, Cataclysm, and HW2, which are almost entirely mobile-unit based (HW2 had a couple of turret systems that were deployed and then immobile), Sins of a Solar Empire, which I've noted above, Dawn of War 2&Xpacks.
I'll concede that Sins could be construed as having base-building, but it isn't something that on first appearance would look like it has base-building. Not in the conventional sense anyway. The Homeworld series had a profound lack of immobile units, let alone 'structures'; HW2's turrets are only marginally immovable structures because they zip off from the carrier/mothership that built them and then 'deploy' to the final position of the move.
Dawn of War 2 could also likely be construed as having some base-building, especially with what I've read/heard about the new Xpack, Retribution. This base-building would be in the form of tactical construction; turret/shrine/beacon deployment for example. And in DoW2:Retribution, one race has actual bunkers it can deploy.
On the general subject of Dawn of War 2: I see it's mentioned in the thread quite a bit, and the trend seems to be a love it or hate it kind of thing. However, I'd like to make the humble proposition that DoW2 isn't a strategy game per se, but a tactical game.
Namely because, while there does tend to be an overarching 'strategy', it focuses more on what military services term 'small-unit tactics'. Each unit is (fairly) small, and tends to be intended to either zip around solo or operate in concert with another unit.
I think people (such as the author of the complaint quoted in the OP) confuse 'strategy' with 'tactics.' 'Strategy' inherently requires more than ordering units around, it requires a grander scheme to have a robust production capacity and not stay limited to the units you start with. Tactics are the battles. If you dislike basebuilding, you dislike strategy; if all you want are battles with no economy or bases, you want a tactical game, not a strategic one.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
