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Comment by bob1029 | Hacker News Reader

The new AOE never hooked me. I desperately wanted it to. Feels like there is no RTS salvation possible anymore.

I don’t know what it is about the older titles, but I can still play supcom (as FAF now) all day and enjoy the hell out of it.

I also played the shit out of BFME2 until the servers got taken down.

Sometimes I get an itch for StarCraft 2, but it’s a hard game to play competently. Requires a certain… sweatiness.

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Re: StarCraft 2, I think it's a shame that playing at lower speeds never really caught on. Both SC1 and SC2 have (or at least had?) options like "normal", faster, and fastest speed, but the community normalized on the highest speed as the standard, where mechanical skill is much more important to winning, and you don't get much time to plan anything.

You plan ahead of time. Of course, no plan survives contact with the opponent and then you improvise. There is, as you correctly observed, no time for conscious thinking then. It's all 'muscle memory' so to speak. Hence you won't be competitive until you have played thousands of games.

The match-making algorithm ensures that you win ~50% of the times, unless you're at either extreme of the skill level. Every so often (or quite often) you're matched with a vastly superior opponent and blasted to pieces, but it's already much better than SC1 w/o such match-making, where beginners never saw the light. Also Blizzard has a good handle on cheating in SC2 (unlike SC1).

The early game on normal speed is insanely boring but mid/late game on fastest can be overwhelming

I think it's a bit of a shame Archon mode (2v2 but 2 players control a single "player") never took off and eventually got cancelled

Archon mode still exists though, for example Harstem (SC2 pro/streamer) posted a video of a 3vs3 with some of the best players in the world just 2 days ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eThKoRNB6Wc

You're right that the archon ladder is a shadow of the 1v1 ladder though.

Optimal play doesn't really involve much novel planning unless you're an absolute god at the game. Until then you're likely to see more improvement just improving your execution... which sucks

That is how most sports are. There's not all that much strategy involved in amateur league tennis or football either, execution rules supreme. I don't think you can separate out execution from strategy unless you explicitly separate out the time pressure, such as in (non-bullet/blitz) chess. But RTS without the RT part is a very different game.

Yeah, it's not that it's unique or anything. But the S is supposed to be the value prop of the RTS genre. Most people are fine with the focus being on execution for sports and FPS and what not.

Well compare and contrast with turn-based strategy games like Civilisation - I don't think the S is the value proposition per se. I think the combination of RT + S is what drives people to the genre. There are plenty of excellent turn-based strategy games where time pressure is effectively removed, and only the planning component is important.

I'd recommend turn-based strategy for anyone who is not particularly interested in the execution part.

Well, that's for the amateur sports, but I can tell you that if we're talking about professional sports where players are way more skilled, the strategy there plays a huge role. I didn't understand that before I started keeping track of the sports with http://www.televisionet.tv/ , but at the same time, it's pretty obvious that execution rules supreme anyway, there's no doubt

Keep an eye out for Stormgate: https://youtu.be/0UqxgaWuYss

A handful of the original devs for Starcraft 2 got together and created Frost Giant Studios. I'm hoping it jumpstarts the RTS genre again

FAF is good. A shame the gigantic maps are impossible to really enjoy though, there's a sweet spot with supcom between too big and too small where it works really well, but outside of that it falls apart. I find the late game incredibly boring because of how slow it can be, but the mid-game to the first cheaper experimentals is super fun.

Also, balancing air. It seems to be impossible to make it fun or balanced at the final tier.

Same here. Age of Empires II is still the cash cow. Neither AoE III or Age of Myth hooked me. AoE II is the best RTS in my opinion. Timing, game play, balance, fun with others.

I even - GOG - reinstalled Warcraft 2 lately and enjoyed its simplicity. ;)

AOE2 is wonky, but that's what makes it good.

Villagers collide with each other, forcing you to find new tree-lines (compared to Starcraft/Starcraft2 SCVs/workers which "stack" on each other for maximum mineral collecting at all times).

Units in AOE2 move terribly, minimizing what you can do with micro (sure, micro is still possible, but this ain't no "magic box Psi Storm", nor a 11-muta harass here). AOE2 "micro" is largely delegated to patrol-shennanigans and "zvzvzvz" (staggered formation / flank-formation) for dodging magonel shots.

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SC2 had units deathball too easily with perfect flocking behavior. The 90s-style crappy flocking behavior / collisions (aka: idiotic Dragoons from SC:Brood War or AOE2 pathing issues) somehow balances the game for the better.

Once units "deathball" too easily, you end up with well... deathball-style combat. By making units get less-efficient the bigger the group (ie: Dragoons going the wrong direction or getting stuck in paths, or AOE2 units running around not understanding how to attack the damn enemy cause the group is too big), it forces the players into controling smaller groups and more strategically using them.

Which seems like more fun? Its annoying because the "units don't do what you want them to do" (and SC2 units really "do what you want them to do"). But... somehow its less balanced with the SC2 approach.

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The key to a good strategy game is to accept and recognize the duality of Lanchester's Linear Law (ie: Risk rules), and Lanchester's Quadratic Law (ie: Axis and Allies).

If you overly focus on the Quadratic law, you end up with death-balls.

If you overly focus on the linear law, it feels like additional units don't support each other and the game feels very flat (ie: Risk-like).

But if you have a rich continuum between the two laws, you end up with great gameplay (Starcraft: Brood War, AOE2, and Hearts of Iron 3).

Let units get quadratically stronger as they flock together... but only to a point. (IE; the size of the front in Hearts of Iron 3. Or until the "Magic Box size" in Starcraft:Brood War). Once the units grow beyond that, they need to be hampered and grow more linearly, encouraging a more diverse set of combat situations.

nice writing.

I think you have a good point with the "death-ball" approach. I haven't seen it put it that way.

I'm a big SC:BW fan. I haven't played in a while but I love watching it, and I feel like the competitive RTS market is something that is waiting for a hero. SC2 really isn't it, for a multitude of reasons. (balled groups of units being one of them, imo)

Frost Giant's first technical demo (presented in "the pylon show" forget which episode) was a "perfect flocking simulator" showing how the machine could multi-threaded handle 100 million units around a complex maze. I hated it.

Give me the chaos of units bumping into each other and trying to find the optimal way with other moving agents in the way. Maybe not quite as bad as Dragoons and SCVs, but similar.

There's the certain aspect of suspense and excitement that BW pro games have compared to SC2. "we all know that the unit has to move there and shoot, but will it get there in time? have they given it orders fast enough? is something going to block it?" -- it really ads to the atmosphere of excitement, knowing that the perfect play isn't going to be possible.

> competitive RTS market is something that is waiting for a hero

Really try Age of Empires 2. Its having a mild renaissance right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2u3HupyXyKQ

Sure, its over 20 years old now, but its still getting new DLC, updates, and balance patches today.

I'm 8 minutes in and the presentation level is astounding. And with the red-bull sponsorship I'm sure this has got a bit of the cash behind it to keep such a great presentation.

Thanks for the link, I will definitely keep an eye out for this. I'll be watching the rest of this video through the day I think.

I think the biggest difference from Starcraft vs AoE2 is that AoE2 has random maps.

So while a map archetype has preset elements (ex: Arabia always has 8 sheep, 2 boars, 6 berries, 4-woodlines, 3 gold groups and 2 stone groups near your start), you don't actually know where they are.

Both players also start in a somewhat random position (players know the general area to scout), but the game is one of discovery. You need to scout the map, understand and explore, and then decide where to place strategic castles (or other defensive buildings), and where / how you'll fight.

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Beyond that, AoE2 has a lot of bonus damage, especially compared to Starcraft. A Halberdier normally 6 damage, but will deal +32 bonus damage vs Cavalry (for a total of 38).

Unit matchups are therefore more complex than Starcraft (sure, there's bonuses like Banelings vs light armor, or Immortals vs armored enemies), but nothing quite as gross as the bonus damage you have to memorize. (Skirmishers beat Archers. Scouts beat monks. Halberdier beats cavalry. Swordmen beat trash)

I really think that the randomised maps definitely add a component of strategy and depth to AoE2 I definitely don't think that unit matchups are more complex than in Starcraft, there are simply more interactions and possible matchups than starcraft because of the larger number of different units.

Starcraft's heavy emphasis on execution and APM means that very subtle changes to units can dramatically change matchups. Environmental positioning, micro management of units, healing, flanking etc. All change engagement outcomes. AoEs damage bonuses are easier to understand and requires less practise and expertise to squeeze every last point of damage out.

I'd love to see a version of Starcraft that has randomised maps instead of the fixed rotation that we currently have. It'd make playing at lower levels more fun since smart thinking would play a heavier role than rote memorization of build orders and times. And at high levels of play I think we'd see more exciting clutch moments as the best players with the best execution improvise their way through fights.

Unfortunately it would mean that the tight balance between all the different units in Starcraft would necessarily be relaxed and made more resilient to small changes. Right now, whenever new map rotations are introduced, some maps are considered unbalanced because small variations in widths of bridges or placements of obstacles favour one race over others.

I know some of those words.

AoM was pretty solid in my opinion

Ah, Battle for Middle Earth 2 (BFME2)! Now that brings back fond memories (and countless wasted hours defending Helms Deep / Minus Tirith from 2 other players!). Perhaps not an iconic example of an RTS, but certainly a fun one for any LoTR fans

FAF is great but a journey in development: - Supreme Commander - Forged Alliance extra - Forever community and the fantastic extra MAPS, Units, extension of capabilities.

That is a LOT of development time. Other features I like:

- It will scale up as computing power gets better.

- If one player has a computer struggling to keep up, it doesn't desync or drop them, it slows down. Sometimes to an unplayable point but one nuke can remove enough units to make it better again.

+1 for FAF, really the only game I've been playing for years. And most of that has been camped out on Seton's Rock playing the same build order and yet it is still deeply satisfying watching a 2 hour game unfold

Did you play AoE2:DE? It is the classic, but with quality of life improvements and regular balance updates.

I still feel like 0AD (https://play0ad.com) moves at just the right speed and isn't as chaotic as everything else. With the source open, soundtrack/art/etc, it's really a more relaxing play, especially when you find the right opening play/map/options.

Dark Reign was a sleek, fun RTS that never got the attention is should have. It's balance was awful - but you can solve that with a gentleman's agreement. Total Annihilation was still played as of ~8 years ago.

https://www.beyondallreason.info/

There's nothing literally close to supcom(faf). I reckon faf, and maybe cnc3/ra3 will be the only viable rts games for casual players in the next 5 years.

Beyond All Reason gets pretty close

In SC II, you can switch to the grid layout. That helps with the keyboard side of things.

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