Supreme Commander???

[Jazcash]

Lol Forb, I accidentally missed off a '3' in the url tag

[Caydr]

Starcraft (esp 2) isn't a strategy game, it's a micromanagement game.

Strategy games have been moving towards eliminating micromanagement wherever possible for the last 10 years, some games even have anti-micromanagement be a central theme.

SC2 took the original's micromanagement and turned it to 11. It's not necessarily a "bad" game by any means, it's just not a strategy game. If you don't take direct control over every unit in your army, it will probably die in the stupidest and most ineffective way possible.

[Forboding Angel]

Starcraft (esp 2) isn't a strategy game, it's a micromanagement game.

Strategy games have been moving towards eliminating micromanagement wherever possible for the last 10 years, some games even have anti-micromanagement be a central theme. SC2 took the original's micromanagement and turned it to 11. It's not necessarily a "bad" game by any means, it's just not a strategy game.

^^ This. Pretty much perfect explanation.

[Caydr]

Read it in a Yahtzee voice, it's even better.

[HeavyLancer]

Reminds of that old Fang rant on TeamSpeak :)

[Machete234]

SC2 took the original's micromanagement and turned it to 11. It's not necessarily a "bad" game by any means, it's just not a strategy game. If you don't take direct control over every unit in your army, it will probably die in the stupidest and most ineffective way possible.

Sc2 is too much like cannon fodder and I dont think it was envisioned by the devs to be played like this. (doesnt mean the concept doesnt work and is fun)

When blizzard made wc2 and starcraft they probably really thought they make a strategy game and not a click orgy.
With online play the gameplay changed because you could win like this similar to quake3 and strafe jumping. (not intentioned by the dev)

Nowadays they mabe still think they make 100% strategy game but even they cant be so dumb.

[PicassoCT]

Starcraft (esp 2) isn't a strategy game, it's a micromanagement game.

Strategy games have been moving towards eliminating micromanagement wherever possible for the last 10 years, some games even have anti-micromanagement be a central theme. SC2 took the original's micromanagement and turned it to 11. It's not necessarily a "bad" game by any means, it's just not a strategy game.

^^ This. Pretty much perfect explanation.

I would muster a witty reply, but you Sir, have beaten me, fair and square. Kudos to you.

[Gota]

eh eh eh TA fanbots...
Can you give us all a break...
When you can make a base and construct battle units to kill the other guy's base its a strategy game.
Starcraft 2 is what is known in the PC world as a strategy game.

[Machete234]

Its not 100% strategy its a lot of micro which is more esporty

[Johannes]

Starcraft (esp 2) isn't a strategy game, it's a micromanagement game.

Strategy games have been moving towards eliminating micromanagement wherever possible for the last 10 years, some games even have anti-micromanagement be a central theme.

SC2 took the original's micromanagement and turned it to 11. It's not necessarily a "bad" game by any means, it's just not a strategy game. If you don't take direct control over every unit in your army, it will probably die in the stupidest and most ineffective way possible.

Bullshit. SC2 tuned the need and capability to micro way down from BW.

And how would you define strategy game then? Starcrafts have strategy, TA/*As have strategy, Civilizations have strategy... The fact that they all feature a lot of micromanagement doesn't remove the strategy part.

Then again other games and sports have a strategy level too, that are not commonly labeled as such. But where do you draw the line?

[knorke]

que up mexes, shift drag lines of solars.
so deep.

bomber attack! click a million times to make it drop more bombs.
so strategetic.

[PicassoCT]

Its the bureacratic detachment from the comon grunt that makes you more strategic. And in Spring from build order to march into death, it can happen, i never ever hear of him (afk, getting SOUP or Sammich), not even see his dead body (recycled). This is what strategy is about.

Also you forget to strategic great scale planing knorke: Defend here, were i draw the giant penis.

[Caydr]

que up mexes, shift drag lines of solars.
so deep.

bomber attack! click a million times to make it drop more bombs.
so strategetic.

Never said AA was the epitome of strategy either, and certainly not in the state I left it. I haven't played BA for like 8 months so I can't say anything about it either.

All I'm saying is SC2 isn't a strategy game, I never meant to imply that any other specific game was better. Although, if you'd like an example of a really good "strategy" game, IMO Sins of a Solar Empire is pretty decent. Like, if I had a list of 10 "essential ingredients" for a strategy game, it would probably have like 6 or 7, which is about as good as any other "strategy" game that I've played has.

Sins of a Solar Empire w/ expansions: 7 arbitrary "strategic gameplay" points out of 10
Sins vanilla: 6
Forged Alliance: 5
A good already-released version of AA Spring: 5
AA 6.0 Final for Total Annihilation: 4
SupCom vanilla: 3
TA 3.1 w/ CC: 3
Starcraft w/ BW: 3
Supreme Commander 2: 2
Starcraft 2: 1

Another example, Civ 5 would probably have 6 points if no more features were added but all the bugs were fixed. It's pretty decent but bugged out the ass as of the last time I played it.

The biggest problem with SC2, and what ultimately removes it from the "strategy" category, is that you can win or lose depending on your reflexes and clicking speed. It's practically shooter-like in this regard.

That's not to say that SC2 as a game is only a 1/10. As a game, I'd rate it more like 8/10 or 9/10, because it's fun and well-made. In comparison, SupCom2 as a game I'd only give like a 6/10 because it's utter shit, and given a choice I'd play SC2.

No idea what things I'd pick for the 10 defining "strategic" qualities, and in the above examples some titles have certain qualities but lack others, and vice versa. Anyway, is that more clear?

[smoth]

No idea what things I'd pick for the 10 defining "strategic" qualities

as I was about to ask specifically what these qualities are

[Caydr]

Well... would include a lot of different things such as scale, management, control, progression, resource, game modes, etc, for the sake of clearly differentiating an "RTS" game from something that is real-time and strategic such as Plants vs Zombies, which I think we'd all agree isn't an RTS despite having some of the usual recognizable traits.

Clearly a game wouldn't need to include all of them to be an excellent RTS. But having too few, and it's drifting into a different genre. A game isn't simply an RTS, there's like a n-dimensional spectrum of different gameplay attributes, like how Sins is sort of an RTS/4X combination... and it's 5 AM all of the sudden, goodbye.

[HeavyLancer]

Qualities that define a strategy game over a tactics game for me:
- Scale
- Strategy choices available to the player
- Effect of 'micro' on performance versus changing to a better strategy for a given situation

Examples:
Go is a strategic game. There is no 'micro' at all due to its turn-based nature. A 19x19 grid means that the scale is huge compared to chess. The choices of play-style are endless.

Starcraft is a tactical game. Your strategies are defined mostly at the start by the race you play as. Micro has a large effect on performance due to the pathfinder being crap and energy/mana based abilities being quite important. Choices are about as limited as the original StarCraft from what I've played of it.

It's an enjoyable game though.

[Machete234]

Id say too that starcraft2 is a real time tactics game with not really believable base building etc which is quite simple.

The fact that you you dont have formations makes it an oldschool game.

[Gota]

Ask any gamer who is not a rabit ta fan and he will tell you starcraft / starcraft 2 are pc strategy games.

Dune 2, where you cant even select several units at once is considerd without doubt a pc RTS game so really...

[Basil_pup]

Starcraft is a tactical game. Your strategies are defined mostly at the start by the race you play as. Micro has a large effect on performance due to the pathfinder being crap and energy/mana based abilities being quite important. Choices are about as limited as the original StarCraft from what I've played of it.

And what it is wrong with it ? It has 3 different race so you must use all the features that it has. Pathfinding is the best in rts now.

[smoth]

Id say too that starcraft2 is a real time tactics game with not really believable base building etc which is quite simple.

Rtt belongs to small scale games:
Where the focus is on squads

Ground control
DOW2
COH


RTS focus is on larger groups of troops.
starcraft 1/2
dow 1
are rts just as dune and command and conquer are. These are the norm for the genre.

TA
Supcom
Most spring projects

are large scale rts games. They do not redefine the genre as it was already established. To say starcraft is not an rts is to say doom is not an fps because auto aim covers part of the shooter portion of the game.