If I could Design the Perfect Strategy Game...

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

I've had a little down time in the past couple of days, and have been looking for a nice strategy game like Age of Empires to play again, or maybe even something like the Total War series, but what I have found has been lacking, seriously. I think there are a lot of interesting concepts out there, but the execution is either sloppy and lazy, or cut back due to budgets or whatever. Below I have listed some thoughts on a good game that I think could be built today if one had the time and money...

 

1. Historically Accuracy: I like the medieval games and even the old Age of Empires that gave you stuff to read about the history of the characters you were playing. The coolest execution was in Age of Mythology where you would perform a campaign and follow the story of the hero. I think a good strategy game could be made that focused on famous battles and campaigns in history that we have full information from, such as Thermopylae, Marathon, Guagamela, Platea, Syracuse, Carthage, Teutoburg Forrest, Agincourt, Orleans, to name a few.

 

A. Accuracy in Terrain: Just from these battles listed above, we have battle maps that show the terrain, which ancient battles were highly dependent on. We also have access to loads of free information on global terrain with applications such as Google Earth, where entire regions can be recreated faithfully. A strategy game worth its salt will have accurate terrain. The battle of Guagamela was entirely dependent on the terrain. The armies came within close proximity, but there was a mountain separating them and Alexander as well as Darius decided to move to flat land where chariots could ride. Teutoburg was the opposite, using a bog and forrest to break up the Roman columns.

 

B. Accuracy in Weaponry:[/b] Not only do we have tons of information on terrain, but we also have tons of info on weapons, how they were used, and their abilities/drawbacks. Current games just give them a damage score, and don't pay attention to how they were employed. Mongols rode horses in circles around the enemy and fired constantly. I've yet to see a game show this tactic. The Longbow was able to shoot 300+ yrds. Provide a scale battlefield and crunch the data to show real tactics, not just mindless AI repeating the same movement with hit scores.

 

C. Accuracy in AI:[/b] Each culture had different ways they acted. The AI is the hardest obsticle to overcome in a computer game. They can't act naturally, but I'm wondering if it's due to a developer not knowing how to do it, being lazy, or other factors. What I would like to see is a crowd-dynamic application used in ancient battles. For instance, crowd movement has been used for years in simulating better ways to get in/out of stadiums. They've been used to study ancient battles like Agincourt. (the field was crowned and plowed and muddy, studies showed the French bunched together in the center as they attacked.) The post by Medicshows us that it doesn't take too much computer power to simulate some sort of crowd dynamics. Instead of trying to get your little man in his formation where he should be anyways, have formed phalanxes to move and then see what happens when crowd dynamic computing is put in place.

I'd also like a way for AI to be "trained." For centuries many different types of formations were used to defeat the enemy. A wedge formation was developed by Romans against various barbarions that looked like a saw or teeth, which broke up the enemy masses and put them in death funnels. Calvary was also used in this way since Alexander's day. Instead of having pre-formed selections of formations, have an option to "train" the AI in whatever formation you want. The more you drill in that battle tactic, the better the AI will perform, along with better crowd dynamics.

 

2. Terrain Editing: One feature I haven't seen much is the ability to edit terrain. This is, again, something ancient battles were totally dependent on. Persians physically "groomed" the battlefield for their chariots, which didn't work too well because Alexander's forces trained in a new tactic to defeat it. At Agincourt, stakes were planted. Various battles were fought where land was flooded, trenches were dug, castles were underminded by Sappers, ect. Not sure how this could possibly be done, since we haven't seen it before, but I'm thinking if developers thought less of the ground as a foundation and thought of it more as a "layer."

 

3. Weather:[/b] Highly important. Bad weather enabled light-footed archers to carry the day at Agincourt. Storms killed the Spanish Armada, and the Persian one at Thermopylae. Again, going back to treating the ground as a layer rather than the foundation of the 3d enviornment could do a lot to add realism.

 

4. Tactics: I've touched on tactics, but if I were a developer, I would build the game with pre-programed battle tactics based on historical leaders' minds, then let the user adapt or change at will. But, if going against an enemy, you will have some info (spy dossier, used as a good educational tool to know famous leaders as well) and adapt your tactics as needed. You can start out as a known leader, or rise in the ranks yourself.

 

5. Movement:[/b] An army moves on its stomach, so the strategy here would be to keep your army well fed, rested, but also have realistic scenarios where they need to force march a distance to battle. Riding them too hard would leave them open to defeat, too little will make them lazy. You will always have a number of troops fall out while on the march, depending on the difficulty, but the reward could be a huge pay-off. Alexander crossed the Hindu Kush in Winter conditions, and lost a large number of his troops, but he surprised the enemy by showing up a month early for battle in his rear. This could affect a campaign or a battle, of course. Some marches could be summer strolls, others could be like Alexander's. Also, as a strategy you would have to keep your supply lines open. If the enemy scorches the earth ahead of you, you have to figure out how to get food for your army or it will starve and be open to attack.

 

6. Other strategy: games like Age of Empires and Civilization have the gathering and developing of tools down pat and as good as it can get, I probably wouldn't change much on this.

 

I think that, with today's computing power, this could be an easy reality to achieve this. The only question is whether developers would be willing to go to that level of detail, or will they just push out another title to make a quick buck. (sry for the long post, lol)

[CoBoL~SPARTA~]

You can bud, check this out.

 

DarkGame Studio

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

lol awesome. I look back at that post, and even though it's accurate to my thoughts, I'm thinking I had a little too much time on my hands.

[MH6~SPARTA~]

Have you played Empire/Napoleon Total War?

 

Sounds like it'd be right up your alley, based on the above list. I still think the Total War games are some of the greatest strategy games ever.

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

Yeah the problems I have with the total war games (i confess I only played medieval) is the lack of intelligent AI. That and you have to position each individual player at a time, which gets frustraiting. That and when they start fighting it looks like they are stick figures that just repeat the same animation over. This would be a good place for that crowd dynamic programming to come into place. I remember when playing it I had my men all over the place trying to select them individually and it just looked like chaos when they were fighting or even marching.

 

I think there are elements in the Total War series, the Civ series, and the Age of Empires series that could be put together and make an impressive game.

[ragnarok92~SPARTA~]

I would love to see a game with an actually "intelligent" AI. Hard AI's in most games entail building faster than you and doing several tasks a second, micro-managing their production, army movements, and economy all at once. To me, a "hard" AI shouldnt HAVE to build faster, or have 500 APM to be hard. A hard AI should think like a human commander, finding and blocking choke points, claiming strategically important tracts of land, or using terrain to its advantage. Fight smarter, not harder.

[Phisher~SPARTA~]

I know what you mean Durka.

 

I do recommend checking out some of the mods for Medieval Total War II:

 

http://www.moddb.com/downloads?filter=t&=Search&kw=Search+...&type=def&game=231

 

There are several larger mods that completely over hall AI, Terrain, Graphics, and general game mechanics. I am actually downloading the "Third Age" mod, which is a huge total conversion mod set in the Lord of the Rings Lore.

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

I'll do that, thanks Phisher!

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

Well the Total War Medieval game is a lot better than I thought. I'm extremely addicted to it haha. I've downloaded the Stainless Steel mod, but haven't installed it just yet since I'm having fun playing the vanilla game. One of the coolest things I've seen is that there is an entire area where the developers have modded the game over the past couple of years. Anyways, I think a real crowd dynamics calculation would benefit this game really well.

 

I had to defend a fairly large city last night from an overwhelming force and two breeches in my walls. I held my calvary in reserve, placed my archers in a "U" formation on the walls around the breech, then stacked about 4 groups of pikemen/infantry to plug the breech. I then plugged the streets leading to the center of the city with small units of spearmen in about 3 separate layers. Between the archers and reducing the enemy front to a 10-man line in the streets, I was able to tire them out enough that when they finally got to the center of town, I just had to roll them over with my fresh calvary. I killed an enemy army of about 1,200 (two 600 groups) with about 500 people. I had the plan all worked out and was amazed when it actually worked, lol. Usually games don't do so well with this.

[MH6~SPARTA~]

Well the Total War Medieval game is a lot better than I thought. I'm extremely addicted to it haha. I've downloaded the Stainless Steel mod, but haven't installed it just yet since I'm having fun playing the vanilla game. One of the coolest things I've seen is that there is an entire area where the developers have modded the game over the past couple of years. Anyways, I think a real crowd dynamics calculation would benefit this game really well.

 

I had to defend a fairly large city last night from an overwhelming force and two breeches in my walls. I held my calvary in reserve, placed my archers in a "U" formation on the walls around the breech, then stacked about 4 groups of pikemen/infantry to plug the breech. I then plugged the streets leading to the center of the city with small units of spearmen in about 3 separate layers. Between the archers and reducing the enemy front to a 10-man line in the streets, I was able to tire them out enough that when they finally got to the center of town, I just had to roll them over with my fresh calvary. I killed an enemy army of about 1,200 (two 600 groups) with about 500 people. I had the plan all worked out and was amazed when it actually worked, lol. Usually games don't do so well with this.

 

And now you know why I love the Total War games so much. Let me know if you want to play multiplayer.

[Phisher~SPARTA~]

Stainless Steel mod is amazing, you won't be disappointed.

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

And now you know why I love the Total War games so much. Let me know if you want to play multiplayer.

 

I'll be on tonight sometime around 10pm depending on family obligations.

 

 

Stainless Steel mod is amazing, you won't be disappointed.

 

I can't wait to install it, probably will tonight once I figure out if it's any different with Steam.

 

On a sidenote, Rome: Total War Gold edition is now $3 at Amazon for download.

[Ebden~SPARTA~]

Some reading for the next bout of downtime you find:

 

Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach