Rush, Boom, Turtle: Everybody Look What's Goin' Down

The recent quiet revolution in real-time strategy games
11/13/2008 8:09 PM | 2 Comments | Page 1 of 5

You may not realize it, but this has been one of the best months for real-time strategy games in a long time. Since September, there have been some brilliant and innovative RTSes released, even for those of us who don't care for Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3. In fact, I'd say especially for those of us who didn't care for Red Alert 3. I consider these something of a quiet revolution against traditional RTSes like Red Alert 3.

(First, a disclaimer: The following comments aren't intended to be critical. They're simply observations. If you want critical comments about Red Alert 3, this review should oblige you.)

Bottom up or top down

Red Alert 3 has armies composed of a hundred fiddly bits. The gameplay comes from the interaction of these bits. There's very little by way of macro-level design. The basic design has almost no regard for the larger strategic level, which simply embraces the usual conventions: ore, barracks, navies, air units, spell powers, formations. All of this stuff has been established in other games, so most of the design work in Red Alert 3 is at the smaller tactical level. The variety comes up from the bottom. What does a Naginata Cruiser do? Who wins in a fight between a King Oni and an Apocalypse Tank? How much more damage than an Orbital Drop does an Orbital Dump deliver? How far can Wave-Force Artillery shoot?

But the really notable RTSes I've played lately have taken the opposite approach. The design has started at the macro level, questioning all the usual RTS assumptions, eschewing tactical fiddly bits, and working its way down. The variety comes from the nuances layered on top of the game rather than the detail bubbling up from the bottom. These three games are simple but not simplistic, elegant but no less exciting for it, and all liable to be overlooked by business-as-usual RTS fans.

Booty call!

Consider Age of Booty.

You move a ship around with the goal of capturing a certain number of towns to win the game. You don't tell a ship to shoot, you don't set its stance, and you don't mess with its facing. Wherever it parks, it will fire at any adjacent hostiles. Park two ships next to a town, and they'll conquer it twice as fast. Park one ship between two enemies, and it will attack each of them at half-strength. Your role is to simply place your ship. Oh, and you only ever get one ship to play with.

And that's pretty much it.

There's a great board game elegance to the resource model, which uses gold for town upgrades, rum for ship upgrades, and wood for both. Do you go after the gold to build up your towns? Do you save your wood for your ship? What will you steal from an enemy player when you kill one of his ships? Do you sail back to your pirate base to repair, or do you let yourself get killed and teleport back instantly, giving up a random resource?