Rush, Rush, Rush: Halo Wars and the Endangered Turtle

Is the foundation of real-time strategy games crumbling?
2/24/2009 7:37 PM | 4 Comments | Page 1 of 4

"Standard tactics are your rush, your boom, and, sorta, your turtle. Which is sorta the in-between build defenses to hold off a rush, but yet don't boom up your economy quite as much as a pure boom that leaves itself undefended."

This was the comment made by Ensemble's Justin Rouse in a developer diary video created to promote Halo Wars. For starters, Rouse's definition is technically wrong. The term "turtle" refers to building up your defenses against a rush instead of booming your economy; there's no "in-between" about it. But I was more taken aback to hear Rouse using classic real-time strategy terminology to talk about Halo Wars, which is one of the latest RTSes to subvert the classic formula. Can he do that? Can he talk about Halo Wars, a game I like in theory more than practice, in those terms? Ensemble's Xbox 360 game is perched proudly on the bandwagon of streamlined RTSes, at the vanguard of a parade of games with no patience for booming and especially turtling. Booming and turtling require a robust economic sub-game. But kids these days -- there were some on my lawn earlier today -- just want to rush. Rushing is supposed to be more fun. You can't see me, but I just did the air quotes thing with my fingers when I wrote the word "fun".

Back to school for a sec

But first, a quick primer for kids these days, like the ones who were on my lawn. Contrary to popular opinion, rushing is not when the other guy attacks you before you're ready or when you have fewer units than he does. Those things have their own terms: "not being ready yet" and "not building a big-enough army," respectively. But kids these days consider such situations a rush, which is tantamount to cheating. This is what kids mean when they host games with instructions like "no rush [insert absurd length of time here]."

The textbook definitions of rushing, booming and turtling define a paper/rock/scissors concept that plays at a macro level. Rushing devotes your economy to attacking so you can counter a boom. Booming devotes your economy to your economy so you can counter a turtle. And turtling devotes your economy to defenses so you can counter a rush. It's rarely quite so neat, so I should cut Rouse some slack for mincing his words a little. But traditionally, this model is fundamental to real-time strategy games. It's the foundation on which they were built.

But many RTSes with simplified resource models are engineered to force players out onto the map where they'll bump into each other. It's a mandatory rush, where you have to go out and grab your economy. It's a trick as old as Tiberium fields. The thinking is that a game is more action-y and therefore more fun -- I did the air quotes thing again -- if players can't win by staying home and playing city-builder (by the way, don't bother trying to explain all this to Total Annihilation or Supreme Commander fans, because once they start talking about adjacency bonuses, metal maps and Big Berthas, you'll never get them to shut up).