Rush, Boom, Turtle: Real Time After Real-Time

How H.G. Wells accidentally invented real-time strategy gaming 100 years ago
7/15/2009 6:03 PM | 2 Comments | Page 2 of 2

Ironically, one of the only recent RTSes that allows flexible game speed is the one that doesn't really need it. Demigod uses an adjustable-speed feature because it's based on the engine used for Supreme Commander, a game that most definitely needed the flexible speed to help iron out the uneven pacing.

The point is that real-time is never real time, nor should it even be consistent time. It is simply continuous time, which is what sets it apart from games that stop between turns to let you examine the board. As an RTS plays, it progresses in continuous time, but not in order to confound the player. Instead, it's to create a sense of excitement and immediacy and even the inevitability of one moment falling after the next in a continuous stream. It works that way because it can. Computers and 3-D animation can more closely approximate not the challenge of commanding an army -- seriously, leave that realism silliness to those unshowered wargamers -- but the spectacle. And it turns out that's really all H.G. Wells wanted. Note this bit where it's clear that he's patiently waiting for the advent of computers to track it all:

As to our time-keeping, we catch a visitor with a stop-watch if we can, and if we cannot, we use a fair-sized clock with a second-hand: the player not moving says "Go," and warns at the last two minutes, last minute, and last thirty seconds. But I think it would not be difficult to procure a cheap clock -- because, of course, no one wants a very accurate agreement with Greenwich as to the length of a second -- that would have minutes instead of hours and seconds instead of minutes, and that would ping at the end of every minute and discharge an alarm note at the end of the move. That would abolish the rather boring strain of time-keeping. One could just watch the fighting.

And here's where we see what Wells, history's first real-time strategy gamer, is really after. He just wants to watch the fighting. He only had toy soldiers and model houses. But today's fancy computers and graphics let us enjoy the spectacle without even having to press into service a visitor with a stopwatch. So let us play the game and enjoy the spectacle without trying to confound us with the pace. Strategy games of all kinds have learned, for the most part, how to get the interface out of the way. Now it's time for strategy games that play in continuous time to do that with the pace as well.

The results of Tom Chick's Sims 3 RTS Challenge

The winner of last month's Sims 3 RTS challenge was Margaret Patton. Out of about 20 entries, only one of them came within 20,000 points of Miss Patton's score, which was well into the 60,000s. The key to her success was exploiting children! As she confessed:

I knew I wanted to marry money and I lucked out with Agnes [Crumplebottom]: She's loaded! When they got hitched, she even had her roadster in her inventory. I probably ended up with 40-50K Simoleans or more. I don't even think I bothered with making Mr. Boomturtle get a job.

I knew from my other games that wishes surrounding children are high-scoring and easy to satisfy, so I got Agnes knocked up. Mr. Boomturtle kept having wishes that were worth 2.5-5K to "Have a baby with Agnes" or "Have a baby girl." He would also have less-valuable but easy-to-fulfill ones surrounding the pregnancy, like "Buy a highchair" or "Talk to Agnes' belly."

For the next pregnancy, I made Agnes extra-fertile in the hopes of filling "Have a girl" and "Have a boy" in the same pregnancy -- it didn't work though, because she had identical twins in the end. Still, I made about 4K in the very last day just by teaching one of the toddlers a bunch of skills.

It was a bit chaotic with all those kids, but hiring babysitters helped out quite a bit.

I think childrearing kinda breaks The Sims as an RTS game, not to mention encourages all sorts of morally dubious Sim behavior, but it sure was fun!

For her troubles, Miss Patton won 1,000 Sim Points and a copy of Sacred 2: Fallen Angel for the PC, which you have to play without exploiting virtual children for gain. Congratulations, Margaret!