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General discussion (archive)Does RTS really have to mean "Realtime"?(26 posts)(26 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted January 30, 2012
Because when I hear "Realtime", I think of a game that easily overtakes a player that doesn't move quickly enough. Perhaps I just played too much Overlord (Europeans will know it as Supremacy) way back when. That game was brutal. It was Bruty brutal. You had to terraform new planets before you could do anything with them, and that includes mining (no zero-atmosphere, robotic mining for you!). There were no real diplomacy options to speak of, as the game had to be won via the elimination of three other Overlords. Eventually one of the CPU players would wipe out another and gain its resources, giving it a significant boost, and the upper hand over me. I didn't win often, if ever. I think I ever saw the "win" screen.

Anyway, I want a turn-based 4X game. Something that develops progress with counts of the "End Turn" button instead of minutes of the clock (i.e. "This Research Project will take five turns" v. "This Research Project will take one half-hour, real world time"). More like a board game and less like "Ohshitimbeingattackwaaaayoverherehowdidthathappen?!".

I'm fairly certain this topic has been covered before, but GOG's search engine sucks, and Wikipedia doesn't do a very good job of separating the "Strategy" sub-genres. The different categories are there, but they all kinda say the same thing.
Posted January 30, 2012
It sounds to me like you want "Civ", "Civ", and more "Civ", :P .

And yes "Real-Time" must mean real-time in an RTS, though apparently the "Strategy" part is up for debate.

Sorry if I sound too glib, but the OT puzzles me.
Posted January 30, 2012
Master of Orion 1+2 $5.99
Turn Based Space 4x, should occupy you for a long long time.
Posted January 30, 2012
What you're describing is "TBS," or turn-based strategy. Which could mean anything from Civ or MoO to early Final Fantasy or Disgaea. Generally I'm about evenly split between TBS and RTS... provided you can issue orders while paused in an RTS. Or at least approximately.

In Homeworld, for instance, you can't actually issue orders while the game is paused, but you CAN move the camera around and so on, so you can still "fake" it by orienting everything perfectly while the game's paused, unpause, issue orders, repause. Other things like Dawn of War allow you to do basically everything while the game's paused, which makes life easier.

One of the major issues with many RTS games is that you're essentially trying to micromanage an entire army by yourself... when in an actual situation or simulation you'd have underlings doing a lot of the work. In better games, this is represented by the ability to have standing orders and the like, and competent AI for your units. In other games, though, your doods will stand there stoically while being stabbed or shot by an enemy, which is bad.
Posted January 30, 2012
What you describe is another sub-genre of strategy games. TBS, which stands for turn based strategy (which in turn has another sub-genre, TBT, which stands of turn based tactics). There are plenty of TBSs out there that might tickle your fancy, from the grand scale and massively complex (like Pride of Nations or Aurora), to the ones that are easier to manage and works for quick games (like Age of Wonders or Warlords).

And there is actually a 3rd type of strategy game: Tick based strategy. In these games you "tick" away at discrete turns, turns which auto-generate until you tell them to no longer do that, which can be sped up or slowed down at your leisure. While you could argue that all RTSs are in fact tick based, based on how computers calculate things, when you talk about tick based strategy, you often talk about games like Europa Universalis or Jeff Wayne's War of the worlds.
Posted January 30, 2012
I know that "TBS" means "Turn-based Strategy". What I meant was that sometimes advertisers apply RTS to games that aren't truly "realtime". Like Genesis Rising (at least, from what I remember about it, I don't think it was realtime). Or how like Blood Bowl can, technically, be played in realtime, but it's not supposed to be.

I really like sci-fi settings, even better if I can switch between open space and a planet's surface. I liked Dawn of War's minimal use of resources to manage, both while researching and while building units (and the ability to buy "wargear" upgrades for new and established units). I like being able to conquer established cities (or space stations, or whatever), rather than having to destroy it first before building my own in it's place. (Conversely, I would like the option to set a "self-destruct" device on an imminently conquered resource).

I would prefer a "sandbox" style game generator, as opposed to scenario or mission-based play (i.e. "Select Galaxy/Planet Biome types [Spiral Arm/Diverse] ; Select Starting Perks [+2 Population per turn/+10% faster mining]"). I thought M.A.X. or Alpha Centauri might be for me, but they looked too campaign-y.

Master of Magic, or Populous, but with lasers (or least an atom bomb or three). I actually kinda wish GOG would step on it and acquire Afterlife already. Nothing like having your day ruined by a quartet of supernatural beach bums.
Post edited January 30, 2012 by predcon
Posted January 30, 2012
Genesis Rising was real time, and blood bowl might have given you the option to play in real time, but in reality you did never play in real time, because it was pointless and did not work well ;)

And I have to say that I am a bit confused about what you are actually looking for. DoW was always about the real time parts, with the turnbased region selection part amounting to little more than a glorified map selection screen.

Alpha Centauri is like Civ, but on a distant planet, and with sci-fi tech. If you enjoyed Civ, you will love Alpha Centauri.

Most 4X games allows for a large amount of customization of both who/what you play and the map that you will play on. Look at games like Stars!, Emperor of the fading suns (this game allows you to zoom in on the individual planets and move your units there, and a galaxy view where you move your spaceships), Sword of the stars, Galactic civilization, Master of Orion, Civilization, Space Empires and so on.
Posted January 30, 2012
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predcon: I know that "TBS" means "Turn-based Strategy". What I meant was that sometimes advertisers apply RTS to games that aren't truly "realtime". Like Genesis Rising (at least, from what I remember about it, I don't think it was realtime). Or how like Blood Bowl can, technically, be played in realtime, but it's not supposed to be.

I really like sci-fi settings, even better if I can switch between open space and a planet's surface. I liked Dawn of War's minimal use of resources to manage, both while researching and while building units (and the ability to buy "wargear" upgrades for new and established units). I like being able to conquer established cities (or space stations, or whatever), rather than having to destroy it first before building my own in it's place. (Conversely, I would like the option to set a "self-destruct" device on an imminently conquered resource).

I would prefer a "sandbox" style game generator, as opposed to scenario or mission-based play (i.e. "Select Galaxy/Planet Biome types [Spiral Arm/Diverse] ; Select Starting Perks [+2 Population per turn/+10% faster mining]"). I thought M.A.X. or Alpha Centauri might be for me, but they looked too campaign-y.

Master of Magic, or Populous, but with lasers (or least an atom bomb or three). I actually kinda wish GOG would step on it and acquire Afterlife already. Nothing like having your day ruined by a quartet of supernatural beach bums.
As AFnord suggested, maybe check out Galactic Civilization (I and II - though I've only played II). It is space based TBS basically. I really like the game though for the different factions (which I believe the newer - still a couple years old at this point - expansion packs made even more unique). It is very much sandbox, in my opinion. There is a campaign if you want to play it but it isn't required (I never got very far in it).

You can't switch to a real planet surface, but you can control production on each planet and detail what you're going to do for invasions, which is cool.
Posted January 30, 2012
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predcon: I know that "TBS" means "Turn-based Strategy". What I meant was that sometimes advertisers apply RTS to games that aren't truly "realtime". Like Genesis Rising (at least, from what I remember about it, I don't think it was realtime). Or how like Blood Bowl can, technically, be played in realtime, but it's not supposed to be.

I really like sci-fi settings, even better if I can switch between open space and a planet's surface. I liked Dawn of War's minimal use of resources to manage, both while researching and while building units (and the ability to buy "wargear" upgrades for new and established units). I like being able to conquer established cities (or space stations, or whatever), rather than having to destroy it first before building my own in it's place. (Conversely, I would like the option to set a "self-destruct" device on an imminently conquered resource).

I would prefer a "sandbox" style game generator, as opposed to scenario or mission-based play (i.e. "Select Galaxy/Planet Biome types [Spiral Arm/Diverse] ; Select Starting Perks [+2 Population per turn/+10% faster mining]"). I thought M.A.X. or Alpha Centauri might be for me, but they looked too campaign-y.

Master of Magic, or Populous, but with lasers (or least an atom bomb or three). I actually kinda wish GOG would step on it and acquire Afterlife already. Nothing like having your day ruined by a quartet of supernatural beach bums.
Based on this description I think you might enjoy Star Wars: Empire at War. It's not exactly turn-based, but it fits the description in this post on several points like minimal resource use, capturing planets instead of destroying them, ability to switch between open space and planet surface, and it also has sandbox game modes.

The building phase and combat phase is also mostly separate, although you have minimal build options during combat (such as turrets, or units if your planet has a barracks).
Posted January 30, 2012
Dunno, if anybody knows this game, but "Stars!" is a sci-fi epic massive scale TBS. Gog unfortunately doesn't have it and there isn't much info about it on the internet :(.
First you must create yourself a galactic race, where you choose your planet habitability, technological speciality, resource management etc etc. And then you start the game on one planet in the universe.
Oh, and you can design your own ships by equipping them with researched weapons/armor/utilities.
Posted January 30, 2012
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Shadyhacker: Dunno, if anybody knows this game, but "Stars!" is a sci-fi epic massive scale TBS. Gog unfortunately doesn't have it and there isn't much info about it on the internet :(.
First you must create yourself a galactic race, where you choose your planet habitability, technological speciality, resource management etc etc. And then you start the game on one planet in the universe.
Oh, and you can design your own ships by equipping them with researched weapons/armor/utilities.
Sounds very similar to Galactic Civilizations 2.
Posted January 30, 2012
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thebum06: Based on this description I think you might enjoy Star Wars: Empire at War. It's not exactly turn-based, but it fits the description in this post on several points like minimal resource use, capturing planets instead of destroying them, ability to switch between open space and planet surface, and it also has sandbox game modes.

The building phase and combat phase is also mostly separate, although you have minimal build options during combat (such as turrets, or units if your planet has a barracks).
Oh! Is that the one with the wicked electrobass version of the Imperial March? I vaguely remember the demo.

To un-confuse everyone as to what it is "exactly" (if I absolutely have to be picky, though I'm more of an impulse purchaser) I'm looking for, like I said, Master of Magic's gameplay with Master of Orion's subject content. I'm open to freeware indie stuff, too.

For the moment, I went ahead and bought MoO 1+2, Alpha Centauri, and Total Annihilation because it was in the "You might like" box. And I might. At least it'll all help to break up the monotony while whittling away some of the longer, 60+ hour games on my 200+ item queue (I have a Backloggery, if you don't believe me). Scanning for minerals in ME2 was fun for a while, but after the first twenty planets, it kinda got old, and now I'm starting to get sick of the rest of the game, but I have to finish it. I paid for it, after all.


Also, does anyone remember "Spaceward Ho!"? An old grade-school buddy (and later college buddy) used to play it on his parents' Mac.
Post edited January 30, 2012 by predcon
Posted January 30, 2012
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predcon: To un-confuse everyone as to what it is "exactly" (if I absolutely have to be picky, though I'm more of an impulse purchaser) I'm looking for, like I said, Master of Magic's gameplay with Master of Orion's subject content.
In which way _isn't_ "Master of Orion 2" exactly that already?

Edit: And I do remember "Spaceward Ho!", though I only played it for half an hour ... seemed a bit too simplistic for my taste, though I know people who like it just because of that.
Post edited January 30, 2012 by Psyringe
Posted January 30, 2012
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Shadyhacker: Dunno, if anybody knows this game, but "Stars!" is a sci-fi epic massive scale TBS. Gog unfortunately doesn't have it and there isn't much info about it on the internet :(.
First you must create yourself a galactic race, where you choose your planet habitability, technological speciality, resource management etc etc. And then you start the game on one planet in the universe.
Oh, and you can design your own ships by equipping them with researched weapons/armor/utilities.
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Nroug7: Sounds very similar to Galactic Civilizations 2.
Just checked out GC and it does seem awfully similar to stars! except the graphics. Wonder if GC got inspired by stars! :P
Posted January 30, 2012
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predcon: To un-confuse everyone as to what it is "exactly" (if I absolutely have to be picky, though I'm more of an impulse purchaser) I'm looking for, like I said, Master of Magic's gameplay with Master of Orion's subject content. I'm open to freeware indie stuff, too.
Interesting... I never played Master of Magic, but everyone always said that it was pretty much just Master of Orion, but with a fantasy setting. Are you saying its not? I always avoided it because I prefer sci-fi, but if it is significantly different then it still might be worth looking into.
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General discussion (archive)Does RTS really have to mean "Realtime"?(26 posts)(26 posts)
(26 posts)