本文原作者： Brandon Casteel 本文译者：ciel chen

在我个人对即时战略游戏(Real-Time Stratagy Game)的组成成分的定义中，其中一个关键要求就是里面要有一些经济成分。具体地说，就是RTS需要玩家学会并运用一些价值储蓄手段来拓展他们改变游戏格局的能力（可以通过生产单位、开展调查、激活能力等等来达到游戏中对目标的追求）。

在大部分RTS（我在这篇文中将称之为“传统RTS”）中所采用的系统都是根据《沙丘2》（Dune 2）所引进流传的系统进行变体或者延展开来的：玩家通过获得的资源来构建生产单位和附加建筑等、进行单位生产、增加功能（比如开启迷你小地图功能）以及开通调查选择。这些构建有的是能在游戏的经济体系中发挥作用的：他们能作为一个或多个游戏资源的存放点，能自己生产资源，并且/或者生产能自己收货资源的单位。

在以前的文章中，我倡导了这些系统的功效性。这些系统存在很多可能性，并且我坚定地认为：作为有竞争力的策略游戏，当玩家在游戏中对游戏经济互动的把控能力受到限制时，他们会为此而感到内疚。简单地说，有竞争力的策略游戏在提供多种途径时，他们以服务玩家为第一要义，他们会让玩家能够通过施展掌控能力而取得成功，这些玩家可掌控的方面有：经济状况、基础设施、战斗策略、调查、侦查等等。我个人倾向这种想法：玩家如果能在某个方面抓住不放就是一种胜利。

我坚定地认为：RTS的“传统”模式设计包含了一些自带的或者内嵌的特点，这些特点给玩家提供了难以置信的自主权，但是最终很有可能导致游戏走向滑坡或者形成“雪球”曲线，降低了游戏质量。在这篇文章中，我将致力于讨论我认为的游戏中即时战略基地和经济管理中常见主题的长短板。以及我将尝试把各种游戏里能最大程度给予玩家最大权利和沉浸感的方面给讲出来。希望我能够把为什么我认为这些东西重要的原因解释给你们。感谢你们愿意阅读，接下来我们开始吧。

你的所有基础建设

经济运行是从军队管理独立出来但又有所联系的：经济的建立、保护、管理在经典的RTS游戏中提供了一系列独特的游戏目标、运营方式、挑战方式、决策点和各种技巧玩法，这些从执行方面和心态方面上来说是不同于军队管理的。

那么我说的这些是什么意思呢？ 当玩家在强大其经济来扩建军队时，玩家是在做着一系列走向不同道路的决定，每个决定都会影响下一个将要面对的决定的可行性和有效性。生产，调查，经济扩张，军队扩张和收集的信息都是玩家动用了时间，精力和游戏资源而得来的（比如Gold或者Vespene Gas）。

每个方方面面的玩法都要有短期和长期的决策，这影响了游戏的整体进展。短期决策大多是些权衡：我是要添加一个额外的工人来增加收入，还是要添加一个士兵来更好地守卫我的财产？我应该什么时候（在哪）利用我的收入建这个生产房以呢？战术决策在早期游戏中就是一种权衡；移走你少数的早期游戏单位建筑之一对于兵力投送是有些冒险的，这有可能会让玩家更容易受到反击。

就是这样的各种决策有充分的理由让RTS骨灰级玩家享受其中。很少有其他种类的游戏能给玩家提供如此丰富的机会让他们通过大量混合的不同方式来取得成功。最好的RTS会给玩家策略和经济自主权驱使他们走向高效和卓越的游戏体验——从多个方面战胜他们的对手。

大部分战略游戏的经济都是通过持续生产（我指大部分战略游戏）成直线增长的，这迎合了滚雪球的理念。就是说（部分由于经济的增长曲）——我还会探究一些其他原因——优势会堆砌变大，而障碍也会有类似堆砌化的影响。获得个体的参与或互动才有可能让游戏在未来赢得更多人的参与，这也增加了获得全面胜利的机会。有时，我甚至会说，到目前为止这样的趋势非常明显。

请注意我有意用到的词语“趋势”和“机会”——就是说这并不是板上钉钉子的事。但是对大体上的RTS游戏来讲，在一名玩家的一次游戏接触中，他取得的仅一次决定性的胜利就能掀翻游戏平衡倾向对玩家有利的一侧，这种局势的发展会让人感觉到无论如何都无法逆转了。这些游戏就是以这样一种方式设计的：它们平衡杆的一端的实际是一些非常薄弱不稳定容易被破坏的东西。然后情况往往是：打乱了玩家计划的一个方面（杀死一只队伍，破坏了一次扩张等等）就等同于取得游戏中大好的局面。

然而，还有些例子是游戏会让玩家趋于随着时间的推移来回处于平衡的状态，就像玩跷跷板一样来来回回跌宕起伏。这些游戏倾向使玩家之间的处在整体平衡的状态，这要求玩家用非凡和不断的努力来打破平衡，这样的玩家为了取得胜利，其努力的各个方向要足够独立，这样当他/她在某个方面处于不利境地时，才能通过其他方向的掌控重振旗鼓。

这是我对于这类游戏设计的观点，我喜欢称之为“自我平衡设计”，这种游戏从整体上来讲对玩家更友好，这潜在地推动了更多人参与到多玩家的激烈竞争中。

自我平衡设计

用我的话来说，自我平衡设计在策略游戏中意味着获取对手无法超越的优势的难度。有一个该原理最直接的例子就是《星际争霸2》（StarCraft 2）中虫族（Zerg）与虫族之间的对抗——因为虫族的生产本质（牺牲自己完成建筑孵化）以及他们经济规模形式， 若一个玩家在对弈前期损失即使是少量的工蜂（Drones），这时想要把局势扳回来基本上没戏了。《星际2》中虫族的镜面对战在游戏前期有一种刀刃上的平衡，所以玩家常常在一两方面上处于不利境地时就不玩了。尽管紧张刺激，但这样的游戏是非常无情的。在游戏里，我的理论是：如果玩家弄明白输的原因以及知道要如何改进，那么这样的失败更容易被接受。而那种让玩家觉得避免不了的，超出他们可控范围的失败才更让玩家更难以接受。

在很多即时战略游戏中，玩家略微的优势很容易就变成“滚雪球”，好像这局游戏在开始的前几分钟就已经成了定局似的。不仅如此，这前几分钟的游戏常常是受到严格的条件限制的，因为玩家们把他们有限的操作时间大部分花在建造一栋基础设施上，然而最后却有可能啥也没得到。所以“自我平衡”在这里指任何玩家个人的互动都有可能完全地转变游戏局势。

平衡之道

自我平衡设计在RTS中是什么样的呢？ 让我用Relic旗下《命令与征服》（Command and Conquer）系列游戏以及《首席指挥官》（Supreme Commander）来举个简单的例子。在《英雄连2》（Company of Heroes 2）中，玩家游戏目标分成两类：一是获取地图上的领土，二是毁灭敌人的军队。获取领土是一个从多层次取得成就的系统：将敌人的一个领地转为自己的，占有他们的资源，在获取领土的同时你还能增强自己的能力来生产单位建筑，使用特殊能力等等。此外，COH2中控制点性质是这样的：猛攻一个脆弱的突破点可以掠夺敌方几乎所有资源，这将让对方在很长一段时间内缓不过来。

COH2中的军队对于他们所要占领的资源点的规模和数量来讲是相对小的，也就是说当一名玩家在数值上落后时仍旧能够（至少理论上来讲）继续争夺领地并且不让对手打破势均力敌的局势的。这个游戏里单位建筑的高度专业化同样也强化了这种心态：很多单位建筑能够在数量不多的情况下，依旧发挥他们的效力。这让在处数值劣势的玩家仍旧能继续游戏。对了还有其他能够阻止冲突提供优势的东西：地雷、带刺铁丝围栏、烟雾、重武器等等。

第二点，这也是我认为游戏模型中最重要的一个因素。游戏的两个主要目标：摧毁敌人的军队和占领领地是独立开来的。跟敌人对抗，在领地方面取得进展，这跟在《星际争霸2》中摧毁一个敌人的扩张领地或者杀死敌军的工人可不一样，并不能意味着你的胜利机会就可以滚雪球了。同样地，赶走敌军（这在英雄连2中是很常见的场面）也并不意味着就能有数值上或者长期上的优势了，主要是能给成功赶走敌军的玩家有些喘气的空间，好让他能占领更多的领土或者努力保护已经在控制中的领土。

最后一点，我很确定这是我要重复之前说的事情：英雄连2中很多东西都不是沉没成本。在战场上的单个装备，支援装备，甚至坦克都在某种程度上体现了其持久的功效性。这点让玩家们在游戏对弈中不断改变游戏的局势，而且对于那些落后缺乏资源成本的玩家还是能够继续战斗并取得胜利。以上说的两种方法都能打破这个刀刃上的平衡，但是这个游戏系统让游戏过程变得变幻莫测充满乐趣。

《英雄连2》本身就有一些很强的“滚雪球”特征，尤其是在团队战役中——当一名玩家或一个团队面对多次或过度的物资损失时，协同的单位和坦克小队可以变得相当的无懈可击（这也是德国团队常比联盟团队表现得好的原因——他们的坦克比较重，这样他们就比较不怕坦克被损毁，较低的替换率会随着时间增加，他们的最后的军队只会更难被消灭。）

自我平衡设计是件好事吗？

那么这个自我平衡的设计确实是件好事吗？ 一般情况下，游戏结束后会“返回到开始界面”，未必会奖励赢得胜利的人让他赢更多，这样是好的吗？典型地来讲，电脑战略游戏设计心理学似乎表明这些游戏的制作者期望玩家游戏结束后“回到解放前”——甚至对此是鼓励的。从某种程度上来讲我是同意这个想法的。这种类型的游戏设计初衷在于体现玩家从过去的经验里得到的的技巧，注意力的集中和精神表现，而任何抑制了玩家游戏技术的设计都会糟蹋游戏的整体吸引力。

我认为这个问题的回答取决于你对好的和成功的游戏的定义是什么。我推测的方法和方向是基于RTS类型游戏的边缘化。该类型游戏的一些东西（对我来说）未能够获得广泛群众的青睐。而且近期对于RTS经济模块的自动化趋势，在我看来，这种简易的流水线模式整体上并不利于策略游戏的流行普及。现成的例子有《侵略行为》（Act of Aggression）和《灰蛊》（Greygoo），他们在经济模式方面都采用了自动化，这使得通过经济运营来获得胜利的机会变得很渺茫。

所以，我正在尝试做的是识别游戏设计趋势，我觉得现在的设计趋势正在让玩家脱离了RTS多人游戏，并且在此我想以一种积极理性的方式来阐述一下这些设计趋势。以下是我观点的引述：

“滚雪球”的现象会让玩家感到无力和挫败感

基础设施不应该同游戏目标挂钩

基础设施（一般常用的）增加了无趣的选择

沉没成本增加了“滚雪球”现象

从别的竞技类游戏得到的经验教训在RTS中都可以实现

游戏前期是游戏竞技中最令人沮丧的一段时间，游戏中期和后期是玩家最喜欢的时期，因为他们有了最大程度的行动自由和选择自由

沉没成本

在我看来，传统RTS设计的核心问题之一就是沉没成本。沉没成本就是指那些没有办法收回的成本支出。通常在RTS游戏中，每个支出都是固定的。如果要建造一个兵营，那用来建兵营的资源就被扣住了，没法用来做其他用途了。如果损失了这个兵营就更糟糕了：现在这些资源都报废了。从客观的角度，具体地说来，丢了兵营的情况真的会变得比没丢时候糟糕很多。

这点跟《命令与征服》，或者《首席指挥官》，或者《英雄连》比起来——资源在这些游戏里……它们都是可以被重复使用的，前提是只要你有时间和精力去这么做。而且，这些RTS游戏的资源都是可以以有意义的方式转手的。在《首席指挥官》中，失去一个兵火基地意味着你的敌人可以接手从而对你造成损失，但同时你可以把地图上一些遗留的老战地的基地再给挖出来。这样的成本回收本身成为了一种战术和战略上的考虑，为游戏的资源系统加上了一层趣味与技巧。

沉没成本会搞垮玩家。相同情况下，在《星际争霸》或者《帝国时代》里损失一个基地，或者基础建设的一部分，远比在之前那些游戏里肯定要糟糕得多，因为根本没有机会挽回这些损失。你有能力给对手造成损失，或者独立地增加收入来弥补短板，但是最好你要能利用对手的一些资源、收入以及基础建设。理想的经济反攻（公平交易）事实上并不存在。

对我来说，这个难题的其中一角是资源的永久化想法。在大部分RTS游戏中，单位和建筑都是沉没成本，并且都是非永久的。玩家投资中唯一无法丢的就是他们指挥的调查。即使其影响和实用性随军队组成，单位实用性和所拥有的建筑而不同，但调查往往是玩家在兵工厂中具有永久性的投资。

从资源永久性方面来说，《首席指挥官》和其他的歼灭类游戏有一个非常有趣的地方——他们所建成的一切建筑在摧毁时会返成资源。是的，一切建筑，甚至包括试点单位。这些资源可以被收获，但不是通过游戏中基于建筑结构的方法，而是通过工程师。这些资源被用来平衡玩家的战斗资源：回收敌方的试点单位碎片来资助自己多建一个单位试点。不仅如此，《首席指挥官》和它的姐妹款游戏允许玩家在游戏中偷取东西，呵呵，偷啥都行：工厂、单位等等一切能转化成资源的（能被卖的）或者能让工程师获得的。这在一个已经有很多事要做的游戏里是一个相当繁琐的细节，但是它从一些小的方面为玩家提供了无尽的机会，这些机会将起着关键性的作用。

顺便说下，歼灭类游戏之所以能这么受人欢迎叫人难忘还是有原因的。记住它能这样受欢迎不仅仅是因为它的规模宏大，还有其他的原因，这是件好事。

积累建设阶段

另外一个在STR游戏设计方面中常见的是惊人的上升过程，从刚开始单个单位或单个建筑发展成壮大的军队，这个传统STR游戏的积累建设阶段为获得成功提供很多的方向，但是同样也会促成很多玩家之间大幅度不平衡的局面，还会造成战力急剧下滑的可能。

某种程度上来讲，我不认为这跟游戏的经济增长曲线有直接关系。个人觉得，《首席指挥官》的游戏系统在游戏进行到中期时段，把自己带入了一个总体的自我平衡状态中：兴趣点(POI)的数量、生产设备的数量、调整成本效率的主要方式以及次要方式所形成的一个相对平衡的态势，这个状态需要玩家找到一个能够起决定性作用的好办法来打破。
全线策略游戏最“滑”（不稳定）的部分就是——有趣的玩法选择普及开来了，但是平衡给挂在了刀刃的边缘，自我平衡设计分崩离析——这常常在玩的前几分钟就感受到了。游戏前期的短板在后期会有“滚雪球”的效应。这尤其在《星际争霸》中最明显。虫族与虫族之间的战役验证着这个严酷的真相（就像我上文所述的那样）。

《星际争霸》设计者意识到：当玩家之间可能大幅度失衡的时候、以及玩家玩得失去乐趣有拿键盘砸显示器的冲动的时候，在这些时候设计者是无法让他们的游戏社区保持在一个休闲的、有竞技性的水平的（或者对于旁观的人来讲是这样的）。
所以在《星际争霸2：虚空之迹》（Legacy of the Void）中，设计师们极力削减了积累建设阶段比重，让玩家在游戏起步阶段不再那么脆弱。这才得以开启了多种多样的有趣战略，增加了观众喜爱的游戏局势的跌宕起伏，并且在游戏中更早地开启了更多的地图。LOTV让玩家不得不及早并且经常性地进行扩建，增加POI数量，增加玩家的弱点以便双方反击，不过减少了这样反击的总体影响。然而LOTV做出的改变提高了游戏在玩家手动方面的要求，这已经吓到了平均水平的玩家，设计师们至少得在我接下来说的方面做出些弥补措施。

LOTV做出的改变让我看到2个重要的地方：首先，游戏有了更多POI后，其本质上会变得比那些POI比较少的游戏对玩家会来的更“有爱”。这点我们在《家园:卡拉克沙漠》(Homeworld:Deserts of Kharak)中也能看到，较多的POI有利于军队的选择，限制游戏整体的动态性。在没有侦查的情况下，你也对你的敌人的动向和需求了然于心。

接着一些基本问题：在地理方面受限制的经济运作是有固有几率产生扩张性的战略操作的。积累建设阶段引进的大量不稳定资源都有可能损失，这会让失衡的机会增加，最后变成无聊的互动。

把所有问题整理一下，重点就来了。当你让玩家建造一个基地时，你要给他们一个大却脆弱的基础设施让他们来守卫。这样的基础设施在大部分情况下都是沉没成本。丢失了基础建筑中的重要部分会导致战力的急剧下滑。该基础建设的位置需要在一个可预测并且受地理因素限制的，它可以通向地图中少数比较重要的地方。这一切构成了一个公式，尽管为玩家提供了很多东西，但却让玩家感到士气低落和一种无力感。

战术游戏往往会跌倒这里

借句丘吉尔的话改造一下来说，传统RTS设计是最差劲的系统……除了其他所有被试验过的系统除外。这样说有点不准确，但还是挺有力度的不是吗？问题就在这：在设计策略型RTS，或者说旨在减少经济权重的RTS时，在游戏中取得胜利所通过的多种指标，其数量及影响会减少。

如果创造一个游戏，拿“传统RTS”当起点或者对照，它钝化了基础建设和经济（资源搜集）运营的影响和固有涵义，游戏就会少了两个方向来赢得胜利。如果游戏系统有例如土地奖励、装甲薄弱处、击空概率等等的设计，这将只增加了单位选择和定位的比重，让游戏的一个指标变得更重要，迫使玩家得顺着这个指标掌握很边缘和微妙的技巧来赢得胜利。

这是策略游戏往往不如传统RTS游戏流行的原因，也是现在很多试图简化经济权重的游戏难出头的原因——它们删减了玩家中间商和小任务进程，让玩家减少了能赢得胜利的途径，并且把能赢的某一个方面强调得特别重。

很多策略游戏还利用了控制点系统。控制点和领地有很多重要的特点：它们让玩家的注意力集中在除了纯粹的战斗效率以外的一些东西。它们要求玩家要有前瞻性，在整个地图里不断转移自己的单位；它们要求玩家在体验层面不同的情况下分散战力来为多个目标努力。

策略游戏摔倒的地方在于玩家要执行各种不同的操作或者顺着不同指标来努力赢取胜利。这也是为什么基础建设和传统风格的RTS游戏依旧是所有类型RTS游戏中最流行和成功的。

有没有解决方法？

这篇文章核心的假设是：玩家只有在感受到自己是在一种公平、平衡以及合理的游戏环境下才能最大化地投入到游戏中。有竞争力的游戏应该坚持的创造出这么一个环境——它让玩家觉得他们是在进行着平等的互动，觉得他们的游戏技巧是赢得胜利的首要决定性因素。

让我们重新看看这个问题：

在传统RTS游戏的早期游戏舞台上，玩家们被迫要在尽可能短的时间内执行大量的操作。在不压榨玩家的情况下，设计者扩大游戏规模、限制因个人投资（单位和建筑）损毁而造成的损失，这是是对渐进式改进力度做出的妥协。一般RTS游戏的上手曲线令大部分玩家感到痛苦。游戏提升过程较慢的有《英雄连》和《战争黎明》系列游戏；较快的有类似《虚空之季》，不论较快还是较慢，比起增加玩家中间商及减少大部分RTS游戏前期各种各样的失衡和遭心的互动更好的解决方案，它们都是更好的解决方法。

笔者不是在控诉把策略元素在RTS游戏中作为“冲击”的存在。笔者是在控诉那些把几乎不可能及时做到的侦查和对抗，以及所设计的基本游戏机制导致玩家间不平衡的互动优势作为游戏“冲击”的特殊形式，笔者是在尝试着把那些能让玩家在激烈游戏中体验到自然、公平、浸入式玩法的系统给找出来。

玩家投资常常扎堆在基地上，因为对大量投资的共同保护是最有效的途径。这常常限制了地图上的POI的数量而导致其价值升高（同时玩家损失时的痛苦也增加了）。限量的POI配上需要扩张和维护的大量所持资产，自然形成玩家了一个处被动和防备的心态。很多玩家能够成功地跨过这个坎（至少是部分吧），但是我仍然认为这是必须越过的坎。掌握地图上大量的POI减少了失去其中某个的痛苦，并且形成了增量系统的优势，这让目标们可以被马上识别并且属于高度合理化。

玩家投资常常都是沉没成本。损失这样的投资，特别是在典型的创收模式下，这意味着玩家现在只有少的可怜的选项来挽回他们的损失，逃不掉变成落后的结果。裁减沉没成本会减少滚雪球现象并创造动态反击的机会，这无论是对当局者还是旁观者都是一个非常有趣的局势发展。

快节奏的（或者浅薄的）建设阶段得以减轻RTS中常见的最令人沮丧的情况。快节奏的建设阶段也对那些猛攻者施加了更多的压力，让他们能更好地操作来赢得胜利。

感谢你们抽出时间来阅读这篇文章。无论如何，在你们思考通过哪些方法能让RTS游戏有更多的发展与成长来留住玩家时，我希望这篇文章能为你们提供一些参考。

本文由游戏邦编译，译者为ciel chen，转载请注明来源，或咨询游戏邦，微信zhengjintiao

The Balance of Power: Progression and Equilibrium in Real-Time Strategy Games

by Brandon Casteel on 03/06/17 11:26:00 am
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The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

This article was originally posted here.

In my personal definition of what constitutes a real-time strategy game, one of the genre’s key requirements is that there be some sort of economic component. Specifically, a real-time strategy game asks players to acquire and expend some sort of store of value in order to expand their ability to modify the game’s state (that is, to build units, perform research, activate abilities, et cetera in pursuit of the game’s objective).

In most RTS (what I will call “traditional RTS” in this article), the resulting system is a variant or extension of the model introduced or popularized by Dune 2: players acquire resources to build structures, which provide access to units or additional structures, produce units, add functionality (e.g. turn on the minimap) or make research options available. Some of these structures may play a role in the game’s economy: serving as a drop-off point for one or more of the game’s resources, generating resources themselves, and/or producing units that harvest resources.

In previous articles, I have advocated for the efficacy of such systems. They have a lot to offer, and it is my firm belief that competitive strategy games suffer when a player’s ability to have nuanced control over a game’s economic interactions is restricted. In short, competitive strategy games best serve their player base when they provide multiple paths down which a player can exercise mastery and drive success: economics, infrastructure, combat tactics, research, scouting, et cetera. I tend to think of this, personally, as vectors or hooks on which a player can hang a victory.

It is my contention that the “traditional” model of RTS design contains some inherent or baked-in features which provide players with incredible autonomy, but ultimately drives a very steep slippery slope or “snowball” curve that can erode the quality of gameplay. In this article I will attempt to address what I see as the strengths and weaknesses of common themes in real-time strategy base and economy management, and attempt to identify aspects of a variety of games I see as ultimately the most empowering and engaging for players. And hopefully, I will be able to explain why I feel this is important.

Thanks for reading. Let’s get started.

All Your Base…

Economic operations are a separate though related system from army management: building, protecting, and managing one’s economy in the classic RTS franchises (Command and Conquer, Age of Empires, and the -Craft games, among others) provides a unique stream of objectives, unique types of operations, and unique types of challenge, decision points, and methods of skillful play that differ from army management in terms of execution and mindset.

What do I mean by that? When building up one’s economy to fund the expansion of their army, the player is making a series of decisions down a variety of paths, each influencing the availability and feasibility of other decisions they will face. Production, research, economic expansion, army expansion, and information gathering are all products of a player’s time, attention, and physical game resources (e.g. Gold or Vespene Gas).

Each of those facets of gameplay requires both short-term and long-term decision making that impacts the overall progression of the game. Short-term decisions are mostly trade-offs: do I build an additional worker to increase my income, or do I build an additional soldier to better defend my holdings? When (and where) should I build this production building to take advantage of my income? Tactical decisions in the early game are likewise trade-offs; moving one of your few early-game units is a risky bit of force projection that could leave the player vulnerable to counterattack.

It’s these sort of decisions that many hardcore players of RTS deeply enjoy, and for good reason. Few other types of game provide players with such a rich patchwork of opportunities to be successful in a large variety of ways. The best RTS give players tactical and economic autonomy to drive efficiency and excellence – to outplay their opponents along multiple vectors.

Most strategy games in which economy is linearly increased via sustained production (meaning, most strategy games) tend to embrace the idea of snowballing. That is, due in part to the growth curve of the economy – I’ll go into some other reasons as well – advantages tend to pile up, and setbacks tend to have a similar pile-on effect. Winning an individual engagement or interaction has a tendency towards making winning future engagements more likely, which increases the overall chance of victory. Sometimes, I’d even go so far as to say quite often, this tendency can be quite pronounced.

Please do note that I intentionally use the words “tendency” and “chance” – this is not always a done deal. But in the vast majority of RTS games, a single decisive victory in a single engagement can start tipping the game’s balance in one player’s favor in ways that can feel irrevocable. These games are designed in such a way that balances them along some very thin seams that are subject to disruption. And often, disrupting one facet of a player’s plan (killing an army, destroying an expansion, et cetera) simultaneously confers benefits across a wide swath of the game state.

There are, however, several examples of games that have a trend over time of allowing players to seesaw back and forth across the line of balance. These games trend towards an overall equilibrium between players that requires non-trivial and repeated effort to imbalance, and whose vectors for victory are independent enough to allow a player on the back foot in one regard regain standing via manipulation of other game facets.

It’s my contention that this sort of design, what I like to call ‘homeostatic design’ is overall friendlier to players, resulting in the potential to drive more engagement in competitive multiplayer.

Homeostatic Design

In my personal parlance, homeostatic design in strategy games refers to how difficult it is to achieve an advantage that an opponent cannot overcome. One of the most straightforward examples of this principle are the dynamics of Zerg vs Zerg in StarCraft 2 – due to the nature of Zerg production and the way their economies scale, it is virtually impossible for a player to recover from losing even a handful of Drones in the early stages of such a match. Zerg mirrors in StarCraft 2 have knife’s-edge balancing in the early game, which often leads to a player quitting after only one or two disadvantageous engagements. While exciting and tense, such gameplay is incredibly unforgiving. In play, it is a theory of mine that losses are easier to swallow if a player feels like they understand why they lost, and if they feel like they understand how they have a path forward to improving. What’s harder to swallow are losses that felt inevitable, decided by factors beyond the player’s control.

In many real-time strategy games, it is very easy for slight advantages to snowball as matches are decided in the early minutes of play. Moreover, those early minutes of play are often intensely regimented, as players spend the bulk of their limited playing time building an infrastructure that might not amount to anything. So, ‘homeostasis’ in this context refers to the tendency of any individual interaction to irrevocably alter the course of a game.

The Balancing Act

What does homeostatic design look like in a real-time strategy game? Easy examples come from Relic’s games, as well as the Command and Conquer series and Supreme Commander. In Company of Heroes 2, player objectives fall into two general categories: capture map territory, and destroy the enemy’s army. Capturing map territory is a system with multiple levels of success: converting a point held by an enemy deprives them of its income, while capturing it yourself adds to your ability to produce units, use special abilities, et cetera. Additionally, the nature of control points in  COH2 means that hitting a vulnerable choke point could deprive the enemy of virtually all of their income for a period of time.

Armies in COH2 are relatively small for the size and number of POI they have to cover, meaning that a player who is numerically behind is still able, at least in theory, to continue to contest the map and keep their enemy off balance. The highly specialized nature of units in this game likewise reinforces this sort mentality: many units are able to be effective without requiring overpowering numbers to be produced. This allows players with numerical disadvantages to continue to be effective. Other things can help break up fights and provide situational advantages, as well: mines, barbed wire, smoke, suppression weapons, and more.

Secondly, and I think this is one of the most important factors in the game’s model. The game’s two main objectives: destroying enemy forces, and taking territory, are partially independent. Gaining ground against your enemy in terms of territory doesn’t automatically snowball your chances of victory as, say, destroying an enemy expansion or killing off enemy workers does in StarCraft 2. Likewise, driving off an enemy army (the more common scenario in COH2) doesn’t itself provide a numerical or lasting advantage, mostly giving the successful player room to breathe to take more territory or attempt to secure the territory already in their control.

Lastly,  and be assured this is something I’ll come back to: many game objects in COH2 aren’t sunk costs. Unit weapons, support weapons, and even tanks have some degree of permanence on the battlefield. This allows them to change hands repeatedly over the course of a match, and can allow a player on the back foot to instantly and without resource cost acquire the means with which to continue fighting and succeeding. This knife can cut both ways, to be sure, but the system is remarkable for allowing interesting and dynamic gameplay.

Company of Heroes 2 can feature some strong snowballing itself, particularly in team matches – the reinforcing effect of cooperative unit and tank squads can become virtually unassailable when one player or team is faced with recurring or excessive loss of materiel (this is one reason why German teams tend to perform better than Allied teams – their tanks tend to be heavier which means they have an easier time keeping them in tact – a lower replacement rate can add up over time, and their endgame armies are simply harder to kill). But overall, I find it less generally prone to snowballing due to what I’ve listed above.

A Good Thing?

But is this homeostasis, this natural equilibrium, a good thing? Is it good, generally, that games would tend to ‘revert back to center’ and wouldn’t necessarily reward success with more success? Typically, computer strategy game design philosophy seems to indicate that the makers of these games expect a slippery slope – encourage it even. In a way, I appreciate this. In a genre that is designed to be one of the ultimate displays of skill, concentration, and mental performance in history, any action designed to curb the impact of player skill will hamper a game’s overall appeal.

I suppose this is determined by your definition of what makes a good and successful game. My approach and line of reasoning is driven by the sidelining of the RTS genre. Something, it seems to me, in these games is failing to reach a broad audience. Moreover, the recent trend towards the automation of RTS economic processes serves to me as an indication that simply streamlining is not going well for the popularity of strategy games in general. As ready examples, Act of Aggression and Grey Goo both automate aspects of their economic models to the point where it becomes very difficult to drive a win through economic operations.

So, what I’m attempting is to identify design trends that I feel are keeping players out of RTS multiplayer, and attempting to address those design trends in a positive and reasoned way. Here are my premises, in general:

Snowballing makes players feel powerless and frustrated

Infrastructure should be decoupled from objective

Base management/infrastructure (as commonly implemented) encourages uninteresting choices

Sunk costs increase snowballing

RTS can make room for lessons from other competitive genres.

The early game is one of the most frustrating phases of competitive gameplay. Mid- and late-game are players’ favorite phases because they offer the most freedom to act and the largest number of options

Sunk Costs

To me, one of the core issues surrounding traditional RTS design is that of sunk costs. A sunk cost is one that cannot be recovered. Commonly in RTS games, virtually every expenditure is fixed. Build a Barracks, and the resources used to produce it are stuck. They can’t be purposed in another direction. Losing that Barracks is far worse: those resources are just gone now. In objective terms, in a concrete way, the player is objectively worse off than they were when they had that Barracks.

Compare this to Command and Conquer, or Supreme Commander, or Company of Heroes. Resources in these games… They’re free to be reused, provided you have the time and concentration to do so. What’s more, resources in these RTS can actually change hands in meaningful ways. Losing a fire base in Supreme Commanders means that your enemy could harvest it to your detriment, while you could simultaneously be scooping up the remains of an old battle elsewhere on the map. This cost reclaiming becomes in itself a strategic and tactical consideration, adding another layer of interest and skill into the game’s resourcing system.

Sunk costs kill players. Losing a battle, or a part of your infrastructure, in StarCraft or Age of Empires is demonstrably worse than in the games mentioned above because there’s no chance of coming back from such a loss. You’re able to attempt to inflict loss on your opponent, or increase your income independently to account for the setback, but at best you’re able to trade some resource/income/infrastructure penalties on your opponent. The idea of economic counterplay, give and take, doesn’t really exist.

One piece of this puzzle, to me, is the idea of the permanence of resources. In the vast majority of real-time strategy games, units and structures are both sunk costs and impermanent. The only investments a player cannot lose, typically, are the research they perform. Research tends to be a permanent facet of a player’s arsenal, even if its impact and utility vary with army composition, unit availability, and owned structures.

In terms of resource permanence, Supreme Commander and other Annihilation-style games take a very interesting view. Everything that is built turns back into resources when destroyed.

Everything, even Experimental units. These resources can be harvested, not in the game’s structure-based method, but by engineer units. These resources serve as a balance-tipper: salvaging an enemy’s wrecked Experimental can help fund an additional Experimental of your own. Further, SupCom and its sister games allow the player to steal, well, anything they can: factories, units, anything can be converted back into resources (sold) or captured by engineer units. This is a tremendous amount of fiddly detail in a game already full of things to do, but it provides endless opportunities to tip the scale in a player’s favor in small ways.

There’s a reason the -Annihilation games are so popular and memorable, by the way. It’s good to remember there are reasons for this beyond simply their scale.

The Build-Up

Another aspect of common design seen in real-time strategy games is an incredible ramp-up from just a single unit or structure to a massive army of  The Traditional RTS build-up phase provides a large number of vectors for success, but also opens up numerous situations that can result in widely unbalanced interactions between players, and create numerous opportunities for incredibly steep slippery slopes.

I don’t think, in some ways, that this is directly due to the game’s economic growth curve. In my opinion, Supreme Commander’s gameplay systems lend themselves towards general homeostasis going into in the mid-game: the number of points of interest, the number of production facilities, and both major and minor ways to tweak cost efficiency (building adjacency bonuses, reclaiming map objects as resources, converting enemy units, et cetera) lead to a situation where players need to find clever ways of tipping the scale.

The most ‘slippery’ portions of strategy games across the board – where interesting play choices are prevalent, but equilibrium hangs on a knife’s edge and homeostatic design breaks down – are often in the earliest minutes of play. Setbacks in the early game have a snowball effect on the late game. This is eminently obvious in StarCraft, in particular. Zerg vs Zerg matchups hang on this harsh truth, as mentioned previously.

The designers of StarCraft realized that these fraught moments, the incredibly imbalanced interactions possible in the earliest moments of the game, the fun-sucking moments that leave people wanting to put their keyboards through their monitors, were not optimal for keeping their community engaged on a casual level, a competitive level, or for observers.

In Legacy of the Void, StarCraft’s designers took extreme steps to truncate the build-up phase to make players less vulnerable in the earliest stages of the game. This opened up a wider variety of interesting strategies, more of the back-and-forth play that viewers love, and opened up the map more, and earlier. LOTV forces players to expand early and often, increasing the number of points of interest, increasing player vulnerability to counterattack while decreasing the overall impact of said counterattacks. While the LOTV changes increase the game’s mechanical demands, which were already intimidating for the average player, they at least band-aid some of what I’m trying to talk about here.

These changes illustrate 2 important things to me: First, that games with more points of interest are inherently friendlier to players than games with fewer POI. We also see this in Homeworld Deserts of Kharak, where the relatively number of POIs lends itself to army blobbing and limits overall gameplay dynamism. You know, without scouting, pretty much where your enemy needs to be and what they care about.

Fundamental problems: geographically constrained economic operations are at inherent odds with expansionist tactical operations. Build up phases introduce a large number of volatile resources that can be lost, leading to an increasing opportunity for unbalanced and, ultimately, un-fun interactions.

To untangle all of that, here’s the point. When you ask players to build a base, you’re giving them a huge and fragile infrastructure they have to protect. That infrastructure, in most cases, is a sunk cost. Losing a significant percentage of that infrastructure leads to a slippery slope. The location of this infrastructure tends to be predictable and geographically constrained, leading to a few areas of high importance on the map. This all adds up to a formula which, while it has a lot to offer, also tends to leave players feeling demoralized and powerless.
And Here’s Where Tactical Games Tend To Stumble

To borrow and mangle a phrase, traditional RTS design is the worst system… except for the others that have been tried. It’s a bit inaccurate, but kind of punchy, no? Here’s the problem: when designing tactical RTS, or RTS which attempt to reduce the game’s emphasis on economy, the number and impact of various success vectors is reduced.

If a game is created which, using the “traditional RTS” as a starting point or point of comparison, blunts the various impacts and implications inherent in base building and/or economic (resource gathering) operations, the game has 2 fewer major vectors for players to drive success. If the game includes systems such as terrain bonuses, directional armor, miss chance et cetera, it is just increasing the weight of unit choice and positioning, making that one vector even more important, and forcing players to master increasingly narrow and nuanced skills along this one vector to be successful.

This is one reason tactics games tend not to be as popular as traditional RTS, and one reason that modern attempts to streamline economy tend to suffer as well – in removing player agency and nuanced progression, these games are giving the players fewer ways in which to be successful, and making success along one path increasingly important.

Many tactical games also utilize some sort of control point system. Control points and territories have a number of important features: they force players to focus on something else besides pure combat efficiency. They force players to be proactive, and constantly move their units on the map. They force players to split up their forces to take and contest multiple objectives under experientially different circumstances. But, all or most of these operations are still focused directly around, or influenced directly by, tactical unit operations.

Where tactical games tend to stumble is giving players different categories of operation to perform, or different vectors along which to pursue success. And this is why basebuilding, traditional-style RTS are still the most popular and successful form of RTS design.

Is There A Solution?

The core premise of my article is: players are the most engaged when they feel that the situations in which they find themselves are fair, balanced, and understandable. Competitive games should strive to create situations where players feel that they are engaging in equal interactions, and that their skill (both proactive and reactive, or both strategic and tactical) is the primary determining factor in their success in the game.

Let’s look at the issues again:

In the early game stages of traditional RTS, players are forced to perform a large number of operations in as short an amount of time as possible. This is a concession to the power of incremental improvements to expand the scope of the game in a way that does not overwhelm players, and to limit the damage done by an individual loss of an investment (unit or building). Average RTS ramp up curve is painful to a large section of the player base. Slower ramp-ups, like in COH and DOW series, or much quicker ones, like LOTV, are better overall solutions for increasing player agency and decreasing the wide variety of unbalanced and frustrating interactions that can happen in the early game phases of most RTS.

This is not an indictment of the “rush” as a tactic in real-time strategy games. It is an indictment against a particular variety of rush that is virtually impossible to scout in time to defend against, as well as the fundamental game mechanics whose design results in a preponderance of imbalanced interactions between players and an attempt to identify systems that include aggressive play that feels natural, fair, and engaging.

Player investments tend to be clumped together into bases, since the common protection of a large number of investments is the most efficient path. This tends to limit the number of points of interest on the map, and increase the value (and increase the pain of loss) for each one. A limited number of POIs coupled with extensive holdings to expand and maintain, inherently fosters a passive, defensive mindset. Many players are able to successfully overcome this (at least partially), but I am still noting it as something that must be overcome. Having a large number of points of interest decreases the pain of loss of each, and creates an incremental system of dominance in which the objectives are instantly identifiable and highly understandable.

Player investments tend to be sunk costs. Losing such an investmaent, especially with typical income generation models, means that the player is now inescapably behind with a limited palette of options to recoup their loss. Reducing the number of sunk costs can decrease snowballing and create more opportunities for dynamic counterplay that is interesting both to watch, and to perform.

Fast, or shallow, build up phases mitigate the most frustrating situations common in RTS. Fast build up phases also puts more pressure on rushers to execute better to be successful.
Thanks for taking the time to read this article. I hope that, at least, it has provided you some food for though about how RTS might be able to grow in ways that keep players coming back. I look forward to your comments.（source：gamasutra.com  ）