Before I say anything else, I would like to mention one thing: Some RTS games are potentially more action ACTION-based than others. Meaning.. their forte is fast-paced in your seat action from the beginning of the game till the end. That's their motto, their advertisement, their sell-tag. That's how their game is to be designed. With that being said, we can now look at RTS games with opinion.
Take Starcraft or Warcraft 3 for example; a very popular game among RTS veterans. They had 2 resources to gather in order for a player to succeed in whatever he's doing -- Minerals/Vespean Gas, Gold/Lumber. For a player to build more advanced structures and units, he must invest in two different ways of resources, one considered more advanced than the other. By advanced I mean more rare, more expensive to gather compared to the other resource, which is often times more plentiful, but requires the most gathering to fuel the construction of more things. This is often times you'll see starting units (such as Zerglings, Marines and Zealots) with only a cheap, affordable, early-game price tag - 50/50/100 minerals. As you advance into higher tech trees, you'll notice that you need a secondary resource in order to purchase them, same could be said of upgrades. The higher the tech tree, the more expensive your units become. This type of RTS-Resource system could also be found in Warcraft 3, only to be duped with the franchise names of Gold and Lumber.
Now let's look at Age of Empires 3, another popular title these days. They have 3 resource values instead of 2: Gold, Lumber and Food. Your basic, or tier1 resource is food, where you incorporate into your build in order to perform an advancement into Colonial Age (a form of Tech) or you build more peons. Wood is the most plentiful, for that you gather it slower. Second is Gold OR Food but it's strictly dependent on the map that you're on, but often times it's Gold. This has to do with map design which I will get to later. For now, let's talk about resources in relation to tech and units. Unlike the 2-resource Blizzard system, you have a more complex economy system here. For that, certain units and certain upgrades needs more specific adjustment. An example of this would be: A musketeer needs 75 food and 25 coin whereas a Crossbowman needs 20 food and 60 wood (from when I played :>). You instantly see a difference in unit specifics. They are completely different in use and so are their resource structure. You must plan accordingly depending on which you want to use.
Like the Blizzard games, the Ages games have limitations of availbility -- how much of a certain resource is on the map. A harder to gather, more expensive to obtain, "advanced" resource, which is a plus to RTS games. Unlike the Blizzard games, the Age games have a third resource that forces another layer of economics onto the players game, forcing him to be more specific in what he wants to do. Even more so than the Starcraft player. Both games also have different gathering rates (an elaborate numeric system) at which peons bring in resources, but I believe both games are well-structured enough to point out any distinct difference.
Finally, let's take a look at Zero Hour. Here you have 1 resource, the supplies located all over the map. Some supply piles are bigger than others, but that's the basic map design, not to be confused with Resources/Economics. So basically, Zero Hour has the simplest of the tree games I just pointed. It has a default fixed gathering rate of money, for example, +75 dollars per GLA worker. One can immediately refute what I say about ZH being simple by pointing out that Zero Hour has 3 uniquely different Resource workers (Chinook vs Worker vs Supply Truck), but I say to you: Wait -- I'll get to that. Anyways, let's look at Zero Hour being a 1-resource wonder. Remember what I said before about RTS games in relation to Genre? A Action RTS game is designed to be fast-paced, action-packed from start to finish. If a game doesn't have that, it's simply NOT a good Action RTS. Not to mention that Zero Hour has no unit to resource specific restrictions. That means I can build Infantry, Tanks and Aircraft out of the same resource.
VSVS
Let's look at these rough estimations for a second, pretend the Starcraft, Ages and Zero Hour player starts a game at the same time, without any Teching, and gets up a sizeable force for active, "ACTION-packed" RTS combat. There's no lie that by the 5-6 minutes the Ages player is fighting with his opponent that the Zero Hour player might have already won. The Starcraft player comes in the middle. Why is this? Because of simpler resource management. The Zero Hour player has less to worry about on 1 side of this brain and more focus on the other. In noob words, it's more micro and less macro. Less focus on economy, more focus on the actual combat, the premise of the "action-packed" theory to begin with.
So here you have 3 games that appeal to different gamers with different tastes. Statistics don't lie, and everybody that has experience with these games can clearly point out the obvious. Zero Hour players engage in combat the fastest, the Starcraft players in second, the Ages players in third. Say that the Ages player makes nothing but Musketeers, thus simplifying his game to that of two resources, Food and Coin. He will then come in around the same time as the Starcraft player, but in terms of unit mixing and versatility in strategy, there is a solid restriction (due to the fact that unit specifics are tied with different resources). Zero Hour does not have this problem. But then again, neither does Starcraft or Warcraft 3. For Warcraft 3, it's the introduction to early game super-units aka Heroes and in Starcraft, it's the easier tech tree.
Now, lets get back at the "unqiueness" of resource gathering. Zero Hour had GLA workers, cheap the peon class of that particular RTS game, the more of them you put on a resource, the faster your gathering rate, hence more money, but their gathering rate is capped at a certain point (applies to all workers). They also have the slower gathering CHINA supply trucks which bring in a larger sum of money per run because they're more expensive (unit cost). Then comes the Chinook, the most expensive worker, but brings in the largest sum of money per run. In Starcraft and in Ages, you basically had GLA workers. These are known as Peons in their RTS world. Though similar to Zero Hour in some ways, the other games ARE quite unique as well. Take Starcraft for example. Like ZH, not only are the resource collection different, but their race/faction playstyle is different as a whole. The Terrans use SCVs/workers to build their structures, the Protoss Trobe warps in their structures whereas the Zerg Drone turn into their structures. All of that weighs into their resource field somehow. Ex: the SCV is wasting time building the structure and not farming the Mineral, the probe wastes no time at all because it simply has to warp it in, the Zerg Drone doesn't exist anymore. In the Age series, the France Courier de Bois gathers faster but are more expensive and come in short numbers in the beginning, the British can gain an extra peon with every Manor house they construct (their resource cap/upkeep building, but a tad bit more expensive than average), and the Dutch, whose playstyle is completely different because they require Gold to construct more peons. All of these RTS games have unqiuely different playstyles in terms of resource collection, but the games that features uniquness as a whole (in the game as a whole) rather than just resources is what appeals to me more. It's simply, more imaginative, or more creative if you will.
So now we come down to the verdict AKA your own "OPINION": Which RTS game is better in terms of their Resource System? Let's recap: Zero Hour offers more in-your-face action, 3 uniquely different factions in playstyle and resource management, but the downside is that they have the simplest economy value. Starcraft offers slightly slower action paced game with 3 uniquely different factions in playstyle and resource management, and contain 2 resource values. Not too specific, but more defined compared to that of Zero Hour. Lastly, we have Ages of Empires 3. This game offers slower action compared to Starcraft, SOME differences in faction playstyle and resource management, and contains the highest, or most complex values of resource gathering.
Which one do I perfer? I've always been a middle-man and that's why I perfer the Starcraft franchise. I like creativity and imagination, hence why I like the ZH/Starcraft feel of "difference". I like a slightly more defined resource system that clearly defines "rare/more valuable/used for tech" kind of resources opposed to a monotone definition of resource (like ZH). And I like it when it makes sense -- Siege Tanks should need Vespean Gas to power, Marines shouldn't. Why can't there be OIL to farm in Zero Hour?
Another point to bring up is the ever-so-popular question of which game has the more "pro" economy. By saying "pro", I guess these guys mean which game needs the most control; both in terms of micromanagment and macromanagment. Age of Empires 3 has the most elaborate form of rescource structure, but I think it's a little too much. Too much focus on economy to the point where you can't get out the units you need to achieve victory simply because of the 3-resource design. Because of the 3-resource design, there's often a bottleneck of strategic choices and I personally get disgruntled over that. Zero Hour has 1-resource design. To me, I think it's too simple. It's too shallow for my tastes because everythings given in credits so there's no in depth resource planning. If 3 is too much and 1 is too little, 2 seems perfectly balanced to me. It's not like it slows the action down THAT much.
So, this basically leads me to the best question of all, what do I want to see in CNC3? Well, let's take imagination and creativity (always a plus for Game Designers to be praised by gamers everywhere), let's take a defined resource layout (such as Starcraft) and let's make sense out of it. The only downside to this is: Change is not always good. Consistency is key for certain aspects of a mighty franchise such as Command and Conquer. CNC has always been made of Tiberium and Ore Trucks, why change it? Well, not change, but maybe we can improvise. For our third unknown faction, you can definetly add variation in terms of how they gather resources. In fact, same could be said about NOD and GDI. Why can't GDI have something creative too? Ah ha! It's not as easy as people think, and this is what I need to point out. Game designers go a long way to think of a perfectly balanced way when defining a specific category such as "Resources". Personally, I don't think you should have a Orca Miner (a flying resource gatherer) because it's immune to ground assaults. Why have something that's immune to the primary harrassment factor of early game combat? I also don't think you should have something like a ChronoMiner or God-forbid, a Digger Miner for the NOD. Anything that allows safe transport back to your base, breaking the gaming term: Harrassment, is a big no-no for me. So what we can do to make our 3 factions uniquely different while keeping the harrassment alive? Think long and hard.
That basically defines the first part of MY ideal resource system: Uniquness. Now, let's look at 2-type Resources and "Making sense". It's a good thing that CNC already has that covered. In what you may ask? Blue Tiberium. They are worth more, harder to find, and take a lot of risk to obtain and utilize. Same could be said about Tiberium Veins, but they were only limited to NOD in Tiberium Sun, that's a big no-no. Such a brilliant idea of multi-typing resources should be applied to the game as a whole, not just a single faction. Why shouldn't GDI or The Forgotten use Tiberium Veins and make sense out of it? Maybe as secondary fuel to the Mammoth Tanks or something else creative? This is a question I leave to the now flourishing, and ever-so-clever Electronic Arts to answer. Hopefully, it will be in the next CNC. All I have to say is, everything you need to make a great Resource system is already there, the only thing that it needs is a little elbow greese.
I will make other posts regarding map design and building/builders some other time.
This post has been edited by HERO: May 3 2006, 16:19 PM
Nod had a way of collecting and removing and harnessing the weed, why shouldn't GDI?
Exactly.
It was an absolutely ingenious way to design Nod's ability to gather Tiberium Veins and use them in a Chemical Missile. Why shouldn't the other faction use something like that? (in past and future games)
I would find it odd if C&C3 would have more the one resource spendebal resource that you are dependent on. In real world the commader at the fieald, the leadership of the sociaty do not spend time on trying to blance out the iron and food production. At least not at a day per day bases. That job is left to lower levels of works. Plan economy shows what happen when top leadership do take direct controle of the economy. (Im not say however that polticans should not be involved however like some market libreals but that a other discussion) No currency was develop just for this. Instead of Buying a Cow with 5 chickens (or what ever) i just the butcher $10 for that peice of meat i whanted and ther rest solves it self. (thoght long chains of market transactions.) When i play a fast pace RTS like C&C and TA i only wish to have 1 max 2 resoreces. And those be Energy and Money. (Well i guess you could inculde expriance wich both Generals, BFME and TA uses to some extent) I find this works well. I still need to expand my economy and fight for valubal resorces but i do not need to micro my economy.
Still sometimes i like to use a more addvance economy. But then i choice game that are more slow pace and less combat orianted. Outpost 2 would be a perfect example. A prity slow game with lose of economy. If you do not handel you economy well in Outpost 2 you will not only be crippled but you will die. But that a game that is good for those that have a lot of hours to spend and maybe not intersted in the battles them self. You can even win Outpost 2 without useing weapons.
One thing that is intersting is what i would call minimum value resorces. Thies types of resoreces are not a must have for the war effort and to win the game but could improve once army and give oneself the edge that is needed to win. I would inculde expriance to this catagory most of the time but also resoces like Tiberium vine gas wich was used to build those gas missiles. Thies recorces are often not consider to be vitaly importent but can be fun to inculde in my oppion even a fast action RTS like C&C.
It was an absolutely ingenious way to design Nod's ability to gather Tiberium Veins and use them in a Chemical Missile. Why shouldn't the other faction use something like that? (in past and future games)
Why should not GLA use powerplants? Same question realy.
Answe: Asymetric teams are more fun.
This post has been edited by Yokto: May 3 2006, 15:57 PM
Same could be said about Tiberium Veins, but they were only limited to NOD in Tiberium Sun, that's a big no-no. Such a brilliant idea of multi-typing resources should be applied to the game as a whole, not just a single faction. Why shouldn't GDI or The Forgotten use Tiberium Veins and make sense out of it?
BTW, the forgotten were not a faction that you could play. In what sense were they supposed to 'use it?'
And it's TiberiAN sun.
If you're going to write an article and you want it taken seriously, at least spell the name of the game right.
VM
This post has been edited by Soldiers Valhalla: May 3 2006, 15:56 PM
Well Valhalla, I don't see you taking the time to write a big article, you probably wouldn't get too far before you start to act like an asshole.
Why should Nod have to collect the veins to make a chemical missile, why not just give them a standard recharge time for the superweapon?
That is a very good question. One could ceranly just do it with a timer. But as the missles are not vitaly important and becuse it makes Nod differ from GDI i think it works well. But i would not like to see thies kind of thing become common. This like GLA ablity to savage should be a feature uniqe to one faction.
Guy, don't bother about VM - he is one of those 'hardcore CnC fans' from EA.com and such sites=].
On topic: 2 resources. Adds alot more depth to the game - you can make someone rely on low tier units totally changing his strategy and so on. One resource limits it to cutting him off funds and that's about it.
At VM: Stop bitching
Hassan
This post has been edited by MorningStar: May 3 2006, 16:26 PM
I still think one economy, but different ways of getting it is the way to go 
My thoughts on resources:
Before I say anything else, I would like to mention one thing: Some RTS games are potentially more action ACTION-based than others. Meaning.. their forte is fast-paced in your seat action from the beginning of the game till the end. That's their motto, their advertisement, their sell-tag. That's how their game is to be designed. With that being said, we can now look at RTS games with opinion.
Take Starcraft or Warcraft 3 for example; a very popular game among RTS veterans. They had 2 resources to gather in order for a player to succeed in whatever he's doing -- Minerals/Vespean Gas, Gold/Lumber. For a player to build more advanced structures and units, he must invest in two different ways of resources, one considered more advanced than the other. By advanced I mean more rare, more expensive to gather compared to the other resource, which is often times more plentiful, but requires the most gathering to fuel the construction of more things. This is often times you'll see starting units (such as Zerglings, Marines and Zealots) with only a cheap, affordable, early-game price tag - 50/50/100 minerals. As you advance into higher tech trees, you'll notice that you need a secondary resource in order to purchase them, same could be said of upgrades. The higher the tech tree, the more expensive your units become. This type of RTS-Resource system could also be found in Warcraft 3, only to be duped with the franchise names of Gold and Lumber.
Now let's look at Age of Empires 3, another popular title these days. They have 3 resource values instead of 2: Gold, Lumber and Food. Your basic, or tier1 resource is food, where you incorporate into your build in order to perform an advancement into Colonial Age (a form of Tech) or you build more peons. Wood is the most plentiful, for that you gather it slower. Second is Gold OR Food but it's strictly dependent on the map that you're on, but often times it's Gold. This has to do with map design which I will get to later. For now, let's talk about resources in relation to tech and units. Unlike the 2-resource Blizzard system, you have a more complex economy system here. For that, certain units and certain upgrades needs more specific adjustment. An example of this would be: A musketeer needs 75 food and 25 coin whereas a Crossbowman needs 20 food and 60 wood (from when I played :>). You instantly see a difference in unit specifics. They are completely different in use and so are their resource structure. You must plan accordingly depending on which you want to use.
Like the Blizzard games, the Ages games have limitations of availbility -- how much of a certain resource is on the map. A harder to gather, more expensive to obtain, "advanced" resource, which is a plus to RTS games. Unlike the Blizzard games, the Age games have a third resource that forces another layer of economics onto the players game, forcing him to be more specific in what he wants to do. Even more so than the Starcraft player. Both games also have different gathering rates (an elaborate numeric system) at which peons bring in resources, but I believe both games are well-structured enough to point out any distinct difference.
Finally, let's take a look at Zero Hour. Here you have 1 resource, the supplies located all over the map. Some supply piles are bigger than others, but that's the basic map design, not to be confused with Resources/Economics. So basically, Zero Hour has the simplest of the tree games I just pointed. It has a default fixed gathering rate of money, for example, +75 dollars per GLA worker. One can immediately refute what I say about ZH being simple by pointing out that Zero Hour has 3 uniquely different Resource workers (Chinook vs Worker vs Supply Truck), but I say to you: Wait -- I'll get to that. Anyways, let's look at Zero Hour being a 1-resource wonder. Remember what I said before about RTS games in relation to Genre? A Action RTS game is designed to be fast-paced, action-packed from start to finish. If a game doesn't have that, it's simply NOT a good Action RTS. Not to mention that Zero Hour has no unit to resource specific restrictions. That means I can build Infantry, Tanks and Aircraft out of the same resource.
Let's look at these rough estimations for a second, pretend the Starcraft, Ages and Zero Hour player starts a game at the same time, without any Teching, and gets up a sizeable force for active, "ACTION-packed" RTS combat. There's no lie that by the 5-6 minutes the Ages player is fighting with his opponent that the Zero Hour player might have already won. The Starcraft player comes in the middle. Why is this? Because of simpler resource management. The Zero Hour player has less to worry about on 1 side of this brain and more focus on the other. In noob words, it's more micro and less macro. Less focus on economy, more focus on the actual combat, the premise of the "action-packed" theory to begin with.
So here you have 3 games that appeal to different gamers with different tastes. Statistics don't lie, and everybody that has experience with these games can clearly point out the obvious. Zero Hour players engage in combat the fastest, the Starcraft players in second, the Ages players in third. Say that the Ages player makes nothing but Musketeers, thus simplifying his game to that of two resources, Food and Coin. He will then come in around the same time as the Starcraft player, but in terms of unit mixing and versatility in strategy, there is a solid restriction (due to the fact that unit specifics are tied with different resources). Zero Hour does not have this problem. But then again, neither does Starcraft or Warcraft 3. For Warcraft 3, it's the introduction to early game super-units aka Heroes and in Starcraft, it's the easier tech tree.
Now, lets get back at the "unqiueness" of resource gathering. Zero Hour had GLA workers, cheap the peon class of that particular RTS game, the more of them you put on a resource, the faster your gathering rate, hence more money, but their gathering rate is capped at a certain point (applies to all workers). They also have the slower gathering CHINA supply trucks which bring in a larger sum of money per run because they're more expensive (unit cost). Then comes the Chinook, the most expensive worker, but brings in the largest sum of money per run. In Starcraft and in Ages, you basically had GLA workers. These are known as Peons in their RTS world. Though similar to Zero Hour in some ways, the other games ARE quite unique as well. Take Starcraft for example. Like ZH, not only are the resource collection different, but their race/faction playstyle is different as a whole. The Terrans use SCVs/workers to build their structures, the Protoss Trobe warps in their structures whereas the Zerg Drone turn into their structures. All of that weighs into their resource field somehow. Ex: the SCV is wasting time building the structure and not farming the Mineral, the probe wastes no time at all because it simply has to warp it in, the Zerg Drone doesn't exist anymore. In the Age series, the France Courier de Bois gathers faster but are more expensive and come in short numbers in the beginning, the British can gain an extra peon with every Manor house they construct (their resource cap/upkeep building, but a tad bit more expensive than average), and the Dutch, whose playstyle is completely different because they require Gold to construct more peons. All of these RTS games have unqiuely different playstyles in terms of resource collection, but the games that features uniquness as a whole (in the game as a whole) rather than just resources is what appeals to me more. It's simply, more imaginative, or more creative if you will.
So now we come down to the verdict AKA your own "OPINION": Which RTS game is better in terms of their Resource System? Let's recap: Zero Hour offers more in-your-face action, 3 uniquely different factions in playstyle and resource management, but the downside is that they have the simplest economy value. Starcraft offers slightly slower action paced game with 3 uniquely different factions in playstyle and resource management, and contain 2 resource values. Not too specific, but more defined compared to that of Zero Hour. Lastly, we have Ages of Empires 3. This game offers slower action compared to Starcraft, SOME differences in faction playstyle and resource management, and contains the highest, or most complex values of resource gathering.
Which one do I perfer? I've always been a middle-man and that's why I perfer the Starcraft franchise. I like creativity and imagination, hence why I like the ZH/Starcraft feel of "difference". I like a slightly more defined resource system that clearly defines "rare/more valuable/used for tech" kind of resources opposed to a monotone definition of resource (like ZH). And I like it when it makes sense -- Siege Tanks should need Vespean Gas to power, Marines shouldn't. Why can't there be OIL to farm in Zero Hour?
Another point to bring up is the ever-so-popular question of which game has the more "pro" economy. By saying "pro", I guess these guys mean which game needs the most control; both in terms of micromanagment and macromanagment. Age of Empires 3 has the most elaborate form of rescource structure, but I think it's a little too much. Too much focus on economy to the point where you can't get out the units you need to achieve victory simply because of the 3-resource design. Because of the 3-resource design, there's often a bottleneck of strategic choices and I personally get disgruntled over that. Zero Hour has 1-resource design. To me, I think it's too simple. It's too shallow for my tastes because everythings given in credits so there's no in depth resource planning. If 3 is too much and 1 is too little, 2 seems perfectly balanced to me. It's not like it slows the action down THAT much.
So, this basically leads me to the best question of all, what do I want to see in CNC3? Well, let's take imagination and creativity (always a plus for Game Designers to be praised by gamers everywhere), let's take a defined resource layout (such as Starcraft) and let's make sense out of it. The only downside to this is: Change is not always good. Consistency is key for certain aspects of a mighty franchise such as Command and Conquer. CNC has always been made of Tiberium and Ore Trucks, why change it? Well, not change, but maybe we can improvise. For our third unknown faction, you can definetly add variation in terms of how they gather resources. In fact, same could be said about NOD and GDI. Why can't GDI have something creative too? Ah ha! It's not as easy as people think, and this is what I need to point out. Game designers go a long way to think of a perfectly balanced way when defining a specific category such as "Resources". Personally, I don't think you should have a Orca Miner (a flying resource gatherer) because it's immune to ground assaults. Why have something that's immune to the primary harrassment factor of early game combat? I also don't think you should have something like a ChronoMiner or God-forbid, a Digger Miner for the NOD. Anything that allows safe transport back to your base, breaking the gaming term: Harrassment, is a big no-no for me. So what we can do to make our 3 factions uniquely different while keeping the harrassment alive? Think long and hard.
That basically defines the first part of MY ideal resource system: Uniquness. Now, let's look at 2-type Resources and "Making sense". It's a good thing that CNC already has that covered. In what you may ask? Blue Tiberium. They are worth more, harder to find, and take a lot of risk to obtain and utilize. Same could be said about Tiberium Veins, but they were only limited to NOD in Tiberium Sun, that's a big no-no. Such a brilliant idea of multi-typing resources should be applied to the game as a whole, not just a single faction. Why shouldn't GDI or The Forgotten use Tiberium Veins and make sense out of it? Maybe as secondary fuel to the Mammoth Tanks or something else creative? This is a question I leave to the now flourishing, and ever-so-clever Electronic Arts to answer. Hopefully, it will be in the next CNC. All I have to say is, everything you need to make a great Resource system is already there, the only thing that it needs is a little elbow greese.
I will make other posts regarding map design and building/builders some other time.
This post has been edited by HERO: May 3 2006, 16:19 PM
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