List the greatest game ever created: by genre

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Well for one you can pause the game and execute all of your orders before resuming, and in SP this is in fact the norm (at least, that's how I play). That's completely different from a clickfest RTS.

You can do that in Total Annihilation aswell.

[Kataphraktoi]

Only in singleplayer

EU2 shares far to many things with TBS not RTS to call it RTS.

things like micromanagement(trying to give orders faster than your opponent giving you the advantage) are completely absent

[Imran Siddiqui]

No. RoN has time that is divided into steps far too small to have any human meaning (hence it being essentially continuous depsite discretization at a computational level). EU has time divided into days, with NO further division. And depending on the speed setting, it takes quite a bit of time for time to "step" to the next day and anything to happen at all.

Now that I understand what you are blabbering about, I can say, what an utterly silly distinction. It really has little to no bearing on gameplay. Oh no, EU's time has a division into days. So what? So a traditional RTS can't have a days division? Why not? Would a traditional RTS that has 'days passed', and subsequently events due to what day it is, not be an RTS to you then?

No, Civ's space is discrete.

Would a Civ5 without 'squares' on the gameboard make it into a RTS? What if you had an RTS that had everything a traditional RTS had, except it had lined off provinces. You built your base in the province, using the same principles of AoE, and then tried to attack your enemy in another province... is that impossible to consider? And would that make it less of an RTS?

Your problem is that you see Warcraft and say that's an RTS and that's it. RoN shows how failed that viewpoint is. Unless you are arguing that RoN is not an RTS.

Oh, and of course the PUBLISHER of the game saying it is an RTS.

Some like "grand strategy" though, which is a great deal better in my view than RTS.

Why would Civ not be in that classification instead of TBS then? What about MOO? They are far more of 'grand strategy' games than EU.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Now that I understand what you are blabbering about, I can say, what an utterly silly distinction. It really has little to no bearing on gameplay. Oh no, EU's time has a division into days. So what? So a traditional RTS can't have a days division? Why not? Would a traditional RTS that has 'days passed', and subsequently events due to what day it is, not be an RTS to you then?

No, you still don't understand what "discrete" means.

Say I have a game board that ranges over a square in the Cartesian plane from (0,0) to (10,10). This board would be discrete if the only allowable positions were (0,0), (0,1), (1,0) ... (9,10), (10,10) i.e. the grid points. This board would be continuous if the allowable positions were (x,y) for all 0 < x < 10, 0 < y < 10. So you could have (3.1415926,2.7182818). Gameplay in EU doesn't happen so much in "real time" as it does in quickly timed turns - the game speed determins how long between each step, which is 1 day long in the case of EU and 1 hour long in HOI. You could take the game and make it turn-based, with each turn representing 1 day or 1 hour, and the game would be exactly the same except you'd have to click "end turn" a lot. You can't do that for Starcraft.

No, Civ's space is discrete.

Sigh. I said Starcraft, AOE, and C&C are genre-defining. They have pretty much all of the elements that define the RTS genre. Variation on a genre is not only allowed but expected - and as it goes RoN isn't even that big a deviation from the stock RTS. It's just that in general RTS's fall within a very narrow band around the standard, because not many that wander far away have been produced.

Oh, and of course the PUBLISHER of the game saying it is an RTS.

Are we talking about RoN here? I always agreed it was an RTS, you got confused somewhere.

Why would Civ not be in that classification instead of TBS then?

Because 1) Civ is the classic 4X TBS and 2) it's not a "grand strategy" game.

What about MOO? They are far more of 'grand strategy' games than EU.

I really just think you don't understand what DrSpike or I
mean when we use grand strategy.

Would a Civ5 without 'squares' on the gameboard make it into a RTS? What if you had an RTS that had everything a traditional RTS had, except it had lined off provinces. You built your base in the province, using the same principles of AoE, and then tried to attack your enemy in another province... is that impossible to consider? And would that make it less of an RTS?

How the **** would that work?

Jesus, Imran, you're missing the forest for the trees. None of these elements alone put something in one genre or another! However, when many similar games share a large number of elements we recognize that pattern and classify them as a specific genre. Games that share many or most of those elements are place in the genre. Games that don't, aren't.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Gameplay in EU doesn't happen so much in "real time" as it does in quickly timed turns - the game speed determins how long between each step, which is 1 day long in the case of EU and 1 hour long in HOI. You could take the game and make it turn-based, with each turn representing 1 day or 1 hour, and the game would be exactly the same except you'd have to click "end turn" a lot. You can't do that for Starcraft.

Like I said you have in your mind as Starcraft as the only type of game possible under RTS, when it really isn't. Just because you can make it turn based as "quickly timed turns" doesn't make it any less of a strategy game in real time. In fact in turn based, EU and EU2 doesn't work. It becomes long, tedious, and not fun. That's why it is in real time. I mean where exactly did you think Dune II came from? It was adapting turn based strategy aspects into a real time format.

It's just that in general RTS's fall within a very narrow band around the standard, because not many that wander far away have been produced.

Exactly! And now that those farther away from the standard have been produced, you want to give them their own 'tag' to further narrow the band.

Are we talking about RoN here? I always agreed it was an RTS, you got confused somewhere.

No, EU's publisher. I posted the link above. Strategy First, who published EU and EU2 called it a 'real time strategy' game.

I really just think you don't understand what DrSpike or I mean when we use grand strategy.

Err... what else can grand strategy mean, but an epic strategic game focused on the nation (or whatever)? Aside from, lets create a brand new tag for one developer. Can you say that anything other than Paradox games go into your "grand strategy" genre?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Listen, you got your opinion and I got mine. But I simply cannot see EU, EUII, etc, as being anything other than RTS games. Innovative RTS games no doubt, but still fitting the moniker, even though they are very different from the traditional RTS.

The fact the publisher of EU says so as well, only solidifies my belief in that.

[Kuciwalker]

Like I said you have in your mind as Starcraft as the only type of game possible under RTS, when it really isn't.

No I don't. I've played a fair share of RTS's, some deviating further than the others. W40k and Force Commander are RTS's despite having squad-based units and a somewhat different economy system.

Just because you can make it turn based as "quickly timed turns" doesn't make it any less of a strategy game in real time. In fact in turn based, EU and EU2 doesn't work. It becomes long, tedious, and not fun. That's why it is in real time. I mean where exactly did you think Dune II came from? It was adapting turn based strategy aspects into a real time format.[/q]

The only difference is that your finger would get tired from clicking so quickly on the next turn button.

Exactly! And now that those farther away from the standard have been produced, you want to give them their own 'tag' to further narrow the band.

Except EU bears no relation to the other RTS games! There is literally nothing in common whatsoever except the moniker. They're both "real time" (arguable in EU's case anyway) and they both involve "strategy." The same can be said about Mario Tennis.

Err... what else can grand strategy mean, but an epic strategic game focused on the nation (or whatever)? Aside from, lets create a brand new tag for one developer. Can you say that anything other than Paradox games go into your "grand strategy" genre?

Rebellion. Empire at War is a bastardized grand strategy/RTS hybrid (I'd call it a grand strategy game with a lame RTS minigame, really). There was a demo with a thread here a year ago or so, called Supremacy I think, which CT still plays. Another one the developer posted here about, sort of a grand strategy micromanagement nightmare (from the demo) set in a future broken-up United States, but I completely forget the name.

[Nikolai]

Imran: What the publisher says, is actually nonrelevant. Strategy First never had any clue on anything, and their indifference, incompetence and thieving is some of the reasons PI parted from them. PI themself have made the use of grand strategy as the genre name, and I trust them more than you or SF.

[Kataphraktoi]

Listen, you got your opinion and I got mine. But I simply cannot see EU, EUII, etc, as being anything other than RTS games. Innovative RTS games no doubt, but still fitting the moniker, even though they are very different from the traditional RTS.

Have you ever played competitive RTS games...? The gameplay is similar only in the fashion that you use a mouse to play both games.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Except EU bears no relation to the other RTS games! There is literally nothing in common whatsoever except the moniker. They're both "real time" (arguable in EU's case anyway) and they both involve "strategy." The same can be said about Mario Tennis.

Except that Mario Tennis doesn't consider itself even a strategy game. If you want to be silly, you can call anything a 'strategy' game since they involve strategic thinking (for the most part)... but games that do not consider themselves 'strategy games' don't really fit.

Rebellion. Empire at War is a bastardized grand strategy/RTS hybrid

http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Empire-at-War/dp/B000BNKSVC

Amazon.com Product Description
Star Wars: Empire at War is a Real-Time Strategy (RTS) game that is, quite simply, amazing in its scope and grandeur.

http://www.swrebellion.com/contentid-3.html

LEC's first real-time strategy game released in 1998. Rebellion is a unique real-time strategy game, involving not just combat but diplomacy, management, and tactics. Unlike other strategy games, you command not just an army but the whole forces of the Rebel Alliance or the Galactic Empire. Your goal: take (or take out) the enemy headquarters and capture you're enemies prized characters.

Apparently SW: Rebellion is considered an RTS, not this "grand strategy" game (which doesn't appear at all), which btw you still haven't distinguished from Civ.

[Kuciwalker]

Except that Mario Tennis doesn't consider itself even a strategy game. If you want to be silly, you can call anything a 'strategy' game since they involve strategic thinking (for the most part)... but games that do not consider themselves 'strategy games' don't really fit.

How does Mario Tennis consider itself anything?

Categorization by the developers is BS. If I make a Tetris clone and characterize it as an FPS, it does not make it so.

And you seem to have ignore Nikolai

Apparently SW: Rebellion is considered an RTS

I call bull****, since I've played Rebellion and it's as different from any other RTS as Halo is from Civ.

not this "grand strategy" game (which doesn't appear at all), which btw you still haven't distinguished from Civ.

Grand strategy:

1) usually doesn't involve 4X (Rebellion had an element of this, as does EU) or a very different style of 4X from civ
2) is epic in scope*
3) usually involves deep micromanagement
4) is a military conflict (I've never seen one with any sort of peaceful victory)
5) involve much finer time resolution than Civ - typically days (EU, Rebellion) or hours (HOI, EaW) rather than decades or years (Civ)
6) involve a much more concrete spacial representation than Civ - well-defined provinces or star systems versus the abstract "tile"
7) in Civ, cities can be placed pretty arbitrarily. In most grand strategy games, every location is a "city" (production center)
8) typically units and cities are given tasks (Fleet 3 redeploy from San Francisco to Hong Kong). Those tasks take a specific number of time units (20 days or 17 hours). Even the smallest divisions of those tasks - like Fleet 3 moving from West Central North Pacific sea zone to West Central South Pacific sea zone - takes several units of time. In civ you can simulate tasks by giving a unit a goto command with the autopath, but it's just linking a sequence of moves that each take a most 1 turn.
9) are often historical (EU, HOI) or fake-historical (Rebellion, EaW). Civ is generally bad at representing historical events like WW2, and only the heroic efforts of modders have produced the only vaguely realistic WW2 scenarios. There are plenty of historical scenarios for Civ, but they are a sort of backdrop, rather than the actual point of the game.

I could think of more but I think this is enough. Even if in various situations each of those can be challenged, together they represent a lot of conventions that differ from Civ gameplay.

* arguably Civ is epic, but it doesn't have the same feel to me that EU and HOI do

Star Wars: Empire at War is a Real-Time Strategy (RTS) game that is, quite simply, amazing in its scope and grandeur.

EaW was a mediocre RTS embedded within a mediocre grand strategy game, or alternatively a mediocre grand strategy game with a mediocre RTS minigame.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I call bull****, since I've played Rebellion and it's as different from any other RTS as Halo is from Civ.

And the crux of the issue. Everyone else can claim it to be an RTS, but if it is too different to you personally, then, by gosh, it can't be!! After all, you believe EU and Rebellion are super different, right? What was that about sub-genre's now?

Grand strategy:

So basically you've narrowly defined a genre that only encompasses a handful of games. Can I explain a genre of only 4X games and stick in the handful of those games and define it as entirely different from all other genres available? Besides any major Civ scenario can answer to the points you've listed there (though I did love the Civ is bad at recreating historical events, yet a few of the "grand strategy" games are 'fake-historical' ).

Hell, I'll just define the Grand Theft Auto model as a new genre. After all, it is very different from other action games. I'll throw in GTA, Saint's Row, Bully, and say its a totally distinct genre .

[Kuciwalker]

And the crux of the issue. Everyone else can claim it to be an RTS, but if it is too different to you personally, then, by gosh, it can't be!!

Who is "everyone else"? A good number of people on these boards have played Rebellion - I'll start a poll, how about that.

You really have no clue what you're talking about. I at least avoid making assertions about a game I've never played.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I have linked to one. In addition:

IGN: http://pc.ign.com/objects/003/003544.html

A real-time strategy game set in the Star Wars Universe

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
You really have no clue what you're talking about.