Personally I like the "rantsona". It's fun sometimes to think the narrator really is sitting behind a desk somewhere, snappily dressed and holding some documentation while looking very serious 😌👌
@@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714 They're definitely dying in terms of market share. Objectively there's more strategy games and players than ever before, but that's only because the entire gaming industry has more players, games, and cash than it ever did. But the percentage of those games that are strategy games, and of players that play strategy games, is shrinking compared to others. So in a sense they're loosing their "importance". The main reason they're shrinking is because they're generally harder for new players to get into, and publishers can't so easily exploit them using freemium nonsense like you can e.g. an FPS or third person action game. You also can't (or at least, no one has) made a bit cinematic masterpiece using them. Compared to e.g. point and click adventure games they're definitely not dying, but back in the 90s almost everyone who played games on a PC played some kind of strategy game, whereas now you'd be hard pressed to find any games player who even know what one was.
Funny you mention DOOM and FPS because I recall Ahoy recently doing a video on the Doom-like/Clone to FPS convention change. And Doom was called an 'Action RPG' originally, which is wild to look back on, and reminds me around the mention in a prior video of yours involving Herzog Zwei and how it's considered by some to be an RTS before the term was invented much like how DOOM is an FPS now. Though I saw another comment mentioning a 'Action RTS', and I'd call it a 'Tactics focused action game where you can command AI minions/units in a real time setting alongside fighting with them' sort of like Mount and Blade, Overlord, Sacrifice, or that First person AoE II experiment that was floating around for a bit. Basically, you are the commander, and one of your units at the same time. But that's my two cents on the idea.
I need to watch more Ahoy, his videos are quality through and through. I think the Doom video was the last one I watched, probably what made me think to mention it. I do like it when developers try a different twist on strategy through things like a first/third person view, but it's been a long time since I've played a game of that sort that I really felt comfortable with. I think it takes a lot of clever interface and UI design, as well as some great AI control to get it right.
The way I define RTS is: All four Xs in realtime and direct control of military units or the equivalent. Realtime exploration (scouting), realtime expansion (base building, turtling), realtime exploitation (resource gathering, booming or teching), and realtime extermination (army building, rushing). Usually you also have direct control of worker units, but this isn't necessary as long as there's some kind of economy building positive feedback loop. However, direct control of military units (or the equivalent) is essential because otherwise you have a God Game. I haven't played Stellaris or Warno, but the Total War series is what I refer to as "Turn based 3X" because only the battles are realtime. I still have no idea what "Action RTS" is supposed to mean because it seems like every game with that tag has a different idea of what it means.
When I hear a game described as "Action RTS" my immediate thought is "Nothing like an RTS". It's akin to any country that has the word "democratic" in it's name, you can be assured that it's not a democracy :)
@@kaluventhebritish The only game I can think of that made any sense that went for something like that was wars and warriors joan of arc, and like one other game by the same studio. Where essentially, It was a first person beat-em-up mixed with an RTS. Where you could switch between first and third person perspective. Kind of similar to what bannerlord went for, but with more direct control over other units, and without the big sandbox, and a storybased set of missions instead. It effectively missed the exploitation and sometimes the expansion phases depending on the mission.
Maybe we need to start rating games based on how many X they have, and which ones are real-time and which ones are turn-based? So Civ is 0/4X. Starcraft is 4/0x. Total War is 1/4X ? Maybe we could even use y as the real-time version of the TBS x, therefore: Civ is 0y/4x, Starcraft 4y/0x, TW 1y/4x. At this point I suspect someone could invent some kind of strategy-game calculus.
Game genres, as with music genres, are a strange beast to tame. In the end, they come down to what most people use to refer to the thing. I personally, view the Strategy genre as even wider than you showed, including both the Wargames genre (which can be subdivided into hex-and-counter, WEGO, realtime, etc) and even the Citybuilder genre, with it's own subdivision. Or even the JRPG-derived genre of turn based tactics RPGs, like Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics. Some people would classify as an "RTS" everything with the familiar isometric and right click to move units control scheme. People will argue about the most minute differentiations in each game to classify them, but that only divides the community. Enjoy what you enjoy, and be glad when something new comes up. Chances are, that a strategy game usually *needs* to do SOMETHING different to stand out, and that something might just be what people use to classify it away.
Your right about the arguments, some people have some pretty strong feelings about "what is" and "what isn't" a particular type of game, they think one is somehow a lesser experience for simple people. I've had some very emotional comments about the distinction in the past!
We already have a term for the overlap of strategy and tactics: Waging war ;) In biological taxonomy we often have the most important species name duplicated in the genus. So homo sapiens names the hominids, cats named the felines, dogs named the canines etc. I think that's the same for RTS games. Dune 2 was the first and most foundational of them all, and so it means that we use the term RTS as both a specific species (Dune-style-base-building-resource-gathering RTS) as well as the entire genus (birds-eye-view games that involve loads of little people having complicated fights). So in a way, I _would_ consider the Emergency series as being RTS! At least, I always have. But only the broader scale RTS term that also includes World In Conflict and Starcraft, rather than the specific Dune-2 style games. The same goes for MOBAs. I personally still see them in that RTS-genus umbrella, though I've never thought before about your idea of switching to first-person and seeing if that affects the perception of genre. I'll have to give that a go! What you call "real-time combat" (RTC) I think is a bit generic, as it still applies to basically everything. Same goes for real-time hybrid. I often think of these games RTC as "arcade wargames". i.e. they're not completely sloggish nerdy games like "Gary Grigsby's War in the East", "War in the Pacific", "Command Modern Operations" etc (You know, the kind of games that they probably play in Sandhurst), so they're on the arcadey end of the spectrum, but they're still very much war games as they're primarily about waging a realistic war and having to take into account various aspects of your troop quality, terrain, and maybe logistics. The inclusion of Commandos-clones in Real-Time Tactics muddies the water a bit. The RTT label is already widely used for games like World In Conflict et al. Things that you personally might put into "real-time combat". Commandos-clones are one of my favourite genres, so I think they need their own genre away from RTT ;) ps Whilst you're correct about them mostly involving armed conflict, then you get some spanner-in-the-works games like Offworld Trading Company. That's clearly an RTS inspired game, but you don't really shoot each other, you just try to out-build everyone.
Then theres Battlezone where everything is done from the cockpit of a hovertank instead of the dominating topdown. Always love seeing a little shout out
@@kaluventhebritish I have not honestly. But I will certainly check it out! Also good to know you have a positive mind for BZ my nostalgia thanks you lol
It gets even worse. Most games offer multiple categories by themselves. Starcraft is best known for it's 1v1 rts skirmish but the campaign lets the player make important decisions between missions. On the other hand Total War games are known for the campaign that lets the player make important decisions between battles but the multiplayer 1v1 is just real time combat. Than you have Warcraft 3 that just throws tower defense and moba missions between the regular rts/rtc/rtt campaign missions and ends those campaigns with rpg.
Wargame/Warno/SD have resource management. They don't have base building. You focus on base building RTSs. These other games have you manage: -unit resources: ammo and fuel. -Spawn points: What units you start with at deployment or spawn later piece-meal. -and deck building: where you have restrictions for what and how much you can bring into battle in total. I was disappointed you wouldn't mention them in your other videos. I played a lot of wargame so I hope you make videos on them.
while i agree with the topic of the video, the new "real time combat" must be the most confusing genre name i ever heard, as it by name fits everything from call of duty to red alert what games like warno and steel division is isnpired on is turn based tabletop militiary *wargames* and a realtime variant of tabletop minitature wargaming. It trying to simulate real warfare is part of its core identity the warno/Steel division have many similarities with the total war series that described as having real time battles and turn based grand campaign maybe real time battle is a better word as it properly describes the scale of the real time combat portions of these games.
I could never find one I was happy with. "Real-time Combat" and "Real-time Battle" both never really felt quite right. I have a feeling that something that emphasised the more "simulation" like elements of those games could be more suitable, but everything I could think of just felt inadequate. "Digital Battle Simulator" sounded too clinical, "Digital Combat Simulator" is already a game...you see the problem I had!
I have been on about this for ages. I think the primary confusion among what is the subject and what is the noun. For "Real Time" Strategy, the modifier "Real Time" is the operative distinction, therefore, one would think that the game focuses on the "Real Time" component with respect to the game. Brood War, and all Starcraft-like games all focus on the "real time" component of the game. In simple terms, there comes a point in every skirmish where there is 1 too many things to execute everything perfectly. There are 10 things to do in REAL TIME, but you can only accomplish 2 or 3, therefore the "strategy" arises from what actions you priorities, how you choose to sequence them, and then the gameplay is in the execution of your sequence. I describe what I like from RTS games, being primarily starcraft likes, as "Plate spinning the game", because you constantly try to spin more and more plates, but every new plate you get spinning runs the risk of dropping one of your other plates. That means that RTS games need to give you something to be doing every moment of the game, and that at any moment, when you've done the last thing, well there were 10 other things clogging your queue. What I really don't like is when REAL TIME strategy games get lumped in with "sit back and watch" games, like Supreme Commander or even C&C, while yes there is base building and unit production and battles, you're really there for the spectacle, there's nothing really all that difficult to execute, the macro systems are pretty watered down so most of the game you're just sitting around waiting for things to happen.
Nice job with the little C&C-like popup window with you in the flesh in it, that's so much better than the little AI generated rantsona.
Downside is you now have to look at my face. Be careful what you wish for!
Personally I like the "rantsona". It's fun sometimes to think the narrator really is sitting behind a desk somewhere, snappily dressed and holding some documentation while looking very serious 😌👌
@@jimtaylor294I agree!
Great work! I feel like "strategy" games, however you define it, are dying, and knowing people out there are keeping it alive is fantastic
Thanks very much!
Dying? Where?
@@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714 They're definitely dying in terms of market share. Objectively there's more strategy games and players than ever before, but that's only because the entire gaming industry has more players, games, and cash than it ever did.
But the percentage of those games that are strategy games, and of players that play strategy games, is shrinking compared to others. So in a sense they're loosing their "importance".
The main reason they're shrinking is because they're generally harder for new players to get into, and publishers can't so easily exploit them using freemium nonsense like you can e.g. an FPS or third person action game. You also can't (or at least, no one has) made a bit cinematic masterpiece using them.
Compared to e.g. point and click adventure games they're definitely not dying, but back in the 90s almost everyone who played games on a PC played some kind of strategy game, whereas now you'd be hard pressed to find any games player who even know what one was.
Great video, you can tell there was a lot of thought and planning behind it.
The release of WARNO has put it into the same category as Steel division and Total War as well
Funny you mention DOOM and FPS because I recall Ahoy recently doing a video on the Doom-like/Clone to FPS convention change. And Doom was called an 'Action RPG' originally, which is wild to look back on, and reminds me around the mention in a prior video of yours involving Herzog Zwei and how it's considered by some to be an RTS before the term was invented much like how DOOM is an FPS now.
Though I saw another comment mentioning a 'Action RTS', and I'd call it a 'Tactics focused action game where you can command AI minions/units in a real time setting alongside fighting with them' sort of like Mount and Blade, Overlord, Sacrifice, or that First person AoE II experiment that was floating around for a bit. Basically, you are the commander, and one of your units at the same time. But that's my two cents on the idea.
I need to watch more Ahoy, his videos are quality through and through. I think the Doom video was the last one I watched, probably what made me think to mention it.
I do like it when developers try a different twist on strategy through things like a first/third person view, but it's been a long time since I've played a game of that sort that I really felt comfortable with. I think it takes a lot of clever interface and UI design, as well as some great AI control to get it right.
Im gona go enjoy the anime RPG Hyperdimension Neptunia.
The way I define RTS is: All four Xs in realtime and direct control of military units or the equivalent. Realtime exploration (scouting), realtime expansion (base building, turtling), realtime exploitation (resource gathering, booming or teching), and realtime extermination (army building, rushing).
Usually you also have direct control of worker units, but this isn't necessary as long as there's some kind of economy building positive feedback loop. However, direct control of military units (or the equivalent) is essential because otherwise you have a God Game. I haven't played Stellaris or Warno, but the Total War series is what I refer to as "Turn based 3X" because only the battles are realtime.
I still have no idea what "Action RTS" is supposed to mean because it seems like every game with that tag has a different idea of what it means.
When I hear a game described as "Action RTS" my immediate thought is "Nothing like an RTS". It's akin to any country that has the word "democratic" in it's name, you can be assured that it's not a democracy :)
@@kaluventhebritish The only game I can think of that made any sense that went for something like that was wars and warriors joan of arc, and like one other game by the same studio.
Where essentially, It was a first person beat-em-up mixed with an RTS. Where you could switch between first and third person perspective.
Kind of similar to what bannerlord went for, but with more direct control over other units, and without the big sandbox, and a storybased set of missions instead.
It effectively missed the exploitation and sometimes the expansion phases depending on the mission.
Maybe we need to start rating games based on how many X they have, and which ones are real-time and which ones are turn-based? So Civ is 0/4X. Starcraft is 4/0x. Total War is 1/4X ?
Maybe we could even use y as the real-time version of the TBS x, therefore: Civ is 0y/4x, Starcraft 4y/0x, TW 1y/4x.
At this point I suspect someone could invent some kind of strategy-game calculus.
2:57 fun fact in Germany FPS are called Ego Shooters instead so even different regions come with different names.
I hadn't even considered that. A whole other level of complication!
Game genres, as with music genres, are a strange beast to tame. In the end, they come down to what most people use to refer to the thing. I personally, view the Strategy genre as even wider than you showed, including both the Wargames genre (which can be subdivided into hex-and-counter, WEGO, realtime, etc) and even the Citybuilder genre, with it's own subdivision. Or even the JRPG-derived genre of turn based tactics RPGs, like Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics. Some people would classify as an "RTS" everything with the familiar isometric and right click to move units control scheme.
People will argue about the most minute differentiations in each game to classify them, but that only divides the community. Enjoy what you enjoy, and be glad when something new comes up. Chances are, that a strategy game usually *needs* to do SOMETHING different to stand out, and that something might just be what people use to classify it away.
Your right about the arguments, some people have some pretty strong feelings about "what is" and "what isn't" a particular type of game, they think one is somehow a lesser experience for simple people. I've had some very emotional comments about the distinction in the past!
We already have a term for the overlap of strategy and tactics: Waging war ;)
In biological taxonomy we often have the most important species name duplicated in the genus. So homo sapiens names the hominids, cats named the felines, dogs named the canines etc.
I think that's the same for RTS games. Dune 2 was the first and most foundational of them all, and so it means that we use the term RTS as both a specific species (Dune-style-base-building-resource-gathering RTS) as well as the entire genus (birds-eye-view games that involve loads of little people having complicated fights). So in a way, I _would_ consider the Emergency series as being RTS! At least, I always have. But only the broader scale RTS term that also includes World In Conflict and Starcraft, rather than the specific Dune-2 style games. The same goes for MOBAs. I personally still see them in that RTS-genus umbrella, though I've never thought before about your idea of switching to first-person and seeing if that affects the perception of genre. I'll have to give that a go!
What you call "real-time combat" (RTC) I think is a bit generic, as it still applies to basically everything. Same goes for real-time hybrid.
I often think of these games RTC as "arcade wargames". i.e. they're not completely sloggish nerdy games like "Gary Grigsby's War in the East", "War in the Pacific", "Command Modern Operations" etc (You know, the kind of games that they probably play in Sandhurst), so they're on the arcadey end of the spectrum, but they're still very much war games as they're primarily about waging a realistic war and having to take into account various aspects of your troop quality, terrain, and maybe logistics.
The inclusion of Commandos-clones in Real-Time Tactics muddies the water a bit. The RTT label is already widely used for games like World In Conflict et al. Things that you personally might put into "real-time combat". Commandos-clones are one of my favourite genres, so I think they need their own genre away from RTT ;)
ps Whilst you're correct about them mostly involving armed conflict, then you get some spanner-in-the-works games like Offworld Trading Company. That's clearly an RTS inspired game, but you don't really shoot each other, you just try to out-build everyone.
Then theres Battlezone where everything is done from the cockpit of a hovertank instead of the dominating topdown. Always love seeing a little shout out
I have a lot of love for Battlezone. Do you remember Hostile Waters too? I think that tried a similar sort of thing.
@@kaluventhebritish I have not honestly. But I will certainly check it out! Also good to know you have a positive mind for BZ my nostalgia thanks you lol
It gets even worse. Most games offer multiple categories by themselves. Starcraft is best known for it's 1v1 rts skirmish but the campaign lets the player make important decisions between missions. On the other hand Total War games are known for the campaign that lets the player make important decisions between battles but the multiplayer 1v1 is just real time combat.
Than you have Warcraft 3 that just throws tower defense and moba missions between the regular rts/rtc/rtt campaign missions and ends those campaigns with rpg.
It's a little bit of a mess indeed with everything being classed too broadly
Wargame/Warno/SD have resource management. They don't have base building. You focus on base building RTSs. These other games have you manage:
-unit resources: ammo and fuel.
-Spawn points: What units you start with at deployment or spawn later piece-meal.
-and deck building: where you have restrictions for what and how much you can bring into battle in total.
I was disappointed you wouldn't mention them in your other videos. I played a lot of wargame so I hope you make videos on them.
I thought there was a grand council of naming strategy genres o.O
while i agree with the topic of the video, the new "real time combat" must be the most confusing genre name i ever heard, as it by name fits everything from call of duty to red alert
what games like warno and steel division is isnpired on is turn based tabletop militiary *wargames* and a realtime variant of tabletop minitature wargaming. It trying to simulate real warfare is part of its core identity
the warno/Steel division have many similarities with the total war series that described as having real time battles and turn based grand campaign
maybe real time battle is a better word as it properly describes the scale of the real time combat portions of these games.
I could never find one I was happy with. "Real-time Combat" and "Real-time Battle" both never really felt quite right. I have a feeling that something that emphasised the more "simulation" like elements of those games could be more suitable, but everything I could think of just felt inadequate. "Digital Battle Simulator" sounded too clinical, "Digital Combat Simulator" is already a game...you see the problem I had!
I have been on about this for ages. I think the primary confusion among what is the subject and what is the noun. For "Real Time" Strategy, the modifier "Real Time" is the operative distinction, therefore, one would think that the game focuses on the "Real Time" component with respect to the game. Brood War, and all Starcraft-like games all focus on the "real time" component of the game. In simple terms, there comes a point in every skirmish where there is 1 too many things to execute everything perfectly. There are 10 things to do in REAL TIME, but you can only accomplish 2 or 3, therefore the "strategy" arises from what actions you priorities, how you choose to sequence them, and then the gameplay is in the execution of your sequence.
I describe what I like from RTS games, being primarily starcraft likes, as "Plate spinning the game", because you constantly try to spin more and more plates, but every new plate you get spinning runs the risk of dropping one of your other plates.
That means that RTS games need to give you something to be doing every moment of the game, and that at any moment, when you've done the last thing, well there were 10 other things clogging your queue. What I really don't like is when REAL TIME strategy games get lumped in with "sit back and watch" games, like Supreme Commander or even C&C, while yes there is base building and unit production and battles, you're really there for the spectacle, there's nothing really all that difficult to execute, the macro systems are pretty watered down so most of the game you're just sitting around waiting for things to happen.
Real time means not turn based.
only a schizophrenic would find game names to mean anything.