RTS Game Theory/Guide: Resource Management
This is a deeper look at how to manage resources, but because this game theory/guide is for all RTS games, it won’t be a deep dive into any one game specifically. I recommend doing some research on your own for specifics.
As previously mentioned, resources are the supply for the demand(military). Having a great economy will field a great army. Let's break this down into separate categories:
Resource Types:
Most RTS games feature multiple types of resources, such as minerals, energy, food, gold, or wood. Understanding the different types and their uses is crucial. Buildings, units, and research all have specific costs of one or multiple of these resources. Depending on what you want to build, you need to allocate your workers to collect that resource. For example, if you need to train an army consisting of high cost gold units, you will need to collect more gold than the other resources. This may include assigning newly trained workers to gold, and/or pulling some workers from other resources over to the gold. This leads us into our next category…
Resource Collection:
Efficiently gathering resources is the foundation of resource management. This involves assigning workers to resources of whatever type. Collecting rates can vary based on factors like proximity, the number of workers and upgrades. Some resources may be collected at a faster rate than others. For example, in Age of Empires 4, food can be collected from berries, farms, hunts, and fish, each with a varying gathering rate. Collection rate is usually based on the amount of resources that are collected per minute. ALWAYS BUILD DROP OFF SITES AS CLOSE AS YOU CAN TO RESOURCES! This will save time and improve your collection per minute. As mentioned, do not be afraid of moving workers around depending on what is needed. Take some workers here, put some there, etc. Shifting workers around is part of the game. Also, continuously train workers as much as you can. You need workers to do..well…everything. The more you have, the better. However, most RTS games have a population cap, meaning you can only make X amount of units. If it is all workers, you won't have any army.
Keep track of idle workers! Idle workers are workers that aren't doing anything, they are just standing around. Usually the game will tell you if they are idle. However you keep track, make sure you keep them busy!
Balancing Economy:
This is the most important part. Balancing your economy is a key aspect of resource management. You must allocate the right proportion of workers to resource gathering, production, and research. Overcommitting to one aspect can leave you vulnerable in others. Always keep an eye on what you are building and how fast resources are building up. If you have a lot of one resource, move some workers. You can also trade resources which we will get to in a little bit. One thing to note: Do NOT hoard resources! If you are storing resources, then that means you are not using it to improve through research or training enough units. Unless you are saving up for a specific building or research, stored up resources are wasted resources. You need to DO something with it; more buildings, units, upgrades, whatever. If you can use resources as fast as you gather them, you are being very efficient.
Upgrades and Technologies:
Investing resources into upgrades and technologies is often necessary to improve your resource gathering rate, unit efficiency, and overall gameplay. Deciding when and what to upgrade is a critical element of resource management, because those resources could be used elsewhere. If you are in the middle of a tight battle, perhaps a military upgrade would be better than an economic one. Or perhaps training units in general are more important than upgrades. It all depends on the situation and the game. Some upgrades are crucial, others you get on a surplus of resources.
Risk vs. Reward:
If you want to train more workers, build another town center, command post, etc. whatever the main base building of the game you are playing is. This will allow you to double the amount of workers you are training. You could even build 3 or more if you wish. Keep in mind that this will build a stronger economy at the sacrifice of resources used for the military. You will have an army later in the game which is a risk to getting attacked early.
Some resources may be in dangerous areas, and you need to weigh the risk of sending workers there against the reward of increased resource income. Build defensive buildings(like towers and walls) around them or have military units close by.
Resource Denial:
Beyond collecting your own resources, you can use strategies to deny your opponent access to key resources. This can disrupt their economy and slow down their progress. Scout out where resources are and try to take control of the map. If you can collect all of the resources before your opponent, there is a very good chance you win the game. Think of it like sieging your opponent. You can also run around with military units to try and take out your opponents workers to slow down their production. Even if you don’t get any workers, you disrupted their collection time by making them move their workers.
Resource Trading:
In some RTS games, you can trade resources with allies or even buy/sell resources on a market. In a game like Age of Empires, you can even build traders that will gather gold between a neutral or ally market and you own based upon the distance. This can be very helpful if you run out of a certain resource or you can’t gather a certain resource, because you can buy and sell. You can also hyper collect one resource to sell and buy the ones you can’t get.
I hope you enjoyed the second part of RTS Game Theory/Guide. Feel free to comment, like, or share!
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