RTS Game Theory: Multitasking
Real Time Strategy games get their appeal from, well, the real time tactics. The thrill and suspense of split-decision making and constant action as you face off against the AI or other players make real time strategy games different from the other strategy games in the genre; it adds a whole other level of complexity in of itself. In this RTS Game Theory section, we are going to look at Multitasking.
You may have tried an RTS for the first time and as you were learning the ropes for what building is what, you get attacked with a large force from an enemy. You go to move your army and…wait…you have one soldier just standing idly to face the threat. You were so focused on the economy, you forgot about your military. We have all been there. This frustration of everything going on at once can easily lead to frustration and quitting RTS games all together. Let’s break it down to an organized, manageable problem.
The most common way to manage multitasking is to split the game into two major sections: economy and military. Think of it like supply and demand or if you want to be a battle tactician guru, the logistics of warfare. Economy is your supply and your military units are the demand. There are other modes to playing RTS games, but the standard is to conquer your enemy and to do that, you need an army. In order to field an army, you need food. Let’s start with your economy.
Economy:
Civilizations or races (depending on the RTS game) may have special ways to gather resources, but we are just looking at the general game theory here. We will look at how to manage resources in a later post. Your economy is the backbone of your success in RTS as it fuels the army you create to start taking over the map. Economy consists of workers, resources, and buildings.
Workers:
-Workers are units that have very little combat power and are used to collect resources and build buildings. Despite their lack of power, they are VERY important! Without workers, you can’t collect resources or build; it’s game over for you. Workers are trained in your main starting building (Town Hall, Command Center, Nexus, etc). They are NOT free! You need to collect resources to train more workers to collect more resources to train more workers…you get the picture. This is why it is crucial you protect them and it is a very punishing tactic to get rid of your opponent’s workers!
Resources:
-Depending on the game, resources available will be different(gold, wood, gas, etc.). These resources are used to: make more workers, build buildings, research upgrades, and train military units. There will be some near your starting base to get you started and also all around the map. Some games like Starcraft 2 have static maps where the resources are in the same spot every time you play the map and other games like Age of Empires 4 will have a generative map which spawn resources in different places every time you play the map. Generative maps create variety in gameplay at the cost of having some really horrible spawns or bad “seeds”. This can create an unfair advantage if one player has more resources closer to them than another. Static maps are perfectly balanced, but limits variety each time you play a map. Workers collect these resources and drop them off to specific buildings(called drop off sites) and/or the town center. Some RTS games don’t have “drop off sites”. The workers assigned to a certain resource will automatically start collecting them. Resources have a limited amount to be collected (otherwise you only need one gold mine for example) and once depleted, you need to search out for more which are further away; this means a higher risk of getting your workers attacked! When building these drop off sites, place them as close to the resource as possible!!! This decreases the amount of time lost from workers walking to the drop off site and back to the resource. For resources that disappear like trees in Age of Empires, keep placing new drop off sites)lumber camps) next to the treeline. If you don’t your workers will be walking further and further distances as the tree line disappears.
-Everything costs resources (just like life…sad). The cost of buildings, researching upgrades, and training units or workers will have their cost somewhere on the display image. Assign workers to resources you need to build, upgrade, or train. For example, if you want to train more workers that cost food, gather more food, not wood. Rearranging workers to collect needed resources is a big strategy in itself. I will go over this in detail in a later post.
Buildings:
-Buildings are used to train, upgrade, or collect resources. Drop off sites, as already mentioned, are where workers drop off their resources. These can be specific to a resource(ex. lumber camp for wood), or it can be a general drop off that will collect everything. Make sure you build the right one!! Research buildings (ex. blacksmith) hold upgrades for your military and sometimes economy. These upgrades can improve your armor, attack, etc. of your military units or increase the gathering rate of workers. Military buildings (ex. barracks) will train specific military units and their upgrades.
Military:
Your military is the demand aspect of these two categories. Your military is needed to win the game (unless something like a Wonder can be built). Deciding how much of your resources to invest in offense (building units, upgrading technology) and defense (constructing fortifications or defensive units) is crucial to winning the game. Efficiently managing your economy and unit production is a key component of military game theory. You need to decide which units to produce, when to produce them, and how to maintain a steady stream of resources to support your military endeavors. We will look into this deeper in a later post. For now, let’s look at: Fog of War, Risk Assessment, Timing and Positioning
Fog of War(FoW):
-Fog of War is in all RTS games. The purpose of Fog of War is to hide your opponent's actions and where resources are located. It adds mystery, educated guess work, and scouting. Intelligence gathering is a massive aspect to winning a game. Knowing what your opponent is building and producing allows you to counter their plays. uncertainty. You make decisions based on the information you have, and your opponent does the same. The one who knows more is at a tactical advantage. This is where you should be scouting with either a “scout” unit or some units.
Risk Assessment:
-Decisions must take into account potential risks and rewards. Attacking an opponent can yield valuable territory or weaken their economy, but it exposes your forces to counterattacks. Conversely, turtling (excessive defense) can limit your expansion but make you more secure. Which do you choose? Depends on the situation and your civilization or race. Some civilizations or races are better at defense, while others are better at offense. Use this to your advantage.
-RTS games have a bonus system when it comes to damage. This is known as a “Rock-Paper-Scissors” system. A beats B which beats C which beats A to create a balanced system. It's not always as easy as this and can include more than three things, but this is the gist. For example, in Age of Empires, in the same number of units: spearmen beat horses, horses beat archers, archers beat spearmen. In risk assessment, not only do you need to look at numbers, but you need to look at army compositions. Will my army consisting of only archers beat my enemy’s army of horses? No. When you are scouting, you can see what buildings are being built and what units are already trained, to help you build the counter of those units.
Timing and Positioning:
-Managing military unit timing and positioning are the key to success. Knowing when to engage, how to flank your opponent, and when to retreat are essential concepts. Your success often depends on being in the right place at the right time.
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.
RTS Game Theory/Guide: Military
This is a deeper look at how to manage your military. Once again, keep in mind that units and fighting systems(like the rock-paper-scissors mentioned above) vary between games. These are some tactics that can apply to all RTS that will help you get those W’s.
Controls:
Hotkeys are necessary for moving your army around and even training units. Find the hot keys of the buildings in the controls menu. You can also set your own hotkeys. This will allow you to train units very quickly instead of mousing over each and every military building. It is also useful to group the same units to specific hotkeys. For example, group all archers together under “1”, and all horsemen under “2”. It will be easier to maneuver in a tactful way. Another helpful tip is that you can divide the map into quadrants and assign your army to that quadrant so you can easily keep track of where they are. Ex Quadrant 1 is near the top of the map, Quadrant 2 is close to the center, etc).
Another REALLY important mechanic is “attack move”. “Attack moving” allows all selected units to attack any enemy unit or building in the way from where they are(point A) to where you click (Point B). If you don’t use “attack moving”, your units will all try to get to the single unit or building you clicked, doing nothing. This is demonstrated in the picture. “Attack moving” will allow your units to attack other things if they can’t reach the target, maximizing damage output.
Movement:
Following closely to the controls, movement is important in getting into a fight that is favorable. If you can easily maneuver your units around, you can help defend high priority units with cheaper units so that they don’t go down too easily. Some games like the Age of Empires series, makes your army go the speed of the slowest unit. You should separate your slower units from your faster units through hotkeys to increase the mobility of your army. Another thing to look at are the formations. Some games allow premade formations which can be helpful in certain situations. Again, using the Age of EMpires example, there are units that can do Area of Effect damage that will destroy group up units. There is a formation you can use that spreads your army out at the click of a button to minimize the damage taken.
Defense vs Offense:
This is probably one of the more tricky parts of the military section as it depends on your situation and your civilization/faction/etc. that you are playing. Some factions are made to be played more offensively, while others play defensive until a later point in the game.
If you are being attacked, you should create units that counter the raiding units and you need enough defensive units to stave off the attacks. If that means switching workers on resources to train those units, you should do that. Build defensive structures to defend your base and house your workers.
When playing offensively, don’t get too greedy and overextend. Make sure you scout out what is happening on the map and move forward with that information. Secure resources and important locations. Use raiders to slow the progress of your opponent. Build “forward bases”. Forward bases allow you to get units to a position much quicker. This is the same idea as keeping your workers as close to the resources and drop off sites as possible to increase efficiency. Building a forward base not only saves you the walking distance, but it can also save them from being picked off from your opponent as they travel to their destination.
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