RTS Novice

Have you played the game Oil Rush? From what I've read it's basically a naval tower defense / RTS game. I've been thinking of getting it as a simpler game that I might not mind playing on laptop when away from home.

No, I haven't. The game sounds awesome though. I don't have a board gaming group, but have noticed flyers posted around where I work lately advertising board gaming events. I think this is where I could get 6 people playing something. I may have to get ahold of that and bring it in to work sometime. Thanks for the suggestion.

I haven't gotten ahold of Zeus yet, but I've been playing Emporer in the free build mode. Basically each game I get another jump up in the quality of the housing/neighborhoods before I call it a night, so I'm very slowly getting better. I need to go back and try that Grand Ages Rome game again too. I went straight from the tutorial to the free build mode in it and did not do well.

I have that Cuban Missle Crisis game (not installed...). When I tried the game out, the impression I got was that it was made as an attempt to use the existing Blitzgrieg engine and make a game that could be marketed as a post-apocalyptic themed RTS. It still looked like a WWII game. I think this was the first time the Emporer: Battle for Dune game was mentioned on the podcast. I consider that game basically part of the C&C franchise as it's exactly the same as any C&C game but set in a different universe. I think it was the first 3D attempt in that Westwood lineage with Generals to follow. The biggest problem I have with that game, is that if you played a non-Arrakis map, there was no resource collection. In the Dune universe of the books each faction's home planet has a primary resource that they exploit and export. One can see the concept in the design of the buildings and maps in the game--Harkonnen buildings have flaming exhausts like oil wells. Harkonnen maps had pipes, etc. reflecting a fossil fuel based economy, but there was no fossil fuel collection. Caladan maps should've had resource gathering reflecting a maritime resource economy, and one could've built hydropower plants rather than windtraps (which in the books aren't power plants at all, but wasn't a problem). Instead, skirmish games played on non-Arrakis maps just gifted you income throughout the game. Boring. I don't have much input about campaigns though... I'm more of a skirmish against AI player. I'd rather go back and reread the Dune books again than play through the game's campaign. I know not to expect much though. I love novels and short stories. As an artist and sci-fi fan, I'll watch pretty much any sci-fi film just to see the production design and execution. I know not to expect much story wise. That's what novels are for. I guess one thing I can add about campaigns is that I also especially hate commando missions. In some campaigns I stopped at a commando mission and have never gone back. That happens even with games I really like.

Thanks for the episode. Chris Taylor and GPG's situation is sad, but this was a great episode. It was nice to hear about the evolution of early RTSs from an insider and game designer's perspective. I'm hoping TMA will do more shows in this vein in the future.

That would depend on what a person is used to playing though, wouldn't it? If a person doesn't play a lot of turn-based, they'd be spending time getting a game down again, which is at least not as fun if not more work than just playing an RTS one knows. I think personal preferences and experience may trump whether a game is real-time or turn-based. I'd even add SupCom with RoL and Sins as an RTS that I find relaxing for the same reasons. The atmosphere and especially the audio can put me to sleep if I try playing those in the evening after a busy day at work. Some of city builders mentioned earlier can be more lively in that regard. I think music and unit audio make a big difference. Of course there's always setting the difficulty level lower, which I've probably done in those games often as I haven't played them a whole lot.

I bet a lot of people listen to every episode of the podcast regardless of whether they've played a game or not. I don't care for many turn based or squad based games, but I listen to every episode.

A couple other things: Calling down meteors existed in the Earth 2150 games as weather control tech that one faction had. It may not have existed until the first exp., The Moon Project. Not sure. Maybe that's not equivalent to god power in AoM being that it regenerates / becomes available again after some time/cost? ShadowTiger - Yeah, SW EaW is a very different game. It's made by former CnC devs, right? I find the vanilla game is not great for single skirmish battles because they are so limited, but there are so many mods out there that I've found some variety that way. There's even a Halo mod (ground skirmishes) that's somewhat incomplete but works fine, and I've noticed there's another in development. I don't think I've found many good custom maps, but I don't remember that I searched very hard for them either. Some of the other mods add a larger variety of SW universe units to each faction. I've mostly played the ground game though, so I'm not sure how much they add to space battles.

"Does anyone remember Z from Bitmap Brothers? I think it was published by Westwood back in 1996 for Dos/Windows 95. It looks like the original makers are trying to bring it to iPad." I saw that it's available for Android. From what user reviews I've read it's been updated some already and is supposed to be quite a good version now. Has anybody played the Z Steel Soldiers 3D RTS? I tried the demo, and sucked at it. It's completely a zone control game as well.

Just listened to the episode. Great to have a new RTS devoted episode I can relate to. Btw, SWGB (plus expansion) was a Star Wars game built on the AoE II engine. It isn't simliar to AoM anymore that AoE II is. I get the impression that generally it was looked down upon as basically a mod that cost money. That said, I have played it and it does have more units, structures, and upgrades than AoE II. Not that that makes it a better game, but it is a difference between the two. Oh, and you do age up tech levels.

I find Rise of Legends to be a very relaxing game. I think the music and the lack of much audio response from units when you click on them adds to the laid-back feel of it. Speaking of city builders, I was listening to an old 3MA recently where Troy mentioned that he was enjoying playing Grand Ages Rome. I have it, but have yet to play it. The box describes it as a 4X RTS, but the reviews I found of it online describe it as a city builder, and not a great one at that. I think I'll try it out some time this week.

Sortable tables can be created in wikis. Idlethumbs probably doesn't have a wiki yet, but that would be a nice way to do it.

I'd like to work on this. How would the file be shared and revision controlled? I'd also be contributing to describing RTSs, esp. older ones. I don't know about turn-based games. I had just glanced at a table I'd started jotting down in Illustrator (that's what I'm in most of the time) right before seeing this post. I'd like to be able to sort games by criteria down to like how much building is involved in an RTS or not, number of units one has at once, etc. Would need some kind of rating system for how important an aspect of a game something is. Like a 1 - 5 rating or something. Ranges like 5-10, 25-50, 50-100 ... 500-1000 (five ranges) for number of units. You'd probably have a better idea in that regard though, as I work in Illustrator, not so much w/spreadsheets.

Thanks for the tips, Orvidos. I need to get back to those. Back to the original thread question. Another relaxing game I found recently was a turn-based game called Galactic Assault: Prisoner of Power. I'm not really into turn-based (probably a bad thing to say around here), but it has an "RTS style" deathmatch mode. For an RTS player it was slow and relaxing gameplay that was somewhere in-between turn-based and RTS. It was probably too easy though.

I recently tried out a copy I came across of Imperium Galactica II. I found it really relaxing and slow though it is an RTS. A 4X RTS. The lens flared sunlight on the horizon of planets and the planetary weather gave the game a zen feel. And yeah, the Impressions city building series as mentioned already. I've tried Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom and Ceasar III--two similar games of the same generation in that series I think. The amount of buildings burning down or collapsing was a little aggravating, but I was new to the games. IG II has a city building aspect to it as well.