Real Time Strategy?

So, I ended up playing WoW for a bit last night, working on my Warlock, Nikodhemus (53!) nothing too strenuous, an hour or so of play. Switched over to a game i haven't played in awhile, and totally forgot how AWESOME it is!

Warhammer 40K Dawn of War is one of those Real Time Strategy games like Command and Conquer or Starcraft. Get base, Get builders, make builders build stuff, make soldiers, kill stuff, all faster than your opponent.

First of all, lets talk about the term 'Real Time Strategy'. Think of how popular Chess would be if you both just moved your pieces at the same time, as fast as you could... at what point does 'strategy' come into play? There is no possibility of making long term plans other than Get the Biggest Unit First, then sending all troops at the opponent. No option for flanking or drawing your opponent out from cover. Very little thinking is involved short of 'Uh oh, troops died. Must make more troops!' Mostly, I don't play RTS games (or PVP for that matter) because there is just no strategy involved short of 'move faster than that guy'. PVP is the same thing, sh** like Call of Duty, which is a fantastic game, but there are ALWAYS dozens of people online who have played more than me and are already much faster than me, giving me no chance at all to increase my reaction times in-game. But enough bitching...

Dawn of War is very similar to Starcraft, in that there are several different factions, each plays a little differently, and you Build the Biggest Guy First to win. The one thing I did not like about Starcraft is, you build ONE soldier at a time. Then, to send out your army, you have to draw a box around ALL of your forward troops, pick a destination then, ideally, go back to base to make the second wave. If i forget 1 guy, he just doesn't go. If i want a few guys to attack the turrets and these other guys to attack the base and the tanks to hold back... well, you just can't do that without selecting them one at a time, or painstakingly drawing boxes around them and repositioning. Then, when so many die, you have to go back to your base, start cranking out more guys, then send them marching along, meanwhile leaving your remaining army to fend for themselves. Which just facilitates the person with the fastest clicks wins. No strategy, just button mashing.

DoW introduces a mechanic which changes that drastically: Squads. With a single click, I make a unit of Slugga Boyz, and now i have control over that squad as a whole. I can reinforce it directly, add weapons, add generals, give commands, EVERYTHING to this single squad of Slugga Boyz while they are out in the field. Over the course of a battle, i might make 8 or 10 squads, and that's it. I click on one guy, it lights up his whole team. Select two different guys gives me both squads at once, and the ability to tab between them for reinforcements or commands! SO much more control over the game! Now when Chief Gorgutz is commanding his WAAAAUGH! (cuz he's the biggest and the meanest) he can sit back and manage his troops with ease.

Real Time Strategy is a complete fallacy... but Dawn of War gives you a bit more control. Haven't played Starcraft 2 yet, hopefully it runs like this, otherwise I'm going to give it a pass.

On a side note, i REALLY need to learn to focus on one subject! Might make these posts a little easier to read!

The Angry Man