ahem.

Seeing as I am a moderator at CFC, I just have to chime in. ;)

I highly dislike the "clickfest" that RTS games turn into. It isn't "strategy", it's how fast you can click on the correct unit, make it do what you want, and click on the next, etc. A good "strategy" game gives you time to think, to ponder over your possible moves, to actually develop a "strategy". ;)

It's one of the things I pick on some of the "kids" at CFC about - Civ is *NOT* a "wargame". If you want a wargame, go play a wargame. Civ is a "civiliization-building simulation". :) Yes, there is warfare. That is because warfare is part of the tools needed to build a civilization. No it is not detailed/tactical. It is abstracted and strategic. Just like trade is abstracted and strategic. Just like diplomacy is abstracted ... well, you get the picture. ;)

As for being too hard, well, there is a certain amount of micromanagement that needs to be done to play on the higher levels. But Civ3 can be played and won on the first three levels with little or no MM, and many peole enjoy that. To move above "Regent" (the 3rd level, and the one that is "balanced" with the AI), you need to manage your civ more carefully, which means paying closer attention to *everything* that goes on. And there are a LOT of folks who play Civ3:Conquests on Sid level, and win!

But then, not everyone enjoys the same things, so if whoopin' on your enemies in AoM is your bag, have fun! :D


Edit: BTW: CivCTP is not Civ! It is a similar game, but Activision stole the "Civilization" name for their title. Sid sued, and won. You will notice CTP2 does not have the "Civ" in the title. ;)

And CTP was somewhat unbalanced. The folks over at Apolyton have some good mods that balance it much better. (CFC doesn't have much in the way of CTP stuff, simply because it *isn't* Civ.)

Ok, I didn't know that CivCTP was not Civ till now. Thanks.

I think I should give FreeCiv another go or get Civ III.

Mind you, I still believe that RTS are not all clickfests, but the fast-paced nature makes you think faster.

Also Age Of Empires-type of economic model is rather primitive with its collect "Food/Wood/Gold" principle. I prefer a model which allows me to think of resources as "abstract" and economics as more than just collecting raw materials.

Empire Earth is a very big disappointment.

When will there be an RTS game with enough strategic depth while also making the the action fast-paced and continuous?

Well, I dont know of any game that would have the kind of strategic depth you want thats in RTS action. The only one that comes somewhat close is Rome Total War. The strategy part is slow and can be carefully thought over, and the tactical part is past paced and requires thinking on your feet.

I agree on the EE comment. I was massively disapointed by it. And it looks like the new EE II they are making is going to be junk as well. Just the screenshots compared to AoE III's screenshots put me off.

I have played AoK and later, the ex-pack since their releases. I am not sure about you but for me its one of the those rare games that you can never give up.

Did you play singleplayer or multiplayer? because its in multiplayer were AoK truly stands out. I found that the more I played and the more I learned, the game kept getting deeper. I found that theres hundreds, maybe thousands of "little things" in the game that suddenly become important when playing vrs another human. You might not notice and explore them in the rather easy singleplayer mode.

Its one of those games thats easy to learn, but very very hard to master.

Could be , but the scope of your faster thinking tends to grow narrower , less versatile , the faster you have to think....

I agree with these problems.

That's why I think that the "chore" aspects of RTS must be weeded out. Certainly repetitive tasks which involve no thinking on my part should be automated.

For example, rather than having to build individual units one by one or in a queue, I should be able to select the composition of an army I wish to create (just like giving orders to my C-in-C) and allow the computer to work out the micro-details of the army.

That is rather than me clicking each unit I want to produce in turn, I should be allowed to create a whole army based on the parameters I choose (e.g. mechanized army (with more tanks), defensive, artillery or whatever). Again, individual troops or units should not be selectable but they should remain part of a division no matter what, avoiding the need to "group" units by selecting them (this is a real pain in RTS because you might accidentally select units you don't want).

Again, the civilian aspects can be automated to a degree. Rather than assigning each citizen to a task, I must be able to choose a percentage of population to work on the raw materials, while another percentage of the population to work in factories and another percentage to work in the military production and so on.

I should be free to concentrate on expansion, foriegn affairs (diplomacy), trade and overall governance rather than focus on "day-to-day" taks like collecting raw materials and concentrating on putting to work each and every civilian for production.

I like Civ 3
And I don't really like RTS because I hate when these small stupid soldiers run everywhere and get killed. :D

So Civ is better than CTP. There was a real civ for linux or not. I should practice before I start with Freeciv mp.

starcraft i think is the best RTS around .... not that its a good game, but because you can make little games like tag, or rpg with the custom maps, and then use em on multiplayer .... but beware of the lings!, those stupid critters couldn't find a path thru a hallway without crashing into a wall.

I had to vote turn based because I firmly believe that Sid Meyer is a god amongst game designers. I have been playing Civ since Civ I was released and of course Railroad Tycoon.
I dig the AOE line and much less so AOM, but Rise of Nations has had me glued to the screen for several months. I still find Civ to be a superior game, but these real-time games are a nice change of pace.

That's a fairly easy one to answer : Take your time.
My games of Civ used to take weeks to finish , simply because I took the time to consider as much as possible before I took a decision.
Turn-based WILL punish hasty behaviour.
That's why I love it.

Thorough thinking > quick thinking

I won a Civ game yesterday in one hour and found that gameplay is so customizable that it depends on the size of the map and the number of opponents you choose. On a small map in easy mode with just two AI opponents, I crushed the enemy with brute force.

What's frustrating about turn-based is not that it's slow but is that building units, improvements etc can eat up several turns and prevent you from doing anything else. It's linear nature can be quite annoying at times. You spend many turns when every city is producing something in the build queue and you simply cannot do anything but just keep clicking "end turn". That way I feel that I'm wasting a lot of moves doing nothing, but simply building units, improvements etc in the cities.

I'm still an amateur player in Civ, but am I missing something? All ideas welcome.

I don't think your missing much.....Civ does get that way some times. However, if it is happening a lot, it may mean your ignoring the diplomatic side of the game. When I've got those sorts of lax times, I usually try to wangle a trade or two or negotiate a treaty with the locals. Or maybe I need to take a more active role with the workers. If you always leave the workers on auto, they tend to forget to build strategic bits of road or leave a luxury/resource untapped. And I usually have a unit or two wandering around and exploring the world. Of course it does help to pay close attention to cities building Great Wonders. There is nothing more infuriating than loosing a critical wonder to the AI because the city is rioting.

Of course in the later stages of the game, there is all the espionage fun to be had.......

Diplomacy I've never had luck with. Anybody managed a successful alliance treaty? No, not me. My AI opponents accept lots of bribe from me but refuse to take the bait. ;)

Also I've always broken peace treaties in the game, so I guess I deserve it in a way..

Usually that means you've been a bad boy. ;)

Civ has the concept of reputation built in and the AI players are VERY sensitive to it. So a seemingly simple thing, like getting into an alliance against a player and then signing a peace treaty before the 20 turn alliance is up gives you a major ding. The AI players are really reluctant to trust you after that. Bribery helps repair your reputation, but it can take a long time and a lot of bribes.

I've won a few Diplomatic victories, but that usually means LOTS of trade treaties, a few mutal-defense treaties, a good helping of bribes (particularly technology) and squeaky-clean behavior. And it definitely works better in games where one of the war-mongering civs has become large and threatening.

I must say that another RTS war game (Seven Kingdoms) was really fun.

It had diplomacy, espionage and a easy-to-use interface that was very very addictive.

I wonder if anybody had played the original Seven Kingdoms. I've had hours, if not days of fun with it, simply because it frees you from the day-to-day aspects of the game, allowing you to concentrate on trade, diplomacy, espionage and of-course warfare.

Not too much depth in 7K, but extremely fun to play.