Time is one of the dimensions that has to be simulated in many games. The game
can be real-time running at the same speed as time in the real world, or can
be running faster or slower. The alternative to real time is to use turns, periods
or bounds which is the traditional method in board and wargames. I will discuss
this system in that context as everything about using them has already been
discovered in these hobbies. Turn systems have being commonly used in many computer
games, even when the designer does not understand why they were done in that
way in the original medium.
Increasing the games speed can get the player through inactive parts of the
game, without losing the pace of the game and allowing boredom to creep in.
An example would be a plane travelling from its base to a waypoint on its way
to the battle area. When the player has a number of decisions to make and actions
to take, all at once, he may be given the option to decrease the games speed
or pause it. This is frequently done in strategy games and this feature prevents
the player from being overwhelmed by the game.
Turns break time up into segments and should allow the player to carry out
the actions with his units or characters, that he could achieve in that period.
For instance, a wargame might have a turn representing one minute of time. A
tank takes 30 seconds to load and fire in real life and travels, in normal battlefield
conditions, at 60 mph. The tank could fire twice, move one mile or fire once
and move 0.5 mile. Miniature wargames and boardgames can use either alternate
bounds.
Alternate bounds means one player moves all his units, and then resolves combat.
The other player then takes his turn. The problem with this system is that it
does not feel very realistic. If the tanks knocked out by the first player are
allowed to move and fire in the second players turn, it may make the game fairer,
but also makes the system very abstract. Some tanks could be knocked out microseconds
before they get a chance to fire. To represent this possibility, the game could
incorporate a complicated system of initiative in which higher rated initiative
units, react and fire first. Units destroyed in this system, are deemed to have
being to slow in reacting and do not get to fight after this happens.
Simultaneous movement means that both players move their units together and
then resolve combat together. Any units knocked out are allowed to continue
fighting for the rest of the current turn. The problem with this is that one
crafty player will wait until the other player has moved his units and then
move his units with knowledge of what the other player has done and thus gain
an unfair advantage. To stop such cheating, the players may be required write
down exactly what his units are going to do in his turn. This is a time consuming
process and is open to frustration if orders are interpreted by an umpire.
The big problem with using a turn system is that the average player, is just
not used to the abstract activity of breaking time up into segments. Real time
is easily understandable. It also gives pace and excitement to a game.
The computer is capable of using the much more player friendly real time system,
so in what circumstance must a turn-based system be considered a necessary evil?
The answer is that the player cannot easily cope with moving and firing more
than a few units at most in real time. Flight simulators are very successful
if they only attempt to represent one plane. If wingmen were added to the game,
the player may be able to give them simple orders but he cannot control them,
unless he swaps seats and relinquishes control of his current plane. Artificial
intelligence must be used to control the actions of the wingmen.
Real Time Strategy (RTS) games also use real time to keep fast paced
excitement but are designed to let the player control only a few units at a
time in detail or just give general orders and the units have sufficient AI
to defend themselves if attacked. A main part of RTS game-play is to keep the
player constantly occupied monitoring economic supply and unit production or
closely controlling the movement of a unit or group of units.
With a turn based system, the player by moving one unit at a time can easily
totally control all the units on one side in a whole battle with considerable
depth of detail. However, to a move unit across the table using a turn-based
system can rapidly became extremely monotonous.
The designer must ask himself, what he wants to represent in his game?
Steel Panthers vs Command & Conquer
I want to take two very successful games representing similar things that used
different move systems to compare and contrast them. SSI's Steel Panthers
(1995) and Westwood's Command & Conquer (1995) are both very successful
wargames, both now having at least three versions of the original game.
Steel Panthers was a wargame representing small unit combat in World War II
with the units representing individual tanks and squads of troops of around
10 men. It uses a turn base system. Command & Conquer in contrast is a science-fiction
wargame with some strategy elements. The player's objective is take over the
enemy base in a region with science fiction tanks and men, which you build and
recruit at your base, in real time. Of course the games were not just successful
because of the system of representing time used was appropriate and done well,
there were lots of other factors involved as well.
Steel Panthers has evolved from boardgames such as Avalon Hill's Squad Leader
series and miniature wargaming with 1/300 or 1/285 scale tanks. The game has
underlying hex system similar to Squad Leader but has a graphic look similar
to miniature wargaming. It also uses a command structure often found in miniature
wargame rules rather than the abstract system of leaders found in Squad Leader.
The game uses a complicated firing system allowing side hits on a tank turret
on a vehicle facing forward to represent the turret being moved during the turn
and lucky hits on lesser armoured areas.
The time system used is the traditional 'alternate bound' turn system commonly
used in such miniature wargames. In a turn, the player moves and fires all his
units and then the computer moves all his units. Morale is calculated at the
end of the turn by the computer and broken units then retreat. Artillery and
air-support are called during the players turn and its effects are worked out
at the start of the turn, on which it becomes available.
The game uses a sophisticated initiative system, not normally seen in miniature
wargames of this type. Enemy units may fire during the players turn at targets
that appear to them as the player moves his units. For instance if the player
had his units hidden behind a hill during the computer players turn, but moves
them over the crest so he could see and fire at enemy tanks. The computer controlled
units may depending on their initiative and previous activity may be able to
fire back, before the player can move them back behind the crest of the hill
at the end of the players turn.
The only oversight in the games system is with moving tanks. A tank that made
a full turn can fire in the next turn without any loss of accuracy and if he
still has part of his turn left move again. This is unrealistic as tanks during
W.W.II, had at best only very primitive gun stabilisation system, which gave
them only a very remote chance of hitting a target whist moving. Tanks also
pick up considerable momentum when moving and are difficult to stop. The system
does not take these factors into account.
Command and Conquer is a development of the previous Dune games. The game without
the limitations on the design imposed by trying to simulate events from the
book Dune, becomes a much more playable game. The game still takes references
from Science-fiction films such as the name of the 'baddy' in Robocop II. One
game unit is clearly modelled on a vehicle from Terminator.
Dune II (1992) was a real time game, with similar unit and base elements,
however C&C game-play is much more like the fantasy Warcraft. Dune II was
more stilted requiring certain attack approaches and attacks with certain units
that out reached enemy defences.
The player picks a site to build and starts to harvest resources with his initial
units. He constructs buildings with different functions such as producing certain
units. He starts by placing units to defend his base and explores the surrounding
area to find the enemy base. After beating off a number enemy attacks, he should
have built up enough troops to be ready to make an attack on the enemy base.
The player can only fully control one unit at once. He relies on the games limited
artificial intelligence given to a unit, which allows it to defend itself. The
games interface allows the player to move a large number of units at once. Attacks
are therefore carried out in waves. He moves a force to an attacking position.
The player then concentrates on attacking or taking over a certain enemy structure,
with a few key units. While the rest of the force keeps the enemy occupied.
Strong enemy defences result in initial attacks been worn down, requiring the
force to be repaired or built again, until the enemy base is finally overcome.
Steel Panthers was designed to be like a miniature wargame table and a large
collection of figures that can be used to create any scenario with any mix of
troops and terrain. The player is given an editor and can design his own scenario
and each side can have equal forces created, using a point system. Units represent
real life tanks and troops. Game balance is achieved by giving them an appropriate
point cost and simulating their capabilities accurately.
Command & Conquer is a number of scenarios thinly linked by an overall
storyline that is sufficient to keep the player occupied for a considerable
number of hours. The scenarios although they all involve the player collecting
up resources and defending his base, until he builds a force sufficient to overwhelm
the enemy were sufficiently different and increasingly challenging to avoid
boring the player.
A study of the manual gives some strong indicators that the scenarios were
designed very late in the game's development. The Commando unit in the manual
is viewed as no different from any other, to be constructed and used in standard
scenarios. The Commando unit with the longer reach of its sniper rifle, severely
affects game balance. Under direct player control, it can easily be used to
kill a large group of infantry, worth many times the commando's value. The Commando
is used in special scenarios where the player has only a single Commando or
just a few units with this unit as the main killing arm to carry out a specific
task.
The question is which is better real time or turn-based? Steel Panthers tries
to be a simulation of armoured warfare and as such would have being very difficult
to achieve in real-time. There have been a number of RTS games that take a
WW2 theme but are hardly realistic summations. Close Combat succeeded in using
a real time system to simulate warfare in a realistic way but limited the
number of units the player had to control and not every wargamer enjoyed the
micromanagement of units against using WW2 tactics to win the game. Command
and Conquer could have been done as a turn based game but it would have lost
a lot of the games easy accessibility, pace and fun style. A major problem
with the system used in C&C is that the game-play and tactics if transferred
to another situation are going to be very similar. The time system chosen
for a game very much determines the style of game play.
Real Time or Turn-based?
Since the success of Command and Conquer, RTS games became one of the most
popular game genres to develop or play. Turn-based games such as Civilization
III (2001), a remake, are still made but have become extremely marginalized.
Developers are after a fast paced game style, which are fun and are easy for
players to understand compared with a slow and abstract turn-based system.
Turn-based systems have being altered to make them have some of the characteristics
of real-time systems.
Baldur's Gates (1998) complex real-time system was in reality a turn-based
system that could be paused to give orders. Jagged Alliance II (1999)
had a real-time system until the enemy was encountered and then switched to
a very complex and traditional turn-based system. Combat Mission: Beyond
Overlord (2000) lets players plot turns as if for a turn-based system but
then shows them a movie of the results, with the action shown in real time.
Copyright: 1998 and 2004 Mark Gallear
Rowan's
OVERLORD is a typical example of real-time combat flight simulators that
use a first person perspective. Game time is real-time, and the player flies
and operates his plane as if a real combat plane. The game is therefore centred
on the career of a single pilot and has some role-playing elements. Many flight
sims allow the play to accelerate time, when he is not in combat to reduce monotony
between the action packed combat parts of the game.
Avalon Hill's
OVER THE REICH deals with air combat, but is a turn-based wargame with
a top view. The game allows the player to follow the fortunes of a whole squadron
and go into combat with up to eight planes. The game has both role-playing and
strategy elements as the player must manage the resources of his squadron and
decide which planes and pilots to use on each mission during a campaign. Planes
move in a set sequence dependant on luck, and pilot skill. The player must think
carefully about where to position his aircraft to intercept the opponent's planes
and avoid being shot down himself.
Three-Sixty's
HARPOON II is a real time simulation of modern naval combat. Although
a tactical wargame, it was similar to most Strategy games in that the player
has to manage a diverse range of units in real-time. Artificial intelligence
allows ships to defend themselves, but not as effectively as the player could
do. It uses the metaphor of a naval admiral commanding the battle through a
computer screen representation of the theatre of battle. This used multiple
windows and the graphics were the proper US Navy symbols for ships and planes.
Multimedia elements were combined so that as a missile is launched a film clip
of the correct missile being fired is shown. Game time although flowing as normal
is scaled back at the normal setting and the player has the option to slow or
increase time flow.
Most players
preferred to switch to a more graphic representation of ships and planes, which
are easier to understand. When a version of modern land combat was attempted
called PATRIOT it was far from successful. This was partly because naval
combat is largely one-dimensional as the sea is flat. Only a few ships or planes
interact with each other. Land combat is dependent on terrain features that
are ignored by this system. Large and complex units of tanks, infantry, artillery
and planes interact with each other over different terrain features that can
considerably affect combat.
Three Sixty's
V FOR VICTORY is a turn based wargame. Its look and game mechanism are
a boardgame metaphor of the SPI and Avalon Hill wargames. It uses a player bounded
time sequence in which the player moves all his 'counters' on a hexagon map
and engages in combat with adjacent enemy units. Then the computer representing
the opposing player has his alternate move. The boardgame look has now largely
disappeared as 'ordinary' players found it hard to understand.
Impression's
BLUE AND THE GRAY is a wargame covering the whole of the American Civil
War. It has two levels: a turn-based campaign overview with a boardgame metaphor
but the actual battles are real-time with a miniature's metaphor. The battle
simulator was very poor. The miniature's metaphor used wargame figures in a
strange side and top view. However, the figures did not represent any real tactical
units, so the use of any real tactical manoeuvres was not possible.
The system
was valid in that it used a common technique of miniature wargames to organise
a campaign. Counters on a map of a country are used for the movement of the
armies and then when the army's meet, the battles are fought with miniature
figures representing the strength of the army's involved.
Mythos Games'
UFO: ENEMY UNKNOWN used a real time strategy overview and a turn-based
combat system. The real time system was quite simple with a globe of the world
in which fighters could be ordered to intercept. Strategic elements like R&D
and buying equipment were conducted at bases in a freeze time mode. The combat-system
allowed a large number of animated men to be moved about a three-dimensional
area of containing a crashed UFO or alien base. Each man was given so many action
points in which to move, reload guns, kneel or fire. A man left with sufficient
points to fire his weapon might be allowed to do so at an alien suddenly appearing
during the aliens turn.
The combat
system is directly descended from the miniature's Skirmish wargaming system
developed in the early 1970's. This used the then original concept of using
one figure to represent a man. Each man had different attributes for combat
such as firing a rifle or a pistol. Reactions such as enforced ducking etc were
built into the system. Movement was done in simultaneous phases representing
a few seconds of real time. Firing, moving, opening a door used up a certain
percentage of a phase. These were written down by the players and then acted
out on the table together.
ISI's 101ST
AIRBORNE IN NORMANDY applies this system to an historical setting. The systems
main problem is boredom if the player is only moving units across the game battlefield
even with buttons to automate the process.
Bullfrog's
SYNDICATE is a real time combat game involving up to four cyborg's on
a series of missions. The system used small graphics and greatly shortened the
range of the weapons to fit on the computer screen. This allowed real-time movement
and combat without the player being killed by adversaries he could not see.
The pay of the system is the pace the game achieves with real-time. The cyborg's
moved in tandem and fired at the same target, using a point and click interface.
One cyborg could be moved while leaving the other's behind. They would fire
back if attacked. This was useful to plant demolition charges, etc.
The strategy
element was limited to some R&D and upgrading the weapons and cyborg's.
The nihilistic approach of the game removed any role-playing of the cyborgs.
The system proved popular and has been widely copied.
Dr Peter
Turcan's WATERLOO, was real-time. It used the premise that a general
in this period had very limited command and control of his troops. His orders
were sent out to the divisional commanders by a mounted courier and may only
reach them long after their relevance had passed. The commander also had a very
limited view of the battlefield upon which to base his decisions. The game allows
the player to give each of his units very general orders and then carries them
out in a shortened real-time once they arrive. The player will eventually get
reports back from his commanders on how the battle is going.
A similar
system has been used by miniature wargamer's trying to recreate the fog of war.
The commander sits in a room by himself. He has a limited map of the battlefield
and issues' orders to his subordinates. An umpire tells the player what he can
see and does his best to carry out the usually unrealistic orders given to him
on a miniature's table in another room. This is the most difficult and frustrating
form of miniature wargaming. When creating a wargame design, thing about what
elements you are going to try and create realistically. Are you going to allow
the player to be omnipresent?
Talonsoft's
1815 BATTLEGROUND WATERLOO is a turn and hexed-based wargame. However
this boardgame style game has been jazzed up with miniature style unit representations
and multi-media video clips of re-enactment groups firing cannons, etc. The
same programming engine has been used for a variety of different battles proving
the approach is popular with ordinary people and not just wargaming enthusiasts.
Microprose's
FIELDS OF GLORY was a revolutionary real-time wargame covering a major
historical battle. The game allowed the player to use different time speeds
and zoom into three different levels of detail. The graphics although flat were
of high quality and animated. Commanders of divisions down to battalion commanders
could be given orders by clicking on the officer figure or battalion unit. This
opened a window's style box in which a relevant formation or order could be
given.
The problem
of having the player control a vast number of units over a wide area in real
time was solved by having the game play itself. The game relied upon a high
level of artificial intelligence. Units were always on the move and would attack
and defend themselves based on their last order given or on the general orders
they had at the start of the game. Unfortunately the artificial intelligence
frequently fell down on this job.
The game
was relatively simple to win. The player had only interfere sufficiently to
tip the scales away from the draw that would usually result if the two sides
were allowed to slug it out by themselves. Units were not always responsive
to orders; the player madly darted about clicking on unit after unit in an attempt
to give them relevant and cohesive orders. There was some regret by the designers
that the money had been pulled from the game before it was totally perfected.
The real-time
WARHAMMER games such as Dark OMEN do not give the players units
any artificial intelligence apart from enforced moves such as rout. The player
must order a unit to fire on an enemy or move to attack. This runs into the
problem of the player only be able to observe one group of units at a time and
give orders to one unit at a time. The player could fail to notice a unit being
destroyed if out of his view, even though units give animated messages when
under attack or acknowledging an order. Worse units will fire on friendly units
if an enemy unit with a missile attack ordered on it charges into melee with
a friendly unit. The player has to order a cease-fire on each missile unit targeted
on such a unit. The friendly unit could be annihilated before this could be
done.
Firaxis'
SID MEIER'S GETTYSBURG is another miniatures style real-time wargame.
This gives a number of zoomed views of the battlefield and 3-D animated miniature
style figure units. The game solves the problem of the player commanding a large
number of units over a large area by cutting the battle down into scenarios.
The player only commands a sample section of the battle at any one time. The
limitation of real-time in this case is that the player is not fighting the
battle of Gettysburg, only part of it.
The Player
gives orders by clicking on a unit and causing a floating control panel to appear.
This allows the player to give orders such as where to move the unit or what
formation to adopt. The player can give orders while the game is paused to stop
him being becoming overwhelmed. The artificial intelligence allows a unit to
fire back if attacked but relies on the player to give the majority of necessary
orders to mount a successful attack or defence. The game allows for a multi-player
option to fight the whole battle with a number of players controlling a different
section of the battle.
The system
of breaking a battle up into scenarios has been used by both miniature wargamers
and boardgamers. For miniature wargamers the choice is to increase the ground
scale and the numbers of units represented by a single unit or just fight one
important aspect of the battle. The storming of Le Haye Sainte would be a suitable
scenario for Waterloo. The interaction and progression of the rest of the battle
could be built in by allowing variable reinforcements.
Atomic's
CLOSE COMBAT series uses a real time combat system that is a development
of the system used in FIELDS OF GLORY. Individual men in a section are
shown by clever animations doing various actions in different terrain. The system
seems to calculate the chance and wounds as each individual fires. When animation
is low they pop away with handguns at each other. The battle area is small and
combat tends to be concentrated in one area. This allows the player to follow
the combat without forgetting about a separate action in a far corner.
The scenarios are difficult to win compared with FIELDS OF GLORY but
the players input is still largely limited to the original set up of his troops
before battle begins and movement orders, units will fire as soon as they spot
an enemy. Even ordering them to cease-fire and hide will be overridden if the
enemy moves too close. Tactics are limited to deciding to move by crawling or
rushing an area, and positioning sections to support each other.
It is frustrating
when units ignore even move orders but it is realistic for the simulation of
an infantry commander at this scale of operations.
NAVIGATE