I used to develop various "skills" in build orders and shortcut rushes, spending hours on battlenet and AoE online.
With all this I was CONVINCED that I was playing STRATEGY games and being in my 20's I percieved the RTS design to be aimed at mature and seasoned gamers and not on 12 years olds.
Thats all had to change after OUT of PURE curiocity I bought RTW 6 months ago. Suddenly I got a simulation of WAR tactics, with GEOPOLITICAL interaction!!!!
With the release of AoE III I hoped Ensemble had something to learn from the Creative Assembley (RTW developers)
but in vain what's the continouing STANDARDS for what a GOOD RTS player do?
CLICK FAAAST!!!
Memorise shortcuts!!!!!!!!!
RUSH RUSH RUSH!!!
Its clear that the whole RT"S" pattern was drawn on a VERY simplified (dumped down) version of reality of warfare:
Resource collection, hmmm right whats the mania about it? Did any ancient/modern general bothered with economics or where the moneys coming from? Isnt it very nice and fun to have your little peasants gather some gold/wood/anything? If youre 12 or have been imposed a 12 years old's design... Why the TAXATION, the TROOP ACTUAL UPKEEP and trade economics are absent? Wait the genre is designed for 12 years olds...that explains all.
Hit points bar: Well its the rigid line between the TW (and some other wargames) and the RT"S" crowd. Simplified and utterly needed because of the overfocus on scirmish/gang fights of 20-50 INDIVIDUALS (my next point) looks IMO quite funny since we all know that people dont have green liquid in them (except maybe orcs?)...
Gang wars: Yep the scale of warfare is so extreme that its like looking on a globe with 50cm diameter and trying to find your home village of 200 residents. Now one may say that well 1 soldier represents 1000 but the question that arises is: why in TW series they achieved 1 soldier to represent just 10? Yes you control 20 UNITS but each soldier's experiense, and stats are calculated on indiviual basis and in that time the armies operated in units not just some UNORGANISED mob (in some cases they did but they werent armies--> Morale: The garlic of the RT"S" vampires. All try to avoid it at all cost or compromise in a way (WH40k's excuse of a morale system the soldiers just losing some fighting abilities NOT fleening automatically). Why they do that? Is that strategy? AoEIII doesnt have it while we all know that morale was the BASIS of all warfare (spartan anyone?) and disciplined armies conquered the world. Basebuilding: There are two exptremely simplified parts of the whole army creation: The scale. When the barracks that a soldier was supposed to be training in are the same height as he is its clearly shows the pattern and the target audience of such games (compare this to this The whole notion of building at the same scale and time scale as the "battles" unfold. We all know that the building construction takes MONTHS (if not years) and that the battles take minutes and hours, now its clear how this was simplified but if you far from reality you cannot recreate strategic thought. Whatever I say however the fact that basebuilding shortcut memorising clickfest RT"S"es will outsell wargames remains. Like the FIFA outsells the only soccer emulator Pro Evolution Soccer every year with EA's same trivial tennis like gameplay. Ellinas