Summary

Covering all aspects of the whole genre of strategy games in a short e-book is an impossible task. Here we focused on the key challenges of most modern war games: conflict, exploration, and economic management. Now you know how to design units, choosing attributes and capabilities that will give them the qualities that you want. You should also be able to create an upgrade path or technology tree that allows for a sense of advancement, introducing new units and decisions in the game.

You also learned the importance of establishing a balanced economic model for unit production so that all sides in a game have an equal chance of building up their forces. We looked at several ways to handle the question of supply lines, from literal transportation of supplies to abstract distribution systems.

You should be aware of some of the considerations for designing games set in different worlds, and you should now know the best ways to present those worlds to the player: with an aerial perspective and a multipresent interaction model. Finally, we looked at a few different ways of designing artificial opponents.

If you plan to design a strategy game, a good way to start is to examine the mechanics of a good board game such as The Settlers of Catan. Board games are simple enough for a single person to grasp the entire rule-set and, consequently, such games lend themselves well to analysis.

Design Practice Case Study

Choose a strategy game that you believe, from your own experience of playing it, is an excellent example of the genre (or use one your instructor assigns). Write a report documenting the features that place it in this genre as opposed to another one and explaining why you believe it is superior to others of its kind. Be sure to cover at least the following areas:

• Describe unit types and their attributes, including any special abilities. If you feel that the different forces in the game are well balanced or unbalanced, explain this with reference to the units and their attributes.

• If you feel the game implements or allows for any classic military stratagems, document them. Consider flanking maneuvers, diversionary tactics, infiltration and sneak attacks, cutting enemy supply lines, using reserve troops, and any other stratagem that you feel the game does well. Show how the way the units are designed enables these features. (For example, a stealth capability makes sneak attacks possible.)

• Discuss the role of logistics in the game, if any. What resources do the troops and factories consume? Explain how supply lines and/or influence are implemented.

• Explore the user interface in the primary gameplay mode. Briefly document the mechanism for giving orders to units. Note important indicators that appear on the screen and discuss how they improve the playing experience.

• Detail the core mechanics. Indicate resources, sources, conversions, and drains. In particular, be sure to describe the behavior of factories: how long it takes them to produce a unit and how many resources they consume to do so. If differential production rates influence the balance of the game, document this.

The design questions in the next section may help you to think about these issues. In your report, use screen shots to illustrate your points. End the case study with suggestions for improvement or, if you feel the game cannot be improved, suggestions for additional features that might be fun to have in the game.

Alternatively, choose a game that you believe is particularly bad. Do the same case study, explaining what is wrong and how it could be improved.

Another alternative: choose two strategy games to compare and contrast in just a few of the areas mentioned in the bullet points above.

A case study is neither a review nor a design document; it is an analysis. You are not attempting to reverse-engineer the entire game but simply to explain how it works in a general way. Your instructor will tell you the desired scope of the assignment; we recommend from 5 to 20 pages.

Design Practice Questions

When beginning the design of a strategy game, consider the following questions:

1. Is the game turn-based or real-time? The answer to this question has tremendous consequences for the nature and feel of the gameplay.

2. Is the game world 2D (as in checkers), 2.5D (as in StarCraft), or fully 3D (as in Populous: The Beginning)? Will the game offer a perspective other than the usual aerial one?

3. Will the game include challenges other than conflict, such as exploration or economic management? How will they work with the conflict challenges?

4. Some games, such as Go, are about control of territory rather than destruction of units per se. If this is true of your game, how is territory seized and how is it retained (or retaken)? What methods are used to indicate to the player who owns a particular region?

5. If the game involves units in combat, what are the units and what are their key characteristics (health, speed, range, rate of fire, and so on) and limitations?

6. Is the player given a fixed number of units at the beginning, as with most strategy board games such as chess, or is there a production mechanism? If there is a production mechanism, what are the production times and costs of each unit, and what (if anything) is consumed by production? If something is consumed by production, where does it come from in the first place?

7. Real-time strategy games are prone to certain dominant strategies such as the race for resources hidden in the landscape. These blunt approaches tend to overwhelm more subtle strategic details. Can you devise a way to predict and avoid them?

8. Does the game include upgrades or a technology tree? If so, what are the upgrades and how are they obtained? What does it add to the player’s experience of the game?

9. Does the game include logistics (maintenance of supply lines)? What supplies must be provided, and what happens if supply lines are broken? Does the supply mechanism include any abstractions to simplify it?

10. What is the game’s setting, if any? If the units are unfamiliar to the player, what visual cues or other cues will you use to indicate the difference between, for example, a dragoon, a cuirassier, and a grenadier?

11. Is the game a large-scale one with hundreds or thousands of units or a small-scale one with tens of units? How will this affect the player’s perception of the units? What user interface features will the player need to manage them?

12. How much can the player see? Does the terrain have to be explored? Will the game obscure territory to provide fog of war?

13. If you can get a copy, take a look at the level editor supplied with Warcraft III. Which of the level-building features (triggers, timed events, and so on) would you like to include in your game?

14. Strategy games require particularly powerful AI, especially if the game is supposed to play in general circumstances and not just prebuilt and prebalanced levels. Given the rules of the game, what goals should the AI work toward, and how should they choose the actions to achieve those goals?

References

Adams, Ernest. 2014. Fundamentals of Game Design, Third Edition, San Francisco, CA: New Riders.

Adams, Ernest. 2004. “Kicking Butt by the Numbers.” “Designer’s Notebook” column in the Gamasutra webzine, August 6, 2004, at www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2123/the_designers_notebook_kicking_.php (referenced November 4, 2013).

Crawford, Chris. 1986. Balance of Power: International Politics as the Ultimate Global Game. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Press. Now available in HTML format at www.erasmatazz.com/library/my-books/balance-of-power.html (referenced November 4, 2013).

Morris, David. 2001. Untitled article in Develop 9 (November, 2001).

Dalmau, Daniel Sánchez-Crespo. 2004. Core Techniques and Algorithms in Game Programming. Berkeley, CA: Peachpit Press.

About the Fundamentals of Game Design E-books

You understand the basic concepts of game design: gameplay, user interfaces, core mechanics, character design, and storytelling. Now you want to know how to apply them to individual game genres. These focused guides give you exactly what you need. They walk you through the process of designing for game genres and show you how to use the right techniques to create fun and challenging experiences for your players.

All of these e-books are available from the Peachpit website at www.peachpit.com/ernestadams.

Fundamentals of Shooter Game Design discusses designing for this huge and specialized market. It examines both the frenetic deathmatch style of play and the stealthier, more tactical approach.

Fundamentals of Action and Arcade Game Design is about the earliest, and still most popular, genre of interactive entertainment: action games. This genre may be divided into numerous subgenres such as fighting games, platformers, and others, which the chapter addresses in as much detail as there is room for. It also looks at the most popular hybrid genre, the action-adventure.

Fundamentals of Music, Dance, and Exercise Game Design addresses a popular new genre that has made gaming more accessible to new players than conventional action games are.

Fundamentals of Strategy Game Design discusses another genre that has been part of gaming since the beginning: strategy games, both real-time and turn-based.

Fundamentals of Role-Playing Game Design is about role-playing games, a natural outgrowth of pencil and paper games such as Dungeons & Dragons.

Fundamentals of Sports Game Design looks at sports games, which have a number of peculiar design challenges. The actual contest itself is designed by others; the trick is to map human athletic activities onto a screen and control devices.

Fundamentals of Vehicle Simulation Design addresses vehicle simulations: cars, planes, boats, and other, more exotic modes of transportation such as tanks.

Fundamentals of Construction and Simulation Game Design is about construction and management simulations in which the player tries to build and maintain something—a city, a theme park, a planet—within the limitations of an economic system.

Fundamentals of Adventure Game Design explores adventure games, an old and unique genre of gaming that continues to earn a great deal of critical attention by its strong storytelling and its visual aesthetics.

Fundamentals of Puzzle and Casual Game Design examines puzzle games and casual games in general.