The Story of Starcraft Part 14: Economies and Abstractions

Let’s take a step back from the Starcraft campaign for a moment. I’d like to talk about something that’s been bubbling at the back of my mind for a while now:

Economies in RTS games.

Arguably, every Real-Time Strategy game needs some form of economy as a central game mechanic. Games like RTSs but without this don’t feel strategic. Thinking about a classic like Myth II – where you micro a set squad of units – is more Real-Time Tactical than Strategic.

But what do I mean when I talk about economies in RTSs?

The boring part where we define things

I’m not an expert on the genre. I’m sure you could come up with exceptions and outliers for this.

But we can agree on a few things.

RTS games include:

·        Base-building as a core mechanic,

·        Worker units (units who’s primary role isn’t combat, but base support)

·        Gathering resources, which are then spent on combat units, buildings, workers, upgrades and more.

There’s some flexibility here. In classic Command & Conquer, workers only gather resources – they aren’t used to build structures. In C&C Generals, the USA’s resource-gathering worker is a chopper that can airdrop infantry into the battlefield. They have a separate worker for building structures.

Still, it’s a reasonable set of mechanics. Let’s take these as a given for the genre, even though they aren’t.

What can we do with them?

Variations: Base Building

This is a minor gameplay abstraction. What military – now or in history – builds barracks’ on the battlefield and trains units there?

Soldiers need a place to sleep, eat, bathe and – sure – sharpen their skills. Is that what these buildings are for? I guess that makes sense.

It’s pretty funny, though, how a sufficiently wealthy peon can conjure an army anywhere on the map.

Whatever, it’s all good. What could we do with this idea?

Fixed bases – what if you couldn’t build or destroy buildings? The goal, instead, is to cripple the enemy some other way, maybe by killing a VIP unit or holding territory on the map.

That would lose something. For one, you wouldn’t be able to specialise your bases. In Starcraft, building three barracks is different from building three factories. For another, it takes a tactic off the table. Can’t beat your enemy’s army in a fair fight? Sneaking into their base and wrecking their production is a clever move.

Still, for a simple RTS, maybe there’s some merit here.

Capture, not build – some RTS games allow you to capture neutral buildings. For example, capturing an oil refinery makes tanks cheaper, while capturing a hospital provides passive healing over time for infantry.

What if every building were like this?

In most RTS games, destroying an enemy’s expansion cripples their production. If you could quickly capture it instead, it would be a bigger swing – you’d gain as much as they lost.

Byte Lynx does this, mostly. It’s easy to capture enemy infrastructure and use it for yourself. In C&C Generals, frontline infantry can capture whatever survives the intense, epic battles.

Buildings as units – In Warcraft 3, most Night Elf buildings can uproot, move and attack. What if the entire base worked like that? Rather than having a barracks, you had a radio operator who could call down reinforcements?

This would change the flow of battle. A base’s immobility is a significant tactical weakness. Once you set up in a corner of the map, you’ve spent the resources and you need to recoup them. Being too mobile makes it easier to get close and move away.

A change like this would radically change how an RTS feels, being more like guerrillas in the mountains and less like Napoleonic-era armies squaring off.

It would be vulnerable to cheesing, though. Sneak one dude into an awkward corner of the map and they could call down the thunder on your enemies all day long. That could turn fights into annoying cat-and-mouse battles, without careful balance and design.

Variations: Workers

In the Warcraft and Starcraft series, workers gather resources, build structures, and can fight but are bad at it.

What could you do with this idea?

Unionised workers – they carry pickaxes while their enemies carry battleaxes. You could make them unable to attack enemies, but that would be a minor, worse change.

Workers tend to cluster in your base. That means they can swarm lone enemy soldiers that sneak into your mineral line. Apart from that, they tend to not attack anyway.

Guns are tools too – another idea is making workers full combat units. In Warcraft 3, the Undead factions harvest lumber using their frontline soldiers.

What if every RTS did this? What if the armies could harvest, build and repair as they went?

Well, that would probably remove part of the strategy. Workers are supposed to be a soft, vulnerable belly. They’d supposed to die quickly when attacked, which is why your role is to keep them out of combat as best as you can.

Bringing them with your army is a waste, when they could be building or harvesting instead. If they are your army, though, it removes that tradeoff.

Still, I could see this working for a fast-paced game built around constant expansion.

Variations: Resources

Many RTS games have a single resource. Your workers gather tiberium, ore, money or spice, then spend that cash on their armies.

Warcraft and Starcraft each use three types of resource: two harvested resources and supply.

You can add more than this. The Age of Whatever series use many types of minerals, because they’re aiming for more of a civilisation-builder feel than a typical RTS feel.

Either way, this is another interesting abstraction.

Why on earth would you gather resources from the frontline? Do modern armies mine iron on the battlefield and smelt it there?

When Kerrigan invades Korhal – something she does more than once - why would she gather vespene from the planet? Wouldn’t her Swarm have access to huge, secure vespene resources? When Arthas invaded Northrend, did he really need to mine gold from the frozen north or be unable to pay for equipment? Didn’t he have swords and golds shipped with him?

It’s not literal, just like how workers aren’t literally building factories next to their enemies. It simulates supply lines and logistics. Mess with that and even a well-trained, well-equipped army will soon grind to a halt. As it is in real warfare, so it is in Blizzard’s RTSs.

I like the Starcraft/Warcraft approach of two resources and supply for a reason:

Early RTS games turn into RPS games – rock/paper/scissors. There are three main strategies.

The first is to build an army as fast as possible and attack early.

The second is to build your defences quickly.

The third is to build up your economy as fast as possible.

For players of equal skill, attacking fast will lose to someone who defends early. Defending early will lose to someone who focuses on their economy, since you invest to repel an attack that never comes. Focusing on economy will lose to an early attack, since workers can’t fight back well. Hence, the RPS element.

The two+supply model makes focusing on the economy a delicate, difficult choice. Not only is each new worker an expense that can’t protect you, it also costs supply, which means building more farms/Overlords/whatever.

This is expensive and vulnerable in the early stages.

Also, how do you assign your workers? If you focus solely on gold/minerals, then you can build more workers faster, but only basic combat units. If you assign some to lumbar/vespene, then your economy grows slower but you can afford better units earlier.

It’s complex.

Also: having supply means you can have supply limits. What’s to stop a player from hiding in their base, forever building a larger force? In C&C Generals, the answer is superweapons. In Warcraft/Starcraft, it’s because you can only build so many units.

At some point, you have to leave the safety of your base.

(It also means the programmers don’t need to worry about you building a thousand units and crashing the game. That’s not nothing.)

Anyway, what else could we do with resources?

The millennial’s dream – purely passive income is a bad game mechanic. It has no vulnerabilities for your enemies to attack and can’t be increased by an early, risky bet.

Boring…

Capturable resources – some RTS games have passive income sources on the map. If you capture them, they put easy money in your pocket. Your enemies know this and will try to steal them. Do you commit resources to defending them or just exploit them for a few moments?

Still less interesting than making the players expand and build bases. Still, this works for fluid, mobile, fast combat.

Different tech trees – this would be a nightmare to balance, but here’s an idea.

You have passive income, but that resource can only build manure units.

You can harvest from the map to build better units.

There are neutral areas you can capture that allow you to buy mercs, upgrades and other nice-to-haves.

Some buildable structures provide resources, but emit radiation that injuries nearby units (including yours).

Etc, etc.

This would be bonkers. More complexity, but does it add more depth?

Conclusion

Thinking through these options only makes me appreciate the genius design of Warcraft 2 – the first game I came across that had these elements in a developed way. (Warcraft 1 toyed with this, but it wasn’t quite there.) Starcraft refined this model, which they kept for Warcraft 3 and Starcraft 2.

For good reason.

But is it perfect? If Blizzard makes Starcraft 3 (unlikely) or Warcraft 4 (which would only happen if, somehow, WoW collapses but the Warcraft brand doesn’t), then will they stick with the two+supply model? Or will they mix it up?

If someone comes up with an interesting and fun variation on this, it could revitalise a genre that eagerly needs it.

Next time, we’re back to Starcraft’s story.