Warhammer Mark Of Chaos - How Is The RTS?

Steven Williamson writes "HEXUS.gaming's resident wood elf, Steven W, jumped at the chance to take the eye-opening trip to the Games Workshop HQ in Nottingham, home to the unique venue that is Warhammer World. What started out as a run-of-the-mill press event to see the latest real-time tactics videogame set in the Warhammer universe ended up capturing my imagination and quashing any previous hang-ups I almost certainly had about the people who played Warhammer and indeed the tabletop game that has spawned this latest PC game, Warhammer: MOC."

Re:Champions?

[Echo5ive]

Well, Warhammer had unit champions way before W3 was even planned. And they're not at all like the unique Warcraft characters; each unit can have a champion. They're kinda like squad leaders.

I used to work there

[RembrandtX]

I used to work at GW. Both in the US, and across the pond [When they were located in Lenton, and for about 2 months after they relocated to the new building.]

HUGE building, big spacemarine on the top. And, they have their own pub :P [seriously]

Stuff like computer programs have ALWAYS been the bastard step child of the company. They are always Licence deals, and the company itself keeps creative control.

Little known fact, Blizzard entertainment origially wrote 'warcraft' to be a RTS of warhammer. Approached (i think it was) Steve Godber on the board, for a licencing deal, and was turned down. Instead the deal was given to Mindscape, who made 'Shadow of the Horned Rat' which was a colossal failure.

The guys at Blizzard were big Games-Workshop fans:

Warcraft = Warhammer
Starcraft = Warhammer 40k
Diablo = DungeonQuest / HeroQuest

I think the guys at Relic finally got it right, and that the Studio(At GW) finally got someone with a clue to make video game decisions. [although the MMORPG that they had going, died, but it seems that they moved the licence over to Relic .. so who knows.]

Re:RTS vs. RTT?

[Parallax48]

As I understand it, the difference is in the nature of the battle.

RTT games are those where you start with a certian set of troops and have to guide those troops through an engagement. You don't normally get any more, and the game is usually over when that one battle is won or lost.

RTS games are larger, or longer - they are made up of many battles. You build a base, create armies and have several battles.

A good example of a RTS is Red alert, A good example of a RTT is Myth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_%26_Conquer:_ Red_Alert [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_(computer_game) [wikipedia.org]

Re:RTS vs. RTT?

[skorch]

Well the real time part is obvious (as in, not turn based), so the real issue is the difference between strategy and tactics.

To oversimplify it, a military strategy includes all the logistics of war, including the acquisition and allocation of resources, management of supplies, as well as the global movement and positioning of troops.

Tactics just refers to the specific maneuvering and commanding of troops engaged in combat.

So basically, how you command your units at your base, and where you choose to send your troops to engage in combat (such as which enemy locations or strongholds to attack first, etc.) are your strategy; and how you command your troops once they are in battle are your tactics.

So an RTS will include such elements as gathering resources, and then spending those resources on building structures and recruiting troops and units as a core element of the gameplay. A tactics game will focus mainly on how you micromanage your troops in battle, and leave the logistical elements such as recruiting or resource gathering either as secondary or completely separate.

A good example of the difference between tactics and strategy is seen in the Rome: Total War. They have a turn-based strategy portion of the game where you build structures in your cities, recruit your soldiers and move your armies around the world map. Then when a battle starts it switches over to a Real Time Tactics game, where all you are concerned with is ordering your troops around the battle map to win the encounter. When the battle is resolved it switches back to the world map and the strategy portion of the game.

I generally prefer tactics to strategy, as real time strategy is a bit unrealistic (building entire cities in the same time frame as it takes to fight a battle is just unrealistic to me), but the Total War mechanism of breaking those two elements apart works perfectly for me. It allows the strategy to take place over a time frame of months to years (as it should) and the tactics portion to take place over a matter of minutes to hours (as it should). I'm curious to see how this PC adaptation of Warhammer worked it out, as I enjoy a good RTT (and there aren't many).

Re:RTS vs. RTT?

[SatanicPuppy]

Tactics is units, movement, and positioning.

Strategy is which units, resource management, and larger scale goals.

It's the macro/micro thing. Strategy is the macro, the big picture. Tactics is the micro, where the rubber meets the road.