Imp Fyron
Sorry, but I dont share your view of RT not at all. (think, you guessed it already...
)
You tell me that RT combat is much better for 4X games than turnbased. I am playing 4X games (board and computer) for nearly 20 years since I was a teenager and for me RT combat is something more ...what can I say...fashioned. I mean it appeared just several years ago. All the great classics of 4X (formers like CIV, MOM, MOO and some of todays like the SE series) are turnbased. Thats why your argument above (RT is better than turnbased for 4X) is not really valid for me. The problem is that most of the younger gamers today dont even know about something like "turnbased". (and they did not accept turnbased games because they grew up with RT games)
I did spend some time to inform myself about the MOO3 tactical combat system the Last few months, and I am not convinced at all. Let me explain why:
1. Personally I dont like any type of RT games. I dont even play medievial, harpoon or star fleet battles (the computer game) because they have RT system or a tactical combat system in RT.(although I tested each of them at least several days)
2. You mention that MOO3 is a "soft" form of RT combat. Maybe. But nonetheless even such a "soft" form of RT combat as in MOO3 has one important unacceptable feature. The guy which has a better hand-eye coordination wins more battles than others. Why? Well, simple. In MOO3 you can give orders at any time. (mainly moving taskforce orders) If 2 guys with exactly the same fleets and the same tactical abilities battle another, the guy which is used to play RT games and has a good hand-eye coordination will click at more optimized time moments at this "move taskforce" button and will have an advantage to the guy who just clicks later on it. It plays no role if this advantage is high or not. Its enough that there is an edge to the coordination guy. A good 4X game should be a contest of the minds not a contest of coordination. It should be FULLY FREE of honoring a players clicking abilities.
3. Maybe you claim that Quicksilver introduced a RT system because they have so many ships in their combat that a normal turn based system would not possible.
But to stay with the truth:
-In effekt now in MOO3 there are in about 200 Ships max per side per battle. I had some epic (and very amusing) SE4 Battles with more ships.
-if this 200max are so many ships that the average MOO player cannot handle them with ease in a traditional turnbased manner, they could reduce the amount with some economical or military restraints (making the single ship much more expensive or introducing some fleet point rules like in MOO2) Just a matter of game design.
NO they did not want to make the engine turnbased because they want to make more money if they design a mainstream product like shogun or medievial with a mixed system.(see above my rant about the likings of gamers of today)
4. A further problem is that many people do make the assumption that a 4X game is a simulation of beeing a leader in a pre-specified environment like sim-city in space or so. This is not my opinion. In my opinion a good 4X game is a a computer aided board game and not a simulation. And board games have a long tradition beeing turnbased. Several thousands of years.
I am not totally against sims or RT games. They should have their followers and their share of the big video gaming market. But I dont like if they do occupy every aspect of computer gaming. (especially the 4x games which I really like to play myselfes)
So I am riding against windmills once more....
KlausD
PS. sorry for my bad english