Anybody else rubbish at RTS games?

simisker

simisker

simisker

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I don't understand it.

Maybe it's something in my mindset, or my age, but I can't for the life of me succeed at RTS games.

Single player campaigns? Fine.

Pseudo-multiplayer 'skirmish' type games? Major suckage.

This is with Company Of Heroes, Dawn Of War [Dark Crusade, in particular, seeing as the single-player campaign is essentially lots of skirmishes against the AI] and Warcraft III. Oh, and Men At War, too.

The Total War series, for some reason, I can play and enjoy. But anything that's of the more traditional RTS 'CnC' style, and I bomb like Enola Gay.

Unsurprisingly, each optimistic play session ends with a joyless quit to Windows and a note to self to not impulse-purchase on Steam ever again.

Anyone else in the same [fail]boat?
 
I'm far too anal to play against other people.

I just end up sitting there making sure very building is perfectly in line with the other and that I have exactly the right ratios of men to vehicles, that my base is perfectly defended and layed out in a way that lets my troops move easily.

Then someone nukes me from orbit.
 
Fenris said:
I'm far too anal to play against other people.

I just end up sitting there making sure very building is perfectly in line with the other and that I have exactly the right ratios of men to vehicles, that my base is perfectly defended and layed out in a way that lets my troops move easily.

Then someone nukes me from orbit.
Click to expand...

This almost exactly. I like to build the perfect base then spend ages considering my army before very carefully setting them out :D
 
That's because there's a learning process involved in RTS's.

To become decent at online, you first have to "master" the Hard AI (Hardest usually has the AI cheating).

However when you get to playing people online, you'll find that you'll almost have to relearn the game because people play completely differently to AI - but at least you'll have mastered the basics by playing against Hard AI.

You have to think about everything very logically and learn about timing. As you play every game, you need to be thinking about what happens when and why.

Also, there are things that you have to be anal about and things that you shouldn't :p For eg. In Age of Empires, you shouldn't be anal about making your town be laid out all nicely, but you should lay out houses in a way that they are spread out in order to distract the enemy from reaching your barracks or town centre.
 
Inazuma said:
That's because there's a learning process involved in RTS's.

To become decent at online, you first have to "master" the Hard AI (Hardest usually has the AI cheating). [...]
Click to expand...
I can't even "master" the Normal AI! :D

I've tried build-and-rush, turtling and early strikes - all with the same result.

Inevitably there's going to be a learning process; but in over 25 years of playing games, success at this sort of game eludes me. I suspect that I'm now too old/impatient to really throw myself onto a learning curve and put myself through hours of funlessness in the hope that one day it'll click. Hey ho.
 
Getting good at multiplayer RTS games is 5% strategy, 95% speed.

Playing against AI, you get time to perfect your squads and your base while they wail away on the same defensive spot every minute. Other people are smart enough not to do that.
 
just concentrate on men of war, its amazing, been playing it plenty online since launch. slugger>move over ridge>spot king tiger and panther> sides facing me > 2 shots > to burning wrecks> what a feeling.

mow rocks
 
haha im in the same boat, im so bad it's funny, age of empires is the worst, i end up treating it more like Sim City than a game where i need to beat down mongols, that and i positivly have to mine/chopdown/fish/harvest everything in the game ever.

i played COH the other day, couldnt even work out how to build tanks shocker!
 
I also suck when it comes to RTS. I can play single player stuff ok, but multiplayer, I am awful.

I used to play Age of Empires 3 online with a friend, he was luckily very good and usually saw us through to win 2v2's, but he would end up with twice as much resources and military as me, and I had no idea why. He would literally tell me what to build and when, and I would still not do very well!
 
Shamikebab said:
This almost exactly. I like to build the perfect base then spend ages considering my army before very carefully setting them out :D
Click to expand...

Same too. I remember back in the days of RA1 I spent half a day making the "ultimate base" - in single player. I am convinced though if someone tried in multi player to take over the base unless using nukes they would have had 0 chance :p
 
I suck at RTS and always have. I think im just rubbish at managing units, buildings, resources and tech. I always end up spending a load as fast as possible to build an army that inevitably gets wiped out at the first hurdle. No matter how i play these games i cant get it right, the opposition always has the better tech and more powerful guns. If i focus on defense, i dont have enough units to keep the enemy away. If i focus on tech trees i end up with very little resources to much else with. When i try and keep it balanced i find im too slow and the enemy gets way too far ahead.

Total War and DoW2 though, im pretty good at. Wierd. I think it might be because they're not the traditional CnC type games.
 
I'm pretty good at the first Red Alert, but most rts I'm average at. I tend to win the random matchups with people in C&C3 (using quickmatch), but tend to lose at custom games when people choose a custom map with numerous resources etc... (so i gave up with those)
 
Weebull said:
Getting good at multiplayer RTS games is 5% strategy, 95% speed.

Playing against AI, you get time to perfect your squads and your base while they wail away on the same defensive spot every minute. Other people are smart enough not to do that.
Click to expand...


Yep this is very true. Its all about speed...

I think you have to keep a few things in mind:

Trade off between expanding quickly / leaving resources gatherers unprotected

Make sure to harass you enemies from the start as that distracts them from expanding

The rock paper scissors that rts games usually boil down too


Oh and I guess learning the keyboard shortcuts really helps...
 
I can do RTW and MTW2, as the AI is fairly substandard on the battle maps, and on the campaign map, it isn't too bad either.
Can't even beat the third level on the original Company of Heroes game though, I'm soon destroyed on normal difficulty :p
Maybe it's just control point type games?
 
DoW got on my nerves...Most played Space Marines, using just Assault Squads and Landspeeders! Hop straight into your base and meltbomb everything :mad:
 
It's all about mindset and speed.

I always played and thrashed my boss online at multiplayer games -- 1 day I went round his house and watched him play and you know what he was saying?

'Now then, should I build a squad of riflemen or an AA gun. Well, let me thinnk, a rifleman costs 300, an AA costs 450'. Then he'd hover the mouse over the build instructions to read the pop-up about what the unit does. Then decide upon an AA gun. Then spend 20 whole seconds deciding the very best place to put it. 'Well if I put it here it covers my barracks but then bombers could get to my airfield -- so let's consider which one is cheapest and therefore more expendable'.

It was almost frustrating to watch. He was pressing the mouse about once every 6-7 seconds!

With me it's 'pick an AA gun., plunk it somewhere in the middle of the base. Time spent -- 1 second. Flip to advanced squad, review enemy units they are near (time taken, 1.5 seconds). Tell them to attack anything that isn't going to kick the cr&p out of them (time taken, 1.5 seconds). Now back to base -- build a barracks. Where? Who cares .. ANYWHERE .. just GET BUILDING.

upgrades .. what does that picture showing a grenade with a kind of sonic boom coming out of it give my soldiers? WHO GIVES A MONKEYS I haven't got time to read about it -- just get it it must do something for 100 gold!


I'd PREFER it if the games were more strategy. More slow build up etc. But it's basically a different form of arcade game. Bottom line -- if you haven't clicked your mouse for over 4 seconds at any point .. you are simply making your decisions too slow -- choose any old thing really -- any decision is better than indecision.

Speed speed speed.
 
Funnily enough I've been thinking about this recently and was contemplating making exactly the same thread. :p

I however suck at the SP portion of most RTS games as well, so I've got a long way to go!

I've given RTSs quite a few tries before and given up, but I'm trying to resist doing that this time.

I'm working with CoH at the moment and trying to work through the American campaign of that. I'm using a lot of walkthroughs and reading all the tips I can because I suck so bad at it, but my theory is if I still complete the game this way, I'll be at least somewhat more competent.

I watched a 'Expert' replay from http://www.gamereplays.org/ last night and have watched a few on YouTube as well of some good multiplayer matches. It helps if you can find one with a good shoutcast so then someone who has a better idea of the game can tell you all the important things that are going on.

I think the main thing I need to work on is my speed and my micro (god I hate that word) as I just can't manage my army quickly and efficient enough. This is just practise I guess and something I'll just need to stick with and I'll get better over time.

I think what is also quite annoying for me is that I like to think of myself as fairly competent as FPSs so I can jump in to most of those types of games and be of a relatively quite good level right from the bat. I've played FPSs for years so I have quite a lot of experience which is why I can just jump in and have fun and maybe win a few games or have positive impact on my team. I think that once I get over the hurdle of having the basics of RTSs down in general I'll start to have a lot more fun with them, but at the moment there is a lot of work that needs to be done!
 
Fenris said:
I'm far too anal to play against other people.

I just end up sitting there making sure very building is perfectly in line with the other and that I have exactly the right ratios of men to vehicles, that my base is perfectly defended and layed out in a way that lets my troops move easily.

Then someone nukes me from orbit.
Click to expand...

Yay, someone else like me! :D

I remember having a 4-way match with some guys I knew from work on Generals. I actually lasted a while through plain luck more than anything, but eventually I got destroyed.

When I saw them the next day the first thing they said "Why do you make your bases so neat?" :o
 
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