A Simple but Complete RTS Game

*It is hard to find good, comprehensive tutorials in C++ for a solid RealTime Strategy game (RTS). ENGINE TO BE DECIDED NEARER TIME, UNITY OR UNREAL.

*The course should handle the following features at the minimum:
-Formations (Line, column, skirmish formation etc).
-Spawning multiple units at the same time.
-Formation changes.
-Tactical pathfinding.
-Tactical map analysis using influence mapping.
-Minimap.
-Streaming in large battlefield maps.
-1 Vs 1 multiplayer code.
-Saving and loading the game state.
-Simple game DVR for recording and replaying a game session.

  • Ability to edit terrain at runtime (originally in merged tycoon game idea)
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RTS’s are pretty dead man, MOBA’s killed them.

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A multiplayer RTS sounds awesome! :slight_smile:

When do we start?

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Are you suggesting a MOBA course instead?

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tldr; i disagree with kimset and i do agree with the idea of RTS Course.(but i would be okay with a moba course, since a lot of things do carry over).

@Kimset
honestly, i do not think they are dead.

if you think about it, everyone genre has one or two big massive games that are leading it, for RTS that would simply be starcraft.

so it does have a “leading game” the only issue is that, there are not many RTS games that are released in both the indie market and the AAA market. this is due to their massive complexity, when compared to say, platformers.
and with their great complexity it simply becomes harder to make them, if it is harder to make them, then, less and less people would be making them, which in turn, puts us where we are today.

i do believe if there were to be ways of making RTS games in an easier format a lot more RTS games will come out. with a lot more innovation, with the result that, it will be “awakened” again, i would not call it, death, i’d simply call it, inability to have a lot of people making variants in it. due to its complexity.

and with time that have passed, the interest in RTS have started to grow less and less due to that.
Mobas happened to be a simple replacement, that filled the void. but by no means did Mobas kill RTS or even get close to. (nor is it an intention or goal).


i still believe there are countless fans of RTS, even among us students, and would totally like to make RTS games.
and in case of being worried about the audience of RTS players that they no longer exist i suggest you check out.

This

this is literally the site that does direct you towards all game communities in it. plus having a community for each game in it.

one last thing i’d like to mention for older games, you can still find over 300 players in its peak in a single lobby in RTS games (Red Alert 2 Lan Arenas for example).(which are not covered in GameReplays.Org).

plus, starcraft brood war remastered in HD is arriving soon, and basically, what i am trying to say, sure there are not “unified” fronts of RTS like MOBA has, but there are a lot of fronts where RTS players are having fun and do exist.

and i do believe among those, are people who would probably want to make such games. if opportunity shows up.
or at the very least, are starving for a good RTS game to take them away from the old grumpy games they got. (because will, for the reason i mentioned above, why there is not much innovation in modern RTS world).

but it is harder to pull off due to(than RPG).
1.you will need a lot of “design” in there, and there is not a lot of design material for RTS games. (which means, rick (if he is now officially totally a part of the team and future plan) will have to do a lot of research about RTS games there is not many “read to go” reading material about it).

2.generally in a technical view, making an RTS is just harder in a lot of aspects than RPG.
plus if you want to expand it and add AI, then… good lord, that is such a difficult task.

also no need for the RTS course to feature a full game, you can simply go far with making a simple Tech Demo?
just throwing my 2cents here, im a big supporter of this.

would it be more beneficial to create a moba course though? honestly, as someone who want to make an RTS, im pretty sure, making a moba would help me alot in the road of making my RTS, since a lot of the things in there, just carry over to RTS. so i would not mind.

but the only way to find out what people would want more is probably another vote :slight_smile: moba vs RTS.
perhaps we can test the new voting system ben mentioned in his AMA on this topic ? :smiley: (when it is ready of course).

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I don’t really know if a MOBA course would help anyone. How many successful MOBA games are there? I’m not even talking about big, massively successful AAA games – even just reasonably wel-known indie games. Can you think of any? I had to go check to come up with more than 3. Student made games are heartbreakers in general, I really don’t think anyone’s interested in making a MOBA game that no one will play. I mean, the game needs players just to work. How much design flexibility is in this genre? It would constantly be compared to one or two other games, and you’d just be recreating that.

By comparison, let’s look at RTS games. Just from those I’ve personally played that have interesting design elements, I would suggest the Starcraft series, Supreme Commander, Age of Empires, Dark Reign, Command & Conquer Generals, the Red Alert series, Warhammer Dawn of War, and Universe At War. All of these included one or more distinct design area that I think would make for good inspiration.

As far as design possibilities go, I would argue that there are many design considerations to take into account in setting up the game, and once those ideas are considered, many more in terms of level design, how terrain is implemented / utilized, unit design, how to handle flight / jumping / submersion / digging / etc., new buildings/fortifications, faction design, unit behavior, upgrades trees, story modes, and “general abilities”.

Do you want to have infantry in your game? Tanks? Mechs? Aircraft? Spaceships? Quasi-dimensional spirits? How are all these handled? Are your factions unique and interesting? Do they all have ways of utilizing terrain elements? Which terrain elements will you have? For example, the C&C series had poisonous terrain, that hurt some units that passed through it, didn’t hurt others, and could be mined for resources. Which of course leads to what resources you’ll include? How is it collected? Do you build bases around it like Starcraft, is it automatically added to your resources like Dawn of War, or is it dangerous to harvest like C&C or Dune? How much customization do you want in your units? How many different units do you want to include? If you only get to make a few, how do you prioritize these decisions?

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Huge +1 for the RTS course, hopefully with Unreal but that’s subjective preference.

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agreed, i’ve been playing RTS since i was three years old, and still to this day, i pretty much,
can not find another genre as good as this.
plus one of the reasons i actually entered game development, is to simply making RTS games with their brilliant variations.

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Well I mean, they kind of are in terms of competitive/esports scene. Though that doesn’t stop people who like RTS’s to stop liking them and wanting new ones to be made.

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Both genres are awesome, maybe a little more research on the current trends could help.
But a RTS seems cool with Unreal as the engine.

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I think an rts game would be awesome. My favourite genre that has lost its way in the last few years with the exception of Starcraft.

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I would definitely be on board for a course on RTS games. It is a very enjoyable genre, and I think it can be a very fun experience to learn how to make them.

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Yes please, I had created basic RTS controller in BP already, but it’s very basic since I had no idea how some systems should be laid out. Atm I’m nearing the end of BattleTank section and was planning to at least try remaking everything I did for BP RTS in C++. Real RTS tutorial would be huge boon to my understanding of RTS systems. :+1:

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If it is on unreal count me in

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RTS game is my favorite genre. I really want a dedicated course about RTS.

For creating a such genre specific course, I suggest:

  • review & analysis about current market for the target genre
  • detailed discussion for various design decision, and how to go farther beyond the basic and simple design
  • technologically demonstrate how to implement the basic & typical design and show the cases how to extend toward more professional & advanced design

In short, what I expected from such genre-specific course is:

  • not a beginner level course, there are tons of beginner courses for game dev, but this one should NOT be one of them
  • cover game design as well, esp, how to variety of design decision affect other things, like player experience, implementation, testing and marketing
  • cover current market analysis for that genre
  • cover the technological implementation how-to guide based on the marketing concerns and designs

BTW, I like to see it in Unity. That is my personal favorite engine, and I believe most of audiences targeted with such course (not beginner level) should already know Unity.

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following on with the Udemy Post:
here are the things im looking /Hopping for:

-a separation between simulation and logic in the game, so that the game is not engine dependent, where only the visuals, sounds and other stuff are simply “in the engine” where all the logic, is pure hard boiled C#/C++ code.

-Multiplayer (does not matter if 1v1 or co op or 4v4, since what im hopping for, is enough learning on the multiplayer part that we gain enough skills to be able to expand/shrink it to our liking). (of course, not in a beginner format type of learning, but more on the advanced/intermediate side of things).

-Steering Behaviors/Path Finding: to be honest, i think path finding will be hard to do, since it will depend on how you layout your map, IE Dynamic map will be different, isometric map will be different, etc.
but for flocknig behaviors, i believe they are far more essential than path finding, since they are pretty much unified in all good RTS games.
and i also believe that Formations point, rise up from flocking behaviors.

-A Good Data storage structure that fits for RTS games, since, i do realize if the data structure is bad, there is no humanly possible way of saving data. so i guess: saving and loading the game.

-Core Parts Mechanics of RTS
Resources Collection >> Production >> Reacting/Execution.

resource collection: being simply a way of increasing resources, regardless of how abstract it is {though i do hope it covers some of the most famous systems, but that would be too much to ask for since it should be easily expandable by us}.

production: being a good structure that is very abstract, and yet very expandable to more complex styles to be able to produce different types of things. IE Unity/Buildings/Etc. sounds complicated, but as i said, an abstract system just to give us the tip top of the rope.

Reacting/Execution: being the very basic commands, such as moving, attacking, surrounding the enemy. and that type of things.

stretch goals: line of sight/fog of war/research/tech trees. (should be rather simple with an expandable production system)./design case by case studies/open ended discussions, on the good / not so good parts, in the classics. and modern games.

the engine i like is most definitely unity, but since im hopping there is a separation between logic, and simulation, it really shouldn’t matter much.

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RTS games are not dead at all. They are everywhere. If RTS games were dead people would not be so happy about Dawn of war 3 or about the remaster of Homeworld.

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+1 for RTS. You guys keep putting out fantastic courses, I’ll have to keep taking them! RIP free time :stuck_out_tongue:

Agree… let’s create Dune 2000 in 3D :smiley:

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As an old time RTS fan since the first hour (Dune 2, Warcraft, C&C series, …) I would really love to see this done in the Unreal Engine!

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