I am making a world war 1 rts because there are none. but when I started designing the game I discoverd why there are no ww1 rts game’s: trench warfare is hard to make fun and well working in a game. one option is that we could just make a system where you can build trenches and put your soldiers in it but that will be a pain because it will bring so many bugs (soldiers that have to climb in and out the trench, making the soldiers navigate correctly around the trench) and players will just build a trench around their base instead of building 2 trenches opposite to eachother. I think I can solve that by making the map real small but it will still have all those bugs. the second option is to make the trenches like shooting walls: the soldiers are in the trenches when you build them and you can’t control them. the third option is that the trenches are already there when you start a game. and you simply can’t build new trenches. you lose when the enemy took over your trench. the problem is that this will be a pain as well because all the bugs remain, but atleast I force the player to fight their war the same way it happened in ww1.
So what do you think the best solution is for the trenches?
WWI is often glossed over in games because it’s not that interesting of a war. Nobody really won or lost. Nothing much changed as a result of the war. Even the battle lines were fairly static. Especially true of the trench warfare of the western front.
This type of battle is probably best captured in a tower defence game. Thousands of soldiers marching straight at emplaced machine guns and artillery. Most dying, and most waves failing.
There are also several types of these ‘field’ strategy games online. Each player basically throws troops on the board at opposite ends. They fight when they interact in the middle. The idea is to throw on enough troops in the right proportions to overcome your enemy. If the game is balanced well you can often grind away for hours with neither side gaining much of an advantage.
Add in trenches and fixed defences, and you have a World War One game. For extra flavour add in a variable wind direction and indiscriminate gas attacks.
Don’t forget the miner squads. They can circumvent trenches by tunnelling under & then filling the mine with explosives. Too shallow & they can be heard digging or it could collapse if a tank went over it, too deep & they couldn’t get air pipes up to the surface to vent the co2 so the troops could die.
If you wanted trenches you could always limit the length a single trench can be & restrict them to only connect to 1 other trench (maybe by looking at the total length of the 2 combined), that would encourage gaps & if they do it properly they create runs a bit like some tower defence games. Enemies would need to decide whether to raid the trench or try to work around them.
The player may need to place ladders on the sides of the trench to get in & out (to carry supplies in, retreat, or go out ladders on the front to attack the enemy). When attacking a trench an enemy can drop in at any point but can only get out again by reaching a ladder, that way they get funnelled along the trench, but having too few ladders would mean your troops can’t retreat easily/quickly either if given the order to retreat whereas to many ladders means the enemy could get out of the trench easily without having to fight any soldiers you have in the trench.
Then there’s the resource management to build tanks or artillery, both of which will help crush trench sections so troops can just move straight over those bits as if they were normal land.
I want to build a age of empires inspired ww1 game because ww1 started off with horses and ended with tanks and airplanes. this fast development in technology is perfect for a rts.
What i mean with creating bugs is that I am working on this game with a friend and a complete trench digging system withoud bugs would be a bit to ambitious. so i need a simple but fun concept for the trenches.
I like the idea of forcing the player to have gaps between the trenches because it solves a lot of problems.
the idea of adding gas and wind direction is also a really good idea.
Think about having prefabbed trenches that the player drags & drops. If the play area is on grids or hexes (even if they are hidden under the texture) then the drag & drop can be snapped to the grid. This lets you prefab long straight, short straight, short sharp bend, longer curving bend etc. You don’t need to replicate the long winding trenches, just the concept of trench warfare.
The snap to grid also lets you have prefabs for the other fixtures that also snap to the grid to ensure proper spacing & no areas where things are so close it could cause bugs with colliders.
Personally I am not a big fan of grid systems in a rts because it takes some of the freedom of placing buildings wherever you want. I think I am going to force the player to have some gaps by making the collider of the trench prefab bigger than the model so there always will be a space inbetween.
the idea of having trench prefabs is a good idea. I will make the trenches prefabs with soldiers in them when you place them.
Thanks for all the good idea’s,
I think that I will be able to show the resaults in about 6 weeks.
The idea of gaps between trenches isn’t very WWIish. It kind of defeats the purpose of having trenches. The point of barbed wire and trenches is to basically stop any movement past the line.
Thats true but ww1 is just a theme. it doesn’t have to be 100% historically accurate. when you stop movement it would become boring and in a game, fun is the most important thing.
Fair enough. I’m probably too close to the situation to appreciate WWI as fun. Odd that making this conflict a game bothers me far more then more recent conflicts.
It would be interesting to see a slice of it as an rts & as a tower defence.
Perhaps even a pvp crossover where they have a build time & resource points. Barbed wire is cheap but costs more the further out from the base (to replicate the danger of going out & installing it), trenches are similar but cost a bit more, soldiers can be stacked in trenches (attack bonus to replicate being stable when firing), artillery, tanks etc. players build in the build time then get to see the whole battlefield layout; they place troops/tanks/artillery using remaining resource points; they give orders to units (tanks lead to knock down barbed wire & breach trenches but soldiers assigned to the same group are slower than if they run ahead as their own unit etc), artillery fires at areas where the player believes troops/tanks/artillery is situated etc.; players watch the battle play out, ground is captured or lost, resources like trenches & barbed wire can be destroyed etc.
I know it isn’t an rts but playing it out this way may enable it to be prototyped on paper so you can see what bits work for the strategy & tactics.
I am from the netherlands. we were neutral in ww1 so here in the netherlands, most people have no direct emotional connection with ww1. but i can understand that in country’s like the Uk, ww1 is a really important and sensitive subject
But I dont’t think that it is disrespectful to make a game of it because it is more than 100 ago and there are a lot of games set in ww2 too.
Not saying it’s disrespectful at all. It’s more of a surprise about the strength of my own personal feelings for that war.
The Netherlands had a history before WWI. But for some of the colonies, it was one of the first real conflicts that we participated in. It was a defining period in our history as a nation. Our major national holiday is a commemoration of a significant battle we lost in WWI.
I do think making a game of it is a good way to remember and honour the soldiers who died there. I’d encourage you to add a tribute page to a menu somewhere, or perhaps in the end credits. Maybe with “In Flanders Fields”.
Make the game itself as fun and engaging as you can. But give the players a moment at the end to pause and remember the realities of the war.
It’s a really good idea to make the game a bit more than just fun. I am not sure if i will ever get the game to a stage where i add credits. but if I do, I will absolutely add some text to show honour and respect.
I know it’s not an rts but Valiant Hearts did that really well. My 10yr old played it & liked the game & managed to learn some small bits (he didn’t read everything) & also asked us questions about stuff later on. The idea of adding some information is a good one, maybe as they unlock a new unit/tactic etc it could have a bit of summary info about how it was actually used in war (& include an archival picture if possible)
That game looks really interresting. Games have great potential as a new way to teach. of course fun should always be the main focus but i will try to make it a learning excperience as well. but at the moment I am not even sure if i will ever finish the game( I never finished a game ). But this time I think that I will because i never believed in a idea like i do now.
No reason why it could not be a normal RTS. Things collapsed into trench warfare on the western front but that was not the intention originally. If one studies the original German High Command plan to knock out France and the reasons why it failed it should be fairly clear as to how an approach can be taken in regard to creating a WWI RTS. Other theatres were not bogged down by trench warfare.
I’m of the opinion the reason BoredMormon stated why WW1 isn’t used as much - makes WW1 just as approachable as a game theme than any other conflict. But a lot of designers like to use historical events to drive narrative.
WW1 could be used as a starting point for any type of game where the narrative is ‘what if’. Kind of like Resistance for the PS3, or Wolfenstein. Not saying it has to be a shooter, just the stories in those games are largely based on what ifs.
It sounds like you have a very “entrenched” idea of what an RTS is.
(See what I did there?)
But, yeah, why does every RTS need to be a Warcraft style “sandpile” game?
When I first read this I began to think something like Myth: the Fallen Lords (which consequently did have WW1 mods that were very popular).
Rather than focusing on development, get rid of the building aspects (well, other than things soldiers would do like dig tunnels) and focus on troop versatility. You get a finite number of units that follow rashambo (paper, rock, scissors) tactics. So, artillery takes out tanks, tanks take out troops, and troops take out artillery.
That was just my first thought.
My second thought was a back and forth strategy game where the battlefield is a one dimensional line. Then you send out scouts to get supplies, snipers to take out scouts, tanks to push the line, artillery to aim for the tanks and make holes to hide in, medics, engineers, bi-planes, mustard gas, gas masks, barb wire, tunnels, and so on.
What about just treating the trenches like bunkers in games like Starcraft and Warcraft?
It isn’t like the trenches were an immunity zone. Artillery was in heavy use during that time and it is pretty easy to dial in on a stationary target. There is a reason it was all a mud hole by the end.
