Just what it says on the can: I’m in the early stages of making an RTS game which is fundamentally intended to be a PVP game. I understand that for lone novice designer-developers, online multiplayer is practically unattainable, so I’m managing expectations. Nevertheless I’m going to try, and I suspect that in this, as in most other ventures, you have to set yourself up for success.
So, how can I do that? What should or shouldn’t I do as I lay the foundations of this game?
First - don’t do RTS. (Hardest genre in almost every aspect.)
Second - don’t do multiplayer. (Square the difficulty.)
Make turn based tactical game but keep state of the game in format that is easily serializable.
So in the hypothetical future when you finish your game you can sent data over network and fully deserialized and generate mirror image of your game.
You should integrate multiplayer early, because every system in your game will need to incorporate multiplayer. Otherwise you’ll design a single player game then have to redesign all your systems for multiplayer later.
But don’t do this kind of game unless it isn’t your first completed project. Save the big multiplayer multi-year project for later if this is your first. Otherwise good luck.