Recently, I played a few old RTS games (Tiberian Dawn, Tiberian Sun) and a few more recent ones (Red Alert 3, Grey Goo) and I was struck by how differently paced they are.
In the old games, everything happens slowly. You accumulate resources slowly. You build units slowly. Your units trundle across the map slowly. In Tiberian Dawn, for example, building even a single medium tank is a significant investment of time and money. Building a second tiberium refinery can effectively double your income, but it also means making yourself vulnerable for a long time if your opponent decides to put that initial investment into a rush instead. Everything happens slowly enough that you have time to act deliberately, and every action feels worth deliberating.
New RTS games, by contrast, feel like anxiety simulators to me. You rack up resources quickly. You churn through your build queues quickly. Units charge across the map. There’s never enough time to do all the things I need to do. Oops, I tried to use proper combined arms tactics to assault an enemy base, but that stole my attention away from my build queue, causing me to ram my resource cap and now I’m pissing away credits. Oops, I tried to get my build queue in order and in the process my unit blob was left vulnerable and now the enemy’s flanked me and destroyed my artillery. Oops, I tried to set up base defenses and while I was doing that my enemy beat me to that highly contested resource field by a few seconds.
When I lose in an old RTS, I feel like it’s because I wasn’t clever enough. When I lose in a new RTS, I feel like it’s because I wasn’t fast enough.
I only like RTS games where you can pause and issue orders for this reason. Like Kenshi puts you in brutal situations all the time, but it rarely feels unfair (or at least unfair in a way that’s different from what you expect) because you basically play as a hivemind where at any point you can stop time and do everybody’s thinking for them.
And if I’m playing something larger scale it’s even more important, because you’re telling me that I, the person commanding all this, wouldn’t be constantly delegating and being briefed on shit? I have to check up on all the resources, keep track of all the units and equipment, build all the buildings, and personally schedule every troop movement from paratrooper assaults to scouting parties? Fuck you, give me time powers! I understand it’s boring to realistically say “destroy this point” and then have a bunch of your underlings make a plan and carry it out with their underlings, but in their effort to avoid that boring layer of disengagement, they’ve added the anxiety of having to do the work of a general and their lieutenants. I just think the way most RTS games simulate total control without a chain of command sets them up for this pitfall.
Also I just want my little infantry squads to mean something, you know?