Strategy, tactics, and logistics in video games.

[David J Prokopetz]

Many games bill themselves as "strategic", "tactical", or what-have-you - but these terms are employed rather loosely, both by publishers and by the gaming press. When you pick up a "strategy" game, you could be getting just about anything.

Thus, to help out folks who might be considering a purchase in the near future (like me, for example ^^; ), I'd like you to rate your favourite strategic/tactical game in the following three categories, on a scale of one to five, and maybe include a bit of explanation as to why you assigned the ratings you did. These definitions are a bit rough, but please, no arguments about military science - they're close enough for the purpose of talking about video games. :p

Strategy: Setting objectives and deploying forces. Self-explanatory, really.

Tactics: Managing individual units and groups once battle is joined. This obviously covers the you-move-I-move-on-a-grid play of many tactical RPGs, but also things like unit micromanagement and the deployment of special abilities in RTSes.

Logistics: Supply and infrastructure issues, including base building, resource management, research*, and allocation of equipment and vehicles (if applicable). This also covers inventory management and character-building in the more RPG-esque titles.

* A point of clarification, since a later post notes a potential ambiguity here: deciding that you need a particular upgrade to accomplish a particular goal is the sort of long range planning of objectives that falls under Strategy, but working out the details of actually obtaining that upgrade is a Logistic challenge - in much the same way that sending a company of Space Marines to capture the enemy base is strategy, but training those Space Marines in the first place is Logistics.

As above, we're looking for a rating from one to five in each, optionally with a bit of explanation if you have some time to kill. :)

F'rex, if I wanted to rate the Disgaea series, I might call it:

Strategy 1 - The only strategic decision you ever make is which characters to deploy on a given map.
Tactics 3 - The AI is pretty stupid, so rushing at the enemy and hitting it 'til it dies will usually suffice, but the Geopanel manipulation stuff can get pretty complicated.
Logistics 4 - The games are all about character building and tweaking out your equipment; the system for this isn't particularly complicated, but it can be quite involved, and offers dozens of options and subgames to tinker with.

[Stantz]

May I suggest a 4th category? Bitchiness, defined as the amount of trivial actions you have to perform, free of any thought process, to keep your Strategy, Tactics, and Logistics running. Disgaea would have a Bitchiness of 1, since most everything has Logistical consequences. Age of Empires 2, where most of the game is managing your hordes of workers, would rank a 3. Diablo 2 probably ranks a 4, but the entire game is clicking on things until they die, so that's a feature, not a bug.

[David J Prokopetz]

May I suggest a 4th category? Bitchiness, defined as the amount of trivial actions you have to perform, free of any thought process, to keep your Strategy, Tactics, and Logistics running.That's an interface issue, not a gameplay issue. :)

[Stantz]

That's an interface issue, not a gameplay issue. :)Debatable. When managing the interface is a major contributor to a win or loss, the interface becomes the gameplay. Or are you suggesting that your descriptors apply solely to the strategic parts of gameplay, while values like "Bitchiness" and "Twitch" describe the action-y parts of the game, which are entirely seperate?

Edit: More to the point, how would you rank a game like Magic & Mayhem which claims strategic gameplay, but reflexes end up being far more vital than any strategy?

[David J Prokopetz]

Debatable. When managing the interface is a major contributor to a win or loss, the interface becomes the gameplay. Or are you suggesting that your descriptors apply solely to the strategic parts of gameplay, while values like "Bitchiness" and "Twitch" describe the action-y parts of the game, which are entirely seperate?No; I mean simply that a game's level of focus on the strategic, tactical, or logistic aspects of gameplay may be considered separately from how much of a pain in the arse the interface for that particular aspect is. A game can have a low focus and a poor interface for a particular aspect (in which case players will tend to ignore that aspect entirely), a low focus and a good interface (and players will tend to approach it as an amusing but optional subgame), a high focus and a good interface (the ideal case), or a high focus and a poor interface (players will hate with a fury like unto the fires of a thousand suns).

[Crazy Jerome]

Civilization 4

Strategy: 4 I'm averaging these. Against the standard AI it's closer to 3. Against a human, very much a 5. I understand the AI mod makes it much tougher. When to pull the trigger on a war, embargo, treaty, etc. is an extremely important choice, as well as who to target, who to get as allies, etc.
Tactics: 2 It's basically a colorful version of rock/paper/scissors, with a few special abilities thrown in, and maybe 4 or 5 choices instead of the three R/P/S. The choices available for upgrades might technically belong in logistics, but are all tactical choices, ultimately.
Logistics: 4 The heart of the single player game, it determines success more than anything else. It misses the 5 rating only because "supply lines" are so heavily abstracted as to be no choice at all. (You pay gold for troop maintenance, and it is heavier cost when out of your territory.) Managing your economy, infrastructure, and military are critical.

[nonsense]

Hmm... I'll go with Dawn of War (specifically Dark Crusade, but they'll all work).


Strategy: 3

Because speed is of the essence, in a typical match of DoW one will use perhaps a quarter to a half of the available troop types. Strategic decisions (which units will I focus on; which upgrades will I buy; will I try to win a military war, or capture strategic objectives) are chosen with one's opponent's strategy in mind, as in other games of this sort, and can be quite deep. I wouldn't say the game merits a higher rating, because there's little (Dark Crusade) or no (the other campaigns) continuity between skirmishes, and so there's no... macro-strategic element, if that makes sense.

Tactics: 5

It's all about the micromanagement. Pulling units back and forth, jumping in and out with rocket packs, tying units up in melee while you shoot them apart from a distance, activating unit skill after unit skill... DoW was specifically designed to focus on the tactical side of things.


Logistics: 2

I'd actually lump research in with Strategy rather than logistics, so perhaps I'm approaching this differently... but base management and economic management are not really a big deal. There's certainly some advantage in setting up your bases in a particular way, and there are two resources to consider, but where many RTS games are first and foremost economic battles fought by sprite proxies, I'd say DoW is more a tactical battle influenced by economy.

[David J Prokopetz]

I'd actually lump research in with Strategy rather than logistics, so perhaps I'm approaching this differently...Not really. "I need this upgrade to accomplish this goal" is setting a long-range objective, so it falls under Strategy. Working out the details of actually obtaining that upgrade is a Logistic challenge.

[nonsense]

Not really. "I need this upgrade to accomplish this goal" is setting a long-range objective, so it falls under Strategy. Working out the details of actually obtaining that upgrade is a Logistic challenge.

Ah, gotcha. Imagine a lightbulb popping into view over my head.

[CodexArcanum]

I'll take a crack at my recent joy, Supreme Commander.

Strategy: 4 - The game's massive scale and variety of units pretty well encourages a strategic game. Plus, it was a major design goal to achieve true strategic play. I think it needs work, but largely succeeds, as you do see the natural evolution of front lines, chokepoints, resource wars, and so on.

Also, the usage of "strategic units" that operate on a larger scale. Nukes, artillery, and giant super units all have costs and applications that apply to a larger level.

It gets a 4 instead of 5 due to lack of non-military options. Sure diplomacy isn't really a goal of the game, but the lack of nearly any true options in that regard hurts the overall depth of strategy, I think.


Tactics: 2.5 - I'm abit torn here. I'd say a 2, because most units in the game don't have special powers. The few that do are very simple usually, or prohibitevly difficult to use effectively. (The Aeon siegebots' ability to repair comes to mind, since you manually deploy it against such a large number of units.) On the other hand, managing unit mixes and counter-units can get somewhat micro-intensive, which may push it up to a three.


Logistics: 4 - Pretty much the core of the game is economics. TA before and SC now both have very strong emphasis on setting up a good economy to power the war machine. Also, tradeoffs between matter and energy (mass makers) encourage some careful thought about usage of resources. Managing deployment lines (with transport planes) is also a big issue on larger maps. But with only having two resource types to worry about, it doesn't push all the way to a full 5 marks in this category.

[dr. strangemonkey]

Medieval Total War II:

Strategy: 3.5 (maybe much higher I don't really know what the scale is) On the strategy map there are decisions with real consequences at every level from meta-decision like long game vs. short game and whether or not to play out battles to in game stuff like navigating the map and figuring out which factions to take out first and which trade routes to dominate. The new mission system adds a lot, particularly if you're a Catholic faction playing the Papal game.

The only thing I'd critique it for is that even though you can, and I often do, play it as a sort of Sim-Medieval Empire you don't have too many options for how you can end the game beyond conquest. And many strategic elements are somewhat hidden from the player making it a little bit difficult to make meaningful decisions.

Diplomacy is important but not super awesome.

Tactics: 4 (maybe less see scale issue above). Two complaints: the AI, as always, and the UI limit the real potential here. There's also no real way to merge the satisfaction that comes from slowly building the armies you make on the strategy map with the joy of taking on a human opponent. There's also a minor complaint in that I don't think the battlefields are as interesting as they were in Shogun or Medieval Total War I, and I don't know why except that either they wanted to make it tactically less complex or that I somehow only end up fighting enemy armies on uninteresting ground.

That said, the units are great: they look fine and move pretty well once they got the charge thing fixed, and the importance of position seems just about perfect.

Special abilities tend to be simple and easy to use but profound in their implications and beautiful to see in action.

Logistics: 4.5. Putting together the cities and castles and building up your stacks from a number of different provinces makes the game for me. Even managing the dynasties is fun, though I wish they had a better implementation for it. Personally, I'd love an educating your youth screen where you could assign tasks to different agents and generals with a little more explicit granularity than you can now. I'd say Civ or Sim games are often the standard here, but I often have a lot more fun with Total Wars big picture view than I do with either of those games.

And lord, but I do love the map.

[dr. strangemonkey]

You know, I can use these categories, but I don't think I like numbering them.

[Nightward]

You know, I can use these categories, but I don't think I like numbering them.

Post-modernist!

***

Personally, I view most "RTS" games as either real-time tactics games or, more frequently, real-time clickfests. Very little actual thought goes into the game; instead, it becomes a rush to see who's memorised the map better and who can get to the most efficient tier/unit first and rush the enemy.

In all honesty, I actually prefer playing single-player. That, or turn-based.

HEROES OF MIGHT AND MAGIC V

Strategy: 4.

Each map has set starting points for every stronghold, along with fixed resources. Exploiting this is vital, as is managing traveling heroes to stop invading armies and claim resources.

If the Tears of Asha can be found on the map, it is important to at least keep pace in the hunt for the artefact, if not to actually recover it. IME, very few games run long enough to recover the Tears of Asha, unless you purposefully string things out.

Tactics: 4.

Once combat is joined, things become somewhat esoteric. Virtually every unit has a special ability, and troops move in accordance with their place in the Initiative Bar. Victory depends on correct timing of attacks and support movements, but can be dominated by ranged or very swift units.

If one faction is playing Inferno, it may rate as high as 4.5 as Gated creatures and Gating-related skills can turn a seemingly weak army into an unstoppable juggernaut.

Logistics: 3.

Most logistical concerns are handled via the World Map, though care must be taken when buildng up a Stronghold. Incorrect choices can leave you bereft of money, resources, spells, or most frequently, enough troops. Movement of troops is fairly simple, though armies must always be accompanied by a Hero, which limits the amount of armies deployed and their effectiveness in battle. Players must also choose between having enough troops to defend their Stronghold and deploying an army capable of assualting their enemy's, as it is usually quite difficult to do both at once without an experienced and highly skilled Hero.

[dr. strangemonkey]

Post-modernist!

***



Bwa-ha-ha!

Is there no end to my endless discursiveness!?! ?(!)



I like to grade my students papers with fruit symbols. A banana means you got a grade of bring me a banana.

[Some Bystander]

Hearts of Iron 2 (and its stand-alone expansion, Hearts of Iron 2: Doomsday):

Strategic: 5. Strategy on the military, political, economical and - with Doomsday - espionage level with the background of the most violent conflict of the recent history.

Tactics: 0. It's a strategic game.

Logistics: 4. Even the biggest army can be defeated by attacking its logistic lines or industrial capacity. It's somewhat abstracted, though.

[Boscrossos]

Jagged Alliance 2

An absolute classic, if you ask me.

Strategy: 3 Depending on the difficulty level, your choice of movement on the overhead map of the country can be either critically important, or painfully unnecessary. At the highest difficulty, having different teams with the right equipment entering a zone from different points is crucial to victory, as is planning your assaults on different zones, and your patrols to scout out enemy forces.

Tactics: 5 This game is all about the tactics. Moving your team through the zone, scouting out the enemy forces, and finally attempting to flank their entrenched positions kept me entertained for weeks (then again, I love turn-based squad-level tactical games).

Logistics: 4 Training Militia to defend key positions, transporting your squads by helicopter, selecting what mercs to hire when, and what gear to buy themn this game has a great many things to keep track of, and the budget is generally pretty tight.

[Heronymus]

This is awesome!

I haven't got anything to contribute, but instead I'll make a request.

The game I'm looking for is something on the order of Alpha Centauri:

Strategy 4 or 5 (I love manuvering)
Tactics 0 or 1 (I hate micromanaging)
Logistics 4 or 5 (resource management can be fun)

Anyone have any ideas what I might like as far as games are concerned? I've played the hell out of most of my collection, and I'm looking for some new games to take on.

I don't think the game exists yet, but I would pay a ton of money for something where I could tell an army (or commander, or squad, or some sort of unit or subunit) "Hey, go take and hold that ridge" or "sack that city for me, would you?" and then they would go and do it, or come back and say "Sorry, commander, they were too strong for us".

I'm asking for too much out of my AI, aren't I?

[Killfalcon]

I'm asking for too much out of my AI, aren't I?

I suspect the main difficulties there would be in working out how to translate your commands into something the AI understands.

I mean, as it stands, I can tell a unit in Civ to conquer a city, or hold a landmark... but the orders I'd give would be "walk to here", in both cases.

In C&C, the closest I can get to "take that base" is the "go there, and set fire to buildings as well" stance. Hold that ridge? I'd be lucky. The AI isn't smart enough to work out where the various healing radii are, and pull that badly damaged tank back half an inch.

At least in Warzone, you could tell units to retreat after a certain ammount of damage.


All that said, it's possible that something like End War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_War) could do what you want it to... though that may also be the next spiritual X-com successor for all we know this early in the cycle.

[MoogleEmpMog]

Heroes of Might and Magic 3 (PC)

Strategy: 4
Each town type has multiple viable strategies depending on map size and opposition, and there are non-town-specific broad strategies to choose from. You have to pick a focus for the strategic, world map game and be able to put yourself in a position to execute it, and barring play errors, this usually determines the eventual winner. Loses a point because of the randomly appearing high-level spell "I win" buttons, dimension door and town portal, and the lack of a diplomatic interface.

Tactics: 4
Tactical maneuvering of troops offers a small advantage. Choosing the right spells and the right time to cast spells offers a MAJOR advantage. Tactics vary depending on faction, build order and time of play, and there are usually at least two viable ways to go about winning a tactical engagement.

Logistics: 4
There are a lot of resources to manage: towns, time (since you can only build once per town per turn), gold and six types of other materials needed to build units and troops and buy other benefits, XP and skill choices for heroes, artifacts, and the heroes and troops themselves. The need for heroes to move troops creates pseudo supply lines (at least in many of the best strategies). Resource denial is both a viable strategy and one you have to be prepared to defend against.


Tactics Ogre (PS1)

Strategy: 1
Objectives are pre-set, the deployment area is very limited, and you usually end up with a relatively small force so there's little to choose from.

Tactics: 5
The whole game is tactical combat. Unlike a lot of TRPGs, Tactics Ogre is exceedingly, grindingly difficult. You have to take advantage of favorable terrain elements, favorable elevations and favorable directions of attack, as well as matching weapon types in your favor, just to survive, and must deny the enemy same to actually win. Because death is irreversible for the vast majority of the game, even for plot-relevant characters, failing to take advantage of the tactical options means even most victories will be Pyrrhic.

Logistics: 2
Also unlike a lot of TRPGs, you have very limited choices in how you outfit and upgrade your forces, and these make considerably less difference in battle. Very late in the game, setting up your characters involves more viable choices.