Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
In our example of building units, “enough� can be relative to certain thresholds
or goals as well. For example, rather than the lifestyle changes that the prize money
can help us attain, let us frame building units in terms of game-contextual goals.
We may think of counting our units in terms of having enough to:
Defend our base against a small raid
Defend our base against an attack
Defend our base
and
harry a small enemy outpost
Defend our base
and
destroy a small enemy outpost
Defend our base
and
destroy a medium enemy outpost
Defend our base
and
destroy a well-defended enemy base
Each of those goals would require a specific number of troops. As we reach the
number, we would be temporarily satisfied with that number. While we may not
stop building troops entirely, the urgency of building them isn't as great as it was
when we were just short of the required number.
A Few Good Men
Let's work from the top down (or bottom up in terms of troop levels). Early in a
real-time strategy (RTS) game, we may decide that we want to have four soldiers in
our fledgling base just in case the enemy sends a couple of soldiers of his own over.
If we haven't built any of them yet, the utility for the first soldier is fairly high. We
really
need
that first one finished so we don't have to worry. If someone comes,
we can at least slow them down a little. Once the first soldier is built, the second one
is a little less urgent, but important nonetheless. Three is certainly better than two,
but it is no great tragedy if an attack were to come prior to the third one being fin-
ished. The fourth soldier may very well be our insurance policy. The utility it pro-
vides is less than the third—and certainly far less than the utility of getting that first
soldier out the door. Once we reach that minimum of four soldiers, we may have a
comfort level that allows us to concentrate on other things such as training more
workers, erecting other buildings, and so on. Note that those other concerns also
have utility values that would be taken into consideration as well… but let's not
complicate things just yet. (Yes, that sort of fun comes later in the topic.)
So, because we have achieved that threshold of four soldiers, building a fifth
one doesn't provide us with much utility at all—
at this time.
This is hardly a perma-
nent solution, though. It should be obvious that we aren't going to accomplish
much in a typical strategy game with only four soldiers. In fact, we will likely
continue cranking them out, but only if other more immediate priorities (i.e., those
with higher utility values) don't get in the way.
