Strategy Games - Fundamentals of Game Design - page 421

STRATEGY GAME A strategy game is one in which the majority of challenges presented
are strategic conflict challenges and the player may choose from a large variety of
potential actions or moves at most points in the game. Victory is attained by superior
planning and taking the optimum actions; the element of chance must not play a large
role. Other challenges, such as tactical, logistical, economic, and exploration challenges,
may also be present. Physical coordination challenges play little or no part.
Strategy games, with their long history of play with dice, cards, and boards, natu-
rally developed into PC games. (Console efforts so far have been few and far
between.) The computer provides the power to impartially manage complex rule-
sets, a task that would detract from the fun if the player had to do the work.
Strategy games are more symmetric than the games in other genres and so are
somewhat easier to balance for difficulty. The resources and actions available to
each side are, if not identical, generally similar. You can adjust the strengths and
weaknesses of each side and study the probable outcomes of particular battles with
statistical analysis even before writing any code. Contrast this with action games in
which one avatar must fight a horde of enemies or adventure games in which the
player must solve a number of puzzles of varying difficulty. In those genres, it is
considerably harder to predict what the player will find difficult.
Game Features
Strategy games fall into two main subgenres: classical turn-based games and real-
time strategy games. Pure strategy games (those that contain only conflict
challenges, with no economic or physical challenges) tend to be turn-based rather
than operating in real time. In a turn-based game, players may mull over their
moves, considering the benefits of one choice over another. In board games, this
can result in frustrating “analysis paralysis” in which one player spends a large
amount of time considering each move while the others have to wait. In single-
player computer games, this doesn't matter—the computer doesn't mind waiting.
Multiplayer turn-based computer games are often designed so that all the players
choose their next move simultaneously, and the machine computes and displays
the outcome of their actions. This cuts down substantially on the waiting time.
Real-time strategy (RTS) games developed after turn-based games. RTSs added time
pressure to strategy games because everything happens at once and players do not
have individual turns to ponder their moves. Though they're not as frenetic as
action games, RTSs require the player to keep a sharp lookout and to think quickly.
Many topics have been written about games such as chess and Risk , so we don't
spend much time on abstract strategy games or those with simple rules. The vast
majority of computerized strategy games are representational war games with com-
plex core mechanics, so that is where we focus our attention.