Strategy Games - Fundamentals of Game Design - page 424

ALTERNATIVES TO COMBAT
Conflict does not necessarily involve physical combat. Whereas RTS games and
simpler strategy games tend to focus on combat, more advanced games include ele-
ments of diplomacy, crisis management, and espionage. For example, in Civilization
III , the response of the enemy leaders to diplomatic overtures depends in large part
on whether the player has the force to back up her tough words. Of course, diplo-
macy isn't all about threatening enemies—it also allows the player to form alliances
that can avert war and encourage trade.
Diplomacy and espionage suit a slower-paced strategy game, one designed to be
played over a long period of time. The extra nuance and depth that diplomacy adds
to an otherwise standard strategy game is well worth the extra time and effort
spent designing and implementing a full-fledged system of diplomats and spies.
Diplomacy gives the player an extra degree of freedom that allows her to create
more devious and interesting game plans than would be possible otherwise.
Strategy games nevertheless tend to reward aggressive measures more than they do
peaceful ones because war is easier to model than diplomacy and is more exciting
to watch. The consequences of war are presented as less dire than they are in the
real world, and the goal of the game is often domination of the world, not peaceful
coexistence. It would be interesting to see a strategy game whose goal was to avert
war and promote prosperity; the player's role would perhaps be the secretary-
general of the United Nations.
EXPLORATION CHALLENGES
Exploration lets players investigate unknown terrain in a game world. As a designer,
you may give the player new worlds or make creative use of the familiar world.
Consider X-COM: UFO Defense , which depicts the secretive invasion of Earth by
aliens. Players are of course familiar with the map of the Earth, but the location of
hidden alien bases and UFO landing sites is a mystery until the player sends out a
squad of soldiers to investigate.
X-COM presents the player with a landscape shrouded in darkness, a darkness that
dissipates only when the player's soldiers enter an area. This technique is used in
most strategy games involving exploration to increase their difficulty. If the terrain
is generally flat, you can decide that the area to be revealed is simply a circle of a
certain diameter around a unit, but in hilly terrain you may wish to compute the
actual lines of sight for the units so that enemy units behind hills or other obstruc-
tions remain hidden. The level design in many single-player war games uses the
player's ignorance of the landscape heavily; to win a level, for instance, the player
may have to explore enough to find some key feature, such as a bridge over an
impassable river or a back way to sneak up on the computer player's headquarters.
Games often present territory that has been explored—but is not currently
patrolled by the player's forces—as dim, with only landscape details and no