Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
ECONOMIC CHALLENGES
The sinews of war: a limitless supply of money.
—C
ICERO
Strategy games such as chess give the players a fixed number of units at the begin-
ning of the game, and the players make do with what they've been given. Other
games offer a mechanism for acquiring more units as the game goes on, which
makes the campaign more a process of growth than of attrition. In
Risk
, for exam-
ple, each player gets a number of new units at the beginning of his turn; the exact
amount is based on a few easily calculated factors.
Computer strategy games allow for far more complex calculations than a human
being playing
Risk
is willing or able to perform. Designers of computer strategy
games frequently take advantage of this to include a richer internal economy for
the player to manage. Rather than starting with a large number of units at the
beginning of a level, the player has to obtain some resource—let's assume it's
gold—that the player can convert to units later on. This lets the player decide when
to buy the units and what sorts of units to purchase, and therefore, offers her
greater freedom to fight the battle in whatever way she prefers.
You can supply the players with a limited amount of gold at the beginning of a
level and put more gold out in the landscape for them to discover. These locations,
or mines, can produce either a limited or an unlimited amount of gold. If mines
produce an unlimited amount, the game could, in principle, go on forever; if not,
the game must eventually come to an end as the resource runs out.
PREVENTING RESOURCE RUSHES
Strategy games that place resources, such as gold, in the landscape for the players to
use often turn into rushes to grab the mines. Monopolizing production of resources
then becomes a dominant strategy, and players avoid trying any other. To prevent this,
make the map layout fairly symmetrical, with similar amounts of gold near each side's
headquarters. If you put mines farther out in the landscape for the players to find, put
comparatively little gold in them. That makes finding one a nice bonus but not a decisive
advantage.
It is vitally important that the economic productivity of all sides be equally balanced, or
economic advantages will rapidly outweigh strategic skill.
More complicated games use several different resources; in fact, if the economy of a
strategy game becomes complicated enough, the game really turns into a hybrid of
strategy game and construction and management simulation. The
Age of Empires
and
Civilization
series are both really hybrids, not straight strategy games, though
we'll look at the economy within
Age of Empires
as an example here.
