Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
regions give the steepness of the slope between them. Slopes above a certain steep-
ness should be impassable to ordinary ground units.
The
turn rate
describes the rate at which a unit can turn to face a new direction;
this applies both to moving and fixed units. The turn rate should not be so quick
that the turn is instantaneous, or flanking maneuvers won't work.
If you are making a highly realistic strategy game about vehicles such as tanks,
you might also want to include the unit's
mass, acceleration
, and so on, but most
strategy games don't bother. Without taking mass and acceleration into account,
units don't speed up and slow down, they simply start to move at the maximum rate
they can over the terrain, and they stop as soon as they receive a stop command.
If your game includes the fog of war, you will need to include a number that
describes a unit's
range of vision
; scouting units might have a larger number for this
than other units. This value will naturally be modified by the altitude of the land
relative to the region around it.
Note that accuracy and defensive dodging introduce an element of chance into the
game. To determine if a weapon hits or misses the point it is aimed at, the software
must choose a random number between 0 and 1; if the random number chosen is
below the weapon's accuracy rating, it shoots accurately; if the random number is
above it, it misses. Obviously if the weapon's accuracy rating is 1, it is completely
accurate. You then have to determine whether a unit being shot at dodges the shot
successfully (even if it is an accurate shot) by choosing another random number
and comparing it to the target's defensive dodging ability.
Naturally, the preceding is not an exhaustive list of attributes, but it covers the
basics. If we apply this list to
The Ancient Art of War
mentioned earlier, the knights
and barbarians have only close-combat weapons while archers have only a long-
range weapon; barbarians have high defensive dodging (making them less
vulnerable to archers), whereas knights have low defensive dodging (making them
more vulnerable to archers); and knights have more armor and more shot power
than barbarians, making them superior to barbarians in hand-to-hand combat. In
other words, numeric attributes can duplicate the artificial rock-paper-scissors rela-
tionships of
The Ancient Art of War,
and they can create much more complex and
subtle relationships as well.
DESIGN RULE
No Invincible Units!
Avoid designing any unit whose weapon range and maximum speed attributes are both
greater than the range and speed of any enemy unit it may face. Such a unit has the speed
to stay permanently out of range of its opponents and can shoot them with impunity. If it
is sufficiently outnumbered, its opponents may be able to trap it; but such a maneuver
often requires better AI than most strategy games can manage. A unit that is invincible in
a one-on-one conflict with every type of enemy unit will unbalance your game.
