Strategy Games - Fundamentals of Game Design - page 440

DON'T DISALLOW UPGRADES ARBITRARILY
In order to increase the difficulty of a particular level, some RTS games won't allow the
player to research certain upgrades or use certain units in that level even though the
player knows that those upgrades or units are available in other levels. Players find this
frustrating because it feels arbitrary. Consider the following alternative methods.
Instead of disallowing upgrades that are accessible in previous levels, change the costs
of the units you want to restrict on a level-by-level basis. That is, if the advanced cyber-
marine requires a large quantity of a certain resource, then make that resource
extremely scarce on a level in which you really don't want the player using cybermarines.
Or require that the player use those resources in some other way to achieve victory on
that level. Be clear about this — state it in the mission objectives. Then, if the player
wastes all his resources on building cybermarines instead of achieving the mission, he
will have only himself to blame. Another possibility is to make the restricted units costly
by making sure the enemy is extremely proficient in destroying that kind of unit. If, say,
you want to disallow flying units, arm the computer opponent with extremely effective
antiaircraft weaponry.
Ensuring that the player knows it is not wise to deploy a certain kind of unit under cer-
tain circumstances makes for better gameplay than does simply preventing the player
from deploying those units. The player then appreciates and accepts the restriction as a
part of the game rather than resenting what seems to be an arbitrary decision by the
game designer.
Logistics
Strategy decides where to act; logistics brings the troops to this point.
—G ENERAL A NTOINE -H ENRI J OMINI
Logistics is the management of supply: the production, distribution, maintenance,
and replacement of personnel and materials. In real life, it's an immensely compli-
cated business. War games, on the other hand, tend to have simplified logistics.
This is because real armies have huge general staffs to look after such things; in a
war game, the player has to handle it all himself. Because the player is also busy
with strategy and tactics, you should simplify the logistics. The next few sections
discuss different aspects of logistics and how to handle them.
SUPPLIES AND CONSUMABLE ITEMS
For the most part, computer war games ignore the soldiers' human needs. Soldiers
don't eat and don't sleep, so the game doesn't track supplies such as food or sleep-
ing bags. Similarly, vehicles don't require fuel or spare parts. Keeping track of these
supplies is simply too much of a nuisance. The one major exception to this rule is