I think the modern era came a bit short, the DS has a lot of third party titles that were maybe overlooked but certainly added more variety than yet another standard SRPG. Glory Days, Ecolis, that FF12 game that was an RTS I believe, ...
Also Swords & Soldiers.
With Pikmin my main objection to considering it an RTS is the lack of independence on the part of the Pikmin. They only ever act separate from you when you tell them to carry something. Even Starcraft which isn't big on automation has much more autonomy for units than that. A Zergling will automatically pursue and attack nearby enemies and when told to go somewhere it'll just go, you don't have to manually guide it up ramps. Other RTSes go way further with e.g. Company of Heroes soldiers automatically seeking nearby cover. A Pikmin is practically useless unless you pick it up to be in your following and the combat is more about throwing and withdrawing them at the right times than about strategies.
Regular RTSes aren't really a rush for money, if your enemy is passive (which especially campaign enemies tend to be) you can put all your resources into econ booming but against a human or active AI opponent you need to split your resources between military and economic spending because if you go for a straight econ boom you die to any early harassment (attacks which merely seek to impair your buildup process, not outright win the game).
Generally the first step towards playing an RTS with production right is to play it tight: Spend all the resources you get, never let them pile up. Newbies can end up with 30k money in the bank in something like C&C: RA2, that 30k that aren't on the battlefield fighting for you. When you get past that first step you learn that many "rushes" are actually just normal attacks: A real rush attack is one that switches to military production very early, greatly sacrificing economy buildup for a quick kill. These are rare when people know they're fighting good opponents because they're easy to defend against if you are prepared and basically leave the attacker helpless if his initial attack is repelled. I just watched an SC2 pro match where one guy tried such a rush (3 barracks Terran), the rush got repelled and the resulting counterattack decided the game right there. Newbies often play very slowly, I remember being accused of rushing when my giant death ball of tanks and flak troopers flooded over an opponent in C&C:RA2 (actually I did an econ boom with a very early second base and only really ramped up military production after that because it was agreed "no rushes").
Starcraft supposedly got so popular by being so fast, that makes combat in it practically an action game with quick feints, retreats, kites, flanks, teleports, AOE attacks, etc. It's not a slow, clear slog like in e.g. SoaSE, when battles happen in Starcraft they're filled with tons of player actions and even what looks like a one sided fight may end up with surprising turns resulting from split-second maneuvers.
Topic: Episode 326: A Big Bowl Full of Smart (Read 3940 times)
