So… are you sucking in Command & Conquer? Civilization? Combat Mission? Galactic Civilizations 2? Hearts of Iron?
I mean, the strategy genre is so big and diverse that you have to detail more what’s the problem.
I found that climbing steep learning curves has become way harder for me than it used to be. When i was like 17, i could figure something like civ out just by dicking around with it a little for an hour or so. Now, nearing 40, it takes a determined effort of days to get my head around things, and some games are just too steep altogether (X3)
Agh, i remember X3. I left that after 5 mins. Without tutorial, interactive guide, smooth learning curve, just nothing.
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It’s such a relief to know I’m not alone in wanting to understand, enjoy, and excel at turn based strategy games. My first introduction was Civ 2 which I bought after reading glowing reviews in CGW but my pre install anticipation quickly turned to frustration and ultimately neglect after I failed to get it. I eventually bought 2 friggin Prima strategy guides to help clarify some misunderstandings of game mechanics, assist in my strategery in defeating the Chieftan AI so that I could later move on to Prince. These were somewhat helpful and I was able to eventually beat the AI at Prince but those victories were not gratifying as by the time I reached the late mid period I just clicked to end my turns to get it over with. In those late eras I felt overwhelmed and bored with the tedioustask of managing so many units and cities that invariably my games denigrated into click to end turn fests just to reach the end game screen.
Of course I still had an underlying desire to conquer the genera with purchases of MOO2, Alpha Centauri, and much later, Gal Civ 2, but like Civ 2 I felt befuddled and overwhelmed that those games ended up having short lives on my drive. I soooo want to master these kinds of games, but like my struggles with math, I just feel like my brain isn’t wired for the 4X genera.
I’m thinking a QT3 get together is in order where we can gather 'round and admire the grognards as they sip their port and stroke their beards during a game of HoI 3. Ok, maybe not that, but perhaps a beard can upload a newbie playthough on YouTube instead.
Oh I forgot to mention the strategy game I just can not figure out no matter how many video, help guides or anything else I use to for help: Sword of the Stars… I just can’t wrap my head around this one. I never know how well I’m doing until I’m dead.
That sounds like life in general.
I also suck at strategy games yet I keep buying them for some reason. I think it’s because I used to be The Master at Spaceward Ho! on the Macintosh back in 1992 and now I think I can handle anything.
It doesn’t matter if it’s turn-based or real-time, me vs. AI or vs. another person. I’ll think I’m doing great building my base, upgrading my tech, recruiting units and then the other player swoops in with a turbogattlinglasermechasingularitypitchforkshotgun and all my units are 3rd-graders with rubber bands and sticks.
I just finished a 50 turn session of SOTS. Its my 3rd or 4th try as in each of the former games I made some idiot mistakes and had to start over. Now I have a decent grasp of the basic game mechanics and can somehow manage the planets and fleets, but its clear to me that I’m doing a terrible job. Each turn presents multiple choices - What should I research next? How much to invest in research? What should I design? What should I build? How much should I build? How to allocate ships to fleets? Where to send each fleet? and so on and so forth.
I am not bitching about SOTS, its a marvelous piece of software for letting me do all these things. The problem is with me. I can’t see how all these decisions combine together to help me achieve my goals.
Eventually I either lose badly, or win but realize that this is due to the AIs shortcoming then my skills and give up.
I guess not everyone can be a master mind capable of orchestrating world domination.
There are two main angles to bootstrapping yourself up:
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Watch better people play, or better, play against them. This probably needs to be done outside of computer games, as game AI (mostly) isn’t good, doesn’t adapt, and can’t talk to you about what it did afterwards. I did get some good mileage working my wife up to Monarch/Emperor in Civ4 while playing hotseat though.
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You have to be a glutton for punishment. It’s not that you should feel some need to win, just that losing makes you want to come back for more. The people you want to learn from are all going to be better than you, and you are going to lose a lot while you improve. Some people want the secret to “start winning”, but it simply doesn’t work that way – it’s more like learning about losing, and then how to make sure it happens to the other guy.
Picking up something that people actually play competitively, like Go, is probably your best bet. If you’re not willing to go so far, well, then you’re probably stuck at your current skill level.
Also, it’s cliche, but it might help to read some books along the lines of “Art of War”.
I’m fine with the Civ games and their close compatriots. I don’t play at much more than the first couple difficulties, but I don’t care. I have no desire to have mad skillz or be multiplayer competitive. I just want to extend my unholy dominion over the whole world and nuke some people. And I’ve managed that just fine in all of those.
What’s throwing me are a) Dominions 3, b) the Total War games, and c) Blood Bowl.
(Armageddon Empires, I had to have some patient assistance and read a few AARs to figure out what was going on, but after that I was fine - I play CCGs, after all.)
The first two it’s the same basic issue: I have all these units, but I don’t know what to do with them. I don’t have this problem in Civ games because they have all of like two stats sometimes and maybe a special ability or two. But in Dominions, any given civilization is capable of turning out at least 10 or 15 unit types even before they start summoning, and they have like 10 stats plus several specials and while I sorta kinda grasp what the stats mean that doesn’t translate into my understanding what to build when, how to compose my army, or what sort of tactics to script. In Total War it’s less number of unit paralysis as I don’t actually understand the tactical implications of their stats. But the result that I don’t know what to build when, how to compose my army, or what tactics to use in the real time combat is pretty much the same.
Blood Bowl, I think I just don’t understand the overall strategy of the game. I know to minimize risk, and I know what the stats mean, and I know what my goal, ultimately, is. But I’m just not really clear on why I would use some formations over others, how to deal with any given situation, etc. I won once, but it seems to have been as much luck as anything else. It probably doesn’t help that I hate real-life sports and have no understanding whatsoever of football or rugby or anything like that that Blood Bowl might draw on.
Paradox’s games also intimidate me, but they have traditionally been kind of obtuse, so I’m not ashamed of that.
If you’re ever in Los Angeles go to Tom Chick’s house and he’ll explain any strategy game to you. They’re much easier to play after he’s done.
Hey I’m in the same boat. A surprisingly crowded one, it seems!
Still, I like listening to Three Moves Ahead and reading about these kinds of games. The only strategy games I’ve been absorbed with and even somewhat competent at are Majesty and King’s Bounty: The Legend. And something tells me hardcore strategy gamers would scoff at those being considered as strategy games. I did beat StarCraft (SP) but mostly by hiding in a corner until I had enough carriers or cruisers or whatnot to win. I fell asleep during both the tutorials for Civ3 and Civ4.
So, yeah, I think we need a Three Moves Ahead topic on how to ease those of us who were left-behind and/or late-to-the-party into the strategy genre (especially them scary turn-based 4X things). Or maybe we just need someone to give us the cold, hard truth of our situation. Are we just lost causes?
Is that a safe thing to do?
He doesn’t own a gun, so I’d say yes, go for it!
Yes, but has he ever come right out and confirmed that he is NOT a 9th degree black belt?
Beware of his mean sledgehammer-wielding skills, however!
I thought I’d never get a chance to say this - You have to be more of a munchkin!
If an exploit is a gaming felony, optimization is a misdemeanor. Certain games like Imperialism and Dominions are more linear - in a way you are supposed to exploit because your opponent is also racing towards that Uber spell that will wipe out the entire field with one unit.
RTS’s are a different animal. While map knowledge, unit knowledge, speed, micro, etc are all cited frequently I think intuition is very important skill. It allows you to imagine what your opponent would react - sometimes I can smell the opponent’s panic and I know I’ve done my job properly.
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That said Paradox games kill me. I could handle HOI2 and actually read the manual. Victoria and EU are just… overwhelming.
I doubt it. The kind of games you talked about in the OP, what they boil down to is something like this:
A system that can produce a variety of results, and a number of players that manipulate the system to achieve mutually exclusive results.
The game part of that is the competition for control of the system, and understanding of what the system is is pretty directly proportional to a player’s degree of access to it.
Which means that if the players have a different degree of understanding of the system, then what’s going on isn’t really a game.
I don’t know that there’s anything to be done about learning curves. But it depends on how you define learning curves, because I think there’s a few different ones.
To use a couple of examples, Dominions 3 and GalCiv2 are very different games, learning curve-wise, in two ways.
Dominions is a tabletop relative. Thus, the rules are very simple and easily comprehensible. The ‘system’ I was talking about earlier, is the massive number of exceptions you and your opponents can introduce to the rules, and how they interact. Since the number of exceptions really is truly massive, developing any sort of overview of them takes time.
All the information you need, though, is readily available. Much of it is even summarised in the game.
GalCiv2 is not a tabletop relative. The rules are much more complex (but that’s not saying much), and pure formulas. Unlike Dom3, however, the system is how to make the most of those formulas, not how many weird combinations of exceptions to them you can introduce. Unsurprisingly, you can learn how to play GalCiv2 much, much faster than Dom3.
Or you could, if only the information was available in the manual. Or even gasp in the actual game. But it isn’t, and because it really isn’t a tabletop relative, you have no chance of figuring out the rules on your own. The only way to learn how to play the game, is to find fan-made documentation on-line (which is readily available, exhaustive & all-round fantastic, so don’t let the shitty SD documentation hold you back).
This would actually be pretty cool, no matter what the game is.
What have I gotten myself into? Eh… Suggest a game. If I have it or want it, and nobody beats me to it (please do, someone), I’ll have a go at it.
I’m a card carrying member of this club. But, through being discouraged at my lack of skill, it’s really put me on the sidelines and I don’t even make the attempt. Which is sad, really, because it means (and I am hearing this here too) there are a lot of very serious gamers who are in the same position and are held back from being able to enjoy an entire genre that obviously has a lot to offer.
I remember writing in to Steve Bauman when he was doing the strategy column in PCG (I think that’s his name, forgive me any misspellings!) suggesting that a newb 101 series of columns would be great as a way of helping us over the hump. Or, even, recommendations from folks who have the chops on what games are good to learn on and how to go about building skills from newb to more experienced strategy gamer.
I got no reply to that - but, I’m still interested in my question - what games do you experienced folks feel are good starters for those of us on the sidelines? Tips for how to progress and get over the learning curve hump?
See, it’s not a question of time, I think there are a lot of gamers in our shoes who have put in hundreds (thousands) of hours on other types of games and been rewarded (at least, we can have the experience of that genre, even if we do still suck!) and I bet there are a lot of us who would be willing to make that committment to be better strategy gamers too.
oh man, total war :) you really need to look away from the stats there. Look at the battlefield. Suppose we have “classic” total war here, rome or medieval. those would be perfect for cutting your teeth on 4x games too imo, especially medieval2.
Dudes with spears defend well against horses. Horses are good at charging, and they are mobile. Do not charge straight at pointy things, such as the front of a formation of spearmen. Pretty intuitive, right?
The rest of it all follows from there.
Imo the total war battlefield game is one of the most intuitive strat games ever, because they went to such great pains to make shure that what works in real life works in the game. so high ground is good. flank or better yet rear attacks break unit morale. etc etc.
empire is a different beasty. gunpowder changed the way war is fought. horses lose their dominance, especially once squares become commonplace. they become specialists. Read up on warstories from that era, it will help lots.
Warstories and AAR’s are imo the most fun way to both learn games and enjoy the ones that go over your head. I don’t think GalCiv2 would have ever opened up on me were it not for a great number of awesome AAR’s i digested before even starting on it. Hearts of Iron same story, without a tutorial AAR that thing would have been as accessible as ayatholla khameini’s bathroom.