I am ever so thankful Galciv is turn based!

Speak for yourself.

I'm 34 and may have slowed in the reflex department a little, but I can still rack up the kills against teenagers on Team Fortress. I do have seemed to have mellowed some though, since I have gravitated towards TBS games in the last few years after being a RTS junkie since there has been RTS's.

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The other thing to remember is the speed of your machine now as opposed to back then.
While you were good at those real time games of a few years ago your computer now is processing those same games at about 2x the speed you got used to.

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HI all
been busy getting my ass flogged in a game called Total anihilation. That is a 'real time' game, and as i get older, real time games get harder!

Take the game known as starcraft for example. I used to be able to play that game when it first came out. Now, i am wondering if somone hacked my computer and changed the easy setting to 'insane'.

I absolutely cannot play starcraft anymore. Also i am finding it more difficult to succeed in missions i could easily win before in Total anihilation.

Makes me appreciate how valuable turn based games like galciv are!

I'm in my mid 30's and i have to admit that the downhill slide really does start around 25 like the experts say!

Youre only looking at one side of it. Even though us who are "older" have slower reflexes than the 15 year old and thus will probably fare worse in RTS and 3D shooters we, hopefully, have gained other qualities which will makes us better in strategy games where time is not a limiting factor.

Those abilities could be patience and better cognitive thinking. I for one feel that Im alot smarter and better at making good decisions than when I was 15 or even 18 due to the experience.

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I am 18 as of now, will soon be 19. I love both the TBS and RTS genres. I agree that RTS games may be harder now due to increased processing power, but there are some games that shouldn't be any harder then they already are. The Age of Empires series are amazing IMO, and can only be run effectively with a high powered computer. I have a 1.73 GHz laptop and it locks up with a lot of RTS games because of its LACK of processing power. Thankfully, GC is a TBS game, and I can have a lot more onscreen without it being a processor hog.

Games like GC and Civilization are where the strategy really is. You dont have to worry about if your computer is faster then you when making their military so much as needing to worry about if your production lines are going to withstand an assault by 3-4 Transport ships while your trade ships are being raped, destroying your trade-uberized economy.

(I trade A LOT with the Snathi when I see them, even though they are just a minor race.)

Something that I have seen a lot of in RTS games is that brute force matters more then actual tactics. While horsemen get destroyed by pikeman on their own (in AOE), if you put 200 fully upgraded pikeman against 200 fully upgraded horsemen, the pikemen will LOSE every time. Tactics rarely matters.

I hope that there are no blatent flaws in my logic, but it is what I think...

Have a good day everybody.

GalenEvil

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2nd the OP, generally speaking. But declining reaction time and wrist-wear aside, I think my main reason for never having gained much interest in RTS games is that IMO, there is no S if the game is RT.

They really should be called RTT (Real-time Tactical) games. They don't give you a way to consider and implement a strategy; you must develop tactical skills that you can apply without any real deliberation. The things are just a twist on shooter games, moving from first to third person.

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In my experience, RTS games put a premium on resource management. The key to winning, as galenevil pointed out, is delivering the most troops to battle. To do this, you must spend a lot of time organizing your workers to harvest the resources efficiently on order to be able to produce the required troops.

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For me, the thing still comes down to "more clicking than thinking."

I certainly hit stretches in GCII where I'm processing turns very rapidly, but IMO you need to be able to spend a while (*hours* for some of us huge map folks) making choices for an interesting turn before you can call it a serious strategy game.

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I really hope that Supreme Commander can deliver on the scale that (I think) is needed to be a real RTS. Area to maneuver and flank an army....Damn that could be a ton o' fun!!

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I really hope that Supreme Commander can deliver on the scale that (I think) is needed to be a real RTS. Area to maneuver and flank an army....Damn that could be a ton o' fun!!

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Mystikmind

Join Date 06/2004

+20

I'm 34 and may have slowed in the reflex department a little, but I can still rack up the kills against teenagers on Team Fortress

I used to play Quake and unreal tournament allot. Played it for years thinking practice makes perfect but i never did become elite so i just gave it away. All the young elite teenagers would smoke my ass like i was nothing, and i would struggle on thinking eventually i will get good at it with enough practice. nope. Veteran level i was and always will be.

The other thing to remember is the speed of your machine now as opposed to back then.
While you were good at those real time games of a few years ago your computer now is processing those same games at about 2x the speed you got used to.

I think the game speed is regulated in the coding, however with TA you can turn the game speed down - i had forgotten about that feature! hmmm me thinks i can get back in there and kick some ass afterall, slowly hehehe

The Age of Empires series are amazing IMO, and can only be run effectively with a high powered computer. I have a 1.73 GHz laptop and it locks up with a lot of RTS games because of its LACK of processing power

Yes they are good. The latest one has a fantastic AI, It really takes allot of effort to bring them down.

I have a 1.7 GHz computer and it seems to handle these games ok.... yes there is some noticable lag when the game advances, but it is quite bearable. Perhaps your video card needs upgrading?

They really should be called RTT (Real-time Tactical) games. They don't give you a way to consider and implement a strategy; you must develop tactical skills that you can apply without any real deliberation. The things are just a twist on shooter games, moving from first to third person.

This is a key point. Yes i would agree any RTS games that refuse to allow micromanagement during 'pause' mode (and there are a few - the basteds!) should loose the 's' in RTS.

For me, the thing still comes down to "more clicking than thinking."

Yes the current mission i am trying to crack in Total Anihilation really puts the pressure on my clicking speed, i just cannot give enough orders in the time required. Even though TA allows micromanagement in pause mode, it suffers from 'scroll lock' so you cannot move around the map in pause mode which is a serious irritation.

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"In my experience, RTS games put a premium on resource management. The key to winning, as galenevil pointed out, is delivering the most troops to battle. To do this, you must spend a lot of time organizing your workers to harvest the resources efficiently on order to be able to produce the required troops."

Not as much true in Company of Heroes. This RTS game doesn't depend on grunts.(Engineers are your main builders but they can be equip with flamethrowers) You have to capture strategic points on the battlefield to increase your three resources ; manpower,fuel,ammo with manpower the main one.

I like Heart of Iron which is a RTS with the S included but this game still plays a lot like TBS.

You speed of your PC can make a huge difference. I first played "Battle for Middle-Earth" on my older pc and found it very easy on hard. It was tougher to play on hard on my new PC with 60 fps compared to 15-20 fps (the game itself ran faster). So processor speed can make a difference.

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