As I was sitting at my computer watching a trailer for the new command and Conquer game and thinking about my favorite RTS games, which are (these do not include the civilization games), !. Command and Conquer Red Alert 2 an it's expansion pack. 2. Command and Conquer Generals and it's expansion pack. 3. Company of Heroes and it's expansion packs. And last but not least the ancient but (for me) still massively fun Total Annihilation. When I looked back at this list I thought to myself, if Company of Heroes had just not broken that one rule of good RTS games and had a no limit population cap (or at least an optional game mode without one) it would have been my favorite of all time. But even with the fact that it does have a population cap it would still be manageable, except the CPU opponents don't have one so WTF.
Poll: Population caps must die!
- Thread starter atlfan91
- Start date
This. Spamming 1905490293950793 guys isn't really fun either and would also cause massive lag on the technical side of things.TheTim said:
Population caps are important for a number of reasons. First, without them all strategy games would be reduced to a spammy zergfest, or moreso of one. Having a capped population makes you think more about the units that you are producing. In addition, it keeps your computer from lagging up since each unit needs to be assigned CPU space and adds addition stuff your GPU needs to handle.
CPU will often not have a unit cap simply to balance things out - good AI is hard to program for RTS games so they need advantages to make for a challenging game.
CPU will often not have a unit cap simply to balance things out - good AI is hard to program for RTS games so they need advantages to make for a challenging game.
Woo, I'm a twat.
Its stops computers breaking and adds a much better strategy element to the game. After all, you can't just create a limitless army in real life and spam the enemy with them
Its stops computers breaking and adds a much better strategy element to the game. After all, you can't just create a limitless army in real life and spam the enemy with them
Best selling RTS game of all time (OF ALL TIME!) had a population cap.
I think they're here to stay. It encourages tactical thinking in your unit choice, balancing which one you should create next by how much it'll impact on your population limit and how that will affect your overall attacking force.
Should you spend another 10 population on a super mega ultra destructo cannon of death and awesome or build 10 infantrymen?
I think they're here to stay. It encourages tactical thinking in your unit choice, balancing which one you should create next by how much it'll impact on your population limit and how that will affect your overall attacking force.
Should you spend another 10 population on a super mega ultra destructo cannon of death and awesome or build 10 infantrymen?
There's nothing wrong with pop caps. It's just to test how well you manage your units. Cause rts is not about the quantity of units you have but how well you use them. Like starcraft.
I loved CoH and DoW thanks to rather harsh population caps. Actually lack of those makes most of Dune2 clone RTSes so painful for me. People spamming top unit to infinity is bad. Such pop caps force players to use variety of troops instead just one produced en masse.
Yes, they're very much necessary. Aside from maintaining CPU stress (always important), it prevents a spamfest.
Computers burning out? Uhm.tomtom94 said:
Adding yo your point (supposedly), a population cap is a cheap shortcut to implementing it right. Firstly, it should be determined by the available RAM and CPU speeds in game, indeed, but there should be other mechanisms, e.g. limited resources, that do or don't allow you to spam units, thus giving a lot more variety to the games. Heck, tell me an RTS where spamming units does not win the match? It's gotta be a transport simulator.
They put the Population Cap(PopCap... >.>) to manage the computer's resources more effectively. That's why we have System Requirements, folks! They set it because they believe that you have them and that they would be able to set the highest population cap using those specifications.
A population cap in an RTS game makes your choices matter. Instead of "I want at least 100 of everything" you will have to chose what you need carefully based on the situation.
Although I like them for playing online, because it keeps everything from bogging down, it would be nice if I could make an army of like 1000 dudes to march across the land to conquer in AoE on a single player random map.
I just think that would be fun. It probably wouldn't be as much fun as it seems in my imagination, but I still would like to try it.
I just think that would be fun. It probably wouldn't be as much fun as it seems in my imagination, but I still would like to try it.
I think that population caps are crucial to most RTS games. Not only does it keep balance but, imagine you are playing against someone online. You have a low-mid range computer. He has a better computer than yours. He sends at once a crap load of units into your base just so you can see 1000 moving units at once. This makes you lag and lose or disconnect due to your processor just frying. How pissed off would you be? The new strat would be "buy a better computer than the opponent, spam units in the fastest building race and choke the opponent's screen."
Population caps are there for a good reason.
Population caps are there for a good reason.
Pretty much been said, but I agree with these 'ere lovely posters, a Population Cap serves a good purpose in RTS games since it hinders swarm tactics and forces players to plan their forces more efficiently.
I don't think it'll always be needed for this, but it's not going anywhere in the meantime.
I don't think it'll always be needed for this, but it's not going anywhere in the meantime.
I beat a player at SC once using 2 shuttles, 2 reavers 4 templar and 4 zealots dragoons once. used 1 shuttle with 2 reavers to smack up his mineral lines, found his tank/vulture line just outside my base, used the templar to storm the shizzle out of his army, and dropped zealots ontop the tanks, just so happened that the guy had placed mines too close to his tanks... All I can say is, massive explosions!gl1koz3 said:
The guy probably could have kept going, but I think that the embarrassment of having that happen to him made him leave. There were enough units in that line that I could say it was spam worthy.