Fast pace vs Med pace
Posted: 12 Feb 2021, 04:26
Today I have talked to KennetRP and other guys in the game lobby. They all claimed they hated fast pace games because it was 0 iq, no strategy and just "speed click".
I think this is not really true.
I think that the reason why all RTS games are all about time managing and not actual strategies meant as an active thinking is not because strategies do not exist, but because once players understand the game the strategies they were making before in a slower way get executed in a faster and auto pilot mode.
So basically when you play your perfomance doesn't reflect your ability to make plans or strategies but it reflects the quality and the execution of the strategies you know already.
Let's do an example: in 5-5 fast pace at the beginning people typically send 5 citizens to stone and 5 citizens to wood (or 4 and 6). The reason is banally because this is one of the fastest way to build city centers, but it's not like we are even thinking at it anymore. Is it a strategy? You might say it is not because it is applied mechanically, but before being played over and over in an auto pilot mode it was! There was that time in which you were actively thinking like: "...I must minimize the time for building the next ccs". At that time it was clearly a strategy. Can strategies stop being strategies? Hard to say...
But wait a moment, the beginner who sends, for example, 3 citizens to stone and 7 to wood and who is used to do that, might as well think that the game has no strategy, but actually the choice he made is wrong. If a game has no strategy you should be the king of it.
Someone might say that building barracks is a brainless act. Well, even if it really was, it all comes down to task priorities. It can be an easy task to do, so easy to be considered boring, but it's not about how easy a task is to do, but how you invest your time. I don't think beginners stop building just because it is boring. They stop building because they think other facts have bigger priorities. Also, deciding the method to build barracks, which can be done using TAB, using citizens by selecting them from trees, cyclically, in a certain pattern which adapts to the state of the game and so on... is an important aspect which is not banal at all. For example prebuilding 2 barracks one after the other with a single citizen is not an efficient idea at the beginning. So, in the end, it comes up that even the apparantly most brainless aspect of fast pace games is a strategy.
So... it is generally normal to not apply an active thinking during a game you want to win. You just apply your old discoveries, which is still cool. It can be fast pace, medium pace, or even other games. This is how it works.
Which is then the difference between fast pace and med pace games? In med pace you generally deal with fewer units, so it is more about micro than macro. That means less time building and more time controlling the army, which is an art as well, but certainly It's not like in medium pace you have the time to think ways to exploit opponent's weaknesses with sci fi strategies.
I think this is not really true.
I think that the reason why all RTS games are all about time managing and not actual strategies meant as an active thinking is not because strategies do not exist, but because once players understand the game the strategies they were making before in a slower way get executed in a faster and auto pilot mode.
So basically when you play your perfomance doesn't reflect your ability to make plans or strategies but it reflects the quality and the execution of the strategies you know already.
Let's do an example: in 5-5 fast pace at the beginning people typically send 5 citizens to stone and 5 citizens to wood (or 4 and 6). The reason is banally because this is one of the fastest way to build city centers, but it's not like we are even thinking at it anymore. Is it a strategy? You might say it is not because it is applied mechanically, but before being played over and over in an auto pilot mode it was! There was that time in which you were actively thinking like: "...I must minimize the time for building the next ccs". At that time it was clearly a strategy. Can strategies stop being strategies? Hard to say...
But wait a moment, the beginner who sends, for example, 3 citizens to stone and 7 to wood and who is used to do that, might as well think that the game has no strategy, but actually the choice he made is wrong. If a game has no strategy you should be the king of it.
Someone might say that building barracks is a brainless act. Well, even if it really was, it all comes down to task priorities. It can be an easy task to do, so easy to be considered boring, but it's not about how easy a task is to do, but how you invest your time. I don't think beginners stop building just because it is boring. They stop building because they think other facts have bigger priorities. Also, deciding the method to build barracks, which can be done using TAB, using citizens by selecting them from trees, cyclically, in a certain pattern which adapts to the state of the game and so on... is an important aspect which is not banal at all. For example prebuilding 2 barracks one after the other with a single citizen is not an efficient idea at the beginning. So, in the end, it comes up that even the apparantly most brainless aspect of fast pace games is a strategy.
So... it is generally normal to not apply an active thinking during a game you want to win. You just apply your old discoveries, which is still cool. It can be fast pace, medium pace, or even other games. This is how it works.
Which is then the difference between fast pace and med pace games? In med pace you generally deal with fewer units, so it is more about micro than macro. That means less time building and more time controlling the army, which is an art as well, but certainly It's not like in medium pace you have the time to think ways to exploit opponent's weaknesses with sci fi strategies.