Real-time Tactics - Brief History and Background

Brief History and Background

Further information: Chronology of real-time tactics video games

Wargaming with items or figurines representing soldiers or units for training or entertainment has been common for as long as organised conflicts. Chess, for example, is based on essentialised battlefield movements of medieval unit types and, beyond its entertainment value, is intended to instill in players a rudimentary sense of tactical considerations. Today, miniature wargaming, where players mount armies of miniature figurines to battle each other, has become popular (e.g., Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40000). Though similar to conventional modern board wargames (e.g. Axis & Allies), in the sense of simulating war and being turn-based, the rules for miniature wargames tend to lean heavily towards the minutiae of military combat rather than anything at a strategic scale.

Though popular as table-top games, tactical wargames were relatively late in coming to computers, largely due to game mechanics calling for large numbers of units and individual soldiers, as well as advanced rules that would have required hardware capacities and interface designs beyond the capabilities of older hardware and software. Since most established rule sets were for turn-based table-top games, the conceptual leap to translate these categories to real time was also a problem that needed to be overcome.

Avalon Hill's 1982 release Legionaire for the Atari 8-bit was a real-time wargame of Romans versus Barbarians with game play reminiscent of the current real-time tactics template, called by one review a "real-time simulation of tactical combat". Likewise, Free Fall Associates' 1983 title Archon can be considered an early real-time tactics game, built upon Chess but including real-time battle sequences. Archon was highly influential, and, for instance, Silicon Knights, Inc.'s 1994 game Dark Legions was virtually identical to it, adding only to Archon's concept that the player, as in many table-top wargames, purchases his army before committing to battle. Another predecessor was Bits of Magic's Centurion: Defender of Rome (published for the PC by Electronic Arts in 1990), in which, similar to the recent Rome: Total War game, the game took place on a strategic map interspersed by battle sequences. However, though the battles were in real-time they were of small scope and player interaction was limited to deciding the initial troop disposition. Lords of the Realm, released in 1994 by Impressions Games, introduced real-time control of these real-time battles.