RTS

From Zanecorpwiki

If you think of a game "digitally" as a set of discrete events, then we can describe all games, from Monopoly to Star Craft II as "a conceptual environment and associated rules". To play any of these games, players make moves and carry out other actions according to these rules. That's it.

This description captures everything from card games to RTS to FPS. From strategy to action to trivia.

So what makes the RTS genre?

Moves

Perhaps the most interesting thing about RTS is that players have a large rich set of moves to decide between and moves are made at a very fast rate. The first property, the richness of possible moves, distinguishes RTS from action/arcade games in which players make moves at a fast rate, but which have a more limited number of moves available.

The idea of "rich" moves doesn't mean just "number of choices at any given point"^{[notes 1]}, though this is a factor. The more important aspect, however, is the "future influence" of moves. In an action or arcade style game, choices have less influence on the future. For example, you could play an FPS and imagine just letting yourself get killed twice in a row. On the third spawning, you start to actually play and win the game.^{[notes 2]} In RTS (and strategy games in general), "building a mine then building an barracks" can have drastically different consequences compared to doing it the other way round. In the first, you may gain a decisive economic edge or fall prey to an early attack. In the second, you may defend an initial attack but fall behind economically.

The second property, regarding the rate of moves, distinguishes RTS from the non-RTS strategy genre. In Axis and Allies or Civilization, you can make anywhere from a couple dozen to a hundreds of moves in a game. Good RTS players make hundreds of moves a minute. Even short games can easily spawn many thousands of moves.

Notes

1. ↑ Technically, branches in the game tree.
2. ↑ Of course power ups and opportunity can be lost. The point is that relative to a strategy or RTS game, where in most cases if you didn't do anything for a number of moves/time period, you'd likely put yourself in an impossible position.