One of more recent ancestors of the RTS genre, Microprose's Command HQ (circa 1991) tries to receate the great global wars in a pseudo real time environment. Everything happens on a turn basis but the turns passed on a player controlled timer. Structurally it has the 3 World Wars (#3 being 1970-80s Nato vs Warsaw Pact) and 2 random wars one with pre-placed cities and another with random cities.
The best part about the game and something I still love is the elegance of the units. They're all useful and to the point. Ocean units consists of the rock paper scissors trinity of gunships, subs and carriers, land has simply infantry and armor.
HQ has an excellent interface point and click complete with a what might be a decent path-finding algorithm. Although I think it may just use a lot of real-world trade routes. And if the wars are fought sequentially serve as an excellent tutorial as more complicated stuff like aircraft and satellites are available in more modern conflicts.
Of course the music, graphic, and sound effects while decent for the time show their age today.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
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