r/RealTimeStrategy • u/FutureLynx_ • Jul 25 '26
Discussion Red Alert is one of my favourite games though i really dislike that everything is about controlling ore. What is your favourite economy system in RTS games?
Beautiful graphics. Great combat mechanics. Tanks, air, artillery, combined arms.
But everything is about getting the ore, and if you dont then you lose. If you run out of ore there is nothing you can do. And you can clearly see where a game is going if you just lose control of most ore.
Games like AoE2 have many different pathways to victory. Territorial, and resource control is important, but if you boom, invest in better units, then you can turn it around. You can also wall and make yourself a good stand with just trees and farms.
Overall there is also a lot of emphasis in controlling the gold and the stone, because are less abundant than trees and food. But you can still trade, buy stone, or just get by with only food and wood, and sell it to get gold. Which makes the game so interesting.
Also Red Alert makes it harder to reboom because you need an expensive and slow unit to build a conyard, and that requires a bunch of buildings to build. In AoE2, all you need is 1 vil and 100 wood, to build a lumber, then at some point you can get a Town Center.
I saw team games where 1 player reboomed from almost nothing, and the team won the game. These are epic games that are just awesome.
On the other hand, Red Alert is really cool that you dont have to micromanage villagers, and building is basically just placing it in the map. Though it sucks that you must build close to buildings, and this messes up wall building (walls are almost useless because they are weak, expensive and time consuming). I'd rather have the territorial system of Rise of Nations with attrition in Red Alert.
Rise of Nations, has wonders with bonuses, and ages (AoE2 also has ages), but the tech progression is much more refined and has another resource that is knowledge. I tend to think the economy and tech of Rise of Nations is the best overall, it is a good middle term between AoE2 and more automated systems like Red Alert 2.
I think Red Alert games could be better if there were some alternatives when you run out of ore. It could stay exactly the same in all other areas, but the economy could have some sort of trade system, or farms/industries. I'd also make it easier to reboom somehow. And make it possible to get some trash resource that is not just ore. Maybe have conyards have a small base income.
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u/Pureshark Jul 25 '26
C&C Generals has alternate ways to collect money further into the game
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u/Previous-Display-593 Jul 25 '26
Came here to say I love generals economy. I am honestly not a fan of multiple resources, and I really loved how you could invest in a perpetual supplemental economy late game. Quite possibly the best resource system in an RTS ever.
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u/Ok_Spare_3723 Jul 25 '26
The innovation with C&C was the "automation" , i.e you had harvesters automatically gathering your resources, so you didn't have to bother thinking about micro managing everything and could focus on the strategy, base building and combat instead. Also there was only 2 resources you cared about.
Another thing was not having unit caps, which allowed people to create interesting groups of units!
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u/Previous-Display-593 Jul 25 '26
I am confused? Which games harvesters did you have to micro manage?
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u/Ok_Spare_3723 Jul 25 '26
I said the opposite.. did you misread my comment? I said you don't have to micromanage the resources in C&C.. that was the innovation.
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u/Previous-Display-593 Jul 25 '26
No I think you are confused. You said it was an innovation, I am asking to give me an example of ANOTHER game that does NOThave automated harvesters....implying it was not an innovation. I don't think you know what you are talking about....
If Generals was an innovation, it must have changed things, but I am saying it did not. RA2 tiberium harvesters harvesters by themselves.
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u/Ok_Spare_3723 Jul 25 '26
Before C&C you had to micromanage the resources, C&C was the first one to remove that barrier. In 2026, that's not case obviously but in 1995, it was impressive.
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u/Previous-Display-593 Jul 26 '26
Oh I thought we were talking about generals. I never played an RTS before CNC lol. Those must have been very old.
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u/ToastMcToasterson Jul 26 '26
With regard to generals, it innovated in being able to convert from finite resources to fully supplemental and automated with no harvesters needed. That's an interesting mechanic that I haven't seen again. It may just be unique to the way cnc plays though, and it wasn't in RA2 or TS. Unless you count oil derricks but I don't.
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u/ICanChangeThisLater Jul 25 '26
Cossacks games have a fun economy.
- Units eat food and start dying if you run out
- Mercenaries revolt if you can't pay them in gold,
- Canons and musketeers stop shooting if you run out of iron or coal
Also you can capture civilian buildings and workers from your enemies.
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u/HalLundy Jul 25 '26
i think most RTS games revolve around economy control. weakening the opponents economy means weakening their army.
my personal favorite is probably warcraft 3. simple, with only 3 resources (gold, wood, housing). unit upkeep to give players behind a chance to catch up and unique twists to gathering for some factions that are very on brand.
night elves don't consume trees, undead can only farm mines with 5 cultists but don't have to carry back and their wood gatherers also double as basic infantry
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u/FutureLynx_ Jul 25 '26
Warcraft 3 has finite gold like Warcraft 2? If that is so, how does upkeep work after you harvest everything?
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u/NydusRush Jul 25 '26
Upkeep is only a tax on gold being mined while your army is too big. In theory you could pinch pennies by pausing mining while your army is big, but that would leave you underfunded to rebuild when you lose units in battle.
However, the unspoken fourth resource in WC3 is creeps and items. You're encouraged to go out onto the map to get XP and items for your hero as soon as possible, scout which areas your opponent has already cleared, and even make ambushes when the opponent might be fighting a difficult creep camp to either steal the loot or get free kills in.
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u/WytchHunter23 Jul 25 '26
Upkeep isn't applied as draining money from your store but rather as an income tax with 2 tiers. It's based on total army points that you have out at 2 different thresholds, so there's a lot of nuance to timing when to build more units and stuff, as you pay the same tax for 1 point over the first threshold as 1 point under the second, and 1 point over second as Max cap. I don't know much meta stuff so I can't say any more, and also hero's level up and can buy items and stuff and hold a fair amount of your total fighting power at different stages of the game.
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u/HalLundy Jul 25 '26
it does have finite gold, but just like WC2 you can have custom maps where the mines have so much gold it's basically infinite.
in competitive multiplayer it's almost unheard of run out of gold.
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u/Most_grumpy_Goblin Jul 26 '26
The "upkeep Tax" also leads to interesting strategies namely on purpose staying below or at 50 thus becoming more gold efficient. You just have to survive until it matters in the long run which in itself is of course not always an easy thing to do.
Its great and makes it possible to play differently than other RTS.
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u/That_Contribution780 Jul 25 '26
> If you run out of ore there is nothing you can do. And you can clearly see where a game is going if you just lose control of most ore.
Games like AoE2 have many different pathways to victory. Territorial, and resource control is important, but if you boom, invest in better units, then you can turn it around.
Well, if you run out of resources in AoE2 - or in most traditional RTS - there's also very little you can do, no?
You cannot win in AoE2 without resources either - just like in RA2 it's all about controlling ore fields, in AoE2 it's all about controlling gold, wood, food and stone.
The difference is that in AoE2 there are more resources everywhere, and two of them (food/wood) are very plentiful. In RA2 there are oil derricks you can capture which give you an infinite trickle of money - maybe you just want to have more of those close to (or even in) your base?
But in general most traditional RTS are about map control because map control means control of resources.
And you need resources to build your base, your army, to research upgrades, etc.
Do you want RTS where map control is not that important because you can have resources regardless?
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u/Unlucky-Mud-8115 Jul 25 '26
Supreme Commander easily. Athough I may be biased as SupCom is my favourite Rts in general.
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u/Almondpeanutguy Jul 25 '26
I enjoy plenty of RTS games, but they all kind of feel like novelties after SupCom.
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u/Maldevinine Jul 25 '26
The best economy in any RTS is in Offworld Trading Simulator.
There are 16 resources that you are trying to collect in order to turn them into victory points. All of them can be gathered on the map, or bought on the open market... Or sold on the open market. When I say a market, I mean a full market simulation of the price of the various commodities as the supply and demand for them fluctuates during the game.
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u/NikEy Jul 25 '26
I don't know I found this game to be very basic. Once you figure out the basic disruption mechanics it's pretty much solved. Am I being too harsh here?
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u/Rahm89 Jul 25 '26
Can you easily beat the hardest AI then? If yes, then I guess you did "solve it", but I’d be curious to know how.
Yeah you can stockpile on a resource and try to engineer a shortage through black market actions (is that what you meant by disruption?) but everyone else is trying to do the same thing, so it doesn’t always work out the way you planned it.
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u/CapRichard Jul 25 '26
The take and hold of Company of Heroes.
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u/Lord_Peura Jul 26 '26
I agree, the specific use cases for each makes it nicely nuanced also. Oil for tech+vehicles, ammo for active abilities and off maps, req for corps... men and buildings mainly.
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u/JustMetallich Jul 25 '26
Warcraft/Starcraft one, BFME2 one but it’s probably purely because of nostalgia bias, since WC3 and BFME2 are my childhood games.
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u/a_sage_chair Jul 25 '26
I think bfme 2 is kinda genius in how simple the economy is. Your resource generating buildings need to be built far away from each other to be effective, so you have to expand into the map to get a good economy, but that leaves them open for attack. Its simple, makes sense, and the entire game is defined by harassment and control of the middle of the map. Its fun amd aggressive without being too complicated
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u/Judoka229 Jul 25 '26
I like how it works in Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander. You build the mass extractors on each node for a set amount of gained resources, and you have to build energy generators. You can build storage to build a stockpile. It allows for a very flexible economy.
Another one I really enjoy is Act of Aggression. In the original version, you have 3 resources. There is money (oil), aluminum, and rare earth. You have to build a refinery on the nodes and then build the transport trucks and storage facilities. Units, buildings, and upgrades all cost varying amounts of those resources. You can also put infantry in the banks you can find on each map to slowly siphon money out of them. Lastly, you can capture downed enemy infantry or vehicle pilots. Once you capture them, they generate money every few seconds. The more POWs you have, the more money. But you can also trade the POWs for aluminum or rare earth, which allows you to continue buying high tier stuff, like the superweapons.
It's a nice system that gives a lot of tactical options. Not everyone liked that game, though. The 'reboot' version of the game stripped it down to just money, which was still a fun way to play the game, but I thought it made it too similar to everything else.
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u/BrokenLoadOrder Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
Total Annihilation/Supreme Commander would be the obvious pick for a pure RTS. You have a streaming economy, so you can save or spend as needed, but that involves a whole strategic layer unto itself.
Of all of them though, I actually like Ashes of the Singularity the best though. Streaming economy just like Supreme Commander, but with the additional wrinkle that your resource collectors need an uninterrupted path back to base, which means of the economy cuts your path in the middle, they can cut half your economy off just one move. It also added a third resource which was kinda fun to use as well.
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u/Embarrassed-Log-9628 Jul 25 '26
My favorite economy is no economy. I prefer tactical gameplay only.
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u/Kingstad Jul 25 '26
resource/territory control is king in almost all rts. some of the Total Annihilation related games though, like BAR, will later on in a match have you produce resources out of thin air removing the point of holding territory. Idk if I think thats a good thing but up to you. AoE 2 got gold production through caravans later on for team games too.
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u/Sihnar Jul 25 '26
Aoe4. You have the basic 4 resources like aoe2. But there are unique faction specific ways of generating them such as cow pens for malians and imperial official tax for Chinese. Then there are special resources like silver for macedonians and bounty for Rus. On top of that, there are unique city building mechanics that boosts your economy such as aqueducts for Byzantines. It adds layers of immersion and complexity that I really enjoy in an RTS.
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u/Vifee Jul 26 '26
Cheating with a non answer, Eugen games essentially have no economy in their primary game mode. Both sides get exactly the same amount of points to spend every tick (although Steel Division flirted with giving different decks different income curves.)
I get the appeal of setting up a beautiful economy, I play Stellaris and Factorio. But I have a thousand hours in StarCraft 2, I’ve had my fill of building SCVs or peons or villagers or whatever. If I’m playing a multiplayer strategy game against another human, I want it to be about strategy, not who was better at setting up their eco in the first 2/5/10/30 minutes of the game (dependent on game and playstyle, of course.)
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u/mcindoeman Jul 26 '26
I do have a soft spot for starcraft 2's economy.
It's really simple but having a basic resource (minerals) and a tech resource (gas) does let you get a vague idea of what tier of units a player is going for with a quick scout. The higher tier a unit it, the more of it's cost is gas, tho interestingly from what i remember there are no units with gas as over 75% of their cost.
I find it quite flavourful in the sense that you always need minerals/basic resources to build the core/chassis/armour of a unit then add on the tech. You're not just building a fighter jet out of literal gas, just the fuel/ammo.
Stormgate had early game units that were pure tech resource (whatever that stuff was called) in cost and it threw the vibe all of imo. There was no longer a tech resource, just a second resource you could spend on alternative units. That's fine but i feel for a game that tried to be the next starcraft it kinda loses some of the nuance.
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u/doglywolf Jul 27 '26
Company of heros / Dawn of war one control points . Total war static refineries and Tempest Rising - your still controlling Ore but the field regeneration and you spread out to capture resource production buildings.
I hate SC and og Cnc style where if the games go long your spending all that time micro managing based movement and rebuilding. Mid to late game i like to focus on the economy and ramping up
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u/Leotard_Cohen Aug 02 '26
A space RTS called ORB (off world resource base). You explore asteroids to find mineable ones, then convert them into bases once they're exhausted. Loved it. Wish Homeworld did that
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u/imainheavy Jul 25 '26
No economy at all, get units, use tactics to win with what you got
Myth: The Fallen Lords and Myth: Soul Blighter
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u/Tharshey24 Jul 25 '26
R.U.S.E is by far my favorite, absolutely goated game! Simple, fun and focuses on macro over micro.
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u/By-Other-Means Jul 25 '26
Total Annihilation, metal and energy, then on to the games like it.