At another level, it tells tales of the individual squaddies recruited by the players. This is made possible because of the way this game lets the player recruit units that stays in the game as long as the player can keep them alive. This makes it possible for the player to become attached to units over time, and invest more emotional interest in their well being.

Every player has his/her own tale of at least one specific squaddie, whether it’s a heroic tale, a clumsy accidental tale, genuine terror, or a tragic loss. This story isn’t told explicitly…it’s just part of the normal game. If the “tragic loss” happens to any unit in an RTS, then the player gets pissed or shrugs, and then makes another one. If this happens to a hero unit in an RTS, the player loses the game, and need to play again (ok except for Warcraft 3). If this happens to a character in Fire Emblem, well he/she stays dead; but Fire Emblem doesn’t let you create your own unit anyways.

Ok, maybe I lied about the several levels part, because I can only talk about these two. However, I just really needed to get these points out there. I mean, my brain screamed X-COM non-stop since about 1/4 way into this podcast. It is the perfect game to contrast the other in-game story telling methods that you guys discussed.

Years later I got the cutscenes to work and how I wish I never had. Holy crap was the real story stupid and bland. And that, including Red Alert, was probably the best storytelling in strategy games at the time!

As for Starcraft and Warcraft 3 I’d say that the only reason they’re so acclaimed is because they’re alone in trying. Neither game really has an actually good story, just the best one in strategy games. That seems to be a problem in video games overall. For example, I’ll admit I had tons of fun playing through Mass Effect 1&2, but I would never claim (as a lot of BioWare fans do) that the writing is brilliant. It’s really not. It gets the job done, but held up to the writing in other media it’s really nothing special.

You mentioned Myth during the podcast, and that is easily my favorite strategy game narrative. It’s a LotR-esque struggle as seen through the eyes of a tired war veteran. The battles get harder as you win them, sure, but (at least I feel that) it’s not for some arbitrary reason. It seems natural that veterans be brought used for continuously more risky, dangerous assignments simply because they’ve survived.

Now, I haven’t played Myth 3, but in both Myth 1&2 (as far as I can remember) the situation is always bleak. The only real chance of victory they have is to cut down the Fallen Lords; winning the war through attrition is not an option. The atmosphere stays dark and epic throughout, as opposed to a lot of games where they for each mission have to make up some reason why things just got worse even though you just kicked major ass.

As for Dawn of War, I really, really like the voice acting for the UNITS. The orkz grunting about having the most dakka in a sort of cockney accent, or the Librarian sternly explaining how an open mind is a fortress with it’s gates unbarred and unguarded. Great stuff. The actual campaign dialog though? Ugh. Does not work. For some reason it’s just has so much less energy in it for some reason I cannot explain. Screw that, I’ll just play another melee match just to hear cultists exclaim how sanity is for the weak.

As mentioned in the podcast, Homeworld is one of the few strategy games that did the meta narrative right. It’s hard to do well, which is why the technique is used so seldomly. It’s hard enough doing a good job with standard, familiar story structures.

On the other hand, I didn’t like Dawn of War II’s campaign. Largely because you had to be fast and rush everything to get enough points for another battle in the same day. After a certain point, your troops just felt generic too. The game tried to give them some sort of personality but it didn’t stick. I can’t remember anyone’s name from that game.

It was touched on lightly in the podcast, but the reason there isn’t more involved and evolving story elements in the missions themselves is that both take a lot of effort. Even with a basic win/lose branching, you’re increasing workload by a power of two for each step further into the campaign. There’s also a problem of putting creativity into the strategy game system. One way is to make the maps themselves dynamic, changing the terrain based on events and such (Which TotalAnnihilation sorta did with wreckage, and C&C 2 kinda failed with its elevation system.) Another way is changing mission objectives on the fly depending on player actions – which actually is feasible but takes a lot of scripting and a really robust engine for it. Even then, it’d be creatively challenging to get away from destroy X and/or capture Y over and over again. Most Triple-A titles don’t have the vision for it, most indie titles don’t have the time or budget for it even if they wish they could. Glimmers of it are there in a couple games, but not so much realization.

Voice acting *is* huge, which is another thing Starcraft and C&C did well.

As already commented on, I feel the level of abstraction and detachment has a lot to do with the level of immersion in a storyline.

For example, conducting a special forces raid in an RTS is building a unit, tellin that unit where to go, then clicking on a special ability and hopefully moving the unit out of harm’s way…otherwise, oh well, just spend a few more resources and build another one. The story is faceless special forces guy infiltrated the base and blew up a key fortification as a small part in the grand scheme of things as I was simultaneously building my economy, mustering forces, etc.

However, you can build an entire narrative from that in a 3rd person stealth game like Splinter Cell where you are the special forces guy doing the legwork, building a plan, choosing your equipment, carefully infiltrating that base, having a few close calls where your cover is almost blown, and escaping barely in time to enjoy the Michael Bay style fireworks.

I’m stating the obvious, but the level of interest in a setting or context also plays a role. As mentioned in the TMA about introducing strategy games to new players, one of you mentioned a setting or historical context as a way to hook or entice the prospective player into playing a strategy game they otherwise wouldn’t care to try.

I don’t think there’s any amount of superb voice work or intriguing narrative that would pique my interest for a story about the WWII Allied invasion of Normandy from a strategy commander perspective. I remember thinking “Oh God, not Omaha again…” when I played the very first map of the campaign of CoH.

Contrast this attitude with the one I had when playing Brothers In Arms, a tactical FPS, where I actually did care about the characters and whether they lived or not. Baker’s musings between missions and the events that occurred in the game imparted in me the sense of bleak nihilism that some of these soldiers must have felt.

It’s also a special case. For one thing, it uses the flavor-text and the story “interludes” to advance a plot that has no connection at all to what you are doing. The story of AC is really source material for the game you are playing, and not the plot. It works brilliantly to give the game a unique vibe, and it makes the action in the game much more freighted with meaning. But it’s not really a narrative game.

Warcraft III is another game I thought about bringing up, but was hesitant to do so given that we had already talked a bit about Starcraft. I’d agree that the game had an excellent campaign, and in some cases did a great job of tying the action in the mission to the storyline. I’m thinking in particular of the mission where Arthas lays waste to that city and pretty much all the action on Northrend.

But that’s all the first campaign. I think Warcraft III, despite some excellent writing and characterization (Illidan, in particular, stands out for me), also has missions that typify problems with strategy game narrative. The elven prison level, for instance, which is the bog-standard “hallway map” that you find in most RTS campaigns. The undead campaign is a blur for me. With the orcs, I remember a lot of mission that just kind of bored me. Wandering the new continent and watching the taurens getting slaughtered by centaurs, or chopping down half a forest. Some stuff really works in the game. I think Warcraft III is a mixed-success, at best.

Alan nailed CoH pretty well, but I fleshed out my complaints a bit more on my blog. The bottom line is that CoH’s campaign is kind of the nutshell version of why people are sick to death of WW2 as a setting. I can’t liberate Carentan again. I can’t capture causeways with the 101st again. And I absolutely cannot raid the secret V-2 base again. CoH made me do all of it, channeling “Greatest Generation” sentimentality the entire way.

I have not played the expansion campaign, but perhaps I owe that a look.

We won’t even discuss how long I’ve been putting off Men of War. Suffice it to say, I am ashamed.

However, strategy games don’t tend to deal with characters within the game play. Some times this can work fine, such as when the story line is really good (good enough to work in a book) and the voice acting is good etc. However, I think it is an uphill struggle compared to other genres such as shooters and the story works in spite of the game.

Instead I think strategy games should do stories on the level that the game play operates. So if you are doing a squad based game, then a character strong story will be fine (like Dawn of War 2). But if you are doing a Civ scale game, then your story needs to be of a similar scope -> not personal success but national success.

Obviously good characterisation is a good way to make a compelling story, but that doesn’t mean it is impossible to write a good story where the characters are countries. However, it is more challenging, which is why I agree with Rob that strategy games should present a good narrative hook and let players make their own stories, particularly when the scale reaches the point where individuals are irrelevant game play wise.