Serious_Business
Best Poster on the Codex
Yes, these criterias might not be compatible in so far as AI cannot handle complex systems (yet?). I think strategy games shouldn't have AI opponents operate on the same rules as the player ; to make them competent they have to handle a simplified environment. Effectively in strategy games you are not playing against multiple AI opponents, but a general system which constitutes these opponents ; this makes me believe that there is a space to make the AI function entirely differently than the player, in so far at least as it isn't meant to replace an actual human opponent (which is the usual model, but a bad one for single player games).My two criterias for what consitutes a good game - be it realtime or turnbased - are complexity and good AI (no weebshit as well I suppose but that's a different topic). It's a lot easier to find realtime games with Good AI compared to turnbased, but it's a lot easier to find complex games in turnbased compared to realtime, rarely do you find jewels that incorporate both be it in TB or RT.
Besides comparing both is like comparing apples and oranges since they really are that different. It's like comparing a General in the middle of an engagement with a Ruler/Controller/Manager in the middle of his elaborate long-term 5d-chess plan he's currently cooking up in his Castle/Mansion/Office. The real reason there's even a topic of Realtime vs. Turnbased is because Strategy has become a niche market where we rarely get good new games, and when that happens you can only get one and not both. So if you enjoy realtime and you see turnbased release, you understandably get salty because that could have been a turnbased game or vice versa.
It's not so different to compare them in so far as one would compare strategy and tactics. Typically as you say one has to do with actual engagements and the other with the general plan these engagements are set in, but they interact with each other in so far as the general plan (strategy) interacts with the results of the engagements (tactics). I don't think it has much to do with the supposedly "niche market" of strategy and its "rare new games" ; if anything the division is military or political (strategy being handled by politics or the State, and tactics being something the actual forces have to handle). It really is a question of speed in so far as tactics are fast and strategy has much more to do with planning, although strategy requires fast adaptation as well. Of course you can have turned-based (slow) tactics or real time (fast) strategy.
To go back to the subject of course you'll get the idea that turned-based games have more possibilities for complexities, although again an AI usually cannot handle it - which makes AI for simpler games usually much more competent and complex (the chess example). This idea that real time games are "dumb" ignores that their design is can be much more intricate ; real-time action is much harder to handle than turned-based systems, at least for designers. We have to place ourselves in the shoes of designers if you want to think at least a step above the consumer, which in this case is the "monocle" way to operate.
I think one simple but interesting idea to make turned-based systems more dynamic is to introduce a timer, although I'll admit that I personnally can't handle it to save my life. It could be a dynamic timer too depending on the situation. Also in a RtwP system you could limit the number or time of pauses accordingly. I'm not saying players would enjoy it, but you know, fuck 'em.