In strategy gaming, their are two types of games - real time (rts) and turn based (tbs). In the gaming community their is a debate about which one is better.

Tbs give the player one turn to do things. During that time the computer or other players can not do any thing. After the computer finishes their turn, the player take their turn. A game of Civ 3, the quintessential turn based strategy game, can any were from 5 to 15 hours. Rts have the computer and the player take their turns at the same time. This make the game go much faster. Real time games last about 45 minutes

Tbs usually take longer too play because their is more information presented to the player and more decisions to make. Some turn based games also make the player micro mange, or control every little detail of the game. Micro managing is very time consuming and many players dislike it. Advocates of Tbs say that more information and more options make a better, realist game. However, the increase of options takes away from the excitement of the game because their are longer periods between fights and battles. Rts gamers also say that is unrealistic for a leader of a nation to make every little decisions about a nation. Tbs gamers agree that a leader of a nation does not make every little decisions, but a leader of a nation feels like the production of a city should be changed, they can change it if they want to. Their is, however, such a things as being present with to much information. Master of Orion 3 (with out AI help) is an example of this. In MoO 3 a turn without AI help takes about an hour, with the whole game lasting about 50 turns.

Instead of information real time games give the player action and excitement with fast paced battles. Tbs gamers say that these battle are not necessary, and don't require any skill or intelligence to play. Real time gamers refute by saying the same thing is true of most video games. When real time games give up information, they also give up allot of realism. Real time games lack in noncombatant strategy like diplomacy and economics.

Tbs also have a sense of epicness about them that rps’s lack. Rps’s combat are usually skirmishes between two groups of units, while Tbs can show great battles between nations that take place all over the planet.

Real time games can not have the same death as turn based games because it takes time to make decisions Computers can make decisions faster than humans, and an important part of real time games is being able to do things quickly. If a human player was present with all of the decisions one must make in a Tbs, they would quickly fall behind the computer.

Their have been several attempts to mold the two genres together. The Total War series was the first of these efforts. Total War allows the player to chose were the battle will take place, than command that battle close up. After the battle is over you can choose to chose were the next battle will take place. The creator of Civilization series disagrees with this idea because the player get to caught up with small battle and forget about the big picture, which is a bad thing.

Rise of Nations is a real time game that tried to combine both genres. It incorporated elements of Total War in its Conquer the World feature and had the technology in the cover the with of human technology. However, RoN did not turn out much different from from most real time games (it is however, an good real time game).

By Adam P.