Mabule

在策略游戏中通常有一个“前线”的概念。前线是双方交火之处，前线的地点可能随着游戏的进行而改变或者推移。游戏中前线的存在能为战斗创造一个激烈的，不可逾越的胶着状况。让玩家进入状态，并且从而为策略运用创造条件。

不过策略游戏并不是生来就有前线的，有些游戏虽然有但是感觉非常不明显，让人感觉总是在玩游击战，非常的令人厌烦。前线的产生需要有一些条件。

In strategy games, front line is a restriction factor which force the battle happend in some appoint location, the purpose is to create a "hot zone" and avoid the mess, no-direction situation.

So what make a "front line" in strategy game?

This is today's topic with my teammates. I've got some note here.

The basic factors:

 - The distance. Distance means the time. All games don't encourage player move far away and avoid the mainbattle field if there's no special bonus.

- The density. If the battle area is too large and there's not enough units to "connect" them together, the frontline will not form up.

 - The direction. In most RTS games, the base will be the your final garget and attacking direction. If there's no target for all units to achive(like Deathmatch mode in UT), or too much targets at every where, units cann't fight together and lose the "front line"

 - The defensive units. Defensive unit lack the mobility but have the advantage of denfense while fixed.

 - The bottlenecks in the level. Some narrow waypth will be the necessary way to access some area. Set fixed units at the bottleneck will block the way and effect the attacker mobility and force them fighting there.

Advanced factors:

Rome: Total War

- The morale. The battle field always totally open in Total War. The units together(like phalanx) form up a wall and make up the battleline. Units together can improve their morale eachother, that encourage player to "make" the front line.

Company of Heros

 - Sectors connection. In COH, Only the connected sectors can produce resource and build some defense facilities The alone sector will do nothing except cut enemy's sector connection. It encourage player to capture the nearby connected sectors but not run anywhere he want.

 - Sector visual. The visual effect on the minimap or BHQ map is very clearly showing where's your zone and where's enemy zone.

Blitzkrieg 2

 - Front line reinforcement. In Blitzkrieg 2, reinforcement will arrived at the nearby strategy point if you already capture it. It reduce the move time to deploy units at the base and move to frontline.

Unreal Tournament 2004 - Onslaught

 - Linked Strategy points.The strategy points are linked by lines. Players are forced to caputure SPs along the linking line, there's no way and no battle happened at the rear.