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My original argument was that neither system allowed for more tactical depth then the other so i guess where we differ is in the definition of tactical depth.
I would define tactical depth in an rpg as the amount of options available to you in combat.
Where as you seem to define it as the amount of control you have (correct me if i am wrong here).
Micromanagement certainly allows for more direct control but you are still left with the same amount of options in a combat situation so it becomes a matter of personal taste i guess.

I'd say that it's MUCH more challenging for a developer to PROVIDE you with tactical depth in a real-time environment, than it is in a turn based environment.

Specifically, I think it's related to providing players with a UI that can give you full tactical control without confusing you, or without the pressure of having to decide in real time. Beyond that, you have to provide a suitably advanced player AI for the players who're not inclined to constantly pause the game (those who wouldn't just prefer a TB game).

I think these challenges are such that we've yet to see a RTwP combat system with as much depth as the deepest TB systems. Certainly, they're very rare.

In a realtime enviroment yes but RTwP is not a realtime enviroment.
Take Baldurs gate 1-2 for example where you had the combat log with rolls, resistances, damage done, damage recieved, casts and all the other tactical info you could want in adition to all the visual clues onscreen. What exactly could a straight Tb approach to this game add?
The whole point of RTwP is that you dont have to make tactical decisions in realtime so there is no reason the Ui would have to give you less info then if it was designed for a Tb game.
It might be more challenging for developers sure but as i am not one i really cant comment on that either way.

Yes, it's a real-time environment with an OPTIONAL pause. The game MUST function in BOTH real-time and when using pause. The reason this mode even exists, is to try and please both TB and RT fans. That's the ONLY reason.

TB in Baldur's Gate would allow for actually following the D&D rules. Just like in ToEE which is built upon a much closer iteration of the rules it's based on. Baldur's Gate uses primitive scripting with abysmally bad AI (BG1) - and it requires constant hand-holding to get anywhere near smart tactical decisions. That's the control part.

If you tried playing any of the Infinity engine partybased RTwP games without using pause none of them would be playable as the content would become unbeatable so saying that "The game MUST function in BOTH real-time and when using pause" is simply incorrect.
Bad ai and horrible scripting is not intrinsic to RtwB or Tb and BG2 did not suffer too much from either of these problems.
There were many fights in Bg2 where you needed to make smart tactical desicions and good luck trying to survive any of them in realtime.
Tb would indeed have allowed Bg to follow the D&D ruleset more closely since the D&D ruleset is based on turns(duh) so this does not really speak for or against a Tb system.

Biff The Understudy said:

Cant say i have ever seen a convincing argument for Tb over RTwP.
RTwP allows for the exact same tactical depth as Tb just without the forced micro managing and gives combat a better flow.

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It depends.

Usually, tactics is defined as the proper combinaison of various forces through manoeuvering to deliver the maximum impact.

Through manoeuvering is the key part.

Tactics are not that numerous. What takes time to acquire is the manoeuver side to perform a specific tactical move.

That is where the trouble starts: manoeuvering when it is translated to a video game, is skill based. It fully depends on the dexterity of the player and his/her willingness to go through drilling sessions.

Strictly speaking, turn by turn games are inherently inferior to free flow games when it comes to represent tactics as the substance of manoeuvering is so abstracted it no longer exist basically. And manoeuvering is a vital component of what tactics is.

Tricks were tried like interruption, or manoeuvering events (break down of vehicles, characters tripping along the way etc…) to emulate the reality of manoeuvering.

As manoeuvering is so abstracted in turn by turn games, the gap is filled with giving more options to handle.

But what kills free flow games when it comes to tactics is the micromanagement.

It takes a lot of work to command the necessary dexterity to perform basic tactics.
More players are not willing to commit that way.

So back to turn by turn games where manoeuvering is so abstracted anyone can perform it.

ChienAboyeur said:

It depends.

Usually, tactics is defined as the proper combinaison of various forces through manoeuvering to deliver the maximum impact.

Through manoeuvering is the key part.

Tactics are not that numerous. What takes time to acquire is the manoeuver side to perform a specific tactical move.

So back to turn by turn games where manoeuvering is so abstracted anyone can perform it.

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What you said is absolute insanity. You are saying moving in NWN is where the tactics are?

Why not compare NWN 2 and TOEE since they both have the exact same rule system and pretty much the same party size if memory serves me correctly? Moving in NWN 2was the challenge?

Would chess be more tactical if each side had to move at the same time? In ToEE, a game that did nothing more than implement a P&P rule system faithfully, the decisions you make every round are important.

You guys are probably young and have no idea what you are talking about beyond you think you know what you are talking about and are defending what you like. In the good TB games every move you make has a significant impact on the outcome. Every decision has a plethora of opportunity costs. Your build is significant. The slightest edge can make a difference. What you do is meaningful. Strategy and tactics matter.

Now looks look at every RTwP game, and I’ve played them since the first came out, Darklands, up to and including the latest Drakensang or DA2 (whichever came out last). Besides Darklands, they have all been extremely not-tactical to the point where I usually play in windowed mode and do other shit during combat because combat does not need my input. Anyone can literally beat the KTORs and NWNs by slapping their testicles or labia on the mouse during almost every combat encounter, or, even by doing absolutely nothing instead (TACTICS!). The Infinity Engine games had more of a need for player input during boss fights but were still about as tactical as two fat kids with asthma playing laser tag.

Almost all your choices in a RTwP system are meaningless. In most TBs they are as well, but not the good ones. The difference being RTwP games will never be as tactical. The bar is set significantly lower because you will never be as precise. And somehow, even though combat is far more hands-off and far more meaningless in RTwP, they decided to add three times the bad guys, three times the barrel smashing, three times the potion chugging (which just screams TACTICS!!!), three times the meaningless. Most of the time you are fighting the AI more than the enemy. I hate wading through endless hordes of enemies to finally get to a boss fight and I issue commands and hit unpause and…my second melee fighter is stuttering on terrain doing nothing, my mage starts running out of the room for some reason, and my archer is way the fuck somewhere else he shouldn’t be. So pause again, issue new orders, and see them fall to shit again. I guess that is tactical in a realistic sense if I tried to clear an evil dungeon with a small bus full of fucking retards.

Good TB combat is like the 2v2 arena in WoW. It boils down to which team makes the best use of the GCDs. You have umpteenth choices every GCD, if you make the better choices you usually will win (within a reasonable gear limitation). So many people who have better gearscores than me get so mad when I destroy them but they do everything wrong. They use cc at the wrong times, they apply pressure at the wrong time, they peel at the wrong time. In general they are not able to handle a certain level of tactics and thinking. It brings me great pleasure to destroy these people because most people who play MMOs annoy the shit out of me and killing them keeps me sane. I know there is a tier above me with people who I cannot hang with; who just destroy me pretty easily. They make better use of GCDs and work extremely well with their partners.

I explained the above because it’s the best example I can think of as a base to judge tactics for this discussion. In the 2v2 arena everything you do is significant and meaningful. Just as in chess, every move is extremely important; just as in all the good TB crpgs. There is no RTwP game that can compare, where your build is as significant and your input is as important. Period. No contest.

It has nothing to do with taste. I prefer the 1v1 pvp in Fallen Earth to the 1v1 pvp of Wow, but nothing in FE can compare to the tactics necessary to be a good 2v2 arena player. It’s no contest.

Imagine playing any of the good TB games in RTwP. You would get destroyed because RTwP need to be a lot more forgiving. So playing these games in full TB mode just equals you wasting your time. The balance is for window-lickers with Adderall–enhanced attentions who have been raised with zero grit and the oversensitive minds of people who are indoctrinated to believe they are special and no one should ever lose. Playing a RTwP game in TB mode just equals wasting your time when the game is balanced for either no input or child-level thinking input.

And since combat goes faster in RTwP they have to add in more enemies to fight as filler, and more barrels to smash as filler. And more things in combat to make it seem like important shit is happening, like clicking potions. So RTwP guarantees there will be not only meaningless and no-input necessary combat, but most of the game will be filler content. Sounds fucking awesome and super tactical!

There are some tactics in real-time games, but for the most part it amounts to watching out for who gets surrounded and knowing when to cast a timely spell. Turn-based games do a better job of letting one person (the player) model the behavior of many (the party).

Maybe there is some way to blend the two? Perhaps letting the party members run their own behavior during a turn results in a build up of action points for the player. The points can then be spent to steer the behavior of specific characters. The more points there are, the more complex the behavior that can be assigned to specific characters.

I couldn't imagine trying to play Baldur's Gate in 100% turn-based mode. It would probably take 200+ hours to finish it with the amount of combat in that game.

Unrestigered said:

And since combat goes faster in RTwP they have to add in more enemies to fight as filler, and more barrels to smash as filler. And more things in combat to make it seem like important shit is happening, like clicking potions. So RTwP guarantees there will be not only meaningless and no-input necessary combat, but most of the game will be filler content. Sounds fucking awesome and super tactical!

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Right… because there's never any filler content in games with TB combat.

Why not compare NWN 2 and TOEE since they both have the exact same rule system and pretty much the same party size if memory serves me correctly? Moving in NWN 2was the challenge?

Why not compare the two? well how about Nwn primarely being a toolset for building 3d multyplayer campains (yes mp was a focus in nwn and thus it had to be simple enough to run in realtime aswell as appeal to a wider audience) while Toee is an isometcric 2d singleplayer rpg with a heavy tactical combat focus?



Would chess be more tactical if each side had to move at the same time? In ToEE, a game that did nothing more than implement a P&P rule system faithfully, the decisions you make every round are important.

That argument can work both ways: Would American football be more tactical if players had to take turns walking around the field?
For that matter ever heard of speed chess?




You guys are probably young and have no idea what you are talking about beyond you think you know what you are talking about and are defending what you like. In the good TB games every move you make has a significant impact on the outcome. Every decision has a plethora of opportunity costs. Your build is significant. The slightest edge can make a difference. What you do is meaningful. Strategy and tactics matter.

I would verymuch like to play this game. Care to name it? Only tb games i have played are fallout 2 and Toee so im not exactly an authority on the matter but both of those had plenty of pointless filler combat and many repetative tasks that could have been a toggle(eyeshot) or automated and i fail to see how either game could not be converted to a RTwP system without a loss in difficulty.
Well toee closely follows a turnbased ruleset so might be hard to convert faithfully.





Now looks look at every RTwP game, and I’ve played them since the first came out, Darklands, up to and including the latest Drakensang or DA2 (whichever came out last). Besides Darklands, they have all been extremely not-tactical to the point where I usually play in windowed mode and do other shit during combat because combat does not need my input. Anyone can literally beat the KTORs and NWNs by slapping their testicles or labia on the mouse during almost every combat encounter, or, even by doing absolutely nothing instead (TACTICS!). The Infinity Engine games had more of a need for player input during boss fights but were still about as tactical as two fat kids with asthma playing laser tag.

The fact that biowares latest console offerings are aimed at the lowest common denominator is irrelevant to the point i was making wich was that there is no reason you could not have the same tactical depth in a RTwP system as you could in a Tb one.
This does not automatically mean every RTwP game ever made has been deep and tactical (we all know most are not) simply that the potential is there.
Bg2 with ascention and tactic's mods have more challenging fights then anything i encountered in Toee for exaple.





Almost all your choices in a RTwP system are meaningless. In most TBs they are as well, but not the good ones. The difference being RTwP games will never be as tactical. The bar is set significantly lower because you will never be as precise. And somehow, even though combat is far more hands-off and far more meaningless in RTwP, they decided to add three times the bad guys, three times the barrel smashing, three times the potion chugging (which just screams TACTICS!!!), three times the meaningless. Most of the time you are fighting the AI more than the enemy. I hate wading through endless hordes of enemies to finally get to a boss fight and I issue commands and hit unpause and…my second melee fighter is stuttering on terrain doing nothing, my mage starts running out of the room for some reason, and my archer is way the fuck somewhere else he shouldn’t be. So pause again, issue new orders, and see them fall to shit again. I guess that is tactical in a realistic sense if I tried to clear an evil dungeon with a small bus full of fucking retards.

This is just pure bs really. Adding barrel smashing, potion chugging or bad ai has nothing to do with the inherent tactical potential of either system and is the result of bad decision making on the developers part.






Good TB combat is like the 2v2 arena in WoW. It boils down to which team makes the best use of the GCDs. You have umpteenth choices every GCD, if you make the better choices you usually will win (within a reasonable gear limitation). So many people who have better gearscores than me get so mad when I destroy them but they do everything wrong. They use cc at the wrong times, they apply pressure at the wrong time, they peel at the wrong time. In general they are not able to handle a certain level of tactics and thinking. It brings me great pleasure to destroy these people because most people who play MMOs annoy the shit out of me and killing them keeps me sane. I know there is a tier above me with people who I cannot hang with; who just destroy me pretty easily. They make better use of GCDs and work extremely well with their partners.
I explained the above because it’s the best example I can think of as a base to judge tactics for this discussion. In the 2v2 arena everything you do is significant and meaningful. Just as in chess, every move is extremely important; just as in all the good TB crpgs. There is no RTwP game that can compare, where your build is as significant and your input is as important. Period. No contest.

So now we are bringing up realtime mmo's to defend the tactical potential of Tb over RTwP?
The problem (or one of the problems rather) with that argument is that it actually speaks in favor or RTwP over Tb as it clearly illustrates how challenging tactical gameplay works fine in realtime and thus could just as easely be implimented in RtwP.
How much deeper and more tactical would theese arena matches of yours be if the players moved in turns? There would suddenly be zero tactics involved wouldt it? Ability a counters ability b wich counters ability c etc etc.



It has nothing to do with taste. I prefer the 1v1 pvp in Fallen Earth to the 1v1 pvp of Wow, but nothing in FE can compare to the tactics necessary to be a good 2v2 arena player. It’s no contest.

Again you are not actually arguing for Tb here you know.





Imagine playing any of the good TB games in RTwP. You would get destroyed because RTwP need to be a lot more forgiving. So playing these games in full TB mode just equals you wasting your time. The balance is for window-lickers with Adderall–enhanced attentions who have been raised with zero grit and the oversensitive minds of people who are indoctrinated to believe they are special and no one should ever lose. Playing a RTwP game in TB mode just equals wasting your time when the game is balanced for either no input or child-level thinking input.

Some examples of Tb games that would not work in RtwP for some other reason then being based on a turnbased ruleset would be nice.




And since combat goes faster in RTwP they have to add in more enemies to fight as filler, and more barrels to smash as filler. And more things in combat to make it seem like important shit is happening, like clicking potions. So RTwP guarantees there will be not only meaningless and no-input necessary combat, but most of the game will be filler content. Sounds fucking awesome and super tactical!

Err no they dont have to do that. Sadly there are many RTwP games that do but again that is a failure on the developers part and not an inherrent flaw in the system itself.
RTwP was created as a compromise between Tb and Rt in an effort to appeal to a wider audience so sadly most of the RTwP games are far from challenging but i still say the tactical potential is verymuch there.

I'm sorry, but my brain hurts reading that. I don't have the stamina to respond appropriately.

Thank you for that amazing insight. I finally see how my position was wrong and so retract all my arguments.

I'd love to understand your position, but you seem unable to articulate yourself in a way that I can process without going mad.

We'll have to live with that, I fear.

Maybe you can find some comfort in having defeated your opponents with your powerful and bewitching truth about TB vs RTwP

As is so often the case on this forum you resort to personal attacks whenever you are unable to refute an argument.

Having seen far to many pages of your rantings i will simply concede and stop arguing this point rather then add to them.

Perhaps you can find some comfort in having defeated your opponent with your nonsensical comment and tenious grasp of logic.


And for the record unlike you i am not trying to "win" anything i was simply defending a position wich incindentally i dont even agree with.
I am well aware of why and how a turnbased system can add more depth and complexity then what can be achieved within the boundaries of RTwP but have yet to see anyone present a convincing argument as to why.

I wasn't aware of attacking you personally. Perhaps you can point it out?

I'm being quite honest when I'm saying I can't process your post - at least not without investing way more energy into a debate that no longer has a reason to exist than I have available. It's as much my failing as it is yours. I think I've been quite clear in my arguments - and you seem to agree with me based on your last statement.

So, why are you still at it? Is it fun for you to debate points you don't actually believe in? That's fair enough - I suppose. But I consider it a complete waste of my time.

Nothing personal about it - unless you insist on making it so.

2bh my last two post was intended to goad you back into defending your position since no one else seemed interested but it does not seem like i will be able to get this done in time so instead i will explain what i was trying to do.
A part of my curriculim next year will be social science and last monday our Ps teacher who will also be teaching that class touched on some ideas and methods involving theories of persuation used to defend an indefensible position for the purposes of stalling.
We will be going back to this abit on friday so i thought it would be a good idea to do some prepwork and post something close to an indefensible positon on various forums (like arguing for depth and complexity in TBwP vs Tb on a forum dedicated to RPG's).
I am not going to bore you with the details mostly because i do not quite understand it myself.
Basically what i was trying to do was see how long i could keep up the apperance of a rational debater while attempting to use a few of the methods he mentioned.
I seem to have gone abit overboard with the sentence structuring tho.
The idea was to obfuscate and annoy without using "big words" since theese tend to get you automatically dismissed as a pretentious douche.
I have a feeling i will be flunking Si.
Anyway just thought i should explain myself and thank you for responding.

Unrestigered said:

What you said is absolute insanity. You are saying moving in NWN is where the tactics are?

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Insanity? No. I started from the general definition of tactics.

Manoeuvering is the part that is difficult to bring into video games.

Either you want to bring tactics to a video games or you can make a game using a few mechanics and call that tactics, no matter how distant it is from the general acception of tactics.

Why not compare NWN 2 and TOEE since they both have the exact same rule system and pretty much the same party size if memory serves me correctly? Moving in NWN 2was the challenge?

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The same rule system? What has it to do with tactics?
Manoeuvering is not simply moving.

Would chess be more tactical if each side had to move at the same time? In ToEE, a game that did nothing more than implement a P&P rule system faithfully, the decisions you make every round are important.

Click to expand...

A large number of RTwP games provide the normal sequence of turns. You play first, and the adversary's turn is resolved after yours.

The difference between turn by turn and RTwP is simply the 'length" of a turn.
In one, a turn might allow to spend 16 action points while in the other, you spend 2 action points.
The perspective changes. The short turn in RTwP forces to string several turns together.

You guys are probably young and have no idea what you are talking about beyond you think you know what you are talking about and are defending what you like. In the good TB games every move you make has a significant impact on the outcome. Every decision has a plethora of opportunity costs. Your build is significant. The slightest edge can make a difference. What you do is meaningful. Strategy and tactics matter.

Click to expand...

Strategy is different from tactics.

It has nothing to do with age. It has to do with the approach you support. Tactics existed before video games. You might want to bring tactics as it is known everywhere else to video gaming or you might want to develop games around some mechanics and call that tactics.

Now looks look at every RTwP game, and I’ve played them since the first came out, Darklands, up to and including the latest Drakensang or DA2 (whichever came out last). Besides Darklands, they have all been extremely not-tactical to the point where I usually play in windowed mode and do other shit during combat because combat does not need my input. Anyone can literally beat the KTORs and NWNs by slapping their testicles or labia on the mouse during almost every combat encounter, or, even by doing absolutely nothing instead (TACTICS!). The Infinity Engine games had more of a need for player input during boss fights but were still about as tactical as two fat kids with asthma playing laser tag.

Click to expand...

Well, again, the same thing. The measure of a good tactics game might be how it relates to tactics. Or if it makes you feel central.

If you want to bring tactics to video gaming, the measure is how the game supports the implementation of tactics and it allows them to be reproduced.

Almost all your choices in a RTwP system are meaningless. In most TBs they are as well, but not the good ones. The difference being RTwP games will never be as tactical. The bar is set significantly lower because you will never be as precise.

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Indeed. That is the point. Manoeuvering is not precise. Usually, most people get their tactical decision right but they fail to execute them properly because manoeuvering is usually what goes wrong.

Turn by turn barely can support the hazard tied to manoeuvering. Turn by turn is precise. It is running through data and connect.

And somehow, even though combat is far more hands-off and far more meaningless in RTwP, they decided to add three times the bad guys, three times the barrel smashing, three times the potion chugging (which just screams TACTICS!!!), three times the meaningless. Most of the time you are fighting the AI more than the enemy. I hate wading through endless hordes of enemies to finally get to a boss fight and I issue commands and hit unpause and…my second melee fighter is stuttering on terrain doing nothing, my mage starts running out of the room for some reason, and my archer is way the fuck somewhere else he shouldn’t be. So pause again, issue new orders, and see them fall to shit again. I guess that is tactical in a realistic sense if I tried to clear an evil dungeon with a small bus full of fucking retards.

Click to expand...

Matter of taste. It states nothing about the quality of the representation of tactics.

Good TB combat is like the 2v2 arena in WoW. It boils down to which team makes the best use of the GCDs. You have umpteenth choices every GCD, if you make the better choices you usually will win (within a reasonable gear limitation). So many people who have better gearscores than me get so mad when I destroy them but they do everything wrong. They use cc at the wrong times, they apply pressure at the wrong time, they peel at the wrong time. In general they are not able to handle a certain level of tactics and thinking. It brings me great pleasure to destroy these people because most people who play MMOs annoy the shit out of me and killing them keeps me sane. I know there is a tier above me with people who I cannot hang with; who just destroy me pretty easily. They make better use of GCDs and work extremely well with their partners.

Click to expand...

That is right. As manoeuvering is so abstracted in TbT games, it is compensated by providing a mountain of alternative options.

But tactics exist no matter the importance of the gear.

You can have tactics with eleven guys in one team, eleven guys in the other team, shirts,shoes and shorts and a footie. And the decisions made at each step are not numerous: pass the ball, run with ball…

The bottom line is that tactics is hard to bring to video games because manoeuvering is tied to the skills of the player and one's committment to learning the ropes.

TbT removes the mandatory skills. By doing so, it also removes the substance of manoeuvering.

Biff The Understudy said:

2bh my last two post was intended to goad you back into defending your position since no one else seemed interested but it does not seem like i will be able to get this done in time so instead i will explain what i was trying to do.
A part of my curriculim next year will be social science and last monday our Ps teacher who will also be teaching that class touched on some ideas and methods involving theories of persuation used to defend an indefensible position for the purposes of stalling.
We will be going back to this abit on friday so i thought it would be a good idea to do some prepwork and post something close to an indefensible positon on various forums (like arguing for depth and complexity in TBwP vs Tb on a forum dedicated to RPG's).
I am not going to bore you with the details mostly because i do not quite understand it myself.
Basically what i was trying to do was see how long i could keep up the apperance of a rational debater while attempting to use a few of the methods he mentioned.
I seem to have gone abit overboard with the sentence structuring tho.
The idea was to obfuscate and annoy without using "big words" since theese tend to get you automatically dismissed as a pretentious douche.
I have a feeling i will be flunking Si.
Anyway just thought i should explain myself and thank you for responding.

Click to expand...

At least it's a better explanation than most I encounter when people defend the indefensible

Not sure how the whole personal attack thing fits into your "strategy" - but that's a story for an interested audience.

For the purpose of this discussion, and if it is ever going to go anywhere, we will have to agree on a definition for tactics. I purpose tactics, in relation to crpgs, should be defined as the necessity to make better use of all decision making opportunities, including pre-engagement decisions, than the opposition to achieve victory over the opposition.

So now we are bringing up realtime mmo's to defend the tactical potential of Tb over RTwP?
The problem (or one of the problems rather) with that argument is that it actually speaks in favor or RTwP over Tb as it clearly illustrates how challenging tactical gameplay works fine in realtime and thus could just as easely be implimented in RtwP.

Click to expand...

WoW is Twitch. Generally, if the player’s character is significantly influenced by the player’s ability to input directions, both positively and negatively, the game is Twitch. Plenty of RT crpgs, such as the infinity engine games, NWNs, KotORs, Drakensangs, etc, how fast I hit a button or if I’m a keyboard turner or button-clicker has no affect. In Gothic, Zelda, etc, my input is of significant importance. In WoW, the most geared out player who uses the keyboard to turn and clicks the hotbars with the mouse should be decimated by any decent player in pvp, because player input is of significant importance.

This is freshman shit and just proves you guys are young and inexperienced. No one that has been around the block and isn’t a developer trying to make as much money as possible off of children with ADD coupled with a healthy dose of poor taste would say RTwP can compete with TB in the tactics and strategy department.

How much deeper and more tactical would theese arena matches of yours be if the players moved in turns? There would suddenly be zero tactics involved wouldt it? Ability a counters ability b wich counters ability c etc etc.

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They would be significantly deeper and more tactical as you would have more time than between 1 and 1.5 seconds to make a decision, thus have more time to factor in other external components and weigh the opportunity costs of your possible decisions, communicate and coordinate with your partner, dissect the enemy’s strategy and predict his future strategy, and revel in the cerebralness of it all. Sure, a far different group would be the top tier players. Input means would be irrelevant. Manual dexterity and speed of mental adroitness would no longer be factors. But, they would have to significantly change the point system as fights would take much longer and would have to reward more points, etc.

For that matter ever heard of speed chess?

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Why yes I have and it has turns. That is because chess without turns may look cool but is fucking stupid.

Would American football be more tactical if players had to take turns walking around the field?

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What? Would soccer be a better sport if a 15 year old was able to drag a cursor over all of one team and move them around and then try and make decisions for all the players at once? No.

Bg2 with ascention and tactic's mods have more challenging fights then anything i encountered in Toee for exaple.

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You did not play ToEE in the mode it was balanced for, which is Ironman. And if we are talking mods, try JA 2 Wildfire and tell me what you think.

Only tb games i have played are fallout 2 and Toee so im not exactly an authority on the matter but both of those had plenty of pointless filler combat and many repetative tasks that could have been a toggle(eyeshot) or automated and i fail to see how either game could not be converted to a RTwP system without a loss in difficulty.

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Please articulate on the filler combat in ToEE and repetitive tasks please. I don’t remember either. Unless you are talking about resting starting combat, but that is the rules.

A large number of RTwP games provide the normal sequence of turns. You play first, and the adversary's turn is resolved after yours.

The difference between turn by turn and RTwP is simply the 'length" of a turn.
In one, a turn might allow to spend 16 action points while in the other, you spend 2 action points.
The perspective changes. The short turn in RTwP forces to string several turns together.

Click to expand...

This is some of the craziest gibberish I have ever read. And this is coming from someone who was target to be a nemesis by, and constantly has to read posts from, Curious. Even if we replace turn with round it still makes no sense.

Again you are not actually arguing for Tb here you know.

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It is simple. You have to disregard personal preference and think rationally. I would never advocate for games like Dues Ex and the Skyrim use TB combat because it helps with immersion (in the gaming sense). But why not; I like TB so why wouldn’t I want it in every game? RTwP lends itself to tactics in crpgs like lighting a cross on a darkly hued person’s lawn lends itself to a warm welcome to the neighborhood.

Insanity? No. I started from the general definition of tactics.

Manoeuvering is the part that is difficult to bring into video games.

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Moving is only an issue in RTwP games. Using the definition of tactics you used and applying it to crpgs is absolutely ridiculous. I guess when I was using real tactics in real combat as an airborne infantryman I should have upped my stamina and DR so bullets would merely take a few of my HPs away but I’d still have enough life to chug a health pot before entering strange buildings where bad guys can only see and hear people in a 10 foot radius. But you guys are college students so who am I to argue? Wait a second – I too am a graduate of a university where I have both a BA and a MBA, both attained at a school I had to go and sit in the class for, and both achieved while working full time and supporting a family. WINNING. Catholic assassins and warlocks and prostitutes jumping on trampolines and shit winning.