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Talk:Real-time strategy

Turn-Based Strategy redirects here instead of the Turn-based strategy article.
Could someone fix this, please? I tried to edit it but it didn't correct the mistaken redirection. 69.92.171.109 (talk) 08:41, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Missing Combat Leader SSI 1983?
References: (1) you can play the game on The Archive to see it's an RTS. Use joystick to move cursor. Map will scroll to follow cursor. Control is press a unit id (1-9) and then a command (T = target, G = goto, C = cease fire, N = normal speed, F = fire, H = hurry). If you don't have time to play you can watch a video. (3) An Ad from 1983 mentions it's "strategy" and "real-time". Also the back of the box  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Greggman (talk • contribs) 09:19, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Pictures?
This article could really use some pictures to illustrate what a typical RTS looks like. I might put one or two on, to show different styles. --76.11.58.65 (talk) 00:10, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

 * That would be ok, just make sure you include strong fair use rationale and when uploading. The screenshots have to correspond with something specific being discussed in the article (the captions should specify what). Otherwise they will get removed. Ham Pastrami (talk) 01:19, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Missing important historical games
Very important games like The_Settlers (1993) and Populous (1989), who really shaped the RTS game world are missing completely in this page. Klaas van Gend 11:06, 3 July 2008 (UTC) Also, Civilization is missing as one of the pioneers in the genre. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.204.25.199 (talk) 15:49, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

 * Civ falls more under the 4X genre, and is covered there instead. -- Sabre (talk) 16:19, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

 * I agree, civ is definitely not *real time* strategy. As for the settlers, Klaas, could you point out what was innovative about the game? The wiki article about it says it "it was the first game blending together principles that had not been seen before" which tells us exactly nothing. By the way, i nominated this article for review, i think it deserves more than C status. PizzaMan (talk) 12:00, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Physics
Quote from article: "Recently, real-time strategy games have begun to incorporate physics engines, such as Havok, in order to increase realism. The first real-time strategy game to use a physics engine was Ensemble Studio's Age of Empires III, released on October 18, 2005,[9] which used the Havok Game Dynamics SDK to power its real-time physics. Company of Heroes, released September 14, 2006, was the first RTS that used real-time physics as a part of gameplay, including fully-destructible environments."

I believe that Homeworld used real-time physics for movement before any of these. I know you could also collide ships with each other and that the damage calculations took the mass of the ships into account. SharkD 04:14, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

 * I don't recall being able to collide ships into each other in Homeworld. If there was at some point (say in the campaign; I never played through it) perhaps it was pre-calculated? bob rulz 05:09, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

 * There is a special kamikaze attack in Homeworld 1 (it can also be added to Homeworld 2 via mods). Also, in Homeworld 2 you can enable collision damage via mods (it is disabled by default). This causes the ships to take damage if they happen to bump into each other (very annoying). Again, the damage calculations take mass and velocity into account. SharkD 05:54, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

 * Well, I can see it in Homeworld 2 (I only played the demo). However, I don't think this is a physics engine, just an implementation of physics for specific features. For example; the bouncing warthogs in Halo. It wasn't a physics engine, just an implementation of physics, if you get what I'm saying. I don't pretend to know a lot about these technicalities, so hopefully what I'm saying makes sense. bob rulz 06:06, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

 * Physics in Homeworld is a lot deeper than just bouncing warthogs. Also, the term "physics engine" is turning into a marketing buzzword. SharkD 01:43, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

 * How is it a marketing buzzword? A game either has a physics engine, or it doesn't. bob rulz 02:18, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

 * Every game has a physics engine, or characters would've been able to walk trough walls and such. As already said it's a marketing buzzword. 83.228.35.28 (talk) 16:19, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

 * Yes, it is marketing, yes, every game has a physics model, but no, not every game can realistically claim a real-time physics engine. Mass and velocity used as input to a damage formula is not physics at all, really, it's just an arbitrary calculation. A physics engine is, in parlance, largely marked by the use of vectors, i.e. directional force. When the target ship is hit by the kamikaze, does the kamikaze impart its momentum to the target? Does it cause the target to spin? If not, what exactly is the physical calculation involved? However, in the interest of fairness and accuracy, perhaps the claim of "first RTS to use a physics engine" should be revised to state simply "first RTS to use Havok". Ham Pastrami (talk) 05:35, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Grammar
Quote from article: "Real-time strategy titles do not involve "turns" like turn-based strategy video or board games (such as chess). Rather, game time progresses in "real time": it is continuous rather than turn-by-turn; and all players may give orders to their troops at any time."

Can someone check the grammar of this sentence? I'm real bad at punctuation. SharkD 03:17, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

 * Fixed (I think). SharkD 06:13, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Unclear statement
"However, the switch to full 3D was very gradual and most real-time strategy titles, including the first sequels to Command and Conquer, initially used isometric 3D graphics made by pre-rendered 3D tiles."

So, is C&C 3D, or isn't it? The article sounds like it can't make up its mind. SharkD 03:48, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Pre-rendered 3D is not actual 3D, it uses sprites made from 3D objects and not real time rendering of such objects and it lacks proper perspective - units in the far end of the screen have the same size as units closer to the player's viewpoint, which is not the case in real 3D.83.228.35.28 (talk) 11:27, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Fill in the blank
"The "clickfest" argument is also often voiced alongside a "button babysitting" criticism which pointed out that a great deal of game time, especially in earlier titles, is spent either waiting and watching for the next time a production button could be clicked, or rapidly alternating between different units and buildings, clicking their respective button."

Clicking their respective buttons to do what? Please complete the sentence. SharkD 07:39, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

War games - revisited
Perhaps the important element here is not that RTS invokes military-based challenges, but rather that RTS requires strategic competition between at least two distinct entities. Jav43 22:26, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
 * What? SharkD 01:41, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm gonna have to agree with the what? response here. bob rulz 02:18, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

More than just Herzog
"None of the above titles would be recognizable as real-time strategy games by current standards. However, two later games--Herzog Zwei for the Sega Genesis in 1989 and Battle Master for the Amiga and Atari ST in 1990--are perhaps the earliest examples of games with feature-sets that are recognizable today."

First of all, I don't see how Herzog Zwei is closer to RTS's today than, say, Nether Earth. Nether Earth had a cursor/unit hybrid like a helicopter that had the only purpose of selecting and commanding units. In addition, Nether Earth had a minimap displayed on the main screen, not Herzog Zwei. That first statement claiming "None of the above titles would be recognizable as real-time strategy games by current standards" is absurd and I recommend it to be deleted.

 * I agree, it's pure Original Research apart from anything else and confuses a genre with the modern perception of a genre. It's like saying on the Flash Gordon entry that "none of these films would be recognised as science fiction today." --Zagrebo 09:26, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

 * I've been bold and removed it, along with a slight rewrite. It's been bothering me for a while, to be honest. --Zagrebo 09:28, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

 * Additionally, I see your point about Nether Earth which also featured factories and resource management before Herzog Zwei. --Zagrebo 09:32, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Also, Modem Wars (http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/features/pc/unsung_heroes/sec2_07.html) probably should be mentioned because its interface looks a lot like modern RTSs.... and it was made in 1988. --76.188.148.173 03:18, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

What in the hell happened?
Okay, I'm trying to figure out just what in the hell happened here. When I edited it and posted my edit, the rest of the history section suddenly disappeared. But it's still showing up when I go to edit it, and I can't get it to appear on the page! WTF happened? bob rulz 15:37, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

 * Okay, nevermind, I see what I did...after I read through it I didn't close the reference tag...I didn't realize that that could make it all disappear. That makes no sense...but, it's fixed. bob rulz 15:41, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

"Does Not Cite Sources" in Criticism Of Gameplay Section
There are over half a dozen sources cited in this section. If the person who placed the "Does Not Cite Sources" tag on that section could explain which statements are not properly cited, and how they would prefer them to be cited, then perhaps we can clean up this section. 10:02, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I can't remember if I was the one who added it, but I would have done if I had read the section recently.
 * Firstly, there are statements like 'A third common criticism'. Common? Can we have a source saying it is common? We have opinion such as 'Of course, this does take the gameplay out of the realm of strategic decision-making.' which is simply original research.
 * The 4th, 5th and 6th criticism para's are entirely unsourced and verging on opinion.
 * Overall, the section is very poorly sourced, poorly written and isn't NPOV. However, the last time I made my feelings known about this poorly sourced and original research filled article known, I was shouted down by a group of users who don't understand our policies correctly, so I don't hold my breath in getting these things fixed.-Localzuk(talk) 10:26, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the section could use a bit of a re-write. I will try to get to it soon. As well, the unsourced points may need to be deleted if a source cannot found. However, the sources that are listed are all valid sources; and while those points may need rewriting, they should not be marked for deletion. 03:33, 18 September 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.83.11.163 (talk)
 * While it is true the section is poorly sourced, it is not true that there aren't any sources at all. I have removed the tag. SharkD 18:18, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I've put back a similar tag that is less critical. SharkD 07:42, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Source usage?
Source #15 (RPG Codex) has nothing to do with RTS games. Should it really be a source? Furthermore, some of the points cited are wrong, such as "It is easier to keep track of what the enemy is doing since you can see every move as it happens." Not true, there are TB(S) games with "Fog of war". The source itself acknowledges this. 128.54.228.80 19:41, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The RPG Codex article deals with concepts, such as Turn-based and Real-time play. It compares RPGs with games like chess.
 * The article is referring to the fact that in TB games you can stop and observe each unit as it completes its turn. In many TB games, the game even shifts focus to each unit to make this easier (so that you don't have to scroll around to find them). In real-time games the player can't allot equal attention to all units; therefore, some actions go unnoticed. Feel free to reword the sentence so that it doesn't lead readers to the same conclusion. Also, I searched the text for "fog of war" and couldn't find any instances of the term being used. SharkD 04:28, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I've rewritten the section.SharkD 07:03, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The quote is "If the player is apathetic about the movement of an opponent because they are distant or out of line of sight..." implying that areas beyond the sight range of the unit(s) are obscured in some way. FoW is the best RTS analogy I can think of. 128.54.228.80 08:13, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, FoW is the correct term. SharkD 08:51, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Incorrect statement
The article states that, " Other gameplay mechanics implied by RTS include resource gathering, base building, technological development, and abstract unit control." This is not correct. Resource gathering, base building and technological development are the mechanics shared with strategic wargames ('abstract unit control' is not defined in the article). RTSs share more in common with tactical wargames when it comes to combat. SharkD 05:24, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

It is correct, they are part of the definition of RTS, there is a "Genre classification debate" section in RTT page on wikipedia, which explains it somewhat and probably should be included in the RTS page as well. 83.228.35.28 (talk) 11:34, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

transition or emergence of 3D?
think the 2d genre is not dead, so it should be emergence of 3d strategies

tiberian sun player,regeards —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.210.245.234 (talk) 17:26, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
 * OK. SharkD (talk) 13:40, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Another criticism
Another common criticism of RTSs is discussed here. The complaint is that RTS focus on killing harvestors as opposed to military tactics. The article also discusses a response to this criticism found in Dawn of War. SharkD 05:20, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
 * How is that a source, these are video games, any terms that are applied are created by the current-gamers. Not by some article writer.  What ur doing is hearsay, its like using wikipedia as a source, or the news as a source.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.192.21.227 (talk) 22:20, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
 * You appear not to be familiar with Wikipedia's policies on verifiability and in particular reliable sources. An article written by a staff writer at IGN is a high quality source. --Pak21 (talk) 13:54, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * This is actually a pretty common criticism. And it's verifiable by a reliable source. Every game genre has its critics. Get used to it. 65.95.157.129 (talk) 21:14, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

List of sources
I notice that there are a bunch of new sources (mostly PDF files) listed at the bottom of the References section. It would be better to turn these into inline references, like the rest of the references—especially in an article which has been criticized for original research as often as this one has been. SharkD 06:44, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Dune 2 cropped screenshot attack on base.jpg
Image:Dune 2 cropped screenshot attack on base.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 21:18, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Homeworld.jpg
Image:Homeworld.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 22:34, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Some ideas for "Refinement and transition to 3D" and "Specialization and evolution"
I noticed that we mention Total Annihilation for it's use of 3D graphics, but totally miss the more revolutionary or at least unique factor: That resources are infinite, generated over time by buildings.

Additionally we might consider mentioning Supreme Commander for it's unique user interface, in particular using the mouse wheel instead of side scrolling which changes the way the game plays hugely from previous games.

Finally we discuss games that have blended RTS with other genres. However nothing is said about Savage: The Battle for Newerth or it's sequel. Which are certainly notable for being the only games (to my knowledge) to have commercial success in blending RTS and RPG/FPS game play. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ASA-IRULE (talk • contribs) 22:31, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:DawnofwarScreen1.JPG
The image Image:DawnofwarScreen1.JPG is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

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This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Media copyright questions. --21:04, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

not a wikipedian, but the early/precursors section looks to have been vandalized...

71.139.9.104 (talk) 01:45, 24 May 2008 (UTC) dlj

real-time tactics: Close Combat
In the section "Specialization and evolution", it says "Some games have moved toward an increased focus on tactics, with titles such as Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War (2004), Star Wars: Empire at War (2006), and Company of Heroes (2006) replacing the traditional resource gathering model, where designated resource gathering units collect the resources used for producing further units or buildings, with a strategic control-point system, where control over strategic points progressively yields construction/reinforcement points. Dawn of War and Company of Heroes also replaces individual units with "squads". Some have begun to define this new school of design as real-time tactics to distinguish it from the more popular conventions of the genre." If the section is meant to convey that a merge has recently started between RTT and RTS, it should be rephrased. The way it is now it sounds as if Dawn of War was the first RTT game. However, e. g. Close Combat came out in 1996, and it had no resource gathering, was squad-based (but it doesn't have construction/reinforcement). Nczempin (talk) 18:38, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

 * I don't think it is meant to imply a merge with RTT, nor do I think there is a prevailing opinion that these games are RTT rather than RTS. I'm removing that last sentence. Ham Pastrami (talk) 22:36, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Is RTT a subgenre or not?
Currently, this article's introduction reads: "and games of the real-time tactics variety are generally not considered to be “real-time strategy”,"

The RTT WP page says that RTT is a sub-genre of RTS.

So which is right?

Ordinary Person (talk) 14:21, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

 * Debatable. I'd suggest finding sources to back up one or both claims, or simply remove them both. Ham Pastrami (talk) 01:14, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

online multiplayer games compared to turn based... what?
I have a question about this sentence I had erased, but someone reverted my edit, and thus put it back in. "This lends the genre well to multiplayer gaming, especially in online play, compared to turn-based games."

All multiplayer games are online, aren't they? And why compare it to turn base games? The online turn based games are popular also. I don't see why the two are being compared at all. Dream Focus (talk) 20:49, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

 * No, of course not all multiplayer games are online, see hotseat and split screen gaming to name some examples. Why wouldn't you compare RTS and TBS, given the very names of the genres imply a duality? Are you also puzzled by the existence of section 2.2.2? Ham Pastrami (talk) 01:13, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Also, article states "Command & Conquer became the first popular RTS game to utilize competitive multiplayer." right after mentioning Warcraft, a popular game, which came out a year earlier, and featured competitive multiplayer. False. 69.183.40.216 (talk) 16:09, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Revert warring
To the anon that is insisting on introducing POV into the article, do you have any sources to backup this biased approach to looking at the RTS genre? Ham Pastrami (talk) 02:11, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
 * NOTE) Article locked for one week. I would suggest you show up and talk, 98., or else you'll just be seen as provoking conflict. -  Jéské  ( v^_^v  Bodging WP edit by edit ) 04:47, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

StarCraft is undisputedly the most succesful Real Time Strategy game of all time and is routinely listed by many organization in the top 10 games of all time lists. To give it lip service to it as just another RTS game amongst hundres of others is simply not an accurate representation of its relevance to the genre. It is impossible to have serious honest RTS discussion that does not feature StarCraft prominently. This is the consensus of serious followers of the RTS genre. A few individuals might not like the fact that certain RTS's are more important than others, but are we going for community consensus or some individual's personal opinion that all RTS's should be viewed equally?

Sales source

IGN top #10 PC games of all time

FireSquad's top #10 PC games of all time

98.192.72.57 (talk) 05:17, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

 * We don't need to give all kinds of details about StarCraft. Okay, it's popular, but that can be summed up in a sentence. Let's explain what it actually contributed to the genre, and then move on. It doesn't deserve its own section. Arguably, this is a violation of our policy on WP:UNDUE weight. Randomran (talk) 06:12, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

 * Where in the article do you see "hundreds of other" RTS games listed? Starcraft was already picked out as a highlight for the genre, among a handful of other mentions. Nobody even suggested the idea that all RTS games are equal, that is a pure invention on your part. How many copies SC sold is not generally relevant to the genre when it lacks a comparative figure to the sales figures of other games, and to the number of total RTS games sold (feel free to add these figures if you can find them). The IGN list you mention puts Dune 2 as the 2nd best game of all time, beating SC by 5 places yet you seem content with its quick and to-the-point mention as the progenitor of the genre. RTS was already a popular and well-established genre before SC came out, with games like the C&C and Warcraft series. SC may be in the #1 spot, but it is not heads and shoulders above its forebears and competitors. From the FiringSquad list, which states: There are many real-time strategy games that could arguably take StarCraft's spot on this list. After all, it was WarCraft II that made multiplayer RTS gaming popular through Kali. Red Alert made internet gaming even easier and was arguably the first true internet RTS, and Total Annihilation made the first use of 3D, not to mention truly combining land, sea and air. The genre is successful independently of Starcraft and the article does not need to focus around discussion of this one game as if the genre's existence depended on it. That is most certainly undue weight. Ham Pastrami (talk) 09:24, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

 * Sure the genre would exist, but would be remotely the same or as popular? I think SC is pretty profound. 15.170.158.108 (talk) 18:25, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

 * You're gonna need some research to support that. Wikipedia is not what you or I think. Sure, we can offer one sentence on how much SC sold, and we can offer another sentence on how many critics have considered it a great game. But there's no major innovation that came from Starcraft that wasn't already in Warcraft, let alone Dune II. We can cover this subject very quickly, and let people read the actual StarCraft article for more information. See 4X for how we cover the history of a game genre: Civilization is by far the best selling 4X series and one of the most critically acclaimed games of all time, but you only need a short paragraph to explain its significance to the game genre. Randomran (talk) 19:00, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Just a quick note, a discussion on this has been started at WT:VG. -- Sabre (talk) 15:48, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
 * StarCraft might be big, but it certainly did not define RTS. It should just be stated as the most commercially successful RTS game as of 2008.  Jappalang (talk) 10:54, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Now that the protection has been lifted and it is pretty clear that the consensus both here and at WT:VG is against splitting StarCraft off due to concerns about undue weight, I have reverted to the previous version. Please do not start edit warring again, any further discussion should take place here before any such edits are made again. -- Sabre (talk) 15:53, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

The original edits by anon do sound heavily biased -- or rather, rank 'fanboism' as it is called in the gaming community. If any game should have any special mention it should be Company of Heroes as it is both innovative, and is the highest ranked RTS of all time. Source: http://www.gamerankings.com/browse.html?site=pc&cat=58 Even so, to discuss a specific RTS giving it an elevated position here violates WP:Undue Weight. Starcraft being a commercial success in Korea means very little. It was neither innovative, nor seminal in the genre, and is not the highest rated RTS either. Let's try to keep 'fanboism' out of wikipedia articles as it is not encyclopaedic. Editors on 'Gaming' Wikipedia entries have to be particularly diligent owing to the almost-religious zeal with which many gamers revere and defend their favourite game. Rlinfinity (talk) 18:40, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

 * Be careful about your own bias. Your source selection went to one particular website that ranked Company of Heroes 1% higher than Starcraft II and (for unclear reasons) omitted Starcraft from its list entirely. Your statement that SC is "neither innovative, nor seminal..." is of course personal opinion as well, not verifiable fact. It may be a prevailing viewpoint, it may not, but I've seen terms like "revolutionary" and "innovative" used in many of the references in this very article when discussing SC specifically. A quick google searched turned up this, this, and this page of RTS rankings which all conflict with your source. How do these websites determine their ranking? I don't have a clue since they don't base it on an open process. It's like saying that one university is "more important" than another simply because its U.S._News_&_World_Report ranking is one-tenth of a point higher. People that use the term 'fanboism' to label a positive bias are frequently trying to push their own negative opinion on the same subject. What's important to us as editors is to avoid improper coverage of one particular viewpoint and keep it proportionate to its prevalence among reliable sources not its prevalence among editors. 96.228.129.69 (talk) 13:34, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Your google results are just random sites ranking RTS games. GameRankings on the other hand is a review aggregator for games like RottenTomatoes for movies. 94.12.220.246 (talk) 06:16, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Contradiction
I noticed the following text:

 * City-building games, construction and management simulations, and games of the real-time tactics variety are generally not considered to be “real-time strategy”, though their gameplay involves some overlapping concepts.

Additional emphasis is mine. However in real-time tactics we can read

 * Real-time tactics (RTT ) is a computer game sub-genre of real-time strategy games [...]

In which again additional emphasis is mine. Now, these two claims are in contradiction with each other. HTH, --Blazar.writeto 22:51, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

 * I checked the references for the statements in each article. In the RTS article, the source says that God games aren't RTSs (and gives examples of city-building games and CMSs too). But nowhere in there does it mention real-time tactics *not* being a type of RTS. However, I checked the real-time tactics article. The statement that real-time tactics is a "subgenre" of RTS is completely unsourced. In other words, we have no clue if *either* article is right about the relationship between real-time tactics and real-time strategy. See the problem? Randomran (talk) 03:16, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

 * The RTT article has been heavily remodelled by tendentious editors. I am the original author of the RTT article, and a principal contributor the the RTS article, but both have been neutered to such an extent under the "NPOV" and "OR" justifications as to make them quite worthless, uninformative, partly outright wrong, and in themselves pushing OR and POV. I have since a long time withdrawn from Wikipedia, which is a failed project, and will no longer attempt to correct anything done by less insightful editors. Mikademus 130.243.247.165 (talk) 17:32, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Terminology: "Real Time Tactics" Vs. "Real Time Strategy"
I realize people have talked about this issue, I wanted to state my concerns in my own words, and people can take my arguments on their own weight. I will point out that we are clearly stuck with the term "real time strategy"... it's a part of gaming culture now. But some mention of the issue might be useful for people interested in correctly using the English language.

My understanding is that the term "Strategy" and "Strategic" refers to macroscopic warfare decisions, made by a Commander-In-Chief (different countries and historical periods use different terms, of course) and possibly a 3-5 star general. Strategic decisions in real warfare include an actual decision to invade or destroy a major city - i.e. population center (or large scale refining, mining, or military base city - in which the population ends up the target because they are part of the operations), as with strategic nuclear weapons, which are built for that purpose. Tactics, on the other hand, are smaller, more individual decisions made in order to win a fight or battle that is part of a larger war. The term "real time strategy" being used for what are obviously tactical games is somewhat unfortunate, because the terms really are different, and in the real world, we might consider that we could (for example) survive tactical nuclear warfare but not strategic nuclear warfare (at least if you assume that even a single nuclear weapon being used wouldn't severely harm the world's economy and psychological state) - tactical warfare would target military forces *only* and the weapons would be of a low yield. In the case of strategic nuclear war, the whole idea is to destroy the enemy's ability to make new weapons and wage new wars (and even eliminate a competing culture or economy) by eliminating population centers.

While there are RTS games with tactical nukes, it's clearly just a tactical context and not strategic because of the scale. For strategic warfare, most every RTS game has a land-area that is much, much smaller than the area that would be wiped out by a 500 kiloton weapon or larger (never mind 30-60 of them on a target in full blown realistic global strategic warfare).. most games in fact "cheat" and have the scale of the nuclear explosion more like a 1,000 to 10,000 pounds of TNT explosion (which begs the question, why bother to use a nuke to begin with?) but "dress it up" with a bright flash or a characteristically ominous mushroom cloud. (Of course, conventional explosions do make a mushroom cloud but due to the smaller yield it has a lot to do with the surface of the ground and how much dust is available. You won't often see mushroom clouds with such bombs dropped on a rain forest, for example, or with phosphorus or napalm that has a sideways momentum, but I'm getting off track here...)

I think actual strategy games (like Risk, Civilization or DEFCON) are to tactical games as tactical games (Warcraft 1-3, The Settlers, Command & Conquer, Company of Heroes) are to first-person games (Doom, Pathways Into Darkness, Quake, Unreal, Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead) scale-wise.

(Also note: I think God-Games are considered tactical or strategic if there is in fact another God you have to deal with who has their own population they control - otherwise your only opponent is circumstance/environment. Populus, The Settlers II, Sim City, and Black & White become strategic games once there is another God to compete with.) --Radical Mallard December 22, 2008, 7:34 AM EST

 * I think this is an interesting idea. I don't disagree. But the fact remains that people call Warcraft an RTS, and you won't find too many people calling it RTT. However, I think what you said is pretty relevant to the article. If you could find some research that says "RTS is a misnomer for many games", I would definitely want to include it in here. Randomran (talk) 17:12, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

 * Good debate. However, it is a little late now to change the entirety of game genre terminology - we're stuck with "RTS". Remember, RTS isn't a dictionary definition as much as a label, that unfortunately in this case carries some unsuitable connotations. Both "strategy" in RTS as well as "tactics" in RTT has only spurious connections to the military/dictionary definition of the terms. But if you find sources, a "criticism of genre name" section would be nice. Miqademus (talk) 14:43, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

 * GameSpy discusses this issue at length in their Strategy Gaming editorial. They make a different assertion however; they instead say that real-time games are weak in tactics when compared to turn-based games (with the exception of games in the RTT sub-genre). Quote: "Tactics is all about how you win each battle. For example, exactly how your ground forces will assault that ILA base is a tactical consideration. By and large real-time strategy games are long on strategy and short on tactics. The inverse is true with turn-based strategy and wargaming. Of course there are exceptions. Most real-time exceptions come from the fixed-unit side of real-time gaming. Games like Close Combat, Ground Control, and Shogun are good examples of real-time games that reward sound tactics." The article is from 2002 however, prior to the release of Dawn of War and Company of Heroes which blur the line a bit.
 * As for your hypothesis that strategy games are to tactical games as tactical games are to FPSs, this is mirrored by the fact that the wargaming community sub-divides wargames into different levels based on scope, ranging from grand strategy games to tactical games to man-to-man games and so forth. SharkD (talk) 23:55, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Real-time strategy
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Real-time strategy's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "fundamentals": From Life simulation game:  From Shooter game:

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 09:39, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Answering 'Criticisms of Gameplay'
I've added some notes on modern RTS games such as Company of Heroes that address the criticisms of traditional RTS games. This isn't really original research and is well known among the savvy members of various RTS gaming commmunities - especially those who play Company of Heroes/Men of War etc avidly. I haven't included any references, but I hope someone else here can take the time to search for add appropriate references. I myself will get around to it sometime when I have a bit more time on my hands. Rlinfinity (talk) 06:29, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

 * While it's nice to try and counter the absurdly large number of criticisms (why are they there?) the section now reads like an advertisement for Company of Heroes.  Suggest revision 72.200.200.47 (talk) 04:58, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Game Replays
Should this article include the prevalence of game replays in RTS game communities? GRHooked (talk) 18:49, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Criticism Section
Do we really need a huge section ripping the genre apart compared to other genres? The Turn-based Strategy page doesn't have a criticism section, and they're dull, dull, dull. RTS is a popular genre so surely criticism is more notable in other genres than it is here, as less would criticise! Rubiscous (talk) 13:54, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Turn-based strategy is time-honoured and there is no contention regarding the strategic/tactical implications of a game like Chess. It has been intensely studied and is regarded as requiring deep analytical capabilities to play well. To claim that RTS hss strategic/tactical merit purely on the grounds that it is popular is a logical fallacy: argumentum ad populum. RTS is a new genre and RTS games are popular because they are computer games. Their value in terms of strategy is therefore called in to question, and needs to be analysed -- naturally by outside sources, as original research is against WP policy. Rlinfinity (talk) 06:30, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

 * It's a year later, but this is near the bottom so I won't make a new section. As editors, our opinions on the subject don't matter. Whether we personally think one genre or the other has more merit is irrelevant and the burden is not "truth" but verifiability. For the time being I've removed the unsourced discussion from the latter half of the criticism section, as it read more like an essay written by a fan of RTS gaming. The former is probably over-coverage of the negative viewpoints on RTS gaming, and if so violates NPOV, but this is something that really needs to be discussed for consensus before that section is overhauled. The representation of various viewpoints must be proportionate to the depth of coverage each has received. 96.228.129.69 (talk) 13:12, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

so whaddaya do when the editor is a notable source for the subject(original research?) :P can they reference their own publications as sources? :P Its not that i don't believe WP has policies concerning this, just curious to see what editors here will say on the subject..and by the way imo and to counter the sourceless argument put forth on behalf of some rts gamers in the article, "rushing" is actually a troll move because given that almost all games have an underlying rpg element to them(in that player is put in a setting and asked to play it out in some way)..it's kind've unrealistic and a product of the immortality effect of video gaming a la grand theft Auto San Andreas which could arguably be said evolved the GTA series into an RTT..the effect being: people do stuff in-game that they wouldn't do irl because they know they won't actually be hurt or die irl..I'm going to source this edit in wikitalk and use it for reference in main article and leave it a mystery as to how notable I am as an authority on this subject... :P j/k..I know this entry probably be removed and plagarised..Does anybody rememeber a space domination opera called "Overlord"? I think the battle was rts or rtt..well it was real-time something.67.175.183.241 (talk) 08:01, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Source of "Real-Time Strategy Game"
"Brett Sperry is credited with coining the term to market his video game, Dune II.[2][3]"

In Chris Crawford's The Art of Computer Game Design (http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/peabody/game-book/Chapter3.html) the author directly states, "Indeed, real-time play is rare in strategy games (this is changing; LEGIONNAIRE from Avalon-HIII is a notable real-time strategy game)".

Could this be the source of "real-time strategy game"? It certainly predates the game "Dune".

HacKed (talk) 01:01, 13 March 2010 (UTC) hacked

 * There is a semantic difference between strategy games played in real-time, and a "real-time strategy" game. The latter is a synonym for "Dune II clone", and in any event the passage in the article is accurate -- the term was coined with Dune II. Ham Pastrami (talk) 00:26, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

 * Unless I'm mistaken there were several precursors to the Dune II/Warcraft I bloodline. These were proto-RTS games in some sense. It wouldn't hurt to mention that briefly. 94.0.101.226 (talk) 17:47, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

2D Graphics
Should the Graphics section not also cover 2D graphics and the demands for 2D RTS games from some RTS Players for new, Modern 2D RTS games (usualy made from prerendered 3D graphics)like for example SunAge, which is a more recent commercially available 2D RTS game. As well as the Arguments for and against 2D RTS games over 3D for example; games using 2D graphics are "usualy" less demanding therefore better 2D graphics can be used and a larger number of ingame items can be displayed OR 2D RTS games dont allow the same sort of camera control as there 3D Brothers And Basic Limitations of both (2D & 3D) Stereotypical game engines. (For example subteranian units are more difficult to recreate in 3D, however it has been done)Revolutionarydb (talk) 16:23, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Cytron Masters
Quote from Matt Barton at Gamasutra: "SSI's most famous non-CRPG game is probably Cytron Masters (1982), one of the first (if not the first) real-time strategy games." I know nothing else about the game. SharkD  Talk  07:31, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

 * What is your point? How is this related to the article? What do you want to do with this quotation? Also, is there a reason why you italicize the entire quotation? Quotations are not supposed to be fully italicized. XP1 (talk) 07:15, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

 * He's proposing it as a possible source to use to support which RTS game came first. This is probably a good substitution since the current source on that point is mobygames which is an open tertiary source and therefore generally far less reliable. Gamasutra on the other hand has an editorial board and as someone recently informed me it is considered to have a reputable fact-checking process. It's a good improvement so I'm making the change.
 * Try to hold back the urge to nitpick others' talk entries, as it tends to put others on the defensive. "Be conservative in what you send; be liberal in what you accept.". 96.228.129.69 (talk) 04:00, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Grammatical error
Page seems to be locked for editing, but the heading "Precursors and early Genesis" is irritating. Unless you're talking about the band or the Bible, "genesis" doesn't need a capital. Could someone please fix it? 86.184.130.120 (talk) 12:23, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

CTRL-F “Lemmings” — Zero results
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ranunculoid (talk • contribs) 18:55, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

MOBA is listed as a sub-genre but is not talked about anywhere in the article
MOBAs are very popular right now and seem significant enough to be mentioned in this article, but I am terrible at editing pages. Also see the video game genres page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.202.204.129 (talk) 19:13, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

WP:VG assessment
This article is coming along nicely - it's currently a very informative, well-written article. However, I'm afraid to say it doesn't meet all of the B-Class criteria, and so for now must remain C-class. (High importance also seems appropriate to me.) The referencing isn't strong enough for a B-Class article: as it is there are lots of nicely-formatted references, but even so too much of the article remains unsourced. Additionally, I can't help but feel that some explanatory pictures would be helpful in explaining the "standard RTS interface". Fair use means most well-known games are off-limits, but there are probably some open-source games out there which you could take a screenshot from which would be fine. To reiterate, things are looking very promising, and the content that is here is great, but it's not quite watertight enough for B. Hope this helps! Una LagunaTalk 12:03, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Rush deletion discussion
Rush (video gaming) has been nominated for deletion at Articles for deletion/Rush (video gaming), if anyone involved with this article might be interested in weighing in. —Lowellian (reply) 04:17, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

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Explain: Base Building
Hi I was wondering if anyone could give me a link to an article on "base building" or if someone could edit and add more on base building. I don't really understand the concept of base building and I would like something to help clarify that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.179.93.202 (talk) 23:00, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Intro to Technical Writing
— Assignment last updated by Djh153 (talk) 22:18, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Real-time strategy


text:
Indo-European ablaut

In linguistics, the Indo-European ablaut (, from German Ablaut ) is a system of apophony (regular vowel variations) in the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE).

An example of ablaut in English is the strong verb sing, sang, sung and its related noun song, a paradigm inherited directly from the Proto-Indo-European stage of the language. Traces of ablaut are found in all modern Indo-European languages, though its prevalence varies greatly.

History of the concept
The phenomenon of Indo-European ablaut was first recorded by Sanskrit grammarians in the later Vedic period (roughly 8th century BCE), and was codified by Pāṇini in his Aṣṭādhyāyī (4th century BCE), where the terms  and vṛddhi were used to describe the phenomena now known respectively as the full grade and lengthened grade.

In the context of European languages, the phenomenon was first described in the early 18th century by the Dutch linguist Lambert ten Kate, in his book Gemeenschap tussen de Gottische spraeke en de Nederduytsche ("Common aspects of the Gothic and Dutch languages", 1710).

The term ablaut is borrowed from German, and derives from the noun Laut "sound", and the prefix ab-, which indicates movement downwards or away, or deviation from a norm; thus the literal meaning is "sound reduction". It was coined in this sense in 1819 by the German linguist Jacob Grimm in his Deutsche Grammatik, though the word had been used before him. In particular, the 17th-century grammarian Schottelius had used the word negatively to suggest that German verbs lacked the sophistication of the classics, but there is no hint of this disdain in Grimm or in modern scholarly usage. In English, the term became established through the 1845 translation of Bopp's Comparative Grammar.

Ablaut and vowel gradation
Vowel gradation is any vowel difference between two related words (such as photograph [ˈfəʊtəgrɑːf] and photography [fəˈtɒgrəfi]) or two forms of the same word (such as man and men). The difference does not need to be indicated in the spelling. There are many kinds of vowel gradation in English and other languages, which are discussed generally in the article apophony. Some involve a variation in vowel length (quantitative gradation: photograph / photography shows reduction of the first vowel to a schwa), others in vowel coloring (qualitative gradation: man / men) and others the complete disappearance of a vowel (reduction to zero: could not → couldn't).

For the study of European languages, one of the most important instances of vowel gradation is the Indo-European ablaut, remnants of which can be seen in the English verbs ride, rode, ridden, or fly, flew, flown. For simply learning English grammar, it is enough to note that these verbs are irregular, but understanding why they have unusual forms that seem irregular (and indeed why they are actually perfectly regular within their own terms) requires an understanding of the grammar of the reconstructed proto-language.

Ablaut is the oldest and most extensive single source of vowel gradation in the Indo-European languages and must be distinguished clearly from other forms of gradation, which developed later, such as Germanic umlaut (man / men, goose / geese, long / length) or the results of modern English word-stress patterns (man / woman, photograph / photography). Confusingly, in some contexts, the terms 'ablaut', 'vowel gradation', 'apophony' and 'vowel alternation' are used synonymously, especially in synchronic comparisons, but historical linguists prefer to keep 'ablaut' for the specific Indo-European phenomenon, which is the meaning intended by the linguists who first coined the word.

Ablaut grades
In Proto-Indo-European, the basic, inherent vowel of most syllables was a short e. Ablaut is the name of the process whereby this short e changed, becoming short o, long ē, long ō or sometimes disappearing entirely to leave no vowel at all.

Thus, ablaut results in the alternation of the following sounds:

If a syllable had a short e, it is said to be in the "e-grade" or "full grade". When it had no vowel, it is said to be in the "zero grade". Syllables with long vowels are said to be in "lengthened grade". (When the e-grade or the o-grade is referred to, the short vowel forms are meant.)

A classic example of the five grades of ablaut in a single root is provided by the different case forms of two closely related Greek words. In the following table, an acute accent (´) marks the syllable carrying the word stress; a macron (¯) marks long vowels and the syllable in bold is the one illustrating the different vowel gradations.

In this unusually neat example, the following can be seen:
 * A switch to the zero-grade when the word stress moves to the following syllable.
 * A switch to the o-grade when the word stress moves to the preceding syllable.
 * A lengthening of the vowel when the syllable is in word-final position before a sonorant.

As with most reconstructions, however, scholars differ about the details of this example.

One way to think of this system is to suppose that Proto-Indo-European originally had only one vowel, short e, and over time, it changed according to phonetic context, so the language started to develop a more complex vowel system. Thus, it has often been speculated that an original e-grade underwent two changes in some phonetic environments: under certain circumstances, it changed to o (the o-grade) and in others, it disappeared entirely (the zero-grade).

However, that is not certain: the phonetic conditions that controlled ablaut have never been determined, and the position of the word stress may not have been a key factor at all. There are many counterexamples to the proposed rules: *deywós and its nominative plural *deywóes show pretonic and posttonic e-grade, respectively, and *wĺ̥kʷos has an accented zero grade.

Lengthened grades
Many examples of lengthened grades, including those listed above, are not directly conditioned by ablaut. Instead, they are a result of sound changes like Szemerényi's law and Stang's law, which caused compensatory lengthening of originally short vowels. In the examples above, Szemerényi's law affected the older sequences *ph2-tér-s and *n̥-péh2-tor-s, changing them to *ph2-tḗr and *n̥-péh2-tōr. Thus, these forms were originally in the regular, unlengthened e-grade and o-grade. Such lengthened vowels were, however, later grammaticalised and spread to other words in which the change did not occur.

Nevertheless, there are examples of true lengthened grades, in which short e alternates with long ē. Examples are the verbs with "Narten" inflection, and nouns like *mḗh₁-n̥s "moon", genitive *méh₁-n̥s-os. Alternations of this type were rare, however, and the e ~ o ~ ∅ alternation was the most common by far. The long ō grade was rarer still and may not have actually been a part of the ablaut system at all.

Zero grade
The zero grade of ablaut may appear difficult for speakers of English. In the case of *ph2trés, which may already have been pronounced something like, it is not difficult to imagine it as a contraction of an older *ph2terés, pronounced perhaps , as this combination of consonants and vowels would be possible in English as well. In other cases, however, the absence of a vowel strikes the speaker of a modern western European language as unpronounceable.

To understand, one must be aware that there were a number of sounds that were consonants in principle but could operate in ways analogous to vowels: the four syllabic sonorants, the three laryngeals and the two semi-vowels:

 * The syllabic sonorants are m, n, r and l, which could be consonants much as they are in English, but they could also be held on as continuants and carry a full syllable stress and then are transcribed with a small circle beneath them. There are many modern languages who show these sounds in syllable nuclei, including Indo-European ones (e.g. Czech).
 * The laryngeals could be pronounced as consonants, in which case they were probably variations on the h sound and so normally transcribed as h1, h2 and h3. However, they could also carry a syllable stress, in which case they were more like vowels. Thus, some linguists prefer to transcribe them ə1, ə2 and ə3. The vocalic pronunciation may have originally involved the consonantal sounds with a very slight schwa before and/or after the consonant.
 * In pre-vocalic positions, the phonemes u and i were semi-vowels, probably pronounced like English w and y, but they could also become pure vowels when the following ablaut vowel reduced to zero.

When u and i came in postvocalic positions, the result was a diphthong. Ablaut is nevertheless regular and looks like this:

Thus, any of these could replace the ablaut vowel when it was reduced to the zero-grade: the pattern CVrC (for example, *bʰergʰ-) could become CrC (*bʰr̥gʰ-).

However, not every PIE syllable was capable of forming a zero grade; some consonant structures inhibited it in particular cases, or completely. Thus, for example, although the preterite plural of a Germanic strong verb (see below) is derived from the zero grade, classes 4 and 5 have instead vowels representing the lengthened e-grade, as the stems of these verbs could not have sustained a zero grade in this position.

Zero grade is said to be from pre-Proto-Indo-European syncope in unaccented syllables, but in some cases the lack of accent does not cause zero grade: *deywó-, nominative plural *-es "god". There does not seem to be a rule governing the unaccented syllables that take zero grade and the ones that take stronger grades.

a-grade
It is still a matter of debate whether PIE had an original a-vowel at all. In later PIE, the disappearance of the laryngeal h2 could leave an a-colouring and this may explain all occurrences of a in later PIE. However, some argue controversially that the e-grade could sometimes be replaced by an a-grade without the influence of a laryngeal, which might help to explain the vowels in class 6 Germanic verbs, for example.

Subsequent development
Although PIE had only this one, basically regular, ablaut sequence, the development in the daughter languages is frequently far more complicated, and few reflect the original system as neatly as Greek. Various factors, such as vowel harmony, assimilation with nasals, or the effect of the presence of laryngeals in the Indo-European (IE) roots as well as their subsequent loss in most daughter languages, mean that a language may have several different vowels representing a single vowel in the parent language.

In particular, the zero grade was often subject to modification from changes in the pronunciation of syllabic sonorants. For example, in Germanic, syllabic sonorants acquired an epenthetic -u-, thus converting the original zero grade to a new "u-grade" in many words. Thus, while ablaut survives in some form in all Indo-European languages, it became progressively less systematic over time.

Ablaut explains vowel differences between related words of the same language. For example: Ablaut also explains vowel differences between cognates in different languages.
 * English strike and stroke both come from the same IE root *streyg-. The former comes from the e-grade, the latter from the o-grade.
 * German Berg (mountain, hill) and Burg (castle) both come from the root *bʰergʰ-, which presumably meant "high". The former comes from the e-grade, the latter from the zero-grade. (Zero-grade followed by r becomes ur in Germanic.)
 * English tooth comes from Germanic *tanþ-s (e.g. Old English tōþ, Old High German zand), genitive *tund-iz (Gothic tunþus, but also aiƕa-tundi "thornbush", literally "horse-tooth"). This form is related to Latin dens, dentis and Greek ὀδούς, ὀδόντος, with the same meaning, and is reflected in the English words dentist and orthodontic. One reconstructed IE form is *dónts, genitive *dn̥tés. The consonant differences can be explained by regular sound shifts in primitive Germanic but not the vowel differences: by the regular laws of sound changes, Germanic a can originate from PIE o, but un usually goes back to a syllabic n̥.

 * The explanation is that the Germanic and Greek nominative forms developed from the o-grade, the Latin word and the Germanic genitive from the zero-grade (in which syllabic n̥ developed into en much in the same way as it became un in Germanic). Going a step further back, some scholars reconstruct *h1dónts, from the zero grade of the root *h1ed- 'to eat' and the participle -ont- and explain it as 'the eating one'.

 * English foot comes from the lengthened o-grade of *ped-. Greek πούς, ποδός and Latin pes, pedis (compare English octopus and pedestrian), come from the (short) o-grade and the e-grade respectively.

For the English-speaking non-specialist, a good reference work for quick information on IE roots, including the difference of ablaut grade behind related lexemes, is Watkins (2000). (Note that in discussions of lexis, Indo-European roots are normally cited in the e-grade, without any inflections.)

Grammatical function
In PIE, there were already ablaut differences within the paradigms of verbs and nouns. These were not the main markers of grammatical form, since the inflection system served this purpose, but they must have been significant secondary markers.

An example of ablaut in the paradigm of the noun in PIE can be found in *pértus, from which the English words ford and (via Latin) port are derived (both via the zero-grade stem *pr̥t-).

An example in a verb is *bʰeydʰ- "to wait" (cf. "bide").

In the daughter languages, these came to be important markers of grammatical distinctions. The vowel change in the Germanic strong verb, for example, is the direct descendant of that seen in the Indo-European verb paradigm. Examples in modern English are the following:

It was in this context of Germanic verbs that ablaut was first described, and this is still what most people primarily associate with the phenomenon. A fuller description of ablaut operating in English, German and Dutch verbs and of the historical factors governing these can be found at the article Germanic strong verb.

The same phenomenon is displayed in the verb tables of Latin, Ancient Greek and Sanskrit. Examples of ablaut as a grammatical marker in Latin are the vowel changes in the perfect stem of verbs.

Ablaut can often explain apparently random irregularities. For example, the verb "to be" in Latin has the forms est (he is) and sunt (they are). The equivalent forms in German are very similar: ist and sind. The same forms were present in Proto-Slavic: *estь and *sǫtь, and developed into e.g. Polish jest and są.

The difference between singular and plural in these languages is easily explained: the PIE root is *h1es-. In the singular, the stem is stressed, so it remains in the e-grade, and it takes the inflection -ti. In the plural, however, the inflection -énti was stressed, causing the stem to reduce to the zero grade: *h1es-énti → *h1s-énti. See main article: Indo-European copula.

Some of the morphological functions of the various grades are as follows:

e-grade:
 * Present tense of thematic verbs; root stress.
 * Present singular of athematic verbs; root stress.
 * Accusative and vocative singular, nominative, accusative and vocative dual, nominative plural of nouns.

o-grade:
 * Verbal nouns
 * 1) stem-stressed masculine action nouns (Greek gónos "offspring", Sanskrit jánas "creature, person"; Greek trókhos "circular course" < "*act of running");
 * 2) ending-stressed feminine, originally collective, action nouns (Greek gonḗ "offspring", Sanskrit janā́ "birth");
 * 3) ending-stressed masculine agent nouns (Greek trokhós "wheel" < "*runner").
 * Nominative, vocative and accusative singular of certain nouns (acrostatic root nouns such as dṓm, plural dómes "house"; proterokinetic neuter nouns such as *wódr̥ "water" or dóru "tree").
 * Present tense of causative verbs; stem (not root) stress.
 * Perfect singular tense.

zero-grade:
 * Present dual and plural tense of athematic verbs; ending stress.
 * Perfect dual and plural tense; ending stress.
 * Past participles; ending stress.
 * Some verbs in the aorist (the Greek thematic "second aorist").
 * Oblique singular/dual/plural, accusative plural of nouns.

lengthened grade:
 * Nominative singular of many nouns.
 * Present singular of certain athematic verbs (so-called Narten-stem verbs).
 * Some verbs in the aorist.
 * Some derived verbal nouns (so-called proto-vrddhi).

Many examples of lengthened-grade roots in the daughter languages are actually caused by the effect of laryngeals and of Szemerényi's law and Stang's law, which operated within Indo-European times.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Indo-European ablaut


text:
River delta

A river delta is a landform shaped like a triangle, created by the deposition of sediment that is carried by a river and enters slower-moving or stagnant water. This occurs at a river mouth, when it enters an ocean, sea, estuary, lake, reservoir, or (more rarely) another river that cannot carry away the supplied sediment. It is so named because its triangle shape resembles the uppercase Greek letter delta, Δ. The size and shape of a delta are controlled by the balance between watershed processes that supply sediment, and receiving basin processes that redistribute, sequester, and export that sediment. The size, geometry, and location of the receiving basin also plays an important role in delta evolution.

River deltas are important in human civilization, as they are major agricultural production centers and population centers. They can provide coastline defense and can impact drinking water supply. They are also ecologically important, with different species' assemblages depending on their landscape position. On geologic timescales, they are also important carbon sinks.

Etymology
A river delta is so named because the shape of the Nile Delta approximates the triangular uppercase Greek letter delta. The triangular shape of the Nile Delta was known to audiences of classical Athenian drama; the tragedy Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus refers to it as the "triangular Nilotic land", though not as a "delta". Herodotus's description of Egypt in his Histories mentions the Delta fourteen times, as "the Delta, as it is called by the Ionians", including describing the outflow of silt into the sea and the convexly curved seaward side of the triangle. Despite making comparisons to other river-systems' deltas, Herodotus did not describe them as "deltas". The Greek historian Polybius likened the land between the Rhône and Isère rivers to the Nile Delta, referring to both as islands, but did not apply the word delta. According to the Greek geographer Strabo, the Cynic philosopher Onesicritus of Astypalaea, who accompanied Alexander the Great's conquests in India, reported that Patalene (the delta of the Indus River) was "a delta". The Roman author Arrian's Indica states that "the delta of the land of the Indians is made by the Indus river no less than is the case with that of Egypt".

As a generic term for the landform at the mouth of river, the word delta is first attested in the English-speaking world in the late 18th century, in the work of Edward Gibbon.

Formation
River deltas form when a river carrying sediment reaches a body of water, such as a lake, ocean, or a reservoir. When the flow enters the standing water, it is no longer confined to its channel and expands in width. This flow expansion results in a decrease in the flow velocity, which diminishes the ability of the flow to transport sediment. As a result, sediment drops out of the flow and is deposited as alluvium, which builds up to form the river delta. Over time, this single channel builds a deltaic lobe (such as the bird's-foot of the Mississippi or Ural river deltas), pushing its mouth into the standing water. As the deltaic lobe advances, the gradient of the river channel becomes lower because the river channel is longer but has the same change in elevation (see slope).

As the gradient of the river channel decreases, the amount of shear stress on the bed decreases, which results in the deposition of sediment within the channel and a rise in the channel bed relative to the floodplain. This destabilizes the river channel. If the river breaches its natural levees (such as during a flood), it spills out into a new course with a shorter route to the ocean, thereby obtaining a steeper, more stable gradient. Typically, when the river switches channels in this manner, some of its flow remains in the abandoned channel. Repeated channel-switching events build up a mature delta with a distributary network.

Another way these distributary networks form is from the deposition of mouth bars (mid-channel sand and/or gravel bars at the mouth of a river). When this mid-channel bar is deposited at the mouth of a river, the flow is routed around it. This results in additional deposition on the upstream end of the mouth-bar, which splits the river into two distributary channels. A good example of the result of this process is the Wax Lake Delta.

In both of these cases, depositional processes force redistribution of deposition from areas of high deposition to areas of low deposition. This results in the smoothing of the planform (or map-view) shape of the delta as the channels move across its surface and deposit sediment. Because the sediment is laid down in this fashion, the shape of these deltas approximates a fan. The more often the flow changes course, the shape develops as closer to an ideal fan, because more rapid changes in channel position result in more uniform deposition of sediment on the delta front. The Mississippi and Ural River deltas, with their bird's-feet, are examples of rivers that do not avulse often enough to form a symmetrical fan shape. Alluvial fan deltas, as seen by their name, avulse frequently and more closely approximate an ideal fan shape.

Most large river deltas discharge to intra-cratonic basins on the trailing edges of passive margins due to the majority of large rivers such as the Mississippi, Nile, Amazon, Ganges, Indus, Yangtze, and Yellow River discharging along passive continental margins. This phenomenon is due mainly to three factors: topography, basin area, and basin elevation. Topography along passive margins tend to be more gradual and widespread over a greater area enabling sediment to pile up and accumulate over time to form large river deltas. Topography along active margins tend to be steeper and less widespread, which results in sediments not having the ability to pile up and accumulate due to the sediment traveling into a steep subduction trench rather than a shallow continental shelf.

There are many other lesser factors that could explain why the majority of river deltas form along passive margins rather than active margins. Along active margins, orogenic sequences cause tectonic activity to form over-steepened slopes, brecciated rocks, and volcanic activity resulting in delta formation to exist closer to the sediment source. When sediment does not travel far from the source, sediments that build up are coarser grained and more loosely consolidated, therefore making delta formation more difficult. Tectonic activity on active margins causes the formation of river deltas to form closer to the sediment source which may affect channel avulsion, delta lobe switching, and auto cyclicity. Active margin river deltas tend to be much smaller and less abundant but may transport similar amounts of sediment. However, the sediment is never piled up in thick sequences due to the sediment traveling and depositing in deep subduction trenches.

Types
Deltas are typically classified according to the main control on deposition, which is a combination of river, wave, and tidal processes, depending on the strength of each. The other two factors that play a major role are landscape position and the grain size distribution of the source sediment entering the delta from the river.

Fluvial-dominated deltas
Fluvial-dominated deltas are found in areas of low tidal range and low wave energy. Where the river water is nearly equal in density to the basin water, the delta is characterized by homopycnal flow, in which the river water rapidly mixes with basin water and abruptly dumps most of its sediment load. Where the river water has higher density than basin water, typically from a heavy load of sediment, the delta is characterized by hyperpycnal flow in which the river water hugs the basin bottom as a density current that deposits its sediments as turbidites. When the river water is less dense than the basin water, as is typical of river deltas on an ocean coastline, the delta is characterized by hypopycnal flow in which the river water is slow to mix with the denser basin water and spreads out as a surface fan. This allows fine sediments to be carried a considerable distance before settling out of suspension. Beds in a hypocynal delta dip at a very shallow angle, around 1 degree.

Fluvial-dominated deltas are further distinguished by the relative importance of the inertia of rapidly flowing water, the importance of turbulent bed friction beyond the river mouth, and buoyancy. Outflow dominated by inertia tend to form Gilbert type deltas. Outflow dominated by turbulent friction is prone to channel bifurcation, while buoyancy-dominated outflow produces long distributaries with narrow subaqueous natural levees and few channel bifurcations.

The modern Mississippi River delta is a good example of a fluvial-dominated delta whose outflow is buoyancy-dominated. Channel abandonment has been frequent, with seven distinct channels active over the last 5000 years. Other fluvial-dominated deltas include the Mackenzie delta and the Alta delta.

Gilbert deltas
A Gilbert delta (named after Grove Karl Gilbert) is a type of fluvial-dominated delta formed from coarse sediments, as opposed to gently-sloping muddy deltas such as that of the Mississippi. For example, a mountain river depositing sediment into a freshwater lake would form this kind of delta. It is commonly a result of homopycnal flow. Such deltas are characterized by a tripartite structure of topset, foreset, and bottomset beds. River water entering the lake rapidly deposits its coarser sediments on the submerged face of the delta, forming steeping dipping foreset beds. The finer sediments are deposited on the lake bottom beyond this steep slope as more gently dipping bottomset beds. Behind the delta front, braided channels deposit the gently dipping beds of the topset on the delta plain.

While some authors describe both lacustrine and marine locations of Gilbert deltas, others note that their formation is more characteristic of the freshwater lakes, where it is easier for the river water to mix with the lakewater faster (as opposed to the case of a river falling into the sea or a salt lake, where less dense fresh water brought by the river stays on top longer). Gilbert himself first described this type of delta on Lake Bonneville in 1885. Elsewhere, similar structures occur, for example, at the mouths of several creeks that flow into Okanagan Lake in British Columbia and forming prominent peninsulas at Naramata, Summerland, and Peachland.

Wave-dominated deltas
In wave dominated deltas, wave-driven sediment transport controls the shape of the delta, and much of the sediment emanating from the river mouth is deflected along the coast line. The relationship between waves and river deltas is quite variable and largely influenced by the deepwater wave regimes of the receiving basin. With a high wave energy near shore and a steeper slope offshore, waves will make river deltas smoother. Waves can also be responsible for carrying sediments away from the river delta, causing the delta to retreat. For deltas that form further upriver in an estuary, there are complex yet quantifiable linkages between winds, tides, river discharge, and delta water levels.

Tide-dominated deltas
Erosion is also an important control in tide-dominated deltas, such as the Ganges Delta, which may be mainly submarine, with prominent sandbars and ridges. This tends to produce a "dendritic" structure. Tidal deltas behave differently from river-dominated and wave-dominated deltas, which tend to have a few main distributaries. Once a wave-dominated or river-dominated distributary silts up, it is abandoned, and a new channel forms elsewhere. In a tidal delta, new distributaries are formed during times when there is a lot of water around – such as floods or storm surges. These distributaries slowly silt up at a more or less constant rate until they fizzle out.

Tidal freshwater deltas
A tidal freshwater delta is a sedimentary deposit formed at the boundary between an upland stream and an estuary, in the region known as the "subestuary". Drowned coastal river valleys that were inundated by rising sea levels during the late Pleistocene and subsequent Holocene tend to have dendritic estuaries with many feeder tributaries. Each tributary mimics this salinity gradient from their brackish junction with the mainstem estuary up to the fresh stream feeding the head of tidal propagation. As a result, the tributaries are considered to be "subestuaries". The origin and evolution of a tidal freshwater delta involves processes that are typical of all deltas as well as processes that are unique to the tidal freshwater setting. The combination of processes that create a tidal freshwater delta result in a distinct morphology and unique environmental characteristics. Many tidal freshwater deltas that exist today are directly caused by the onset of or changes in historical land use, especially deforestation, intensive agriculture, and urbanization. These ideas are well illustrated by the many tidal freshwater deltas prograding into Chesapeake Bay along the east coastline of the United States. Research has demonstrated that the accumulating sediments in this estuary derive from post-European settlement deforestation, agriculture, and urban development.

Estuaries
Other rivers, particularly those on coasts with significant tidal range, do not form a delta but enter into the sea in the form of an estuary. Notable examples include the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the Tagus estuary.

Inland deltas

In rare cases the river delta is located inside a large valley and is called an inverted river delta. Sometimes a river divides into multiple branches in an inland area, only to rejoin and continue to the sea. Such an area is called an inland delta, and often occurs on former lake beds. The term was first coined by Alexander von Humboldt for the middle reaches of the Orinoco River, which he visited in 1800. Other prominent examples include the Inner Niger Delta, Peace–Athabasca Delta, the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, and the Sistan delta of Iran. The Danube has one in the valley on the Slovak–Hungarian border between Bratislava and Iža.

In some cases, a river flowing into a flat arid area splits into channels that evaporate as it progresses into the desert. The Okavango Delta in Botswana is one example. See endorheic basin.

Mega deltas
The generic term mega delta can be used to describe very large Asian river deltas, such as the Yangtze, Pearl, Red, Mekong, Irrawaddy, Ganges-Brahmaputra, and Indus.

Sedimentary structure
The formation of a delta is complicated, multiple, and cross-cutting over time, but in a simple delta three main types of bedding may be distinguished: the bottomset beds, foreset/frontset beds, and topset beds. This three part structure may be seen in small scale by crossbedding.
 * The bottomset beds are created from the lightest suspended particles that settle farthest away from the active delta front, as the river flow diminishes into the standing body of water and loses energy. This suspended load is deposited by sediment gravity flow, creating a turbidite. These beds are laid down in horizontal layers and consist of the finest grain sizes.
 * The foreset beds in turn are deposited in inclined layers over the bottomset beds as the active lobe advances. Foreset beds form the greater part of the bulk of a delta, (and also occur on the lee side of sand dunes). The sediment particles within foreset beds consist of larger and more variable sizes, and constitute the bed load that the river moves downstream by rolling and bouncing along the channel bottom. When the bed load reaches the edge of the delta front, it rolls over the edge, and is deposited in steeply dipping layers over the top of the existing bottomset beds. Under water, the slope of the outermost edge of the delta is created at the angle of repose of these sediments. As the foresets accumulate and advance, subaqueous landslides occur and readjust overall slope stability. The foreset slope, thus created and maintained, extends the delta lobe outward. In cross section, foresets typically lie in angled, parallel bands, and indicate stages and seasonal variations during the creation of the delta.
 * The topset beds of an advancing delta are deposited in turn over the previously laid foresets, truncating or covering them. Topsets are nearly horizontal layers of smaller-sized sediment deposited on the top of the delta and form an extension of the landward alluvial plain. As the river channels meander laterally across the top of the delta, the river is lengthened and its gradient is reduced, causing the suspended load to settle out in nearly horizontal beds over the delta's top. Topset beds are subdivided into two regions: the upper delta plain and the lower delta plain. The upper delta plain is unaffected by the tide, while the boundary with the lower delta plain is defined by the upper limit of tidal influence.

Existential threats to deltas
Human activities in both deltas and the river basins upstream of deltas can radically alter delta environments. Upstream land use change such as anti-erosion agricultural practices and hydrological engineering such as dam construction in the basins feeding deltas have reduced river sediment delivery to many deltas in recent decades. This change means that there is less sediment available to maintain delta landforms, and compensate for erosion and sea level rise, causing some deltas to start losing land. Declines in river sediment delivery are projected to continue in the coming decades.

The extensive anthropogenic activities in deltas also interfere with geomorphological and ecological delta processes. People living on deltas often construct flood defences which prevent sedimentation from floods on deltas, and therefore means that sediment deposition can not compensate for subsidence and erosion. In addition to interference with delta aggradation, pumping of groundwater, oil, and gas, and constructing infrastructure all accelerate subsidence, increasing relative sea level rise. Anthropogenic activities can also destabilise river channels through sand mining, and cause saltwater intrusion. There are small-scale efforts to correct these issues, improve delta environments and increase environmental sustainability through sedimentation enhancing strategies.

While nearly all deltas have been impacted to some degree by humans, the Nile Delta and Colorado River Delta are some of the most extreme examples of the devastation caused to deltas by damming and diversion of water.

Historical data documents show that during the Roman Empire and Little Ice Age (times where there was considerable anthropogenic pressure), there was significant sediment accumulation in deltas. The industrial revolution has only amplified the impact of humans on delta growth and retreat.

Deltas in the economy
Ancient deltas are a benefit to the economy due to their well sorted sand and gravel. Sand and gravel is often quarried from these old deltas and used in concrete for highways, buildings, sidewalks, and even landscaping. More than 1 billion tons of sand and gravel are produced in the United States alone. Not all sand and gravel quarries are former deltas, but for ones that are, much of the sorting is already done by the power of water.

Urban areas and human habitation tends to locate in lowlands near water access for transportation and sanitation. This makes deltas a common location for civilizations to flourish due to access to flat land for farming, freshwater for sanitation and irrigation, and sea access for trade. Deltas often host extensive industrial and commercial activities as well as agricultural land which are often in conflict. Some of the world's largest regional economies are located on deltas such as the Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta, European Low Countries and the Greater Tokyo Area.

Examples
The Ganges–Brahmaputra Delta, which spans most of Bangladesh and West Bengal and empties into the Bay of Bengal, is the world's largest delta.

The Selenga River delta in the Russian republic of Buryatia is the largest delta emptying into a body of fresh water, in its case Lake Baikal.

Deltas on Mars
Researchers have found a number of examples of deltas that formed in Martian lakes. Finding deltas is a major sign that Mars once had large amounts of water. Deltas have been found over a wide geographical range. Below are pictures of a few.

title: River delta


text:
Talk:XHRF-FM

The only other XERF deejay I can remember was Dr. Jazzmo. If I could think of others, I would add them to the list. Back in the 1950s, when Dr. Jazzmo played Clifton Chenier I used to wonder why the traditional R&B sax solo had been replaced by accordion.Ortolan88

The later history of XERF
Back in 1983 I visited the studio of XERF and took a look at the old RCA 250,000 watts transmitter that an engineer managed to get back on the airwaves when the station began promoting itself as a "border blaster" once more. I am in the process of updating and expanding the "Pirate Radio" page which now links to XERF and I will also be contributing the later history of XERF on this page as time permits. MPLX/MH 20:28, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 * I'm looking forward to it. Somewhere I read an interview with Wolfman Jack where he, radio guy that he was, was almost salivating over the giant transmitter tubes.  Ortolan88 01:08, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

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title: Talk:XHRF-FM


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User:Abelard~enwiki

= Interests =

 * 1) Religion
 * 2) Biblical studies and languages
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title: User:Abelard~enwiki