Poll of the Day > Are there any RTS where the map dynamicly changes over time?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I can think of minor example; the Company of Heroes games allows for the burning of forests and making of craters

I can think of major examples; Dungeon Keeper - in order for traps to work you have to maintain the dungeon's integrity... the breaking of some of your dirt walls can make shortcuts.

There's a medium example that's not used; in Warcraft 2 you destroy forests as you cut them down... but it's never really used as a barrier or shortcut

We counting tower defense games here?

Starcraft 2 does a lot of this. Maps often come with destructible terrain that either opens up new paths or blocks existing ones, so the layout can change over time depending on what each player commits resources to modifying. Starcraft multiplayer maps did this too, but only on community-made maps.

The command and conquer games do some stuff too. Tiberium spreads over time and is poisonous to infantry, which can have an impact over time depending on what gets harvested and what continues to spread. Explosives would also create craters and hills that affected how quickly units moved. Neither feature was ever very practical, but they were neat.

the only thing i can think of is in halo wars 1 and probably 2, you can activate bridges, giving you a shortcut, but i don't think i'd count that the same as like, earthquake happening that destroys part of the map or something

Populous the Beginning takes this to the extreme. You can freely reshape the land for constructive or destructive purposes. Dropping a volcano in the middle of a settlement not only kills everyone, destroys builds, etc, it destroys the ground and plops a mountain in the middle of your settlement so you can't build there again without flattening it first.
https://youtu.be/izD_OZmyt0o?t=18
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwEI4GNkBn0

age of empires you cut down trees

command and conquer you can make craters so terrain is uneven

funkyfritter posted...

Starcraft 2 does a lot of this. Maps often come with destructible terrain that either opens up new paths or blocks existing ones, so the layout can change over time depending on what each player commits resources to modifying. Starcraft multiplayer maps did this too, but only on community-made maps.

To add to this, I know there's at least one map in the campaign where lava regularly rises and falls, forcing you to be mindful of where you leave your army.

VideoboysaysCube posted...

To add to this, I know there's at least one map in the campaign where lava regularly rises and falls, forcing you to be mindful of where you leave your army.

It's in coop, too. Absolutely annoying as hell of a map, but Johnny Vermillion is great, at least