If you’re a fan of keeping up with what games win what awards, then you should be pleased that Halo Wars took home Best Strategy Game voted on by users. It’s not surprising really as we all know that Halo Wars was the front runner. Here’s the award winning video, so enjoy.

Most of the time when one things of developing a video game, the mind tends to shift towards the technical aspect — graphics, sound. The one aspect of gameplay the sometimes gets overlooked is balancing. Especially in the RTS genre. So much of the game is banked on balancing units, powers, and resources.

Over at HaloWars.com, Vijay Thakkar shares some of the experience of creating leader powers, and what went into the balancing of them.

The first power brought up in discussion is ‘Rage’. It’s exclusive to the Arbiter, and is known to cause some massive amounts of destruction to the table. Thakkar discusses some of the development of Rage:

It didn’t take much time to get something up and running, showing the Arbiter running around and teleporting to attack by flicking the right analog stick. It turned out that controlling the Arbiter like this and hopping across the battlefield in a matter of seconds was just crazy fun. I knew we were getitng somewhere when I could bring a coworker over to my desk to try it out and the result was a giddy smile on their face and a thirty minutes of brainstorming ideas on how to improve it. That process of just excitedly throwing ideas around with fellow gamers is absolutely one of the best parts of game development.

The next power to be discussed is Vortex, and is exclusive to the Brute unit. This physics based power can really turn the tide of a battle, but like other powers must be used a certain way to be effective. You can tell that a lot of tweaking had to be done to this power to make sure it didn’t become overpowered. Vortex also has a unique style, and mechanic to it as addressed by Thakkar:

It became important to have Vortex stand out from the other powers: it needed to have its own chaotic nature and feel in its camera and controls. We prototyped a variety of potential solutions, from a fixed camera over the shoulder of the Brute looking forward onto the Vortex to directly controlling the Vortex the same way as Cleansing. There was even a version where the player controlled both the horizontal and vertical movement of the swirling death ball with both analog sticks. As we iterated, freer camera control stood tall and I’m quite glad that we could find something in the middle, controlling similarly to Cleansing but with some unique twists. In the final version, the camera is focused on a point between the Brute and the Vortex, effectively keeping both in the player’s visibility, and the Vortex’s vertical movement is automatic in a sinusoidal pattern (which also helped to give the internal objects some more motion). Finally, Vortex employs a similar system to Rage in that its cost changes based off of the state that it is in. It is the only power that costs nothing to maintain, (only taking resources when dealing damage), and is also the only power that actually improves its potential damage the longer it is active. As the Vortex picks up more and more pieces, the power of the final explosion increases to devastating amounts, which combine with the damage inflicted by the thrown debris, providing an effect that was a bit more chaotic in nature.

If you’ve gotten used to the maps currently on Halo Wars, then expand your map list and check out Halo War’s new DLC. There are four new maps in all, which are unique and will require new strategies to conquer them in single or multiplayer.

Here is a list of the map names, along with a short description…

* Barrens: Difficult terrain channels units into killing zones. The side that controls the Forerunner artifacts will have the advantage (1v1 Map).
* Blood River: Secure base locations on nearby cliffs overlook this naturally red-tinged river. The soldiers that fought over its two narrow crossings gave the river its name, which has since taken on a greater meaning (1v1 Map).
* Glacial Ravine:A snow-topped mountain range forms a natural barrier that cuts this region in half. Control of the two energy walls at the narrow central pass often determines the outcome of the battle, though clever use of the Sentinel Factories may play a role as well (3v3 Map).
* Memorial Basin: The high ground in the middle offers good cover for infantry, while the generally open terrain transforms organized battle plans into bloodbaths (2v2 Map).

Along with the maps there are brand new achievements to try and unlock…

* Tour Coming Through: Hot drop 50 squads to your Covenant Leader in a single game on Memorial Basin (30 points)
* Never Leave a Man Behind: Finish a game with 5000 net resources contributed to your teammates on Barrens (15 points)
* Drain Cleaner: Kill 20 enemy squads with a continuous Covenant Leader Power on Memorial Basin (30 points)
* Killjoy: Disrupt 5 active Leader Powers in a single game on Blood River (25 points)

The Historic Battles DLC is now available and will set you back 800 Microsoft Points.

Have you ever wondered how game levels are created. If you’re a Halo Wars fan then you’re probably really curious to know how missions are created from beginning to finish. On the Halo Wars Developer blog some light is shed on just how a mission goes from brainstorming to making the final cut.

Here’s an excerpt and some pictures from the post…

The first thing we do when we start a new campaign is to do some research. Instead of hitting the history books like in our Age of Empires games, we grabbed anything we could from Halo and absorbed it. We read books, played through the games, and talked with Bungie to make sense of any questions that arose. I personally spent a few days doing nothing but playing the Halo campaigns in the office to refresh my memory and get some inspiration. This helped more than I even hoped… people would stop by my office to watch me play and learned some things they may have forgotten about the games – or to yell at me to turn it down!

The content designers got together and brainstormed. At this point the story was still in the works, so we threw out crazy ‘what-if-we-could-do-anything’ ideas. For example, I really wanted to do a mission where two Scarabs were destroying a city, and the player’s job was to stop them before a certain number of buildings were destroyed. That ended up on the cutting room floor with a bunch of other cool stuff, but the process gave us a lot of good gaming fodder - we ended up morphing that idea into the Super-Scarab in mission 07. So, once the story started becoming more concrete we found places to use those ideas.

The Halo Wars map information has just been updated, and Docks 2v2 has been added to the list. If you want to learn more about the map, then check out the page.

If you want to know some tactics for the map, here’s an excerpt from the designers:

Because of the choke point and decent travel time from one side to the other early in the game, it’s pretty safe too boom up. This is why I really like using Cutter and elephant/marine rushing on this map. If I can setup my Elephant near the enemy bases and get it pumping I can slow down their boom sometimes, even keeping them off the open base location near their start area while my partner boom/techs freely. This tends to leave me behind the curve a bit but I can still get to ODST’s and just support my teammate until we can get the win.

If you’re a fan of Risk, while at the same time being a fan of Halo Wars then this product is for you. It’s the Risk: Halo Wars Collector’s Edition. There’s over 290 custom pieces including - UNSC Fire Bases, Marines, Scorpion Tanks, Spartan and Covenant Command Centers, Grunts, Wraith and Arbiter,Flood, ProtoGraveminds, Infection Forms, Carrier Forms and Juggernaut.

When you play a RTS, the intricacies of combat can become lost in your quest strategic dominance. You should know that when the action is taking place on screen, there’s some intense number crunching going on to determine the tide of battle.

When units first engage one another, the first determening factor is accuracy. There are two parts to accuracy, first is if your shot is firing true at your opponent. Then the factor of distance to target is considered. Depending on those two factors, your attack will land or it won’t.

Damage is determined by a couple of things. First, is the weapon that your unit is using coupled with the armor of your opponent. And of course vice versa if you’re being attacked. Below is a chart with specific attack modifiers based on these two factors…

Damage type/ armor type lookup table (real numbers from the Halo Wars database)

(via: HaloWars)

Ensemble is being hush-hush about the details, but you should notice on their site and in the game that your Skill levels should be changed. Don’t worry, there’s nothing wrong with your game. In fact Ensemble promises that the system will better relfect the actual levels of players.

Some players have been noticing significant changes in skill level. Some have been going from 3 to 39, and vice versa. Ensemble states problems where players had skill levels that were significantly lower than what should have been. This is now fixed.

The reception for the update has been great so far. There’s of course complainers who want to know how the new Skill system is calcuated. I could care less personally, if they promise to offer a more balanced experience in game.

As you continue your campaign in Halo Wars, through single player or multiplayer you’ll undoubtedly be wanting to know how you’re performing. Luckily, there’s a stats available at the HaloWars community site. Along with player stats, there are more broad stats for the overall game.

Here are some interesting stats I was able to find on the page:

UNSC has won 2,672,529 matches, while the Covenant  has won 1,489,054 (guess we know who’s winning the war)

Total Game time played is closing in on the century mark. Right now it’s at 99 years, 6 months, and 25 days.

Fort Deen is the most played map, coming in at 10 years of play time so far.

I think it’s safe to say that we’re all still noobs at Halo Wars. The game has only been out a couple of weeks, so strategies are still being drawn up. All of us are still learning the strengths and weaknesses of each unit. I’m sure some of you have been playing none stop, and have a great handle on things.

Luckily, the rank and skill levels are set so I don’t have to meet you until I’m ready. The Halo Wars dev blog has released different aspects of the ranking system, and what they mean. Here are brief summaries of each system:

Player Trueskill™ - The Player Trueskill system is what is used when matchmaking for players. Every different hooper is assigned a skill number. Depending on how often, and how successful you are on a different game type, you’re Trueskill number will increase/decrease. If you want to know more details of the system, you can click here.

Skill Level - Skill level is more of a representation of your overall skills at Halo Wars. Instead of basing it off each game type, this encompasses everything. The system is based on 1-50, with 50 being the best. Your win/losses are taken into account. Also, if you leave a game for any reason, like your 360 shuts off it’s counted as a loss.

Score - Your score is more of a barometer of how experienced you are with the game. Not necessarily if you’ve won or lost. Just how much time you’ve put in, but of course winning never hurts. Here’s a graph showing the point totals, and the ranks that are associated with them.

Rank