Interviews// Raj Joshi, Producer, Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars

SPOnG: The ‘adaptive AI’ in the game sounds interesting… what is this? What, for example, is ‘Turtling’?

Raj Joshi: Turtling is pretty much what we are trying to push with the Siege mode – which is building up your base and really kind of getting things going. Turtling is the idea of pulling within your shell, getting everything together and then going out to attack your opponent. Or you could play against an opponent that was the opposite of this, where they are totally brutal and will just attack you non-stop. Or you can play a more balanced AI, which is somewhere in between these two. So, there are four or five different AI modes, so you can basically tailor it to the kind of game you want. And of course, there’s easy, medium and hard settings on top of those AI settings as well.


SPOnG: You talked about the interface earlier – which was developed from the Battle for Middle Earth 2 interface – can you say how its improved on that?

Raj Joshi: Yeah, the biggest improvement we’ve been able to make on that is keeping a very constant and solid frame rate. For example, in Battle for Middle-Earth II, the controls are totally tied into the frame rate so, in the game if the frame rate started dipping from lots of action on the screen, then your ability to access controls quickly started going downhill. But here we’ve kept the frame rate up, we’ve kept the access to the controls very quick, the game is very fast and fluid and so is your ability to access the controls.

We’ve also completely separated the vertical and the horizontal axes on the D-pad – which might sound pretty simplistic, but makes an immense change – so the vertical on the D-pad will scroll through these tab icons, which allow you access to any units you already have created or to build more units or structures. The horizontal access will give you the option to drill down deeper into the functionality of any unit or structure you’ve selected.

So, it’s just simple things like that, just making things more intuitive. Making sure that people are able to pick up the game and start playing it. Videogame players are very intelligent, but it’s better to have something that is inherent to their understanding as opposed to something new that you have to teach them.

Another thing is that we really studied Battle for Middle Earth 2, which had like seven button clicks or something to create a control group – now you just simply have anybody you have selected, tap down on the D-pad and you create a control group. A number pops up above them and to scroll through them is just tapping up on the D-pad. Little things like that to make the game quicker for people who want the depth they might be used to in an RTS game, but also very accessible to those people who previously might not have understood the core compulsions in an RTS.

SPOnG: Last question, when trying to appeal to exactly the kind of gamer who might have never played an RTS, how do you gently introduce them into the game?

Raj Joshi: For the 360 version we have our own specific tutorial that really stair-steps them through the process of how to use the controls and how to play the game. There are tool tips, all the contingencies for the build process, what you need to do to build any type of unit or structure and so on. In the game itself there’s 38 single-player missions, and towards the beginnings of the campaigns they really ramp you up on not only what you need to do but also how to wrap your head around accessing the RTS. So, for precision of control we have a cursor magnetism, which makes it easier in the heat of battle to select things with the controller.

But the main thing is that we try to inaugurate the player with compelling missions and storylines and getting them kind of ramped up on the controls very quickly. It really only takes a couple of minutes to familiarise yourself with the controls. The cool thing about console gamers is that they already know how to hold the controller, so it’s just a matter of lending them a helping hand to let them know how the controls are mapped in the game.

SPOnG: Thanks very much for your time today.