Asymmetric Warfare

Modern strategy games are, at their core, quite simple games.  I consider Starcraft and a variety of other games as fundamentally derived from the game of chess.  You start the game with the same types of basic pieces, you make more pieces (added to the chess formula), and you move those pieces around the board.  The ultimate objective is to checkmate your opponent by making them unable to move.  However in a game where you can make more pieces the main way to do this is to eliminate your opponent’s ability to make additional pieces.

There are some philosophical underpinnings to this model that most players have seldom considered as maxims of game design.  For example, the idea of “game balance” is hotly discussed for any mainstream game on every corner of the internet.  While the discussions range from thought-provoking to positively inane, everyone seems to agree that the game must be “balanced.”  This is the main principle behind symmetric games.  However many players don’t seem to realize there is any other way you might make a game at all.  Asymmetric games are rife with possibilities, almost certainly more possibilities than the entire space of symmetric wargames, begging to be explored.