Review: The World Of Darkness and Mage:The Awakening

First things first, I want to say that I fucking loved Mage:The Ascension with quiet sort of desperation that is best described as "courtly love from afar". During the early '90s, people kept telling me, "you have to check out White Wolf games, they're the shit and awesome and cool and all that." But, the games they had so far seemed to have either been a case of playing angsty, blood-sucking ambiguously gay porn stars or every variation of Wolverine that Marvel Comics thinks it could have gotten away with. Then, Mage came out, and like somebody slipping me the red pill, I fell into this world of wonders, joys, amazement, and magic. And, this was a universe of urban post-modern magic that I could get behind, unlike Unknown Armies which seemed to always be a case of "everybody's smarter than you are, and the only way to get ahead is to go mad." The game had magic, worlds of possibilities, enemies ranging from "we're good guys, only different" to "shoot them in the head, now" bastards. The magic system was free-flowing and it let players get away with one of the most important talents (I think) a player at a game table should have-using bullshit and amazement to succeed by entertaining other people. Yea, it had some mechanical issues and some other problems, but I liked it.

Even better, you could have played as the theoretical "bad guys", aka the Technocracy, with zero irony. And, from a personal perspective, you could easily see how the Technocracy was a much better bunch of people (making the world a better place and kicking the ass of any supernatural monster that would eat people) than the Traditions (whom were stuck in the "only the right people" can find the way to enlightenment). They weren't evil, just somebody on the other side of a long war that kept seeing monsters being allowed to roam free when the Traditions were in charge, and doing something about it.

Most importantly, if you knew the right powers, you could turn vampires in to lawn chairs and margaritas. I wish I was making that up. You could, with the right Spheres of magic, turn vampires into lawn chairs and margaritas and sit on them in the sunlight. That's awesome, almost as cool as a gun that shoots shuriken and lightning.

When I was down to a game budget of about two game lines, Mage:The Ascension and Champions was it-Champions because The Best Gaming Group In The World was playing it and I was a part of it, and Mage because I loved the game. And, life was as good as it was going to get for me, game-wise.

So, around '02, White Wolf Games came to the realization that the game mechanics for the World of Darkness was breaking down, they were running out of ideas to throw at players, and quite frankly the market for the books was over-saturated. In that, they decided to reset the whole game line, blow the universe up, and rebuild it. Part of this rebuilding was to totally revise all the game lines, and to separate out the game rules from the setting book. And, this actually worked pretty well, as the World of Darkness rule set is pretty good with a few flaws in it. My big issues with it is that there's a lack of the snarky commentary in some of the sections, you have to buy martial arts as "powers" and not skills, and some of the damage mechanics seem funky. Oh, and the morality system seems to be built in to involve a nagging mum effect. But, unlike most "generic" rules, you can pretty much run a low-level supernatural campaign with just the core rulebook and be done with it. This counts, in my mind, as a Very Good Thing. And, by doing this, you can turn over the page count in the setting rulebooks to more neat stuff, and in the case of the newest Mage game, Mage:The Awakening, more ways to turn vampires into lawn chairs and party drinks.

Except...well, it's harder. The new Mage background is one of "only one path to enlightenment" in the form of Atlantis (which they're very clear is a. not just the place that Plato described during the era of Ancient Greece and b. was done in as much by hubris as people being mean to each other). Sometime in the really, really far past, a bunch of powerful mages climbed up to power, there was treachery, betrayal, and two major factions tore the universe apart. This condemned most of the human race to becoming Sleepers, and creating an Abyss that wants to devour everything. But, five of the mages created the Watchtowers and some humans can awaken again from Sleep. Bra-fucking-vo, you stupid bastards.

First of all, I want to talk to whomever set up and laid out the book-unless you wanted to make the point of "magic is hard to understand and read, and requires dedication", the book layout sucks. Odd uses of text fonts and font colors, breaking the text up with mystical symbols...ugh. Irritating. Next, the magic system has been changed-you can debate better or worse, but the changes have broken the nine Spheres into ten Arcana, with one that you're weak in and two that you're strong in. The magic changes also mean you have to learn Rotes-basically spell "short hand" for certain effects to make it easier to cast and handle. And...all the magic is that of Atlantis-they "won" the magical decisions war, and that means that everybody uses their language and terms and concepts.

Oh, and Paradox is no longer "reality biting back", and more "you failed to negotiate well with the Abyss that straddles the Real World and magical power". The enemies no longer range from "kind of like you, but playing with different rules" to "bug-fucking nuts", they're now "the world will run by the rules of the guys that caused the Abyss" to "various categories of bloody lunatics". And, unlike the "we're making the world a better place-once we figure out what 'better' is" of the first Mage, the new Mage is a Gnosticistic romp through "becoming something more and greater than God". Yay. And, the new morality system that permeates the game system has it's expression as "Wisdom"-messing around with the powers of the universe unwisely is a Very Bad Thing and is like doing cocaine. And, as just about anybody that has done cocaine can tell you, you start out doing well and it all goes downhill fast and very mess.

Except most people that do cocaine won't start developing extra limbs or an evil twin. Usually.

I really, really wanted to love this game. And, I do like it-I just don't have the same absolute lust for buying books and such that I had for the previous version of the game. I get the feeling that if I wanted to pull off the same game effect that I had in Ascension, I'd have to drag out my copy of Genius:The Transgression, and it's not even an "official" game (but it is so awesome, it should be). It feels like you're trying to play a game where you can be John Constantine without irony or "messing around with mechanics" that a lot of other games have. That Neil Gainman (who is one of the authors that I like when he's "on" and despise when he's "off") is one of the big game-world influences disturbs me as well.

So, in a nutshell-the new World of Darkness is pretty cool. Mage:The Awakening is neat, you won't feel like you lost money buying it, but it doesn't have the same flavor as Mage: The Ascension and that is a bit disappointing. Now, it's going to be sunset soon, and I've got these great lawn chairs and margaritas to share...

More On The Bushido Blade Wii Idea

Anyways, I've been coming up with more ideas for the Bushido Blade Wii idea...

• I've decided that there will be about eight playable characters, four hidden ones (since it's a Square/Enix game, Cloud Strife, Squall Leonheart, Sora, and a unnamed Jedi). Twelve weapons for the players, and about four bosses.
• The weapons are all going to be "classical" weapons-rapier, long sword, katana, naginta, scimitar, broadsword, pike, and saber. By going through the training games, you can get upgraded versions of the weapons. The "perfect" weapons are hard to find, but very much worth it. The eight players have an "optimal" weapon choice, of course. The hidden characters have improved versions of their weapons to find.
• The basic game story-eight characters that are members of a secret society of assassins. They think that they're trying to make the world a better place, but actually are serving a cause of making things worse. The player is the one trying to escape, the remaining seven are trying to kill them (yes, I'm using the original plot. So sue me.)
• Realistic weather. Using the Wii Weather Channel to find the weather close to the player, or the "original" dojo, or somewhere else in the world.
• Lots of little visual bonuses. Good stuff.

More ideas as they come up...

Sudden Explosion Of Imagination!

I just had a great thought, and a superb game idea.

It'll either be awesome-or I'll get killed by insane fans. Your mileage may vary.

The idea-remember Bushido Blade? (If you haven't, you missed a great game that every fighting gamer player should have owned.) Solo player game where there was no health bar, no "blow up the scenery" super moves-just guys (and gals) with swords and making the most of a massive dojo area to fight in.

The concept-Bushido Blade Wii. (Wait for it...)

Single player game, with the Wii Motion Plus to control the sword, and the Wii Balance Board to control the player (move the player's balance to move where the player goes, to dodge, etc, etc...). The game is played either from first-person or third person (with a "ghost" player), with multiplayer being done by the WiiConnect.

All sorts of gameplay options, including a "Highlander" option (fight your way to beat the enemy, then take their head), 10,000 Ninjas (survive waves of ninja attackers), and with the amount of accuracy that the Wii Motion Plus offers...you'll be seeing a lot of geeks that can suddenly go pretty good with a sword (I'd find that awesomely cool, as well).

Somebody's going to have to say "it's a great idea" or "it sucks"-and if you think it's great...how does one get a Wii Dev kit?

Solving Starship Computer Battles For Dummies...

...or, why you shouldn't let me be stuck watching Banner Of The Stars and the "Day Of Sagittarius" episode of Haruhi Suzumiya, and having lots and lots and lots of time to think about things...

(Special Thanks To Steven DenBeste, who worked out a lot of the stuff I'm starting from.)

In the episode of "The Day of Sagittarius", the Computer Society has created a new game called "The Day Of Sagittarius III"(with the inevetable deadpan snark from Kyon of where No 1 and 2 are...), and the SOS Club are now challenged into a duel between the two groups.

One of the key inspirations for the game's (hereafter called Day III) combat system seems to be the way Plane Space is handled in Crest Of The Stars-ships move on a two-dimensional space, and are dependent upon long-range scouting to fully use their weapons. Literally, the side that knows where the other side is-and can engage them first without being detected in turn will win or at least hold their own.

A factor involved is the use of recon drones to extend a fleet's ability to see. While the Computer Society cheats throughout most of the game with the Fog of War option disengaged, Yuki counters with an option built into the game. This option is a micro-management option of splitting up fleets and (presumably) drones to spread out and perform multiple scouting options. This, combined with the understanding of how the Computer Society is cheating and disabling it at the right time, gives the SOS Club the win against the Computer Society.

Now, there are a few Java/Visual Basic games out there that cover this game, but I'm thinking...how could it be done better? And, in a way-more fun.

Peel it down to the basics-flat space, "fog of war" and the need for scouting, and "fleets of thousands" that some people and games like. From that, we can perhaps assume some things-

• The smaller the fleet, and the smaller the ships in the fleet, the faster they can go. This allows for "hit and run" attacks by smaller warships, scouting fleets, and such.
• Bigger ships are more deadly-they can carry torpedoes and the truly huge batteries of energy weapons needed to smash the largest enemy warships around.
• Resupply in the Day III's combat system is assumed-Asahina is put in charge of the SOS-dan's supply ships. This may mean that it's possible for a fast reloading of torpedoes and such-but both the supply and resuppling ships are vulnerable to attack.
• The light novel indicates that there are at least three customization options and a number of points you can use. Expand it a bit further...perhaps you can buy your ships by type and fittings, then expand them to form a fleet of ships.

The game starts to coalesce-we have about four major hull types that will show up (with some variations on size, and overlapping concept hulls)-

• Scout Ships are small. Not tiny, but small (the smallest "ship" is the drones used for recon by ships). Their major job is to find enemy fleet, and hit and run if a fleet operates in smaller components. Or, to engage supply ships. They don't carry torpedoes, but do have defenses against them.
  
• Patrol Ships are faster than battleships and supply ships, and slower than scout ships. Think of them as "flankers" for the most part-scout ships can't take out a patrol ship without swarming them with huge numbers, and patrol ships can't chase down scout ships-but they can deny a scout ship the ability to do recon. Patrol ships carry torpedoes, but mostly use them to stop scout ships.
• Battleships are the huge bruisers. Slower than everything else, but they carry enough armor and defenses that trying to swarm them under with anything other than hordes of patrol ships is suicide. They carry huge numbers of torpedoes, to serve as an opening attack against other battleships. They're the "anvil" in a "hammer and anvil" combat strategy.
• Supply ships are there to do field repairs to warships, reload torpedo and recon drones, and a few hulls might be of a "Carrier"-type platform, carrying huge numbers of torpedoes, but slow and very vulnerable. This would dictate that torpedoes have a long range but are fairly "dumb"-they need to know where to engage a target to enter their sensor range and engage it.

A few "odd ball" ship types might exist (a "heavy scout" that would be pretty much a "light patrol ship"-armed enough that a fleet of them would be a threat to an equivalent sized fleet of scouts, but not "true" patrol ships or a heavy patrol ship hull that could be considered a small battleship), but those are the four major types. Then, we get into weapons-

• Torpedoes are the very long ranged weapon of the fleets. Presumably, they are fairly "dumb" in the sense that they need somebody to "spot" for their launching ship, to be able to provide directions in where they should be. A large torpedo salvo is a dangerous threat-presumably they would carry powerful warheads and ships would be in serious danger from them.
• Energy weapons are the other major weapon. It seems that there are two types-weapons mounted along a ship's long axis (as a part of or along the ship's spine), and "side" cannons similar to the weapon arrays of Exelion-class. Presumably, the main spinal weapons are the main ship-killers, while the side weapons are their for anti-scoutship, anti-torpedo, and "we need to fire something at them!" role.

Suddenly, the concept starts to make sense, and we now have a much more...dynamic game to play in.

There's more options available "under the hood", if we want-do we build our battleships with a few huge guns, or a lot of guns (and the damage model may have to reflect this-huge guns will punch deep into a ship, while lots of guns will "peel" the surface of a ship)? Do we emphasize with our scout ships speed and sensors, or do we sacrifice for the ability of scout ships to be able to hold their own in a fight? Do we allow modifiers to each side-in the sense that one side might be strong in armor, but weak in speed across the board for their ships?

The new version of Day III starts looking like this-

• Dynamic ship design and ship operations concept. Combine that with the micro-management option of splitting fleets (presumably around a "command ship"), and rather than having to command each fleet, assign sub-fleets a formation (of them and their drones), based upon control groups.
  
• Fog of War becomes important. Recon drones either have to be fairly "close" to their ships, or become a "use or lose" when they run out of fuel.
  
• Teamwork becomes a key. Fleet vs. fleet can quickly become fratricide. But, two fleets versus one? Much more dangerous for the one fleet...especially if they are vulnerable to attacks on the sides or aft.
• Play options for everyone. Maybe when fleet-vs-fleet combat starts, a setup like Dynasty Warriors happens-players command a single ship and issue commands to the rest of their fleet, while they get to blow away their enemies.

The Battle of the SOS-Dan

But, what does this have to do with the price of Tea in China?

With our new, dynamic combat system under the hood, we can see a much more...interesting fight between the Computer Society and the SOS.

Both sides have five players, and five fleets. Since the Computer Society is cheating with a disabled fog of war effect, their fleets are pretty much all battleships, with a single supply fleet to reload their torpedoes. On the other hand, the SOS has to be a bit more "balanced", and that leads us to how the fleets are set up.

• Haruhi, without a doubt, is entirely packed to the gills with battleships. She wants to get close and blow them up with lasers and torpedos and such. She has the weakest scouting ability of all the fleets, and is probably entirely dependent upon drones.
• Kyon, on the other hand, seems to be a bit more "balanced". Personally, I suspect his fleet is mostly patrol craft, with enough scouts to spot for him and a few battleships to "put the boot in" as needed. Kyon wants to flank the enemy, know where they are, and engage them on the sides-he doesn't want a battleship-to-battleship duel head on.
• Itsuki is probably the other battleship fleet, but less maniacal about it than Haruhi. He probably has enough scouts to fill out his flanks and serve as early warning for torpedo attack. His strategy is going to probably be as much misdirection and being where people don't expect him to be.
• Yuki is the commander of the fleet's scout forces. She uses her abilities to multi-task to command multiple small squadrons of scout ships and drones. Like Kyon, her fleet has a small battleship "core" to keep things interesting, but most of her elements are scout ships. Mid-way through the game, she probably has all the Computer Society fleets bracketed with scout ships and drones.
• Mikuru commands the support fleet the ship has. Since Haruhi hasn't thought of it, her fleet probably is just supply ships and enough patrol ships to keep scouts off with maybe a few battleships. Unlike the Computer Society, she probably has no torpedo bombardment ships/carriers to use.

Without the high weirdness that Haruhi can generate, the battle works out like this-

1. The SOS fleet tries to find the Computer Society fleet-but because of the disabled Fog of War effect, the Computer Society begins to use flanking attacks to wear down the SOS forces.
   
2. Yuki splits up her forces to scout for the Computer Society. Meanwhile, she is also analyzing the code and setups used by the game.
3. As her scout fleets have most of the Computer Society fleets bracketed, she discovers that the Fog of War effect is disabled and informs Kyon. By this time, Mikuru's fleet has bee badly damaged if not destroyed.
4. Kyon tells Yuki to re-enable the Fog of War. Since the Computer Society is now dependent upon their own (non-existent) scouting, the SOS fleet has the advantage since Yuki's scouts have the Computer Society under observation.
5. The battle now changes. The Computer Society is trying to find the enemy, meanwhile the SOS knows where they are and the three main fleets attack. The strategy is probably one of one fleet (Kyon or Itsuki) engages the Computer Society on a flank. As the Computer Society fleet turns, the other and Haruhi attack from the other side. Caught between three fleets, the enemy ships are rapidly destroyed for little damage on both sides.
6. The last fleet is destroyed, and Yuki fires the shot that kills the last command ship.

Now, that would be good entertainment. And, I'd love to play that game. It's exciting, to say the very least.

More From Idea #2

I feel an urge to talk about our first giant robot, and how "he" fits into the game.

Unit One (they never quite came up with a better name/designation for it) comes in at about 30 ft (9 meters) and nearly forty tons. This puts it in the range of most Type A and Type B Beasts. Fully humanoid, it is covered in layered RHA armor (with later upgrades to a Chobham composite armor on the torso, head, upper arms and upper legs area), with a central cockpit in the rear chest area, mated to a zero/zero ejection seat. The cockpit and design gives the Unit One a distinct "humpback" look.

Unit One uses a combination of hydraulics and linear motors for control and movement. The A/O generator is located just below the cockpit and must be activated for Unit One to even stand up, let along move. Nuclear power was rejected for obvious reasons (Unit One engages enemies in close combat), but the battery power system has a limit of six minutes at full combat power, ten minutes at "standby" walking speed.

All versions of Unit One were built by Tojo Heavy Industries in Japan, and were shipped to various locations along the Ring of Fire to defend against attacks, with the exception of (then) Soviet territory. Twenty-two Unit Ones were built, the first on March 11, 1968 and the last on June 19, 1968.

The Mod One version of Unit One added upgrades to the computers and added newer linear motor arrays to the hands in the mid-70s. The Mod Two version replaced the torso, head, upper arm, and upper leg armor with lighter but equivalent Chobham armor plates, and revamped the control and monitor system in the late-80s. No further modifications were to be made, and there was serious talk about retiring Unit One until the Second Great Monster War.

Unit One, initially, relies upon a 30mm "rifle" and it's reinforced fists for combat. To use the rifle or to engage in combat with Beasts, Unit One needs to "erode" the A/O field of an enemy Beast, enough to engage it in combat.

While old and somewhat decrepit...it would form the first line of defense when the Beasts came back. And, it can be upgraded and the basis of the design is one of future giant robots...

Back To Idea #1...

I'm working again on Idea #1 (which, for future reference, will be graced with the title of-until further notice-of Our Worlds At War). There are three big concepts that I'm working on with it. These three concepts are tactical behaviors, experience control, and deformable battlefields.

Let's start with the first. Each unit has a type of tactical behavior, which is engaged by changing three sets of settings (or selecting a pre-defined "default" setting/macro). The first setting is Aggression-which can be set to one of three levels-aggressive (the unit will close to engage a target, getting as close as possible to use it's weapons), neutral (the unit will try to balance attack distance vs. range-trying to choose a range where it does as much damage as possible while at about half the unit's combat range), and cautious (the unit will try to keep a target at the maximum possible engagement range).

A second setting is vigor-how quickly a unit will engage a target. A unit can be hungry (where it will leap right off the bit and start following anything that it detects or targets), neutral (units will attack a target, or try to find a target within pre-determined norms-if it loses contact, it will try a short search, then stop), and full (units must be controlled to choose a target, and if they lose contact, they will stop and respond according to other rules).

The third and final rule is formation. We have a wide variety of formations, from lines to echelons to a circular formation. With these three choices, you have a wide variety of possible attack options. For example, a unit that is set for a neutral aggression, hungry vigor, and a circle formation will try to find a target, encircle it, and shoot it from every direction-with indirect fire units at various ranges with artillery and direct fire weapons trying to engage a target in a hull-down formation. Another set of units set for aggressive aggression, neutral vigor, and a echelon left formation will try to keep it's target on the left side, engaging them as close as humanly possible.

This set of rules will dictate a wide, wide range of reactions in units. And, it takes away a lot of the micro-management that quite a few games tend to indulge in.

A second factor, which relates to the first, is experience control. Call it "tactical intelligence" in games-if a unit encounters a unit that it has never seen before, it will engage in a sort of "poking" behavior, trying to make it do things such as attack, maneuver, escape, etc, etc. As it builds up a database of experience, it gets easier to engage and kill to hostile unit. Let's take an example-a group of human Strikers (tier 2 infantry) encounters a newly made Venusian Whisper (light, tier 1 recon vehicle). They will try to close with it, fire their weapons, and see how it responds. In game terms, the Strikers will not do as much damage, and will get closer than might be safe (Whispers have a secondary anti-infantry attack that only works at close range), etc, etc. However, as long as the fight continues, human units will learn how to engage the Whisper better-they won't get as close if they're infantry, armor will engage very well indeed...

And, this gets to our third factor-deformable battlefields. One thing that armor and infantry will do (our terrain is 3D), if they have defensive behaviors set, is to try and find a "hull down" position-where as little of their vehicle is showing to a potential target. But, if a weapon is powerful enough...it can shoot through dirt. Or sandbags. And, if you hit the ground with a powerful enough weapon, you can create a crater. Or your engineering unit can dig trenches and revetments for your equipment. There is a absolute "floor", but you can pretty much carve yourself all the way down to the bottom with enough explosives. Oh, and water flows into holes, too.

More ideas as my brain works on them.

Did I Not Threaten You With Idea #2?

I did, didn't I?

Idea #2 is another RTS idea, based around the idea of giant robots.

Once upon a time, actually around 1954 (the day after Godzilla is released in Japan, actually...), one of the first of the Beasts appears on the shore of Japan. Thirty feet tall, it takes just about everything the United States has to kill it, short of nuclear weapons.

Then, sometimes weekly, sometimes daily, more Beasts of the four big types come up from the water in the Pacific Ring of Fire...and a few of them take nuclear weapons to stop. Including one that surfaces between Seattle and Portland, and requires a nuke to stop. For nearly fifteen years, the Beasts attack. Humanity learns of the nature of what they call the Alpha/Omega (A/O) field, which serves both as a shield and as a way to "break the laws of physics" so that something like the Beast can actually exist. And, desperately, they build a mechanical generator (the Beasts are some kind of bio-mechanical organism) that can replicate the A/O effect. They build a prototype giant robot-Unit One-and place it in San Francisco to hopefully fend off the first attack (okay, there's a few more in Japan and up the rest of the West Coast, we are paying attention to the San Francisco one).

They wait for an attack...and it never, never happens. For forty years, the robots stand (okay, layed out on the ground to prevent stress to their frames) as almost black sheep in the fight against the Beasts. Some mild renovations of Unit One to make sure that it can actually function over the years. It becomes a joke, something to tell on the evening news about waste and such.

One day...a detector mounted near the Cliff House goes off...and the joke has to defend San Francisco against attack.

We're using San Francisco because it's a nice battlefield to use. Lots of nice, graphical property damage. It's also got a whole bunch of "in jokes" for various robot anime...and maybe some special guest stars (if we can get the licensing rights).

The game is based around two sections-a "base building" section, where you do research, build and improve your giant robots, train pilots, create the technology you need to make it easier to deploy your giant robots (early on, they have to be hauled to the battlefield location by truck-their batteries have a lifespan measured in minutes).

The second section is a tactical battlefield section, where you face off against a Beast with your giant robots, all commanded at your "command truck" (the game interface). Lots of explosions, lots of things happening that will make anybody go "oooh, ahhh".

More details as I keep thinking of them.

Back, and More RTS Concepts...

I've been incredibly busy, not the least of which has been doing the con writing for SiliCon 2008. Look for your Progress Reports in the mail, and the program book if you make it there.

Anyways, wanted to thank tabuxfix for letting me onto his website and various ideas, which are very nifty. Added him to my blog roll and wanted to say "Hi!".

So, more ideas on my RTS game idea#1 (#2 is coming soon...)-

Humans-

One of the big things about humans is that we tend to build stuff and we like a roof over our heads. And, that's where humans start. When the game starts, the first things that come through the teleport portal is a base core, and a Commander. Human equipment is hexagonal in it's design-and facilities are "docked" to each other and to the base core. One of our game conceits is that you have to have a side that is accessible to the "outside" to let vehicles deploy. But, you can move the bigger factory blocks around-you can undock them from where they are, they sprout tracks (or legs, maybe), and move....very slowly, but faster than building a new factory bit. The only exception is the air factory-all of our aircraft are VTOL-capable.

The base module and some of the secondary modules will mount weapons (that you can upgrade), and the game has four level of weapon upgrades for each unit. A specific turret module can be built independently, as well as a sensor module. These can be mounted and attached to a resource pool location (which lets these weapons fire a bit faster and repair their own damage a bit faster), or placed where you want them.

Oh, and Human units have a specific "scavenging" unit that dismantles enemy units to take the parts back home-to build things that work better than their enemies.

Martian-

Martians are like crabs. They bring their homes (their walkers) with them, everywhere they go. And, they really don't have a base...more like a "place to work". Transport vehicles haul materials to a central point, and a specific builder...pretty much dances and creates a unit. This central location can be destroyed if either side pretty much runs their ground units across the central glyph/location.

Resources are also hauled to the walkers, which uses the resources to grow, build modules to increase capabilities, and build secondary systems and modules. They can even build turrets that move very slowly, then settle in and engage hostile targets, both in the air and the ground.

Venusians-

Venusian forces really only build three (four?) kinds of units-troopers (basic soldiers), builders (basic building units), and a Scaffold. By combining the three, you can build base facilities and larger units and vehicles. Of course, you can build a finished unit rather than build the basic three and then collect them into a single unit...but, when it's destroyed, then units break up into their component troopers and builders.

Venusians tend to be sneaky and stealthy and fast. They are not going to be the fastest unit in the game (this is when the Mercurian units show up), but they have speed.