Virtually indistinguishable from magic

 Z stands out. It comes from a time when command and conquer (following on from Dune 2) was busy setting the tone for RTS. Arguably until Ground Control again doing away with base building, and more modern touch points of the Dawn of War game bringing it solidly into the collective consciousness. These comparisons have already been made in the "have you played" series on RPS in "have you played... Z" The above is a simple comparison making exercise, cherry picking examples of popular games, ignoring the melange of RTS ideas at the time and those ideas inherited from the board game or war game worlds. The prevailing narratives about which game first introduced what mechanic lack nuance and are most likely false. Like the histories of many other fields. My own comparison is between Z and Men of War.  I feel that the micro in Z resembles the randomness of Men of War quite closely. Several light tanks can sometimes destroy a medium, or just as well not. Moments of Heroi...

 The lack of closure on my older ideas means they take up more headspace than they should. Even a small illustration that can be viewed as a "complete"work will convey the original idea and is better than a half finished thing on GitHub "Kill Your Darlings" is something I've heard this expressed as

No one will pay for your lucid dreams but you can show other people something beautiful you have seen

 Most games are made by groups of people. If you need to act as if you are a group of people you'll need to find (buy) products acting like the  virtual output in a team. By buying others output you are put in an awkward position if you want full aesthetic (assets) or functional (code) control. Leaving slack for this is good. Ultimately I'm not even convinced by the opening as very large teams use unreal but I also find it very easy to get things done using it. But remembering that the act of coding is only one part of the process, and isn't the most rate limiting part, maybe pulls back this argument. As always the goal is to be achieving something and not spending time waiting on the computer - I don't have all day. I don't have the time that my employers have to absorb delays in my tooling. So what an I left with? GM 1.4? 2 is already too slow to navigate for my liking. I should consider modding,?