Rating: 
Summary: Good Book, Could Have Been Better
Review: I agree with everyone who said this book could have been much better. It is an average book until chapter 13, then it becomes a great book. If he had compressed some of the earlier chapters, he could have put in so much more. I would have given this book a rating of 4.5, but I rounded up.What this book is: This is an advanced book. It has tons of code snippets, and more ideas on how to expand and personalize the code. It has a few chapters that could be shorten or taken out completely, namely the first 8 chapters, except chapter 5. These chapters have a lot of ideas, but if you are familiar with games and/or programming, you already know a lot of it. Chapter 9 briefly describes DirectDraw, for more see a differant book (I have found Windows Game Programming for Dummies good), but it doesn't claim to be a DirectX tutorial either. Chapter 10 has some good stuff on drawing lines and rectangles, not used too much in RTS games though. Chapter 11 teaches font and text building, could have been better, but has a lot of good information in it. Chapter 12 puts 10 and 11 together in a single class for you. Could have been shortened but oh well. Chapter 13 describes how to load graphics and keep track of them. Chapter 14 has some very good stuff on blitting graphics to the screen. He teaches LLE compression which is one of the best ways to blit to the screen(compiled sprites are still a bit faster). Chapter 15 has a lot of good information on keeping track of animations. In chapter 16 He does a very good job of teaching landscape. He has a lot of good code examples, and suggestions on how we could add more to it. Chapter 17 is on the interface. Lots of good stuff in there. Chapters 18 and 19 talk about creatures and pathing. Good stuff. Chapter 20 is kind of an addon chapter. It describes DirectSound Overall, this is a very well written book by an author with a lot of experiance programming. I suggest buying it. Things i would have liked to see: More on DirectX,especially DDraw and DInput. Networking. Can you find some of this on the internet? Yes you can find some of it. I have found nothign on the internet that can compare to some of these chapters though. Buy it, its worth it.
Rating: 
Summary: A major disappointment.
Review: For months I had anticipated the release of this book. The description of this book led me to believe this would be the ultimate RTS programming guide. Before I proceed to give my comments on the book, I would like to state that I am not a beginning programmer. I have been programming in C++ for an excess of two years now and have been working with DirectX for at least one year. Because of the title being so specific, I figured this book was targeting intermediate-advanced *game* programmers (the chart on the back of the book agrees with me). I was disappointed though to find out that the author spends so much time describing simple things that any intermediate-advanced game programmer should already know. This includes describing what a Real Time Strategy game is, what elements make up a game, how to set up Visual C++ (what's this have to do with game programming?), etc. The title clearly states that the book deals with RTS games. One would only figure that the majority of the book would deal with things specific to this genre. Unfortunately, the first half of the book has nothing to do with RTS game programming. It's filled with DirectDraw code (some of which doesn't even function correctly). Speaking of code, the book is filled with it. This wouldn't be a bad thing if the code weren't so terrible. The author's coding style leaves very much to be desired, making examples difficult to follow and understand. Also, code is more often than not repeated later in the chapter or in the book. I imagine this was because the author felt the need to increase the number of pages of this book... It would have been very nice if the code in the book were compiled so that you could easily create a program using the library provided. What would have been even nicer, is if the author would have made a demonstration of his library in use. Even a very simple game would have sufficed. So much code given to you, but not even a description on how to use it. There is an upside to this book. Unfortunately, you don't find it until the 19th chapter (there are 20 chapters in all). The chapter on pathfinding is very good. However, most of the information provided can be found by doing a search on the internet. I am amazed that a book this poor would get so many great reviews. I suppose this is due to people giving reviews before they've read the book. If you have any game programming experience, you will find no real value in this book. If you have no game programming experience, don't buy this book - you will only find yourself confused and disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book, Not for beginners
Review: Well, I thought I would do my part and say to the people who wrote bad reviews about this book, first, this book doesnt teach DirectX, buy Inside DirectX for that, this book teaches RTS game programming USING DX6, it USES it, it doesnt TEACH it, there's a difference. This book covers every aspect of making an RTS game like Age of Empires or StarCraft. It's an excellent book, if you are very well versed in C++ and pretty good with DirectX this is an excellent book for you. This book is EXCELLENT, you just gotta be smart enough.
Rating: 
Summary: POOR BOOK!
Review: This Book Lacks! everything is theory, only a few but few chapters have resource stuff of using at your game programing but no examples and even bad coding. Anyway, for real game programmers go to another place!.
Rating:
Summary: NO EXAMPLE PROGRAMS! Not even a "Hello World" in DirectX
Review: "Real-Time Strategy Game Programming Using MS DirectX 6" does not live up to the promises made on the cover or the description of the book on the WordWare web site. "This innovative title includes step-by-step coding examples and designs..." First, it does not include any step-by-step instructions. The chapter on setting up Visual C++ for DirectgX does not even contain enough information to create a working, basic, generic DirectX program. I would have liked to be able to plot a pixel using DirectDraw as a bare minimum before trudging on with the more advanced features of RTS. However, the book does not even provide a working sample program covering the basics of DirectDraw. "Filled with working examples and highly detailed tutorials, this book is organized so that the programmer is directed toward the ultimate goal of developing a 2-D tile-based real-time strategy game." This is also a failed promise. The tutorials are open ended, and solve no particular problems! After reading half of this book, I realized that it doesn't contain any sample programs at all! It is not organized so that I can develop any kind of game, much less an advanced RTS game. Where are the examples? Why the need for a CD with only a measly 5MB of files? Where are all of these advanced DirectDraw tutorials? There are none, and I am extremely frustrated. I believed the synopsis on the back cover of the book, and I paid the extravagent $59 for this poor title. "The graphics engine developed by the author is uniquely targeted for advanced game developers." This is probably a correct statement. I would estimate that the likes of John Romero could make use of this book, having worked with Mickey Kawick, but not I. Not a single sample program would compile, and the book failed to mention exactly how to set up Visual C++ to solve this problem. At a bare minimum, the sample workspace files should have been set up correctly to compile the samples (few as they are). With no working examples, how am I supposed to test the things that I have learned in the book? The examples were not even compiled. This is inexcusible! How difficult would it have been to compile the sample programs and include an EXE so that the reader can see what the program is supposed to look like in the event that it will not compile? These issues are not even related to DirectX. The linker does not even get a chance to run, so the problem is not with my DirectX SDK, it is with the poorly-written sample projects. The so-called Alphabet Editor does not include a sample alphabet (why it is not called a "font" editor, I cannot imagine). Without even a single font included, must I start creating fonts myself from scratch? This tool is useless without an example. The tile system example also included no executable. Without the benefit of being able to compile the program, I am left with absolutely nothing after spending $59 on this book. This book was thrown together in a short time, and the library may be excellent, but I wouldn't know because I haven't seen it in action. The only revision to the book on the WordWare web site is a missing .CPP file, and this is not the issue with the compiler errors I encountered, so this file does not help. Recommendation: This book was written and sold at an extravagent price to garner attention and additional sales using the title mentioned, but is a poor game programming book. I have requested a refund from the publisher.
Rating:
Summary: Very poor book
Review: This book doesn't cover most interesting aspects of RTS programming, and it deals instead with the basic details of DirectX and Windows programming. Anything of interest, you can find on the web in more detail. It had potential for so much more! What a complete dissapointment. Save your money and spend it in something else.
Rating: 
Summary: Average.
Review: As someone down in the comment list have said, this is THE ONLY RTS book out there. And in my humble option, this is just an average book. The RTS subject is huge, and there are several places where the author only briefly mentioned (if not skipped, like networking) The first few chapters on software development are quite good. These chapters also talked about the design of the RTS game with might be useful for people who are starting (or thinking) about making an RTS game. (But the issue of game design is another book by itself.) But nonetheless, it does address most of the critical issues surrounding the design (except networking). The next few chapter then talk about DirectDraw and other graphics stuff. There are some good ideas and concept there. But I think those chapters could benefit from some rewritting. It turns out (at least for me), the last couple chapters gives me a better "feel" for RTS game (like landscape, units, some basic pathfinding etc). Overall, a good attempt in describe all the critical parts of a RTS game. Should you buy or not? Prob Yes.If you want to learn RTS programming. However, similar info is also available in the web, although in a more fragmented form. So if you can dish out $60, this book could be an average investment. (at least you save time searching in the web...) I sincerely hope there would be a better version of this book (not that this book is a total boom, I am sure Mickey Kawick could program around me in circle). But compare with the 3D graphics game arena, I think RTS programming books should deserve similar attention. And I am looking forward to see a great RTS programming book appear.
Rating: 
Summary: An excellent journey into the world of RTS game programming.
Review: Wonderful! This book gives you the foundation you need to begin experimenting with DirectX as well as good programming philosophy's. Very Zen. I've an entire library of game programming books and the largest detriment to retaining knowledge is a boring author; Hardly the case in this book.
Rating:
Summary: Inferior Editing, Poor Code
Review: I'm the one who said it looked promising, with caveats, andgave it 4 stars. Now I've read the entire book, some chapters twice. Itake it back. I am a real programmer and I expect a real programming book. I read these 5 star reviews, and wonder what programming those reviewers have done, or if they've read the book. In short, get the book only if you absolutely need an RTS programming book (because I believe this is the only one), are willing to overlook all its shortcomings, and can afford the expensive price.
Rating:
Summary: Reader from Texas: Excellent resource
Review: I have only had this book for little more than a week and I am enjoying it. The only problem with this book is that they author doesnt give enough code on certain ascpects. Other than that I like it so far.
| 
