Introduction
Welcome to this thread, here I will be compiling a bunch of various real world military theory articles and than applying them to the real time strategy game world. I would like to get these together before AOE3 comes out so we can have a head start on strategies. Either if you would like to give a link to an article or if you want to annotate an article, meaning applying it to the RTS genre than please do so. The reasons that I am doing this are two fold. First I hope that with these real world military articles lower rated people will be able to improve their gameplay. Many of these guides layout it simple terms the complex concepts of RTS games. While many of them do not apply directly they will still give some of the basics needed. Second I hope that with this some new strategies will arise. Personlly I have read things like this for a long time and it is just intriging to me when you read about some strategy in a book and than try it in the game, and it works well. So please enjoy and contribute!

Here construction note, I think this is to long so im gunna edit out the text and put links in instead.

Abbreviations
Here are some commonly used military theory and real time strategy gaming terms that you might want to know before you go through the following articles.

Rush- An early attack aimed at slowing the enemy down and giving the advantage to the rusher, sacrifices economy for military. Weak vs. a Turtle, Strong vs. a Boom.
Boom- An economic strategy aimed at expanding economically in an exponential rate and with the resulting gigantic economy than sending masses of troops at the enemy. Effective against the turtle and ineffective vs. the rush.
Turtle- A defensive strategy wherein the player builds military units early on but uses them in defense in such a way that they gain the greatest cost-efficiency. Some turtle’s relay on defensive structures and base layout as well. To be effective a turtle must than be followed up by what I call a snapping turtle strategy, or aka a counter attack to gain map control. Effective vs. the rush by ineffective vs. the boom.
Defense- When one tries not to loose things.
Offense- When one tries to make the enemy loose things.
Micro- aka micromanagement, a small scope management of the game, generally moving units and controlling them to do things.

EMicro- Economic micromanagement, managing your economy on a small scale
MMicro- Military micromanagement, managing your military on a small scale, IE retreating weak units, force firing, formations, realignment of battle orders to allow counters to work properly, or hit and run attacks.
Macro- aka macro management, a large scope management of the game, for instance keeping up unit production, expanding your base, deciding the generals strategy to go in. This also can be divided into EMacro and MMacro.
MeatShield- Units used in front of weaker units to defend. IE Pikemen guarding a cannon or archer battalion.

Links
Here are some great sites for guides.

Bellum.nu
US Military Field Manuals

Artilces
Please note if the link says annoted there will be some additional thoughts on it below.

FM 7-8
-----From the United States Militart Field Manauls, Relates to RTS's in topics on MMicro, and Leadership, Good read. Annoted by Mokon
BLITZKRIEG
-----From the Bellum.nu, An interesting overview of the blitzkrieg.
The Art of War
-----From the Bellum.nu, The old classic by Sun Tzu

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----------------------Annotations----------------------
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FM 7-8 Excepts attained from globalsecurity.org. 8 Sections

Quoted from 1-2:

a. Maneuver - Notice position of advantage, IE Chokepoints. Maneuver realtes to RTS's in that it is raids on the economy and on weak units in the back and just overall movement on the battlefield.
b. Firepower- Forcefiring in RTS's. Notice the quote "combine fire with maneuver", think of hit and run attacks. Also "identify the most critical targets quickly and direct fires onto them", IE firing at the units with spalsh damage.
c. Protection- Two quotes I like here are "conservation of the fighitng potenial", and "never permit the enemy to acquire an unexpected advantage". The first really is retreating injured units with MMicro, and the second relates to an overall important concept for experts. Also under (2) notice "always wants to set the time and place of battle". That is why in expert games you see much of the battles are more or less squables wherein quickly they both pull back. Only fight on your terms.
d. Leadership- Ah, this one is really interesting. Truly this quote "Leaders must know their profession, their soldiers, and the tools of war. Only this kind of leader can direct soldiers to do difficult tasks under dangerous and stressful conditions. " is one that comes to perfectly describe experts. They know the game they are in and they can do so in circumstance that are stressful (ok there life isn't threatened. ) and require quick thinking.

Quoted from 1.3-1.5:

Another good quote is that tidbit of the estimation process. While formulas are great games like this require speed as well as knowledge, therefore a good intuition is the best attribute you can have. Following that you have technical knowledge and mental aglity mentioned. Really thats the combination of build orders and yet that intuitve knowledge that the masters have.

Quoted from 1-6:

Quoted from 1.7:

Quoted from 1.8:

Thanx, Mokon

This is underconstruction so please bare with me.

[This message has been edited by Mokon (edited 07-01-2005 @ 01:09 PM).]