XNA vs Unity for RTS Games

Question

I realize that Unity is a game engine and XNA is just a framework, but it seems like either platform could potentially work for this purpose.

Which platform has more support in the regard of built-in or community built code/open source projects related to RTS games?

I know that there is going to be a lot of scripting/programming involved either way but if I didn't have to worry about making my own fast and efficient collision detection, pathfinding algorithms, client/server networking (the more nitty gritty stuff), it would greatly speed up development and allow me to concentrate more on the gameplay and design.

Answer 1

If you really don't want to be messing with the nitty-gritty as you just said, use an engine.

Even though a lot of stuff is high-level in XNA compared to many other frameworks, you still are ultimately responsible for the code your game is running - down to the smallest nitty-gritty detail.

This really goes for any genre by the way.

However, people can write engines using XNA that attempt to take care of the nitty-gritty for you, just as something like Unity would.

In the way of Unity, since it's already an engine you can't really write one in it - but people still write helpful scripts that you can make use of. Doing a bit of poking around on UnityAnswers, there are plenty written with RTS's in mind: It'd be your job to integrate the ones you need within your Unity game.

So honestly it comes down to which option provides more/better resources for your purposes; hope I've gotten you started at least.

Answer 2

Unity is pretty much geared toward games that require a lot of "simulation" elements (physics, collision detection, independent entities). If you don't want to worry about all that stuff, Unity would be your best bet.