I like to think that I'm relatively smart.

I don't know if this is true, but I like to think it.

I have a pretty good understanding of what motivates people to do things, I can usually look at things I'd never really want to do and understand why someone else might.

But for the life of me, I will never understand what makes people think that tactical/strategy games are fun.

I liked Starcraft, but then, that game was beatable. It's like every developer looked at Starcraft, and then said, "Well, we'll do that. Only, we'll make it harder."

Warcraft III was just insane on some of the missions, and they made if complicated enough that the casual gamer isn't intimidated -- he's catatonic.

I tried playing C&C;: Generals. I got to mission seven before finding out that I could, in fact, fold a double-CD case (with both CDs in it!) in half, twice. I guess that means folded in quarters.

But I cannot fathom how someone can look at the mission I was on, and think, in any sense, that it would be fun to play. You have about seven units, and have to build a base. This is well and good, except your force is too weak to take out the enemy. And when you build a base, about the time you're ready to start building new units, you run out of money, and need to wait to make more.

The main problem with this mission is that the enemy is able to drop a rain of missiles that will destroy structures and vehicles, and then cause a toxic cloud to linger. All normal troops die instantly, and vehicles and buildings take damage over time. Now, the AI can do this every five minutes, and there's no defense against it. The game makes mention of a commando that only units with detection (I only have access to one, and it's unarmed) can spot. However, I never saw this commando, only an endless rain of missiles that destroyed every fortification I spent five minutes building, followed by a stream of about forty suicide troopers, tanks, biological weapon tractors, and so on.

I put up with it for a while, but trying to figure out what to do while constantly failing -- how is that rewarding to a player? I cannot believe that more than three or four people ever managed to beat that mission on their first try. I imagine that a significant number of people got through it on their third or fourth try.

Is this 'content'? "We'll make it so hard you continually have to start over. That's replay value!"?

I don't exactly want victory handed to me without effort -- where's a game without challenge, after all? But I also don't want the game to basically destroy me without giving me any idea what I'm doing wrong. If their clue is that I'm supposed to build a troop transport to detect the commando, well, someone failed here. Maybe it was me, for not knowing where to find this command to and kill it (I'm reasonably sure that the AI could build a new one anyway; the hero units the player gets aren't unique).

But realistically, as a consumer, this game was made for my entertainment. It failed to entertain me. So I'd like to say the failing is on the part of the developer.

And yet ... other people apparently enjoy this masochistic cycle.

I could understand if it were a game were cautious and careful planning yeilded a victory. I could see it if it were about learning optimizating and knowing exactly how quickly and efficiently to set up buildings and advance up the tech tree.

But it's not about those things.

It's about memorizing where the enemy stealth commando is and killing it -- at least, I assume so, anyway. I was never able to find it the first time, and so, could never assemble a strike force to try and take out the enemy. It may just be about sending out some kind of decoy to be killed by the missile rain of doom. But if it is, then that's not a satisfying gameplay mechanic to me ("You can't actually win. But you can lose less!"), and I can't see how it is to other people.

So, how DO people enjoy these games? The only thing I can think of is that the players of these games enjoy being stuck, and attaining their eventual victory after however few or many attempts it takes them to master it. But I get enough of THAT struggle in my real life -- why would I want to simulate it on my free time?

Is that all it is?

I guess I just don't have the patience for tactical games.