[javajosh]

Players of RTS games will note that this is why you have to build resource storage as well as extraction - storage functions as a "shock absorber" that saves you money in the long run. (A consumer credit line is, for example, a kind of virtual/worse type of storage that is, ironically, not even available unless you already have significant flow.)

[3pt14159]

Well, it's more that resource storage allows adaptivity rather than being a shock absorber, per se.

For example, in the fog of war or the early game we don't know if the enemy is teching, econo-expanding, or rushing. In the mid-game we know an attack is coming, but we're uncertain its unit composition. So in the early game we store some resources while we scout. If we see them teching we can dump everything into military expansion since they'll have neither the army nor the production to counter any attack. Same idea for mid-game: knights -> build pikeman, archers -> build knights.

If it were merely about shock absorption we may as well have dumped it all into walls, archers, and castles.

[Retric]

I would describe those as shocks. I may prefer to set money aside and then fix my car before it breaks down from a transmission issue or whatever, but I don’t know that it will be a problem. In the same way I would prefer to blind counter in an RTS, but I just don’t have that information.

[3pt14159]

Well, why not dump all the money into units then? Right? It's fundamentally about the adaptability not the defence depth.

[Retric]

It’s still about lack of information. Building random units in an RTS without information is like replacing random car parts, it might work but it’s likely to be wasteful.

Of course risk vs reward can still favor replacing parts early or building units / eco.

[SilasX]

Yeah, and there are a lot of horror stories about credit lines being cut off at exactly the times you need them. I remember one on a personal finance UK forum about someone who quit his job and was going to draw on his standing home equity line of credit to start a business but then had the request denied because "lol you don't have income anymore".