You could always look at the system for World in Flames, or any other games. Wargames are an amazing resource for ideas on the strategy games, since they''ve been around for a very long time and balance/realism has been tested nine ways from Sunday.

What I would suggest for a strategy game (not small unit tactics) is as follows:

The basic method for most strategy games is supply depots, with a certain supply range. You can upgrade the depot on range and supply volume (how many units it can supply). Enemy units adjacent to a supply line can disrupt the supplies and will always block supply lines by sitting in the way. Cities are always supply depots, so long as there is a valid path to the unit and you can damage the supply level of nearby units by damaging their supplying (nearest) city or depot.

Also consider railways and roads to be a supply path. By passing through a well developed road or a railway, you can extend the supply path by up to 50%. Damage the railway or road and that range can be reduced.

For pre-1960s strategy games, don''t allow airport supply for more than a very limited number of units, since the first major air resupply operation was Berlin. After that, airports could be considered a major supply source, though the supplies would have a major cost incurred if passed through an airport as opposed to the normal channels (ship, rail, road). Either way, you need a root source, such as oil fields, manufacturing facilities, farms, etc... and you have to be able to trace the path back to them. It wouldn''t be a bad idea to increase the monetary supply cost with each step required. Ships supply long range, but are lower cost for range, rails can supply medium range, but are moderate cost for range, roads have low supply range but allow flexibility. Ports cost the most to develop, rails moderate cost, roads are cheap to develop.

As for ''special items'', you''re better off having special units. In the military your artillery were special units, nukes are items only used by the highest level of command (president) and actually should be considered non-items. They can''t be commanded by a single commander and any commander using them without presidential order (not consent, ORDER) will quickly find himself up against a court martial and probably heading to the Hague Tribunal, if the US government doesn''t simply stick a needle in his arm (his commision terminated with extreme prejudice). If you want to give units special things, have exceptional leaders and leader experience. Maybe look at the rules for Squad Leader (a small unit tactics game). I know very little about it, but there is a general concensus that it has/had the highest level of realism for small unit combat of any game out there ever.

Anyway, this is more than I was planning on typing (as usual). Just some ideas.

The thing is, units in general don''t just pick up new weapons all over the place. Maybe they could steal them from dead enemy troops, or get them from a supply depot somewhere, but the reason most strategy games have different kinds of units is because they''re trained with a certain weapon and are most effective with it and also that if they are out on the battlefield, they''re not likely to come across a better gun just lying on the ground as in RPGs. Firstly with the training, yes the guy with the rifle probably can use grenades, but he''s not likely to be able to pick up a rocket launcher and just know how to use it. If he can, he probably can''t use it well. Secondly, aside from a friendly supply depot, the only other weapons to be found on a battlefield are the ones from dead enemies. Now even if a guy knows how to use a rocket launcher, he would still have trouble with an enemies rocket launcher unless they were the same model or something.

I would say that the best way to do it would be by squads. Each squad would have a radio, wirecutters, etc. somewhere in the squad. Then each squad could have an inventory, the size of which could shrink if men get killed. So there would be say 100 grenades if your squad had 20 men, but if 15 men die, now you could carry less, maybe only 40 (each men could carry more than the five he was outfitted with). Also, you could either have squads of different types (rocket, rifles, demolition) depending on their training. Perhaps you could pay to give squads more training, thus enabling them to use different weapons. The weapons themselves would only be available at a supply depot, from dead enemy soldiers. When your army moves foreward enough, you setup a new supply depot with a road connecting to the an old supply depot and then as long as you control the road (airport, river or whatever) that''s used to connect the supply depots, any supplys can be accessed from either depot. It depends on exactly how you want the game to work, but I think restricting the inventory to the squad level would make it much more manageable.

tj963

What you could do is mix your direct character based gameplay with some strategic abstract line drawing. What I mean is say your unit can carry X minutes worth of ammunition. Have this number represent how long the unit can be beyond supply lines. Then, have unit types dedicated to arranging supply lines. Sorta like having automatic units racing back and forth making sure everybody has bullets, allowing you to redirect your focus to the frontline and maintaining all of the supplyline waypoints. As for specialized items like grenades and fence cutters, you could go back with to normal inventory, and have the supply lines act as your master inventory, so if you drop off a grenade at the supply line north of the 138th, you can pick it up anywhere else you have supply lines running. The realism falls apart a bit, but the idea is that the player has one less thing to worry about, but one more thing he has control of.

-> Will Bubel
-> Machine wash cold, tumble dry.

*only read first couple posts*

The only problem I see with many of the ideas is the fact that(lets take starcraft for example) once my men leave my base, I never send them back. I even question if the system was set up for it, if I would return them. About the only thing that would convince me to do so would be:

1). If I had to because I would lose otherwise.
2). If I came across a LARGE supply of heavy guns that would allow me to crush my foe extra hard.
3). Well ok, I like inventories, and Items period where there usually are none. The fact remains that I like defense and speed more than offense in nearly every game there is(some games like armored core seem to lean towards offense no matter how hard you try otherwise)

Summary: I know its a game, and thus somewhat unrealistic, but any ground troop could use a rocket launcher, just with decreasing accuracy as they are less and less trained with it, you see where I am going with this, because I predicted that some units would be unable to equip stuff they should be able to, but might not irl or be able to in-game.

Jumping in late - haven''t read everything.

Don''t generals apply strategy differently than perusing a list of what every last man has? Isn''t war strategy about managing, directing and influencing large groups effectively through cooridnated effort and top down command?

It''s not about finding the man with the wirecutters. It''s about making sure the infrastructure is there which provides a man with a pair of wirecutters, provides a man who made sure a man had the wirecutters, and provides all of the communication channels to make sure the man who made sure the man with the wirecutters is doing his job so he can communicate back to the general that things are going as planned.

Wordy, eh?

Don''t build a game that allows you to micromanage wirecutters. Build a game that lets you macromanage hierarchies of command.

quote: Original post by solinear
The basic method for most strategy games is supply depots, with a certain supply range. You can upgrade the depot on range and supply volume (how many units it can supply). Enemy units adjacent to a supply line can disrupt the supplies and will always block supply lines by sitting in the way.

Thanks. The idea of supply depots and supply depot cutting is very much growing on me.

quote: Original post by tj963
I would say that the best way to do it would be by squads.

I''m starting to agree. The concepts of encumberance and simplification for duplicate items (100 grenades, for instance) actually scales well, and I can see combining this with the supply depot concept well.

quote: Original post by Inmate2993
What you could do is mix your direct character based gameplay with some strategic abstract line drawing. What I mean is say your unit can carry X minutes worth of ammunition. Have this number represent how long the unit can be beyond supply lines. Then, have unit types dedicated to arranging supply lines. Sorta like having automatic units racing back and forth making sure everybody has bullets, allowing you to redirect your focus to the frontline and maintaining all of the supplyline waypoints. As for specialized items like grenades and fence cutters, you could go back with to normal inventory, and have the supply lines act as your master inventory, so if you drop off a grenade at the supply line north of the 138th, you can pick it up anywhere else you have supply lines running. The realism falls apart a bit, but the idea is that the player has one less thing to worry about, but one more thing he has control of.

Hmmm... This solution I really like. And I can still use it with the squad level concept, as well as counter-supply line interdiction as well. Players could still pick new items and either outfit leaders, or the template soldiers with special items as well. I can also control some of the hairy detail level by limiting the number of supply depots, and this form of gameplay gives a potential boost to the strategic gameplay. This idea also scales really well if the number of "special items" don''t get out of hand.





--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...

quote: Original post by KingRuss
The only problem I see with many of the ideas is the fact that(lets take starcraft for example) once my men leave my base, I never send them back. I even question if the system was set up for it, if I would return them. About the only thing that would convince me to do so would be:

1). If I had to because I would lose otherwise.
2). If I came across a LARGE supply of heavy guns that would allow me to crush my foe extra hard.
3). Well ok, I like inventories, and Items period where there usually are none. The fact remains that I like defense and speed more than offense in nearly every game there is(some games like armored core seem to lean towards offense no matter how hard you try otherwise)

Well, the way I see it you'd have three options: You could use inflexible robots as in Total Annihilation and send them into the meat grinder (though you would have no factory and only a limited number). Or you could incur a consistent Reputation loss each battle by not bringing the people back (which would affect what missions you'd be offered, and the price per each soldier). Or you could avoid battle altogether (though that's not really an option for what we're talking about ).

quote:
Summary: I know its a game, and thus somewhat unrealistic, but any ground troop could use a rocket launcher, just with decreasing accuracy as they are less and less trained with it, you see where I am going with this, because I predicted that some units would be unable to equip stuff they should be able to, but might not irl or be able to in-game.

Agreed. My weapons are really only divided into 3 categories: small arms, heavy weapons, and combat vehicles. I think I'll be able to visually represent these guys and these categories of weapons, so that won't be too much of a problem.

quote: Original post by bishop_pass
Don't build a game that allows you to micromanage wirecutters. Build a game that lets you macromanage hierarchies of command.

I hear what you're saying, and am leaning toward the whole idea of supply depots, supply lines, and squads. But what I am going for is an action / strategy game with cRPG conventions that scale as you grow in capability. That means that I have to be true to the game's roots, and can not change the gameplay drastically at a certain phase.

If the player is used to walking around as a single individual, picking up things, and using them; and they can gain an increasing number of individuals in the course of their journey; then the gameplay has to remain consistent. If you're playing a cRPG that suddenly turns into a wargame, I think that's a bad genre blend. The two have to remain consistently blended from start to finish.


[edited by - Wavinator on August 13, 2002 1:39:52 AM]

quote: The idea of supply depots and supply depot cutting is very much growing on me.

You can get the rules (and a board) for World in Flames from:

http://www.a-d-g.com.au

Then you download their computer game (it''s not finished yet, but it gives you a map to look at for reference and it is about 95% done) at:

http://www.marinacci.com/Chris

This will give you an idea of what I''m talking about for supply. I don''t think that the supply is perfect, I''d like to see it much more detailed (I really am the king of detail). However, it will give you some ideas and it''s a working supply system.