Doolwind-
Actually, the beauty of my system is that you can design your own organizational structure You want to play with a 30man platoon, great...but maybe you''d like to play with a Russian 40man platoon instead. Maybe you''d like to have a battalion with organic fire support (i.e., you don''t have to request it...it''s yours at the battalion level). Or maybe you want companies to have an integral 82mm mortar team. If that''s what you want that''s what you get. Maybe you want a platoon to have 2 rifle squads, one squad support team, and one EW team. It''s all up to you.

So the beauty and the fun is in creating your organized units (I call them OU''s for short). So not every company is going to be made of them same constituent units. FOr that matter, you don''t even have to go by platoon/company/battalion/regiment/brigade/division/corps/army thing if you don''t want.

Maybe you can set it up like, cohort/maniple/legion/phalanx if you want. Again, how you organize is up to you. The biggest disadvantage to this is the time required to build your army....but I have a feeling that if most players are like Games Workshop players, then half the fun is designing your army.

Have you played Ground Control? It''s actually pretty similar to what you are describing, although it does give you a (limited) choice of units (you get predefined basic squad types that can then be customized)


- JQ
Full Speed Games. Period.

I played a demo of ground control and I thought it was pretty interesting...that and Kohan.

What I''m really wondering how to do though is how to graphically represent the units. It''s easy enough to just abstract things and say one infantry icon equals say, 7-10men, and one vehicle represents 4....but what happens when you have mixed units?

The other diffucult part will be in determining the building blocks to create your units. I''m not sure I want a player to create his own vehicle, but I think he should be able to take a stock vehicle and tweak it with some options. Ditto for infantry types, artillery, aircraft, etc.

For example:
Base infantry-classes
Marine
Airborne
Recon
Mechanized
Air Mobile

Armaments-
Light
Heavy
Support

Specialists-
EW team
FO team
Communications Operator
Medic

Troop Quality-
Rabble
Green
Regulars
Veteran
Elite
Mythic

As for Vehicles the reason I''m not sure I want players to create them from scratch is the sense of history behind the country, not to mention logistical factors. That''s something else I don''t want to see. The other problem is the model design...how do you graphically represent your vehicle with stock game art? I could easily make some some sort of add-on that lets you import your own Gmax models or something I suppose.


But no matter how I do it, I just want to be able to have players think about the organizational detail that goes into battle planning. Also, It''s going to be a little more like Shogun or Medieval Total War in the scale of battle. Really, I don''t forsee a player in my game having more than about 20-30 controllable units in the game, although each of these units may in turn be further subdivided into smaller units.

Warhammer: Shadow Of The Horned Rat uses the following mold:

1) Start with limited amount of units
2) Eliminate other side''s armed forces
3) Replace dead units after battle if possible
4) Manage money while building and maintaining army

The beauty of this system is that you build your army before and after battle: you decide what units you want to enlist with your limited amount of money. As there is a max number of units you can use per battle, once you have more units than that max number you will have to choose which units will be best for that particular battle and use only those.

Dauntless, is the system you are aiming for to be used in your futuristic Earth setting (colonies in orbit around Earth)?

I''m a big fan of the Games Workshop approach to warfare, but would love to see more continuity, in that I want to be able to make a choice now, that will have an effect on decisions I have to make in the future. (Warhammer is a great game, but I didn''t feel like I could make enough choices. The sequel, Dark Omen, let me make even fewer choices)

"I have this army now, but I want to adjust it by adding unit X. In order to create unit X I first have to create factory Y and get all the required resources. This process will take time, and I am under attack. Instead of trying to get my hands on unit X, I could also just use the resources I have to produce unit Y, for which a factory is already in place. Creating unit Y would require only a week where creating unit X would take four weeks. Do I need unit Y to defend my base NOW, or can I do with what I''ve got now and start building unit X in order to greatly increase the strength of my army four weeks from now?"

Silvermyst-
Yeah, the game I am designing is for use with my sci-fi background. Actually I''ve fleshed out a lot more of the game world, but I haven''t had time to put it up on my homepage yet, maybe in the next few days I will. If you don''t have the link here it is. I''ll be switching it to another service provider pretty soon, but I''ll update that when I cross that bridge.

I''ve admired Games Workshop for the amount of detail they put into their games...not so much the technical aspect of gameplay but the voluminous background they give to the various races and units. But, the main reason I''ve never played GW games is due to their points based system of play. I don''t like the concept of having points armies that much, since I believe it detracts from coming up with good scenarios.

Points based systems are good for a beginning, but thereafter, you should rely upon your country''s resources (instead of arbitrarily getting X amount of points to spend) to generate new units and replenish war casualties.

Another thing that''s bothered me about RTS games is the lack of a context for why sides are fighting in the first place. Usually it boils down to either a) this is an aliean race bent on my destruction, so I have to destroy them first or b) these are my sworn enemies and I must destroy and sack their cities with no mercy.

I think that by adjusting the rationale behind the war, you can introduce some interesting game play. In my game background, what you really have is a civil war. And in civil war''s, it''s not a good idea to run around and destroy your opponent''s cities, since really, you are just going to have to go in and rebuild them...not to mention that you don''t want to piss off the people so bad that they will never forgive you.

Hey all,

I feel like intruding, but I hope I''m not. Just speaking as a rts gammer, I would like to express my thoughts on this subject.

My friend and I both really like all of Blizzard''s rts games, and have had many discussions about modding them etc, so we have thought about unit ideas and stuff like that. My friend, who also plays almost every other game known, wants everything to be as real as possible.. he want''s a retreat button that makes the units go back to base, but he also wants the guy in front to coverfire, while the guys in the back catch up. To me, while this would be an interesting feature, making a game "too" realistic, takes away the "game" part of it. Game''s are supposed to be fun. Games, while having strategy, should not take 2 weeks to prepare for battle. They should not have too many factors, making the player calculate the battle to a fine detail. Games should be non-linear, random, and exciting. Sure there is a limit on how random you can get, as with how non-linear you can get, but there is still that factor involved, and instead of having a pre-defined army, you can create your own personal army. Sure the "pizza-style-ordering" isn''t extremely realistic, but it''s just something to control unit production. When i read your post, I invision this take-turn battle, one guy fires, the next guy fires. Hold on, that shot wasn''t expected so let me go back to the drawing board for a moment. Two weeks later.. okay.. continue....

I might be totally off, but thats the way it seems to be to me. I really like warcraft, and sure, the graphics are cartoony, it would never happen in real life, but its a game. It''s entertainment. In the past, entertainment has not meant real life. It''s meant an escape from real life. Perhaps this is not what you intend to do. But when I play a game, I want an experience, not a lesson in management.


Just my opinion. PS: some of my misjugements may be due to the fact that i didn''t really want to read most of the stuff guys wrote cause it bored me to death. No offence, but your idea of a game like taht seems really really boring. maybe I''m just not the type of person that likes those games. Good luck with it, anyway.

- Fuzztrek

fuzztrek-
No offense taken I tend to create really long posts here and I know it can get boring to those not interested. But I think you really just illustrated a point....pardon the reference as I don't mean it to be derogatory, but I think you have an attention span that requires lots of stimulation whereas your friend wants something mroe indepth that requires more concentration.

The reason I want to create a game that I've described above is because....no one's really done it outside of a few hard core grognard wargames. There really are no games that factor in controlling organized units, takes into consideration things like morale, leadership, logistics, etc etc. Since there aren't any games out there that in my opinion truly reflect many of the concerns that battlefield commanders face, I wanted to create such an interactive program.

What you think is boring because it's not as quick paced, your friend and I find more interesting. Look at flight sims for example. Some people like the meticulous attention to detail that is required to be an effective pilot, while others just want to grab the joystick and fly. Honestly, I consider my "game" to be more akin to a warfare simulator than a game....but a simulator with a storyline.

EDIT-
oops, forgot to put this in here....I envision the game to be a hybrid turn/RT system where you have planning phases lasting say 2-5 minutes. You then give orders to all of your troops. Once the planning phase is over, everything happens in real time. You as the player can then try to alter the actions of your troops, but unlike RTS games that are out now, it is neither instantaeous nor guaranteed. This is to represent the flow of battle...when a commander realizes realizes his opponent has done something he had not forseen and tries to react to it.

Also, not explained in this post is the concept of issuing orders, and having intelligent autonmous agents (whom I lump as "commanders") who in essence actually do the controlling of the units. Depending on the hierarchy of command, when you pick a commander, he will have various units he can control and have methods specific to his rank, and methods that all commanders have in common (for example move(), and attack(), but his move() function might be a virtual function that allows him to use a slightly different parameter to move a whole company at a time, rather than just one platon).

So the bottomline is that as a player, your main interface to the game is really not the units themselves, but rather their officers/commanders. This will allow the player to control much larger units without resorting to click fests. The variety will come from selecting what kind of orders to give to your officers and also from trying to change orders mid course.

Haven't you ever wanted to just sit back and watch your battle unfold without having to click on a bajillion things at once? In a lot of ways, I see my game as being almost movie-like....watching your units carry out their orders and watching the battle unfold....rather than having your attention constantly scattered.

[edited by - Dauntless on September 13, 2002 12:18:26 PM]

FUZZTREK wrote:

quote: Games, while having strategy, should not take 2 weeks to prepare for battle.

Ah, but they should give me the option of preparing 2 weeks for battle.

A perfect system allows for a user to get right into the action OR prepare himself as long as he wants before getting into the action.

I think fuzztrek brings up a good point. I think there are two camps of gamers...those that want a totally random, totally freeform style of play, and those that want a linear (albeit perhaps with forking branches) and directed style of play with a storyline.

I definitely fall into the latter. To me, the former is like a sport, it''s basically a set of rules, but you just play for the sake of playing. Maybe you can learn about sportsmanship and tweak your skills...but in the end, it''s just a sport...just a game.

With the latter approach, what you are areally doing is telling a story. Yes, the replay value is not as significnt, but you are really giving the player an experience...something to chew and digest, or fantasize and escape with. I personally have never been moved while watching a sport (though I''ve seen some amazing plays) but I have been moved by stories.

But here I think is the ultimate reason I prefer a story based, linear game to a freeform one....you can always make a linear game freeform, but you can''t make freeform into a story. For example, with my game, I can just create random units and not have a campaign setting, you just play individual battles. But if all you have is the play by the seat of your pants approach....you can''t really create a story out of it nor give it direction (unless you make a mod of course).

Actually, I don''t consider myself to have a very small attention span. The ironic thing is, my friend has an EXTREMELY small attention span. I think i have an average attention span.. I''m not saying take ALL the strategy out of a game, and I really don''t lik flight simulators or first person shooters. But the thing is, Silvermyst, it would be pretty stupid to encorporate both those options into a game. You''re splitting up your target audience, basically creating two games. I mean, i can play warcraft extremely strategically and take a few mintues before i do each thing, but if the other player isn''t doing the exact same thing, you''re dead in the water. I do agree that you need options.. but look at war3, the level editor lets you do all the things you wish the main game would do, and more. So you are including that option, but it''s not as simple as the click of a button. And I would think that people who want very strategic games that take a lot of planning would like this much control.

I don''t mean to be putting people''s opinions down, and I hope i don''t come off as the guy think''s he''s right and everyone else is wrong (i don''t feel that way at ALL), but I just think that you can''t take too much away from a game, or add too much to a game. For instance, some games offer you everything, 500 supply limit, boundless exploration, a million different tech paths a hundred units and 15 resources. Too me that is not fun. That is the perfect example of a horrid rts. Then they''re are the games that are way too simplistic. You have a fixed tech tree, not very many units, not very many resources, and you play the exact same game over and over and over again. Another example of a horrid rts. Falling somewhere in the middle i think is one of the hardest things to do as a game designer.

I''m almost positive i''m not addressing the real thing all u guys are talking about since i just skimmed the posts. Another thing: Programmers should not design games. And: I am a programmer. So what do I know ? =)

- Fuzztrek