quote: Original post by Voodoo4

How realistic is in an RTS to control small groups of troops in real time?

I mean to control your troops you have to either be a part of their squad or communicate with them with radio signals.

In most RTS''s you never take part in battles cause if you do you should also die like any soldier.

In games taking place in pre-scientific times radio communication is abscent.So the only way to control your squad at real time is to be with them.

Radio communication can only be used in modern times and even then you could just "chat" with them.You can''t see what they see.
So you can''t really have total control of them.

Now for more RTS''s these rules do not apply for the sake of gameplay and the player usaually takes the place of God that can be everywhere without been seen or touched!

I wonder if a game that follows the above rules could exist in the market of RTS''s.What''s your opinion?

Voodoo4

It would be good for an online RTS where everyone controlled their own armies. Everyone would have a target (you) and a balanced weakness (themself). Once again it all comes down to how its implemented if an enjoyable fashion. The idea has my vote!


I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Paul, you causing trouble while i''m away?

The RTS you seek might be out soon. Imagine an RPG turned RTS.. yes boys, it''s happened.. Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel! You''re favorite post-apocolyptic world is now avalible in a strategy game! It uses a "continuous turn-based" play style that has action points and all, but anyone can move anytime within the turn.. so you don''t have the problem like fallout 1 and 2 where you sit and wait for 30 things to attack you in a row.. it got old fast
They''ve fixed that and moved on. You control a team of 1-6 including the leader or main character. The game looks sweet as hell, and uses the fallout 2d isometric viewing style that is easy on the processor yet has nice 3d looks

As far as elements of strategy.. well.. take axis and allieds. TURN BASED. This is essential to strategy. Chess, checkers, EVERY real strategy game has turn based moves. I love fallout''s new continuous turn-based, meaning you can all move as much as you want until you run out, then you''ve got to wait. It adds a sort of "what should i do before he moves?" kinda air to it. Then you attack people the way you want to attack them, before they attack you.. instead of bang... bang... bang.. bang.. back and forth.. it''s bangbang.. bang.. bang.. bangbang! makes it much more exciting. This combined with scripts would be awesome. "attack strongest person" or "attack who i attack" kinda thing. Even adding a small "prep" time before each round, where no action is taking place, but you''re getting ready.. changing the AI around, or setting targets to fire at certain objects. Whoever preps fastest hits a lil button which then notifies the other side that they''ve got like 10 seconds before the round begins. That way you have to think and move fast and try to get everything done before the other guy, to force him to mess up WHEEEE i''m a stinker!

J

Back to the mining issue. What if you just set your worker to gather resources and the computer would decide what he/she should do. If you''re currently consuming much tree - and is low on that very resource - more workers would be assigned to chopping trees. Of course it''s a problem where they would get the resources from, if it''s really bad they could run off to the enemy camp . Or perhaps doing it as in Caesar III. You have x plebs and you assign y to perform one certain task and z to do another one such as mine gold or chop trees.

"Paranoia is the belief in a hidden order behind the visible." - Anonymous

Heres something i was thinking of for an rts. Miners are also agriculturlists. That is, they can be told to take or the can be told to reproduce the reasources. Basically they could be told to knock trees down or plant new ones.

Better yet, create an automated system from the in-game options and set miners take/reproduce on a slid bar percentage.

I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!

what I want to see is another team based RTS, kinda like the original (and still the best!) X-Com or UFO to all those USA ppl... or something liek that...

There you didn''t actually manage anything when fighting, it was all done between sequences, same thing with Syndicate and syndicate wars...

Personally I reckon that would be a good way to play RTS''s, have a global map where you manage the resources and when two armies and such get togheter there''s a battle that you control in real time on the terrain, that would bring around plenty of strategy and tactics back to the game

oh and diplomacy and politics too

Dæmin
(Dominik Grabiec)
sdgrab@eisa.net.au

CyberPunk RPG
http://www.eisa.net.au/~sdgrab/index.html

I think the original Syndicate was engenious.

Too bad they don''t make games like that any more.

I personally would like to see a RTS with mining elements like HOMM II (I dunno about III, but i guess it''s the same). Just have your character take control of a mine, then you can leave and it will give you resources every 10 seconds or so, or maybe relate income speed to the nearest collection building. Obviously, opponents could easily take over these, just as you could easily take over theirs, so that may create another micro-management task to tick players off, but maybe not. Being able to build walls or other fortifications around your resources could be added, to where it would slow down your income (having to open and close gates, etc.) but it would also make it harder for opponents to take over.

Hey, I''ve got a new idea now...time to go home and type it up...

The size of the map must effect how many units that you will go for in the game. Yes? Unless you''re going to remove any or most collision detection. Or drastically reduce the size of military units on the map in order to make the map seem small and make it easier to select large amounts of units quicker. Which is where a lot of the problems lie in RTS games these days i belive.



I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!

quote: Original post by draqza

I personally would like to see a RTS with mining elements like HOMM II (I dunno about III, but i guess it''s the same). Just have your character take control of a mine, then you can leave and it will give you resources every 10 seconds or so, or maybe relate income speed to the nearest collection building. Obviously, opponents could easily take over these, just as you could easily take over theirs, so that may create another micro-management task to tick players off, but maybe not. Being able to build walls or other fortifications around your resources could be added, to where it would slow down your income (having to open and close gates, etc.) but it would also make it harder for opponents to take over.

I must admit, I do like the ideal of being able to take over the opponents good/resources and this sounds like a good ideal. I base it on the old TB game Empire. In this game you took over cities... each city had value and a list of weapons that could be manufactured in them (based on location). I don''t think this kind of MM would be a pain. It would increase the ammount of strategy in the game.... instead of thinking "I need more _____" your thinking would be. "Where should I place these units to best defend my factory." I''m not one of those hard core wargamers who sit over a hex board planning strategy and at the same time I''ve grow a bit tired of the MM in all RTS games to date. This is a step in the right direction... in fact, all this talk about RTSs is getting me pumped to complete the one that was started by myself and a few other guys back in ''97 (the company folded after 18 months and at the time C&C and C&C:RA where really the only ones on the market. We had planned to remove much of the tedius MM that were in those games.... Hmmm where did I put those design docs....

quote:
Hey, I''ve got a new idea now...time to go home and type it up...

What your not going to share with us???




Dave "Dak Lozar" Loeser

But there has to be better ways to control units. I''m going to listen to some music now and hopfully come up with some brilliant idea for controlling units in some new remote friendly fashion.

I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!