quote:
If they are allowed to zoom out really far it would get hard to click on things, which would be frusterating and favor players with the ability to click on single pixels (not me). Plus the game gets uglier.

Actually, I would say it looks better. Up close, it''s much easier to see flaws in objects

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Whenever I see an old lady slip and fall on a wet sidewalk, my first instinct is to laugh. But then I think, what if I was an ant and she fell on me? Then it wouldn't seem quite so funny.

I have been considering a way around unit limitations and such, based on Force Commander''s implementation (which, incidently, I thought was crap, but it gave me an idea).

While the idea is somewhat unrealistic, it might solve mass armies and little control problems.

It goes sorta like this:

You make your units/buildings with ''battle credits'' I''ll call them this right now because I don''t have a better name.
Now, you can''t harvest/mine/absorb battle credits in the normal manner championed by RTS''s you have to earn them. You earn them by beating seven shades of shit into the opposition, and you earn them by doing it well. So if you have 5 men and the opposition has 10, for every man you kill you will get more battle credits than the opposition, because he/she is using defeat in detail, with very little skill.

OK, I hope that made sense.

It''s not perfect (far from it) and would probably be quite hard to implement; but I just thought I''d share it to see what you think.

Anybody?

-Mezz

This may be a bit off topic...
I would like to see a RTS that incorporated some elements of RP.
Such as keeping a squad throughout an entire campaing... individuals getting awards for valor etc... This would of course have to be squad based or platoon based to be realistic.
Hell, maybe someone has already done that????

Dave "Dak Lozar" Loeser

Does any of you ever played a table top wargame ?
I am especially thinking about Epic 40K or the tactical scale one Warhammer 40K. Epic 40K recreates battles with easily hundreds of units. The problem with the old system was that you would actually solve the fights between EACH units on the table, each unit having specific characteristics. This was absolutel unfriendly to the beginner, but excellent if you were into huge armies battling. Quite funnily, Starcraft recreated such battles ... and such stupid micromanagament (except that in Starcraft it''s real time).
Curiously, some 5 years ago, the guys at Games Workshop (they do all kind of Strategy table top games) decided that micromanagement sucked, that hundreds of stats for every vehicle and squad of soldiers was too much, and they went into a squadron scaled system. When a squadron of 10 tanks fights a squadron of 50 troopers, the dice rolling occurs between the two groups rather than each and every unit in it. And it''s damn playable.

for Mezz. In EPIC 40K, you buy companies of units (a company of tanks), then add support units (a squad of artillery tanks for support) etc etc. Each card costs credits. The players just decide on how much credits they want to spend on this battle.
This is a very cool system because you have to have some sort of strategy before the battle, choose your units accordingly, and according to an expected opposition (you only know what race your enemy is, and what the map is like, which is realistic, unless you want to simulate an ambush)

Anyway, I suppose I just wanted to say that micromanagement is DEAD a long time ago, and I''d like to know why on earth RTS are still using it !? Playing at squadron level makes more sense (does a commander have to say to every single unit what they are supposed to do on the battle field ?), is nicer (formations !), and allows huge battles to take place (for the same number of units that you had in a existing game, you have less to actually control since they are grouped, hence you can increase the total number of units)

Please please please, someone tell the RTS developer to play some tabletop wargames (not hexagonal ones!!!) before they do another one !

(I hated warcraft, I hated warcraft II, I found Starcraft abgsolutely well scripted with depressively dumb units, Homeworld gave me hope for the RTS, I praise Ground Control for at last reaching the playability of a table top game, and giving me even better sensations !)

youpla :-P

Fewer units suck! I see some games like Ground Control as not even RTS''s. They should be called Real Time Action of something else. Sure there''s a lot of strategy in the action parts but I need to build and control the economy too. This adds so much as you decide how defensive your city(s) will be,what kind of offence you want, how big the economy gets,etc. I think GC is awesome in it''s own right, it just pissed me off since I kept playing through the level''s wondering when the hell they were gonna let me build a 3D city. When I figured out you couldn''t, I lost interest. The camera control and graphics are great though.

As for micromanagement I can''t see a way to program around that.
How often will 50 guys vs 10 tanks happen? It will usually always be different with different combinations, such as 3 tanks, 2 fighter planes, 10 gunman, 25 droids vs another mixed party. Also each guy is attacking a certain enemy, so in reality a big battle is really a bounch of 1 on 1''s or 2 or 3 on 1''s going on at the same time.

I don''t want fewer units !!! I want more, hundreds of them. My point being that micromanagement is :
Unrealistic . When have you heard of a commander having to tell every single trooper what to do on the battle field, having to tell civilians to retreat and look for cover when they get attacked, and so on and so forth.
Annoying . Infantry goes with infantry, cavalry with their horses, artillery at the back ... you don''t have a mixed salad of soldiers running around a battlefield. Disorder brings confusion on the battlefield, and it''s the seed for defeat (if morale is correctly implemented, even more so). I don''t remember winning a battle where I just threw my forces relentlessly at the face of the enemy in mixed proportions and hoped it would work. (Tank rush is just ... pfff ... shamefully unoriginal) Or you play Orks Yeah ! I Love Orks !!!

The natural progression of grouping is to use squad based controls ! When do you need to have a single tank moving around ? Or a single soldier ? If you do, it''s probably a special unit, such as a sniper, which is then a squad of its own... the unit level control is just obsolete and innefective.
But please proove me wrong.

As for Battle Ground being strategic, I agree it''s not. It''s tactics. Strategic would be ... mmm ... resource management is a sort of strategy, but you don''t do strategy on the battle field ! Strategy is done on a war level.
Shogun : Total War is jsut the kind of game I have been waiting for (though I can''t play it due to my machine''s specs)
You have a map where you move your troops (your armies that is) and you do Diplomacy, Research, Resources management.
When armies clashes, you move to the Tactical vieww where the battle field and all your troops are fighting...

If you remember Syndicate (how many years since this game was out ???). Just imagine that instead of arming a squad of 4 guys, you are arming a whole army, just like in Ground Battle. Or if you want to see it the other way around, I think it''s a shame that Ground Control doesn''t seem to implement a strategic level (though I can''t say for sure, I don''t have the game, only the demo).

When I can play battles as epic as the ones we had on my lounge carpet some years ago, I''ll know I have found THE game

youpla :-P

Well, here''s my speel on what should be in a RTS (which I happen to be working on).

1. Lot''s of units. I like seeing all sorts of things going on at once. How many battles involve a handfull of units. This is war, not a pit fight. Along with this though, RTS games should have a better unit flow. Instead of clicking a unit (or group of units) and pointing to an enemy to kill that enemy, units should be given objectives. Things like, infiltrate enemy base, locate radar station while staying hidden, and set explosive charges, return to base when done. In turn, the enemy needs units to be setup to guard areas against such attacks.

2. Economics. RTS games never get this right. I want to build an army and fight, not farm a crop. Why can''t the computer control all economics. Have a set number of resource collectors (farms, mines, etc.) and let the computer do all the work. As the military, you can set up taxes to collect part (or all) of these resources. Depending on your performance (low/high taxes, poor defence, etc), the quality and quantity of resources are controlled. The Sim City games have been doing this for years, and it works.

3. Realistic troops. Why does it take 3-6 shots from a tank to blow up a jeep? Come on, one hit and that jeep is sludge. At the same point, a guy with a machine gun isn''t going to do anything against a tank. RTS games would be much more interesting if unit abilities played a big part on how things happened.

Just my opinion.

borngamer


Man was born to game, we only work to pay for our toys!

I played all GW tabletop games (Battle, 40K, Epic) for years and ever since I''ve been waiting for someone to make a real good computer strategy game like them.

I agree with ahw that you should control groups of units and not units directly. I hate RTS-games just because they are so damn hard to control and that''s why my fantasy strategy game is going to be turn-based (and fully 3D). Maybe even I could like a RTS if there weren''t some many different units to be controlled. Still I like having huge armies.

My game also going to be squadron based to bring in some realism and difference to existing games. Squadron based controlling will make writing AI easier too, because it will have a kind of hierarchial AI system. One part of AI will be overall commander who gives orders to couple of lesser commanders who then give orders to squadron leaders and so on.

I''ll tell you more later if I decide really to do that.

-Ratsia

I definity think that all RTS have very bad combat engines behind them. Combat engines in RTS''s havn''t really evolved since C&C. This guy hits this thing and this thing always takes this much damage. Thats terrible!

I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!

quote: Original post by Paul Cunningham
This guy hits this thing and this thing always takes this much damage. Thats terrible!

Paper beats Stone, Stone beats SCissors, Scissors beats paper.
That''s what we have at the moment.
I won''t deny that it''s a bit true in a way, but it''s not THAT simplistic if you look at any decent army nowadays.

What about flanking maneuvers ? What about maneuvers at all ??

"alrigth, I select my ten tanks, and throw them at those little transports, that should do..."

Someone said earlier said that in Real Life (tm) a squad of soldiers has no chance against a tank.
I am sorry, but that''s a VERY naive statement.
A tank destroys a whole squad in a single shot *IF* they can align their damn gun with those units ! A tank CAN''t jsut turn on a spot a fast as a soldier can. A tank is generally weaker at the back. A tank will have difficulty with a fast and maneuvrable unit at short range. So if your squad can take cover in this tree line and ambush those tanks by behind ...
Or if a column of tanks crosses a canyon, Ambush ! Blast the first tank with a RPG, blast the last of the column... et voila ! Tanks on toast.

When I can do this can of things in a RTS ... mmmmh ...

youpla :-P