Im currently going about making an Isometric ninja fighting game. What I would like is that you would have a main guy that you control... yet have an army of ninjas you control, *somewhat* of starcraft style of controlling units is what Id like. Now the problem here is that even though you may have a main d00d, why would someone care about him if he has a whole army to control? My ideas is that perhaps you would have spells that are essential to your army... that isn't even the worst part, what should happen if you died? One of my ideas was that you have to have your army follow you, if you want to immediatly control them, and somehow be able to "program" units so they can gaurd properly using techniques you specify. Last note i should add in here, Ive been referring the units as an army, but you wouldn't be able to have as much units as other games... maybe like 30 or so. [edited by - thek00k on November 21, 2003 1:01:53 PM]

The game you''re thinking of is Warcraft 3.

You can "program" units in Warcraft 3?

" ''No one has control -- control is just a fantasy. And being human is difficult.'' "

Isometric Spaceninja

Some ideas about caring for the main character:
The main character could be a leader, far stronger than others and is in the front so you have to kick his as to go behind and even better if your ninjas can attack at a distance.

Also if their leader is dead morale would go down thus weaker oponents for them.

Just as the spell thingie you said, you could have something that no one else has that is imperative. It could be a bomb to blow up a base or a key to open a door...

Some toughts about the death of the main character:
If the main character is the player, then if the main character dies is game over, since then you would just watch at the fight and get bored? Maybe if your character is supposed to be stealty and avoid fights if posible and he has to get something from the enemy base that would solve the need to kick his ass and also if you are dead the mission fails. But making the main character have something that is needed and having him killed automaticly makes the fight useless so you could kill two birds with one stone.

And about the programming thing, in real battles the sides have plans and objectives. Have the units follow a plan and objectives, to reach a final goal (posibly just win the fight).

King Arthur''s World for the SNES had a feature something like this. It was more like Lemmings than Starcraft, but some principles apply. You could "build" units like archers, knights, and engineers, and they would fight and build bridges and what-have-you. King Arthur was always there, too, and he was worth five or six knights in a fight, but if he dies the game ends. So sometimes when things get hairy you send in the king to rescue your archers, but if he gets beaten, you''re hosed.

That''s the dynamic I imagine in this idea. I envision the "player character" being somehow better than anything else out there, or at least possessed of unique powers. So trigger-happy gung-ho players can lead every charge and hope to survive, but they''ll be in danger all the time. But even the cautious, micro-managing players who carefully build crack units to complete mission objective will on occasion be required to risk their main guy to get the job done.

Who was that character in the terran story of starcraft? The guy who was a texas ranger or something. I don''t remember his nome, but he was on one of those hoverbike things, and he wore white armot when he was on foot, and he was a nearly invincible soldier at that point in the game. He led a team into some enemy installation at one point, and it was just him and a dozen or so Marines. That was a sweet level. That''s what I think of when I read this thread.