Oluseyi-
Intelligence is a hugely underrated and underused element in RTS games. As you said, all it really does it clear up a fog of war. But there''s really very little disinformation (although some units in some games can create illusory units), and there is very little done about the issue of communication.

Communication is one of the most important aspects of my game. The ability to control your units hinges on proper communication. Therefore there will be CommunicationToken objects. Every object in my game will probably inherit this object. This token essentially holds information which can be used by other objects. Every time you the player issues an order, a CommunicationToken is passed to the unit (or in my game, AI commanders). This allows for several things...none of them good. It allows for a breakdown in communications, or worse yet, a tampering with communications. Right now, games assume the player has a god-like control over units with no need for communication links. I personally think if you remove the god-like control from RTS games, it will be the single hugest step away from them...more so than removing click-fests or worrying about building military infrastructure with battles raging around.

As an intelligence operation, spies and EW teams will always be on the lookout to intercept or jam communications. Also disinformation can allow for the belief that units exist where they don''t. How so? Because CommunicationToken''s are a two way street, they allow for an output of information (orders) but they are also an input of information (adding to state awareness).

This also means that unit sensory abilities are vitally important. Not only should they be able to view an area of a map for you, but they should also have an ability to determine WHAT kind of units are out there. Just because a unit can see 1 mile radius around them doesn''t mean that they can tell the exact composition of the units.

Sandman-
About an interface, I don''t really think that should be TOO much of a problem. I think there are two main things to consider: what functions a unit possesses and what kinds of orders it can "understand". The latter depends very much on the former. Every unit should have a well declared though private access to its functions. Let''s say on a general level you have the following kinds of commands:

Attack
Defend
Retreat
Move
Formation
Regroup/resupply
Rally
Med-Evac
Comm Request (for support)
Comm Info (to relay information, like forward observers)

Think about what each command does....it calls a specialized function. You can then pass parameters to the function based on what exactly you want the unit to do. For example, in the Attack() function, you could pass a parameter for "cautious attack" or "all out assault". In Move(), you could pass waypoints as arguments as well as speed/stealthiness. In some specialized orders, it may in turn call other functions....like Comm Request, which in turn would call for an ARtillerBarrage function or something like that.

Some units may be unable to pass certain arguments to the functions depending on how specialized the parameter is in which case you can pass null.

So how will this look like on the GUI? WHen you select the unit or AI commander, it will pop-up an option for what commands you would like it to do. From here, a selection of parameters will pop up (or you could designate a keyboard combos to quicken things) to further define how the action is to proceed.

So what if a unit has specialized capabilities? OR it''s attack can''t work on certain kinds of enemies? In the first case, when you click on a unit to call it''s orders, the GUI event handler will query the unit''s Order interface, and then display which options are available. SO if a unit has a special function, it will appear. In the case of certain orders not working in certain situations, I suppose you could do a if/else check to verify if the action is possible and if it''s not, grey out the option.