So I'm making my engine, and I'm wondering what to do with it. One thought I've been pondering is a D&D RTS. The basic plot I've worked out so far is that you are a deity exiled to your own demiplane. You have an avatar on the material plane, which is what you play the game as. If your avatar is destroyed, you are trapped in your demiplane forever: game over. The game consists of destroying other the avatars in the material plane, upon which you gain their portfolios, which consists of cleric domains and divine abilities. You win when you destroy the avatar of the king of the gods, gaining the divine abilities necessary to escape your exile. I'm thinking about how you control your units. It boils down to one of the following options. 1. You sense everything your avatar senses, and you directly control it. You sense everything your clerics sense, but you do not directly control them: you must pass commands via your avatar. 2. You sense everything your avatar senses, and you directly control it. You sense everything your clerics sense, and you can command them, although they can disobey you. 3. You sense everything in the field, unless an area or enemy unit is concealed by magical means. You control your avatar and can command your clerics. 4. You sense everything in the field, unless an area or enemy unit is concealed by magical means. You control your avatar and can command any of your units. I'm thinking I either choose one option and stick with it, change the option based upon the difficulty level, start with option 1 and offer the subsequent levels of control as gained divine abilities. What do you think?

I think the answer to this depends heavily on what kind of feel you're going for. If you want a strong sense of player identification then I think you want to limit the player's focus on other entities and give direct control over one unit. Seeing that unit constantly provokes self-identification.

OTOH, if you want a strong overall strategic feel, then you'll want more direct control over your subordinates. But this is at the cost of not necessarily identifying with your avatar, even if that avatar has awesome abilities (like the Core Commander in Total Annihilation, or hero units in Starcraft).

Should have a look at Sacrifice, in that game you directly control your wizard from the *edit* THIRD person perspective, he produces units, heals them, etc, etc. But you also control subordinates with him, can get pretty interesting.

[Edited by - Gyrthok on November 6, 2004 1:46:50 AM]

[nit picking]Actually, it was third-person perspective.[/nit picking]

I must say I didn't much like Sacrifice. As Wavinator remarked, having the game center around one character is a good idea if you want the player to invest in that character emotionally. But the wizard in Sacrifice was a void that you couldn't fill -- you had no direct control in how the character evolved.

I found the control system and the fixed point of view a hinderance to actually playing the game.

Having said that, the idea of having a single extremely powerful being at the helm of each faction, in the thick of the battle, is one I'm keen on.

I felt that the Commander in Total Annihilation was better in this regard. Because that's futuristic, it intuitively makes sense that the player would be able to see and control all of his units.

In Sacrifice, you mostly control summoned creatures. It's probably acceptable, I think, to be able to see and command summoned creatures. However, the game I'm thinking of isn't like that. Although you will be able to summon creatures, the kind of creatures you will be powerful enough to summon en masse won't be intelligent enough to do their own thing: you'll be ordering mercenaries and followers around, with whom it doesn't (in my mind) make sense for you to automatically have a telepathic link to them.

My bad, i meant third person. :D

hmmm.. Using the clerics as a form of local control seems like a good idea. Your avatar would be your all powerful unit, who could enter a village or such and convert townsfolk into clerics who beleive in you, which can then be used to command your forces when your avatar isn't around. These clerics would be atuned through faith to you in a similiar, but not nearly as powerful way as your Avatar is.

This kind of makes it a cross between option #3 and #4, you control all your units, but only because you have clerics around to do so when your Avatar isn't around to do it himself. If the clerics are killed, or your avatar isn't around, then your mercenaries would wander off and be uncontrolable, or be more difficult to control.