Thank you, thank you.

Some answers:

Quote: Original post by xor
Something in the line of Starcraft/Warcraft, but bigger!

You are my man! I like very much the huge 150+ armies in AOE but i also very much like the Starcraft graphics and units. For me Starcraft is a great game: it has a lot of strategy involving: cloacked units, spells, huge decoys like Ultralisk- not to mention the 3 different races that make a completely different strategy. But it is hard to make more than 60+ armies and the battles have medium speed- and most times you can tell the winner by taking a look at the units when the battle starts. Of course the spellcasters (Science Vessels, Defilers, and the GREAT Templars and Archons!) make big difference in a battle. AOE in the other hand has many strategies involved, a battle can take quite a long time and the winner is not defined but at the very end of the battle, not because of luck but of strategy. Also there are walls, fortifications, castles which i very much like! But no spellcasters or drummers: plain units fighting.

Quote: Original post by Grim
Quote #1:
The control system should be as automated as possible, but all the automation should be optional.
Quote #2:
All infantry should be able to walk through forests.
Quote #2:
...........
After all, which one would you choose: "phenomenal" or "mind-staggering"?
........

Grim: seems we have the same way of thinking. I am planning to spend much more time towards a good gameplay rather than finding new units, better models, better textures-not that i will ignore those. Here are some ideas:

• Officers: There is going to be some kind of hierachy: Captains command the soldiers, Genereals command the Captains, Lords command the Generals and you... command the Lords. So the user can give objectives from Lords to soldiers for a task to be performed. Of course the higher the officer in hier. the less actions are needed by the user. Also Captains (,etc) are soldiers too (better of course than the average) (c+)PLUS the give a great advantage to the commanded soldiers for coordination etc. Of course there should be system to force the user to use the officers not for fighting but to have few and to put them to command (or else the user would use the officers as soldiers cause they are better fighters) ie they take much more training time, cost more, there must be a quantity of soldiers uncommanded so he has reason of existence (ie there must at most 1 captain for every 25 soldiers, 1 general for every 5 captains etc).
  
• Workers assignment: Workers will be assigned to specific jobs and there will be specific jobs requesting workers. Meaning: There would be ie woodcutters huts, building sites etc and the user will assign ie a group of workers to chop woods and also be available for building sites. Also every job will have a priority so that not 50 workers go to build a simple hut!
  
• Soldiers assignment: Like the above there will be jobs requesting soldiers: ie patrols, defence, scouting, regular(frequent) attacks etc. Again, there will be group of soldiers available for specific tasks: ie a group will be only available for patrol and defence, an other only for regualar attacks,etc.
  
• Stances, Formations, Comrades-support: The usual:attack, defence etc stances and line,square,etc formations. Comrades support? Big shielded swordsmen will protect ther comrades archers from enemy archers by going in front of them and putting their shields providing a good defence bonus to the team. Also while soldier #1 fights soldier #2 soldier #3 will kill soldier #2 from the back to relief soldier #1.
  
• Pathfinding: There will be mainly three ways to go from one place to an other: the quickest(as usual), the safest(areas where enemies are frequently sighted will be mostly avoided) and a medium way:not too risky-not too slow.
  
• Forests: The forests will be passable -of course at the cost of speed- and soldiers can hide there and make ambushes, provide shelter (replenishing the health) etc. A good idea is setting a forest under fire(!) trapping the soldiers that are inside and usually... killing them! Plus haunted forests may kill/trap some of your soldiers! (- Did i mention about the existence of the Witchcraft race and Fairies of The Woods race? NO?!?!?!?)
  
• Selection with criteria: The user will be able to select soldiers by almost every attribute a unit has: weapon, skill, level, experience etc (of course selecting by the name of the unit (ie John Diggins) would be mostly silly ;-)). It is an idea previously presented by Madster
  
• Selection groups: Usualy there are 10 groups(Blizzards -craft, CAC series etc) or 9 groups (AOE DAMNED!). For me they are few. How about... 100? Or .......1000? Ok, ok dont hit me! For example a quit key hitting of 8, then 3 and then 9 would choose group(w.c.g.) #839, just a hit of 8 and 3 w.c.g. #83 etc. Also there will be super-groups meaning that a super-group has groups instead of units and as groups would be visible through a super-group so that to have 4 archer groups and 1 archer super-group. ALSO: Control+group: make a group, Shift+group/unit: add the selection to the already selection, Alt+Control/Shift+group/unit: super-group selection. The '~' would select nothing! Silly it may sound but in AOE you can have a no-selection but not in -crafts(really giving it to my nerves)! PLUS:infinitive selected units available! Why did -crafts allow only 12 units? and AOES 50-60?
  
• UD(user defined) Macros and stances: A user can define some macros: a group of workers make a small fort: wall, a castle, some farms, a barracks etc. Some archers get unhidden to attack to archers and swordsmen but not to mounted ones. And other...
  
  Thats all for now, i will come back...
  If you want to help me with 3D models or artwork OR know where to look or you know someone that wants please let me know! costasgr43@yahoo.com

Quote: Original post by Madster
Actually what Empire earth did to balance was nested rock-paper-scissors.
So within each class you have 3 subclasses. I believe it was only 2-level, but i only tried it, it could have more levels.

Still, rock-paper-scissors is rock-paper-scissors even if you put two thousand volts through it. Well, I admit that was a bit cynical, but rock-paper-scissors is the easy, non-imaginative way to balance the game. It just simply kills the immersion when the sampson unit, who has no (visible) armor survives the severe punishment of my row of towers while the maceman unit (who seem to have some sort of light cloth armor or something) dies very quickly in the same situation. Granted, the sampson is supposed to be used against the tower, but this shouldn't make him impervious to towers' fire.

(Another side note on Empire Earth, not directly related to rock-paper-scissors, but rather on archer accuracy: why is it that every time an archer or an arrow tower shoots at a moving target, it misses? I mean, each and every time? In a game we played with a friend of mine, he had a prophet running about, with a whole lot of archers constantly shooting at the prophet. The prophet survived for more than twenty minutes (real time), just because the archers can't shoot at moving targets — at all. The reason the prophet ultimately died was because he stopped and instantly became arrow fodder. Lame!)

Quote: Original post by Madster
Also, about heavy machine gun fire: Most people forget that this is a suppresion weapon. Its accuracy is horrible. It's supposed to make people run for cover and stay there. Using a heavy machine gun to kill a particular target is like lobbing grenades at him. They may hit, but thats not what they're really for (because as you know, grenades are mostly to flush out from cover sites)

Perhaps I worded my example badly. Of course the machine gun is not as accurate as a sniper rifle, but in this particular case that is a bit beside the point. The point is that even though the accuracy of the machine gun is bad, it shouldn't make the sniper impervious to the bullets that do hit him. In Empire Earth, if I have five heavy machine gunners one meter away shooting at the sniper, the sniper will win, just because he's the "rock" and the machine gunners are "scissors". That's simply ridiculous. One burst at one meter with a heavy machine gun and the sniper takes what, 10% damage? Come on! What are the machine gunners using for ammo, cigarette butts? Extending your analogy, even though covering the enemy with grenades is not the brightest idea in the world, it should work. Just because I shouldn't do something doesn't mean I couldn't. And it's not just the heavy machine gunners, but any infantry. If I have marines with rifles and what have you shooting at a sniper, he still prevails. What I'd like to see is a relation between the range and the accuracy (and thus the damage). And making the sniper constantly invisible is a lame way to model his skill at camouflage.

Of course balancing the game is important, but you shouldn't brake the immersion of the game by forcing the rock-paper-scissors-balance in it. Besides, rock-paper-scissors alone seldom works against rushing. A better way to balance against rushing would be to allow the defenders to dig in into good positions and get bonuses on defence values, range and damage. This way you couldn't just rush in, because you'd need a lot more units than the defenders have; instead, you'd have to find a weakness in the defence line and come up with a cunning plan to make use of it. You know, actually put the s in the rts?

The modern rts games I've played basically divide into two categories. Those with a somewhat more realistic combat system but very little in the way of resource collecting (e.g. Sudden Strike, Desert Rats vs. Afrika Korps; the problem with these two games is that they do not allow computer opponents in multiplayer, which sucks); and those with a mediocre resource collecting system but with a more or less naïve combat system (e.g. Age of Empires, Empire Earth). I'd really like to see a game with good resource management (a reason to expand) and a good combat system, with no priests (instant conversion), heroes (who must survive or you lose) etc. But now I'm starting to rave here, so I'll stop now.

One more thing... Honestly, should anyone want to make a game that is not just yet another AoE clone, pay heed to the forgotten strategy game subgenres and games such as the original Settlers. Its economy management system was superior to most modern rts games, by far, yet the gameplay was simple enough. Having total control over your workers shouldn't mean you have to control them all the time. Didn't like the combat system of Settlers, though.

Quote: Original post by costasgr43

• Officers: There is going to be some kind of hierachy: Captains command the soldiers, Genereals command the Captains, Lords command the Generals and you... command the Lords. So the user can give objectives from Lords to soldiers for a task to be performed. Of course the higher the officer in hier. the less actions are needed by the user. Also Captains (,etc) are soldiers too (better of course than the average) (c+)PLUS the give a great advantage to the commanded soldiers for coordination etc. Of course there should be system to force the user to use the officers not for fighting but to have few and to put them to command (or else the user would use the officers as soldiers cause they are better fighters) ie they take much more training time, cost more, there must be a quantity of soldiers uncommanded so he has reason of existence (ie there must at most 1 captain for every 25 soldiers, 1 general for every 5 captains etc).
  

Another idea concerning officers, even though not directly related to this... You could have spy units for infiltration. Spies would obey the player whose army they have infiltrated, but do all work worse. In combat, they would tend to miss a lot and never wound fatally a friendly unit. Now, as for what this has to do with officers, only officers could tell who are spies and who are not. This could be another way to motivate the players to use officers.

Quote: Original post by costasgr43

• Workers assignment: Workers will be assigned to specific jobs and there will be specific jobs requesting workers. Meaning: There would be ie woodcutters huts, building sites etc and the user will assign ie a group of workers to chop woods and also be available for building sites. Also every job will have a priority so that not 50 workers go to build a simple hut!
  

I'm not really commenting the actual worker assignment system here (which, by the way, sounds good), but the term woodcutter's hut is the key word here: I'd say all buildings should be more or less generic. What makes a hut specifically a woodcutter's hut? The woodcutter inside. Want to make it a weaponsmith's hut? Take the woodcutter out and bring the weaponsmith in. This transformation could take a bit of time (not necessarily resources, though). You see, I'm not all that keen on having to demolish perfectly good buildings when I need another type of building — that is, a building with different functionality inside — in the same place. There does not have to be really, architecturally, much difference between a woodcutter's hut and a weaponsmith's hut. A bit more detailed, but not really much longer rant of mine on this can be found in the thread

Resource Shuttling in RTS Games

Quote: Original post by costasgr43

• Soldiers assignment: Like the above there will be jobs requesting soldiers: ie patrols, defence, scouting, regular(frequent) attacks etc. Again, there will be group of soldiers available for specific tasks: ie a group will be only available for patrol and defence, an other only for regualar attacks,etc.
  

Also, I'd say soldier's should be able to build fortifications, dig trenches, whatever — or at least you should be able to train them to do that.

Quote: Original post by costasgr43

Selection groups: Usualy there are 10 groups(Blizzards -craft, CAC series etc) or 9 groups (AOE DAMNED!). For me they are few. How about... 100? Or .......1000? Ok, ok dont hit me! For example a quit key hitting of 8, then 3 and then 9 would choose group(w.c.g.) #839, just a hit of 8 and 3 w.c.g. #83 etc. Also there will be super-groups meaning that a super-group has groups instead of units and as groups would be visible through a super-group so that to have 4 archer groups and 1 archer super-group. ALSO: Control+group: make a group, Shift+group/unit: add the selection to the already selection, Alt+Control/Shift+group/unit: super-group selection. The '~' would select nothing! Silly it may sound but in AOE you can have a no-selection but not in -crafts(really giving it to my nerves)! PLUS:infinitive selected units available! Why did -crafts allow only 12 units? and AOES 50-60?

UD(user defined) Macros and stances: A user can define some macros: a group of workers make a small fort: wall, a castle, some farms, a barracks etc. Some archers get unhidden to attack to archers and swordsmen but not to mounted ones. And other...

Great ideas! Here's a couple of thoughts:

First of all, why limit this on number keys? I'd say all keys on the keyboard (maybe not esc or pause, however) should be configurable. Often the keys try to be mnemonic, such as "h" for "house", "b" for "barracks" etc. No!, I cry every time this happens. The game would serve me well if it allowed to re-assign them to be closer together. Heck, I don't even look at the keyboard when I use the hotkeys, so I don't care if "q" stands for "house" and "w" for "barracks". It's the position of the key that's important, not the letter on it. Having the ability to assign 1, 2, and 3 for my swordsmen and q, w, and e for my archers would indeed lessen the amount my hand has to (awkwardly) wander all over the number keys, always pressing the wrong number at desperate times.

Having the key-sequences you suggested would be an improvement on this. Making them user-definable would be also really neat. You could then configure the macros and stances to be activated on these key-sequences.

All you players who keep saying "I want a bigger army" go play Total Annihilation. I can handle 200 units in TA without breaking a sweat, and that's all individually controlled units - no unit grouping or squads or anything. Don't get me wrong, Starcraft is nice and everything, but for pure freedom of control and strategy you can't top TA.

Oh, and as for suppression fire and stuff - I think the earlier C&C games had that. The C&C units would lie down to become harder to hit when under fire, so mixing a few minigunners in with your troops were handy to keep enemy infantry pinned.

Z may have had it too, but I don't really remember.

Quote: Original post by Pxtl
Oh, and as for suppression fire and stuff - I think the earlier C&C games had that. The C&C units would lie down to become harder to hit when under fire, so mixing a few minigunners in with your troops were handy to keep enemy infantry pinned.

Whoa.... forgot about that! thats one of the things that made the original C&C so awesome.

to Grim:
Yeah, in a wargame rock-paper-scissor shouldn't be enforced 100%, they should be rather big bonifiers. Although it has been misused, the R-P-S balance is rather beautiful. You can't do it with 4 classes or more, and two makes it useless. I'd just say make it a bit tamer, and maybe not so direct.
the idea is making abilities that relate to each other, such that every one loses to one and wins to another.
Empire Earth had: Piercing, ranged and Melee.

Which is all good, until you realise Melee wins over ranged *always*
(the original idea is that melee units will win over ranged when close)
If you can come up with rules that always make sense, then that would be perfect. This balance is made this way to ensure that there are no über units (player rush of über unit = victory --> all players only rush that unit.... boring!)

For example, if the game is about magic you could have fire wind and water
fire burns wind
wind turns water to mist
water extinguishes fire

This is a rather lame example but thats the idea. Just pick the proper concepts. Layering makes it look deeper. If you try balancing without R-P-S.... its gonna take long. Blizzard long.

Another example, from C&C:
minigun punctures flamethrower (that was really fun)
flamethrower burns launcher (here's the weak spot.. they're assumed to be strong aganist misilles)
launcher disrupts minigun troops
And then you layer it with vehicles, like this:

big tanks squish foot soldiers
foot soldiers block small vehicles (weak spot)
small vehicles outrun big tanks

ad infinitum! (for a 3rd layer you'd need 3 kinds of each flamethrower foot soldier, foot minigun, etc.. probably too much)

Quote: Original post by Pxtl
All you players who keep saying "I want a bigger army" go play Total Annihilation. I can handle 200 units in TA without breaking a sweat, and that's all individually controlled units - no unit grouping or squads or anything. Don't get me wrong, Starcraft is nice and everything, but for pure freedom of control and strategy you can't top TA.

Cossacks divides an amount of 8000 unit slots equally to all players (and IIRC one unit takes one slot — none of that eight slots for one unit nonsense). I remember one game where the opponent built towers all around his town and trained a huge army. I just trained a few fast hussars and rode into his town, declared it mine (you can do that in Cossacks; if you leave your buildings unguarded, any military unit can declare them the property of his realm) and set the buildings on fire and slaughtered the villagers. Eventually he gave up. He had a much grander army, but I had guile [grin]. It was just great.

Apparently, American Conquest has an unit limit of 32,000 and Cossacks 2 a flabbergasting 64,000! Now that's what I might even start to consider calling epic.

Quote: Original post by Pxtl
Oh, and as for suppression fire and stuff - I think the earlier C&C games had that. The C&C units would lie down to become harder to hit when under fire, so mixing a few minigunners in with your troops were handy to keep enemy infantry pinned.

Yeah, that was great, and every now and then I do wonder why it is used in so few games. Still, it was a bit ridiculous to see the just lying down and not automatically run for cover. I'd say that all units should have degree of automation for running into cover of something like that. The player just shouldn't have to worry about every freakin' unit all the time.

Quote: Original post by Madster
Yeah, in a wargame rock-paper-scissor shouldn't be enforced 100%, they should be rather big bonifiers. Although it has been misused, the R-P-S balance is rather beautiful.

I agree that rock-paper-scissors isn't the root of all evil per se. The problem is the fact that it is often used regardless of the havoc it wreaks on the suspension of disbelief. 10 swordsmen beating 12 archers is believable, but having one swordsman beating 30+ archers every time is just plain silly. There should be an in-game explanation for such behaviour. (If you insist on having an textual explanation in the manual, it'd better be phenomenal.)

Thank you, thank you...
It seems Grim has taken it personally(in the good way)...
I will not answer now to the new posts, later...

About Realism:
In an RTS, a game generally, "reality" is not that real. A game's purpose is to "simulate" reality and to focus to the parts of reality we want. I have read in other forums (as suggested by Grim in this forum- not told by Grim- Grim though had some things said in the right way) about "viewing inside buildings", "a unit can see only 60 degrees" and other things. I think too many details that dont focus on STRATEGY reduces the game and makes it different: Commandos does these. The creator(s) have the freedom to do as much abstraction and to add as much fiction as they want. So, whatever is being done must have some particular purpose, you must be looking towards something: ie if you want to add more micro-management and economical management relief the player from the this-worker-to-this-building-to-this-desk-with-this-pen and give him more choices, with more potential ways to reach his target with increased posibility to make a mistake if not too carefull. Also IMPORTANT:dont have only 1 right way! Let there be different ways (meaning: force it) to achieve something. Dont let a stupid player that has practiced too much at the only correct strategy to beat an inteligent one. Force the user to be smart and to outsmart the other! It's a REAL TIME S-T-R-A-T-E-G-Y for gods sake!

About Resources:

1. Gathering:
   There will be the 4 classical +1 +1 resources:
   
   
   
   • food: for maintaining your villagers
     
   • gold: for maintaining your army
     
   • iron: for creating weapons, armors etc
     
   • wood: for creating weapons and small buildings
     
   • stone: for creating fortifications,castles etc and for bigger buildings
     
   • rare resources: rare resources that can be found around a map and can be used for some upgrades ie titanium could be used to make some very good armor.
     
   
   
   As you can see, there is reason for the existence of each resource.
   
   Each new trained unit will be created for free, but it will have an upkeep as the game goes on. If you fail to pay some soldiers (did you remember the CAC or Tropico (great-great-great-great-great game!) where if you needed ie 1000 wats and you had 999 everything was going out of order(it has happened in Tropico!)? You can select which will be payed and which will not) they will start losing their loyalty and when loyalty reaches a certain level they leave you forming small rebel armies that may even attack you! Of course you will be able to get them back or even your enemie's rebels- of course you will have to pay some increased cost...
   
   To catch up with the enormous resources that would be needed to pay all these upkeep the resources will be infinitive but if over exploited they will collapse. Explain yourself (you would say):
   
   Lets have an example: we have a size 2 gold mine that supports 5 workers with a maximum of 10, per-worker-extraction 5 units, renewal rate 25 units per extraction cycle (100% renewal) and 2500 total gold units. So if 5 or less gather there no problem, youll-be gathering for ever. But if 10 gather there the mine will collapse after 50 cycles-unless you stop it in the midway. But again if you cut-off 500 units from the mine (with over-exploiting it) it can not renew them so you will have now 2000 total gold units. This last thing would prevent from this loop:10 workers gather till 50 units are left-then 3 gather till it renews it resources-again 10 workers gather.......
   
   By this the army size will be depended to the size of the territory you occupy, forcing you to conquer more territories in order to make a bigger army.
   Resource gathering will be in the RONish (Rise Of Nations) way only that the cap limil will be dependent of the territory you occupy and will not be a +999 maximum limit.
   
   Also resources will be stored in warehouses with quite big storage room in comparison to the goods you use meaning that we do not focus to the space problem but to that fact that an enemy can steal your resources.
   An other option is to just leave them to the ground but,strangely indeed- who might be taking them?, they will start to getting reduced. This serve the purpose that if you get out of resources AND resource-gathering buildings you can still build up you city but not to be an option if you can afford to build warehouses.
   
   The reason of existence of the rare resources is that players (me very much) like bonuses and gifts and are very happy when randomly they get something good not expectinging it. (You cant imagine how much i enjoyed the beasts in WC3 because they where hiding so many different chests! I was destroying every little crate and hut just to find if there is some chest inside! Call me kid if you like but... you also play games... arent you too kids? ;-))
   
   Some ideas from the forum Resource Shuttling in RTS Games suggested by Grim.
   
   
2. Non gathering:
   
   
   
   • knowledge level: for new researches
     
   • favor level: for God favors to you
     
   
   
   Knowledge will be ie <universities> * 10 + 0.01 * <time those universities existed> forcing the player to increase its universities in order to increase researce rate but to have some bonus for the time he was reading ;-).
   
   Favor would be granted by the God each player selects if he selects one. So favor from a god of war will give +moral or +soldiers to a fight, for a god of nature +resource from time to time and some occasional bonuses. BUT! There will be an upkeep to have god and if you fail to fulfill your occasional god's requests you will be punished (think something like Caesar 3). Of course you can change god during mid-game but of course you will have to pay the cost. Also a god that protects two players may either favor one or no-one in a battle between them, or two gods may be fighting against each other and the one with more favor may be somehow (not much) be gained by this fight (think like too titanic creatures fight along with your units or the two gods' armies (not yours) fight between them).
   
   Of course you can stay god-less so that you dont have to keep up to a greedy's god wills... but what about the great stone warriors he can give you as a present? (that is the "many ways" implementation mentioned above where a player doesnt have to have a god protecting him or to do it if he wants. He wins either way-he loses either way: he must decide what it is best each time)
   

About Transports:
A transport (sea, earth, air(!)) will have some size and some weigth limit about what it carries. In this way you force the player to either take some small units to battle (some light archers ie) either to pay for some more transports to take all its army there. Also a transport will have slightly different speed in dependence to what it carries.

If a sea transport get sinked then the artillery(catapults, rams etc) and cargo(weapons, some rare resources etc) inside will be lost while the soldiers will be floating until someone to salvage them- either you or the enemy. Of course they cannot wait for ever... there are sharks...

Same thing goes for air transports: if ther air transport gets destroyed while in air then everything gets lost except of a percentage (40% ie) of the cargo(weapons and rare resources).

If any transport gets destroyed while on the ground only the transport gets lost.


Now, Christmass are coming (which i hate because of all these jingles and "happy-atmosphere" while .... let it snow- OOOOPS! let it go i wanted to say...) and because i live in Patras, 205 kms away from my home, i am going to leave the computer for a while (i have it at Patras where i study at the University) and it may take a while untill i check at this forum and at the mails, so dont be dissapointed : "For i will come back to show the Greatness of my People!" as the main character of my new game would say- i dont know his name, nor what he will do but i know that he will be great!

Merry Christmass to you and your over-consuming civilization! I hope Santa Claus (that doesn't exists) will bring you the light to wake you up and to me this great new plasma gun and this new awsome bike and that great new 5+ GigaHerz processor and that cool new car.... and dozen of "Always Coc_ Col_!"

If you want to help me with 3D models or artwork OR know where to look or you know someone that wants please let me know! costasgr43@yahoo.com