How do people feel about the idea of RTS units having some slight uniqueness to them rather then all being generic? Such as slight variations in the stats of units of the same type. For instance infantry have a base stat of 10 + or - 20% Or would you rather all units start generic and that once they gain enough experience to be promoted only then they do they gain some uniqueness?

id rather have them start out the same just becouse in most rts theres alredy enough micro-managament without having to sort my units for quality

I'd say throw in some variation. Just because you CAN micro manage doesn't mean you have to spend your time picking out the +20% units. It would be nice if there was some way to easily and quickly select the better or worse units though.

If the degree of variation in the stats was only 1-2% it wouldn't upset the balance too much, but at that point you might as well save yourself the effort and make them all start the same. I like the idea though of individual units being able to differientate themselves through improved stats as experience is acquired.

maybe you can have the basic soldiers being generic with base stats, but have "heroes", or officer material, come out with the possibility to have it's stats improve by up to 20% over time, but those out of barracks with 20% more time?

As a player, I would find random variations annoying: tactics that work or fail with some specific units would have different outcomes with other units of the same type.
Variations would actively invalidate any experience the player accumulates, degrading the game: instead of applying reliable qualitative and quantitative rules, the player could only gamble on the stats of friendly and enemy units, without much skill.

The chance factor increases as described when the stat variations are hidden or not worth inspecting; if variations are evident a lot of micromanagement potential, as already noted by Kaze, is added to the gameplay, and there is a different negative impact on player learning: strength estimates depend on unit variations, not on units, wasting a complexity budget that most games prefer to spend on actually different units.

I don't agree with tstrimp on the incentives to the new types of micromanagement (sorting units by stats, getting rid of the weaker ones, etc): every remotely useful behaviour has a place in a winning player's repertoire, the game designer can only hope to make it a small place.
In this case, a computer AI completely oblivious to stat variations would reward any amount of micromanagement from the player and set up an interesting decision (should I micromanage these units by stats, or should I attack with a randomly composed force and micromanage something else like their targets?).

This seems like it should have a similar effect to that of most games where the weapons do variable amounts of damage.
If you somehow tied the graphics to the unit stats you might have something very interesting at hand.
Imagine a midevil battle scene, where you have some whimp looking units, tones of average looking units, and a few
hulking brutes that tower over the other men. All of these being the same unit, it would make for a much more
graphically interesting game, without any change to the gameplay. (since you could tweek the units weapons to
match the fact that the heath is tweeked too)

Quote:

Original post by LorenzoGatti As a player, I would find random variations annoying: tactics that work or fail with some specific units would have different outcomes with other units of the same type. Variations would actively invalidate any experience the player accumulates, degrading the game: instead of applying reliable qualitative and quantitative rules, the player could only gamble on the stats of friendly and enemy units, without much skill.

You improvise. You adapt. You overcome.

Slightly perturbed abilities could increase the strategic depth to the game much the same way random maps do. In random maps, you don't have the luxury to build the optimal base. You have to adapt to the environment. With perturbed abilities you would have to choose your tactics according to what kind of troops you have. This would force players to think of new tactics instead of always using the same ones.

Of course, this would require more work from the designers as well. In addition to the possible tools for sorting your troops according to their skills the game should be balanced so that with any combination of abilities you would still have feasible tactics to choose from.

I think it would be irritating if you ask for a unit of particular specs and don't get one. Units getting better with experience is a really good idea, though, as it would make the 'grunt rush' where you get all your units killed much less effective and promote better tactics.

I think hidden bases of +-10% would be fine. I've been playing with the designs for a modern war game, that made use of more real combat. Rather than just a handful of tanks going out alone, they would be put into realistic units, grouped with infantry, and each 'unit' in game, rather than being a single take, would actually be a number of tanks that you mostly give orders to as a single figure, and the game AI controls them based on real world doctrine.

My idea was to give each soldier a set of stats like how bold/cowardly they are, which would affect how likely they are to expose themselves to fire to complete their mission. How accurate their fire is, how good they are at spotting. Still not sure if I want to allow the user to see these stats, and pick their soldiers, or have it random. However, a large number of overly bold soldiers that are fearless is a double edged sword. While all your troops would never stop firing while they had ammo, and never take a step backwards, it also means they will be more exposed to fire and more likely to die.