One thing I want to implement in the RTS I'm trying to find time to work on is the ability to select multiple enemy targets. It has always annoyed me that I have to micromanage the targets of a group of units, one target at a time or rely on sometimes poorly implemented AI. So, one idea I had was to be able to place target tags on enemy units. These tags would automatically determine how friendly units deal with those enemies. The different tags I can think of at the moment in order of priority are: 1) Concentrate Fired - All units in range will attack it first 2) Overwhelm - A group of 3-5 units will target it.* 3) Suppressing fire – 1+ units will attack it.** 4) Ignore – Units will not attack the target unless told to. *A little algorithm will determine the enemies threat level and assign a friendly combination units of a greater threat level to attack it. **Units will divide up and attack as many different targets as possible. Would people want to targets to be global level only? Or be able to assign them on a group level? ie group 1 Ignore the giant robot and apply suppressing fire to the zombies, group 2 concentrate fire on the Giant robot. The player will also be able to set unit behavior to determine how they react to none targeted enemies as well. 1) Aggressive – attack any enemy on sight 2) Defensive – attack enemies in range but do not pursue. - Default 3) Passive – only attack if enemy attacks first. 4) Avoid – Run from any enemies that attempt to attack the unit. Do people feel this will eliminate micromanagement and better allow the player to make tactical decisions or is it just needles extra micromanagement?

I think I can manage at most about 10 units effectively (thinking about rome total war for the moment). Much beyond that and I can only give them vague or infrequent instructions. An example from RTW: I might set up my main battle line, and manage that pretty tightly, moving around reserves, choosing targets, etc. Sometimes I'll send out units like horse archers or skirmishers, and just let them do their thing. If they are fast units they can pretty much take care of themselves.

I'd love to play a game where I just issue directives to units - where to go, whether to flee, pursue or stand fast on contact with the enemy. This requires superior AI, and I'm not sure how much gamers in general want to give up control, but personally I'd prefer it

Damnit, it seems my reply vanished into the ether. Here's the gist of it again...

Quote:

Original post by TechnoGoth The player will also be able to set unit behavior to determine how they react to none targeted enemies as well. 1) Aggressive – attack any enemy on sight 2) Defensive – attack enemies in range but do not pursue. - Default 3) Passive – only attack if enemy attacks first. 4) Avoid – Run from any enemies that attempt to attack the unit.

The game Dark Reign (the first one) has a system similar to this, and it worked very well. In Dark Reign you gained the desired behaviors by setting the values for Independance, Damage Tolerance, and some other value (possibly aggression) to either High, Medium or Low. If you havn't played this game I'd definately recommend a look, you can pick up a copy pretty cheap these days. The list you've got there seem like a pretty good set of behaviors.

Will you be able to set them for multiple units at once, or will they only be available for individual units? Can a default be set for new units being produced, perhaps based on the type of unit?


I like the idea of 'tagging' enemy units as well. Again, could default tags be set for certain types of units perhaps? Is there a way of having specific units ignore the tags if you for some reason want to (to move a single unit through a group of enemy units tagged as targets without engaging for example)?

Ideally I'd like to be able to set these tags on a global level, but override them for groups or individual units.

I loved the game Dark Reign and the expansion pack (DR 2 wasn't as good), especially the ability to create your own units and other content (even going as far as creating new AIs). The behaviour settings allowed very good use of multiple units. This was good for doing infiltration.

I once had a whole heap of units hiding near the enemy base and used Pasive to stop them attacking too early. When it came time for the attack I put them onto Aggressive and off they went.

Sounds like a good idea. The main reason I loved Total Annihilation was becuase I rarely had to micro-manage battles.

How about if you have different tag groups. (Sort of like grouping squads in TA or Warcraft). Like squad groups you can assign your units to different Attack tags and your enemies can be tagged for each group.

Ok, let me try to explain coherently.

Let's say you have three tag colors. Red, blue ang green. You could select an enemy buildingsor group of units) and tag them: Green - Concentrate Fire. Then for fast moving enemy infantry: Green - Ignore.
You could then select your own bombers and select attack pattern tag - Green! Which would mean they will concentrate on bombing the buildings you selected.

This way you could quickly tell different types of units how you expect them to behave towards different enemy units quickly.

They are a few variations of this as well.

In the first every enemy has only one tag flag. Say for instance you have defensive enplacements with default set to "Fire at will" and attack pattern Blue. If a group of enemies come by and none are tagged blue then it will simply fire into them randomly. If in that group one is tagged: Blue - Overwhelm! then the enplacements will ignore the others until they have assigned enough units to obey the overwhelm command while the others continue to firing into the crowd at will.

This will give really good control in mass battles without needing too much time for assigning commands.
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Another method could be to give each enemy a full set of flags (by defualt set to null) and assign the attack pattern of each flag.

For instance you could have an enemy dragon and assign it's Blue tag to 'Concentrate' and it's Red flag to 'Ignore'. Then assign your archers to Attack pattern: Blue and your infantry men to Attack Pattern: Red. (The archers will concentrate on the dragon while the infrantry ignore it).

This method will give even more control for battle tactics but can become very complicated very quickly. I can imagine a dragon flying over my base and, when I finally succeed in clicking on it, I'm frantically trying to remember which color my wizards are before it burns my poor villagers to ashes?. IMHO I think this system will need a slow or frequently pausable gamestyle for it to work well.

Other possible implementations can be used but I'm sure you get the general idea.

The different colors could be really good way of doing it but what about flipping it slightly so that groups of friendly units are given colors and you assign color flags to enemy targets as you said? So it would be like gold squad deal with the enemy Tie fighters, while green squad begins its begins its attack run on the death star.
Another aspect that I think it important to this discussion and absent from most RTS games is strategic level control. Most rts is purely tactical control. The strategic control interface would give the players a top level view where they could plan out their battle strategies. From here you could assign default targeting flags to different types of enemies units. As well as assign other field behaviour. Such as if any enemy unit crosses the third defensive line concentrate fire on it.

I think part of it is, that there is only so much that a single player can do to control the units in game. I think that if you really wanted to give it a more realistic approach, you could give out the objectives but allow the "squads" to determine what they need to do to achieve that objective...

Well, depending on how deep you choose to make the flagging system you could introduce a bit of the strategy you've described.

If for instance there is a preparatory stage before battle actually begin then you could use something similar to the second system, where for each type of enemy unit you define what attitude each of the flags should take. Then assign groups of your own unit to each of the flag attack patterns as they are created. Of course, this would require you to know which unit types your opponent is using beforehand. And it will be difficult to change once battle starts simply becuase it would take too long to make the necessary adjustments.

Or you could combine the above with a simplified version once the game starts which allows you to assign short term tactical objectives.


The idea you've described of marking friendly will be slightly simpler than the first sample I gave. In that case what you basically have is a squads who can be given complex behaviours by marking different enemies in thier squad color, with instructions on how to behave to each.

The next level will allow you to make a squad of different unit types, and set the behaviour of each of the unit types in that squad seperately. i.e. by giving each member of the squad a different flag.

In the end it's basically a matter of where you want to put the slider between complexity and speed of control.

Perhaps you could multi-select enemy units and assign them to tactical groups, just like you can your own units. You can then direct a (friendly!) unit or group to attack an enemy group as well as individual units. (If enemy units go out of your visibility, I guess they should be 'forgotten'.)

The third parameter in Dark Reign is pursuit range, btw, which is a good idea too.

Another way to do this, to assign your guys a "mode" for a location augmented by an enemy rank you assign.

Say tell 2 squads to defend an area defined by drawing a box around it. They stay at the way point and only attack anyone entering their area. But what if the enemy passes through it or just near it? by assign different enemy unit types a rank that would allow you squad to break it's order to go after a higher value target.

This is more like a real group of thinking people would act. they would follow their orders, but would show initiative when the enemy command group can with in sight but out of the targeted area.

By giving the assigned area a value and the different enemy values you can control how they respond.

You want a squad to attack the gates and make entry assign the location a 10 which is higher than any enemy unit and they stick to the plan, give it a 5 and when that bug gun comes around the corner they attack it on sight.

Now with several squads with different priority's you can now have cover fire and flanking and support between units.