yes this does immediately sound like the dumbest idea that you've ever heard. Humor me, if nothing else it might be an interesting read. I've always been a big fan of the RTS genre. I've played more RTS games than any other type. Over the years, I've realized that what I really like about the RTS is not necessarily playing the game, rather I like thinking about playing the game. I seem to spend a lot of time reading forums and reviews of RTS games that I like. I like reading about strategies and ideas, much more than I like actually playing the game. I guess you could call me an "arm chair commander". When I play a RTS like Supreme Commander, I usually get so involved in figuring out cool strategies, like forward artillery bases, that I get completely smoked by the AI which has been power-gaming and completely out producing me. Therefore when I started designing my game, I came up with the idea of having all of the high-level strategy handled by the "commander" AI for each faction. Instead of controlling the whole faction, the player will just be one unit (or control one group of units) in an epic battle. This has (in my opinion) several advantages 1. the "strategy" ai doesn't have to be brilliant: kind of like how a soldier might wonder about the wisdom of his orders, but its not his job to create strategy, all he has to do is carry out his orders. As you will only ever has as much information about the long term strategic plan as is passed down to you, you will not be able to judge if the AI's overall plan is playing brilliantly or not. 2. All of the "cool factor" of seeing large battles without the tediousness of making sure that fleets don't run out of fuel, men are fed, ships are stocked with fighters, and the economy is running smoothly. 3. You will be able to micromanage your fleet, because it is the only thing that you really have to focus your concentration on. The Disadvantages 1. It's not really a RTS, and could probably be best described as a simulator with a dynamic campaign (which is actually pretty cool) 2. It becomes hard to balance the compexity of the players unit (that is neccesary to keep the player interested), while still allowing the players unit to be just one unit out of an undetermined number of units in a faction. The coolest thing about it is: I'm already working on it! (and have been for about a year). warning: my project is a not for profit Star Wars fan game, and although I believe I am acting within LucasArt's policy towards fan created works I know such things have been frowned on here before. So if such things annoy you, don't look. page for the project: http://nordwindranger.com/midoe.aspx

Now THAT is something I would love to play. I love space-battles, but hate doing large scale strategies (I'm not good at keeping an eye on everything a once).

Awesome, I thought nobody would be interested in this kind of thing. Maybe I will have to see if I can scare up a nice screenshot for the "image of the day". I would have put something up earlier, but I'm afraid of blinding everyone with my programmer art (err not to mention my beginner programming skills).

LOVE IT!

All the RTS games I've played seem to just turn into a "rushcraft" type thing. (Ok, lateley I've been playing Warcraft :-p).

Anyway, I think that's why I like turn based strategy games too. The turn allows you to actually think about what you're doing. But then (with games like civilization), you end up with way too much to control and each turn takes forever.

Anyway, sorry for the rant. Just wanted to reinforce your idea. I like the idea of a game where you have the basic rules, but you can come up with your own strategy for using those rules, if that makes any sense.

Anyway, hope it goes well!

Quote:

Original post by space warp Now THAT is something I would love to play. I love space-battles, but hate doing large scale strategies (I'm not good at keeping an eye on everything a once).

Why don't you let your (online)buddies take care of that.(This is actually a tip for nordwindranger. Requesting multiplayer support)

Not bad, but I would like to see it go the other direction: take away the unit micromanagement and instead focus on the global strategy. Real-time, you issue orders to your commanders and set strategy/AI actions for them, then they handle the micromanagement. If your setup is bad, you won't have enough resources and/or get slaughtered and you'll have to readjust your strategy to make up for it. The Final Fantasy XII combat system kind of went in that direction with the Gambits system, and it's the best combat that series has ever had.

Rome Total War

Aren't you pretty much just describing a real-time tactical game?

Quote:

Original post by JBourrie Not bad, but I would like to see it go the other direction: take away the unit micromanagement and instead focus on the global strategy. Real-time, you issue orders to your commanders and set strategy/AI actions for them, then they handle the micromanagement. If your setup is bad, you won't have enough resources and/or get slaughtered and you'll have to readjust your strategy to make up for it. The Final Fantasy XII combat system kind of went in that direction with the Gambits system, and it's the best combat that series has ever had.

That's about what I was thinking when I read the OP, except that I've never played Final Fantasy XII.

In the RTS game we recently shipped we had an AI opponent that we modded so that it could be used by the designers in single-player campaign design. We had all sorts of toggles for the different sub-systems( turn off economy builder, turn off base builder, turn off tactical ai, etc). Why is this relevant?

Before the "bug" was fixed you could actually set it up so that the AI was active on the player's side (in skirmish or multiplayer). With the correct setting of the toggles you could have the AI manage all the economy/base building/unit building/tech tree in response to the opponents actions. What we had for a few cool weeks was more or less the game that you describe.

We couldn't include it as a feature for the shipped title because we didn't have enough time to flush the feature: UI for adding sliders to loosely control the AI, etc.

But yea, it's fun as hell =)

-me

I guess the the difference between my game and a real-time tactical (as I understand it) is that my game is a real time tactical game embedded in a real-time strategy game.

For example:

A couple days ago I was ingame testing some fleet positioning code with my fleet of 5 star destroyers. I had just dropped out of hyperspace at a planet when my whole fleet opened up with their turbolasers and ion cannons. We had caught a enemy fleet which had just started accelerating in preparation for a hyperspace jump. Unfortunately we weren't able to shoot down any of the ships before they escaped.

1. My fleet being at the planet was decided by: me (because strategic orders are currently disabled for the players fleet)
2. the other fleet was at the planet because: The Rebel strategic AI had decided to send it there.
3. the other fleet was leaving the planet because:
3(A) first the fleet AI decided it had accomplished its mission
3(B) the Rebel strategic AI assigned it a new goal
3(C) the fleet AI decided to travel to its goal via hyperspace in order to accomplish it.
4. The fleets shot at eachother because:
4(A) fleet AI on both sides identified targets in the area
4(B) the ship AI asked for a target, was assigned one (or 2) and shot at it.
5. No ships were destroyed because: the ship AI isn't smart enough not to shoot when a friendly is in the way.

What I was originally trying to get at with this was the idea that although most of the gameplay will probably consist of tactical combat and patrols, every ship in the tactical combat was sent their because it's Alliance's strategic AI thought it would help them conqueor the galaxy. On the flipside this might also mean that you are sent on a lot of missions where you don't encounter any major hostiles. But this is what shooting up civilian vessels and pirates are for.