Hi Im doing a game in the style of dune 2, total annihilation, generals. For the sake of this thread lets say its a world war 2 setting. So i have infantry. It makes sence to make 3-5 visible soldiers to be as strong as one vehicle. But if these each take up one tile (yeas its tile-based old school!) they will be crap as they cannot concentrate fire/will be spread out. Some games let you create soldiers and you can then clump them together (for example i think red alert says max 5 soldiers on one tile). Others like dune2 creates a fixed "squad" of 3 infantry that moves together to symbolize a group of soldiers. I dont like the idea to have one single soldier sitting in each square being almost equally strong as a tank, so im aiming for some kind of group representation. Any ideas on this issue? x = 3-5 soldiers Some solutions: 1. Create x or 1 soldiers at factory when training. They are then individual units but x soldiers can share a tile. Vehicles cannot share tile. 2. Create a single unit that graphically consist of x soldiers. The unit have the same move-order, vision, target. As health of the unit goes down, so does the visual representation (number of soldiers in unit). Healing it will pop units back into the "squad". Units must be made to move slightly individually to NOT look like a firm pattern of soldiers (like the 3-soldier groups did in dune 2). There is also the issue of area damage. If a shell/bomb hits a tile, will all soldiers there take damage or only one? This is probably more a balance issue...

Here's something I've never seen before, but it might work:

Say each tile can hold any y number of units as long as their combined size is less than or equal to x. For example, if one tile can hold 10 men, a jeep takes up the area of five men, a APC eight, and a large tank 10, then in one tile you could put 10 men, one jeep and five men, an APC and two men, or a tank.

Given that scenario, you could have a variety of different strategies. You could, for example, make it so if a tile had enough space a player could move through or occupy a tile containing enemies units, but perhaps at the loss of health or distance. Or, perhaps, you could make it so that each tile could only hold units of one side at a given time, so if you spread out your soldiers you could create a weak barrier (this would be especially strategic in a game where you end turns with an attack). Should you be able to target individual units or will it be a roll of the die? Will there be bonuses for moving as a group versus managing individual units? There are just so many possibilites.

Personally I prefer to have the infantry as multiple independent or semi-independent agents. Let them compact into four or five men per a square, but still spread out if they are under attack.

As for how to handle attacks, divide your squares into five zones. A splash attack will then damage things based on what zones of a square they're in, allowing splash damage to the next squares over if hit on a corner zone.

Quote:

Original post by TalrothAs for how to handle attacks, divide your squares into five zones. A splash attack will then damage things based on what zones of a square they're in, allowing splash damage to the next squares over if hit on a corner zone.

That essentially just means changing the scale of the tiles. The only big difference is that some units would take up multiple tiles.

You might want to take a different approach:
One soldier per tile but have vehicles use multiple tiles.
That way you could also introduce narrow passages that cannot be passed by vehicles.

Whether you implement it by subdividing large tiles or by grouping small tiles into large tiles is up to you, both have their advantages.