First, definitions:

1) Hero unit - a unique single unit, you can have only one of each (1x Hercules)
2) Elite units - several units that are either powerful or have rare abilities, they come in packs and you can have many copies, money alone is not enough to recruit them (100x Royal lancers)
3) Regular units - hordes of units, they come in packs and you can have many copies, money is all you need to recruit them (10,000x Lancers)

The most important is the difference between elite and regular. Elite unit is not just an expensive and powerful regular unit, they are "special" or "half unique". They are also supposed to be unbalanced (bigger power vs cost compared to regular units) also that's why they have to be limited by something else than money/resources.

Most games use regular units, some use hero+regular units. Do you know any games that use elite+regular units? And is the concept of elite units worth pursuing?

Most games use regular units, some use hero+regular units. Do you know any games that use elite+regular units?

Many strategy games have non-hero "special" units with steep prerequisites (such as Supreme Commander's "Experimental" units at the end of the tech tree) or that require limited special resources (such as Civilization V's "Giant Death Robot" units which require 1 Uranium each), so there's plenty of precedent for having elite-type units in a game.

And is the concept of elite units worth pursuing?[/quote]
To quote from Tom Sloper's site: "[font="Georgia"]'Worth' is subjective. Only YOU can determine whether something is 'worth it' to YOU."

[/font]If you find the concept interesting, then it's worth pursuing. Just do it!

Do you know any games that use elite+regular units?

Starcraft 2 has this. In the campaign you can hire mercenaries, allowing you to call them in every x minutes when you have a certain structure built.They're basically stronger versions of the regular units with a different look.

It's a question of complexity for me. It's easy to tell regular from hero, and regular from elite, easy to understand the differences between them, their different costs/benefits, and so on. What may not be as easy is managing the training and use of all three at once, being able to separate the groups or combine them easily and quickly to respond to an attack, and so on. How quickly can I get to the hero's special abilities when I need them? How easily can I pull the hero out of the front lines, so that the grunts can take the bullets? What if I add elites to the equation? It won't make things easier for me to deal with.

There's also the question of what the hero units can do. It's all well and good to have unique abilities, but they'll have to be pretty good for me to go to the hassle of training and using the hero. Same goes for elites.

I'm sure that you can create a system where there are three tiers of each unit type in the way that you describe. But the implementation is what matters. It'll have to be practical for me to manage them, and worth actually having the different types.

It's a question of complexity for me.

Exactly. It is obvious that elite units are cool and fun. All players asked will say they want them But how much additional complexity will it cost? Will the additional fun be higher than additional complexity and player's confusion? Are there some tricks to decrease the cost? That's what I'm trying to figure out here...


Supreme Commander - "The resource requirements for experimental units are extreme", this is just a regular very powerful and very expensive unit, not an elite unit.

Starcraft 2 - No doubt, mercenaries are elite units, but... These feel so pathetic, just mere 20% or 50% over the regular unit (feels more like upgraded regular unit), on top of that a mere infantry. My feeling is like that "- Sir! I have 50% more firepower than others! - Very good soldier, now go and stand in line with the rest of the cannon fooder". If this was at least some battlecruiser that has some worth regardless if regular or elite... What's worse, it is RTS so any additional unit adds clicking problems to the player. I find this a very bad implementation of elite units.

Civilization V - I have mixed feelings, from the description the "Giant Death Robot" sounds like a perfect elite unit, but the thing is that around 50% of the units there eat up some rare and limited resource ( http://well-of-souls...civ5_units.html ), so it's more like the majority of your army will be composed of elite units and the regular will be used if you really have no choice. If you have half of your army made up of elite units these don't feel elite anymore... Still, this is the best solution for elite units listed so far I think.

Cililization IV (in some fan made mods) - they introduced "national units", you can have X of these. I was not very fond of this solution because of flat limit. At the beginning you were producing only elite (national) units because you were able to only produce X units so you could make only elite without any thought, later you were ignoring these since this additional +X when you have XX already is not a big deal (besides you had them built already, so you were only replacing casualities among elite units).



From listed so far only Civ5's solution seem to be worth it (unfortunatelly, I have not played that game so I don't know for sure)...
Another interesting thought, even though Supreme Commander had no elite units, the extremely expensive regular units (http://supcom.wikia....perimental_unit ) have a lot of feeling of what elite unit should be. So maybe I should just scrap the idea of elite units and stick with enormous cost regular units?

In some of the Command & Conquer games your regular units can gain ranks and gain increased stats as a result. You can't buy these units at all, but rather need to keep regular units alive -- something not many players of that type of game are particularly concerned about -- while still exposing them to combat. If I recall correctly, the first two ranks only provided minor stat improvements, but a unit which achieved the third level was substantially better than normal and worth having. I think this was an interesting mechanic because it encouraged a slightly different style of play in a game where the norm was to send hordes of units in to their death.

One team in Emperor: Battle for Dune, the House Atreides took this same mechanic a step further; once a unit reached the top/third level of "elite" training you could order it to move back into a barracks structure. Upon doing this you would lose the unit permanently, with the explanation that it was staying behind "to train new recruits". From that point forward new infantry of that type produced at the barracks in question would start out with an additional rank, meaning that if you could do this with 3 separate elite units of the same type all your new units of that type would already be elite. As these were at the same cost as normal but took some work to achieve it was a substantial advantage to be able to pull this off -- the elite units had more HP, more damage output, were slightly faster, and had an increased range.

There is another elite unit implementation in Civ5 itself that is worth pointing out.

Units gain experience as they are involved in combat, when their experience hits a certain level the player is able to select a certain skill for them. Skills at low levels are pretty standard +20% in open terrain, +20% in rough terrain. It is only when the unit gain more experience you started seeing skills like Medic - heals surrounding unit, additional attack a turn.

A highly skilled unit can really make a difference in the game (my artillery and bomber units usually are critical in breaking enemy resistance), they are not irreplaceable so you have to make the decision of whether the attack is worth risking the unit, lastly since this is a TBS game you won't have the issue of click frenzy RTS games where you will lose control of your elite unit.

Supreme Commander - "The resource requirements for experimental units are extreme", this is just a regular very powerful and very expensive unit, not an elite unit.

So, what exactly is an 'elite unit' then, besides one that is rare and very powerful? (They're expensive, therefore rare. I can't remember any time I've spammed SupCom Experimental units.)

Total War series kind of deals with the three tier control issue if you view the generals as hero units. Honestly if you can have more than 1 or 2 'hero' grade units in a battle, then it becomes a pain to control. Even one can be an annoyance.

So, what exactly is an 'elite unit' then, besides one that is rare and very powerful? (They're expensive, therefore rare. I can't remember any time I've spammed SupCom Experimental units.)

That's a perfect example. These were not rare, but nonexistent, you never bought them... That's my biggest complain about powerful but expensive units in games, no one buys them because it does not makes sense in terms of cost efficiency. Of course we could change them to be much cheaper but then everyone would buy only these so the efect would be even worse...

Elite is a rare unit, but the rarity does not come from the fact that it is too expensive. Elite is a unit which makes sense to buy in terms of cost efficiency. That's the key premise.

[quote name='Luckless' timestamp='1303699524' post='4802525']
So, what exactly is an 'elite unit' then, besides one that is rare and very powerful? (They're expensive, therefore rare. I can't remember any time I've spammed SupCom Experimental units.)

That's a perfect example. These were not rare, but nonexistent, you never bought them... That's my biggest complain about powerful but expensive units in games, no one buys them because it does not makes sense in terms of cost efficiency. Of course we could change them to be much cheaper but then everyone would buy only these so the efect would be even worse...

Elite is a rare unit, but the rarity does not come from the fact that it is too expensive. Elite is a unit which makes sense to buy in terms of cost efficiency. That's the key premise.
[/quote]

He said he never *spammed* them, not that he never built them at all. Experimentals, Commander upgrades and even some tier 3 units in Supcom 1 could be potential game-winners - provided you could build an economy strong enough to build one without completely crippling your economy to the point where you can no longer survive. For the most part, they would more than justify their cost if you could get them out, although there were exceptions (none of the UEF exps, were worth their cost, for example).

They're an interesting example because although in terms of resources, they are no different from the run-of-the-mill units - they require mass and power just like anything else - the mechanics of the economy combined with their sheer cost does make them very different in game terms. Tier 1 - 3 units are all reasonably spammable at various stages of the game, but experimentals are so expensive that they will generally dominate your economy - you'd be lucky to be able to build more than one at a time, and you may have to shut down many/all of your other factories, and/or make extensive use of reclaiming to just to get that one out in a reasonable time frame.

In SupCom 2 they were much easier to build - and much less 'epic'.