Hi!

I am sinking in the concept of the factories (plants). The game works in few variants but all of them have cons.

In some RTS buildings are producing specialised types of units: infantry or heavy machines, or artillery, or aircraft (A). In other games such COH each factory have somekind of a set against different situations: antiinfantry, antitank, machine, artillery (B), but with some gradation.

In my game the players needs more space to build more types of factories. In other words less space=less types of units.

In the first case (A) the player will be screwed if he has not enough place and enough factories, for example if the enemy makes base close to its base he cant destroy him if no artillery.

In case (B) some of the units and factories will become obsolete and useless after some time. What is happening is thate they are absolute useless because light machines are smashed by the heavy enemie. And units become too much.

Another problem is that machines are "civil" and "military". First I mixed them so each factory produces about 20 to 40 % civil machines and they are necessary. So you need to start from factory A because you need that civil machine produced there and later another factory producing machine B. This dictates what military machines could be used... In other case civil machines are produced in specialised factories for only civil machines. But in that case if you start with such civil factory the enemy will took the initiative in capturing land. If you start with military building the economy and other things will be screwed after time. If you start with both this will be determined decision - you always start with these. So it is starting the same way.

The main idea is that players strategy depends on which factories he chooses. What I had in mind was to make a lot of factories for choice for each race/doctrine but this will become very big. The other idea was to make a factory for unit (only one or maybe 2) and more factories could be build per period of time. But this will require a lot of graphics. Another idea was to give to the player the possibility to assemble his own factories with units, in other words he decided that that factory will produce these and these units. But here he could make a great mistakes. Also programming the enemy to do the same will be khm, almost impossible...

Also I thought for giving these variants to different races so you choose

1. race A with specialised factories for tanks only, or artillery only... Currently testing that variant, it is a bit boring.

2. race B with mixed factories... That variant was well tested with many units, they become too much.

3. race C with customized factories...

It becomes more and more complicated and I am in the bog. Classic variants not working the same way in my game.

I am trying to simplify the game as I have to rewrite it for the N time.

It seems like Race A and Race C have the same problem, where the Player can run into trouble for not building the right type of factory. In A, the Player chooses from a list of factories and builds them, but suddenly really needs (idk) tank factories, but never built any. In C, the Player builds some factories and sets them to produce planes and artillery. Suddenly he needs tanks, but can't produce any.

You could go with A, but make the factory types vague/general instead of each one producing one kind of unit. So the Player would be able to build an Airbase, a Seaport, a Mechanized Base or an Infantry base. The Airbase would only build aerial units, but the Player would have to specify production between assault coptors, transport coptors, bombers, supply planes, fighters, etc. The difference between the mechanized and infantry bases could be heavier/lighter units (or close/long ranged), so the player has to consider what kind of battle it will be before committing to building a factory?

Another thing to consider when you are designing your base economy system is that the factories and what they produce isn't just for the player controlling them to make decisions, but they are also vital to the opponent if it is going to be multiplayer! (Actually even kind of plays into computer AI if you want to make it account for things.)

The reason to have multiple unit types is to use a Rock-Paper-Scissors approach to combat. (After all, if there is no real noticeable difference in units, then why bother going through the effort of making different units?) Which makes mechanics to scout the enemy base kind of important. If you see that your opponent is only building the stuff needed to pump out light infantry, then maybe you'll focus more heavily on building up tanks or helicopter gunships.

So while you are designing your base building mechanics, do remember to not focus solely on the view from just the controlling player's perspective.