I found this article on Zileas.com, and I have to say I agree with pretty much all of it. It basically highlights many of the flaws in RTS games I would like to fix... Micromanagement Diminishing Strategy

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I love micromanagement, I prefer turn based strategy games (like Civ) rather than real time. I''m all for increasing complexity in games, cause I like having to thinking about my decisions, rather than compete in a reflex & mouse clicking contest.
That article says how micromanagement makes things harder for the player, well, the guy on the other end also has the same difficulty, so everything is fair. And reducing micromanagement reduces strategic capacity of the game as a whole, because strategy = decisions. Less micromanagement = less decisions.
Of course everything has its limmits and more micromanagement is not necessarily better. But if you do it right, it''s the best.

quote: Less micromanagement = less decisions

I''d say that "less micromanagement = more meaningful decisions", or better yet, "less micromanagement during real-time gameplay = opportunity for more meaningful decisions to be made".

Still haven''t been able to follow the link (and www.zileas.com can''t be tracked down either according to my computer)... Too bad, because I just know that if Sandman agrees, I will agree as well.

Which RTS games in particular are you referring to? I''m a bit of a micromanager myself, and, in starcraft at least, I lose to the people who utilize the "constant blind rush" technique pretty often.

Additionally, there are a few examples from starcraft in there, especially the only selecting 12 units. But that was an upgrade from the previous Blizzard RTS games, where 9 was the max. And the templar, who are very powerful under supervision, still have a hard time stopping most fairly high level rushes.

I guess, what you consider a flaw, I consider my strength, and my last ditch efforts to stay alive.

Another thing I highly disagree with is his diagnosis of the pincer attack. That''s something I''ve used to good success multiple times. While it''s a little harder to work out in a messy army to army battle (it still works if the support units are in the back) it''s a beautiful thing when I''m assaulting an enemy base. The attack from one sides draws their defensive force, allowing my second force to attack a vulerable spot opened by the first attack.

Micromanagement is just a gameplay aspect within RTS type games. I don''t think there''s anything wrong with it. However, if you''d like to design an RTS without micromanagement (I believe there were one or two threads with some good ideas up near here) then I''d love to see it.

About focus fire...

I''ve noticed this myself while playing Warlords Battlecry. Focus fire seems to be a realistic depiction of what would actually happen (if you are attacked by 10 guys instead of just 1, you''ll be beaten faster), but I think there''s one thing that might possibly offset this ''focus fire'' (if you want to get rid of it, in order to make it less appealing/necessary for a player to constantly take control of battle units):

Make units that engage one unit have less of a defense against the attacks of other units.

In effect, those ten guys beating me up might be able to bring me down faster, but at the same time they completely drop their defense against the attacks of my five friends. Sure, they might bring me down faster, but they are risking losing the battle altogether (if the ten of them bring me down, while my five friends bring down 2 or 3 of them, they will have suffered a numerical loss).

I think this will be easier to implement in ancient warfare (swords, arrows) where part of a unit''s armor depends on the agility of the unit. In current/future warfare, armor seems to depend mostly on the actual type of armor. If a unit is paying attention to other enemies or not while whacking one enemy unit to death, it doesn''t much affect the unit''s protection.

In our debut game (RTS/God combo), we will be striving for a selectable balance where the player can choose to automate certain low level tasks so as to play a more strategic game rather than a tactical one. These tasks would then use the same AI that the computer opponents use for managing that aspect of the game. However, using in-game switches, the player can choose to override individual decisions that the AI makes or can choose to turn off the "assistant" at any time in order to do something to his liking.

Of course, like most God games, we have various sim speeds available - from 1x up to 1024x! The reason for the big swing is that we are trying to do away with parallel timelines... that is, a minute is always a minute. Some of the strategic aspects of the game may take many game weeks, months or years... something that wouldn''t be possible to enjoy at the slower speeds. As for the lower level instructions, they would tend to be on the order of 10 minute to 60 minute decisions. The only way that play would be possible at the higher levels is if those smaller tasks were automated.

The point being, we are going to allow the player to select at the beginning and throughout the game, what level of management he wants to engage in.

Dave Mark
President and Lead Designer
Intrinsic Algorithm Development
"Reducing the world to mathematical equations!"

quote: Original post by berserk
I love micromanagement, I prefer turn based strategy games (like Civ) rather than real time. I'm all for increasing complexity in games, cause I like having to thinking about my decisions, rather than compete in a reflex & mouse clicking contest.

Well granted, there are some people who enjoy micromanagement in its own right, but as you say, it is better suited to turn based games in which you have time to think about what you want to do, as well as time to actually implement it. This article is referring to RTS games however.

quote:
That article says how micromanagement makes things harder for the player, well, the guy on the other end also has the same difficulty, so everything is fair.

Well against a computer opponent you are simply wrong, and in any case this misses the point entirely. It isn't about being 'fair', it is about strategy. And as the article points out, dividing your forces for a pincer attack is generally less effective than just swarming the units in one go. So why should the player bother trying any interesting tactics when mindless swarming is dominant?*

quote:
And reducing micromanagement reduces strategic capacity of the game as a whole, because strategy = decisions. Less micromanagement = less decisions.

Your logic here isn't terribly well thought out.
Consider the following scenario: I have 200 units, and I want to send 100 of them attack you from the north, and 100 to attack you from the north.

According to you, having to click on each separate soldier and set his destination == 200 decisions, and therefore is lots of strategy. Whereas grouping them into two groups of 100 and setting their destinations is only two decisions, so that isn't very much strategy.

I disagree entirely. After the initial decision to split your troops, the precise decision about which of your 200 exactly identical soldiers go where isnt even remotely interesting, so why should I have to do it? The micromanagement is simply getting in the way of my ability to carry out my decision.


*I am aware that swarming isn't necessarily the most effective way to attack in most RTS games, but as a ratio of final result/player effort it is disproportionately better than more advanced tactics.

[edited by - Sandman on March 15, 2002 2:28:57 PM]

quote: Original post by ThoughtBubble
Which RTS games in particular are you referring to? I''m a bit of a micromanager myself, and, in starcraft at least, I lose to the people who utilize the "constant blind rush" technique pretty often.

That''s the whole point. You lose because you try and be clever - the players who don''t even try to micromanage and swarm you with dumb rushes often win. It is too difficult for most human players to micromanage an army sufficently well to beat a dumb tactic.

quote: Original post by Sandman
That''s the whole point. You lose because you try and be clever - the players who don''t even try to micromanage and swarm you with dumb rushes often win. It is too difficult for most human players to micromanage an army sufficently well to beat a dumb tactic.

Yup. Not exactly it, since I lose because I never hit the golden ratio of resource intake/worker count/expansion grabbing. But the fact that I like micromanagement probablly isn''t a plus.
Which is ok, because the game wasn''t really designed to be a micromanagement sort of thing. Even so, having a group of templar dropped into a base in starcraft, or having a commando loose in a base in Command & Conquer is an excersize in pain. The scariest opponents are those who can do large scale and small scale management together.

And I''m still waiting on those good ideas. So far the only one I hear is "the ability to select large numbers of units at once."
Anyway, I think I''m off of here. The unit control threads had more interesting things in them.

And I still think that micormanagement isn''t a sin. It just is a pacing of options (or occasionally hole in the interface) or a gameplay aspect. No more no less. I look forward to seeing your wizer choices.