Design your own RTS

El Moose Monstero · Post by **El Moose Monstero** » 2004-07-05 08:21am

I don't know if these are good ideas are not, things I was thinking might be nice.

1)As others have said, an AI worth its salt, but we cant have everything - I'm no expert at gaming, but it might be nice to have east not being too easy and hard being unbeatable to the common newbie without time to practice.

2) Layered environment - just a thought, but it might be nice to have a an aerial section which in that region, planes cannot be hit except by SAM, but below that, anyone can take potshots at them. Same goes for submarine warfare - I'd quite like to be able to take my subs below sonar or into camoflage or whatever, don't know how those would work, but you know

3) Diplomacy as a means of research - again - I don't know if it's viable, but I thought it might be an idea to have to send an envoy or whatever to a certain race, give it an escort until it gets off the map in the direction of travel, then the computer generates likelihood of attack and all that, probability of success. If it works, they join your team and further diplomacy brings greater unity - but at the same time, the enemy might be negotiating too, so at some point in the game, your allies whose units you rely on, may turn on you.

4) I'm sure this has already been done - but export and imports of products as a means of acquiring resources - say for example, a wider world view where you can set a trade route for an import, to avoid enemy waters etc, and then it comes in on the map from that end of the world and into port.

5) A real and topographically accurate map of the UK or of places in general, I'd love to be able to fight across a geographically accurate and reasonable scale British Isles...

Just a few thoughts really, nothing serious.

Boyish-Tigerlilly · Post by **Boyish-Tigerlilly** » 2004-07-06 12:00am

1)As others have said, an AI worth its salt, but we cant have everything - I'm no expert at gaming, but it might be nice to have east not being too easy and hard being unbeatable to the common newbie without time to practice.

I just want an AI that doesn't blatantly cheat. Some things are completely acceptable, however, but making it so the AI only needs to spend 1/3 the resources a human does is silly. It makes for very long trench warfare boringness.

Boyish-Tigerlilly · Post by **Boyish-Tigerlilly** » 2004-07-06 12:01am

Killing villagers of the enemy does nothing, bombing their cities did nothing, and whiping out endless wave after wave after wave finally beat them

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2004-07-06 12:55am

How many games have we seen where the skirmish AI has been mediocre, only to be modded into lethality by end-users? TA itself comes to mind, I've had my ASS handed to me by mod AIs. That kind of disproves the whole 'We need to let the AI have a cheat edge, it can't hack it otherwise' crap, in my mind. Yeah, AI's and UI are the most important bits to me, really. UI needs to be smooth and unobtrusive and flexible. AI needs to be versatile and capable of not just giving me a run for my money, but kicking my /ass/.