Shinova wrote:This is a little steering the topic away, but I was thinking about this whole idea of having templates saved to automatically set up bases. How far do you think this function should go in RTS games? What if templates were possible where not only the bases, but troop production and resource acquisition, and combat orders---basically everything you normally do in a game---were possible?
I see no reason why it shouldn't be allowed. I don't know what advantage they confer other than a pre-designed build setup. It's hardly overpowering. It also puts the focus back on combat.
I want a 'build queue' or a priorities list too. So I can prioritize the construction of metal miners over units over power over metal fabricators over new factories... and such, so that my economy doesn't grind to a halt when someone starts a project.
If you did all this, you STILL need to be 'smart' about it, you just don't need to be bothered on the fly. Build Queues have their own issues too, like a caravan of cars, they can pile up if someone hits something. So if someone raids me and takes out a key structure or decides to go air instead of land, now my build order might be totally fucked up. Being able to retool my base would be an important skill, so strategy in terms of economy management is still rewarded, but the skill required becomes Understanding The Economy rather than Klik Fastar
Combat orders too, even. Why not give me some big 'orders'? Like a football play, but with troops. Honestly, I doubt a pre-computed combat order would be all that terribly useful.
At some point, you also need to say "Hey, don't we have AI in this game? Like the computers we face? Why not let me assign 'ministers' to my structures and base that take care of this stuff and let me assign 'minster behaviors' in an AI editing menu the same way modders do when they're modding the AI?"
Then I, as the general, could take command of the big units while allowing the Officers control the smaller stuff. Put it right into the fucking game too. Make there be units called 'Command and Control Vehicles' that provide a radius in which the units act according to the behavior set of that vehicle--or have it based on groupings. Group 1 becomes Army 1, which will have it's own C&C settings based on the Officer you formed that group with.
And so on. Sure, the game 'plays itself' at some point, but this was the same criticism levelled at FF12 and it seemed to work out alright. I thought it was kinda fun anyway. And plus, haven't we all made enough extractors in our life before? Let Starcraft 2 give us the clickfest fix if we want one, while SupCom and 'grand epic warfare' games can let us focus on combat, not micromanaging damn base stuff.
Plus, pre-laidout bases will be much more likely to have extra details slapped into them, like walls and shit. They'll be like the ones in the demo movie we saw way back when.
AI is a very generous term. The computer opponents in just about every RTS are as dumb as a pile of bricks, and most of them need to cheat pretty heavily in order to present any significant challenge.