So all you RTS players out there ought to like this.. I thought I would try and get a thread started to discuss how individual units in RTS games could be grouped, controlled, and enhanced. I would love to hear ideas about platooning or squadding, perhaps with some kind of Lance or Unique unit leading the rest into the fray? Do you have ideas for fantasy units? spacewar units? underwater mining? Civ-style? Can you balance out your platoon with other units? Can you capture opposing units? Personally I have always felt that a tile-based jungle or mountain warfare game a la Vietnam and Afghanistan would be too cool. An actual tac sim with tactical zooming, lance-driven squad play (play the Lance from FP or the squad from above), artillery, air strikes, and all that fun rot. Granted, I don''t play a lot of tile strategy, because after Total Annhilation, there''s so many more ways to do it WRONG than there is to top TA! ---------------- -WarMage ...maybe I just need another RTS? Anybody got any bargain bin titles I should look for? ----------------

Ah...a fellow TA fan. I wish there was a better way to control units in general--I rather like Dark Reign(1)''s ability to give units a basic AI like explore or harass. Using a first-person view for units...you mean kind of like in dungeon keeper? The only problem is that again, for best efficiency, you''d need to be able to set up (at least) a basic AI to help run your infrastructure while you''re off blowing stuff up.

And I''ll come up with a unit list eventually...
--


WNDCLASSEX Reality;
...
...
Reality.lpfnWndProc=ComputerGames;
...
...
RegisterClassEx(&Reality);


Unable to register Reality...what''s wrong?
---------
Dan Upton
Lead Designer
WolfHeart Software

Ahh, wargaming

you touched on something that''s very important in my design considerations that doesn''t seem to be implemented in RTS now.

I think there are several factors missing in most RTS''s today, the first of which is the one you mention...controlling units. Here''s my short list:

1) Command and Control
2) Unit Integrity
3) Morale
4) Logistics
5) Irregular Warfare
6) Campaign mode

I think all you have to do is read Sun Tzu''s Art of War to really get a feel for the complexities of true strategy. And yet RTS''s either don''t bother with them, or just haven''t found a way to properly implement them. Let me explain what I mean by each one.

1. C&C is the ability of the COMMANDER to control his units via his orders. Notice I said COMMANDER, and not the unit itself. Unit integrity deals more with how units take their actions. C&C deals more with chain of command, and how effectively orders get passed down and to the unit directly. This is not to be confused with Unit Integrity which determines how the unit functions as it''s own complete group (for example, in a Tank Platoon, you can''t have one of the tank''s just wander off to fight his own private battle...).

2. Unit Integrity is more than just how a unit operates within it''s own cell. It''s a critical factor in determining morale as well. Think of Unit Integrity as the building block...the cell that composes all other units. It is the smallest structure in a strategical scale.

3. Why do most units fight to the death? Other than true wargames (and the only real-time one I can think of...Close combat), I don''t see RTS''s as implementing morale. Just because you give a unit an order means they will carry it out.

4. Logistics, though it might seem too mundane or boring is probably THE crucial element in determining the long term success of a commander. Having the proper supply, supply lines and maintenance of your forces is very important. I think a Logistics system should be set in place rather than a "resources" system (which is really an extremely abstracted logistics model)

5. Irregular Warfare is a catch all for harrassment and interdiction, sabotage, intelligence gathering (spying), insurgency, and a host of other jobs that typically fall to elite special warfare units. Their job is usually to make life diffucult for the other side, not necessarily by directly destroying his units, but by hampering his units effectiveness, or increasing his own units effectiveness (psychological warfare).

6. Campaign thinking is also a rarity in RTS''s. A good eample of campaign design is Homeworld. You had to conserve your forces so that even if you won that one battle, you''d still be strong enough to face the next one. Campaign thinking isn''t just thinking down the long road, but also in a wider sense. For example, withdrawing troops in one theatre of operations to expose your opponents flanks to a counter attack from another combat element waiting in reserve. Large scale, long term thinking is what this covers.

Now to get back to your original question, what I''m doing instead of starting with the individual units, I''m working the other way around. I''m designing the army and the command structure, and then filtering down the more specialized units. I also don''t think that in a strategy game a unit should equal one "piece". As I mentioned in unit integrity, armies operate as UNITS, not collections of individual pieces. And this get''s further complicated by combined arms warfare. Some countries are very very good at it (the US military is perhaps as great as it is because it is so effective at coordinating infantry with armored support or artillery support or CAS support). In RTS''s today, you just lump together individual units into groups, no matter what the unit type.

While this is very flexible, it''s also highly unrealistic, and leads to some of its own pitfalls. This is where command and control comes into play. How effective units are is determined by how well they coordinate with other dissimilar units. For example, you could have the chain of command at the platoon level...so you issue an order to an infantry platoon commander, who therefore coordinates the sub-squads as he sees fit. And here''s the cool thing...you as the player can offer fire support for the platoon commander, or the AI Platoon commander can try to get it himself without your direct intervention.

Well, I''ve got a lot more to say about this, but the sleep demon is hitting me with a vengenance so I will continue this later

I''ve also thought alot about bot control, as one of my hobbies is to dream up games and new game concepts/genre''s that are both a combonation of existing games as well as new elements that have yet to be implemented in quite the way ive suggested. Anyway, I envision a bot control interface that would work in an RTF/FPS game type similar BZONE1&2, except beefed up quit a bit. Already there exists a voice control interface for Bzone which works fairly well to control up to 50 units, and manage resources and fight yourself. However, Im envisioning the ability to manage UT/tribes2 type fps bots much in the same way, except adding the element of a persistent bot "crew" that can be pre-programmed much like UT bots, but with a C&C (command and control) higherarchy built into the tabs. By "persistent bot crew" I mean that the game those bots played in before, ie the damage the actuall loss of some bots..ect..will effect how they will play in the next game. Anyway, a command bot would have a tab called something like "Command Distribution" which would contain which bots get what commands. Here is possible scenario:

You have 10 bot crew pre-programmed to board a shuttle (future game of course). You have done this quickly and easily by selecting the command bot and distributing orders to sub-units to follow the command bot to the shuttle, which is then piloted by a pilot bot to a specified location, the command bot then issues its sub-command for 2 particular bots to beam to the surface and begin contstructing a tactically offencive secondary base. Following this completion, 4 more bots transport to surrouding locations in order to tactically guard the perimeter, and then report back to the newly built forward base. During the building and tranporting process, 2 of the troops guarding the perimeter are dicovered and attacked by enemies and they fight for a certain time and then request transport per thier individually programmed "protocols" tab which tells them to request transport back to the cloaked shuttle so as to not reveal the new base, and to alert you of the attack. You could then instruct the command bot to run another pre-programmed routine to have the bot team set a cloaking field around the base and then begin transporting other units(may not be yours, but other players bots!) to the location in prepartion for a trojan horse attack from within the cloacked base, outfitted with SAM turrets, Mortar turrets, and supply units which are shielded.

So basically, imagine a GUI interface ala UT bots, with a bunch of extra tabs to specify in even more detail the action that AI takes. You could have "mapping" tabs which could be used to tell the bot where to go and what to do it gets there. If you ever used the command stations in Tribes, then you know its possible to ''become'' AI through one of these, so you could also have you command bot simply get to a locale, tell you and then you could interace with your command bot and become it, ala commanding turrets in Tribes with the Command Stations, except your not a turret, but the bot itself.

I also envision a model for upgrading your persistent bot team by having skilled players from the game community play your bot in specially held official game events so that you can up your bots skill level when its playing on its own. For example, you want a certain bot to have top notch sniping ability, so you scan the communtity web-site for a highly rated sniper "for hire" (obviously you would have a virtual monitary system) to control your bot for an upcoming event. At the time of that event, the player controls your bot, and the game engine records the vital playing statics of the hired sniper, and then adusts the speed, accuracy, and playing styple of the bot, such that the bot will be as deadly as the sniper that used it, but without needing the sniper the next time it plays! I thought that was a pretty sweet idea.

Tell me what you think?

I think you guys have some great ideas, but there''s one big problem to this. .People really don''t want to play games that make it hard on them.

Granted, I would love to play a game with a well-implemented morale system, and I''m sure a few of you would too, but if you take the average gamer out there, who''s been playing RTS''s for years, sending kamikaze units out to save their town. .why do they want to play a game where their units refuse to do what they order? I haven''t seen many RTS''s that even try to implement a morale system - much less, allow for insubordinance - and it would be interesting to see how it works out. However, as this is not standard operating procedure for RTS''s, I have a feeling that most people would turn on the "no morale" cheat, or keep playing Age of Empires.



"All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be."

dfranklin: Yeah, I though that too. Implementing morale is all very well, but at the end of the day, the player is just going to get frustrated when none of his troops do what he tells them.

My suggested solution to this is as follows. The player sets the morale of his own troops. If he really wants to, he can set them to *never* run away. While this means they may be more effective in combat (since they fight to the death regardless of casualties) it also means that when the tide of battle turns against him, he is going to lose all his men (making recovering from the loss that much harder) Or at the other extreme, he can set the morale to rock bottom, so they retreat from even the slightest resisitance. Of course, even when retreating, you can give them orders, which they will obey (until they meet more resistance) or even change their morale status to something else. Is this a useless option? I dont think so - it enables you to balance your mission/campaign priorities yourself. If a mission is campaign critical, it is probably worth setting the higher morale. If however, a mission is not particularly important to the campaign, but gets you a small bonus, you probably dont want your troops to risk their lives acheiving it. The disadvantage is added complexity to the UI.

Edited by - Sandman on July 10, 2001 4:05:14 PM

MORALE:

As a player would you rather have (just as cheesy example, but cheesy examples usually work good to explain)

a) hundreds of goblins, cheap to enlist but oh so cowardly and hard to control

b) ten fully armed, well disciplined knights

That''s how you can balance units with different morale settings, and that''s how you can make it interesting to the players at the same time (different strategies for different morale)

Okay, maybe I would do well to point out that my blue-sky thought on the POV is a variable one. I of course agree that managing a platoon from first person would be a feat of user interface engineering that should make us weep for joy and kneel in awe.

BTW, I''m not singling out Dauntless, it''s just that he has made avery cogent areticle with which to rebuttal Thanks!

quote: Original post by Dauntless
Here''s my short list:

1) Command and Control
2) Unit Integrity
3) Morale
4) Logistics
5) Irregular Warfare
6) Campaign mode

I think all you have to do is read Sun Tzu''s Art of War to really get a feel for the complexities of true strategy. And yet RTS''s either don''t bother with them, or just haven''t found a way to properly implement them. Let me explain what I mean by each one.

and I couldn''t agree more. I would certainly point out that there are many other excellent warfare philosophies out there.

quote:
1. C&C is the ability of the COMMANDER to control his units via his orders. Notice I said COMMANDER, and not the unit itself. Unit integrity deals more with how units take their actions. C&C deals more with chain of command, and how effectively orders get passed down and to the unit directly. This is not to be confused with Unit Integrity which determines how the unit functions as it''s own complete group (for example, in a Tank Platoon, you can''t have one of the tank''s just wander off to fight his own private battle...).

So you would actually prefer "top-down" gaming control? You be the general and hope everything turns out? Everyone should realize that''s how the Light Brigade got it''s fame.

My thoughts ran more along the lines of formations a-la Homeworld, with the adition of an enhanced unit providing a direct link bewteen command and the platoon. You can choose to send the platoon off via instructions to the Lanceman (aka your "enhanced unit" ), or you could still do the herd-and-shoot method too. This should lead to a C&C-like organization at large, but with a finer control element available to those who are control freaks.

quote:
2. Unit Integrity is more than just how a unit operates within it''s own cell. It''s a critical factor in determining morale as well. Think of Unit Integrity as the building block...the cell that composes all other units. It is the smallest structure in a strategical scale.

3. Why do most units fight to the death? Other than true wargames (and the only real-time one I can think of...Close combat), I don''t see RTS''s as implementing morale. Just because you give a unit an order means they will carry it out.

These, I believe, is most often characterized as "you don''t fight for the army, you fight to save your buddies". I think this is something very interesting from the gameplay side. An example: Alpha and Charlie companies just got beat up, but Bravo company was severely trashed. Remaining Bravo units are dispatched to replace destroyed units in Alpha and Charlie companies. These units are more likely to be left alone (they were part of the loser company Bravo that just got killed, they''re gonna get us killed too) until they make it through the next battle, and truly become "battle-brothers" of their new colleagues. This can be drawn on separate lines in many ways, veteran units might stray from the green units, seeking better cover or darker terrain or what have you.

Know and understand the rule of FNG (Fuckin'' New Guy) because it''s how the grit gets spit. Nobody wants to be in a foxhole with a guy who takes 15 seconds to change a clip and doesn''t hit a damn thing.

It is an excellent idea to have the units know when to hold, and know when to fold and retreat. Veterans will pull out faster than FNGs as a rule, simply because the vets will know they are getting clusterfucked, but the FNG will be clueless and think it''s a grand old shoot-em-up, or alternately an underwear soiling competition.

quote:
4. Logistics, though it might seem too mundane or boring is probably THE crucial element in determining the long term success of a commander. Having the proper supply, supply lines and maintenance of your forces is very important. I think a Logistics system should be set in place rather than a "resources" system (which is really an extremely abstracted logistics model)

This really becomes a whole game in and of itself. This is about the coddling and ego-stroking a command is required to give it''s middle echelon (Majors, Captains, 1LT, etc.) to ensure that level''s allegiance and fortitude. Watch enough M*A*S*H and you will come to realize the exploits and escapades involved in keeping your troops supplied, and the evil things that company clerks will do to get the supplies they feel they need. It is not unusual to have supplies earmarked for one section of the front to magically walk off the dock, either to another force, or more likely, the black market. Keeping your supplies open and uncorrupted was a masterful addition to Civ-2!

quote:
5. Irregular Warfare is a catch all for harrassment and interdiction, sabotage, intelligence gathering (spying), insurgency, and a host of other jobs that typically fall to elite special warfare units. Their job is usually to make life diffucult for the other side, not necessarily by directly destroying his units, but by hampering his units effectiveness, or increasing his own units effectiveness (psychological warfare).

Ohhhh yeah baby. SpecOps and unconventional warfare rule. This is one of the times when you would want the flexibility of first-person control vs top-down tile map control. If you had sophisticated unit tasking, one might want to be as complex as provide for scripted missions, whereby the player lays out objectives for the unit in "battle-script", then sends his unholy bastard frogmen forth to do some good old goadin'' and explodin'' I love the Goblin Sappers in War2!! :D

quote:
6. Campaign thinking is also a rarity in RTS''s. A good eample of campaign design is Homeworld. You had to conserve your forces so that even if you won that one battle, you''d still be strong enough to face the next one. Campaign thinking isn''t just thinking down the long road, but also in a wider sense. For example, withdrawing troops in one theatre of operations to expose your opponents flanks to a counter attack from another combat element waiting in reserve. Large scale, long term thinking is what this covers.

This rings of the same stuff I pointed out in Morale and unit integrity. Veteran units will know how to conserve ammo, stop firing when an enemy is too far downrange, how to make (more)effective camouflage, and fall back without getting shot in the back. Green units (FNGs again) are prone to waste ammo, miss targets, and get their idiot heads blown off from rubbernecking when they don''t know any better. The soldier that sees less war lives longer. Often that means just closing your eyes, hugging your gun, grabbing your ankles, and letting the shells fall all around you.

quote:
Now to get back to your original question, what I''m doing instead of starting with the individual units, I''m working the other way around. I''m designing the army and the command structure, and then filtering down the more specialized units. I also don''t think that in a strategy game a unit should equal one "piece". As I mentioned in unit integrity, armies operate as UNITS, not collections of individual pieces. And this get''s further complicated by combined arms warfare. Some countries are very very good at it (the US military is perhaps as great as it is because it is so effective at coordinating infantry with armored support or artillery support or CAS support). In RTS''s today, you just lump together individual units into groups, no matter what the unit type.

While this is very flexible, it''s also highly unrealistic, and leads to some of its own pitfalls. This is where command and control comes into play. How effective units are is determined by how well they coordinate with other dissimilar units. For example, you could have the chain of command at the platoon level...so you issue an order to an infantry platoon commander, who therefore coordinates the sub-squads as he sees fit. And here''s the cool thing...you as the player can offer fire support for the platoon commander, or the AI Platoon commander can try to get it himself without your direct intervention.

Now that''s inspired! To consider the realities of CAW would probably benefit again from some kind of battle scripter, but in a fashion that provides a single target and plan of coordination to multiple dissimilar units.

Ideally, this is no more than dropping lines on a map, each unit is given an objective and a time within which to achieve it. I wish I could draw a picture here, because this is a great idea.

Consider a target: A communications bunker with neighboring barracks and medical tents. Personally I would do the follwing things... Jam or disrupt the comms, destroy the barracks and the bunker, and raid the med tent for supplies.

How to actualize?

1) A SpecOps unit (frogmen, SEALS, SAS, etc) is assigned the task of blowing the uplink dish, cutting the power to the bunker, blowing the bunker to hell, whatever you want to do. They are pointed to the bunker, and told that they have 20 minutes to infiltrate and achieve this objective (Drag a line from SpecOps unit to dish, or bunker door, or power supply, and assign this as first priority and a time window, but do not execute this action yet). If they complete this primary goal, they are given a secondary goal of ransacking the med tent. (Drag second line from SpecOps unit to med tent, assign secondary priority, and a maximum time after which they might occupy or fall back)

2) A fast attack squad (humvee platoon, armored personnel carriers, boostergrunts, etc) is told to flank the base and attack the barracks from the side opposite the SpecOps thrust once the comms are down. (Drag a line to a waypoint beyond the barracks, assign primary importance, drag another line from waypoint to barracks, require that SpecOps unit has met OBJ-1 before excuting attack). This would have the platoon move around the base, position thneselves, and move in for the kill as soon as the dish goes up in flames. You might even tell this squad to make tracks for the med tent assuming they complete their objective before SpecOps completes their OBJ-2

3) An air-strike unit is staged for this area. If either or both units get taken out or fail to meet their OBJs in their specified time, then the air strike is set to carpet bomb the place to oblivion. (Obviously we call this "The Hard Way") Got units in the way? Let''s hope they''re smart enough to bail before the bombers dive out of the sun.

4) All units are told to execute. The SpecOps moves in, the platoon heads off for points afar, and waits for the dish to go down. SpecOps takes it out, and the platoon firebrands the barracks while the SpecOps steal pills and bandages and then everyone gets the hell outta Dodge. Oops, the base was reinforced last night?? Gee, guess it''s time to override the plans for the bombers and send them in first...

Now, that''s all massively complex, but I think this can be done simply and elegantly, with the use of some lines, a few check boxes, nothing more than the TA user interface had, really, with a few additions to define the objective interdependencies.

Admittedly, I have not played R6 or any of its various and sundry flavors and knock offs. Am I reinventing the wheel here, or does the world truly need this kind of high-powered RTS?

--------------------------
-WarMage
..oh yeah.. and more than 10 fscking unit hotkeys!! I could have used about 20 in Homeworld!

quote: Original quote by Warmage

Now, that''s all massively complex, but I think this can be done simply and elegantly, with the use of some lines, a few check boxes, nothing more than the TA user interface had, really, with a few additions to define the objective interdependencies.

Haven''t seen this done for RTS games, but its very similar to some of the stuff I saw in flight simulators like F16. You basically could script missions and have AI respond to contingencies. I think it would be a very cool direction to take RTS games, though you''ll have the rushers and Starcraft players the world over crying in their milk. (Grognards, though, will be naming their babies afte you!)

Dreaming of something like this for a first person Napoleonic war game...

--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...

Ahhhh... I know that doesn''t quite fit here, but I just can''t help it...
Just watched "Few Good Man" and Jack Nicolson and Tom Cruise kick ass. This is the best army movie ever, imo, and that was my 6th time watching it on dvd.

And I guess Code Red does not apply to the RTS, neither penalties if breaking the chain of command, so this stays off topic after all

quote: "...I don''t want money, and I don''t want medals. What I want is for you to stand there with your faggoty white uniform and your Harvard mouth and extend me some fucking curtoasy! You have to ask me nicely!"

quote: "And what is that Code?"
"Unit, Core, God, Country."
"What was that?!"
"Unit, Core, God, Country, sir !"

OK, enough spam already...

Boby Dimitrov
boby@shararagames.com
Sharara Games Team