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YES! Thank you so much for this option! When you say control, does that mean the player controls the different sides which means they can still attack each other? Let's say I'm playing the Romans, and the computer is playing the Celts. If I use the pandoras box cheat, will I take control of the celts, but still have it where it's not counted as being owned by me? Basically, will I be able to use this cheat to play against myself? If so, this is what I've been waiting for. Ever since I could play against myself in Rise of Nations I've wanted to see something like that in another game. There's just something awesome about being able to set things up however you want and play it out. One thing I did in Rise of Nations with this option was to get a group of soldiers from both sides, have them hold fire and line up in front of each other, and then turn them back to aggressive. It was awesome. I'm so glad to see this being put in the game. Is that by any chance a reference to Mount&Blade? That's a line river pirates say when you encounter them. Oh god, I laughed when I saw this one. Unless the number of 'he's used is a reference to something, might I suggest cutting it to hehehe x? Shorter and easier to remember.

I feel kind of bad since I found myself excited about the introduction of cheats. I get what the Big Daddy will be (that is going to be so awesome!), but I'm afraid I don't get what the other two are supposed to be (pow? e=mc^2 troop?). Is there a post somewhere that describes what they are?

That sounds like way too much trouble. Just think about how annoying it would be on large maps, where there will probably be a great amount of walls. Yes, you could assign workers to them, but that would require way too many workers, and unless you had a great amount of them then by the time they finished with one spot, another would be just as bad. So I say no to walls which weaken over time.

Here's something else I thought about. I read in another thread that you plan to make it so that players can trade between their own markets, right? Well, one thing about Rise of Nations that I liked was that when the trader creates a trade route between their home city and the city they trade with (in this case it would be markets), a road is automatically created as they travel. I think something like this would be great to have, since it made me feel that my cities were more connected when there were roads connecting all of them. Would it be possible to have something like this? Perhaps as the trader moves from one city market to the next, a road is created which would connect the two of them?

I'm all for the curtain idea. Like I said in an earlier post, however, try not to make it cost more or take more time if it has no benefits over a regular wall. If it takes a long time to build but isn't better than a regular wall, then I don't see anyone using it.

Great. I'd love to have that in the game. Also, going back to the batch training question, I just noticed something while playing. It's been annoying me how I'll look at what the AI is doing and see that they already have a large amount of citizens doing work and building, while I myself don't have nearly as many and don't seem to be able to train them as quickly. I found out why this was when I selected there civic center to see what the AI was training. Turns out they train in batches of 2, so that they number they get is usually double that of what I can do (which is what I've been noticing constantly. Would it be possible to just let the player do what the AI already does? There must be someway they're able to do that.

Going away from that for the moment, is there any plans on allowing the player to issue commands while the game is paused?

I vote for both. However, would it be possible to make the wall 'snake'? Like you select wall, then perhaps you could select if you want curtain or straight, and then the wall follows where you drag the mouse (or something like that). That way there could be circular walls that don't have to be around just the civic center. Just my opinion, but I suggest only doing that if it is stronger than a regular wall. If it is exactly the same in everything but shape, then making it cost more doesn't make much sense.

Alright, so you don't plan on letting the player add more troops to a batch? Like I said, it's fine that the batch goes up by increments of 5, but if I don't have the resources for a batch of 10 or I only want 6, I think it would be nice to add/remove 1 troop to the batch. That way I get the number of troops I want, and the cost could go up/down depending on whether or not I add/remove troops to the batch, so it wouldn't be considered cheating (since the higher cost would still be there).

Hello everyone, I decided to create this thread so that I have a place to leave all my ideas. I know there's a thread at the top to post ideas, but I'd rather not do that for several reasons. First is that the thread is already pretty long, so I don't know if people will actually look at them, and the second reason is that I see several other suggestion threads already created. Anyway, I'll be tossing my ideas in here from now on. 1. Order While Paused One thing I like being able to do in a game, especially an RTS like this, is to be able to make orders while the game is paused. This has always helped me with playing since it allows me to take in the situation. Plus, it makes it more fair to me since the computer can order every unit and every building at the same time. Being able to order my units with the game paused will allow me to do the same in a way. 2. Change how many units are trained at once I like the fact that you can shift click when training units to create batches of units going up in increments of 5. However, I think this should be slightly changed. Perhaps Shift+Ctrl while clicking could go up in increments of 5, while simply holding Shift while clicking would go up in increments of 1. There have been several times I've wanted to train 6 units, either for the reason that I only want 6, or that I don't have enough resources for 10, but I am unable to do so. I have to shift click for one batch of 5 units, and click again to separately train 1 more unit. It would be much better if I could, say, Shift+Ctrl click to train the first 5 units, but then I could Shift click one more time to add one more. That way I could create 6 units at the same time, instead of creating 5 units at the same time, and then waiting longer to train the 6th unit.

They have something like that in a game I like called Supreme Commander. You can make your own replay or download replays from other players, and then watch them. While watching the replay, there is a list that contains all the players. Selecting one of those will show you everything that player sees. When you get tired of watching that player, you can just select another player to watch. Or if you just want to watch everyone, there's an option that allows that as well. Clicking that will remove the Fog of War, and show you everything every player is doing.

Alright, thanks for considering the idea.

Yeah, that's how it works in Rise of Nations. When you set both players to human control, everything switches when clicking on something that belongs to the other player (so you can build and train, the fog of war switches, etc). Sorry if I'm not explaining this good enough.

I can't believe I forgot that. I'm sure I've read it before (maybe the manual? Can't remember). Right, I keep forgetting that little detail. I'll remember that next time before posting something, sorry.

I just thought of something else. 4. Easier to select units - It's really annoying how double clicking a unit doesn't select all units of that type on screen. Say there are 5 hoplites currently on screen. 3 of them are just recruits with no experience, 2 are medium, and the last 1 has max experience. If you double click 1 of the hoplites with no experience, it will only select those 3. Same with the 2 with medium experience, and the last 1 with max. Seriously, double clicking the 1 with max won't even select any other hoplites. I can kind of see why this is done since the upgrade is visual, but in a battle I want to be able to select all of my hoplites at the same time. It's incredibly frustrating double clicking on a hoplite, only to find I usually end up with only half since the others are different levels. Double clicking should select all of them. If you want, just add an extra option that selects all the units of the same type, but also the same level. Maybe Shift+Double Click? 5. EASIER TO BUILD WALLS! - There must be something I'm missing here. In any game I've ever played that allows the player to build walls, there's alway an option to connect walls. This is usually done by clicking somewhere after selecting the wall, and then dragging the mouse which would drag the wall as well. That way the finished wall would actuall look like it's fully connected. Right now I have to waste way too much time trying to fit the wall pieces perefectly so that no one can go through. I can't even use the stupid gate, since there's no option I can see that actually lets you open it. It acts exactly like a regular wall piece right now. Also, I'd love to see the ability to customize the way the wall is created when dragging it (if you do something like that), so that it drags in a way that resembles a snake. What I mean is, allow the wall to curve so that it doesn't always have to be like a box. In the demo scenario for the Hellens (I really don't think I got that right), the city already has a bit of a wall that curves around it, and actually connects. That's what I want to be able to do, but it was way too much trouble for me to try and finish that wall, and what I did manage didn't look nearly as smooth as what was already there. One option I would really love dealing with walls is one that I saw in another game I have (can't remember the name right now). Basically, you could build your wall however you wanted to very easily. You did the normal building by selecting the option to build a wall, and then dragging the wall after clicking to surround what ever it is you want to protect. Once the wall finished building you could select wall pieces (just remembered, I think it was Empire Earth), and then there were several options to choose from. One option was to build a tower, which would add a tower piece. The second option was to add a gate, which would change the wall piece you selected into a gate (to be specific, the wall turned green to show were you could place the tower/gate, and you would place it manually). That option made it really easy to build walls around places.

I have a few suggestions. 1. Cheats - Are you planning on adding different cheats to the game? Would it be too much to ask for an option to be added to the developer overlay which gives the player (and only the player) more resources? I guess the option could be press and gain 500 each. Also, do the current options (such as reveal map) do anything to the AI? What I mean is does the map clear for the AI as well, or do they still retain the fog of war. 2. Diplomacy - Is there any current plans for a system of diplomacy? War's good and all, but I always love to be able to have diplomatic relations with other players. The more options there are, the better. This could include peace demands, tributes, offering soldiers, trading different things, trading territory (is there going to be some form of territory? I'm guessing so from the description of the civic center), etc. Any thoughts on this? 3. Campaign Maps - One of the things I love the most about games like Total War, Rise of Nations, EU, etc. is that they have a "Conquer the World" type of map, which you'll understand what I'm talking about if you've ever played any of those games. Will this have something similar? A map which covers a large area where you can move armies and such to different territories and conquer them? Could you add diplomacy to this as well (gaining territory, declare war, ask for peace, etc.)? I see there's something in the works for campaigns, but I'm not sure what those campaigns will be like, which is the reason for my suggestions.

Just wanted to point out that I was wrong. I thought I could make it so where I could play against myself by setting the AI to none, and then in the game using the Control All Units option from the developer overlay. It worked, but it didn't work. The reason it worked is that I could select the player's units without the AI doing anything. However, I ran into some problems. First of all, this can only work with the map revealed, since even though I can control the units, they are still treated as enemies. Second, I can't do anything. When I try to build/train something with a unit belonging to player 2, the thing I train still belongs to player 1. So that pretty much ruins it.

I've actually noticed the option in the developer overlay that allows control of all units. This is actually pretty similar to what I was thinking of, only my version would be like in Rise of Nations, where the player is fully controlled by the human. With this option you can control what ever you select, but once you leave them alone the computer takes over again. I also noticed another option called Enable Time Warp. However, after activating it I can't see what it does. Can someone tell me what Enable Time Warp does?

Your first guess is right. Basically, when the game starts all control belongs to the human. In order to switch to another player, you have to click on something that belongs to that player. It could be a unit, building, or you could click on the name of the player in the bottom right corner (which has a list of all the players). Once you click on something that belongs to that player, you would then control them. This way if two armies were next to each other you could drag a box around everyone and still only select your soldiers. If you wanted to gain control over the other troops, you had to click on them. I thought this worked rather well. Also, to deal with the fog of war issue (like how would you select the unit/building of the other player if it was blocked by the FoW?), it was set so that all players which were human controlled had their capital uncovered by the fog of war. That way, you could always have something to click on to switch control. There was also no trouble with right clicking something. Let's say there are two players, A and B, both human controlled. First, I create an army for A. Then, I would click the capital of the other player. When I do that, my control switches over to them. One thing this means is that fog of war is switched (in other words, I would only be able to see what that player would be able to see. For example, when I switch from player A to player B, I see what player B sees, and lose the sight I had as player A. Make sense?). Anyway, once I have control over player B, I then create an army for them. Next, I move both armies (do this by moving the B army, switch to player A, then move the A army) to a spot right next to each other. If I don't want the two armies to attack right away, I simply set both to hold fire so that they won't attack. I have a few options after that. First, I can pause the game, and while paused switch between the armies and set them to attack. This way, the two armies will attack each other when I unpause the game. If I don't want to do that, I can simply tell them to attack. For example, I would switch to player A, take the A army, and then right click anything belonging to player B in order to attack. What I'm trying to say from all of this is that right clicking isn't an issue. If you're playing as player A and you right click something belonging to you, then the unit you have selected will guard/repair what you right clicked. If you take that same unit and right click something belonging to player B, then it will attack - the same way it would normally. I hope this helps answer your question. If you need more help, might I suggest getting the game and trying it out? It's very fun and sure to last a long time (one fun thing about it is the different eras, ranging from ancient to future). However, you might end up having to download it online, since I don't know if it's actually in stores anymore.

Hello everyone, this is my first post on these forums. I'd like to first say that I hope I'm posting this in the right area, and that I'm not posting something that's been suggested a thousand times before. Now, for my actual suggestion. I'm not sure how many of you have played the game Rise of Nations, but for those who did, do you remember the option you could set in the game which allowed you to play against yourself? They even had cheats which allowed you to choose human control or ai control for players. I don't know about everyone else, but I personally loved that option. Sure it was fun to go against the computer, but I always enjoyed setting the control to human so that I could control the players. It let me determine how I wanted everything to play out. I could build up cities and armies, and have them do what I wanted them to do. What I really enjoyed was the fact that it added a lot of role-playing qualities for me. So this is my question. I've heard that this game has been compared to Rise of Nations, and so I was wondering if that will be the same for this as well? Will there be an option to set it so that we can play against ourselves?