unit Formations, Movement, Selection - change ideas/general thoughts/collection

[sternstaub]

  

On 11/05/2017 at 9:50 PM, causative said:

Don't use formations.  Especially don't gather your army in age I and set it in formation outside your base to defend.  That army is composed of workers, and should be harvesting resources at all times, unless you are using it to raid the enemy (an advanced technique).

(please be aware that this quote refers to a 2017 thread)

 

...while this is true and soldiers should not be standing around in a formation, i still feel like there should be a higher utility value to them. At the time, they feel like more of a hindrance; it can become very confusing in late game to keep track of all control groups and additionally managing their formations, expecially with the persistent lag problem with many armies. Plus, it can cost DPS and, summa summarum, is not worth the effort.

And it indeed feels like there are no players who are seriously utilizing formations, unless units are simply standing around.

One problem i see here is: Using formations can indeed make sense some times, but they would not be useful for every move. So, for example, i expect an incoming cavalry attack, and thus want to place all spearmen i have to form a broad, but thin line just to stop the advance, while keeping for example swordcav ready in a flank (f.e. triangular attack formation) to inflict the main pain. But as soon as the battle starts, i would not want the units to seek formation, run around and look for a nice lined-up spot - only maybe for regroup -, but rather to attack, attack, attack; dps, dps, dps! 

Concerning the matter, this remembered me of an oldie RTS i played ages ago, and how they solved it. Maybe someone knows it, it's name is "American Conquest". It also had a feature to organize soldiers in formations. You did not click (movement command) to put the units in a formation, but right-click, then draw the mouse. Even when a group had a formation set, a simple right-click would just be a regular movement order. The game did then render a preview for how the units would "place themselves" on release of the mouse button.This command could be cancelled by left-clicking the mouse. But besides from separating regular movement commands from formation / battle commands, this has also the nice effect that the facing direction of soldier formations can be easily aligned.

This would probably not too hard to implement, and i want to take a look at this at proper time. But first, it would be interesting to know what you think about the formations in the game. Do you use them? Have you thought of using them, but found them to be a hindrance to your gameplay? Or do you generally not give thoughts to these things?

Edited February 23, 2023 by sternstaub
specified

[maroder]

In case you have not stumbled upon it yet, you may find the following thread interesting:

 

[sternstaub]

37 minutes ago, maroder said:

In case you have not stumbled upon it yet, you may find the following thread interesting:

 

Thank you! I was not familar with Delanda Est so far.

[Lion.Kanzen]

On 08/02/2023 at 2:30 AM, sternstaub said:

Thank you! I was not familar with Delanda Est so far.

It is one of the think tanks of 0 A.D.

[sternstaub]

another idea is stack selection for each type of unit. So that, for example, you have stack select active for women and set property "5" for the stack. So that if you draw a rectangle over one woman, the game would automatically select 4 other women from nearby. Range threshold like 10m would make sense here.

This stack size could differ between different unit types. I thought it makes sense to handle women as a 5stack, since 5 women go to a field; for spearmen, on the other hand, you maybe want to command 15 at once.

One variation of this may be that it be unified with production batch size, and that each unit would have it's own batch sizes. In other words, the batch size and the target selection amount are unique for each unit and share the same value. It might be changed as usual by using the scroll wheel on production icon. 

Another variation can be that the stack size changes with stage progression. In village phase, you use small stacks. For town phase, the stack selection amount can grow. It does not have to be hardcoded. The player can instead be enabled to set it on the options. Could be achieved with 2 DropDown menus for example:

1) Phase I / II / III.
2) Unit type -> women, spear, jav, slinger...;  
for each possible combination, a number may be entered. This number would then define in which stack size this unit will be selected in that phase.
It can also be limited to click select. So that when you click, you get the stack size. But that would bring some more problems, because you could then only select one stack. 
On the other hand, it might also be useful to have standard rectangle select, and bind stack size to click select. Click = select 25 slingers, focus archers, then click ram, which selects 1 ram, attack building, then click swordcav, autoselect 40 swordcav, then drawing rectangle over all troops and send all to attack CC or to retreat...

Question here would be whether such features may be combined with Battalions as planned (?) for Delanda est.

This posting is for preserving the thought primarily, not directly a suggestion or such.

Edited February 23, 2023 by sternstaub

[Emacz]

On 08/02/2023 at 2:51 AM, maroder said:

In case you have not stumbled upon it yet, you may find the following thread interesting:

 

Does anyone know if there are plans to make formations more useful in regular game?  Similar to Delenda Est where certian formations give you either defensive or offensive bonuses while in formation.  That would be good and a little more realistic!