My take on the healer unit

[Arthur_D]

As I've been scooping around I found a little discussion about the planned healer unit. Here's my thoughts:

The aforementioned discussion brought forward the idea of a moving healer unit which could be brought along with your army. The healer(s) would also auto-heal.

I don't think this is such a good idea. It could easily get over-used, and even though you could make some artificial limit (like the healer having very few hitpoints) to the usefulness, a healer is in my opinion a defensive unit and should not be brought along in a fight.

Another RTS I've played (and still play alot, since it's great for multiplayer games - you can save MP games), by the name of 'The Settlers III' have healer buildings which you can gather soldiers around, and then units would go one at a time and get healed (if they are close enough). This is more in line with my perception of what a healer, or a doctor, should be like.

Still, this has some limits. While it's great for Settlers 3 to do it this way, because you have actual borders and towers all over the place, for 0AD with no borders it could easily become annoying. Let's say you take your army with you, and a worker which builds you the healer's building. After the battle, if the building still is there, you would in 0AD have to feed the healer or crush the building, making for lost resources.

So my idea would be something in-between: let's say you make a healer unit. He(/she?) spawns with a backpack on his back, and then you could make him set up a tent wherever you want. You would of course then have the ability to make him pack his stuff again and move to another location where you would need him more. He would auto-heal units close around his tent being in an idle state, either one at a time rather quickly, or everyone around in a small area in a slow manner.

What do you think?

Edited July 19, 2010 by Arthur_D

[chess007_phoenix_clan]

As far as healers and gameplay balance, think of the monks in age of kings the conquers. Or even the missionary unit. Yes they do heal but its not quick and doesn't damage game play balance. Having a healer set up a tent sounds like a good idea to add to realism. But then again, being ultra realistic would mean having an almost dead unit stay in the tent for a week perhaps more to heal. That really takes away from game-play.

Most of the time, with a good enough economy one can replace the soldiers that are lost. Any one soldier is not so super valuable that they must be healed. Its nice to have healers around, but few people make lots of them (again refer to aoktc). The exception here might be a hero unit. And certainly in a regicide game, keeping the king healed would be handy.

[Mythos_Ruler]

Healers setting up shrines or "hospital" tents would have been my preferred route, but I think 0 A.D. is going a little more metaphorical with its healers (like in AOK). They'll pretty much function similarly to the monks in AOK (AOEII), plus temples will heal units like in Age of Mythology (Apollo's 'Temple of Healing').

In reality armies of this period did take priests and medical personnel along on campaign, so their use here in our game isn't toooo far fetched.

[Arthur_D]

chess007_phoenix_clan: Of course, I'm not asking for ultra-realism. But I think it would add a little unique (maybe not unique, but haven't seen this before) twist to the game.

Of course you could simply replace soldiers. But in the aforementioned Settlers 3 game, I've found it to be a real treat. Let's say I've got 100 soldiers. I attack with 70 and I get 30 of them damaged, more or less badly. Then I can just send them home to be healed and in the meanwhile use the 30 fresh soldiers along with the 40 fresh/not-so-damaged I am still using in the offensive manouver.

How things will be balanced in 0AD is yet to see; maybe healers will be quite useful, or maybe not so. But personally I think many other RTS games make them too little useful. After all, a good emperor and warlord in ancient times took care of his soldiers, keeping their loyalty to him.