My Suggestions

[TheArchive]

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.

Edited May 28, 2011 by TheArchive

[feneur]

2. Change how many units are trained at once

The thought is to make batch training faster than creating five (or more) individual units one by one, but everything comes at a cost If you don't have enough for a batch (which currently is, and probably will continue to be, five units) you cannot take advantage of the speed bonus.

[TheArchive]

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).

[Mythos_Ruler]

Shift+Ctrl click to add increments of 1 to a batch could work.

[feneur]

Shift+Ctrl click to add increments of 1 to a batch could work.

Would probably work, but still, it feels like it should be a higher number, so the cost is higher. At least the lower limit for the speedier creation (or to put it in other words, the smallest batch) should be five, so that the initial cost is higher than just creating say three units after each other. If nothing else the speed boost would probably be so small that it's better to have the resources free for something else (at least in the sense that you could remove units from the queue if you found the resources were better needed elsewhere) than create smaller batches.

[Mythos_Ruler]

Would probably work, but still, it feels like it should be a higher number, so the cost is higher. At least the lower limit for the speedier creation (or to put it in other words, the smallest batch) should be five, so that the initial cost is higher than just creating say three units after each other. If nothing else the speed boost would probably be so small that it's better to have the resources free for something else (at least in the sense that you could remove units from the queue if you found the resources were better needed elsewhere) than create smaller batches.

Reading your comment, I agree wholeheartedly. Related, I'd like the speed bonus for batches to be steeper than it currently is.

[Arthur_D]

Adding Shift+Ctrl+LMB for getting five units in a batch and Shift+LMB for adding one to a batch sounds like adding complexity for a minor issue. Let's keep it simple I'd say.

[TheArchive]

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

[feneur]

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

I believe there are some technical difficulties with that. I'm not sure about the details, but it's something to do with how the engine processes things if I remember correctly.

[Ykkrosh]

Hmm, I don't think there should be any difficulties - the UI should already be independent of the simulation turn rate, and pausing is just like a really really slow simulation rate, so I think it should be possible (and a useful feature to add). I could be mistaken, though

[TheArchive]

Hmm, I don't think there should be any difficulties - the UI should already be independent of the simulation turn rate, and pausing is just like a really really slow simulation rate, so I think it should be possible (and a useful feature to add). I could be mistaken, though

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.

[feneur]

Hmm, I don't think there should be any difficulties - the UI should already be independent of the simulation turn rate, and pausing is just like a really really slow simulation rate, so I think it should be possible (and a useful feature to add). I could be mistaken, though

Ok, perhaps it's something else I'm thinking of Perhaps it was the unit creation?

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.

I'm pretty sure it cheats =)

[TheArchive]

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?

[oshron]

thats one problem i noticed with Empire Earth: no matter how large and advanced your city got on random maps, there were never any roads

if possible, dirt roads should DEFINITELY appear in high traffic areas, such as trade routes

[oshron]

EDIT: Okay, how does one who didn't read the post before the last post delete his post which becomes redundant by reading the post before the last post?

....lolwut?

[SMST]

....lolwut?

I only read your road suggestion, and wanted to post a positive example, being oblivious of the fact that this very example was brought up one post above you.