UI Suggestions

[C14]

Hello,

I've tested this game yesterday when I saw it on sourceforge.

Great work, congratulations!

Beautiful graphics, epic music and good sound!

Here are some suggestions from my side:

- Forum:

You should have different categories (subforums or threads) for suggestions here in this forum

such as content, user interface, graphics, AI and so on since a single thread with 95 pages is too hard to read.

- User Interface:

It would be great to have some of the user interface features that spring / supreme commander have and that make

the overview over the game in these games so great:

- Zoom: Apart from the strategic zoom with units turning into strategic icons which perhaps does not fit in the age of empires style,

it would be good if one could zoom out a litte bit more,

but if the camera angle increases as you zoom out, i.e. the view turns to a more top-down view for a better overview.

- Command Queue: The waypoints of units should be shown visually when pressing shift or some other command modifier key.

The individual waypoints should be deletable and draggable.

Also, it should be possible to queue up attack commands (didn't work for me) and build commands.

- Patrol

- Content:

- When moving in formation, and changing formation/direction, some units move much faster to get to their new position in the formation.

However, it seems like there is no way to order units to move that fast on their own.

I don't think you should use this 'speed hack' for keeping up formations but rather slow the other units down.

[MishFTW]

Welcome to the forums! In regards to the in game UI suggestions, those are slated for implementation before Part 1. The separate suggestions forum has come up before (here) but there was never a solid resolution.

And finally on the speed issue, I disagree with you. It seems more logical for a group of soldiers to move faster in formation because they are basically marching.

[FeXoR]

- When moving in formation, and changing formation/direction, some units move much faster to get to their new position in the formation.

However, it seems like there is no way to order units to move that fast on their own.

I don't think you should use this 'speed hack' for keeping up formations but rather slow the other units down.

I totally agree

And finally on the speed issue, I disagree with you. It seems more logical for a group of soldiers to move faster in formation because they are basically marching.

In my book "marching" is slower then "walking". If you march you have to watch what other units do marching with you especially if you have to form a specific shape with them. So it's more exhausting than simply walking. Moving in a formation should be slower (or cost stamina) because of that.

If the player is not allowed to make it's units run individually but allow running in case of formations it pretty much feels like enforcing formations to be of use.

Edited June 14, 2012 by FeXoR

[Shield Bearer]

Units will be able to charge in the future Its a planned feature, so don't worry

[Pureon]

And finally on the speed issue, I disagree with you. It seems more logical for a group of soldiers to move faster in formation because they are basically marching.

I agree with Geek377 - I don't think anyone wants an army to take up to 3x longer to get to an enemy base (formations constantly turn to avoid obstacles) - we need to think about gameplay, not just realistic movement speeds

[FeXoR]

I agree with Geek377 - I don't think anyone wants an army to take up to 3x longer to get to an enemy base (formations constantly turn to avoid obstacles) - we need to think about gameplay, not just realistic movement speeds

Shaped formations don't fall under the category "gameplay" for me, it's more visuals.

To make units try to stay close to each other (maybe a kind of glue functionality like in Warcraft III) is one thing and does have a gameplay value because if they get into the fight together they are more efficient (But with the drawback of the speed of the group is reduced to the speed of the slowest unit in the group, though one could still gather units close to the point to attack and then attack together). Making them form a pre-defined shape is another think that is mainly visual. Enforcing the "nice looking" things to be effective by enabling features for them that are not otherwise available is a very bad idea IMO.

Edited June 14, 2012 by FeXoR

[Mythos_Ruler]

The idea for the column formation is that units should move faster in column formation, which helps speed things up considerably... but they're also more vulnerable in Column formation (they have half of their armour while in this formation). Units should fall into Column when tasked to move over long distances, then fall into line formation or battle formation or phalanx formation when they get close enough to the destination.

[FeXoR]

The idea for the column formation is that units should move faster in column formation, which helps speed things up considerably... but they're also more vulnerable in Column formation (they have half of their armour while in this formation). Units should fall into Column when tasked to move over long distances, then fall into line formation or battle formation or phalanx formation when they get close enough to the destination.

Sounds reasonable to me (and about balanced since movement speed increase has a drawback in armor here). Still there are some other things to consider e.g. changing a formation leads to longer paths for each unit, what happens if the army hits another army on its way, etc. So in the end the units might reach their target later while giving a move order has the aim to get units to a destination as fast as possible AFAIK.

I mainly would like to have the possibility to give a move command to more then one unit at once (like most other commands) with the same possibilities available elsewhere (like running/charging or attack-move) and without any other stuff (like formations or glue functionality). But I don't have this alternative though it seams straight forward. Please add this... ATM I'm using the attack option for this which seams quite strange (using an attack command to make the units move).

Edited June 15, 2012 by FeXoR

[C14]

The game is so detailed that you can see individual spears of spear-throwers hit and miss and do damage accordingly

and then you want to hard-code the benefit of formations with speed and armor bonuses?

I think this is the wrong way and the benefit of formations should come out as emergent feature from the basic rules of the game.

As for the speed issue:

I think its perfectly realistic that formations move slower than individuals and not a problem gameplay-wise.

When moving units to the enemy, units should march in a loosely coupled formation more like a snake than a fixed column.

The effect on speed would then be negligible.

When really attacking the enemy, the speed is not very important anymore and it even adds strategic depth not to be able to change the formation in a matter of seconds

because one hat to think a little before attacking.

The benefit of formations in real world comes from covered flanks and higher morale if you have your own troops around you.

I think the first point can be perfectly simulated by lowering armor/guard by quite some amount for every but the first attacker

or making it direction dependent.

This would make it important that units don't get encircled and only face a single enemy at a time.

(of course, this works only if units have a collision box / unit stacking is not allowed)

If you merely give bonuses according to in which formation the group is, you are missing a lot of emergent behavior,

like what do you do when the formation is starting to break up because a part was destroyed? Who gets the bonus now?

[FeXoR]

(...)

I think this is the wrong way and the benefit of formations should come out as emergent feature from the basic rules of the game.

As for the speed issue:

I think its perfectly realistic that formations move slower than individuals and not a problem gameplay-wise.

When moving units to the enemy, units should march in a loosely coupled formation more like a snake than a fixed column.

The effect on speed would then be negligible.

(...)

The benefit of formations in real world comes from covered flanks and higher morale if you have your own troops around you.

(...)

If you merely give bonuses according to in which formation the group is, you are missing a lot of emergent behavior,

(...)

Yep

[Mythos_Ruler]

What kind of "emergent behavior" is supposed to occur when we place some hoplites in phalanx formation? They'll move slower, and because their shields overlap they'll get an armour bonus. Melee cavalry in a Wedge formation will get a charge attack bonus. All of these things are "hard coded" with the formation, so I'm not sure what you're saying.

[FeXoR]

What kind of "emergent behavior" is supposed to occur when we place some hoplites in phalanx formation? They'll move slower, and because their shields overlap they'll get an armour bonus. Melee cavalry in a Wedge formation will get a charge attack bonus. All of these things are "hard coded" with the formation, so I'm not sure what you're saying.

Some examples a units could "naturally" benefit from formations:

- Units with shield might have a chance to catch arrows with their shield but only in the angle the shield faces. In a formation all units can hold their shield towards the outside of the formation because the other side is guarded by his comrades.

- Tall units with high piercing resistance could be used for others to hide behind if no enemy melee units are near.

- Siege engines could be guarded by melee troops defending them against enemy cavalry.

- Units could swap places when a unit at the edge of a formation gets hurt. With healers present the wounded could be healed inside the safety of a formation. A fresh one could take his place.

- If there where a moral system, moral could go down when fighting while moral regeneration dependent of how many ally unit are near. When circling (like the "got hurt"/"heal" example above) more units would allow higher benefit from it. Moral could just be a damage modifier so damage is scaled down between full damage (full moral) and half damage (no moral left).

- In general harder to kill units/melee units could guard the edges while ranged units could fire from within safety.

Those are just some examples that came to my mind. I don't have the highest interest to have any of those in the game but I wouldn't mind. I just don't want to have things in that seem "enforced"/"unnatural"/"artificial"... I don't know how to explain better x)

However, I think formations could work great. But until this is indeed the case, please let the player decide if he wants to give a command to all selected units separately or as a formation.

Edited June 15, 2012 by FeXoR

[wrod]

Mythos has the right idea if u think about because when your in formation and moving fast irl you won't expect getting attacked so it would be sort of a sucker punch getting hit but if ur in for example a phalanx ur ready to get hit and everybody is protecting each other so you won't receive as much damage

O.o

Oogahlaboogahlaah!!.... bleh....

[wrod]

I cant edot my previous post since im on my phone

But anyways also if ur in formation and moving fast and get attacked every1 would panic irl too so they would recieve more damage like that too