EC3 New Idea #34 - Automatic Patrolling

[korn469]

by Changmai Beagle

<center><table width=80%><tr><td><font color=000080 face="Verdana" size=2><font size="1">quote:
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1>
</font>Automatic patrolling. Let us set patrol routes the units will follow back and forth. Why? Patrol borders with less units than sentrying, and patrol range of control from airbases and carriers. In CTP - lookout for slavers, etc., with less moves and clicks.
<img src="/images/blue1.gif" width=100% height=1></font></td></tr></table></center>

[Seeker]

Ever play Empire Deluxe? Civ III needs the "patrol" command!

[MidKnight Lament]

this would be especially useful if simultaneous turns is implemented.

it wouldn't be in my top 5, but it's not a bad idea.

[korn469]

that is the important thing each and every person has to do when the time for nominatiomes finally come around...you have to select the five best idea, all the ideas here are good, but finding and limiting it to the five best ideas is the tough thing

korn469

[don Don]

Patrolling is just one aspect of reasonable "path control" as it were: Multiple waypoints, GoTo which shows a path which you can then modify with waypoints, paths the user can set up independent of units and then assign to units as desired. Patrolling would just be a closed-loop path.

This seems to be on the borderline between fix and new.

On the other hand, if patrolling is separate from movement, something between ZOC and ranged attack, then it would be a 100% new idea.

[Changmai Beagle]

Final Answer (or final version if you prefer)

Either as a fix or a new idea. Provide a way to have units automatically patrol between one or more points. If they contact an enemy unit they become activated and go to manual control. Patrol could be tied to places, or to things - such as aircraft carriers. Examples: Empire, 1602

[Effraides]

No, No. I feel this is a wonderful idea... but i have always believed that a border patrol for instance should be handles similarly to the way Public Works were handled in Call To Power... The patrolling of an empire should be a given... I don't want to watch 80 of my units moving back and forth over the same areas every damn turn... rather, dedicate a certain amount of funds or the workforce to patrol an area... you don't have to watch them do so. Maybe a small animation... Or maybe a Public Work that acts as a guard tower along a border... or a coast, and when an enemy unit comes within its patrol radius... a small coast guard unit or such is automatically dispatched to investigate and find out there intentions. Depending on the manpower... and the funds you allocate there can be different degrees of this. Primitive patrols to current day coasts guards and beyond. The details would of course have to be worked out.