Grafix for Military Units

[Druid2]

Greetings. The Imperium wants YOU

I think we're close enuf to start the design work on the grafix for the military units.

We will *not* be having dozens and dozens of individual units scattered around the board, remember.

The basic "unit" that will be on the map is an Army Group, Navy Fleet, Air Wing and maybe Space Troop. Each of those units will represent from one to scores of individual military "elements" [I'm avoiding the word "unit" as it's too unclear. "Elements" are a part of a "Task Force". There are 4 kinds of TF.]

So we'll need those 4 basic TF type grafix: Army, Navy, Air, Space. In different stages of military sohpistication, of course. As the Civ goes from Primitive tech level to HyperModern, the grafix should change. I dont understand all the civ-tech-level stages yet, so I can only guess:

--Primitive [spears,clubs]
--Classic [Roman, Greek, Egyptian era]
--Medieval [Bows, Knights, Shamurai]
--Napoleonic [Muskets]
--Early Modern [Rifle, Tank, Biplane]
--Modern [Assault Rifle, Tank, Jet]
--HyperModern [Stealth craft, satellite weapons]

That's 7.. x 4 TF types = 28 icons. Too much?

The only place I can think of for individual element icons is on the Build Screen [when you select what to build, or rather to "encourage" your cooperative citizens to build for you ], or when you list all the constituent elements of a TF, or when you list all the "mothballed" units at a city or mil.base.

So, I'm not sure if they will even be needed. There's going to be an enormous number of different possible elements to design, after all. Maybe just a name and description would do? Or a symbol: crossed swords, wings, a gun, etc.

[Mark_Everson]

First my regrets on the 'verbal diarhea' nature of this post, but I wanted to get some things across quickly so I've grabbed bits of text from here and there... Hope its readable.

On the question of Individual Unit (phalanx, etc.) graphics, a design-a-unit system, and also tactical combat, there's already been a lot of discussion. Two of the biggest proponents for these issues are temporarily out of service, so I think I need to present a bit of their views (they also more-or-less convinced me that these are good things). Dominique is on vacation returning tomorrow, and can soon speak for himself. F_Smith had a v. busy stretch at work and is off to JavaOne, so we won't be hearing again from him for probably another week. However they are both committed to the Clash project long-term.

A ways back we were discussing the merits of a system where you can design individual units depending on your tech level etc. I don't know if you have scoped out those threads. Much of the discussion is in
apolyton.net/forums/Forum21/HTML/000038.html about 2/3 of the way down
the thread. If you have the time look it over, because its a lot clearer than my presentation below. There are also other good discussions in older threads that I have not looked up yet.

We as a group certainly need to take a position soon about these ideas soon. I am leaning towards them because of both the strategic aspects and the graphical advantages of the system Dominique (I think) proposed. A build-a-unit system (both graphically and characteristics-wise) would also tie in Very strongly if we decide to tack on a tactical combat system later.

Build-a-Unit:
Its not Only the graphix I'm talking about. (Although that is a worthwhile part of it) The idea would be to start with guys and you'd add things to make a unit. E.g. add a horse and bow (if you have tech for them individually and used together) you get horse archers. (and you get the pix too, using whatever style armor etc you might want) If you take guys and springfield rifles you'd get a pre-wwI rifle unit. Add tactical doctrine to the mix and you have each units fighting effectiveness, field mobility, shock attack value, etc. If we can do a good job in evaluating each piece added to the bare 'soldier' (whose quality also changes with lifestyle education and culture if we want to get that detailed) you open the field to an almost infinite number of reasonably realistic units. (which would then go into your TFs) This is a help for people who want, say, light horse, when only heavy horse (knights) might normally be available. I think we discussed the concept more thoroughly in the thread I referred to...

Unit display, and a 'battle box':
The idea was to have a graphical representation, say a battle line, of a selected unit. This provides some relatively cheap (in terms of processing time) eye candy, and makes it a lot easier for the player to see just What is in Lee's 3rd army. This view would be made by putting together the figure for the individual units that make up the TF. The Real bonus for making all these units up only comes when/if we do a tac combat add-on where you clearly need all the unit graphics and individual unit characteristics are more important. Also, many in the group, including myself, are 'aesthetically challenged'. However, a large part of our potential market is not. Since we aren't going the mutimedia, marching troops, or crap like that, I think we need some semi-unique graphical features to help bridge that gap. Kull had a good suggestion of actually showing a battle that the player want's to see. I think this would just be in Civ2 'see explosion on hit unit' fashion, but I don't know for sure because we havent discussed it in detail.

Kull Said recently:
And possibly also to appear in a "Battle Box" showing the various elements of each combatant army? Otherwise, will combat consist solely of "Chinese oblong marker goes into battle against Russian oblong marker. Chinese marker wins."? If so, I can hear the yawns now!

I replied:
Yeah, that's the idea! Although people can optionally turn the battle box off. Or only go back to the battle after suffering a surprising loss to see what happened. Like I said this stuff doesn't need to work for the first alpha versions, but it should be there eventually. And there seems to be substantial interest in a tactical sub-system. I think this is especially valid in Clash, where there should be relatively fewer battles (but sharper and more important) than in Civ2.

Tactical combat sub-system:
I think most people at least know what this is. You fight a big battle on a finer scale of terrain with individual units. I won't say any more in detail here.

Clearly there are Big resource/design issues involved here and we need to talk this one through and arrive at some sort of concensus.

-Mark

[This message has been edited by Mark_Everson (edited June 05, 1999).]

[Dominique]

So, we will have 2 totally independent sets of unit gfx:

1) The unit (task force) representations on the map. These will, according to your above outline, only show the epch and the overall type... I'd put this even further: Let's have just ONE image per domain (land, sea, air) and epoch, so whatever units your task force consists of, you see the same icon. This is the only feasble way - how could one show the "type" of a task force if in fact it consists of several unit types? So the icon will only reveal

a) the unit domain
b) the epoch
c) (if I have it my way) the player it belongs to by having specially colored parts and / or a flag / coat of arms.

Let's call these images TFIs (Task Force Icons).

On the other hand, we will have graphical representations of all possible unit types - a kind of puzzle box, indeed. Let's call them CUGs (Customizable Unit Graphics).

The CUG should consist of 3 areas:

a) the soldier (including armor / weapon)
b) optionally: the mount (lateron: vessel)
c) optionally: additional equipment (e.g. sappeur tools)

We will not be able to combine all possible elements in one picture - this would be too complicated, and, while certainly pretty, not very good to recognize. While it is a LOT of work to draw two sets of graphical elements for foot and mounted soldiers, it is absolutely acceptable to reduce this work by simply adding a horse standing behind a foot soldier to make him a rider - it's more flexible, too.

Summary:

The TFI only indicates that there IS a TF of a certain player at a given position on the map (maybe it shows some kind of power bar, too). For any further information, the player has to look at the "unit window", which should normally show the overall stats of the TF and a list of units it consists of. Only if the player actively clicks on one of these unit entries, the detail image (CUG) is shown... ideally with the terrain of the tile the TF is in as background.

All this, of course, excludes any tactical screen gfx - these, I'm afraid, would consume LOTS of time and work, indeed...

Ah, yes, there would be some differences in the graphical presentation of TFI / GUC:

TFI

- small (tile size)
- depends on TF domain / epoch
- shows player color / flag / coat of arms
(- nice but maybe too much work: shows clothing typical for player's culture)


CUG

- medium-sized (unit window size)
- independent of domain / epoch
- shows player color / flag / coat of arms
(- nice, but maybe too much work: has customizable parts / colors)


And, while not directly related to the graphics, one more idea: I don't like numbers in a game at all... but like many other players, I like statistics, maps and time tables, so it would be nice to have a "unit screen" with a detailed unit history, e.g.

1425 Unit created in Berlin
1437 Took part in the siege of Moscow
1478 Heavy losses in the battle of Austerlitz

The difference between these and other numbers is that here the numbers add to the atmosphere by creating artificial history, while in most other cases they rip the illusion from the game and give a look at game mechanisms.



[This message has been edited by Dominique (edited June 07, 1999).]

[Druid2]

Dom....

Sounds like a good plan to me, but one thing occurs to me. Might not matter, so I'll just throw it out there, and see what you and others think:

There'd be no prob having a single ICON for the TFI, different by epoc, most of the time.

A TF at sea is obviously navy, one on land is obviously army.. except that air TF could finish it's turn over land or sea .. I'm thinking that it would be nice to be able to tell them apart by looks alone. So I'm coming back to suggesting a different TFI for each domain (Ground, Air, Sea)

Maybe just crossed swords, wings or a boat. or somthing, I dunno.

It would also be good to be able to tell the approx size [order of magnitude] of the TF by looking at the TFI, as well as a status bar (% of healthy). One easy way to do this that comes to mind is to just put one or more boxes around the TFI as it gets larger.

........

on your created history:
I like this. It'll be even better by using the unit's name.

1483 "The King's Own" fought at Austerlitz
926 "Eric's Viking Raiders" sacked London

[This message has been edited by Druid2 (edited June 08, 1999).]

[Dominique]

Druid2,

maybe I haven't expressed my thoughts properly (don't forget, I'm no native speaker):

Yes, certainly the TFI should reflect the domain of the TF, so even over land, you's sea an airplane icon for a force of jet fighters.

And you are right, adding an optional unit name would be even better. I remember playing "Bloodbowl" (by Citadel), a fantasy football game (you play with teams of dwarves, orcs, elves...), where after several weeks of playing a league the player (read: tin miniatures) statistics became almost more entertaining than the actual matches.


[This message has been edited by Dominique (edited June 08, 1999).]

[Blade Runner]

Idea for the TF strength.
Can we use the color to show to the user the TF strength?
IE A weak TF very light green a strong dark green. The color can show not only the numbers of all units, but the health level too. IE a dark green TF after the battle can be green or light green depend on the casulties. In the time beeing the TF can get dark green again. (or blue or red or ...)
We can count a kind of altogether strength to adding all the civs all TF together. This can be a kind of counting point. We can divide with the numbers of the all TF's an we get the average TF strength. The TF will get the color code compare with this average value.

Blade Runner

[Dominique]

Problem with the color is: We have to show the player color already in the TFI, so this might get messed up, I'm afraid. The player should be able to identify units on a casual glance alone, and THEN see their relative strengths.

Hm... what about the following: Position units on a pedstial, a simple (rectangular / cylindrical) box, the color of which denominates which civ it belongs to, the height showing the (realtive) power?

I think we agree that a "realistic" map won't be feasable anyway, so this might come in handy. It furthermore resolves the otherwise existing need for animations - you see, today players take animations as nothing special, but if we DON'T do them, we might look inferior. By placing units on boxes, we have a very simple reason to leave out the anims - a warrior on a moving pedestial doesn't have to walk, after all.

[Mark_Everson]

Dominique:

Hah, you've finally discovered something that aesthetically revolts even me . I don't think the pedestal is such a good idea.

I do like the history too. With a good person to write scripts there could even be a short description of each battle available. If you structure it right with about 30 descriptive sentences with wildcards for names you would never have two 5-sentence battle descriptions that were the same.

All:

Here's a thought I've been toying with...
How about do the unit's Size (2D Area) by its power. Biggest in the local area would be slightly oversized (fill a tile). Area of the unit would indicate the approximate power. So a unit 1/9th as strong as our big unit would be 1/3 as tall. There would obviously have to be a cutoff for minimum size displayed. So you Immediately Know who the big armies are, and can See whether an advancing army is a threat (if your scouts have assessed it correctly). If the army figure really looks like an army the scaling will give it about the right footprint on the map too using this way.

[Dominique]

Mark,

I'm sorry? "Revolting"??? Erm...



...

As for the idea with the different size:

Yes, I thought about that one, too - but forget about it.

a) people can't really recognize size differences that easily (color coding is MUCH more recognizable)

b) It's extremely difficult (if feasable at all!) to do nice gfx which STAY nice after zooming.

c) Imagine you have 1 lonely hunter and a TF consisting of 10 armoured divisions... how tiny should the hunter possibly be? How huge the tanks?

The idea SOUNDS intuitive, but, given the practical problems, isn't (sadly so).

The idea with the cylinder could be certainly improved, though: One could make the cylinder semi-transparent to allow a look on the terrain underneath. And on a tileless map presentation, maybe the HEIGHT shows the power of the unit, while the WIDTH of the column shows the effective are of influence.

While I always advocate anything that improves the illusion of "looking on a miniature world", I always turn any power indicators in every game ON (if possible). "Understand everything at a glance" is the key, I think.

Btw. Mark, if you wonder where the difference between width / height of the cylinder and your proposal of icon size is: It is much easier for the human eye to recognize little differences in the dimensions of regular bodies than of some cutout shapes (e.g. a musceteer image).


[This message has been edited by Dominique (edited June 08, 1999).]

[Dominique]

Hmmm... disk... wel,, yes, sure, but since I haven't given up the concept of tileless movement yet, I'd rather reserve the diameter (i.e. the width of the disk) for showing which area is controlled / occupied by a unit. Wait - how about having a global switch that regulates which data are shown by the disk? This way one could easily see all important information.

Btw., if we talk about "disk", it's more a coloured circle, isn't it? No height, I mean.

And you wouldn't need any masks at all for that - simply draw the circle first and the icon (TFI) afterwards.

But still, I'd propose the cylindrical version at least OPTIONALLY - you have only that many dimensions, after all (color adds one), and sometimes it IS essential to see 2-dimensional data at the same time.

The "nimbus" thing isn't feasable, I'm afraid - not technically (very easy, indeed, just one computer-generated mask more), but visually. You won't see much with that, and you absolutely won't be able to deduct any value from it. Furthermore, it looks "holy" or "demonlike" very easily...

[Mark_Everson]

Dominique:

I think the disk size with two settings could work. It could have a thickness, though personally I would like to see it be small.

For most units, if you think about it, the size (terrain the real unit covers in km^2) is roughly equivalent to the power (since dispersion increases with tech). You could possibly also just show both power and ZOD (can't remember the new name) as two different-colored disks. The ZOD would almost always be larger than the 'power' one because of the area-power relationship above. Only for an excellent army that fights much better than its size, would you need to switch between the two settings. You'd always want one disk to be some neutral color like silver so the colors wouldn't clash.

[Theben]

Forgive my butting in but I'd like to suggest some variants:

Translucent disk or (short) column, that becomes more opaque as the unit/stack(?) becomes more powerful

Brightly colored disk/column that becomes darker as unit becomes more powerful, assuming that no 2 nations have the same basic color

disk with a numerical value approximately representing the strength of the unit/stack, from, say, 1-99+ (yeah, I know, no numbers, but it's still a suggestion)

Regarding width for area of influence (ZOC's, yes?) why not just have the terrain in the affected area be shaded noticeably darker? Overlapping areas of a player's ZOC's (and allies) would be the same shade, unless you are planning to incorporate additional effects for stronger ZOC's, in which case the expansive 'disks' would have darker shades at overlapping zones (obviously not too dark at any point so a player cannot recognize the terrain itself). Would work with both tileless movement and a hex map (please no squares).

Druid, Dominique:

I also like the idea of naming units, but considering the number of units likely to be in any game I'd limit them to only a player's best trained and/or most experienced units. This also lets people know that when they see a unit called "The King's Own" or some such they may have a problem on their hands. Reserved for special occasions, this would add more flavor, IMHO.

[Richard_III]

Another buttinski--

Why not just use standard military symbols for ‘task forces.’ For instance an infantry division is represented by a rectangle with visible diagonals with “XX” above. A brigade has only one X. A corps, three , etc. A cavalry unit has only one diagonal. An armored unit has a sort of flattened oval. Thus one may indicate both the general type of units found in the task force as well as its strength. It is also very low end graphically speaking. Moreover, you would be using an already existing system immediately recognizable to any wargamer/military person.

Just a random thought.

[Theben]

Richard III,
You mean like Tactics II and 3rd Reich? I agree it would be recognizable, but I also think it would lack the 'eye-candy' necessary to hold people's interest.

[Druid2]

The "standard" symbols work ok for modern times, with a single class of component elements. Our TF are going to be combined arms units, tho.. with army, armor, air cav, arty, some commandos, etc...

Also, I wonder what the symbol would be for a
"bunch of horsemen with sabres accompanied by foot archery"

---

from the Clash Lexicon

ZOC = Zone of Control. Not used in Clash. It implies that units cannot pass thru enemy ZOC, untrue for this game.

ZOD = Zone of Detection. Radius around the center of a Task Force in which enemy TF's *MAY* be detected, and if detected *may* be engaged for combat.

ZOD was felt to be an ugly word, and so is replaced by "Recon Zone" or RZ if one must "acronymize"

.....[the foregoing enlightening reading was provided by your Friendly Druid]....

[This message has been edited by Druid2 (edited June 09, 1999).]