Rise of Nations -- Time for your ideas!

[One_Dead_Villy]

Here's another idea they should have buttons not only for formations (and I would hope formations that actually do something useful)...BUT ALSO buttons for special manuevers. Like a pincher/bulls horn maneuver. This would work like, where you select a bunch of units for a group. Then select the maneuver you want to use, and possibly even be able to select certain troops or troop types for the various elements of the maneuver. Of course you can then override the maneuver at anytime and select individual moves. BAsically if anyone remembers this OLD PC game called Centurion (where u play Rome the 1st thing that happens when you get into the battle screen is select the "strategy/formation" like Canae tactic. and your troops would move autmatically to engage the enemy in that formation and maneuver accordingly, but your general simple has an area of effect that you can use to revise individual units' moves or rally them from panicking and running off.

[Crazy Dog]

illmac:
Yes there will be trench warfare in the game, though it is not fully developed.

[Crazy Dog]

illmac:
Yes there will be trench warfare in the game, though it is not fully developed.
There are going to be researchable stuff that turns citizens into guerrilas for emergency sitiations.
The nuke counter if if too many nukes are fired within a period of time, the game is declared Aramegeddon.

[One_Dead_Villy]

just read about how they are thinking of wether or not to allow you to produce the troops of the captured towns or just let you have the buildings. This is very intriguing, maybe make it a research item. Something like a assimilation tech, if they researched it before they take that town, they can retain some or all (maybe depending on other research, like maybe the other civ is more advanced so they wont be able to produce say the gun powder units until they themselves research gunpowder), also unique units maybe another factor. Basically I would favour that captured cities be allowed to produce the troops of the original civ after certain research is done, or only if certain research HAD been done before the capture. Like some civilizations in human history has been very good at incorporating other people's technology (ie. America after WW2), while some didnt learn much from them cause they just destroyed it or were too proud to (ie. Spanish vs MezoAmerica).

[jglidewell]

Originally posted by One_Dead_Villy
just read about how they are thinking of wether or not to allow you to produce the troops of the captured towns or just let you have the buildings. This is very intriguing, maybe make it a research item. ...

Yes it is, typically war games tend to be a rolling victory, kinda like a snowball rolling down the hill getting bigger and bigger. Once you get a small advantage it just keeps getting bigger. Kinda gets boring too.

I would like to modify this by allowing conquered peoples. Once a town is taken, it is given orders by the conqueror to produce this or that. Or even the peoples are kept in a refugee camp or prison, slowly starving to death, You can be forced to produce, but all output goes to the conqueror while slowly, perhaps, your partisans can disrupt and sabotage. This would allow a 3rd party, a war of liberation not just conquering.

[Sava]

I just want to be able to create my own units and stuff. The more creation options... the better.

[One_Dead_Villy]

One thing I hope they do is that...the attrition rate should be different depending on the terrain so that people can in fact use walls judiciously and like they did in real life. So deserts, and mountainous areas (ie. Hannibal lost alot of troops getting across the alps) would cause a higher rate of attrition, and even oceans too should cause this. I mean that was a huge factor in the early days of exploration and european settlers. Hence reducing the need for mondo walls by exploiting the geography. In past RTS the ocean side tended to be your vulnerable points, (even in RON with national borders) there is still a chance to sneak people deep into enemy territory for some advanced building. So I would hope that there is some kind of supply factor in ocean going vessels as well. Maybe a research item to improve sea range.

[G.S. boy]

Sorry i wasnt finished yet! You should also be allowed to build a police force in your towns to stop local crimes and to defend the towns from attack. This might consist of guard towers and police outposts in towns to defend against attack.

Thanks for listening!

[Propaganda]

Brian Reynolds, I beg of you to include a government system ala Alpha Centauri. PLEASE, PLEASE, PRETTY PLEASE!

[adaMada]

There are several things that I've been thinking about as I read this thread.

• Unit Location: I've seen several movies of the game. Though the graphics look very cool, there's one thing that I've been thinking about -- as far as I can tell, the game shows a blotch of a nation's color wherever a unit is concealed behind a building. Though I understand the need for some sort of system to prevent people from hiding ALL of their units under buildings, I think that concealment is a valid and important tactic, and should be taken into account -- the player should be able to think "I need to defend this town, and the enemy will be approaching from this direction -- can I hide my units behind something and ambush them?" **NOTE: On second thought, the videos might be deceptive here – I believe that, in the videos, the game was being played in a special ‘control everyone’ mode – as such, this highlighting might only be for units you own… Any clarification from anyone who knows would be appreciated…
• In line with the previous bullet, all units should be given a No-Auto-Fire toggle. There's nothing more annoying then trying to maneuver your units without the enemy seeing you, to have your units suddenly start auto-shooting. There should be a temporary 'stealth' toggle, which makes units not automatically fire, and do whatever else they can to maintain 'stealth' status.
• Some very basic maneuvers should be pre-programmed (or maneuvers should be definable). For instance, it'd be really cool if you could hit a key, and then reselected units will automatically charge around the enemy lines and flank them, or hidden units off to either side will charge down to engage the enemy from behind... At the least, it shouldn’t be hard to have a system where one button on the keyboard can be assigned to ‘charge straight down and attack’, to allow flanking attacks to be set up in advance.
• Cities should be able to be 'returned' to allies after they are taken... for instance, in World War II, when the Allies liberated France, they didn't keep the cities . If an ally’s city is captured in RoN, and you recapture it, you should at least have the option of returning it to your ally. In Civ 3, you can give the city back to your ally, but I find that unrealistic – it shouldn’t be a gift – it should be a negative thing if you don’t give it back, perhaps leading to war with that ally and (at the least)
• You should be able to do some basic tactical planning with allies… at a minimum, what you could do in Alpha Centari (decide what city to attack), and maybe more advanced stuff, like garrisoning troops inside an ally’s city.
• It'd be great if some scenarios were included with the game. I played the WW2 scenario in Civ 2 more than I did the game itself, and it'd be really cool if RoN came with a few scenarios...

That's all I can think of right now... so far, RoN is starting to look like a great game! I can't wait until it comes out...

-- adaMada

[One_Dead_Villy]

i think the blotch units are more for the controlling player to see and select them if they are behine a building rather then for the enemies benefit. The building isnt meant to hide units. That's what the ambush ability is for.

[adaMada]

Originally posted by One_Dead_Villy
i think the blotch units are more for the controlling player to see and select them if they are behine a building rather then for the enemies benefit. The building isnt meant to hide units. That's what the ambush ability is for.

You're right -- I'd forgotten reading about the ambush ability of General Units. Having said that, I think it would be really cool if units could hide behind a building, and if the enemy is on the opposite side of that building, they wouldn't see them... I understand if the game isn't made this way (none of the RTS's I've played are), but I think it'd be really cool if it was. It would, however, give a huge advantage to a smart defender, which might have to be balanced in some way... Advanced techology could null this affect too, as it becomes less of an issue.

Just a thought .

-- adaMada

[One_Dead_Villy]

Well I am sure the line of sight would be blocked so you cant attack, even though you may know its there. IOf course it wouldnt be a bad idea to preserve the fog of war if a building is in the way of your LOS also. There were ideas posted about LOS's for different units that would life the fog of war and allow defense/attack like tanks would have a narrow cone shaped LOS, instead of what happens now with units all having a circular LOS.

[Sonic]

I would like kamikaze fighters to be one of japanese unique units, because they were in fact maybe the most unique unit ever used in the world. Only Japanese had something like that. All other unique units had their counterparts in other civs, while Japanese kamikazes didn't had that at a time.

[adaMada]

Originally posted by One_Dead_Villy
Well I am sure the line of sight would be blocked so you cant attack, even though you may know its there. IOf course it wouldnt be a bad idea to preserve the fog of war if a building is in the way of your LOS also. There were ideas posted about LOS's for different units that would life the fog of war and allow defense/attack like tanks would have a narrow cone shaped LOS, instead of what happens now with units all having a circular LOS.

Yea, that's exactly what I'm thinking... if the units can't actually see the units (hiding behind buildings), they should be like any other unit under the fog of war. I actually didn't read all of the fog of war threads, though, so I probably should go and read them before I make a fool of myself again .

-- adaMada