Of the games made in the past decade, Supreme Commander is probably the most similar to what we’re doing with Ashes of the Singularity. Its creator, Chris Taylor and I have been friends for years (I picked up his backyard chicken hobby and he picked up my beekeeping hobby). Chris also made my favorite game of all time, Total Annihilation.
A few years ago, Stardock worked with Gas Powered Games to make Demigod. Demigod started out as Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance and evolved into the final game. If you haven’t played Demigod, I recommend it. It is excellent. Demigod never took off like we hoped. Timing wasn’t on its side. It was the first stand-alone commercial MOBA. It was also the last non-free to play MOBA (it was $39.99 when released) and League of Legends quickly overtook it.
Setting up Supreme Commander
Game setup
When the player sets up a game of Supreme Commander, you get to pick amongst various types of AIs. AI is something we’re very passionate about here. As I type this from Stardock East, we have the AI developers of Civilization III, IV, V and GalCiv I/II here. From a replayability stand point. giving players lots setup options makes the single player part of the game more compelling.
Elegant main game UI
Like a 4X, Supreme Commander gives you and readout of how the other players are doing
Very clear, pretty paths.
Strategic Zoom
There are a lot of very good features in the Supreme Commander UI that I think should be standard in RTSs:
Please post in the comments section the UI elements of Supreme Commander you think are key.
Gameplay
Gameplay is unique to each game. Supreme Commander, like Total Annihilation, has a lot of gameplay elements we really love which include:
This is just scratching the surface but these 5 things help define what is essentially a sub-genre of RTSs.
There’s been a lot of debate on the forums on strategic zoom. This is because we are trying to avoid the kind of strategic zoom in Supreme Commander. Specifically, we don’t want to zoom out to a sea of icons where players end up playing most of the game from there.
Why the resistance?
Because in the long-term we expect (as the hardware gets better) to have maps far beyond even where ships in 1.0. We want to use 1.0 as the time to come up with another way to zoom out and get an abstracted view of the battle field. Turning individual units into icons won’t work because we’ll be dealing with thousands, possibly tens of thousands of units.
We will have a zoom out mode (or secondary monitor support) for a war room where the entire war can be abstracted. But
Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance
Ashes of the Singularity: Pre-Beta
How to make it a war, not a battle?
One of our biggest struggles is that we don’t want the game to be purely about cranking out tons of units and throwing them at each other. Unit composition, resource access, positioning should all be crucial factors.
What do you think?
so can we have templates in the engine?
Not in 1.0. Maybe eventually. Scope scope scope.
Thanks.
Yea, for us it was when we started playing on the really big maps.
I should start an entire thread on how the engine has changed the design (along with your feedback) some. But broadly speaking, we've had to distance ourselves from the Starcraft style because it just doesn't work. Even active unit abilities stopped making a lot of sense. If I have 5 different ongoing major battles on a world, I don't really have time to be microing.
Sometimes, you just gotta kill your darlings and focus on what the game's core strength is which is: It's a macro game. It's about conquering a planet with vast armies. You're not sweating squads battling it out in some little corner.
That means you need a way to get a situation report of the entire world.
Even more good news! Thanks for listening to current/future players (customers if we are honest)!
strategic zoom!!! hurrah!! now lets get crossfire/sli working
Yes a we need full map zoom out true.
Frogboy, i have a few ideas about how to make it a war and not simply battles.
We may should have to concept of battalions. This would be a large group of units / meta units flagged as being a battalion with and objective we would assign to it. For example : Capture and hold a specific position on the map. That would mean we would have the option of letting this battalion managed by AI. In addition this battalion could request by itself for re-inforcements. We as commander, would be responsible for producing these re-enforcements. Ask for re-enforcements would come from all the battalions we have created and assigned an objective.
We could of course give orders to these battalions so that we can ask them to retreat or to move to another objective.
Battalions behaviour would depend on our ability to quickly provide asks for re-enforcements.
Using the stategic zoom we could have indicators of which opponent is currently having advantage. And possibly indicators showing if providing not requested re-enforcement would help us to win a battle.
We would also have alerts showing where the situation is critical.
Thus the strategic zoom we not be unit focused, but global war focused.
It all depends of course on the amount of micro / macro you want to introduce in the game.
Giving the ability to the player to micro a battalion which is supposed to be self managed would be nice.
Regarding batallions re-enforcements, i can imagine the ui, where all batallions would be listed, for each time of unit/meta unit we would have the current number of alive units, the average health, and a superiority factor showing if we're likely to win or lose. From each factory we could decide to which batallion we want to send the units.
A simple right click on a factory would display the battalions and we would flag the ones we want to send units to.
Man that's refreshing to hear from a game developer. So many will force their vision of a game down the throats of gamers. They don't realize until it's released that it didn't work. Of course, it's too late at that point.
Can't wait to buy this.
I get where you're going with this but I don't like it for the simple reason that you're giving up too much decision making. They player needs to actively manage each battle. With a battalion managed by AI, even partially, the game starts playing itself. The most I want in terms of auto-decision making is for a unit to attack another in range, engineers aiding units on their patrol route and so on.
While we're at it, here are a couple of ways we could improve on unit behavior. I'm going to assume that the mentioned units work more or less the way they do in FA. These thoughts all fall into the category of giving units a more "human" judgement (yes, technically we can call that AI)
Engineers: If patrolling, they will often aid in the upgrade/build of a structure. They need to stop if their aid is draining resources to a critical point. In FA they'll keep aiding the upgrade of an extractor even if their aid is taking resources well into the negative.
Unit retreat: Units need to have better judgement as to when retreat and repair (thinking air units here). So, if a gunship is under attack by 2 fighters and is taking slow damage but another 10 fighters are inbound (an air unit would be able to see it, it has its own radar with access to the base's radar) it would turn and run for repairs knowing that before it gets back to the base it'll likely be 3/4 dead.
Air units: Have the option for the unit to strictly follow its patrol route. Way too often air units will chase enemies that cross their path half way across the map, usually leading to their destruction as they pass over an enemy base and get taken out by AA. In a war, units need to follow orders, not take off and disappear. Yes, engage enemies approaching the base but don't chase them too far as they retreat.
New functionality:
Spying. I don't remember which one of the C&C games introduced it, but the idea of a stealth unit would be awesome. I still remember the Stealth Tank. Next to no armor and limited firepower but if you could get one into an enemy's base early on it would be a great advantage. Of course, it is discoverable by troops, so it's not completely immune to destruction.
Enough for now. All this is making me want to play FA. I also just upgraded to a 3440 x 1440 ultra widescreen and it just gives a whole new perspective to FA. 7 years old and it works perfectly with a resolution that didn't even exist back then. Now THAT'S a good engine!
I get where you're going with this but I don't like it for the simple reason that you're giving up too much decision making. They player needs to actively manage each battle. With a battalion managed by AI, even partially, the game starts playing itself. The most I want in terms of auto-decision making is for a unit to attack another in range, engineers aiding units on their patrol route and so on. While we're at it, here are a couple of ways we could improve on unit behavior. I'm going to assume that the mentioned units work more or less the way they do in FA. These thoughts all fall into the category of giving units a more "human" judgement (yes, technically we can call that AI)Engineers: If patrolling, they will often aid in the upgrade/build of a structure. They need to stop if their aid is draining resources to a critical point. In FA they'll keep aiding the upgrade of an extractor even if their aid is taking resources well into the negative.Unit retreat: Units need to have better judgement as to when retreat and repair (thinking air units here). So, if a gunship is under attack by 2 fighters and is taking slow damage but another 10 fighters are inbound (an air unit would be able to see it, it has its own radar with access to the base's radar) it would turn and run for repairs knowing that before it gets back to the base it'll likely be 3/4 dead.Air units: Have the option for the unit to strictly follow its patrol route. Way too often air units will chase enemies that cross their path half way across the map, usually leading to their destruction as they pass over an enemy base and get taken out by AA. In a war, units need to follow orders, not take off and disappear. Yes, engage enemies approaching the base but don't chase them too far as they retreat. New functionality:Spying. I don't remember which one of the C&C games introduced it, but the idea of a stealth unit would be awesome. I still remember the Stealth Tank. Next to no armor and limited firepower but if you could get one into an enemy's base early on it would be a great advantage. Of course, it is discoverable by troops, so it's not completely immune to destruction. Enough for now. All this is making me want to play FA. I also just upgraded to a 3440 x 1440 ultra widescreen and it just gives a whole new perspective to FA. 7 years old and it works perfectly with a resolution that didn't even exist back then. Now THAT'S a good engine!
I get you when you say you do not want AI to take control of an entire battalion. But it's all about defining to which extent the developpers want the game to be a war. In a war there are multiple front lines. One can manage efficiently all front lines at the same time, it all depends on the game speed and player skills.
When it comes to units behaviour, you can't reduce the behaviour to a single unit. In a war, a few units may act independently while most of them will act as a group. So that's why i was considering the possibility of having battalions more or less managed by AI, with objective assignements, which would not prevent the player from taking control of the battalion.
I remember a game call TOTAL AIR WAR from old DID (Digital Image Design) studio in which you were conducting the war, but at any time you could jump into a F22 raptor if you wanted to take part in a single Air battle. I liked the concept because i was like a general and at the same time i could become a pilot.
Let's forget about the idea of battalions. We could instead have the ability to mark different objectives (areas) on the map. Then by right clicking on any factory we could decide to spread the units production to very specific maked areas. In addition we could have lots of intel providing information about each battle progress, telling us which place needs additional units, which place should be abandonned because we are likely to be defeated.
My base idea is all about being able to control the war and at the same time being able to control each or all battles. AI taking control of micro management is to me just an option.
Regarding AI taking control of a battalion, i think about this because to me it does not really make sense to have idle units on a battlefield simply because i did not have time to provide orders. All units should have an order, a goal, assigned at any time, whatever it is.
If it's about a battle, then micro management makes sense.
If it's about war, then micro management is not enough. If you're the general, or the commander, whatever you like to name it, then you're not going to act for any unit on the battlefield.
Of course one could argue that simple orders like : retreat, attack, protect, resist as much as you can until death might be enough. But such simple orders seems to me to much simple for a battle. We're talking about battles, not skirmishes.
So, in a battle, units are likely to change their behaviour depending on how the battle is going on.
Should all the units engaged in the battle wait for the general to assign a new micro order ?
As far as i'm concerned, I'm not expecting AI to be perfect, but i'm expecting AI to help me, just because i may have to manage multiple battles at the same time.
A possible workaround in order to balance this could be having AI efficiency decreasing over time if the commander does not assist at all. Which would enforce the commander to monitor and act in each battle.
What I'd REALLY like to see is an option for virgin planets (as in planets with no life on them at all) - and especially in the tutorial. (Hopefully, Ashes won't be ALWAYS about battles - though they DO have a place, of course.)
Late Reply; This is what I would take from SC[2]/FA[F]/PA; and what I would extend it with:
General
Unit Queue Management
Factory Queue Management
What do you mean by this? I've been playing PA since Beta and I haven't heard of any feature/command that is described thus.
EDIT: Do you mean the CTRL-build function to insert units in front of all others in the build queue, but only build them once if on repeat build?
FrogBoy:
One of the things that I absolutely LOVE about Planetary Annihilation is the Area Command function. I play FaF alot these days and it really annoys me that I can't do the one-two clicks that I can pull in PA to reclaim/build/destroy/patrol swathes of terrain. Is this at all possible in the engine?
Seeing this thread and the OP for the first time. I HAVE to say that I simply ADORED Demigod! I was late in buying it and missed it's peak. The player base simply dried up. But it's SUCH a fun game and one of my all-time favorites. I wish someone would create a quality sequel (HINTHINTHINT).
I've you've never played it, Steam sells it for $2 now and again (or less) and it's so worth even playing the solo mode!
Back to your thread...
Can you walk me through what the Area command is?
What do you mean by this? I've been playing PA since Beta and I haven't heard of any feature/command that is described thus.EDIT: Do you mean the CTRL-build function to insert units in front of all others in the build queue, but only build them once if on repeat build?
Yes, exactly. Does it have an "official" name, the feature?
Hey, I've mentioned this not too long ago in the "First Feedback" thread; your final reply still on hold!
Area commands are issued when the right mouse button is dragged instead of just clicked. The drag source is the center of a circle, the drag target the periphery (defining the size of the circle). Depending on the chosen command, the behaviour differs. For example:
HTH
PS: You really need to have a look at PA some day!
Sure! here's a (somewhat not-exciting) tutorial that a friend of mine put together for PA.
Y its true i play PA and they really find good solutions, but i think they grab Spring Engine ideas
Firstly, I haven't played the early access, so I don't exactly know what's in the game now, but anyway.
What I wouldn't mind seeing is tech levels or something very similar (don't use SupCom 2 research method). The tech levels allowed for a easy way to view many units. Experimentals were also a great feature in FA. As someone earlier said, FA had so many different strategies in it, and many were faction specific like the Telliemasser for the cybrans.
I haven't been keeping up on AOTS so I'm not sure if this has been mentioned, but I assume there will be several factions? ( Specifically how many would be nice to know)
Allow for large base construction like in FA, and don't limit where or how many buildings can be constructed. ( Point defense creep was a nice option in FA)
Having a very similar if not exact same economic system as FA in this game is also important.
jetsnguns's idea of battalions is interesting for large unit management; however, I think it should be more of an option, kind of like command groups only not limited to a # key. And for the problem of icons when zooming out, well why not have a unit specific icon ( like the triangle for air units) change into a single large icon representing a group of the same unit types. Also have a number next to it to specify exactly how many are in the group. Then have this feature auto disable when units are grouped into a battalion. And or have the ability to easily disable the icons for those who don't need them at the moment or only need the temporarily.
As for the zoom feature itself, I suggest trying a feature where at the highest map view one can drag click a box over an area they want to zoom into. If they only mark a small area for zoom, then it will go down into a more detailed, tactical mode (Like the transition from icon to non-icon in FA). I'm not sure if this would work ( I would have to try it first) but I think it could work.
Also, one thing I think is really important is that you don't do is start looking at Supreme Commander 2 for ideas. I haven't seen anything mentioned yet, but as far as I'm concerned SupCom 2 was a vary different game from FA. There are maybe a few features you might consider from it, but make sure it is absolutely necessary.
Frogboy, you have a great task ahead of making a game that can compare or even (hopefully) transcend Supreme Commander. It is a noble task and it will be very difficult, but I am glad to see team willing to take the challenge. I can't wait to see the final result.
The number one thing that SupCom had going for it was player defined objectives. If I built a fire base within striking distance of my opponents assets, I just defined an objective for him. Nothing in the game forced that objective on either of us. It was emergent from the individual game we were playing.
Currently, Ashes doesn't have that. Due to weapon range limitations, both from how the radar works and from the physical firing ranges, there is no such thing as a fire base unless you've basically already won. There is also no need for a forward operating base of any strategic consequence. Yes, I can build a few factories and put some PD around it, but it's going to be on a resource node that my opponent already wanted. I could move it way out of the way, but that would mostly defeat the point of having it in the first place. In most cases, my opponent is going to attempt to steamroll me since that's the most efficient use of resources right now. There are some slight variations on this theme, but slight variations are micro. It's how many X did I build vs Y, not which general strategy did I chose to follow and did I chose to alter it later on.
I think the resource layout right now causes alot of this problem. I would suggest an experiment for you guys to try in house. Chose a medium sized map and strip it down to 6 (2 on each side and 2 in the middle) resource nodes but adjust outputs to be equal to what the map was (so if there were 18 node/regions before, then each node would need to give 3 times the output). Get rid of the Turinium generators for this experiment. This takes away most of the artificial/predetermined objectives as well as getting rid of free intel about where your opponent is (from the regions being claimed). I think you'll find that you FEEL much more free to move around the map and position secondary bases, because unless your opponent is scouting like crazy, there's no reason for him to attack a given area outside of those resource nodes.
Let us decide what the objectives are and I promise you'll have a much more interesting game.
You've got a good start, second and even tertiary moniter support would be brilliant, I'm having trouble managing the whole war without the proper gui and zoom. Also, you need to make it really easy to defend a position and very hard to assail one
Also, more buildings, more units, more mechanics, more micro-management. I suggest that you study the game Rise of Legends closely, it was one of the best ever in that you could quite easily have a battle raging over literally 1/4 of the map continuously for over an hour at a time. In addition, try to lessen the computational power required to run the game, so many of my friends want to play it but can't because it takes a gaming pc to run it
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