Thinking about blobbing

[Hearteater]

As for transports, how transports interact with freed logic is quite buggy right now. There are several bugs about how strange the AI behavior is when encountering transports already filed.

Reminds me of this thread.

[Kahuna]

I mantis'd it. http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=9153

[Wingflier]

Essentially, there's nothing the game can do to discourage blobbing that doesn't either result in "using a smaller blob" (i.e. starship raiding the problem away) or frustrating the player (making the game unplayable).

Personally I think this is just silly. If every RTS designer took the same attitude as you, every RTS would boil down to grouping your force into a huge ball and A-clicking them into your opponent. Fortunately, very few RTS games are like that, because it's an incredibly bad design. I can think of a few ways just off the top of my head to discourage blobbing in this game, unfortunately the best ideas require a complete rehaul of current game mechanics. And for the record, smaller "blobs" are known as squads, and that's perfectly fine; in fact, it's something we should strive towards.

As Keith said, it's not the first priority, but hopefully some day we can take a closer look at it.

[chemical_art]

Most common method in blobbing is that you can't have hundreds of units normally able to fire in range, but rather a dozen or so in most RTS.

Most RTS encourage micro managing.

AI war is not your typical RTS.

[Draco18s]

Most common method in blobbing is that you can't have hundreds of units normally able to fire in range, but rather a dozen or so in most RTS.

Most RTS encourage micro managing.

This.

[KDR_11k]

Freeing the whole system isn't even that bad, it makes the defenders abandon their static defenses and trickle towards your blob (because the AI doesn't group-move).

One thought I had about buffing fighters in the enemy distraction role would be to let them defend a single ship, for attacks against that ship the fighter acts like a decoy drone. Lore-wise the fighter would intercept attacks on its protegee and force enemies to engage it first. Or maybe weaken high powered blasts against fighters since they'd be so easy to avoid (maybe both, the fighter puts pressure on enemies forcing them to aim at it but slow shooters have a hard time landing a hit). So fighters would act more as a defensive screen than just cannon fodder (which is pretty much the role of a fighter these days, intercepting and eliminating enemy air units to clear the way for friendly air movements).

[Wingflier]

Most common method in blobbing is that you can't have hundreds of units normally able to fire in range, but rather a dozen or so in most RTS.

Most RTS encourage micro managing.

This.

AI War encourages micro managing to an extent as well, let's not pretend like it doesn't.  If micro managing wasn't a part of AI War, it would be a TBS.  At any given time you're moving your forces on the galaxy map, creating new buildings, creating new defenses, scouting (blatant form of added micromanagement), moving your blob around on an allied or enemy planet, moving your engineers around, creating priorities, or any of other dozens of things.

If Arcen really wanted, they could take away a LOT more micromanagement than they already have.  Of course in the process they would be dumbing down the game wouldn't they?

What is the big difference between difficulty 8 and difficulty 10?  Not how efficiently you use your forces on a tactical level, but how patient you are.  Diazo spends 7 hours on 10/10 doing what a player could do in less than one hour on 8/8.  Does it require extra micromanagement?  Not really, it just requires being a lot more patient, and not minding the wait of the long build and travel times between every engagement.

I'll come right out and say I think this is flawed design.  The skill level of the game shouldn't hinge on the patience of the player.  The skill level of the game should hinge on the strategic and tactical ability of the player.  Right now, there IS no tactical ability, you move your fleet around in a blob.  Does moving your fleet around in 3 or 4 four blobs require more micromanagement?  Yes, but not an unreasonable amount by any means.

And if you don't like micromanagement, you can play on the lower difficulties and still never have to do it.  I would rather the higher difficulties be an exercise in micromanagement than an exercise in waiting around.

Micromanagement is part of an RTS.  If you think it's not, you're fooling yourself.  If the skill of the player has to come down to how patient they can be vs. how well they can micromanage their fleet, I'm going to choose micromanagement every time.

[Draco18s]

If micro managing wasn't a part of AI War, it would be a TBS.

I'm sorry, but have you played any TBS games?  They can be just as micro-intensive as Starcraft.

[Wingflier]

Most TBS games I've played have no time limit.  Civilization, GSB, Battle for Wesnoth, Chess, Final Fantasy Tactics, just to name a few.  I've never played a TBS that required more micromanagement than even the least intensive RTS.

[TechSY730]

And if you don't like micromanagement, you can play on the lower difficulties and still never have to do it.  I would rather the higher difficulties be an exercise in micromanagement than an exercise in waiting around.

I would agree that there need to be ways to better reward better fleet tactics more without radically rearchitecting the combat and unit system and without making fleet management fiddly/hyper micro intensive like many other RTSs (not that it doesn't reward it now, but it sometimes doesn't seem like enough).
However, Kieth has mentioned that one of the "larger scope" type things he would like to work on is something to do during those pauses of "refleeting" or rebuilding or whatever.

And it's not like there isn't things to do during these times. You can periodically send small task forces through wormholes to sort of "clean up" some of the smaller threat balls that may have accumulated, small task forces to take out a single guard post or hybrid facility or whatever, things like that. It's just that the AI is often (but not always) passive enough such that you don't really feel all that much pressure to do so before you have built up to tough enough levels to "blob" again. (Again, going back to the whole "Human player has the largest control of the 'tempo' of the game" thing)

[keith.lamothe]

AI War encourages micro managing to an extent as well, let's not pretend like it doesn't.  If micro managing wasn't a part of AI War, it would be a TBS.

Actually when people really have to micro in AIW the use of pause approaches turn-based mode

scouting (blatant form of added micromanagement)

Every TBS 4X (land or space) I've played involved some similar form of scouting mechanic where you had to specifically order the things around... except MOO3, now that I think about it, if I remember correctly.

And even in AIW you can get a brute-force form of non-micro scouting by building a space dock and having it loop build scouts and periodically select them all and do the "auto-explore" command.  Not quite fully automated, but it's definitely a macro decision instead of a bunch of little micro ones.

As for micro in AIW vs micro in TBS games... well, FFT and such are just totally different genres, but Civilization or MOO or whatever usually ends for me when I no longer want to spend the amount of time necessary to do all the actions I have to on a particular turn just to keep things going in a semi-sane fashion.  How many cities/planets do I have to give new build orders this turn (even with queuing and copyable queues), how many units do I have to give move orders this turn (even with destination setting and waypoints and automation), etc.

I like those kinds of games a lot, but AIW flows way more smoothly.

[TechSY730]

Most TBS games I've played have no time limit.  Civilization, GSB, Battle for Wesnoth, Chess, Final Fantasy Tactics, just to name a few.  I've never played a TBS that required more micromanagement than even the least intensive RTS.

Micromanagement isn't just all about time limits (or at least not under the definition I am working under). It's also about depth and granularity of control of a group vs. individual units level. Just because a TBS may not have a time limit per turn, high level play may require that you carefully consider the orders of each individual unit on an individual unit basis, on almost every turn. That would be a form of micro intensive unit management, even though you have plenty of time to actually issue the orders before what you did is "committed".


EDIT: Ninja'd

[Wingflier]

Actually when people really have to micro in AIW the use of pause approaches turn-based mode

You've just made a great argument for why adding squad-based combat won't overwhelm the player.

Once again, I don't think extra micromanagement is always a good thing for the game, but sometimes it comes between that and an even WORSE mechanic.  In this case, it's simply a mechanic that forces the player to do nothing for long periods of time.

Obviously micromanagement is superior to this.

Micromanagement isn't just all about time limits (or at least not under the definition I am working under). It's also about depth and granularity of control of a group vs. individual units level. Just because a TBS may not have a time limit per turn, high level play may require that you carefully consider the orders of each individual unit on an individual unit basis, on almost every turn. That would be a form of micro intensive unit management, even though you have plenty of time to actually issue the orders before what you did is "committed".

That's called macromanagement, and it's something different.  I'm all for adding more macromanagement to the game.  Micromanagement is managing your force on a tactical level within a limit period of time, macromanagement is making larger, more strategic decisions, usually without a time constraint.

With the "pause" function, adding more squad-based combat is, in some ways, adding macromanagement to the game.

[TechSY730]

Actually when people really have to micro in AIW the use of pause approaches turn-based mode

You've just made a great argument for why adding squad-based combat won't overwhelm the player.

Hmm, I've never played an RTS (or TBS for that matter) that used squad based combat. The closest I ever came was Command and Conquer 3 with the infantry squads mechanic. (Where when you built one infantry unit, you actually got a group of them, that for the most part, the UI treated like one unit, even though each unit in the squad was actually a full fledged unit of its own, the UI treated the group as one unit. You couldn't give one unit in that squad a specific order, you had to order the squad around)

Could someone describe to be what a squad based unit management in an RTS is like?
How would that be different than glorified control groups?

[Draco18s]

Micromanagement isn't just all about time limits (or at least not under the definition I am working under). It's also about depth and granularity of control of a group vs. individual units level. Just because a TBS may not have a time limit per turn, high level play may require that you carefully consider the orders of each individual unit on an individual unit basis, on almost every turn. That would be a form of micro intensive unit management, even though you have plenty of time to actually issue the orders before what you did is "committed".

That's called macromanagement, and it's something different.  I'm all for adding more macromanagement to the game.  Micromanagement is managing your force on a tactical level within a limit period of time, macromanagement is making larger, more strategic decisions, usually without a time constraint.

Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary defines micromanagement as "management especially with excessive control or attention on details". Dictionary.com defines micromanagement as "management or control with excessive attention to minor details". The online dictionary Encarta defines micromanagement as "attention to small details in management: control [of] a person or a situation by paying extreme attention to small details".

Macromanagement is often misused to refer to the general economy aspect of the game such as constructing buildings, conducting research, and producing units, among other things involving the intake and expending of resources.  In turn-based games, macromanagement is a style of play where the player manages the overall strategy of the game, such as the overall economy or armed forces. In real-time games, macromanagement refers to a player's management of the overall game or the management of large groups of units rather than individual ones, whether those units are involved in resource-gathering or combat.

So no.  That descript is micromanagment, as neither macro, nor micro, are time-sensitive.