|
Khan7 -> (7/30/2001 7:30:00 AM)
|
Imagine this-- a squad or individual tank is the smallest distinct unit, but you can only give specific orders to the platoon HQ. In larger battles, you could even opt to give orders to the company commander to carry out.
You can give specific move orders, and order different responses to coming under fire or encountering the enemy (keep moving at all costs, skirmish, engage, engage agressively, run away), and they will carry out their interpretation of your orders automatically when contact is made. Moving around individual squads and minor guns would be handled by the platoon or perhaps the company commander. During combat you could go in and tell a platoon or company to retreat, or charge, etc., and even have a certain amount of ability to get them to change their target (although most targeting would be handled by the men on the ground, automatically, as it would in real combat). You can tell a platoon to hold a certain position, tell them to advance or charge or whatever (I think you're getting the idea).
On the company level, you could give waypoint orders to the company commander, and order him to set up a battle line in such and such an area, fortify such and such an area, advance on such and such a position, assault such and such a position, give him a certain amount of flexibility to use his discretion, and he'll carry out your orders to the best of his ability, handling all of the units and forces under his command in a smart and realistic manner to achieve the task. In certain situations, such as in organizing a defense, you could come in and reposition a few things after he had set up (which probably would be done somewhat often in any such game we can expect to see anytime in the forseeable future, as good AI is hard to come by).
In all of this there could also be an option to simulate the time it would take for orders to be recieved and acted upon based on the situation and the quality and state of communications in your force and in the units in question.
I must also note that the large hexes of the SP series would probably be replaced by smaller units of area which might not be as obvious, thereby smoothing out the flow of movement and creating more detail. Probably 25 yards per hex would be about right-- it's a small unit, but not so small that you have to mess around with a squad being in more than one square/hex at a time. And since this is a realtime game, making the units of distance smaller doesn't hassle the player a bit.
And one more plus of a realtime game-- it makes a good AI opponent much more possible. I don't have time to explain this, but believe me, a competent realtime AI is much more acievable than a turnbased one.
So thus you would get a game that would be like-- a real battle. No more micromanagement. More excitement. Etc. This would be hella hoss.
(I hope I was clear in this post, but if not, I hope you at least get the general idea..)
|
|
|
|
