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Topic: Command and Conquer 3 (Read 6432 times)
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Deus Siddis
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There should be no reason that a commander of a modern army would want to use cold war tech.
Unless said commander was a diehard Red Alert 2 fan. 
They're just simply actively ignoring it for whatever reason, almost as if they're trying to apply the "if I can't see you, you don't exist" brand of logic to the situation. I've had groups of tanks wiped out by a single technical before because I had my attention wrapped up elsewhere, and there's no excuse for something like that happening.
Sadly, in every RTS I've played, unattended units never last very long at all. Sometimes I wish more games would take a page from Battlezone 2's multiplayer design doc, and allow multiple commanders on one side, with the core commander delegating forces to his sub-commanders, so that they could babysit and conduct raids, while he defended the base and built some nice high-end toys for the enemy to play with.
One can only hope. However, I will wait and see. I seem to always get excited about EA's initial release in a series that they take over, and always seem to wind up disappointed by them, no matter how long I decide to pursue that series.
Big developers can be good at making large scale games that have solid gameplay and cutting edge graphics. However, they often lack ingenuity, originallity and feeling, so their games are not quite as emersive as some of the things smaller studios can come up with.
So....anyone else think the Blizzard and Westwood RTSs aren't all that and are just waiting for Supreme Commander?
Silence Blasphemer! Took quickly has the light of the Khala dimmed in your mind.
But yes, I'm watching Supreme Commander, too.
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Deus Siddis
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The reason it is not more widespread is because there are so few true Action/RTS games out there. No one will want to be a sub commander unless there is an action element to keep them busy (even if their leader is not being very generous with the non-player unit assignments and weapon/vehicle upgrades.) Having more than one commander who all have full control of everything is a recipe for chaos.
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Draxas
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Or you could try the opposite approach: RTS by committee. Each army has 3+ commanders who have the ability to take any action they see fit, however, before they are able to do so, it has to be approved by a majority of their peers.
Sort of like real life, really.
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Deus Siddis
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I always imgained having one comamnder who dealth with the overall strategy, building the base and producing units, and then having several sub-commanders with small strike forces, sometimes actign together against greater threats, sometimes holding theiroown positions whilst others advance.
But again, with this you are still reliant on the primary commander to dispense units down to you, and if this is a full-blooded RTS, that can be boring while you wait for the big cheese to fork over some more tanks. Battlezone II got away with this by 1) giving other play modes, including one where you were the only human on your team and 2) providing a cool FPS/vehicular action combat element to the various commanders, so even if you didn't get reinforcements, you could still go out on your own and attack.
http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/battlezone-ii-combat-commander
Playing like this in a group, against another group, would appeal to me much more than just wading in agianst a ton of other players, and losing half my forces due to incapable AI.
Instead you would be losing half your forces due to incapable [aSa]BiG_asiN_uS, the special 13 year old.
Or you could try the opposite approach: RTS by committee. Each army has 3+ commanders who have the ability to take any action they see fit, however, before they are able to do so, it has to be approved by a majority of their peers.
And if there is an even number of players, split decisions must be resolved with a vote from a commander on the opposing team. 
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« Last Edit: August 07, 2006, 10:39:32 pm by Deus_Siddis »
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Lukipela
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The Ancient One
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But again, with this you are still reliant on the primary commander to dispense units down to you, and if this is a full-blooded RTS, that can be boring while you wait for the big cheese to fork over some more tanks. Battlezone II got away with this by 1) giving other play modes, including one where you were the only human on your team and 2) providing a cool FPS/vehicular action combat element to the various commanders, so even if you didn't get reinforcements, you could still go out on your own and attack.
Maybe I'm an atypical gamer then, cause i wouldn't mind. Even if my job was to defend the base from unexpected incursions while the other commanders are out fighting, by jove I'd do my duty proudly. I shall have to look into this Battlezone thingy though. Sounds promising.
Instead you would be losing half your forces due to incapable [aSa]BiG_asiN_uS, the special 13 year old.
Well, that is kind of a realistic scenario though. In my version, the main commander would be able to take troops away as well as give them to you, so any dangerously incompetent subcommander could be replaced easily.
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What's up doc?
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Deus Siddis
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I shall have to look into this Battlezone thingy though. Sounds promising.
BZ2 is not without flaws, if they had given maybe another six months or whatever, they could have done wonders for AI pathfinding and aiming, but it is still one of my top 5 favorite games of all time, and was very far ahead of its time (and since it game out in '99 I'm sure it is not that pricy, taxes included .) So far ahead in fact, that while 3D RTS is now the norm, I have not seen the whole idea of combining FPS, Vehicular Action, and RTS into one game again, not to mention the idea of having a few commanders on one side during multiplayer. I remember some site hinting that BF2142 might have some sort of RTS augmentation though, if that were to be the case, they might pick up the torch that BZ1-BZ2 carried. It has been infinitely frustrating to see perhaps the first 3D RTS series combine itself with the action genre (which also gives the AI units a physics engine, so that they do not move like chess pieces as in later 3D RTS games) and yet everyone I've seen who went for 3D RTS afterwards has not allowed you to play as a unit.
Even if my job was to defend the base from unexpected incursions while the other commanders are out fighting, by jove I'd do my duty proudly.
In my version, the main commander would be able to take troops away as well as give them to you, so any dangerously incompetent subcommander could be replaced easily.
In both cases you assume that you would be the top commander, and not a sub commander yourself. If [aSa]BiG_asiN_uS is the leader of your army, he might not give you enough/any resources, even if you could wipe the enemies off the map with just a handfull of units. I think any game that uses this approach must give the sub commanders something to do regardless of what the lead commander does. BZ2 gave you a hovercraft, sniper rifle (that could take out pilots of other craft, so you could take their vehicles) and the action oriented focus to use these personally, without having to worry about incompetent AI. Perhaps sub commanders could be allowed to "steal" a unit from the main commander, every X minutes, so they aren't left to do nothing, if the alpha commander never learned how to share.
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Lukipela
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BZ2 is not without flaws, if they had given maybe another six months or whatever, they could have done wonders for AI pathfinding and aiming, but it is still one of my top 5 favorite games of all time, and was very far ahead of its time (and since it game out in '99 I'm sure it is not that pricy, taxes included .)
Ever since playing SC3 I'm very tolerant of flaws.
In both cases you assume that you would be the top commander, and not a sub commander yourself.
No, I assumed that the main commander would only be responsible for buildings and infrastructure. He could produce units and assign them, but not actually comamnd any of them. Thus his job would be the overall strategy and development of the base. Any troops guarding the base and its perimeters would be entrusted to a subcommander. I'm sorry if this was unclear.
If [aSa]BiG_asiN_uS is the leader of your army, he might not give you enough/any resources, even if you could wipe the enemies off the map with just a handfull of units. I think any game that uses this approach must give the sub commanders something to do regardless of what the lead commander does.
I suppose this has much to do with my lack of experience in the intenret gaming worlds. most of my multiplayer experiences have been at LAN gatherings, where everyone knows eachother and very few asses are allowed. i suppose it would be harder to arrange on the net, but my idea was to paly a few games with dfifferent people unti lyou form a team which works, and then continue playing mostly in this team. After all, if every game has random temamates, there is very little point in designing the game for teams.
If a subcommander has nothing else to do, he could be assigned soem troops from another subcommander, and they could make whatever that person was handlign a joint venture. After all, the idea is that using several humans will be more to your advantage than having just one with lots of troops. perhaps the AI could grow weaker the more troops a commander had?
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What's up doc?
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