Hybrid strategy timing and thoughts on orders

Dauntless · 2002-07-26T00:01:12

I''ve been thinking about a lot of things for the wargame I''ve been wanting to create, and have been see-sawing between real time and turn based. I actually want to create a pen&paper game as well, so I was leaning towards the turn based system. SO I got to thinking about how I could do turn based gaming, but with a slight twist. The trouble with turn based gaming is that usually, you have a sequence of events: 1.Move 2.Attack 3.Rally etc, and once you have done the actions for all units on your side, then the other side goes through the same sequence. Obviously, this leaves alot to be desired, and was the reason RT became so popular. But RT brought it''s own slew of disadvantages to the table, I''m not convinced that it offers a more compelling "realism" than turn based. Granted it is more fun watching the battles happen in real time. So I thought, "how are armies actually ordered?". When you think about it, units are organized into groups, then giving standing orders which are long term objectives ("seize Hill928") and update their tactics second by second to cope with the changing battlefield. So what I thought about doing was having each controllable group of units be given "orders". These orders are filled out to the best of the unit''s ability, and are modified or conditional upon the circumstances the unit is under. In other words, an order has a long term objective, but also has conditionals that reflect how the unit will behave depending on immediate circumstances. For example, let''s say that I have a platoon of infantry sitting behind a ridge. As the player, I want this unit to seize the northern skirt of a small hamlet, while another group composed of a platoon of AFV''s and supporting infantry moves from the east. However, I don''t know what the enemy is up to since this isn''t real time. From earlier recon, I know that there is at least one rifle squad in the hamlet, and possibly more. So, here is in a nutshell what I''d want that platoon to do. I want to give the unit an order for a "cautious move to northern edge of DB56 (map coordinates)". But what exactly does that mean? I haven''t worked out the details yet, but basically it means that I want the unit to advance, but I want it to take a path that offers maximum cover, and also to halt if return fire becomes too heavy. What if instead I had given it an order like, "move to DB56 at all costs", which basically means, "get to point A as fast as you can, ignoring casualities, and not pausing to return fire". Do you see where I''m getting at? I need to come up with an ordering system that takes into account several variables: aggression (will you attack if chance presents itself), defensiveness (will you stop for cover or take a roundabout path to get cover), priority (are you willing to stop if another event arises), threshold (how much losses can you take), etc. I think that if you can codify orders into basic templates, then you can issue these orders at the beginning of the turn. Then all units will have to follow their orders, but depending on the kind of order they were issued, they may or may not be able to change actions to take advantage of the enemy''s actions. Here''s another example. Let''s say you give an order to a unit to "provide covering fire for unit UNLESS enemy advances to houseB THEN move". Hmmm, complicated order ehhh? But these are the kinds of orders that are given in real life. Sometimes units will have the brains to do certain things on their own, sometimes they won''t. What I was thinking about to solve the above kind of order is to have a GUI interface that pops up a small menu when you hover it over the unit. From it, you select the basic order type, then select conditionals which will trigger different events. In essence, you are coding IF/ElSE statements or testing BOOL statements (is unit dead? true=move, false=advancing fire) in a sort of built in scripting engine, but hiding the code from the player. Is it more work? Yes it is, but it also allows for much deeper levels of gameplay...and in my book that''s more fun. If the GUI element can be designed well enough, it may not even take that long to point and click your way to the type of orders you want. So how does this make it a hybrid time system? Because after you issue the orders for your units and are done, you "start" the turn, and all the units follow the orders that you have given them out in real time. If a unit was given a move order, and the enemy was given an order for "holding fire", then it gets to attack the moving unit when it is out in the open. What this style of play will require is a chess-like thinking of "what kinds of orders is the enemy going to give to his units?". It will also reduce click-festing of units because orders have already been issued, although there will still be alot of managing involved per groups of units (but at least it won''t be in real time, and you won''t have to fear the dreaded "flank attack" where you are so busy with your plans in one section of the map, that you don''t realize the enemy has been sacking your own forces).

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by Dauntless July 24, 2002 08:56 PM

10 comments, last by Dauntless 21 years, 8 months ago

Dauntless

314

Author

July 25, 2002 08:57 PM

mtaber-
what you are suggesting is exactly why I want a system interface where you can essentially "build" orders from a set of basic commands, establishing directives to these commands, and setting conditional/decision making steps.

Basic Commands might be the following (each command will be a class which holds member variables and methods):
Attack
Defend
Move
Communicate
Rally/Regroup
Hold
Form
Observe

Directives based on these commands might be the following (Directives are some the arguments to the command class methods, as well as basic state data):
Priority
Threshold
Defensiveness
Aggression
Independence

Conditionals might take the following forms other than simple if/else or boolean tests:
DO action UNTIL condition B is met (for example, "follow target up to the hill")
WHILE state exists DO action (for example, "shoot at target B until it''s dead")

See how it goes? You can pretty easily conjure up a wealth of orders by putting in your commands, then slipping them into IF/ELSE, FOR, WHILE, and even CASE switches and couching them in very English terms. Now granted, I''m a designer more than a programmer, but if push came to shove, I could probably code how to work this out given enough time. So I''ll leave that stuff to more experienced programmers

But hopefully the point comes across that you can chain together some very basic commands into some very complex ones, and make conditional orders pretty easy too. The only real trick I see is in making a GUI interface that is very intuitive, but even that I don''t see as being too problematic.

The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount." - General Omar Bradley

mtaber

122

July 26, 2002 12:01 AM

Definately sounds like a cool idea. Gather your programmers and go for it. I wish you luck.

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