I have a list of gripes about strategy games as long as the one just mentioned - but as u lot have covered most of it I won't bother. I just want to mention that there are three types of micro-managment, at least in my opinion.

Micro-managment you have to do - this is bad, and shouldn't exist. Things like telling a unit to suport another thats under attack when it's 3 feet away. Or telling a unit how to get around a tree. To the game designers defense a lot of these are due to not having the cpu cycles to make there game look shit hot *and* do the AI - so they have to cut back on one or the other - and looking good sells more than a good pathfinding algorithm. The flip side is the others - reloading ammo and fuel, switching pointless combat modes of units (Some combat mode switches are good - mainly for artilary as you can't get them away from the counter attack fast enough if your defense fails etc...) - the reason they exist is game designers need to make there games different - and thats enough - different and better is what they should be aimming for. Shogun did this, though its better only for some people.

Micro-managment you have to do but can't be removed without making it a different game! Put simply imagine C&C without the base building - it would be pointless. Ok you can remove that but you end up with a different game - but thats what variety is all about.

Micro-managment thats completly optional - this is what we want. An example of this is the ability to take controll of individual units - if you have strategically outmanouvered the oponent then you don't need it, but if your in a tight space a skilled player can jump in there and use that unit to it's full effectivness and pull a battle they would otherwise lose into their favour.

So in conclusion, to maximise all the elements that I have iterated through a RTS should play its self out beginning to end without any interaction from the player at all - ie you work alongside an AI, and the game should be balanced so your side loses. (The bigger the gap between winning/lossing the higher the difficulty level.) It is then upto the player to do whatever they want - fiddle with buildings, cordinate attacks, controll individual units, whatever they think isn't being done well enough and enjoy doing - and simply improve your sides strategy enough that you win. There are lots of problems with that idea - how the hell you balance it for a start - but it solves micromanagment problems to a certain extent.
-Lethe

[edited by - Lethe on March 22, 2002 5:43:36 PM]

I would prefer it in RTS games if things were in scale, not perfect but almost in scale would be good enough. Regularly men are as tall as buildings; not good.

[edited by - garconbifteck on March 22, 2002 5:55:56 PM]

RTS games lack alot...

- Units should be able to flee. So even if i want my unit to attack, it may just do the opposite and that is to flee.

- Diplomacy, more politics less collect, build and kill.

- Units should be able to screw up. Like killing their own troops by misstake. Shoot themself in the foot and stuff like that.

- And like someone stated above, the battle shouldn''t be won by who is the faster mouseclicker... (Maybe i should play turn based games?)

- Take prisoners?

- Sell/buy weapons/vehicles to/from enemies/rebells...

- Tech trees!?! A bit booring when they are static. You hurry, hurry to reserch to the 21:st tech level to get the fucking mega death mass destruction weapon.


Ofcourse, to much details can destroy the fun about RTS games, so all ideas here may be crap but i hope i will be able to try them out in a game and make my own oppinion

//Peter - Cheers!