35 replies to this topic

[megabalta]

Honestly I rarely play a land battle, I just build a massive land army and auto-resolve 90% of the time.

Why is that?

[Gumballthechewy]

Why is that?

I just find them tedious and boring. It's nothing against PR or anything, I've never liked EaW's land battles.

[a.fake.name]

I agree.
PR land battles are sometimes tedious, but pretty much any other mod much less stock EaW land battles are just fucking sad.

[megabalta]

Hence this thread. Personally I like real time strategy games which are less about clickvelocity and more about tactics. My favorite games mostly not include economy management and building, they're more about unit micromanagement, maneuvers, and the usage of environment to achieve objectives.

I think EAW is not suited to play large planet size invasions, so I'd be more happy with a smaller number of well balanced and purposefully dropped mixed (hence more effective) units (the vanilla games unit count was balanced ok) to simulate only a part of the invasion. Now mission objectives are the main thing I miss, and these could be simulated in EAW with specialized map building. Of course in the end it's all about destroying the enemy base, but if all the enemy bases are basically the same with maps only giving some variety in paths to find the base (especially with the current small number of land maps), the game becomes repetitve and boring really quickly.

What aspects do you like or dislike in real time strategy games? 

Edited by megabalta, 16 May 2014 - 11:59 AM.

[Casen]

A while back I asked about how to custom mod my game to make the camera in land battles way more free. I don't remember specifics, but I suggest that be done to the mod from now on. Maybe it's just me, but that's one of the things that put me off from Empire at War's land battles. Universe at War had the same problem, made worse since it was strictly land battles. I think Petroglyph just likes claustrophobic camera angles.

[a.fake.name]

The maps need to be bigger, and have more open spaces in which to maneuver.
Combine that with, as Kacen said, re-adding objectives.

Also, since we get upgradable starbases, why not add an upgradable garrison base as well ?

That way, you get an automatic assortment of units that re-spawn to further increase the effectiveness of and defense.

So, for example, a lvl5 imperial garrison could be an AT-AT, four AT-STs,  one squad of speeders, and six stormtrooper squads.
Just enough to mount a decent offense, but not strong enough to overwhelm all but the weakest of invasions.

[Casen]

Combine that with, as Kacen said, re-adding objectives.

...what?

[megabalta]

I think he mixed up the names.

Camera controls... hmm, never thought about it. I've never heard anything about modding camera movements. Much larger maps are sadly out of the question due to engine limitations. I agree with open spaces. Upgradable land base buildings are not possible as far as I know, because land buildings differ from space buildings in terms of game mechanic. However garrison barracks, outposts or prefabricated bases could produce mixed defense garrisons instead of the current single unit factory system. Mission objectives could be connected to planet specialities (e.g. if theres a speeder factory bonus, the map objective could be to assault the speeder factory, which could be a larger building, if there's an academy, occupy the academy etc.) Of course this would need new building models.

[a.fake.name]

As for no larger maps, would it be possible to further scale down units in size (and adjust movement accordingly) as a way to simulate a larger map and more of an overall strategic feel ?

[megabalta]

It is possible, however there are two bigger problems:

controlling miniscule units is nearly impossible and not fun at all (infantry would be unseeable), players would miss all the action, if zoomed in camera panning is slow as a sloth aka unusable

it would visually disconnect maps from units (terrain textures would look really funny compared to unit size)

sadly no amount of modding will make EAW anything like e.g. this game.

[a.fake.name]

In space at least it'd be doable, just add map icons for the smaller capital vessels.

Personally I'd have infantry use an icon system of a similar nature, but have the model include a simple red ring showing the weapons range of that unit as well.

Of course what we really need is shipyard 1-2 units that are supposed to be atmosphere capable to actually be usable on ground maps.


EDIT: to be clear, at present all transports you can research/build are fake tits on a zombie useless, standard bombers are better for space combat, and why build an assault transport if you can't transport troops with it.

Edited by a.fake.name, 19 May 2014 - 12:33 AM.

[Gumballthechewy]

The maps need to be bigger, and have more open spaces in which to maneuver.
Combine that with, as Kacen said, re-adding objectives.

Also, since we get upgradable starbases, why not add an upgradable garrison base as well ?

That way, you get an automatic assortment of units that re-spawn to further increase the effectiveness of and defense.

So, for example, a lvl5 imperial garrison could be an AT-AT, four AT-STs,  one squad of speeders, and six stormtrooper squads.
Just enough to mount a decent offense, but not strong enough to overwhelm all but the weakest of invasions.

I really like these ideas. I wonder how hard the garrison base would be to implement?

Edited by Gumballthechewy, 21 May 2014 - 07:29 PM.

[a.fake.name]

 

The maps need to be bigger, and have more open spaces in which to maneuver.
Combine that with, as Kacen said, re-adding objectives.

Also, since we get upgradable starbases, why not add an upgradable garrison base as well ?

That way, you get an automatic assortment of units that re-spawn to further increase the effectiveness of and defense.

So, for example, a lvl5 imperial garrison could be an AT-AT, four AT-STs,  one squad of speeders, and six stormtrooper squads.
Just enough to mount a decent offense, but not strong enough to overwhelm all but the weakest of invasions.

I really like these ideas. I wonder how hard the garrison base would be to implement?

 

Get a new model, or better yet just use a pre-existing model for a building, write up the infocards, make it buildable, and assign it to spawn a standard garrison unit.

From there, expand it.
Have cold weather bases on cold worlds spawning cold weather troops/vehicles, for example.

[Gumballthechewy]

The maps need to be bigger, and have more open spaces in which to maneuver.
Combine that with, as Kacen said, re-adding objectives.

Also, since we get upgradable starbases, why not add an upgradable garrison base as well ?

That way, you get an automatic assortment of units that re-spawn to further increase the effectiveness of and defense.

So, for example, a lvl5 imperial garrison could be an AT-AT, four AT-STs,  one squad of speeders, and six stormtrooper squads.
Just enough to mount a decent offense, but not strong enough to overwhelm all but the weakest of invasions.

I really like these ideas. I wonder how hard the garrison base would be to implement?

Get a new model, or better yet just use a pre-existing model for a building, write up the infocards, make it buildable, and assign it to spawn a standard garrison unit.

From there, expand it.
Have cold weather bases on cold worlds spawning cold weather troops/vehicles, for example.

 

That would be cool!

 

I was reading about these too:

http://starwars.wiki...d_garrison_base

[a.fake.name]

What'd be neat is if an ISD were in orbit, it makes available building a prefab garrison base for whatever it's judged to cost to replenish the ISD's supplies.

[megabalta]

I'm planning to revise space transportation for ground units. Since I've rescaled  all units to battalion size (in name, price and build time only, so you'll still be commanding platoon sized units in an actual ground battle), and I'm thinking about rescaling it even more (brigade or even division size) to make the game more realistic in nature (a division capturing a planet is more close to sane logic, than a platoon), and unit costs and build times comparable to space units. Since these are way larger units (battalion around 600 troops, brigade around 2400 troops, and division around 10000 troops), they will not travel in stormtrooper or galofree transports obviously.

 

What do you think transportation in space should be represented?

 

Link land units to capital ships? Like the hero units, they would be carried on board of a capital sized ship in case of a space battle. This would mean however, that they'd be really vulnerable since all ground units in the fleet would travel in a single ship. Plus it's pretty stupid to think you can carry say 5 infantry divisions on a single ship.

 

Should they get their own transport ships (like stormtrooper transports are now, but in capital size)? If so what starships you recommend to be used as dedicated ground unit transport ships in space? Remember their main purpose is not combat, so I'm not thinking of ISDs. Acclamator I is a good example of a troop ship, so think along those lines.

Problem with this solution is the need for a shipyard in orbit to actually produce the transport ship, and the extensive cost of the ship+ground unit, which makes building ground units way more hard and costly.

Edited by megabalta, 20 September 2014 - 04:46 PM.