I made this thread just to start a conversation about what us forum junkies would love to see in the next RTS gameplay wise.

Many of the new RTS are not thinking the military a hundreds of singles of units but as batallions. I love this format and would love if they used it.

Pop Limit is another big issue with graphics being updated with every new game and the boundaries of computers being stretched. You are seeing you are commanding smaller and smaller armies. The new SW RTS needs to find a balance between something that looks great on screen but does not take that epic feel when you have hundreds of clones or droids fighting at your side.

Just some things I wanted to throw out there....

I want unit sizes to be right. ATATs must tower over tanks and soldiers.

As for poplimit. Meh, 250 seems to be working... but with today's technology, it could probbaly be doubled.

I'd rather have a bigger pop cap than have nice graphics. As long as the graphics are functional I'm happy, but I realise that the rest fo the market is against me there, so it's not going to happen.

otoh it is possible for the game to get too big. I've tried playing Cossacks, and even with the ability to organise your troops into battalions, it does my head in. I think that's also partly because of the overcomplicated resource system (no-one needs 6 resources!) and tedious upgrade paths, and the significant but hard to remember differences between the civs, but the sheer scale of the game always bewildered me.

Well in terms of pop cap and whatnot, it depends on the sort of scale you want. For example, I was given 'Medieval: Total War' for my birthday, and in that you can have 10,000 soldiers in one battle. But on a scale such as in SW: GBG it would be impossible.

Frankly, i would prefer a scale a big bigger than GBG, sort of a RoN scale, but also have the ability to fight inside cities in campaigns, like GBG.

I'd like a vairable Pop limit that could essentially be open ended you'd just have to invest in whatever form of Pop creators that side might have since I doubt they'll be sticking with pre-fabs for the Confederacy they might have something like Control points where Control Points equates to how much computing power you have to operate droids. you could also pick Max pop in games that would be best like we have now really except with larger pop caps maybe 30 000.

You can field thousands of units in Rome:Total War. I don't see how we couldn't do the same.

I feel they are minimising the economy in most new RTS to make for a more military scale game which is what its all about. I feel that for there to be tens of thousands of units graphics would have to be really basic and not detailed that much at all.

well they should only be detailed if you zoom in and Economy shouldn't be simplified ala BFME it's a bad idea.

Well i agree with the simplified economy and more focus on military - after all, that is what my template is based on and you all attacked.

Anyway, it should definately be a smaller scale then the 'Total War' series, although a few thousand clones fighting a few thousand battle droids would be cool. I still think a scale a bit larger (more epic) than GBG would be ideal.

We all attacked it for good reason. It was the template that most resembled a Frankenstein in the entire forum's since it was completly made up of elements "borrowed" from other RTS's.

Economy shouldn't be simplified it should have more depth to it so that you need more skill to master the game effectively.

It should be on an epic scale perhaps with a pop limit above 30 000

30,000 is way to much I was thinking 500-1000. I don't want super scale battles for a 30k pop limit, battalions would be 100 or more and could you imagine the lag!!! Could you try and micro those armies cause I sure as hell couldn't.

yeah but you could slect that Maximum pop limit for beter performance while 30 000 being the maximum.

Try Empires dawn of the Modern World and you'll see that works pretty well with that sort of limit and you could get Micro done you'd just have to gut the hand of Ctrl+ number for teams

Empires is dead even more dead than SWGB it died quicker and only lasted about 2 months online. I think the same storyline and game concept really killed this game. Now its nothing but a dust collector in many RTS fans rooms.

But it did have some good Ideas like wonders actually being useful apart from victory conditions and such a huge pop limit.

In this case, i agree with FroZ. The pop cap shouldnt be any more than 1000, and 500 would be much better. The way to give a more 'epic' feel is to use the RoN system of having each infantry unit represented by three 'icons'.

please explain this system for those who read RoN was craptacular and didn't bother buying it.

I think we should do away with a pop cap and have it similar to Generals in that respect.

Yes and having it in pseudo 3D like RoN.

Yay...

Infantry units are now built in squads. We could have squads that move as one. Pop cap could still be 500, each infantry unit in the squd representing 1 pop.

I'm personally against the idea of squads but I will concde it fits perfectly into the Star Wars Universe however all infantry shouldn't be built int squads since Commando's require Micro and Squads to my knowledge eliminate most of this.

I think there should be a pop cap of at least 5,000

Not really. You can have a commando of several different units and have them individually selectable.

For large scale battles with huge armies, squads are the way to go. It can get quite chaotic and squads help partly reduce the microing in those situations.

I already said that I concede that they would work Perfectly for the star wars universe so I'm not debating it, I just never really liked the idea of squads in the sense that it can only be controlled as a unit not controlling what makes up the unit.

I'd like to be able to build citites (or in this case, bases) kinda like in RoN. I'd also like to have political/military units such as govenors, generals, and such. I'd like to be able to add customizations to my civ. Let me explain. By making my own custom design or whatever, I can then place it on the side of my units. A totally uneccasary yet neat option. I too would like batalions. I'd also, somehow, like to have a bit more attachment to my troops. For example, instead of sending them in to die like slaves, I'd rather they improve with battle and help out your civ by bonuses and such. To prevent people abusing the bonuses, I'd like to see some kind of method, perhaps "battle mode", when your civ is in battle. Note: the civ is kinda constantly at war, hence you fight a war one battle at a time. My ideas my be shotty, as usual, but I like them. You may begin critizing, flaming, attacking, and destroying my post now.

I guess you could have some of those spanning over a few games.....

I don't think a political side should come into this maybe in an RTS that focuses mainly on space while the one we're hoping for will be focusing on ground with consdierable space elements.

It's a good idea but it'd propably work best on a satr warsy version of Imperium Galactica 2

I disagree about cities and whatnot. Star Wars really isnt about city building, but combat. RoN has city building precisely because your are supposed to be building a 'Nation', which is not the same as in a Star Wars RTS.

Did you ACTUALLY bother to PROPERLY read his post he said in this case BASES not cities.

Cities, bases, ketchup, catsup.

It makes no difference, giving it a different name changes nothing. Windu is right.
Even some kind of "base" building wouldn't make much sense.

In RoN it made a whole lot of sense. If the new RTS was about specific species(Naboo, Gungans, Wookiees, Sullustans, etc.) trying to colonize a planet or whatever, this would work but the goal of the Republic, Confederacy, Empire and Rebel Alliance is to wipe out the opponent.

I would like more Econ Management in the next SW RTS and for that you have to have a base or do you want a similar system to Force Commander?

:¬:

What he wants is a City/Base.

Who ever said anything about not having a base at all?

What I'm against is a Base/City а la RoN.

I thought you were against Bases lala GB

We already have bases now, usually one giant base. I'd like the new RTS to have some sort of Base system. All armies need bases, not just one giant blob of a base.

So you want a bunch of small bases over the map?

Why not? They don't neccasarily have to be small.

Well I like large bases and I don't know why a military force would scatter there forces into small little bases. They could have base secure points where you build small forward bases on the platform to launch assults from different locations.

Don't wheel in any ideas from BFME the game has been certified as a flop compared to expectations and from the sounds of things the plot system is not remotely Star Wars.

Darth Vader : Commander why have you not built your base where I told you to!

Commander : My lord we couldn't there isn't a plot there and we can only build on plots Lord Vader.

Darth Vader : We are the Empire we can build where we like. *Force Chokes*

I could really imagine something like that the plot system wouldn't fit in at all.

I don't see where I said I wanted the BFME plot system in that post. Also have you played BFME? Don't judge a game when you haven't played it yourself I have heard nothing but great things from the some odd 30 reviews I've read.

I would not mind if you could only build in certain areas. Like you start off with a fairly large area where you can build and you must fight creeps/enemies to gain more buildable land. Stops fools from hiding a building and making the game last forever.

AoM did lower the town center spamming problem by introducing settlements, BFME has those ruins and RoN has the nation's border.


You certainly can have outposts.

We don't have problems with ppl hiding buildings forever unless it's gungan underwater prefabs.

BFME has been used as an example of things ppl want in the next SW RTS

Well there is a solution to this without going overboard.

1. Use the RoN 'border' system - this means you can only build in the area you currently control

2. Make it so that, once you have no units left, you are defeated. However, if you have unit-prouducing buildings left, you lose when you run out of money

That way, you cant just build anywhere on the map, and you cant hide buildings to make the game never end.

Its better you are defeated when all buildings are destroyed. Yea you can't hide buildings but you can hide units which is worse.

But if all you have is non-unit producing buildings, you've lost already.

As for hiding units, in my template anyway there is only a small amount of cloaking, and i'm sure the team making the game can come up with a solution for this.

Windu all of our templates are irrelevant now when comparing it to what it will be Petroglyph being made up of former westwood employees have a different design ethos (thank god) to Lucasarts.

I think that an idea from WC3 should perhapos be adopted where if you don't build a CC in 2 minutes your revealed of course it would have to be balanced so if you have an army and economy just no CC you won't get revealed maybe.

Originally posted by Darth Windu
Well there is a solution to this without going overboard.

1. Use the RoN 'border' system - this means you can only build in the area you currently control

2. Make it so that, once you have no units left, you are defeated. However, if you have unit-prouducing buildings left, you lose when you run out of money

That way, you cant just build anywhere on the map, and you cant hide buildings to make the game never end.

1-Doesn't make any sense in the context. You don't want city building but you want borders? There are better ways. Besides, hiding a last building isn't much of a problem.

2-Like Froz said, unit roaching is way worse. Make it likes StarCraft, no building, you lose. It was so much simpler and roaching never was such a problem.

Why is Windu always so eager to add in RoN elements there's supposedly a star wars mod for RoN he could play.

luke
1. Correct. All that should be built are military bases, but things like Borders force the player to expand their own territory by using forward bases which are quite realistic, and it also prevents stupid things like placing defensive turrets in the enemy base.

2. True, that is a better idea.

Viceroy - if you have nothing helpful or constructive to say, do not say anything at all. I can use whatever example i like, and i can refer to my template regardless of wether you think it is relevant or not.

I can see Windu's point about forward bases which don't really go down well with realism and it really can't hurt gameplay since SWGB is all about forward bases. They could have borders or the B4ME plot system.

The Borders and Plot system arn't Star Warsy and shouldn't even be contemplated being put in the game or need I dig up that example I gave earlier.

What is Star Warsy to you? Cause your not happy unless something is very well distinct that is EU.

FroZ - Viceroy only calls things un-StarWarsy if they make sense, and hence he doesnt like them.

As i said before, the Border system actually would work quite well, and would eliminate problems encountered in out RTS'.

Windu I take it you were somewhat inebriated when you typed that response ;) it shows:D

I don't really see a borders system work because it seems to promote slowness while quite a lot of the battles have shown fast movement .

There's nothing really wrong with the current system we had in GB just because you don't play it Windu doesn't mean it isn't a good RTS it just could have been better that's all.

The Plot system really doesn't fit because the Rebels would look for the most hidden location. So plots wouldnt work for them snce From what I've heard of the plot system there are fixed plost map wide and none of them are random.

The Empire would build where it wants and not be restricted by plots so that would limit realism.

While Gameplay>Realism there's no point adding in a feature if it does nothing for realism or gameplay.

Well Viceroy you cannot comment on the plot system not supporting gameplay cause you have never played it. The old/over used system where you build anywhere is more unrealistic than borders and plots. I don't remember any wars being won by hiding behind forts and having cannon wars until the forts and shields are down and the victor destroys all the other guys forward bases and his starting eco base. Yes swgb is a great RTS but the system has been used time and time again. I bet you have 1000 of the most hardcore RTS players preying that they use the aoe system so they don't have to go back to the drawing board they would rather be an inter as soon as they install the game.

Well the Rebels have to give up the fact they have a hidden base because the enemy knows they are there. Thats the whole point dog eat dog. Aren't most games all preplaced positions even in SWGB I still have a good idea where my enemy is. They have map generators yes but some of the most successful RTS don't have that but still carry thousands of players SWGB can't even hold more than 200 these days. (Still a great game though and I love it).