GAMEPLAY: Drop rock-paper-scissors and introduce RCS finally!!!

[Blackwarx]

For the sake of pushing the whole RTS-genre forward and thus out of lethargy, please drop rock-paper-scissors!

If you want to create an "realistic" Generals 2 introduce a "realistic combat system"!

For instance: A tank firing 10x at a bazooka trooper dealing almost zero damage is totally ridiculous!
I honestly think RTS- developing studios should come up with something better! Geez, we have 2012!

The game should not pretend to be realistic just by some more or less realistic looking units!
Try to capture how battles are really fought! And do not neglect the overall strategic picture!
Naval and air superiority, supply organization and security, the overall order of battle and realistic unit abilities and functions are important apsects for a realistic game.

AND: There is a big difference if battles are fought on the sea or on land! It should be reflected in the game by more than just the graphical gimmick that the surface is blue!

Back to the tank/bazooka-infantry-battle: There could be a simple "hit & miss"-system. Maybe the trooper hides in a building and the tank has come in without enough reconnaissance to spot him. In this case the trooper gets the first shot. If he manages to get a "kill-shot" fine, if not game over for him! You all know, that at least from various Hollywood movies! Don't be lazy and bring on realism! In reality tthere is no "rock-paper-scissors"!

[Golan2781]

In reality, war isn't exactly fun. While realistic elements do have their place in a game, especially a modern combat game such as Generals, realism for the sake of realism alone is a bad plan.

It's quite telling that you are citing Hollywood movies - these work solely by imitating the perception of realism, not realism itself. If you can make something more awesome by bending the rules a bit hardly anyone will complain. Very few movies are actually realistic and of these realistic movies, very few are actually interesting for a wider audience.
Games are an abstraction of reality, they will always be. There's a range where realism and gameplay can synergize, IMO it'd be nice if they'd go down a little further towards realism in that range, but ultimately gameplay has to work for delivering a game, not realism.

RPS is pretty much only a balancing/design philosophy. It means hard counters and a circular counter chain. A realism based system is very extreme on the first actually, if a hit connects its usually game over. The real problem is that a realistic system is heavily based on chances and outside factors for effectively determining counters, adding a severe random component - which isn't much fun to play as it means important factors are entirely out of your control.
It's not like they use RPS just for fun or to troll people looking for realistic games. It's simply the most efficient philosophy for creating gameplay that's easy to grasp, because you can quickly understand the basic rules - a good RPS will make it somewhat challenging to master those, though. Most gameplay approaches founded with a realism motivation will actually form an RPS system, because they keep the expected behavior of hard countering (things going boom when hits connect) while cheating with the random factors to force predictability on counter chains.

[NecroBeer]

I agree with Golan2781. This is a GAME so first of all it should be a good game with good balance and counter chains. If you drop RPS you obtain a useless game, maybe realistic, but not fun and not enjoyable. Anyway there are some things in generals that where frustrating, like the tank firing to a trooper dealing a ridicolous damage, as you said.
Well this is a problem hard to address in this game. For example in CoH vehicles do proper damage vs everything, as it should be, but vehicles are ELITE units and very expensive. In DoW and SC infantry is SUPERHUMAN so they are outstanding and can resist more vs vehicles.
But in generals we have a lot of vehicles, and also a stupid marine with an M16, so there are only a few ways to address the issue. One would be removing the useless infantry from the game, yes useless, exept for China Infantry or to do some tasks like filling rockvees...about me the best way would be making SQUADS of 3-6 elements, but made by elite infantry: for example stealth snipers with ability to call in a naval strike, or a deployable long range missile squad...

[ace40k]

if you want realism in a c&c title, you've picked the wrong game series fella. rock-paper-scissors (like a tank round doing almost no dmg to infantry) is home in c&c games and is hopefully here to stay. if you want realism, go for other games like company of heroes or wargame european escalation.

infact, there's nothing wrong with playing or loving several games for the aspects (supcom - largescale, sc1/2 - fastpaced turtling, coh - slowpaced realism, etc) they offer their players. noone is forcing you to strictly stick to one game only

[Blackwarx]

Maybe I did not made it clear enough:

I do not want an ultra-realistic game/combat system simulating thousands of internal or external variables but instead a system with at least a realistic TOUCH that reflects certain (SOME!) MAJOR general aspects of modern combat, that's all. In fact, I do not want it overblown complex!

Interesting though that you are all three so sure that there can't be a different system that will work efficiently other than the easy a-b-c-circular-counter we live with for so many years now.

@Golan2781 And my Movie example is not telling AT ALL! I intended to use it just for the ones who do not have any militarily background to give them an easy picure for understanding!

[Golan2781]

Not telling at all? Dude, it illustrate exactly your clarified position. A realistic touch reflecting aspects of real combat, not recreating it directly.

Anyways, it would really help if you'd make a concrete description of what you actually want. As explained before, most realism based system will end up as a RPS system as well, so the definition of your system as an antithesis to RPS doesn't say anything. Plus, seeing how you don't want it to be actually realistic, the definition of it being realistic doesn't say all that much either.

[Alaskan_Viking]

C&C generals was never about super realism, it was about a kind of Hollywood or CoD like cinematic realism.

[ConKid66]

RPS exists for a reason. If the balance of the game was exactly realistic, rifle infantry would be useless, as rocket soldiers could kill troops more effectively; and tanks and jets would be OP.

[Thourq]

RPS exists for a reason. If the balance of the game was exactly realistic, rifle infantry would be useless, as rocket soldiers could kill troops more effectively; and tanks and jets would be OP.

Would Riflemen really be useless? Men of War does it well, though its setting is WWII, where as the AT Rockets are inaccurate. But I don't think Riflemen will be useless, you can easily suppress the infantry with riflemen. Though the difference is also how much emphasis and worth do Infantry in general have in a game.

[Golan2781]

A HE missile/RPG might give you an advantage for that one shot when the enemy doesn't expect it, but a rifle is vastly superior in direct infantry combat - more precision, versatility, ammunition and superior availability. A dedicated anti-armor missile won't do you any good against enemy infantry, in the time it takes you to arm, aim and deliver it against an enemy soldier (if it even allows that) you could have shot him thrice. A missile is at best a support weapon for infantry combat.