The Value of Tactical Gameplay Mechanics.

[Borreh]

for all the years ive played cnc games i have not -once- come across a situation where ive had to 'search' for specific units inside garrisons

i cant count the number of times i had to search for specific units on the -field- like for eg, Engineers or just lone groups of units etc (gotta love the 'Q' contextual tab in cnc3/ra3 for that, although i think it was retarded for them to remove Engis/support units from Q in KW )...

... but units inside garrisons? never.


reasons being:
a) garrisons in most cnc games have never been THAT important in gameplay anyway
b) in games where they are ridiculously effective (eg gens/zh), on most multiplayer maps you only ever see 2-3 garrisons that see most use. Most other buildings are not relevant since theyre not in some key area of interest (eg near supplies or key attack paths).
c) 95% of the time the units you put into garrisons are rocket soldiers, while 4% of the time its rifle soldiers, and 1% anything else. being such generic/cheap units you dont really care too much about 'which' rocket/rifle soldier you place in 'which' garrison.
d) if its a commando unit you have in a garrison... honestly theres no way you can forget where that unit is lol... its a gddamn pricey unit - you WANT to know where that is at all times.


but ok, if what you want is:
a) better+quicker access to units inside garrisons
b) more info on garrisoned units (eg, veterancy/xp etc without having to ungarrison them)

im not opposed to that at all - infact (b) is particularly something id like to have.

your solution of transparent garrisons so you can see/control units inside isnt a bad idea imo, but in-terms of the actual functioning/behaviour of the garrisons i want them to stay the same -- inf inside shouldnt take damage unless the garrison is destroyed, or are cleared by garrison-clearing.

Completely agreed.

As for the garrison being used rarely.. I think it may have something to do with the mechanic being simply hard to used.

Also, I wouldn't mind infantry units being able to take a building route when moving - In fact, infantry moving in an open area is something rarely seen as it is usualy a tactical suicide, and allowing infantry to move from building to building when traveling to their destination and thus using cover would be IMO a fine addition to the gameplay. However they should move slower when doing so.

I am also wondering about the ability of infantry to stay hidden inside building which would allow for ambushes.

[CrazyGDIfan123`]

As for the garrison being used rarely.. I think it may have something to do with the mechanic being simply hard to used.

its not hard to use at all lol... i have actually not heard ANYONE call it 'complicated' as you have - usefulness of garrisons in cnc is mostly a pure balance thing.


i have to say im semi-wrong about garrisons rarely used though - it does entirely depend on the game.

in gens/zh garrisons have 23489234234 hp and putting a handful of rocket troops (which do amazing dps in that game) can stop an entire vehicle army dead in its tracks, forcing the player to counter with garrison-clearing units... and because this means the building itself remains intact, it can be garrisoned time and again by both players, leading to back n forth action.
Overall this does complement the cut-throat nature of gens' gameplay -- you make the right decisions at the right time or you pay with dire consequences... in arguably no other cnc game can you lose units SO easily to poorly timed decisions or micro.

in cnc3 garrisons are just meh-ish... unit lethality is generally much lower than in generals/zh, so a handful of rocket guys do not do as much damage as gens/zh, nor are the garrisons capable of standing upto a tank army. thus most of the time theyre just a mild annoyance to armies, or at best a deterrent to harassment forces.
again, thats not to say this is a bad thing imo - it totally complements the fast pace of the game.

in ra3 infantry are uber powerful, garrisons have tons of hp, and the ONLY way to clear garrisons is... by using infantry (often suiciding them).
so garrisons play a rather huge role on many maps in ra3, and this has actually proven to be a source of frustration to many players who feel it retards the game pace.

its important to get the balance of garrisons right so they mesh well with rest of the game.

[AgentOrange]

I found the RA3 garrison system very clunky, not being able to remove a single soldier from a building. Proved annoying at times.

Gens 1 had it right.

[oompah]

You know as stubborn as I am with changing the C&C formula I was really against adding garrisoning buildings and still find it not necessary especially since you can build bunkers. But I've come to accept and not mind garrisoning all that much. It is a bit cumbersome and can burn up a lot of human capital if an opponent insists on titty jousting over a few buildings and especially since the USA counter in RA3 is to basically crawl at the speed of a 1/2 dead turtle toward the building. I still say get rid of that too - it was extra stupid in Act of War. I've never finished a match and said to myself "man that garrison jousting was awesome!"

[Borreh]

You know as stubborn as I am with changing the C&C formula I was really against adding garrisoning buildings and still find it not necessary especially since you can build bunkers. But I've come to accept and not mind garrisoning all that much. It is a bit cumbersome and can burn up a lot of human capital if an opponent insists on titty jousting over a few buildings and especially since the USA counter in RA3 is to basically crawl at the speed of a 1/2 dead turtle toward the building. I still say get rid of that too - it was extra stupid in Act of War. I've never finished a match and said to myself "man that garrison jousting was awesome!"

I think that garrisoning and fighting over buildings is more of a real war than most of C&C's gameplay and I'd love to have that gameplay element expanded upon and streamlined. Not having the ability to garrison buildings, especialy in urban scenarios, would be a slap in the face of any immersion - You could aswell play chess then.

[oompah]

"real war" - uggg this is a game, the emphasis should be on fun factor - not on having vapor trails temporarily making units invisible or whatever

but I understand the immersion point, that has value - not at the expense of the fun factor but yea immersion has value

[Borreh]

but I understand the immersion point, that has value - not at the expense of the fun factor but yea immersion has value

Am I the only person on those forums which thinks that actual tactical combat is not only immersive but also fun?

The best parts of C&C are the fights, especialy those which aren't dealt with in 20 seconds and you have actualy two forces struggling over said area of the map for a longer period time. I dislike the majority of the game being "send units to point A -> go to base do x y z then order units at point B to do f -> check the result of combat at point A". I enjoy multitasking, base building and C&C economy, but the fight themselves are too often a short, tactic-less result of your pre-fight actions. Not that preparing for a fight doesn't matter, but it's just sad that combat has such a relatively small screentime in a war game - Too often fights are taking place offscreen when you are busy with something else.

My best memories are from RA3 when I menaged to stop an assult of Apocalypse tanks on my defensless base with a good micro of just a few rocket troopers at max. I think such things take place too rarely.

[Garbarsardar]

Actually I think building garrisons are good because it's one of the things that makes infantry different from vehicles in being a lot more dependent on the situation. What I liked about AoW's entire way of handling it is that it made infantry actually different from vehicles instead of having them behave pretty much like mini-tanks, since they had several abilities to help them adapt. That's why I think there should be an evolution to cover, but instead of playing around with % bonuses for different types of cover there should just be a general all-or-nothing bonus in different instances, like e.g. trees = stealth, garrison = protection, ruins = uncrushable by vehicles. Other than that cover should just be formed "naturally" by the physics engine, like for example hiding your units behind a big rock or building to avoid airstrikes or something.

[Borreh]

Actually I think building garrisons are good because it's one of the things that makes infantry different from vehicles in being a lot more dependent on the situation. What I liked about AoW's entire way of handling it is that it made infantry actually different from vehicles instead of having them behave pretty much like mini-tanks, since they had several abilities to help them adapt. That's why I think there should be an evolution to cover, but instead of playing around with % bonuses for different types of cover there should just be a general all-or-nothing bonus in different instances, like e.g. trees = stealth, garrison = protection, ruins = uncrushable by vehicles. Other than that cover should just be formed "naturally" by the physics engine, like for example hiding your units behind a big rock or building to avoid airstrikes or something.

I am all for that, and that's why I think a cover system needs to be implemented - To make infantry infantry instead of small tanks.

Using dynamic physics to dynamicaly generate cover would be a true "wow" thing in RTS games, finaly something C&C could impress other titles other than over-the-top silness.

However, I do not think this should be simplistic in *that* way. It should go along this route IMO, altough it's all up for discussion.

Light cover (trees, sandbags, small ruins, rubble, so forth): 25% damage resistance, units are crushable by heavy vehicles, units can ambush and may be spotted from 50% of the normal range. This cover can be destroyed slowly by normal arms fire, heavy guns destroy it quickly. Artillery and air units/airstrikes inflict normal damage.

Heavy cover (metal barricades, barriers, heavy walls, large ruins etc.): 50% damage resistance, units are uncrushable, units can ambush and be spotted from 25% of the normal range. This cover can't be destroyed by normal arms fire, only heavy guns (tanks, artillery, missles and so forth) can destroy it slowly. Light (25%) protection against airstrikes and artillery.

Buildings: Act as heavy cover, except heavy (50%) protection against airstrikes and artillery.

----

There, the whole system. Only additional protection is light (25%) or heavy (50%), no other numbers. Unit crushing, ambush and cover destructibility will be clearly visible in-game, that is: If a player will see that guns have no effect on cover, then he will send in tanks to destroy it. Same, he will clearly see when tanks will just drive through the barrier crushing it, and when will it be impossible.

I think it incorporates all the elements we were talking about without a bigger amount of strange numbers and math, thus keeping it as simple as possible.

[goldenhorde44]

Not only that, but tank warfare hugely revolves around elevation - the tanks that can shield itself behind a hill has the advantage