I've always thought camouflage should have an impact on the tactical map. Some kind of first turn bonus.
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The Future of Planetfall Is In Movement And Ops
- Thread starter Calm
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Honestly, it's not quite like that. I find them worth consideration, at least some of them, but again I like Planetfall like it is now. And I also agree that implementing ALL of them would simply make the game IMO much too complicated. Games are simplified for a reason. If you have too much variables to consider it becomes a chore, and not an enjoyment. And regarding AI, I know it's not smart, I suppose it never was meant to be. It could be improved, especially in terms of utilizing sectors right,using orbital relays etc. but I believe if someone wants a challenge he can always play vs. a live player, then the chances are I suppose approximately 50/50, if both have the same level of skill. Me? I personally am not looking for that, I like to play and think, make and carry out a plan, try out different combinations, tinker with mods, and see how it plays out, and for that the current AI is enough for me.
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What do you mean as AI is not supposed to be smart? It is a requirement for SP. There are games where SP does not exist, but planetfall is not one of them. Unfortunately MP is quite bad in planetfall for my taste. We tried to play it in different modes with my son and it is either annoying to spend much time waiting for manual battle (live manual), meaningless to play with autofights (live auto) or time-consuming to load the game just to play a single turn (if PBEM).
Well, maybe it's not about the question if the AI should be smart, but rather how smart it' s supposed to be. I also believe there are no simple answers on this matter. I'll put it this way: if the AI was so smart that it would hardly do any mistakes, and it would see through all of your ruses then it would become just an annoying grind, it would just be a straight, head on battle without any space for strategy, just a test of strength. If the AI is making mistakes from time to time, and the opponent can see them, then there is space for some strategy. Why? Because battles are won by exploiting the enemy's mistakes. From mine experience battles are both fought on the tactical, as well as on the strategical map, where the strategical portion is the positioning of armies, and the tactical is the actual battle. I would find it simply annoying that the AI would see through all of my ruses. There would be no place for strategy, just a pure test of strength.
Being able to see everything is a sign of bad AI, not of smart one. Developers (not just Triumph) don't create a smart AI (I can't blame them for that, it has many reasons like too long AI turn, too high system requirements for the game, not useful to many players etc.) and they make AI cheat to compensate.
I liked how planetfall AI destroyed my army a few times: it retreated with all its units, let me capture 2 or 3 colonies and suddenly used strategic spell which decreased my speed on strategic map, another strategic spell to deal me damage and decrease some resistances and then attacked. That was brilliant, but unfortunately it does not happen often, especially since I became aware of that trick and don't move too far unless I have scouts and see position of AI armies, now I prefer to defend the newly captured colonies while waiting for reinforcements to arrive. Thus I believe "pure test of strength" still can be fun, it is great when AI makes advantage of human mistakes, both in combat and on strategical map.
@Calm
You truly raise one of the most interesting topic i've seen so far.
I do share your opinion that Planetfall is less strategic but more tactical, at least compared to AoW3. As you've said yourself as example, terrain don't really matter in planetfall, but then again there are not many terraforming methods in planetfall. In AoW3, terrain really matter, not for all classes, but some class like archdruid is more strategical, like more about picking where the tactical battle wisely than strategical in term of empire development, but then again, archdruid have terraform to forest which is the terrain that is the most helpful for archdruid's units, that terraform skill can even be done to enemy domains. This is one of the example. I believe it's possible to improve this maybe in some future patch.
Off topic, starcraft is successful because of koreans fanaticism to it and the nostalgic feelings to old generation strategy gamers (SC holds very special place in their hearts for sci fi strategy game, kinda like master of magic for fantasy strategy gamer), not because of that it represent modern warfare. If you've played both SC series and WC series, the core gameplay is the same, it's just the other is fantasy the other is sci fi, in fact in WC3 battles are often distributed in high level gameplay, just like starcraft. The only other factor that made SC battles seems more distributed is because the maximum number of units each players can field, WC has significantly lower limits than SC.
You truly raise one of the most interesting topic i've seen so far.
I do share your opinion that Planetfall is less strategic but more tactical, at least compared to AoW3. As you've said yourself as example, terrain don't really matter in planetfall, but then again there are not many terraforming methods in planetfall. In AoW3, terrain really matter, not for all classes, but some class like archdruid is more strategical, like more about picking where the tactical battle wisely than strategical in term of empire development, but then again, archdruid have terraform to forest which is the terrain that is the most helpful for archdruid's units, that terraform skill can even be done to enemy domains. This is one of the example. I believe it's possible to improve this maybe in some future patch.
Off topic, starcraft is successful because of koreans fanaticism to it and the nostalgic feelings to old generation strategy gamers (SC holds very special place in their hearts for sci fi strategy game, kinda like master of magic for fantasy strategy gamer), not because of that it represent modern warfare. If you've played both SC series and WC series, the core gameplay is the same, it's just the other is fantasy the other is sci fi, in fact in WC3 battles are often distributed in high level gameplay, just like starcraft. The only other factor that made SC battles seems more distributed is because the maximum number of units each players can field, WC has significantly lower limits than SC.
Well, I can't argue with that, to each his own. I on the other hand like simply to steamroll the AI, and I have fun out of that. And also that I can try different ways of doing it, as well as to outmaneuver it, search for weak spots and exploit them
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I think the bigger distinction there is 'RTS verses TBS' than 'sci-fi versus fantasy'. The reason WC3 wasn't as well received is partly what you stated (the lower unit numbers in WC3 made it harder to do anything effectively beside grouping up all your units) and partly, I think, because people didn't enjoy it when games were often decided by who was more effective at leveling their heroes through creeping. Which is where SC2 reset the balance by reverting the unit cap and removing heroes.
I feel like there are elements here that could work but implementing all of them would require to much and completely change the game entirely. However, I personally love the idea of requiring certain units in order to perform specific more powerful operations. Especially if you tie that in with the Naval Units (since they still need some loving) if perhaps there was a system in place that require you to have the Dvar Dreadnaught in an adjacent hex in order to use a more powerful nuclear warhead op in tactical combat for instance could be very interesting and open up the naval sides of things since it becomes a lot more important to have control of the ocean if it allowed a player to use more powerful ops. But then again that could open up a lot of other issues too. Also the idea of additional movement if one successfully ambushes an opponent could be very interesting but I am unsure of how they could implement it since units gain vision of a unit with “stealth” if they are next to it on the world map. Which is sometimes annoying in my opinion while scouting but understandable.
It’s an interesting idea at least!
It’s an interesting idea at least!
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