Let me first say that I supported the idea of unit Hierarchy form the beginning and I fought tooth and nail to keep it, but alas, I lost. There have been so many posts in so many areas of the forum that I’ll be quoting from all over and trying to address all questions and suggestions. I would of course like to thank everyone for the level of feedback on this. These quotes btw will be all out of order and this is a LONG post. Also, some of my answers may be less than popular since the basic answer I’m going to give is that I currently cannot see any way “creating regiments/divisions†will make it in before release. Hopefully everyone will keep reading before flaming me on that since there are other things being implemented...
Certainly! I used this argument a half dozen times. The answer I was given is that you can get this with a key combination. If you use Shift left click when clicking a stack of units you don’t get the popout list of units. It automatically selects the entire stack. This means that if you move battalions you want as 82nd ab into the same hex and shift click the stack, you get the same effect as if they where locked in a battalion. If you want all your forces to stay in stacks, you could actually set in the game options (when completed) to reverse this so that left click selects the entire stack and shift left click gives you the popout. Want your stack to look like one unit? Using the Shift “D†hotkey collapses all HUDs to only show one strength bar.On 2004-03-04 11:53, Fantnet wrote:
It would be far more easy...to IE drop the 82nd Airborne ... or move the 1st Armored Division ... As well as moving different Air Wings to bases.
This will be done in advanced orders (not implemented). If you select any group, right click the destination for advanced orders. You can then set “remain in formation†that will cause all these units to travel as one.On 2004-03-04 18:32, ilkhan wrote:
...3 inf battalions, 1 tank battalion... battalions would stick together and follow the same path ... would only move as fast as there slowest battalion.
This can be done the same way. In the advanced orders there is an option for unit initiative. If you set it to 100%, all the units you just gave the order to will be @ 100% AI initiative.On 2004-03-04 18:32, ilkhan wrote:
...but I want 3 divisons to break South ... set those 3 divisons under AI control.
I don’t know, it’s something George came up with. The stack limit should be the point where we feel that battalions will start bumping into each other impeding their ability to fight. And no, we can't change this according the the km per hex of the map. You can actually have 30 units in one hex, but the penalty for overstacking will cause any attacks from that hex to be roughly as effective as if only 7 of them where firing. The reason you don’t keep stacks that big is that the AI was set to recognize how ineffective this is and order the units to de-stack. There is no way currently to override the de-stack.On 2004-03-05 13:32, prime_642 wrote:
I'm wondering where you got that 7-unit per hex limit...
It’s also been suggested that the numbered groups is an alternative for unit hierarchy and that it would be nice to be able to rename the numbered groups. I think renaming should only be on our wishlist and not a top priority. I’m much more concerned about seeing the little green number that tells me what group they are in on the map (wasn’t that how C&C originally did it?) and in the unit’s popup. I’m not even sure where you would change the name for these numbered groups, as you would need to select them by number anyway. And once set, I don’t know where you would ever come across the name you gave it.
This has been one idea that came out of a few threads, that there should be a way to “remove†certain units from any AI control. This does seem to be something we’re looking to add now and will probably be a new advanced order as well. Of course, the reverse would be to set your army initiative to 0% and set individual units initiatives up but I can see where having both would be useful.On 2004-03-06 07:58, ilkhan wrote:
..can we have a "thing" to set those "groupings" AI off. I would be willing to run with my Armys AI at 100% as long as I could control my groups.
Well, I keep thinking about how we could add to the number of groups and I'm having a hard time figuring out what keys we would use. Ctrl is used to create the group and we’ve talked about Shift to add units to the group but some of that is not final. The original idea was that shift left click allowed moving of more “fluid†groups and only important ones would get numbered. This one is still up in the air.On 2004-03-06 07:58, ilkhan wrote:
... increase the number of Groups by maybe Ctrl+ 0-9 but I would like it better if you could just click or double click a stack.
I got you beat on this one, it’s already there just not completed. In the Military section there are two buttons, one for the units popup and one for missiles. In the unit popup along the one side you see numbers 0-9 and a bunch of +/- buttons. The intention is to be able to view your entire force and control the number groupings from here. The only problem is it’s still quite ugly and cumbersome. I am confident though that we can get that cleaned up to work well.On 2004-03-06 07:58, ilkhan wrote:
... prehaps have a pop up tab with all your groups ...
I don’t know, our Middle East battles begin with 800+ units on the first day, then we start building! I do find it unlikely that in our model you’ll find armies of that size but you are correct that at the world level you could seem massive armies. The world map is actually being considered in a somewhat different light. We have discussed dropping battalions and moving everything to regiment size when you get to the world map. This requires no additions to the interface since you still have only one size of unit.On 2004-03-06 07:58, ilkhan wrote:
In WWII Germany fielded a total of Approximatly 250 divisions 200 foot inf + 50 armored/mechanized even with only 10 battalions each (and I think in total they had more then 10) thats 2,500 battalions could you imagine the pain in the back side that would be to run?? and out of all that you get 10 groups??
Far be it from me to critizise but at least brigade size units need to be in just to lower the Micro-managment and grouping them together may reduse lag towards the end-game(??).
All this running around really comes back to the big question of how. We started with a fairly good design for hierarchy. It was based on the idea that once these battalions/regiments/divisions where formed, when you clicked a unit you would always get the popout and it would branch as far as the unit was assigned; Click on a stack with 3 assigned units and you would get the list of the 3 units regiments/divisions. This would allow you to pick the unit, the unit’s regiment, or the unit’s division. Sounds great! But even this had some problems where you started getting too many popouts. They could also get to be horribly long if you have 7 units from 7 regiments of 7 divisions or mixed assignments. As well, how do you create these regiments and divisions? Do they need a leader unit? How do you promote a unit to leader? How do you attach units to leaders or leaders to units? How do you review the hierarchy? How do you tell at a glance if the unit is assigned or not?
It really started to spiral out of control.
This did actually bring up a new idea for me. When you select a group of units you get the first panel of the orders screens. On this first panel is a list of the selected units. If you select one in the list you can remove it, add/remove all of this class, or reselect the entire list. I use this if I shift click on the airport to get the aircraft. I usually have a few anti air units there as well. I select one and “remove by class†leaving me only the aircraft.On 2004-03-12 17:00, Slash78 wrote:
For unit Hierarchy what you could do is just cheat. Call a group of land units a 'Battle Group', a group of Air Units a "Air Group" and a group of Sea Units a "Squardron" or "Task Force". They are generic enough terms.
I’m now thinking we should add two features to this screen. First, add by type, so you could get all your F-14s but not the rest of the interceptors. Second, I think we should have Land/Air/Sea options so you could elastic band your entire force, click air, and instantly control your airforce. I’ll talk to the rest of the team about this tomorrow and see what we make of it...
I have one more thread to answer and due to its size I’ll re-quote the entire thing (sorry for the length)
Fantnet: Use general groupings that are task forces that can be renamed by the player.On 2004-03-07 11:44, Fantnet wrote:
Unit Groupings is a must for this game,
Here are my suggestions:
Instead of your pre-defined unit grouping structure or ctrl #, consider this
Use general groupings that are task forces that can be renamed by the player.
Allow these features:
Allow Renamed task forces by the player.
Assign a commander.
Attach to other task forces groups.
Allow amount greater than 10 groups.
Allow a total of up to 10 battalions or more to be assigned to a particular group
Allow viewing of all task forces.
Allow viewing of task force states i.e. Total personal, combat experience, and total equipment
This can be done with the current interface, such as “add to task force†xx
Allow automatic movement with transports.
In the unit information screen, the task force should display were it was assigned.
Units in Task forces have to be reserved together; if a single unit in the task forces needed they will need to unassigned.
Questions?
How would task forces deploy?
Light Infantry or Airborne Infantry Units with support battalions i.e. supply, artillery, anti-tank, and anti-air.
Via Transports? Cargo, Helos etc.?
Will this work with the current design? Yes it does, the user can decide what base the task group will will be based out of.
Can this done? Why would this be hard to implement?
Wouldn't it be nice to say? And Deploy accordly?
10th Support Group – Transport trucks
23rd Airlift Wing – cargo aircraft
Carrier Strike Group 2
First Marine Division
2nd Armored Division
102nd Air Control Wing – E3awacs, E8 Jointstars
Northern Command
with tasks groups assigned to this command
92nd Tactical Fighter Wing, fighter aircraft
You get my point… it adds to the overall game with out the hideous micro-management of deploying so many battalions, moving them to and from reserves. The crtl # feature is just not enough, and is rather boring when you get deep down into the game.
Or are you guys just playing with us and saving this feature as a surprise for the main release?
Everyone weigh in and give this community your opinions, I hope battle Goat considers this idea. Ask my questions for clarification?
A: not sure how this is any different... Unless you mean you build task forces... ick, then you’d need an interface to pre-build your task force
Fantnet: Assign a commander.
A: This was another interface that got dropped. This was more a time issue than a lack of slick design, and was considered less necessary without hierarchy.
Fantnet: Attach to other task forces groups.
Fantnet: Allow amount greater than 10 groups.
Fantnet: Allow a total of up to 10 battalions or more to be assigned to a particular group
A: How? You suggested, “add to task force xxâ€, but where would you make this selection? In the Advanced orders? How would you list the different task forces since there could be so many? How would you detach them?
Fantnet: Allow viewing of all task forces.
Fantnet: Allow viewing of task force stats i.e. Total personal, combat experience, and total equipment
Fantnet: In the unit information screen, the task force should display were it was assigned.
A: Where?!? These would be even more new interface elements.
Fantnet: Allow automatic movement with transports.
A: Not sure I follow what you mean... no more transport units?
I don’t mean to trash your post, but I can’t see how this would work into the current design without dozens of screens to review the entire hierarchy structure an dmajor engine changes, something we simply are not getting into. It feels like what you’re describing is moving units in an abstract manner that the user no longer sees on the map once grouped. I honestly found this one hard to follow.
So I hope no one is gonna jump all over me on this one since I’ve been dreading saying anything on this topic. Perhaps sometime between this and the next project we’ll design the ultimate “unit hierarchy control system†and never run into this problem again...
