Unit skirmish button!

Just want to point out that unit's moving into range to attack from what essentially was a attack move isn't manoeuvring or roaming, it's path-finding.

What? It wasn't an attack move, just a move command.
And the ones that were already in position, and were given no commands also moved to attack the enemy once they had vision. That is maneuvering. Had they been set to hold position instead, they would not have automatically moved in to attack enemies in their guard radius. Pathfinding has almost nothing to do with it.

Huh.

When you give your units an attack command, they're moving in range and open fire. If the target retreats, you do not need to give your units a new attack command. Your units automatically try to keep the target in range.

Following your line of thought, @igncom1, we should remove this feature from the game altogether. Players shouldn't have an advantage in attack either. They should know perfectly when the target is in range, and individually manouvering their units if they have different ranges.

That's where best players stand out!

ps. Obviously I'm ironic.

And just for a direct comparisons: Roam vs. Hold Position. The groups were told to move to locations near each other; no attack command is given, and no commands whatsoever are given after the start of the video.

Unitbehaviors should be more clear i still dont know what the difference between roaming and manouvering is ... It rather should be: engage/close into enemy on sight visual or radar, stay on position, and use basic evasive manouvers such as falling back or stay out of enemy range ... I would also like an attack ground behavior again ... A smart player using micro and knowing those behaviors might be even able to use them against the units using them ... Like splitting a unitcomposition and decreasing focused fire f.e. or luring close range units into long rangefire... It would add a bit of a mindgame to battles imo .. But i cant explain that well ..

No, it's not. Because if the designated target moves, the units that attack it re-maneuver in order to keep the target in range.

Just like when you send your Vanguards against a Commander. It's a homing device with the auto-pilot. Click and forget.

If so, Skirmish mode is simply the equivalent but for the defendant.

Fact is, any automatic behavior is not necessarily the optimal maneuver. As much as a unit could avoid an incoming attack for ending up in a worse situation, attacking units could just be tricked into a trap as well by the defendant.

Nonetheless avoiding microing when possible benefits the gameplay.

I love how 'intellectual' all the posts have become. Yet no one yet is able (or maybe willing?) to grasp the most basic 101 concept of the hard counter. Most of you are lost in a bubble of idealism without really properly considering the fundamentals (not always a bad thing, just very dangerous).

Also comparing a-move to skirmish is fools gold logic.

Gotta give props to taxman for actually trying to present some rationality in this thread.

Care to elaborate?

Hold on elodea.
Do you think that dox currently hard-counter infernos?

I don't see how this is remotely relevant on so many levels. At the danger of being dragged into all the pseudo intellectual posts in this thread

a) dox are currently under powered given the complete unit roster, rendering the entire example entirely unreliable in the first place.
b) If you assumed it was a reliable example and the game only had dox and inferno, adding skirmish mode ontop of the current game would make dox absolutely hard counter infernos 100%. One unit has a range of 85 and a speed of 20, the other has a range of 20 and a speed of 10. How is this even a question?

If you limited the game to only dox and inferno, no one would build infernos. You would have to have an iq of less than zero to do that.

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Give as many examples as you like, you cannot refute that the world is round. If x unit has more range and equal or more speed than y unit, automated skirmish mode will make x a hard counter to y. If x unit is slower than y unit such that the metal outcome is always in favour of y unit a-move, then y is a hard counter to x. There is no inbetween, no chaos variable, no player element, no player interaction. All arguements to the contrary are nothing but wishful thinking.

Macro is determined via micro - these are not mutually independant circles. You lose to unit pushes, you lose your macro vice versa. The less variable chaos there is via player input and player choice, the more pre-baked outcomes become. The less chance there is for unexpected player comeback or game turn-arounds.

This is boring. This is predeterministic. This is binary automation at work. What makes this whole situation so further laughable is that it's being suggested in the context of units that can shoot while moving.

The max range of dox is 50, not 85.

My question is, without skirmish mode, do you think dox hard-counter infernos?

That ship has sailed, I am afraid. So what you are getting at is: Making use of hard counters via manual control is fine, making use of them via automation, though, is not. You do not have any beef with automation, good sir, you have a beef with hard counters. And those we are not concerned with in here.

So like, do I need to post the example video i posted before yet again? How many more times untill it sinks in? Manual control does not equal hard counter. Manual control creates a gradient from a base effectiveness to automated skirmish level. How hard you make that gradient to climb is what matters.

Here you go.

This is short-sighted and symptomatic of alot of opinions in this thread. It's like saying 'we are only concerned with lighting the furniture on fire, that the house will eventually burn down is not at all relevant'.

I have a beef with skirmish automation because it leads to hard counters a priori.

So, whether one unit hard-counters another should be independent of user input. Automation just makes the presence of hard-counters much more easily observable. Which would in turn mean @elodea should actually be in favor of automation, if only for balance testing.

These flow charts are so cringeworthy...

I've done my part and explained the manual control gradient and the binary nature of skirmish automation. If people still don't want to understand why it is more complex than this short-sighted flowchart pretends it to be, then that's really their own business.

If uber were to do exactly what this thread wanted, do not be surprised when the game delivers miserably poor gameplay and fails to be anything more than a niche novelty with very low replayability.

Want to know why poker is so insanely fun as opposed to blackjack with everyone card counting?

Wow... you're so extreme.

You might have explained your idea perfectly. But that doesn't mean others need necessarily to agree with you.

ps. You sound like Berlusconi. He's always used a similar approach to politics: "or we do what I say, or the country is doom"

Honestly, no. But I would reckon it has nothing to do with automation or hard counters. Additionally, Uber's approach to balance seems to be subject to personal feeling rather than design guidelines, so there is little surprise to be had in anything that comes from it.
I propose you go and play a round of Dune II, and then a round of Forged Alliance or Sins of a Solar Empire. And then say that automation is bad again. With a straight face, that is.
And I will gladly repeat myself here. The presence of a hard-counter mechanic is independent of user input. Lack of automation simply serves to obfuscate this but that does not make hard counters disappear.