Just how micro-intensive is PA?

On a scale of 1 to Starcraft 2, how much are you going to be expected to micro in Planetary Annihilation?

Resource management, I can do. Tactics, I can do. Super intense micromanagement? Not for me.

Basically I'm asking if battles will be decided solely by how high your APM is.

On a scale of 1 to Starcraft 2?

I hope for 0. Still hoping, that all micro including basic tactics like choosing target or retreating will be performed by an (smart) AI, even for "player controlled" units.

Point of Order: Starcraft isn't the top of micro-heavy games. A scale that tops out at Starcraft 2 has no room for the original Dune and Warcraft games or even more extreme, pre-patch Revenge of the Titans, or Click TD.

I've been told by a friend of mine (who is a competitive SC2 player) that you need an APM rate of roughly 300 to play at that level. That just seems unnecessarily stressful. I want to play a video game, not give myself carpel tunnel syndrome while wearing out a perfectly good mouse.

Edit: Basically, my list caps out at SC2 because even that is outside of the realm of reason.

It's pretty obvious that PA, to a larger extent than TA and SupCom, will be an high level economic strategy game. Micro management is a hallmark of small scale RTS.

I guess it will be kinda like Supreme Commander. Later in game you wont bother to micro a few single units, cause you have armies of 50+ fighting. But in the early game, when you only have 1 unit attacking it is of course important to control that unit well.
Plus the commander is so important, that you might want to take care of it with a bit of micro, too.

But Starcraft-Stuff like stutter step? no, Units in TA/SupCom are able to shoot while moving.

I'm inclined to agree, based on their stated goals, and the heritage (TA had some of the best unit-automation behaviour I've seen in the genre, and nothing is more awesome than things actually shooting while still moving).

Based on the descriptions so far, the focus seems to be more on the strategic and operational levels, and far less headache focused on the tactical level (much like Total Annihilation). This is great, in my opinion, for a few reasons. First and foremost is the obvious one addressed in this thread: less micro and more macro makes the game more appealing and approachable to less hardcore RTS nuts (I've never been great at RTS games, but I love them anyway because they're fun; I'm all about the planning and build-up.) The other is that it allows you to function on a much greater scale and have more going on at once. If you're forced to micromanage every encounter and various other aspects to be effective then you're limited in scale depending on just how uber your micro is and how good at multitasking you are. By focusing on the strategic and operational levels, and letting the AI handle target selection and maneuvering intelligently we free up a lot of the player's mental resources to make multiple fronts a real option. Don't have them play for you, but in the absence of a specifically ordered target, let them make good decisions, try to focus fire, and keep them maneuvering to find trees, high ground, etc., within a "leash" range of where you told them to move to.

Doing this lets the player focus on force composition, where to send them to engage, and expanding infrastructure to better support the war effort, since you don't need to babysit your units for them to be functional at all. This is the kind of thing too that will be necessary to truly achieve Galactic War and have it be a real galaxy at war, rather than a meta-game overlaid atop individual matches and a colour-changing map. Because really, just how awesome would it be to be engaging on one border only to receive a notification that a planet on the other side of your empire is under attack from the enemy on that border. Queue up your production, set patrol routes, and be safe in the knowledge that your troops are at least as intelligent as the AI attacking them is (even if they won't take initiative to leave the AOR you designated), freeing you to jump to the other border and see what needs to be handled there.

The potential is truly epic, but it's dependent upon good FRIENDLY AI on your units, so they don't require constant micromanagement to be effective, including on the offensive.

Just keep in mind that having a macro-oriented game does not necessarily do anything to make the game easy in terms of the kind of awareness and multitasking you need to play at the top level. Actually, a micro-intensive game is often one that you don't need to multitask so much in - just keep your attention to your army instead of digesting dozens of things happening across the map. TA is mechanically more demanding than SC2, definitely.

I definitely do expect there to be ways to make your units perform better with good, attentive micro regardless. Even if optimizing your economy will be a bigger priority most of the time, like it is in most RTS's.

It's certainly no less skill-intensive, but it does change it from twitch-based reactions and billions of commands at any given moment, to higher-level strategic planning and organization. And of course, micromanaging your targets and positioning would always have more impact than letting the AI run itself, the trick is to make the AI just good enough that doing so isn't essential to success. For example, try letting the AI handle a fight in StarCraft, it won't do anything but be slaughtered (even if the enemy is the computer too). Even just TA's level of friendly AI made worlds of difference in allowing you to focus on the bigger picture.

I guess the main thing I'm picturing is having a mixed group of units actually keep itself together, position the heavier armour between the infantry and the enemy, and have their auto-targeting prioritize their ideal targets (peewees aim for AKs, tanks aim for other tanks) and focus fire, rather than eveything picking entirely random targets, not focusing, splitting up the group, and wandering aimlessly. Just trying to keep the units in a mixed group positioned properly, never mind actually together in a group, was nigh-impossible in TA unless you were talking about aircraft.

In SC2 you regularly have 50+ units fighting and still are microing. It just changes to flanking and concaves rather dancing 3/4 units around. You will be able to set up flanks and concaves in PA too. Flanks and concaves made a big difference in TA. Get two armies of Pee Wees and have them fight. Now split one into a concave and flank and redo the fight. The second time the micro'd army will dominate.

The main reason this game will not devolve into a micro fest is there is more room to improve macro. In SC2 it is easier to say objectively what ideal macro looks like. In something like PA that is harder. It is true in both games that good macro beats good micro. There is just more room for improving macro in something like PA. So you much later hit the point where you are focusing on how to best dance marines. Ok I'm focusing on making sure my Pee Wees are 10% more efficient. However you've practised more macro so you have 30% more Pee Wees.

I'm still not sure why people are obsessed with "no micro". Loads of people don't micro in SC2. The ladder sorts them out to where they can still have fun games. You can get all the way up to masters with a bare minimum of micro in SC2. Match making is the problem if there is one.

Yep, spot on.

I agree with you gmorgan.

I hope this game has enough micro to keep battles involving. Complete AI controlled encounters would get dull.

At the same player ranking and strategic levels, the only way for the slower player to win against a faster player in close combat is if he uses a group AI that is better than the other player.

What I mean by group AI is the AI that controls a selected group of units when they are issued a command.

That said, higher APM with good decisions always win against lower APM with good decisions.

Apart from the fact that the idea of "group AI" is ... well I dont think it is good, I think for most players it is better to try and increase their macro. This is extremely true for SupCom, and even true for normal people in SC2.

I don't think it's an objection to micro, so much as the extent of the role it plays in those games. The situation you describe is far closer to an ideal: if I'm really good at macro, it can offset your micro; if you're really good at micro, it can offset my macro. It helps to increase the number of viable win conditions available, making the game more accessible to more people.

Good troop AI could do a lot to make even the micro more accessible. Another idea that just popped into my head as I was typing this is from Homeworld: formations. Being able to set mixed-unit groups into formations to keep their positioning right would take the most annoying part of the micro out, and let you focus on overall troop positioning and movement, as well as target selection. The micro is just as important but becomes that much easier to execute, while at the same time you still need to know good tactics and positioning to know what to do with it in the first place.

Better micro often has diminishing returns. This means that at low levels a small difference in ability to micro is likely to be magnified and determine the outcome of the game. The discrepancy swamps the effect of strategy and tactics to the extent that the low level players are playing a micro duel.

Macro wins wars, micro wins battles.

You cant have an RTS with a healthy balance of both, SupCom/TA "dancing" was something every high ranked player needed to master in order to move up.

Most of the time it's not like that at all, rather the opposite - if one player has a somewhat sensible build, and the other just spends time microing his units while neglecting to build more - the macro player will win. The special case is doing some sort of rush that decides the game then and there - a 4 pool, for example. Which is of course something you can easily do every game, still - most newbies won't, though.

Typo?

Why so microphobic? Sure I want smart units, that choose their targets well and have good path finding, but still I think micro has its value. I do not want to attack-click on an enemy base with 300 units and then lean back and enjoy the show... I want to still have to coordinate my units. However, I also do not want to have to micro every SINGLE unit, so that it may become effective. I think SupCom had a good micro value, apart from its units sometimes getting retarded and losing their pathfinding algorithms...