Just how micro-intensive is PA?

Age of Mithology

Agreed. The first 5% of micro gives you 95% of the benefits. I think if players do micro in PA they should focus on the broad concepts. Like making sure their units are not just in a blob but are in a proper concave. So that when the enemy engages they get smashed in a barrage of everyone firing.

It isn't intense micro like trying to take on a Protoss death ball with Terran bio. Just making sure you pay attention to where your units are sitting when they aren't doing anything. Just breaking up groups so they can all fan out more evenly has a huge benefit.

Usually this is all the micro you'd need to be good at a game like this.

Now maybe we can have a concave tool. So that you can drag out the length and then drag back the arc. SupCom went for straight lines which are inferior.

If you want to go this route, why not just base the concave depth on unit range. It would make it simpler to create.

Oh! You could also have the game play itself! That'd be fun to watch! >.>

Mike

Good UI is about giving the player maximum customization of what kind of commands he wants to give. Automatization on the other hand, does not do that - it just takes the control out of the players hands and makes everything act the same. Using detailed simulation with no player control to the details, is redundant gameplaywise - then you could just as well only have very simple systems where the one with more tanks always wins.

I think some people are confusing some language

Automation is not the inverse of control. They can be at odds with each other if done poorly. Control is about getting the things in game to do exactly what you want. Automation is reducing the number of interactions to get what you want.

Poor automation takes away control. Good automation allows you to exert the same or more control with less apm or over more units.

Example, if once you set a control group an AI took over, if you could not longer tell the individuals what to do, that would be bad, it reduces options. If it responds by making the other units react in a relevant manner, that would be good, 1 order does many things, but you should have the option to still tell the others what to do.

If you want zero automation we could mod the game so you have to tell every single unit to pull the trigger every single time it fires. Extreme case, yes, but it points out a good point that the debate should be how smart or extensive the automation is, otherwise you're playing a giant third person shooter as thousands of dudes at once.

My hopes for Planet Annihilation's micro/macro mix is that it be a balanced set of both, without a limitation as to what should be acceptable of macro, and what would be acceptable of micro. The player should ultimately have the option to play whichever style they choose, with emphasis on one or the other, or a balance between the two. Thats what I always loved about TA, the fact that you could change how you played each game, even during mid-game, and it would change the type of game you may end up getting. Thats the excitement of an RTS game, the adaptation that is necessary for each game, keeps things always fresh. It is the reason TA has been played seriously for 15 years. Quality!

I just want to also ammend and say that I hope that AI doesn't become so advanced as to be able to just send a group of units somewhere and you can completely forget about them. That puts a big emphasis on laziness, which is exactly what it is when you are not monitoring your battles, or your con units. In TA, an idle con is not a good thing. =)

Don't get snippy/sarcastic with me. I wrote the bolded part for a reason.

Micromanagement has nothing to do with the game design, and everything to do with the player. Give the player just 5 seconds of idle time, and they'll need to find something to micro. Flipping through construction units to keep the economy moving, flipping through exploration groups for neutral map control, or even selecting individual units in an army to give them custom orders. This is kind of how these games work, and a reason the term APM (actions per minute) was developed.

The only micro that should be worked on reducing is micro that everyone must do, but no one wants to do. The only thing I can think of in that category is juggling armies due to bad pathfinding. But hey, pathfinding is the hardest thing to get right (in theory, no game has it right yet), so its understandable.

THHHHIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

I want to add more but can't as I'm at work! Another good example is building Workers in SCII.

Mike

Well maybe just AI should take over everything? I hate micro like in C&C or StarCraft (SC) 2. I really hate it. I like macro but I love to choose targets, especially targets that shoud be converted to pure energy.

this
in many cases bad players are obsessed with how much better a very good players micros. They try to do it themselves, while actually they fail on things that are far more basic.
Like actually building a big army to fight with.

I wouldn't worry about this too much. TA had even greater micro potential than Star Craft because the units could actually miss. But it didn't punish you for inattention because you had your units on move rather than attack or something silly. The micro was more something that you could choose to specialise in if you were really good at it. Or dependant on the size of the map. Want more macro play a medium or large map. Want micro: play a small map with low resources.

This idea is great! I hope you don't mind me adding this to the thread on formations? (On tactical formations and movement)

You've got my support, it's basically exactly what I suggested earlier in the thread: Homeworld-style formation presets. I'll expand on it in your thread later (gotta get to work), but I'm adamant about being able to set a formation and group in such a way that I can hotkey a mixed group of infantry and vehicles, have them match speed to the slowest unit (e.g. group warp in EVE Online, all ships' warp speed is capped at the slowest ship that received the group warp order, so everyone arrives at the same time), and have the option to set particular unit types in a spot in the formation (e.g. in rows, set "infantry type 1" in the front rank, "vehicle type a" in the back").

My big annoyance with micromanagement of units is just trying to keep the buggers positioned properly, its' a constant struggle and annoyance to try to move a group while still keeping your meatshields in front and your squishies behind them. Presets of this type are certainly manageable, though they take some time to put together, and Homeworld's "parade" formation (if you included large ships or the mothership in the group you ordered into a formation) displays it perfectly, arranging like ships in a particular manner in 3D space. Just that much easier to do it in 2D. And for aircraft, while probably not essential, it'd certainly look awesome to see a squadron of Brawlers flying fingertip

If I macro faster than you, I should be able to direct my attention to a battle to gain an advantage.
How boring would be a strategy game where you can't take a upper hand on a battle with your skill.
Give order to your units during battle is not equal to micro.
If you compate TA and Starcraft, TA was not considered micro but you could do way more damage when microing your units!

What make Starcaft micro are artificial limitations. Like not automatic abilities, no attaque on rally points, the need to have the money before buying units ( and you even need the money to put them on the queue ) etc...