The good side of Micro

I like micro, I just don't want to have to baby sit my units.

The lets call it what it is. The generally accepted definitions of these terms are different to what is being used here. If you tell a pro RTS player you want to remove micro then you are telling them you want to remove the fighting part of the game. Essentially turn the game into a giant "who can mine the most stuff" simulator. Play it for 10 minutes and see who has the biggest population.

What we want are clever mechanics that minimise our need to do fiddly stuff. For instance engineer patrols are a clever (allegedly) mechanic that removed the fiddly overhead of reclaiming metal.

I can think of better mechanics for this task. For instance I'd like to be able to set zones up where I can attach engineers to it. So I would create a reclaim zone on an old battle field and the engineers wouldn't walk off to repair stuff. They'd only reclaim resources as and when I need them.

However none of this is micro. Manually sending engineers to gather metal is a macro mechanic. A very heavy weight one that SC2 would love. Setting up a reclaim queue is a less heavy macro mechanic. Setting up a patrol is an automated macro mechanic. A reclaim zone is another automated macro mechanic.

A concave painter would be a micro mechanic. Clicking and moving units into a concave is also a micro mechanic (and a very heavy weight one as used in SC2).

As you seen here, the most people beside the starcraft/warcraft players use the term "micro" as a abbreviation of Micromanagement, neutrino himself use it like that, too.

And a paragraph from wikipedia:

Read it again, this wikipedia quote is exactly what gmorgan is saying.

Read it more carefully, controlling big amount of units, giving non-specific orders and scouting is not micro by this definition, that is clearly different to gmorgan's definition.

Does it matter what he spesificly said?

Just what he meant.

We seem to be running on 2 very different definitions here, with as far as I'm seeing only gmorgan using his definition. For clarity's sake alone I'd suggest we discuss micro as meaning the thing everyone in this thread seems to think it means; being "micromanagement ".

Except that gmorgan's definitions nicely separates the tactical decision making from the raw physical inputs. Since people seem to be mostly in agreement that the raw physical inputs need to be minimized (at least to a 1:1 ratio to tactical decisions), the point at which people are talking past each other seems to be when conflating the tactical decision making definition of micromanagement─which most people seem to want─with the raw physical input definition of it─which it seems most people don't want.

The fact that you're debating the definition and semantics of the words "macro" and "micro" is a problem in itself. These concepts don't even exist in military texts, nor are they in any way related to actual battle. So the goal in any strategy game should be to focus on making the stuff that does matter, such as defining the tactical and strategic mechanics, as pure to real life strategy and tactics as possible. Now obviously this is a game, not real life, so we can cut out many aspects that would be uninteresting to the player. But the remaining aspects are more than enough to make the gameplay interesting without adding on extraneous cruft with the excuse of giving the player something to do.

I don't know how many of you have played turn-based strategy games, but you really should, if only to get an idea of how much depth a game can have without the need for the added baggage of "micro" and "macro."
Take, for example, the game Unity of Command, a turn-based strategy game that I've mentioned before. It's actually a relatively simple strategy game (in comparison to some of the giants out there), and yet the player is never lacking in things to do, as their attention is on formulating a plan to take positional advantage over their enemy. (Note: There are elements of randomness in the game, and yet if the player is making strategically sound choices, the outcome of these random elements will NOT affect the overall outcome of their game. A proper strategy game doesn't need to be completely deterministic, because the overall strategies still work.)

On the other end of the spectrum are games such as Frozen Synapse, which has a greater focus on the tactical aspects of a battle. Whereas the strategic level has the player formulate what overall goals are required to win an engagement, the tactical level is about accomplishing these goals. As such, the goals in Frozen Synapse are more rigidly defined than in Unity of Command, and the player puts their focus on how they will manage their troops to accomplish the goals. (Note: The game is a lot more deterministic than Unity of Command, as a tested attack will work exactly the same each time. The difference here is that there are such a bevy of possibilities that the player's choices should still be tactically sound for the outcome of the battle to be favorable.)

The importance of these games is that they encourage a certain way of thinking about the battlefield that is much more in line with how it's thought of in real life. So while they are turn-based games, the core elements of the games are what should define a proper RTS. The concept of "micro" only comes in when the player's control is so limited that they have to manually accomplish the core goals of the battle through extraneous means. It's like trying to drive a car by pushing a button to inject fuel, then a button to rotate the piston, then a button to activate the sparkplug, then a button to open the exhaust valve. (Turning the steering wheel is something only Koreans can accomplish.) The concept of "macro" only exists as an antithesis to micro.

But PA is a REALTIME strategy game, not a turn-based strategy game. Surely that makes it an entirely different animal, one where micro is something that would be required, right? Of course not! The core concepts of strategy and tactics remain unchanged. The player just has the added element of time, and so they need to be able to make their decisions quickly. This is where cutting out unnecessary aspects of the game become even more critical, because now you don't have the time to waste on useless commands that don't pertain to strategy or tactics. Forcing the player to concentrate on these things just simplifies the game down to . . . Starcraft.

I hate tl;dr because it encourages laziness, but this is a long post, so:
tl;dr - If Napoleon were still around, he should be able to pick up PA and completely dominate pretty much anyone playing.

The problem with any comparison in this case is that PA is unique, by the end game you will be fighting over entires systems, at that point, what is macro to say SupCom becomes micro to you, focusing on building a base on one planet takes your attention from the rest of the war, which will make you loose. What PA needs is adaptive micro, say early game you focus on base building, one building at a time, by mid game you are using templates to cover multiple buildings at a time with some adaptive AI so you don't need to focus, and by end you are just droping pull base templates on planets so you can keep moving. With units early game you tell them to attack maybe individual units, by mid you are tealling armies to go here ad attack here with some Ai coordination for timing and target priority so you don't have to target each manualy, and by end game you issue orders to planets like planet A build 100 bots and 10 transports then go to here and the game would handle the rest. This would balance micro and macro throughout the game and would keep it from getting slowed down by the rate we take in data, but you could also micro your heart out at that stage if you want. Basicly I'm saying that it should have micro, but not be built around it.

Errr ... PA is supposed to be scalable to that level, but that's hardly the scale of a standard game between two players. People normally want to play their games in one sitting and also not take a whole day for one match.
Basing the entire control scheme on that scale isn't really reasonable, even though some form of control functionality needs to be available on the planet level.

They are not related to battles in real life, they are related to battles in an RTS. Which while similar to military conflicts in real life are not completely the same. A battle in an RTS is always fought as a total war, best indicator being, that banking resources is considered bad.
The concept of macro as income/production management pretty much refers to how good a player is at keeping up an economy in a total war scenario.
I don't think I need to explain why military texts about how to best keep up a total war economy are not exactly noumerous, do I?
As for micro as unit control: There should be books on military tactics. That's the real life micro equivalent.

Creating tactical and strategic mechanics automatically create the mechanics micro and macro refer to. They are not extraneous cruft, they are concepts used for RTS games, because the real life concepts while similar are not 100% compatible.

Of course it does. When people talk about micro or macro in an RTS they are talking about concepts, which are specific to the RTS genre. The "baggage" simply isn't there because it doesn't make sense to talk about having to do stuff in realtime, when time goes in discrete steps with unlimited time to think and manage everything in between.
In a turnbased environment everyone basically has near perfect micro and macro, because you can do everything needed at a certain time no matter how specific it is, which is simply impossible in an RTS.

The core concepts remain unchanged, however, the way they materialize is drastically different through the added time element. The time element reduces the efficiency at which a player can manage a lot of things, which is where the concepts of macro and micro come in, since they describe the ability to manage the economic aspect and the unit control aspect of the game under the pressure created by the time element. Something which is inherently easier in a turnbased game because you have all the time you want to think about it.
I agree, you don't have the time to waste on useless commands. That's why good players know when to focus on which aspect of the game.

Starcraft is simplified? Sorry, but no. Micro and macro simply are very hard to do, which makes the strategic aspect not very accessible to lower level players, but the strategy is there nontheless. I would say, that Starcraft has unneccessary complexity in it's controls.
Players will always have to manage stuff to some extend. A strategy is the general plan you follow, aligning the way you manage stuff aka your decisions with said strategy is what the gameplay in a strategy game is all about.

People don't want micro or macro removed, they want them to be painless and enjoyable to do, which would in turn open up the strategic part of the game to players on almost any level of play.

Nope, he would fall to the "Retreat into icy biome"-gambit.

This is probably one of the better ways to go at it. Give players access to the ability to send one tank to one place and attack one unit, and the ability to build an entire base complete with production cycles for the factories in one click.

Macros (Wikipedia definition) should be used to expand the strategic depth by making the player make there own scripts.
You have to give thought to the scale of this game and steps should be taken into avoiding this becoming a game of only multiple war fronts and into using it's scale for game-play benefit. (More on this)

Features need to have a reason
e.g. Micro can be used to mitigate risk of investments in units.
Scripted base building is to prevent the player from having to click loads of times to do a task they already know, and so prevents boredom and Repetitive strain injury.

How should game automation implemented?
My suggestion. Similar to Lego Mindstorms GUI programming.

Macros for unit behavior
Examples:

• Make a unit walk around an enemy tank when it's walking speed is faster then the turning speed of the tanks turret.
• Fire on specific targets or types and not others wile walking or standing still.
  This may lead to a very large/complicated interface. I don't see why an option at the game lobby shouldn't be available to toggle the feature on/off/restrict complexity.
• Make the Commander able to use it's D-Gun in more intelligent way.
• Have different forms of movement for different environmental elements.
  • A spider bot should use a rope to descend from mountains.
    Yet the player may need to force a unit to take a path that the unit wouldn't pic on a normal move order, so a way-point tool is needed.
  • Transport - Not a specialized transport, add a macro tool to use multiple transports for very heavy units.
  • Produces/collects a combination of units and a transport vehicle moves them and drops then off at a location then repeats.

How far should built in automation go?
e.g. Should the unit "dodge" - move for 'x' squares in the opposite direction for witch damage/incoming fire came from.

Other Micro ideas:

• Have veterency, when a unit achieves veterency they automatically get a upgrade according to the environment, (enemy unit composition or planet type or biome).
• From Commmand & Conquer 3 - Unit can pick up a part then upgrade itself with it.

So fix it. (Read points above)

Ordering units to guard another and be in an optimum formation for doing so, not circle around like some do. And stay out of harms way until another unit is ready to engage the threat and make sure the guard units stay at the right place between threats and the guarded unit. And not interfere with the operation/orders of the guarded unit.

That could be an argument in favor of macros.

See this post.

Read my points above.

Awesome, +1.

I'm totally in agreement with you, note points at the top of this post.

I think that being able to setup up a zone and have the 'engineer' (known as 'fabricator' in the current Alpha) detect jobs, rather than a patrol would be a load better.
Combining them could be a great idea, i.e. Have a patrol way point made into a rectangle, the unit goes to a special way-point then check for jobs and if none exist then moves onto the next way-point.

Here is an excellent summery from jg325 off points I've brought up, I was so glad to find a post from someone else that was so pro innovation.

I hope your not suggesting that the game be 'cut down', I've said before (The Post) "People have played Chess by mail and Civilization can be played by email. So why can't an RTS save a multi player match?"
The player should choose.

This is how I feel as well, while Supreme Commander did not require a great deal of actions per minute compared to high level StarCraft it certainly did require as much if not more attention splitting. Attention splitting in itself isn't bad it's just a matter of what you're splitting your attention between. In StarCraft it's often how different units are engaging enemies and that in itself is engaging for players. What you split your attention between should be engaging and fun, not banal and trivial like setting up adjacencies or managing 100 engineers through poor pathing.

Take away: What divides your attention should engage you and if it doesn't your game will not be fun.

We can't emulate Blizzard style micro or Relic style positional play so why try? I'd rather PA improves upon what exists in past similar games and focuses on providing engaging strategic options and battlefield management while trimming the banal and trivial.

For the same reason we have projectile simulation instead of a % chance to miss. Instead of making dodging difficult or ineffective we can use dodging as an intrinsic mechanic for balance. For example nimble bots could be effective at jinxing or dodging the projectiles of lumbering units. Unit AI is important because it accentuates unit characteristics while not increasing the APM required to normally exploit traits like agility, yawspeed, and acceleration on a grand (planetary) scale.

In short, projectile simulation and Unit AI allow for a deeper level of interaction between units than Company of Heroes style chance to miss. That's ok for COH though because it has other mechanics that provide depth.