PA could have factions.

I understand it costs money to make factions. For example in Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance (FA) UEF had 4 engineers (engs). There were 4 factions = >12 engs. Making mobile AA twice for each faction did cost time and money. I understand it is going to take money and time and is not too feasible to make 2 factions before launch of PA. FA had about 380 units (counting even wall sections and structures but civilans and objets ("props") like trees and rocks not included).

However I came up with my idea of factions. Put for example 130 units into the game and let player choose 90. Damn!! It's way < than any 2 FA factions taken together but it is >1. If players had such choice many units would overlap between factions but no one would know which ones. It is like 1.5 factions. Later on, unit packs could be released and 130 could go up 200, but with 90 units per custom faction out of single unit list it would give >2 factions, and balancing wouldn't be a problem for developers. It would be up to the player if he chooses 30 air units just one bot and no tanks or makes some other selection. This would create a lot of strategy. You could always redefine your faction before and after the game or save it in a file so you don't have to build it all the time. Unit sharing between players would matter more in such case because one time you could want to control units your ally chose and you don’t have on your list. People wouldn't need land units on water planets, so they could focus on naval/underwater and air units. On lava planets you could focus on selecting more air units. Maybe some people would focus on orbital war, some other on navy, some other people on light and fast land units some others on arty or heavy units. It would be up to you. 90 units is a lot (almost about the size of entire faction in FA). 130 is more than a lot and is about 1.5 factions. Later on developers could add unit packs + custom units from modding community and you would have plenty of choices and no balancing necessary on developer's side. Such approach would actually add entire new level of important strategy. There would be balancing left up to a player: is it better to make greater selection of fighters, bombers and gunships or maybe plenty of mobile AA, anti air base defenses and tanks? Or maybe some mix? Is it better to rush with a lot of cheap light units or maybe to choose more base defenses and wait for heavier tanks that need more resources to build? One could make even a tutorial how to make best choice of units to have highest probability of winning the game. I think such approach would be best one especially if each unit out of these 130 or 200 was very unique and really irreplaceable on battlefield. In such case selecting units for the session would matter a lot as much as sharing control of units between allies that chose different sets of units. Unit packs wouldn’t have to form entire faction consisting out of 90 units, or giving some units times >=2 for each faction. Even 1 or 3 completely different units per pack would work fine and would not kill the balance of game (because any one could always choose them or not as members of his faction). Player could even have saved different customized factions for different types of planets. There would be no problem like UEF sucks or Cybran is the best etc. People would just choose from swiss table any delicatessen they want to have in their sandwich. It would be up to the player what base defenses, air, naval, orbital, arty and land he wants to have. My point is that giving access to all for example 130 units in the game to each player would make every side look the same. Just imagine how boring SupCom could be if all the players on both sides were UEF only. On the other side my approach is resources friendly. Game would require less RAM if not used units (out of for example 130 or 200 available) were not loaded in a RAM during entire session because none of the players chose them. And if you had 130 units in a game would you ever build >90 of them in the session? Did you build all possible units in your faction in FA during multiplayer session? Probably no, so why would you like have access to all 130 or more units in a session even when you wouldn’t build all of them? If you can share units between players, then limit of 90 wouldn’t really matter. I don’t mean limit as a cap of 90 units on battlefield (I want epic armies on battlefield). I just want to have most flexible and easiest and cheapest to implement factions in the game that would add a lot of strategy to it and actually create a choice what you want to build before the game so there is some kind of perception of having factions.

Maybe it would be better to have faction size set in the skirmish/multiplayer lobby (I don't think it is a good idea). Host could enter the number of unit choices per faction. Players could load their prebuilt factions or self defined unit ranks from the disk. There could be a system where players could give points to each unit on 0 to 100 scale and save these point tables on disk, and when the game is created he could load it, and units with higher number of points would be selected to his faction (so if he built 130 unit faction and host allows only 30 different kinds of units then each player’s computer would select 30 units that have highest rank in each player’s unit table). Players could load these ranks so ranks for lava planets could be different than for water planets, so player who gave most of the point to land units in one of his tables, wouldn’t load it for water planets (this makes sense if all planets in star system are water planets). Maybe I made it a little complex with these saveable custom tables with points assigned to each unit, but that’s what would have to be done if faction size was customizable by the host.

Dude, paragraphs. Nobody will read that.

No point to reading it, hes suggesting picking X number of units from the full pool, which a lot of people don't like (and rightly so) because of how it limits flexibility and the units chosen could win/lose you the game simply based on which units you/they chose.

It's a bad system.

/thread

Mike

yeah, break down that [[wall of text] of doom]. Then I will read it.


edit: thx OrangeKnight ^^

Oh well in that case, yeah bad idea. Really that kind of system just naturally develops in-game, because when that huge pool is available, you're not going to build everything, only the things you like.

That kind of system is only suited for tactical games like such belonging to the Total War series or Wargame EE

Why?

Because those games focus on the units themselves. They are not about makro and strategy. If you build a bad deck/ battle force it's your fault. The strategy part of those games is so to speak to build capable decks and to form them as you desire.

1) If you can play 10 multiplayer/skirmish FA UEF only sessions in the row (only one faction on the entire map) then I am going to believe you there is at least one person who likes one faction only idea.

2) Smart player will not choose same bad set of units twice, and a unit choice is going to add a lot strategy. If all players have same units, PA may be the game about who is going to pump Bot X at the fastest rate. I am not saying it will. I am saying it may.

3) The one who chooses the best units and is the best player is the one who deserves to win. It is simple.

This is very similar to the idea I posted (I think...I started rereading lines and gave up), but with much more stringent restrictions.

Player choose their own faction from the list of available units. It'd be better to, in your case, pick 125 of the 130 units, and scale it with any new unit releases (if any).

Also, based on the poll results from my thread, picking your own faction (as a whole, the general idea of having restrictions on which units you use) has gotten 40% of the vote.

No 'factions' is 38%, and having your commander represent your faction has 22%

I'd say that's fairly close, so don't be so quick to say a lot of people dislike this idea.

Personally, I find it too restrictive, and can be seen to just act as a unit restriction tool, which has already been confirmed.

Make a poll, I am farily certain you will be convinced then. A simple and good poll.

Let's stick with a single uniform unit pool for all players, yeah? Maybe after launch give people the option to play around with something similar to your suggestion, but it would make testing a huge pain.

Exactly. Build deck first. Deck is to add new level of strategy. Otherwise if selection of units doesn't matter why to have plenty of units if they don't matter? Wouldn't it be better to have just one faction consisting of one unit only (for example commander)?

I think countermeasuring enemy's choice with your choice is a real strategy. 1 faction and full access to the units to of them and sharing these units between players scares me like communism, and communism = failure.

I am not saing PA is a failure, it has a great potential but one faction only without limits available to all players in session is scarry and unstrategic exactly like communism.

Don't compare Apples to Oranges, The UEF example might be true if higher Tiers didn't render lower Tiers obsolete, allowing for more options, a better example might be using all the T3 units from all the factions as one, giving options like picking the The Trebuchet over the Serenity, the Serenity might do more damage more accurately, but the Trebuchet has a Huge AOE and fires almost 3 times as fast. There is Diversity there, it's just no the same kind of IN YO FACE diversity proposed by SCII.

Right up until the best unit selection is figured out and everyone uses that because it's the best.

Mike

Show that the "best" combo of units will be found quickly, making all the left over units gimmicks or useless in order order.

Here's how I see it. There's a list of units that Uber will design. I'll learn how they work and what they're good for, and I'll learn to use them effectively in various tactics. I'll enjoy responding to my opponents and outwitting them.

But the moment someone steps in and says "Wouldn't this game be better if you were forced to pick a few units beforehand that you'll be forbidden to use?", my gut response is "**** you". Handicap yourself if you want by deciding to never building some unit or other, but keep your dirty mitts off my ability to actually make effective strategic shifts in-game.

If you want to play a deck-building game, this is not it. You're actually REDUCING the space of effective in-game behaviors with this garbage, not enhancing it. This "select your unit list" metagame would exist at the expense of the ACTUAL game. NO.

@ OrangeKnight: Whilst I doubt there would be a "absolutely the best set of units", as the effectiveness of unit composition depends on what you are aiming to do with them (tabletop gamer here), I am still of your general opinion - as I already stated - that a pre-match unit selection system does not fit the macro + strategy heavy gameplay of games such as PA/SupCom/TA...

Edit: ... as those tend to take relatively long an require different sub-strategies through the game or even a complete turn in you strategy.


@ sokolek: You twisted my words. Or I could not make my point clear. But I assume the former.

double post

Well, all this information can be pulled from the poll I already have going, so I don't think another one will be any benefit. I suppose it doesn't hurt though, since there seems to be quite a lot of repeated threads (myself included). The 3 option poll will simplify things a bit, though lack the depth of my original poll.

It'll be interesting to see if the results are different, since that would mean people were either confused by the poll options, or are just abusing it.

But if you pump both units exactly as your enemy does then there is no strategy but who pumps more apples and oranges. Strategy comes when you have to fight mosquitoes with elephant canons or elephants with mosquitoes and vice versa.

That’s right, however it also holds true even for unlimited single faction. But if you have many best units in the game and all are paper, rock and scissors and you can not have them all then you got a problem and there is a room for a lot of strategy, player cooperation and unit sharing.

It doesn’t matter. If there is the best choice of units people are always going to choose it regardless if they have to preselect units or not.

Give me link to your poll.