Single unit and army visibility

from Elemental Forums

I have been thinking about various methids of handling unit visibility and army visibility. In GC2 you essentially have a "sensor range" and anything in that range gets detected. While that makes sense in a space game, I think that it needs to be changed for EWOM. Maybe this has already been addressed by the devs and they have something snazzy already developed. But I'll go thru the thought exercise that I have had for the last couple of days anyway.

First, why not jsut stick witha GC type sensor range? Well first of is Line of Sight - in GC2 it didn't matter that you were detecting a fleet on the far side of a planet because - well that's what sensors do, right? But you really don't want to be seeing that army on the other side of a moountain range or a forest just because they are within the radius of how far a given unit can see. OK you might "want" them to from a strategic PoV, but not from a gameplay one.

Another consideration is things like cover such as forests or even ruins for a small group or single unit.

And the third consideration that I just alluded to is the size of the group or unit being viewed. You should be able to see a 10,000 man army from a lot farther off than a single unit, especially a sneaky one like a scout. Also things like altitude, if there even is altitude in the game should matter - you can see farther from a high spot, and you are also more visible, especially if you are a flying unit like a dragon.

The first thing I thought of was to have a zone of visibility around each unit which would grow with larger stacks like armies and shrink for smaller groups, or due to terrain, camoflauge spells, etc. And if the zone of visibility crossed an enemy unit that would mean that usnit was detected.

Downside, it doesn't account for units that might be extremely observant and be able to see farther. So my next thought was put a zone of view around the observing unit and a zone of visibility around the unit being observed, and if those overlapped then the unit being observed was actually detected. Long story short I think it would be a nightmare to code and units would have the ability to see around corners. Making something like this that was actually useable would be a nightmare.

What I finally came up with that I think would work is to surround the observing unit with concentric rings of observation. These rings could be blocked by LoS rules for intervening cover.

Units would be assigned a visibility score, say "1" for a stealthed scout, and "10" (or whatever) for a large army, a dragon, or whatever. A "10" unit could be seen from 10 squares away, on down. When calculating detection, an observant unit might either be able to subtract 1 from the distance or a percentage. Also the visibility score could be modified based on terrain. The formula would be if (unit visibility score - terrain modifier) - (distance to observing unit + observing unit perception bonus) < 0 then the unit is detected. The unit perception bonus as well as the visibility score could be modified by spells.

And this may have already been all worked out by Stardock and if so I am sorry for wasting your time with a likely dry and boring post.

I guess the main point is that most games visibility range is what it is and a single unit pops into view at the same time as a stack. I think this alterntive could be easily coded in and would give a significant and fun difference, it would somewhat capture the Lord of the Rings reason for sending a small group to do a job rather than an army.

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Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Good idea. As you said, a bit dry, but it makes sense and there's really nothing I can think of to make it better.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Sounds good.:thumbsup:

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Good.

Throw in separate training and research for units for increasing sight radius and for decreasing your detection radius (stealth/sneakiness) and you're in business.

Watchtowers on top of mountains seeing furhter? Cool. Scout units perched on hills in enemy territory? I love it.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Sounds good...

Only thing I can think off is that the terrainmodifier might not always apply. I can imagine some powerfull creatures (an ancient dragon?) being able to detect everything in a certain range due to some magical ability even if the enemy unit is hidden by a forest, or on the other side of a mountain range. Offcourse, this ability might be part of the perception bonus you mentioned.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Yes, "ignore terrein modifier" would probably be a good buff spell.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Also that would make scouts usefull in late games, when the map is explored.

Like it very much. k1

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Implementation.

 

Give all units a detection score.  Modify by terrain, for instance, +1 on a hill, -1 in a forest.  Subtract one point per tile away from the unit, as well as for intervening forests or hills.  You now have line of sight, when it hits zero, they can't see anything.  Simply use the best score in any combined force.

 

Give all units a stealth score, higher numbers being better, numbers being a few points lower than detection scores as you go down the scale.  Modify based on terrain, in reverse of detection.  In groups, use the lowest score, and modify by -1 for each additional unit.

 

Implementation finished.  It's actually not very complicated to do.  People are just easily threatened by complexity and freak out without ever realizing how much of an improvement it would be.  When even halfassed LOS systems get implemented in RTS games, the developers get whined at.  It's very sad. :(  A 4X gamer is probably intelligent enough not to complain though, so perhaps Stardock will go for it anyway.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting psychoak, reply 7
Implementation.

 

Give all units a detection score.  Modify by terrain, for instance, +1 on a hill, -1 in a forest.  Subtract one point per tile away from the unit, as well as for intervening forests or hills.  You now have line of sight, when it hits zero, they can't see anything.  Simply use the best score in any combined force.

 

Give all units a stealth score, higher numbers being better, numbers being a few points lower than detection scores as you go down the scale.  Modify based on terrain, in reverse of detection.  In groups, use the lowest score, and modify by -1 for each additional unit.

 

Implementation finished.  It's actually not very complicated to do.  People are just easily threatened by complexity and freak out without ever realizing how much of an improvement it would be.  When even halfassed LOS systems get implemented in RTS games, the developers get whined at.  It's very sad.   A 4X gamer is probably intelligent enough not to complain though, so perhaps Stardock will go for it anyway.

That is very similar to what I was suggesting. And as I got thinking about the coding of it, I agree, it just seems like it would be very simple to implement, and I am surprised more TBS games don't use some sort of calculation like that. Most that I can think of just have how far a unit can see, and possibly takes obscuring terrain into account. Which I think is way oversimplified and actually removes a strategic element when you are building stacks or placing sentry units.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

On Buffs or Spells. They could be made terrian specific. Such as:

Grassland = Binocular Vision

Forest = Woodland Lore

Mountains/Hills/Caverns = Stonelore

Every Terrian = Vitality Sense

Or something along those lines. (Excuse the cheesey names)

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Goodmorning all.


One other thought,  For single units another consideration might be taken into account. 

Consider one person hidding from an army.  The one person will see the army long before the army sees the person, it should be possible for units to intentionally hide themselves from a single stack. Hiding behind bolders which face the unit your hiding from, sticking the the far sides of hills and inside vallyes.  Units could then choose to actively seak to be hidden from a given unit,  they would then travel slower, but with + 1 stealth for every normal bonus to stealth (if the unit has + to stealth for distance, another + for a small grove of trees, and a + for natual stealth ability, the unit would get an overal additional +3 for intentionally hidding.) This bonus would only apply to the one stack, and other group that happens to be in the area would not be effected by the bonus stelthyness.

Robbie Price

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Robbie.Price, reply 10
Goodmorning all.


One other thought,  For single units another consideration might be taken into account. 

Consider one person hidding from an army.  The one person will see the army long before the army sees the person, it should be possible for units to intentionally hide themselves from a single stack. Hiding behind bolders which face the unit your hiding from, sticking the the far sides of hills and inside vallyes.  Units could then choose to actively seak to be hidden from a given unit,  they would then travel slower, but with + 1 stealth for every normal bonus to stealth (if the unit has + to stealth for distance, another + for a small grove of trees, and a + for natual stealth ability, the unit would get an overal additional +3 for intentionally hidding.) This bonus would only apply to the one stack, and other group that happens to be in the area would not be effected by the bonus stelthyness.

Robbie Price

Excellent. You raise a good point, usually if you are seeing, you are also being seen (barring invisibility, cloaking, etc. It should be possible for a single unit to spot a huge army before it is spotted, even if it has no inherent stealth capabillity. And the ability to hide from a specific stack would be useful for maintaining visual contact without being spotted.

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

That would also serve to aid in the ambush.  Give a fortified unit a stealth bonus and you could have camo units that are undetectable until the enemy runs over top of them and gets attacked, while not having units that can walk past recon patrols.

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

I feel like this is a case where 'keep it simple' might be better.

Having too complex of a visual range I feel would confuse early users and create an 'elite' group of players that actually understand its mechanics.

 

I'd keep standard 'sight' range (with things like scouts obviously seeing further than normal bums)

Then I'd suggest several abilities or modifiers.   I'd suggest a few forms of this.

"stealthy" - that would reduce the distance that a unit can be spotted by 1 or 2 spaces, to a minimum of 2 spaces (example: a watch tower that could see... say 6 spaces, could only see them at 4).  I'd think several variations of this would be possible, including 'camoflaged' which might reduce by more than 'steathy' and 'sneaky' which might reduce by less)

"invisible" - which would prevent any detection unless at 1 space

"true invisible" - prevents any overland detection at all except by those able to see through invisability or stealthy abilities.  To normal units it would only be visable in tactical battle.

 

Then simply there would be a few counter abilities. 

observant:  reduces invisibility by 1 space (allows invisable units to be seen at 2 spaces.  No effect on truely invisible)

alternate vision:  (seeing with sound, infared, or perhaps slightly magical perception) removes invisibility, reduces a space or two from 'stealthy' varients, makes true invisibility act as a normal invisibility: can be seen at 1 or 2 space on overland map as well as tactical map)

see invisibility:  is straight-up able to see invisible units.  maybe not stealthy varients

true-sight > nothing gets past these guys... no way to reduce, shroud (I imagine darkness spells that would obscure unit totals and ability to observe cities), or otherwise hinder the vision of these guys.

 

And in terms of terrain, Forests should obscure vision to 1 spaces, modified by things like alternate vision and observant the same way as camoflage or stealthy would.

 

I don't think there should anything complex like a formula for making 1 man less visable than 10000 men (I'd make the 1 man with 'stealthy' unable to be detected within the army, where the 10000 'generic soldiers' would be apparent) or making flying units different from ground units (I might give them 'observant' in the case of an eagle or a hawk) or giving them additional stats beyond the basic 'line-o-sight' stat.   No need to make mathmatics complex.  (*wonders if what I consider as 'simple' is actually complex*).   

 

I there there is a bit of strategy there too.  If you threw in 2000 invisable warriors and 2 phantom beasts (remember fantastic monsters are a 'big deal') , then surrounded them with 1000 generic soldiers.    Somebody might look at the screen and be like "oh, my upgraded hero can take on those 1000 soldiers no problem.  He's riding a freaking bear!"  and then when he enters battle he's stormed by a bunch of previously undetectable units that were hiding with the 1000 soldiers