Army and combat improvement ideas

My opinion on the shared ideas:
1. Facing is a must. I am unsure about formation width. Total War feels kind of weird because width was also determined in every move command - would rather avoid t hat.
2. This could create big advantage for long ranged units - skirmish mode long range could be dominant if current move speeds are kept. Drone hives in skirmish would own.

3.I would like to be able to focus and kill a dreadnought. More than that seems to contradict the game core idea of "no micro" 
4. Feels too much.
5. Agree with the problem definition. Yours is a possible solution but there could be better.
6. Yes.
7. That could be very interesting feature. 

Interface is a serious weakness in AOTS right now.

IMHO dreads are underused as concept and they shouldn't be piled into an army but rather form the core of one.

Warzone 2100 IMHO is a place where devs could take a few interesting features from:

I numbered the items on my list to make it easier to reference them, like DanailLazov did. I think you actually missed #4 or #5 DanailLazov, but I agree with your thoughts, including the fact that #4 and #5 aren't a super crucial improvements over the current reinforcement system.

Couple additional things that came to my mind:

9. There should be a way to order units/an army to pull out of battle in reverse so that they can keep shooting and don't expose their possibly more vulnerable back end. Company of Heroes is an example of a game in which this is a pretty crucial mechanic for vehicles.

10. I'm not sure how much more vulnerable (if at all) the units in Ashes are to their sides and rear than the front, but to make flanking a beneficial maneuver, this should certainly be the case.

zarax999, thanks for the info! Looks like Warzone 2100 has put some thought into this. I think dreads do kind of behave as a 'core' of an army, as they give bonuses (right?) and you can only have one in an army, but this could certainly be taken further.

I think all of these ideas are legitimate and, if implemented correctly, could make combat a great deal more enjoyable.  The only one I would be concerned about is formations; basically, setting certain formations would provoke counter formations from your opponent, which in turn would probably drive you to counter their counter in a vicious cycle, and handling all that could be more micro-intensive than the game seems intended to be.

I think I've said it elsewhere in this forum, but I have seen the devs take a pretty hard line against micro, and while I totally get where they are coming from (this game would be unmanageable if microing units a la StarCraft was allowed/desirable) I think they have to include dynamics that allow for a (limited) degree of micro.  As it stands, combat decisions are limited to what units you send, where you are sending them, if they are grouped, and what global abilities you drop in conjunction with them.  Of all those factors, only the global abilities really add any sense that combat is spontaneous or dynamic.

I very much like the game's scale, and the pacing of skirmishes, and the focus on strategy over tactics, but, as of now anyway, combat just feels like a function of production.  I very much see the value of limiting micro, but, this is an RTS game.  Combat should be one of the main draws to the game, and the game doesn't really allow you any significant degree of choice, personality, or interesting options with combat. Setting a stance for an army, or giving it some kind of conditional order, could go a long way towards making combat more enjoyable.  Basically, I want anything that will make me feel that I am given multiple viable options for combat, and that those options allow for some degree of self expression, as weird as that might sound. 

So there are many conceivable ways to remedy this, but almost all of the ones I can think of would involve a balancing act of adding more micro to the game without making army management a clickfest/APM contest. 

One of the more specific ideas I have involves the kind of units should be added to the game.  So far, the units that have been added post beta, while welcomed haven't really added substantial new dynamics to the game.  In the future, I would love to see units, possibly t4/experimental units, that have a weapon management, or power allocation system all their own.  Just as an idea say a t4 unit that allows players to adjust its weapon facing within an army (and takes a good deal of time to align once given orders).  Or a unit that can be given power allocation orders that allows it to switch between different modes of operation.

I think another thing this game's combat could benefit from, and I assume this might be a bit contentious, would be an added degree of chaos.  This game explicitly takes cues from Company of Heroes and Supreme Commander, but I haven't seen the chaotic elements of those games really show up here, which is regrettable.  For instance, in supcom a giant flying saucer would, when its hp was depleted, destroy any units that happened to be under it when it came crashing down.  It would be nice to see stuff like this show up and Ashes, and I think the devs could even add some devious elements of their own.  Say for instance a t2 ground unit that plows through and destabilizes formations. Or perhaps, they could change orbital nullifiers so that there is a certain range where their ability to block is dubious: if you try and call in an incursion force perhaps some of them could materialize in a rock face or even into an enemy factory.  Just spit balling, I'm not married to any of these ideas, lol.  As it stands, combat just seems too antiseptic and clean and it really doesn't seem to take full advantage of what the engine is capable of.

I share your concern about adding micro. However, I don't think formations would necessary lead to that kind of counter-counter micro situation. The units move so slowly that a formation change would actually take a while, and while reforming some units wouldn't be effective in the combat. In most cases changing formation during a battle probably wouldn't be beneficial, it would be more about setting up beforehand.

I'm not completely sure about that specific T4 unit idea, but I do think the game could use a unit similar to the FAFs flying saucer that you mentioned. Basically an expensive unit that will be able to move a late game stalemate situation. And while I personally really dislike any randomness when I'm playing competitively, chaos can certainly be entertaining .

Also, given the focus on territorial control IMHO more turtling options are necessary.

Towers, bunkers, fortresses could help a lot in increasing variety as well as having some real artillery...

If I may add to the OP list:

Would be great to have a little more control over how literally an army responds to commands.

For instance, when dealing with a command to attack a node that has another node nearby:

1. Keep strict formation, attack only the target node and its units, Totally ignore other nearby node and troops

2. Handle the combat with moderate autonomous discrimination, attack target node, but defend against other nearby units (keep at bay) as needed.

3. Free for all. Break formation as necessary. Attack whatever you see in that direction with general end result of taking the node.

Seems like only option right now is #3.

Quoting Nojar, reply 5

I share your concern about adding micro. However, I don't think formations would necessary lead to that kind of counter-counter micro situation. The units move so slowly that a formation change would actually take a while, and while reforming some units wouldn't be effective in the combat. In most cases changing formation during a battle probably wouldn't be beneficial, it would be more about setting up beforehand.

I'm not completely sure about that specific T4 unit idea, but I do think the game could use a unit similar to the FAFs flying saucer that you mentioned. Basically an expensive unit that will be able to move a late game stalemate situation. And while I personally really dislike any randomness when I'm playing competitively, chaos can certainly be entertaining .

I didn't mean to sound very critical of the formations idea, and you are totally right, formations would not necessarily lead to a micro intensive situation.  I just meant to say that all your suggestions sound good, it's just that if implemented, they need to be fine tuned so as to not over do micro. Maybe I have been overstating that point, or just kind of saying it over and over again, haha.  

I like your suggestion that formation changes take time, and I'm assuming during that time an army would be more vulnerable than it would be otherwise. That would certainly be a neat way of doing it.

Your skepticism about that t4 unit is totally valid; I just meant that T4 unit could be one avenue where the game fleshes out it's combat a bit.  I very much pulled those ideas out of nowhere and don't think they are particularly cool myself, I just thought it would illustrate the kind of thing that could be done. I think this game could really use big, charismatic units like Sup Com's experimentals, and this seems like a fairly natural place to insert something a bit more micro-intensive/hands on.

As for chaos, I certainly think a certain degree of it would improve the game, and I don't think chaos and randomness are necessarily synonymous. To illustrate, if a strafing plane gets shot down in coh2, it will come down unpredictably on the map, and has the potential to wipe out an entire squad of soldiers when it crashes.  This can be a very devastating loss, and is basically attributable to RNG (or RN Jesus, if you will).  This kind of thing is totally undesirable.  However, something like the saucers in SupCom/Forged are chaotic, but not really random.  If the thing crashes on your base, you know roughly where it is going to land when you shoot it down.  Things like downed fighters crashing into ground units and the like could really make the game seem more dynamic in my mind, as long as it isn't generally done like coh2.  These types of things generally shouldn't be impactful enough to turn the tide of battle in my opinion, but I would really like to see them show up none the less.  Sure, it makes the game less competitive, to a degree....but, given the game's relatively lethargic pace, and fairly small community, I would argue fun should take priority over competitiveness.  Also, in real war there is an element of chaos and unpredictability (not that this game should be like so called "real life"). 

Basically, I think think fights would be way more visually dynamic with a little bit of added bit of chaos, and it could make gameplay a bit more interesting as well. I personally think it's worth making the game slightly less competitive to make it more dynamic and watchable, but I might well be in the minority on that account

So, been away for a while.. But I totally hear you Sonar_Taxlaw

T4 could be implemented nicely in a smart way: Make the current Dreadnoughts T4 and transform then in "army commanders".

T3 would be composed by units similar to dreadnoughts in firepower and armor but without supporting powers and more specialized in role... Battlecruisers?

One additional thought on this.

Maybe think about something like "an a-move that will engage troops, and take any nodes in proximity, and chase within reason"... as a bulked up and more intelligent single macro command to match the macro intent of the game.  

You want micro control over sance and mode and all that when you need it.. but macro commands would be good too!