Idea: How to move unit formations after VP goes gold

[glider1]

Background:
VP is an excellent 1UPT implementation. I never thought the AI could be made to work with it. Problem is moving individual units around is terrible when you have to do it on large maps.

Idea:
Use great generals (GG) as the head of a formation where you use a spare button in the GG's user interface to magnetize the adjacent units around the GG to follow the GG in the formation that existed when the formation button was pressed.

• You click on the GG formation button to memorize and move the formation and click it again to cancel it.
• As soon as there is an attack on any member of the formation it is stopped and units resume their normal 1UPT operation as if they had been manually moved into that position. The formation is cancelled all together if the attack lasts more than one turn.
• If there is a narrow passage in the map that cannot be passed through the formation breaks and is cancelled.

Benefits:
To players less micro.
To coders, it would be a modification to the already existing formation and operations code.
To interface designers, it would mean changing one button for GG's or GA's.
To the AI, it already does this now!

 

[pineappledan]

The formation would only ever be able to move at 1Move rate, or else any rough terrain in any portion of your formation would break the formation. It would save people on lower difficulties a lot of micro, but players on higher difficulties would never use it, because it would mean giving up a ton of mobility

 

[FoxOfWar]

Given how often the landscape is not just flat with no obstacles... I fail to see exactly where this would be useful. And yeah, keeping to a strict formation would mess up with mobility a lot the moment something comes up - which it always will.

Maybe there'd be use, but I doubt I'd personally care about it.

 

[Moi Magnus]

Seems completly unpractical for land units.

If there were anything to be done that would be more a "rallying point": you register a position, and then can say to your units "go toward there" without having to scroll trough the whole map each time. But that doesn't look very easy to do.

For naval units, though, it would already be much more realistic. But not sure it is worth the time coding if it only apply to naval units.

 

[vyyt]

A "lite version" of what @Moi Magnus says would be the possibility of sending each unit to the nearest available plot in a city chosen from the list of your cities (similar to the trade route picker). It would not be perfect, but it would at least help with sending your units home after war.

Would it be easier to code? Or a better question: would it be so easy to code that it would be worth the hassle?

 

[tu_79]

I would not mind letting AI control my units if I told it where I want to strike.

When finesse is required I would control my units personally. Otherwise, I'd be fine with the rougher approach.

 

[soupwithsauce]

A "lite version" of what @Moi Magnus says would be the possibility of sending each unit to the nearest available plot in a city chosen from the list of your cities (similar to the trade route picker). It would not be perfect, but it would at least help with sending your units home after war.

Would it be easier to code? Or a better question: would it be so easy to code that it would be worth the hassle?

While we are on the subject of sending troops home after a war, can we pls get 10 turn open borders with peace treaty?

I am all for this button to send soldiers home too.

 

[Rekk]

While we are on the subject of sending troops home after a war, can we pls get 10 turn open borders with peace treaty?

Do you want this to happen after the gold release? If not, you may want to find a better thread. There's also a bug report to try and deal with the issue.