Hey, looking to expand on the mechanics of the game especially in terms of expansion and setting moves. It would be nice if you could stage your attacks several turns in advance, like continual attack. If you have to be gone for several days you can make all you're moves that require more finesse while they are being carried out, not linearly.

Like setting patrols, expanding with a lot of geographical anomalies to consider, such as islands, rivers, lakes, ect.

Ummm.. as long as you set yourself up properly, continual attacks can run for weeks. Other things (like flanking and such) really depend on the reactions of the opponent... which you can't observe several days in advance.

Patrols can be done by setting continuous attacks that just go halfway out, then back to the starting point. But the point of patrols is to find the enemy, we already know where he is.

Geography is computationally expensive for minimal return. We already have lakes and islands. I'm not sure what game you're playing...

I would like to see an expand function for my units. They would automatically head for unclaimed territory and slowly pick away at it. This would help fill in the gaps that seem to happen along my coast.

I think what he's talking about is this. Imagine you are trying to take over an island, and you only have a few people around to do it. It'd be nice if you could schedule the turns for a few turns in advance, to get into every crevass, and then just let it go, rather than have to log on every single day.

Logging in every day to set one minute worth of attacks isn't that much to ask for.

yes it is gopher!

johnny should make an AI for each of us so that it can just take our turns for us and we can just stop coming to this website.



but seriously, be less lazy, kids.

I agree with gopher and par that the point of the game is to play it.

I also think that having some tools to reduce the micro-management would allow the game to be accessible to a larger audience.

I think playing one world is certainly doable. If a person wants to play multiple worlds, however, they're making the choice to commit much more time to the game.

In regards to settings attacks days out, it would require a significant restructuring of the game to accommodate a change like that. Possibly a 2.0 capability.

In regards to giving units seeking behavior, I'm not going to code the units to manage themselves so people don't have to play the game. The point, after all, is playing, not just owning a block of self-expanding land. And, as I said, I think playing one world is certainly a manageable amount of time.

I still need to create a weekly world (instead of daily). The game is already coded for it, so I just need to design and add it.

That will give a lot more flexibility to players who can't log in every day.

There are a few micromanagement aids I think could be very useful and still require playing the game.

1) Having the ability to say goto point (x,y) could be very useful. You could even restrict the system to only allow (x,y) to be a line from the current point.) You are not having the computer do the work for you, it just gives you a little more flexibility in the long term commands.

2) Having the ability to jump to or see a list of units which don't have commands would also be very helpful. It easy (esp. on the large boards) to lose units or to forget about a plan you hatched at 3am.

3) A standard usage with CTs is to make a base, move off the base and then set a full attack for the rest of movement, since you can't build a unit if the CT is on the base. It would be nice if there was a way to automate this (a good interface does not spring to mind, but your interfaces are excellent johnny, so I'm hoping you have a good idea).

hmmm... It seems to me that many players already do this with the auto-repeat feature.

1) this is perpetual in a nutshell. you just don't get to set a point to stop you just go till you hit something. I think very little distinction between the 2 there.

2) I agree with this one. just a cycle through idle units button or a menu option very similar to battle log that as you mouse over your idle units poof you pop over too them.

3) there isn't really a clever fix from Johnny's (that comes to my mind) but if you put move on HotKey this becomes a 2 click move (minus actually build the base). I personally recommend M.