Art of War - Part 18

[Myll Erik]

Welcome to our new series where we will be taking a look at various RTS game-play mechanics and examining what makes certain things work. We will also be discussing various other aspects of the RTS genre, so keep checking back for new topics! Now for some ground rules:

• Stay on Topic
• Keep things as general as possible - this is not a bashing thread!
• This is to encourage thought - therefore well thought out ideas are encouraged!
• Healthy Debate is also encouraged, but flaming/spamming will be dealt with swiftly.

Art of War - Part 18: Area of Awareness

Area of awareness relates in part to a units Line of Sight (LoS) but more accurately describes what you can see in terms of the fog of war (FoW). Another way to think about it is like this - Unit A can only shoot so far, but generally he can see a lot further and as a player you can often see your team mates area of awareness (AoA) without ever having direct LoS with your own units.

A few things I think that get overlooked are the ability of that AoA within games. The higher your AoA the more prepared and informed you will be as player. This directly gives you an advantage in terms of planning and making tactical choices, but also lets avoid certain costly mistakes that could take up your time or cost you military wise. For example, having a building with a large AoA near some resources could help out later on. For example, if you didn't have that building - you may go to that resource spot later on only to find that it is gone or the enemy may even be there at that very second.

Another AoA aspect comes in terms of teamwork. In some games, you are able to execute certain abilities or powers within an allies AoA. This can often be quite useful and especially helpful if the game rewards team-play. Using an allies AoA can also benefit you in other ways, especially when making tactical choices. For example, in a team game if your buddy makes a move on an enemy - that could give you an advantage because you can take a minute to see what your enemies have in terms of military strengths and then you could use that knowledge to make more efficient military choices.

Finally, we have the FoW affect and how it plays in to the AoA. FoW is what happens when you cannot see what is actively happening in a given area. I'm a big fan of FoW in that it usually makes games more interesting and keeps things somewhat fair. Using the FoW as well as maximizing your AoA are both key goals in playing both effectively and efficiently. By denying your enemy AoA you are effectively keeping them in the dark by using the FoW to your advantage.

For AoA - I'd like to hear your take on :

1. How do you use AoA and LoS in your RTS games?

2. Have you had times where your AoA greatly helped you/hurt you?

3. If you had the choice - would you enable or disable Fog of War? (FoW) Do you enjoy FoW?

4. How have you used FoW in past RTS tactics?

[MikeyC]

Hopefully grabbing my first first, here.

I would like to go through the rest of the Art of War but it'll probably just be resurrecting old arguments and not much for me to add to those.

1. How do you use AoA and LoS in your RTS games?
Some games I tend to go out of my way to hide my composition and location for as long as possible, cripplying enemy scouts and keeping my own in superior position is one of my favourite mini-games in the tactical rts setting. I'm terrible at macro-managing my armies but I micro like someone who treats their army as precious and hates meat-grinders.

2. Have you had times where your AoA greatly helped you/hurt you?
Generally not seeing the enemy's artillery until too late has crippled me in a few games, but the reverse is also true and I was just bested.

3. If you had the choice - would you enable or disable Fog of War? (FoW) Do you enjoy FoW?
I like the method where the terrain is completely visible to everyone in multiplayer maps however you cannot spy on the enemy, and it should be a constant FoW where if your units are no longer there, you don't get to see anything anymore.

4. How have you used FoW in past RTS tactics?
Cheap hidden units have always tended to give me the tactical edge I needed to control the visibilty of a battle field, it generally allows me to create hard counters to my enemies attack whilst giving me breathing room and time to do tons of sneaky tactics and traps.

[ki11joyace]

For AoA - I'd like to hear your take on :

1. How do you use AoA and LoS in your RTS games?

I try to use AoA and LoS to hide artillery and long range guns from enemy view. I will attempt to hold a line and barrage the enemy from afar or from areas in which units are hidden i.e. forests for many games.

2. Have you had times where your AoA greatly helped you/hurt you?

In some games like StarCraft II, AoA and LoS felt very small and short. An enemy could get right up next to you and you would barely see it coming, and I did not enjoy StarCraft II for this reason, among others.

I enjoyed Total War because I could see the entire map and all enemies except those which were hidden in foliage. From this I was better able to make war plans. I was also able to micro and macro better because I was not constantly checking up on every unit to see if they spotted an advance.

3. If you had the choice - would you enable or disable Fog of War? (FoW) Do you enjoy FoW?

This is a rough question since disabling FoW, like in Total War, is something not all players would agree to. Yet viewing the entire field would give players a better sense or how to plan an attack or defence.

(Important part ->) I feel as though LoS should be realistic to units. Infantry can see a lot further than 20 feet out and vehicles with current technology can see alot further. FoW should be in effect only when the enemy is across the map or behind a hill or object (or inside of buildings or forests. This would create a good balance between a lack of FoW and a presense or one, and would lead to better tactics involving the hiding of units, instead of just moving units far away to hide them. Players would also have a better battlefield sense with which to plan their strategy.

4. How have you used FoW in past RTS tactics?

(See question 1's answer.)

[FairladyZ]

may be off topic, but having capture points that affect the AoA would be interesting a communication tower so to speak.



IE, 3 on each side that divide the map into 6 zones, for each tower that your team controls you can see what your team can see in that zone these do not eliminate the FoW, but allow you to see the AoA of your team.



with out the tower(s) you can only see what other units that are within range of your "radio beacon" can see. the units beacons can chain allowing you to see everyone AoA as longs as each player is within that range of each other,


Something like this would allow for a very specialized unit that has a long Beacon range allowing players to stay in communication with each other even when the AoA towers are disrupted.

[MikeyC]

I believe AoA is such an important tool, in the PvP matches, they somewhat remind me of Arathi Basin in World of Warcraft.

Arathi Basin:
A 5-point Capture and Hold score based map. Where holding the objective on a HUGE hill allowed you to see nearly the entire battlefield and help warn everyon on your team where reinforcements are needed.

[Alexander86]

The Fog of War provides an extra layer of depth to a RTS game. It is all about scouting and seeing what the enemy does. If Fog of War would be removed then there is no mystery anymore. Having Fog of War is just absolutely essential if you want to execute long term secret plans.
Without Fog of War the enemy can possibly counter everything you throw at him/her (and vice versa). How is this enjoyable?
A RTS game without the option of Fog of War is a "broken" game in my eyes, except when it is turn-based and complex like chess.

[Honvik]

For AoA - I'd like to hear your take on :

1. How do you use AoA and LoS in your RTS games?

Good Question. I do prefer multiplayer and I tend to use my Allies to assist here. LoS does indeed help significantly especially if your forces contain the ability to have ‘cloaked units’. A good tool is also having scouts that can ‘sneak’ and retreat. Knowing your enemies location will help you significantly win the war.

2. Have you had times where your AoA greatly helped you/hurt you?

I’ve had AoA go against me when long range units were able to pin point my bases to cause a devestating blow to my units. On the other hand I’ve used my own AoA to hide my base and advance J

3. If you had the choice - would you enable or disable Fog of War? (FoW) Do you enjoy FoW?

Enable…. It makes things more interesting!

4. How have you used FoW in past RTS tactics?

By advancing my units far up close to the enemy or hide my reserves to ‘surprise’ the enemy into a trap!

[wayward]

For AoA - I'd like to hear your take on :

1. How do you use AoA and LoS in your RTS games?

2. Have you had times where your AoA greatly helped you/hurt you?

3. If you had the choice - would you enable or disable Fog of War? (FoW) Do you enjoy FoW?

4. How have you used FoW in past RTS tactics?

1. People have said this before, but LOS is really important when considering artillery positioning. It's also important, though, for army positioning. It can be advantagous to pressure your opponent by letting them SEE your big, scary army sitting on their doorstep. Especially if you're doing something else somewhere else on the map (an SC2 example would be a drop in a mineral line).

In some ways, RTSes can be like sleight of hand... Here, look at my army knocking on your door while I go complete an objective somewhere else. Alternately, hiding your army out of LOS for a raid once your opponent pushes out from their position, or to catch them off guard, are 2 more uses for FoW.

Lastly, in games like DOW2 (maybe not a great example but it's one of the games I most enjoy playing teams) AOA can help you decide how to support your team. Paying attention to where the enemy is pressuring your allies the most, and getting your forces there to help, even if it means giving up ground somewhere else, can help turn a potential loss into a victory.

2. AOA and LOS are really important tools in an RTS games. Even when you can technically SEE something happening (i.e. it's visible on your minimap), if you aren't paying attention, it can hurt you. Some examples from SC2 are exactly what I said above: I've had an army harassing my main force or one of my expansions, and bam! Out of nowhere there's a Marine drop in my mineral line. Proper placement of Overlord/Overseers and or Observers can totally negate this, so I see it partially at least as a LOS/Awareness issue.

In Supreme Commander, it can be pretty tricky to know exactly what and where your opponent is going to strike due to the enormous map size in comparison to unit LOS. Radar and air unit scouting (LOS issue!) can help mitigate this, but logistics is prett important to SupCom, and having forces out of position to stop a raid can hurt.

Note! I see scouting as an AOA, LOS issue. Improper scouting (i.e. not having your enemy in LOS) can result in a strategy that doesn't properly counter what your opponent is doing. I've quite often (in SC2) built a heavy Zealot composition only to face Mutalisks. This doesn't end well for the Protoss player.

3. I like FOW. The old Command and Conquer "shroud" that then permanently becomes visible, just isn't really strategic for me. It at least in part takes scouting out of the euqation. There's no guessing, nor skill involved in keeping tabs on your opponent's movements. I don't really like that. <-- it's a ninja, right?

4. I've already dealt with a lot of the ways LOS can be used. I don't really have anything to add here.

[Zhenya]

1. How do you use AoA and LoS in your RTS games?

2. Have you had times where your AoA greatly helped you/hurt you?

3. If you had the choice - would you enable or disable Fog of War? (FoW) Do you enjoy FoW?

4. How have you used FoW in past RTS tactics?

First of all - I'm probably going to slip into calling this "vision" because it is the term I am used to using, so know that if I use that, I am saying what this thread calls "Area of awareness" Just different words for the same thing.

1. When it comes to vision, I've learned to make it a very big part of all my play. Knowing what is happening is just flat out important. I think one of the most interesting things lately in RTS with regards to vision was the Xel'Naga Watch Towers in Starcraft 2. They work as follows for those not aware: If you have a unit standing next to this structure, it gives you a very large radius of vision around that unit. When you move away, the vision goes away. This is tied to map control - the ability to move safely around the map. These have become an important tactical position to hold on all maps. They are worth holding because it is so important to know where you opponents army is on the map, as it lets you know where you need to defend, where you can attack, when you can expand, etc. So, vision is something I take pretty seriously simply because information is just plain important to winning games, and mechanics which revolve around vision tend to be really great, because they can play a huge roll in who wins the game, but it isn't something that has to do with straight up fights.

2. All the time. There are so many examples. Knowing about when attacks are coming, know which units my enemy has, knowing about the possibility of counter attacks, getting units in position to defend drops. I don't feel like this needs an elaboration.

3. 100% Enabled. One of the most interesting part about RTS games as opposed to something like Chess (which I also like, but is fundamentally different for this reason) is that they are games of imperfect information. I think that without fog of war the genre would just be far less interesting. Scouting, watching the mini map, and most important decision making based on incomplete information are all things that make the RTS genre interesting. I think without fog of war the genre would lose a lot.

4. One of the things with fog of war is that you can deny information to your opponent, and this is going to affect their play. The less they know, the safer they have to play, and that frees you up to get ahead of them. I will be very careful to add that this doesn't mean that you should regularly deny vision *for the sake of surprise* Good strategies will have a reasonable chance of success even if the opponent knows it is coming. But that does not mean that you should "give way" information for free either. You want to get every advantage you can, and denying vision is clearly an advantage.

Also, it is ok to throw in an occasional "cheese" or all in strategy which *does* require surprise and hiding units or tech, but its not a very good way to play all the time because it is not a reliable way to win games.

[Pasty]

Fog of war is one of those things I think is good for RTS games, but I don't find particularly fun. I know that it raises the skill ceiling for both sides, I know that it enforces smarter play, and I know that it makes for more diversified unit designs, all great things. But I like seeing everything, all the time. I'm also a min-maxer in outfitting any squads or units. Generally, when you design for max damage or health, vision gets scrapped. But I really like seeing as much as I can, all the time. This forces me to alter my designs to up my vision at the expense of damage/health and the end result is that I feel like I'm gimping myself. It's that feeling that makes me on the fence about AoA implementation in games.