Easy Communication: Difference between revisions

What is less forgivable is when the soldiers seem to be completely dependent on the player for orders, not responding even when under fire from a long ranged unit or even retreating/defending itself from its assailant. There are reasons for soldiers being designed this way: a unit could come under long-ranged fire, respond, and get lured into an ambush. But its still annoying to see your unit get whittled down to nearly no health because you happened to not be around to give the order and the unit just refuses to do anything to save itself.

 

 

Closely related to [[Easy Logistics]]. Much like [[Command and Conquer Economy]] only this applies to units instead of buildings being dependent on the players orders. Usually, all three tropes will be present together.

This is so common in strategy games that it may be best to save examples for aversions or particularly blatant examples of the trope.

 

 

* ''[[Total War]]'' is particularly vulnerable to [[Fridge Logic]] regarding this. A group of highly impetuous knights that are completely embroiled in a chaotic mix of friendly and hostile forces will, at the orders of a general half a battlefield away, break off, reform (a very difficult task for cavalry) and then can be ordered by the same general to circle round the enemy army and attack from the rear. The units in this game also don't respond when under missile attack, but in this case its justified as a group of infantry suddenly charging out to attack some archers would throw a players strategy out of kilter and possibly result in the loss of the battle.

** Mind you, a turn can represent anything between 1 to 60 years, so it's not entirely unreasonable to expect that some communication would occur in that time.

*** Well it doesn't make sense when you tell a unit to go out and explore only to recall them when they're halfway across the world.

** Well, there's also meeting with other world leaders on a whim (despite in some cases lacking the appropriate technology to go visit them) and news of world wonders being constructed in cities you've never heard of by civilizations you've never met.

* Both blatantly displayed and averted in ''[[Evony]]''. On one hand, you can apparently receive news from players miles away instantly. In the medieval world. On the other hand, armies take realistic amounts of time to travel from place to place. (A real headache for alliances whose members are not close together.)

* Though not a strategy game, this is gratuitously played straight in the ''Warriors'' series (''[[Dynasty Warriors]]'' ''et al''), where hostile commanders can apparently have a ''real-time conversation'' from opposite ends of a raging battlefield.

 

 

* ''[[Praetorians]]'' plays this straight mostly, but if your units get embroiled in battle with another unit, you won't be able to give them orders until the hostile unit is dead.

* In the American Civil War tactical game ''[[Take Command]]'', messengers on horse are sent out from the field headquarters to the battallions with the planned orders, and these messengers can be killed by the enemy.

 

 

* Justified in ''[[Starcraft]]'' for the Zerg and Protoss factions because it is explicitly a psychic link.

* In ''[[Ender's Game]]'', the Formics were like this due to a [[Hive Mind]], and humans compensated by learning how to create instant communication technology. {{spoiler|Ender in fact commented on how the game he was playing was unrealistic because of the instant communication, when unbeknownst to him, it was actually real. Bean realizes the game is real for this very reason in later a later book, but never informs others}}

** It also ''does'' filter through a chain of command, albeit brief, once he started training with his squad leaders. This is ''usually'' not a problem...

 

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