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Easy Communication: Difference between revisions
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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.
The small-scale variation of this which pops up in [[Tactical Shooter]]s is [[Squad Controls]]; generally more justifiable, as the squad tend to be within the PC's earshot/eyeline, but can [[The Guards Must Be Crazy|raise questions]] if you're playing a [[Stealth
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.
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* ''[[Dominions]]'' probably comes as close to averting this as possible. Instead of commanding your soldiers in battle, you give orders (formation, battle plan, spells to cast, contingencies, etc…) to each unit in a region, and they then carry out the battle automatically whenever they attack or are attacked. In addition, if you want any information to strategize on, you must scout out a region, organize an attack, and hope your intelligence is still good by the time it launches.
** To get reliable intel is almost impossible without special spies that not every nation has access to or spells that costs valuable magic gems. Some scrying spells even risk your casting mage's mind.
* The non-responsiveness problem is heavily averted in ''[[Warcraft]] III'': not only are units able to acquire and attack on their own, the "autocast" feature means that they will use certain abilities whenever appropriate. For instance, a Priest left alone with a group of units would automatically heal any injuries. (This tech actually debuted in ''[[
** The autoretaliation debuted in Warcraft ''[[Older Than They Think|II]]'', if not the first; it also had the feature of an attacking unit revealing itself through the [[Fog of War]].
** Also, Blizzard RTS games were some of the first to implement a "Hold Position" order, where a unit would stay in one spot and engage anything that came into range, but would not leave its position of attacked from range. This was useful if you were massing forces for an attack and didn't want them getting pulled into battle prematurely by enemy units trying to kite them into an ambush.
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* In ''Powermonger'' orders to your other captains are sent by carrier pigeon. If you like you can scroll the map and watch the bird fly to its destination.
* 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.
* Averted in ''Campaigns on the Danube''. What the player sees, including their own units, is realistically delayed and often inaccurate information. You might order a unit to attack only to find it is no longer capable or that remnants you attack are actually a substantial force.
* In [[Traveller]] the structure of society is based on the lack of communication. While any given planet has real-time from any spot on the world, the Imperium in general strains itself to make up for the fact that messages ''must'' be carried on a starship because they cannot be sent on their own. And the fact that Jump(interstellar drive) space is always approximately one week although some Jump engines are faster then others(I.E. you can have one parsec jumps, two parsec jumps, up to four parsec for a courier vessel and even higher for a warship but always it is a week). Another result is that the prevailing authorities will always be the local ones and the Imperium has limited ability in how much it can micro-manage planets.
== Justifications ==
* Justified in ''[[
** Also might be justified for the Terran faction - the lower units like marines, firebats etc., who are brainwashed, drugged soldiers in power armors. The higher units like armors, fliers etc. are experienced and ranked. Actually, whenever you select multiple units, one of them (the one with the highest rank) is selected as a "command unit", which communicates with you. And it is in the future with rather few units (max 12 units get commands at the same time) - radio is quite fine for that, especially when you consider that there is hardly any cover and that taking cover with a ton heavy walking behemoth is not all that easy or practical for most cases. And for heroes... do we even have to go there? :)
** The Terrans use Adjutants to control their troops, so it's not infeasible that, in fact, the commander's interface literally looks like an RTS and the AI relays orders. For example, when the commander "selects" a marine and then "selects" an enemy to attack, what actually happens is that the Adjutant translates it into orders communicated through the marine's [[Power Armor]], via either voice or even by highlighting said enemy on the helmet's HUD. The real question here is who controls the units through the "RTS" overview screen in ''[[
*** Usually, missions with Raynor as a playable unit involve him personally leading a small unit. He could just be literally ordering his squad around verbally.
* Anything with massively advanced communications or [[Psychic Powers]] can be expected to use something like this.
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[[Category:Acceptable Breaks From Reality]]
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