for discussion: remove the area's

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NoSpin
Warrior
Warrior
Posts: 81
Joined: Mon Aug 21, 2006 6:00 am

Post by NoSpin »

No I am thinking of Warcraft 1 I just never remeber building any. It has been a long time I guess I just blanked that part out.
Tfry
Worker
Worker
Posts: 8
Joined: Fri Dec 08, 2006 1:36 pm

Post by Tfry »

I think the original suggestion (remove areas entirely) is a bit too much, as others have pointed out. However, it's also right that there is some considerable overlap between areas and flags in some points. Maybe some of this overlap could be reduced. Let's look at them in turn:

A) Guarding areas / War flags:
The advantages of guarding areas over war flags are:
A1) Areas can be any shape.
A2) Areas are optional, i.e. they don't keep warriors from tending to other tasks such as training or going to war flags
The advantages of war flags over guarding areas are:
A3) Possibility to assign a specified number of warriors
A4) Possibility to move them easily with the mouse
A5) Possibility to specify required training level
A6) Non-optional
Discussion: My personal opinion is that A1 is not terribly important in this type of area/flag. A2 could be incorporated into war flags by adding a checkbox "low priority", which would mean warriors will not go there, unless idle. With this small addition, guarding areas would indeed be obsolete. Right?

B) Clearing areas vs. clearing flags
Advantages of clearing areas over clearing flags:
B1) Arbitrary shape
B2) Optional
Advantages of clearing flags over clearing areas:
B3) Possibility to assign a specified number of workers
B4) Possibility to move them easily with the mouse
B5) Non-optional
Discussion: B1 is pretty important in this type of area / flag, I think. Probably, you rarely really need to clear a circular area. Much more often paths or squares. B4 probably isn't too important for the same reason: You just mark the entire area that needs to be cleared, so why would you want to move that? B2 vs. B5 is again something that would only require a simple checkbox, if it was to behave more flag like.
So, actually, what I think would be nice to have would be an area that allows you to specify some options. Admittedly, I do not have a good idea on how to do this UI wise. Certainly you would not want to specify the options per individual square. Perhaps there should be some notion of an area as an "object", still. When creating an area, you'd click on a "new area icon". This would create a single square object of that area type. Then you could select that object, and modify it much like currently for areas. Probably it would not be moveable (but it could be: e.g. a 3x3 square that you use to pave the ground for inns; here moving the area might have a meaning). Added benefit: You can simply delete an entire logical area with a single click, even if it happens to be a winding path. Again, the problem is, whether the UI will be easily useable, though.

C) Forbidden areas
These do not have a flag counterpart. Still, *if* the idea set forth in B is viable, something similar might be done for forbidden areas as well. This would allow to add some pretty useful features like:
- forbidden only for collecting resources, but ok to walk through, if possible
- forbidden for certain types of units, only (e.g. to keep workers from straying to dangerous grounds)
- forbidden also for explorers (I would love a type of area that I can place around enemy defense towers, keeping explorers from killing themselves, there)

Just my 2 cents.
Einarin
Explorer
Explorer
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Joined: Sat Jun 17, 2006 6:43 am
Location: USA

Post by Einarin »

Tfry, I like your idea, maybe use the same icon as a flag for the area's selectable portion? Maybe there could be a simple vs advanced mode, simple where it behaves like a flag, and an advanced mode where it is treated as a movable area with adjustable options? That would probably seem more intuitive to newbies than have both flags and areas.
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