Idea to make Generals more RTS-y
Demigod Forums
I originally posted this in the GPG forums and there was some agreement, so I'd like to propose this here as well.
Right now, I think most of us agree that Generals need some work. Generals typically summon all their units while at the health crystal, then go into battle with one big mass of units, including the General him/herself. This essentially makes them an "Assassin with pets". They play basically the same as an Assassin, except their damage decreases over time as their minions die.
When Demigod was first advertised, it was said that the Assassins were like RPG characters and the Generals were like RTS commanders. Currently, the Assassin Demigods are meeting this goal pretty well, and are generally fun to use if you don't worry about the current balance issues; I have to applaud GPG and Stardock for this. However, Generals are nowhere near this goal.
I think a major part of the problem is that there is nothing that minions can do that they can't do much better with the General helping out. You can't raid with them because they can't kill many towers and there isn't anything to raid anyway; you can't capture flags without the General; you can't take out enemy Demigods with them; you can't do too much to cripple the enemy creep support since there are so many creeps and the enemy Demigod can come quickly and kill your minions. You basically need the General nearby to do anything, and there is no reason to split the minions and the General up anyway. This means that you will almost always have the minions and the General together in one big group, as we see occuring now.
So, for this to truely be like an RTS, you need to split your forces up. Being able to attack on multiple fronts is one of the advantages that should belong to Generals. Currently, however, this is not worthwhile. We need to somehow make it so that units can accomplish stuff on their own.
My idea has several parts. First, we weaken the General substantially. The General himself should not be able to take on an Assassin in direct combat without creep support. Having significantly less health would solve this problem, and would also help out elsewhere.
Having significantly less health forces the General to be more defensive. His minions all die if he dies, so he needs to be careful. He can't charge with his entire army without being cautious, since a smart Assassin or team of Assassins can take him out and thus kill his army. He would need to stick around the towers on his side of the base, where he can take on enemy units and Demigods with the support of the towers. He would be able to venture out occasionally to finish off a weakened Demigod or kill creeps, but he would not be as adventurous as an Assassin.
This would put the emphasis on the minions, since they are the only ones who can do any significant offense for the General. Buffing the units themselves might not be necessary; to be honest, I'm not sure. But if the General is in his base, there needs to be a way to get the units to the battle where they can fight. The answer is: barracks.
I know, there is some question of whether we really want buildings in Demigod. And I agree, I don't want my General to be building an industrial complex with powergens, factories, and mass fabricators either. However, being able to build 2-3 barracks buildings would be great. The Generals can spend some mana or gold to set them up when they can get forward on the map, then retreat to safety if necessary. The barracks then builds units (either at a mana/gold cost or just automatically over time). The units are directly controllable, and are sufficient to make some progress in fighting. The ability to make several barracks would allow the General to fight on several fronts; the enemy Assassin can attack one group of enemies but the other would be able to continue destroying stuff. The Assassin could always try to destroy the barracks, cutting off the troop supplies and costing money for the General.
What does the General do during this time? Give him the ability to build towers at a somewhat-significant cost of either gold or mana. There would have to be a limit to how many he can have constructed at one time, but this would let him be useful in defence. He could even choose to build the towers near his barracks to establish a forward base of sorts.
All of this would give the General a much more RTS-like feel. He is much like a weakened ACU in Supcom; he can help out his units at times, and can build a few buildings to build those units, but the units need to do the dirty work.
I know that Frogboy said that Generals were probably not going to be drastically changed, but I think this is really necessary. Generals right now aren't what they should be. Demigod has a lot of potential if the RTS and RPG genres can be successfully combined.
I probably forgot something here, and there may be flaws in my idea that I haven't thought of yet (although I am willing to fix these flaws if any are found), but I think this would be a good direction for Generals. What are your thoughts?
