No Fair Peeking!

Bluevoss · April 21, 2002, 14:24

Hey, something I thought of while I was pulling a work-all-nighter (ugh).

An element of the game that would have been nice to have: Scouting. How many times would you like to know what a stack contains before you attack it? Wouldn't it be cool if cav units and fighter aircraft (and maybe some sub types) had the ability to peek at a stack (like a diplomat peeks at cities). Just think about how handy cav would be then - you could find out how well coordinated the stack was before committing units.

Another idea - If scouts can peek at enemy units, then scouts STACKED with that army should work to prevent that scouting. After all, there are examples of scout formations in the civil war probing and screening units. And in WW1, fighters tried to keep observation aircraft away from investigating units.

In fact, this leads to the idea of a "fake" unit. Essentually, this would be a ultra-cheap unit that could be placed into stacks to "throw off" enemy calculations. They could not move on their own (they have to always be stacked). And when their stack goes into combat (or is successfully scouted) then they are destroyed. Examples: The fake artillery that checked McClellan, and the fake buildup in England in WW2 proceeding DDay.

Baring this - is there some simply way to know what a stack is composed of? I know that the stack contents are printed on the bottom of the screen when you click on them, but there is no way to know just what they ALL are, since it runs off the right side of the screen.

child of Thor · April 21, 2002, 18:42

I think 'spy' units act in this capacity(at least i use mine like this). I build about 6-12 depending on my needs and send them to scout out enemy territory and any troop stacks they come across. Also the odd bit of city spying - to see how week the cities defences are

Dale · April 21, 2002, 19:40

Actually, if you hold the mouse cursor over the enemy stack, it tells you in the bottom status bar what units are in the stack.

Maquiladora · April 22, 2002, 07:13

Quote:

Originally posted by Dale
Actually, if you hold the mouse cursor over the enemy stack, it tells you in the bottom status bar what units are in the stack.

Heh, yeah i do that too, but it isnt always great if youve got an excruciatingly low screen resolution, because it kinda goes off the end of the interface if the army has more than 4 units.

Pedrunn · April 22, 2002, 11:58

My PC has a 1024 x 800 resolution.
Yet i can only see 4 name if the units have really small names (spy, tank ...). Mostly I can only see 2.

Pedrunn · April 22, 2002, 12:21

Quote:

· VOID SelectUnit(unit)
Select the specified unit as if the user clicked on it.

I got this from ctp2 modificaton link at apolyton.
Couldnt we use it?

Martin Gühmann · April 22, 2002, 12:39

Quote:

Originally posted by Dale
Actually, if you hold the mouse cursor over the enemy stack, it tells you in the bottom status bar what units are in the stack.

So all we have to do is to extend the size of this status bar.

Quote:

Originally posted by
Pedrunn
I got this from ctp2 modificaton link at apolyton.
Couldnt we use it?

I doubt that this will work first it is a function that will select a specified unit and I never was able to select an enemy unit. Maybe we could use the ArmyClicked event to popup a message box, but I have no idea if it will work with enemy units.

-Martin

Immortal Wombat · April 22, 2002, 13:12

But the event ArmySelected(army_t) would work instead.