I surely hope friendly fire will appear in AoE III since it was a real occurance and still is, even during this late gulf war.

Friendly fire would be good and add depth to the game, but I'd like something like AOC's smart siege that didn't fire if there was a friendly unit in the way.

[This message has been edited by Blitzer_231 (edited 01-28-2005 @ 06:29 AM).]

Well, I think both will get blown away for the sake of realism, but problem is you get the effect from AoK's siege onagers, who only seemed to kill friendly units. Maybe something like the smarter AI option as in TC that only made the onagers fire when there were ONLY eney units in the targer area?

heh, that idea didnt always work........and you could not micro Siege Onagers AT ALL....cause if you did theyd kill yoru own stuff to. But Id guess this will be in there......I seem to think for some reason that its in AoT.....nto sure why lol. But my bet would be on friendly fire being in the game.

My proposal is to have friendly fire in some respects, but not in others. For example, if two swordsmen, one on your side, the other on the enemy side, were dueling in a melee, and a cannon hit the ground next to them, both would be flung into the air. However, your unit would, after dusting himself off, so to speak, be unarmed by the cannonball. The enemy unit, however would be harmed. So, accidently hitting your units still has consequences (they're taken out of the battle, and are as good as dead, for 5 or so seconds), while still not being an unfun hassle.

Lief Ericson that would be unfair and overpowerd.

Thanks for replying intelligently, stating the reasons behind your opinion. <_<

Perhaps have it like the Meteor in AoM, still hit the friendlies, but do a lot less damage.

EDIT: Or like Lief's.

[This message has been edited by Elpea (edited 01-28-2005 @ 07:37 PM).]

Can cannonballs tell the difference between friends and foe? Personally I believe friendly fire would keep players from constantly bombarding areas killing only their enemies.

Off topic: This reminds me of turning of friendly fire in Timsplitters 2, you can throw remote mines on a friend, have him charge at the enemies, then you detonate and it kills all the guys around him and leaves him unharmed.

Lief Ericson sorry mister, just thought you were a bit more intelligent to reflect over my words, such overestimation won't happen again.

If you ever played AoC you might have heard about massed Japaneese trebs 40+ behind walls, nothing really can handle such great numbers, specially when trebs doesn't do damage to own units. Heard about the massing Celtic siege? Massed Scorpions, Rams and Siege Ornagers. Remember in the early AoM days, with Poseidons Towers and Heleopolis?

In other words, massed sige doing nada damage to own units has always been OP. People will hate it from day 1.

[This message has been edited by Defiler_of_INRI (edited 01-28-2005 @ 08:09 PM).]

Friendly fire like Lief said would be OP.

I mean, you wouldn't have to bother keeping your own units out of your cannon fire. Just send in cavalry or something, then bomb the **** out of the whole battlefield, without worrying about anything.

It's more realistic with friendly fire. You won't fire your cannons at the battlefield when your own units are everywhere.

I actually like Lief's idea, but perhaps instead of your own units not taking any damage, they take some (but not as much as the enemy) along with being blown off their position.

God, can we PLEASE separate realistic from good gameplay? I'm sorry, but I think me and 90% of gamers agree that gameplay>>>>realism, and if a cannon fire and kills my units as much as the enemy's, to me it'd be useless (I'd eventually learn how to use it), but imagine how fustrating this would be for the newer players.

Cannon fire should do SOME damage to friendlies, but not the same as the enemy.

Agreed.

Gameplay > Realism

@Elpea: Wouldn't you say that the ability of Meteors to distinguish between people is what makes it a GP?

Greg Street seemed to indicate in his recent interview that the emphasis would be on realism, so my guess is that friendly fire will be a reality. The havoc engine may make it a requirement.

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Consider this: Think of the additional code and processing power required to tag every piece of shrapnel or debris as to its originating cause. If a cannon ball hits a building and shatters while causing multiple pieces of the building to go flying and one of those pieces hits your villager on the head, do you think that it will do no damage becasue the cannon ball came from your cannon?

My thinking is that the physics will be complicated enough without including the "magic" code to protect you from shooting yourself in the head. The interview with Street seemed to say that the AI for controlling combat was more sophisticated, so you may not have to worry about this type of thing as much.

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Well, sure, I'd love to watch a movie on that era, but this is a game, and I'd love it if it was fun and and I didn't have to micro all my units around dodging my own fire, also, won't musket fire hit friendlies in front of them?

Quoted from Elpea:

LOL in AoC it was "gameplay + realism" not "gameplay > realism" AoC had a beatifully use of Siege Ornagers, they didn't fire at own units as long as they didn't run into the fire. Nor in history would artellery fire at own units as long as they were in LOS, or unless they were directly ordert to do so.

In AoC i would often order my Siege Ornagers to fire on own units if a bunch of Palladins were crowding a few cheap Halbardiers, sacrificing such cheap units were very worthwhile.

I expect it, since Age of Kings had traces off it (only Onagers had it), I would expect them to expound on the "only Onagers" haveing Friendly fire and expand it to every ranged unit has friendly fire. Including Archers and Gunpowdered.

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Friendly fire adds strategy. If you can't handle your Cannons damaging enemy units more than your units, then you deserve to lose. Also, Age of Kings had friendly fire, are you bashing Ensemble's best RTS creation to date?

[This message has been edited by WhoAskedU (edited 01-28-2005 @ 10:34 PM).]

I think it should be off by default, but you should have the option to turn it on. Wasn't it like that in AoK?

Anyway, maybe have friendly fire that is off be like Lp's suggestion, not completely off for the sake of realism.

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Of course it adds to strategy, but is it fun? Also, keep in mind not everyone is an expert gamer off the bat, while it's great to learn more and more as you play, it'd simply be annoying.

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Errm.. I don't know where you get that from, AoK had friendly fire but sienge units weren't the focus of the game, from what we see of AoE, siege units will play a very large role in the game, and it will be a very large battlefield weapon, having it so only experts can use it is a complete waste.

Also, this is my opinion, I loved AoK and all, but times have changed and we're at new, if I disliked a featured (which I don't) from it, it doesn't mean I hate the game, it simply means I've been through better since AoK and I'd love to have those better features added to AoE3.

[This message has been edited by Elpea (edited 01-28-2005 @ 11:07 PM).]

Quoted from Elpea:

Don't think we speak as experts here, i am a mere 1650'ish in AoC and AoM.

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It sure doesn't sound like you ever did play AoC very much, for the Mongol the siege was his bread and butter along with the Magudai, that combo was much feard. Ever heard about "Rams 'n Champs"?

One of the main reasons why siege didn't play a large role in AoC was the rushmaps, siege was slow and wasn't as mobile as massed champs archers etc, which outran the siege, besides the 1v1 was impossible to replace an expensive Ornager which also had a too short life expectensy compared to cost, but on boom maps with lots of trade like Michi, Bombard Towers and Siege Ornagers just were the l337 h4x0r, heard about banning of Turks and Koreans on boom maps?

Guys, I'll be the first to push for more strategy in my RTS games. But, friendly fire with a unit that should appear so frequently in battles of this period (the cannon) would be waaay too much microing for waaay too little of a reward. Remember, gameplay > realism. Sure, getting your units killed because you don't have the skills to micro your cannons is realistic (er...kinda), but it certainly isn't fun, atleast for those of us who have a hard time microing battles already.

It should be that only ranged siege causes FF, and then only at the impact area. (of course)

FF is fine. But just don't oeverdo it, it'll turn into frustration.

Lief Ericson don't be so narrowmindet, the algorithm of artellery should just be written as never to shoot close to own units, that way you don't have to micro anything, thus the game will micro itself.

Just like kids like to throw small pepples in the water, they are intelligent enought not to throw where people bathe, it's a very simple rule of thumb easy to translate to AoE III, don't you think?