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[Yourmaster]

I agree with nejin, here. Making them just a blob of mass instead of individuals would change the game.

[Retropunch]

I'm half and half on this. I completely agree with Nenjin in a way, but at the same time it is needlessly fiddly at the moment. I'd suggest doing a sort of 'default load-out' for positions within a squad (specialist, heavy weapons and so on) but then be able to customise individual marines.
Door Kickers (fantastic game!) does this and it works well. You assign everyone a class, but then can modify the exact stuff each one carries. They still stick within their roles, but you can tweak stuff for a more individual approach.

To be honest, ANYTHING that moves us towards more strategic battles is a giant leap in the right direction in my book. I'd just try to keep the individualisation as strong as you can!

[GentlemanRaptor]

Yeah. My vote goes to maintaining marine individuality - but putting them into squads for the sake of management. It keeps the possibility of specialization, but allows for easier movement of units and greater strategic potential.

[JohnieRWilkins]

Marine individuality would be cool if there were more events that could influence the individual. For example you could leave your marines on some random planet and they'd perform the Emperor's work on their own initiative. Exceptional marines should then have a history log of their deeds so you could appreciate it. Individuality doesn't really matter if you can't keep track of who the exceptional ones are.

[Retropunch]

Marine individuality would be cool if there were more events that could influence the individual. For example you could leave your marines on some random planet and they'd perform the Emperor's work on their own initiative. Exceptional marines should then have a history log of their deeds so you could appreciate it. Individuality doesn't really matter if you can't keep track of who the exceptional ones are.

I certainly agree that individuality needs to actually matter for it to be fun. Just having different names and portraits (or even some basic different skills) isn't that great alone. Whilst I used Door Kickers as a good example of squad customization, it's terrible in terms of giving any individualisation to your people. You've got different names, portraits and different levels of the 3 different skills, but they're so similar that it doesn't make much difference. They just feel like slightly differently equipped robots compared to individuals with any depth.

For real individualism I think you need specific traits and artefacts that are tied to a particular marines. Luckily you can go really overboard in 40k with the effects that these might have, and have psyker powers and all sorts added into the mix of each marine. Also, remember that some marines can just be 'normal' especially before the reach a certain rank/experience.

[frankensteins poster]

Maybe you could have companies as blobs of marines that you assign weapons etc. to via an abstract squad manager that is basically the existing role manager, only at the top of the company screen - this is what the individual guys in this company's command squad have in terms of gear, this is what all assault marines in this company have, this is what all devastators have etc, and then whenever something interesting happens, enemy leader killed, strange mood etc., you get a dude being promoted out of this mass to awesome dude status, and from that point on he has stats and emotions and an agenda and can get artifacts and feuds with other awesome dudes and so forth. Like a handful of guys per company tops so you still remember who everyone is and feel it when something good or bad happens to them.

e: and then you can get the whole Horus Heresy manbaby thing where they fall to chaos because you didn't promote them that one time, or the company captain claimed that artifact the guy took from that monster he slew for himself. Basically the chapter endgame is the heresy spiral.

[Dorsidwarf]

I'm strongly opposed to abstracting the Space Muhreens in any way. They're heroes all, mighty warriors with noble deeds, and it seems wrong to do otherwise. They aren't the Guard, where scattered legendary heroes climb up from the mountain of the faceless doomed. They're superhuman legionaries of the God-Emperor himself, fists of His will, each capable of slaughtering dozens of larger and more brutal enemies by themselves.

On the other hand, there really does need to be a better way to mass-equip groups of marines.

[UXLZ]

You can select more than one marine at once for equipping, btw. Still, it was my interpretation that the squad stuff would mostly be for management's sake. If we want this game to end up with more tactical gameplay then marines need to be grouped in some way, even if individually they're still like they are now. I don't want to have to control 900+ marines at once in a grid style game...
We could keep the numbers and up the complexity of the combat system (assuming Duke is willing and able to program it) but manual control would have to be thrown out the window. Everything would need to be algorithm based, like DF's Fort Mode stuff.

[nenjin]

I'm ok with that, personally. As long as the management side of things stays granular, combat itself can be as blobby as it needs to be to facilitate good tactical game play.

On the management side of things, I can picture like a tree structure. You click the Company header, the squads unfold beneath it. You click the squad header, the squad membership, the individual marines, unfold beneath that. Bonus points if reorganizing is as easy as multiselecting some guys and click dragging them into a new squad, or across companies. The tactical formation thing clearly demonstrates Duke knows what he's doing with click+drag in this environment.

[DukeFluffy]

Because I won't be able to finish going Chaos this patch I've begun working on a second new feature that'll hopefully be wrapped up in a day or two.  I need a little brainstorming done.

Hypothetically, let's say that you can schedule an 'Event'.  With this 'Event' you can set and change a whole bunch of different options, but there are three features in particular that you may check or uncheck.  For Great Feasts, for example, it can have any combination of the following- Banquet, Booze, Drugs.  Another example would be the 'Imperial Sermon', which can have any of- Local, Request Ecclesiarchy, Request Sororitas.

The first 'feature' is generally the standard feature for that type of 'Event', but I need a bunch of features thought up for more types of events.  The ones that still need some figured out are Tournaments, Death Matches, and Chapter Sermons.  Three each.

That'll help considerably.  The events should be self-explanatory.

[UXLZ]

Death Matches (or possibly Tournaments) could have a free-for-all option somewhere, if you think that fits. :v

[nenjin]

Tournament:
1. Internal
2. Allow Spectators
3. Invite Other Chapters

Triumphal March:
1. Chapter Procession
2. Include Imperial Forces
3. Include Other Chapters

Chapter Sermon:
1. Standard Chaplain Sermon
2. Chapter Master speech
3. Include Holy Relics

Deathmatch....I'm not entirely sure the intent of it. Killing captured enemies in ritual combat? Settling grudges internal and external? Just a weird barbarous tradition of the chapter to hold lethal combats? I feel like I need to know more about the intent or the inspiration of this one. Or is it intended for Chaos Warbands version of that activity?

Cause in that case I'd go with:

Deathmatch:
1. Standard fight
2. Allow crowd participation
3. Invite Demon competitors

[DukeFluffy]

Just a weird barbarous tradition of the chapter to hold lethal combats?

That's what I was thinking.  A more bloody version of the tournament.

[UXLZ]

Nenjin: Are you meant to be able to include other chapters and stuff but not your own in certain events? (Like, setting up a tournament for Imperial citizens but not participating with your own chapter?)

[nenjin]

Well my thinking is this: there is no comparison between a normal human and a Space Marine, except maybe if the human is carrying a plasma weapon or something. It's a totally unequal fight. So it doesn't make sense for a tournament that includes Space Marines and regular Imperial citizens. And overseeing regular human tournaments is only something I could picture the Ultramarines doing. Astartes tend to have nothing but contempt for the fighting capabilities of an unaltered human.

That option means you invite them to attend the Tournament and watch it, making it a public affair rather than a private one. Then you can up the ante further by allowing other Chapters to compete. I get where it could be unclear.

Just a weird barbarous tradition of the chapter to hold lethal combats?

That's what I was thinking.  A more bloody version of the tournament.

Ah, that's probably why ideas don't really come to me for it as quickly, it's pretty uncommon for Space Marine chapters to organize deadly combats among themselves. Matters of honor, personal rivalries and such aside, killing each other for sport is uh...definitely against the Codex Astartes. That level of wastefulness and callousness does seem better reserved for Chaos. I dunno though, maybe Space Wolves do some shit like that.

At any rate,

Deathmatch (Imperial)
1. Chapter only
2. Allow Spectators
3. Allow Other Competitors

I thought about adding, like, captured Xenos to the competitors or something, but that also seems pretty far-fetched for Imperial Space Marines. This one would be different from the standard tournament in that, the limitation on other competitors is anyone who feels like getting chopped up by a space marine. That and you might end up killing someone outside the chapter and piss some powerful people off.

edit

You know, this might be a good opportunity to dig into Chapter histories. This goes back a long time to stuff we talked about, incorporating more narrative that relates to the founding chapters and some of the successor chapters. If you've got some system where you can swap events in and out based on a parameter like what chapter is being played, you could incorporate a lot more specific things. For example, Blood Angels recruit from Baal, where the aspirants have to cross a rad desert filled with giant rad scorpions and pockets of deadly radiation and all this shit. If they make it to Angel Falls they perform the trials and stuff under the watchful eye of some Blood Angels, who pick the winners and take them up to become initiates.

So I kinda picture something like:

Recruiting Ceremony on Baal

[Text blurb]

1. Oversee The Trials As Chapter Master. (Grants x initiates immediately, grants some planetary rep if you don't already have max. Baalites do love their Blood Angels.)
2. Petition The People (Grants x+y initiates immediately, but reduces planetary population by z%.)
3. Accept Only The Best Of The Best (After totaling the maximum # of initiates granted, reduce that number by 50%, and grant the remaining initiates bonus training experience.)

This is an example of something to do later to flesh out specific chapter features, to give them more flavor. Maybe the kind of thing you can offload or outsource to a degree, as there are lots of chapters with pretty arcane histories.