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[Kagus]

I was recently browsing through the Supreme Commander wiki and soaking up as much as I could (I don't know why, I just love reading game info), and I started thinking about something. 

In a lot of modern or futuristic RTS games, players are given the ability to recruit both humanoid infantry units and armored machines.  Normally, infantry units are only used until the player has gained enough resources to start churning out the tanks, since as we all know a single rifleman can't fight down a single tank.  This is realistic.

However, this means that infantry are eventually pushed out of the game entirely, since although cheaper and smaller, they can't compete with the raw power provided by machines.  After a while, you're left with only tanks (or their equivalent) duking it out on the battlefield.  The only time humanoids would appear would be if you need them to repair the tanks, but there are normally workarounds to get that kind of effect from a vehicle too.

Certain games (Company of Heroes being a good example, since it's a name I can remember offhand) tried to alleviate this by giving infantry units more versatility, such as being able to hide in buildings or take advantage of cover.

However, these minor strategic abilities were not enough to make all that great of a difference, since tanks can just destroy those buildings or roll over the cover.  Or you could just flank them with tanks and turn them into little pieces (god I love the gibbing in COH...).  As such, even in the more infantry-buffed COH, the games tend to go to the more armor-heavy players.

I believe that this is due to the infantry units not having their full strategic potential realized.  The infantry units, as some infantry-players will confirm, are quite capable of taking out tanks.  The problem is that you need to micromanage several groups at the same time in order to get the greatest benefit (or, really, any benefit at all aside from just being another target).


The idea that occurred to me while reading the SupCom wiki (I'm not entirely sure why, since SupCom lacks infantry in any form.  Unless you count the T1 units as "infantry") is to treat infantry differently from armor.

Imagine a basic RTS game, everything's pretty standard in regards to accumulating resources, building buildings and having those buildings make tanks.

Now picture a special building (called "barracks" for lack of any more original or fitting term).  This building does not have a standard "push button, tank comes out hole" setup.  Instead, it has a few icons depicting various infantry squads.

What happens is that these buildings will, most likely at some minor cost, automatically produce and maintain the squads set up in its profile.  When these squads are released from the building, they are completely controlled by the AI.  They will go about doing cool infantry things, such as automatically patrolling the base or hanging around buildings.  Should anyone die, they will quickly be reinforced or at least patched up at a barracks.

These units cannot be directly controlled (or perhaps even selected) by the player.  Instead, you could place infantry objectives much like the reward flags in Majesty.  Now, to give the player a bit more control, these objectives could be given a range, perhaps as well as some other settings (such as what types of infantry units would be drawn to that objective).  Any infantry units inside that range would, of their own accord, move towards the objective and try to complete it.  The range could be used to prevent all the guys in your base from just going for a long stroll (I like big maps), while still snagging those dropped off at a delivery point set up by some transport.

The important difference would come when these guys actually get into combat.  The main advantages of infantry units are versatility and stealth.  As such, they should be able to move in ways and into places the bigger units wouldn't be able to, and be very difficult to detect.

In COH, infantrymen will only move (in any real sense of the word) if you tell them to.  These AI-controlled infantry units, however, would deviate from their position as much as they saw fit in order to complete their objective, get a good shot or just stay the hell alive.  This would all be worked out by the AI, king of micromanagement.

This would allow for infantry units to provide you with everything from near-passive support (automatically patrolling your base, produced without you having to do anything more than build the barracks, and could also be set up to hitch rides on tanks to provide a little helping hand when you're doing the standard fighting) to effective strike teams or sabotage efforts (with the help of objectives, dropships and advanced training and equipment, the stealthy and versatile infantry units would be able to get in where others wouldn't be able to, and possibly do such fun things as capturing/blowing up enemy buildings) to simple recon (providing difficult-to-detect scouts which automatically go out and do their job once produced).

Now, I've mentioned a difficulty in detecting these infantry units several times now.  This does not mean that they automagically fade out of sight or something similar, it just means that they are so small in regards to the stuff you're really paying attention to (tanks), are most likely camouflaged in some minor way, and are not treated as normal units for the purpose of alerting you.

Even your own infantrymen, within reason, should not be able to alert you with the same telepathic "unit killed" or "you are under attack" notices provided by other units.  This would allow a specially-trained stealth team to take out outlying guards and sneak in to do some mischief.  If a guard were to raise the alarm, however, then you'd certainly know about it.


This is pretty much just a bare-bones fantasy dreamed up with the purpose of providing the undoubtedly cool infantry units with a little more use, as well as cinematic effect, without having to go through all the micro needed to keep them useful.  I brought it up here because I want opinions.  What do you think about how infantry are treated in RTS games, do you think this idea (or some variant thereof) could be applicable/enjoyable, and how do you think it could be improved?


While we're at it, I may as well throw in my belief that buildings should be more important, fixed objects rather than player-specific plants.  What army in its right mind would build a (or several) whole tank factory on the front lines?  I feel that you should use a building, not outright own one.  This could give certain map areas containing specialized buildings more importance, and could allow people to fight over control of the building, rather than just smash it and build your own in its place.

But that's secondary.  I'm mostly looking for infantry-related comments right now.

[Granite26]

The Battlefield games do a good job in regards to this.  Admittedly they don't use destructable terrain...

Anywho,

1: Air Assets hunt tanks, making them vulnerable in ways infantry aren't, because A: it's not worth the air assets time, and B: it's hard to hit small targets
2: Infantry Assets take better advantage of cover.  They can jump out and shoot, or hide completely from Armor they can't affect(ively take on)
3: Infantry beats tanks at close range.  Armor beats Infantry at range.  (This is do to the pop and fire tactics available, and the fact the Infantry Anti-Armor weaponry is weak.
4: Infantry confuses Armor.  Think Han and Chewie versus the Patrol Droid on Hoth.

End War does a good job too.
1: Tanks Win
2: Infantry is needed to control buildings (like you'd mentioned)

No thoughts of my own yet.

[Sean Mirrsen]

It works alright if the game is an action-game at its heart. Like Faces of War (and its predecessor Soldiers: Heroes of World War II). Of course, you cannot produce units (in singleplayer at least), but units left alone will try to behave themselves and do what you'd expect of them. Including lobbing a grenade at a tank if one comes near.

Oh, and smart game design would allow infantry to fare well against tanks. For example, riflemen. Riflemen carry grenades, but telling them to lob grenades manually is too much microing. So instead make it smart - giving the riflemen a command to fire at an armored target will make them use their grenades. Similarly with RPG-wielding troops - unless you REALLY want to spend a missile to kill a pack of soldiers (achieved by, say, ALT-clicking the target), giving a command to kill soft fleshy humans will make the soldiers use their sidearms.

[beorn080]

Battalion wars for GC/Wii does a good job of keeping infantry useful. Unfortunately it goes a bit too far, since most economical way to destroy a tank is to take an explosive using infantry man and circle strafe the tank. Though even a rifleman could eventually take out at least light tanks and probably large tanks and battlestations.

My biggest problem with tanks is that they never have damage modeled realistically. Yes, infantry has an extremely hard time actually destroying that tank. However, simply stopping a tank from moving is much easier. Its almost always impossible to destroy the tanks treads.

[Servant Corps]

In a lot of modern or futuristic RTS games, players are given the ability to recruit both humanoid infantry units and armored machines.  Normally, infantry units are only used until the player has gained enough resources to start churning out the tanks, since as we all know a single rifleman can't fight down a single tank.  This is realistic.

Actually, according to an old version of TVTropes' Reality is Unrealistic page, Infantry can DISABLE tanks. Tanks have a lot of complex parts, and while it is still sucidical to charge in front of a tank, it is possible to have a tank break down. And a broken-down tank, in the middle of a warzone, is a waste of tank.

So, all you have to do is follow realism. Make infantry disable tanks, like in GRUPS.

EDIT: I found it! It got deleted by some editor though, so...eh.

* Players of the TabletopGames ''D20 Modern'' often complain that, if you're lucky, you can disable an Abrams tank with small arms fire in the game. This is actually reflective of reality - disable just means "cause to stop functioning", and modern tanks, despite their heavily armored bodies, have comparatively vulnerable equipment that's necessary for them to operate effectively. If you know what you're doing and have a bit of luck, you ''can'' disable a tank with small arms fire.
** In fact more modern tanks are lost to death of the operators than damage to the actual tank.

I restored it.

EDIT2: I also loved that World War I flash game which had tanks, but were so slow, expensive and cumbersome, takes a long time to cross through trenches, and can easily explode when somebody use the Anti-Tank Air Power. And when a tank explode, everybody begins to despair.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Well, in FoW and SHoWWII, infantry do disable tanks, most of the time. Of course, there's the whole action-component, but you can never take a tank down by small arms fire. At most - an anti-tank rifle round can take out the engine and the tank will die. Light tanks can be taken out with machineguns, but usually it involves shooting the wheels off.
Of course, there's a bit of Hollywood Realism there as well - if you lob a grenade good (especially a powerful anti-tank grenade bundle), the tank'll blow sky-high and rain debris on everyone around. Once I had a sad, but awesome moment - I took a soldier and ran him through the enemy positions, taking out german soldiers with precise machinegun headshots. There was a "final boss" that I was aiming to overcome - a light wheeled tank with a closed turret. I had only one anti-tank grenade, and I threw it precisely behind the turret, blowing the thing up. The turret flew up, flipped in the air, and landed right on the head of my soldier, crushing him. Damn.

[mainiac]

There are some who theorize that tanks were rendered obsolete by the attack helicopter.  The theory is that if a force has air supremacy, it doesn't need tanks since planes, helicopters and artillery can hit any target faster and with less risk.  If a force doesn't have air supremacy, it's tanks won't survive five seconds due to enemy helicopters.

[Sean Mirrsen]

What if a force had Battlemechs? Tanks fall victim to their specialization, they can't oppose a helicopter.

And even if a force has helicopters, it still needs tanks and other ground armor. Sure, you can raze a town from the air - but helicopters are usually fragile and expensive. To capture and hold a town, you always need ground troops and armor.

[Kagus]

Sure, infantry can disable tanks.  Sticky bombs, grenades, or even just finding some way of "sticking a wrench in".  However, I was referring to the standard RTS environment where unit A shoots at unit B with its weapon until one of them dies.  If someone were to attempt that with a tank, the outcome should be relatively easy to predict.

The usefulness of infantry comes from versatility, such as the ability to carry said bombs/'nads/monkey wrenches.  However, the common way of handling such things is to give that unit a special ability which can be activiated by the player, something which, as Sean said, is too much micro.

That's why I expressed the thought of having fully AI-controlled infantry who would circle the tank, apply the bombs or do whatever else they could do on their own, without the player having to (or, in fact, being able to) give them any specific commands.

Battlefield works because it's not an RTS in the standard sense.  All the infantry units are being controlled by people who are given full access to all the versatility, maneuverability and natural stealth of infantry units because they're controlling the units from that level.

Infantry units in RTS games tend to fall short because they are, in a way, still treated like tanks.  The difference between the two is not great enough to give infantry units a use after the first stage of the game, since they are still bound by several of the rules that apply to the other units (including requiring direct orders from the player).

[beorn080]

The problem with air power is that a 1 million dollar sam launcher can kill a 1 billion dollar bomber. Yes I know its not quite that simple but its pretty close.

Artillery in its various forms, guided, unguided, launched from air or sea, etc., is why infantry has come back into its own. Sure a platoon has a hard time destroying tanks, at least until the salvo of laser guided missiles hits them.

For a great example of how the Air-Infantry synergy works, watch the live action Transformers movie. A platoon of marines takes down a plasma firing giant metal scorpion thanks to massive air support.

[Antioch]

You should really play one of the close combat games, especially close combat 5. It has the best implementation of tanks vs infantery. Mainly because infantery can easily hide in vegetation and ambush tanks. They are still very usefull to give support from a distance with heavy cannon fire, but one hit from an AT squad and they are toast, they often miss but when they hit you get that real satisfaction of seeing the enemy tank explode

[Aqizzar]

One of the other problems with infantry is that virtually all RTSs are built to model knock down, drag out, zero sum, full scale open land warfare, where infantry aren't supposed to have a real purpose.  The realities of terrain and economics historically kept infantry in battle - if Vietnam generals could have just flooded the field with tanks and armored cars like you can in most games, I'm sure they would have.  Scale is completely out of proportion in most game models - I remember thinking even as a kid playing C&C that surely a front line tank had to cost more to operate than a dozen riflemen.

The other is that, especially in modern war, infantry do a lot of things besides fighting.  I can't think of any RTS offhand where you had to police occupied territory with minimum force, search houses, and hold checkpoints.  And even then, since mid WWII mechanized infantry works with every squad as one unit, with the men acting as a precise extension of the vehicle.  C&C3 came pretty close to realism in this regard.

It still fell apart with the economic model, especially since real commanders don't usually have to option of just leveling every building they see, both for the widespread death and destruction, and the fact that blowing up a pile of rubble just makes more rubble.  I still can't figure out the logic of making buildings finitely destroyable.  Any pile of junk works as cover, which can make even one guy a virtually indestructible hardpoint, which is the real reason infantry have survived past about 1870.

[a1s]

Actually I like the idea of automated infantry, but I feel we need it for all units. The classic RTS is hugely unrealistic in that on one hand you seem to command the whole battle, but on the other you have to command all your individual troops. In real life there would be 2 levels of command between those things, but in the game- it's all you.
The fact that you can only give so much attention to one unit is why infantry seems so useless- try playing something like Steel Panthers (a company level turn based wargame)- infantry will f-k you, hard. Unless you deploy scouts ahead of your armor (negating it's advantage in speed), or at least have some Mechanized infantry escort it. And no matter how enticing it is, never get into an urban area in a tank. Same applies to attack helicopters- each is a bird of prey onto itself, turning enemy equipment into merry little bonfires, but when a SAM team a minor fraction of it's cost takes it down, it's not fun.

Infantry, as the saying goes, is the queen of battle. World's cheapest unit is a human with a rifle. As is the most supply-efficient. And arguably the most stealthy (until the 1980s no one would even try to argue this, BTW). A modern RTS will simulate none of those things however.

[Servant Corps]

Machines at War avoid the whole "infantry" delimma by having you only produce Machines instead of infantry. There are weaker forms of machines, and stronger forms of machines, but they're all machines.

That's one of the few things I like about Machines at War. One of the few.

[Neonivek]

Actually what I found isn't that Infantry are the cheap units you use until you get tanks

I found that Infantry tend to become a sort of anti-tank you get where you need another vehicle to counter.

In C&C and Dune the infantry are oddly resistant to cannon shells. In Dune Anti-infantry vehicles tend to be high end The Latest Dune however switches it up as most sides have anti-infantry from the get go as their first unit.

Tiberian Sun tends to give many infantry types powerful roles and even vehicles don't replace. Cyborg Commandos are deadly!

In Total Annihilation the Infantry (well the equivolent of them) are some of the best units in the game for their price. It is reasonable to defeat the enemy without using the higher tier sets even if the enemy does... and still win. (In fact it is an accepted strategy to rush with the weakest units in the game).

More games now allow you to use Infantry effectively for more reasons then their ability to use the Battlefield. In fact in C&C Generals one faction was almost entirely Infantry based and their use of missles and HUGE swarms of vehicle destroying peasants could decimate the battlefield like they were skilling through fields of flowers.