5 ms·

Two thousand years ago they'd barely have maps, I don't see why units need pathfinding anyway. In the Age of Empires series it had bizarre effects, like you cou

Two thousand years ago they'd barely have maps, I don't see why units need pathfinding anyway. In the Age of Empires series it had bizarre effects, like you could steer an enemy army around by building a wall across a forest path, forcing them to take a different path to their target (your base), since they apparently saw the wall with their psychic powers. Realistically soldiers should head in the right compass direction and hope for the best. But then you (the player) shouldn't have a proper map of your own, either.

zxexz 8mo ago
An RTS where you could only swap between FPV views of each of your units would be fun. Or at least different. Savage II but there is only 1 player per team, and no overhead view. And you can wrench control from a bot at any time.
- evrimoztamur 8mo ago
  Isn't this Mount and Blade?
  - schnitzelstoat 8mo ago
    With the RTS mod you can get pretty close, yeah.
    - entropicdrifter 8mo ago
      It's simultaneously an RTS and a third person action game, during combat in singleplayer campaigns. You command your troops in real-time, but you have a limited POV. Realtime Strategy doesn't necessarily require that you have a top-down perspective or a specific set of controls, right? Pretty sure Brutal Legend is also technically considered an RTS
- GreyZephyr 8mo ago
  Battlezone and battlezone 2 [0] were great for this. Many hours lost, even if bz2 was a buggy mess on release. It was also one of the first faves to really have a missing community. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlezone_(1998_video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlezone_(1998_video_game)
- totetsu 8mo ago
  It was the dream but any game that tried was always disappointing.
- Tarq0n 8mo ago
  Sacrifice is a brilliant RTS where the commander (a summoner mage of sorts) participates at the ground level.
  - nvlled 8mo ago
    So that's name of that game, I've been trying to remember that game I played briefly as a kid, which in my hazy memory seemed quite fun. Thanks, will give it a try when it goes on sale.
  - tmtvl 8mo ago
    And there's of course the spiritual sequel, Bruetal Legend. The main campaign can be played more as an action game, but if you get into multiplayer the RTS elements really come through.
    - cheschire 8mo ago
      It's just written Brutal Legend if you can't type the ü. The dots you see in the name are not equivalent to an umlauted u, but instead it's just röck döts. Since rock dots don't affect the pronunciation of the name, you wouldn't expand to add a letter (which would affect the pronunciation) if you can't type the decorative dots. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_umlaut https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_umlaut
Amezarak 8mo ago
Typical armies usually had, if not maps, reliable intelligence and guides. "we've heard this chokepoint is heavily defended" would indeed be a common reason for routing around. It would be even fancier if there was some logic to take into account the position of your mobile units as well - for example, to avoid massed troops except in favorable conditions.
embedding-shape 8mo ago
> I don't see why units need pathfinding anyway. I'm sorry but huh? It's a RTS game, aren't moving units around on the map kind of a fundamental part of the genre and this game? > Realistically soldiers should head in the right compass direction and hope for the best If you implement unit movements in a RTS like this, they'll get stuck half the time you ask them to move anywhere, unless you want micromanagement of unit movement to be 90% of the game, which I don't think anyone would find fun.
- card_zero 8mo ago
  Yes, but if you were that unit, would you get stuck in a corner, or would you persist in trying to find your destination? I suppose if you make it all the way to the target, you've accomplished pathfinding of some kind, by definition, sure. But an algorithm to avoid getting stuck doesn't have to be "pathfinding" as in an expensive algorithm to find a complete path right away.
  - embedding-shape 8mo ago
    Well, depending on how you implement it, there might not be any way of getting unstuck, imagine a wall that is 3/4 circle for example, with a small opening, could it escape with that sort of naive algorithm? Players tend to be kind of sensitive to "stupid unit movements", and not having pathfinding is a great way of triggering that feeling in every play session.
    - card_zero 8mo ago
      There certainly are naive ways, although whatever I suggest here will be poorly thought out and will lead to the next problem. But OK, I suggest a scent trail. Each unit paints where it's been and prefers not to go that way again. Then of course it could paint itself into a corner, so it needs a local-maximum-busting strategy too, which probably means marching off in an arbitrary direction to see if it gets unstuck. This would be behaving like a caged animal, and in a game, that's good, and better than a smarter algorithm. You don't want them to be idiots, but you don't want them to be magic, either. The old "follow the left-hand wall" maze-solving strategy is another naive way to get out of a trap. It's not fun gameplay, but it's naive and it exists, so better naive strategies do too.
HelloNurse 8mo ago
This is naive pathfinding that adopts the shortcut of perfect information. Good looking pathfinding simulates realistic terrain ignorance (no "psychic powers"), but it is likely to be expensive enough to require other compromises (e.g. updating paths less often).
- card_zero 8mo ago
  You reckon the perfect information version is cheaper than an algorithm that works only on the tiles near to the unit? But this quickly gets too complicated to discuss; there's the confusing matter of precalculation versus live updating.
  - sdwr 8mo ago
    The perfect information version calculates the path once on click, the local version needs to recalculate every time the unit moves (and new tiles are "seen")
    - daymanstep 8mo ago
      Recalculating the path every game tick is too expensive. What brood war did was to just have units wait for a second when they collide with something before recalculating the path. This resulted in horrendous "traffic jams". It's also why Brood War players got into the habit of spam-clicking, because the game would recompute paths every time you issued a command, so spam-clicking resulted in smoother movement.
bawolff 8mo ago
At some point its a game and needs to be fun to play. If you are directing a group of five units that might work but if you have 200 units on the field i think it breaks down and is less fun. > But then you (the player) shouldn't have a proper map of your own, either. In aoe2 you don't have a full map. I imagine 0ad is similar being a clone
indubioprorubik 8mo ago
Pathfinding at scale is pretty much a solved problem. Spring. Recoil. SupCom. Starcraft. You can do that, for 10.000 units before you run into problems. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wxwIxz4PaY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wxwIxz4PaY
- Onavo 8mo ago
  Why is it so bad on sandboxes like Minecraft? Modded Minecraft has struggled with pathfinding for years.
  - taskforcegemini 8mo ago
    I suppose 3d instead of 2d with destructible paths adds to the complexity
rdtsc 8mo ago
> Realistically soldiers should head in the right compass direction and hope for the best. But then you (the player) shouldn't have a proper map of your own, either. It would depend where and when. An army on their own territory might know the terrain. An army on enemy's territory would try to send scouts ahead as opposed to wondering randomly, too. So at the army level it would almost work out like the they have "psychic" powers because they have scouts. At the individual units it would depend. But it would also be kind of annoying to play if the realism is increased too much. Like they wander into the woods and get stuck in a bog and die of hypothermia.

zxexz 8mo ago

An RTS where you could only swap between FPV views of each of your units would be fun. Or at least different. Savage II but there is only 1 player per team, and no overhead view. And you can wrench control from a bot at any time.

evrimoztamur 8mo ago
Isn't this Mount and Blade?
- schnitzelstoat 8mo ago
  With the RTS mod you can get pretty close, yeah.
  - entropicdrifter 8mo ago
    It's simultaneously an RTS and a third person action game, during combat in singleplayer campaigns. You command your troops in real-time, but you have a limited POV. Realtime Strategy doesn't necessarily require that you have a top-down perspective or a specific set of controls, right? Pretty sure Brutal Legend is also technically considered an RTS
GreyZephyr 8mo ago
Battlezone and battlezone 2 [0] were great for this. Many hours lost, even if bz2 was a buggy mess on release. It was also one of the first faves to really have a missing community. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlezone_(1998_video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlezone_(1998_video_game)
totetsu 8mo ago
It was the dream but any game that tried was always disappointing.
Tarq0n 8mo ago
Sacrifice is a brilliant RTS where the commander (a summoner mage of sorts) participates at the ground level.
- nvlled 8mo ago
  So that's name of that game, I've been trying to remember that game I played briefly as a kid, which in my hazy memory seemed quite fun. Thanks, will give it a try when it goes on sale.
- tmtvl 8mo ago
  And there's of course the spiritual sequel, Bruetal Legend. The main campaign can be played more as an action game, but if you get into multiplayer the RTS elements really come through.
  - cheschire 8mo ago
    It's just written Brutal Legend if you can't type the ü. The dots you see in the name are not equivalent to an umlauted u, but instead it's just röck döts. Since rock dots don't affect the pronunciation of the name, you wouldn't expand to add a letter (which would affect the pronunciation) if you can't type the decorative dots. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_umlaut https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_umlaut

Amezarak 8mo ago

Typical armies usually had, if not maps, reliable intelligence and guides. "we've heard this chokepoint is heavily defended" would indeed be a common reason for routing around. It would be even fancier if there was some logic to take into account the position of your mobile units as well - for example, to avoid massed troops except in favorable conditions.

embedding-shape 8mo ago

> I don't see why units need pathfinding anyway. I'm sorry but huh? It's a RTS game, aren't moving units around on the map kind of a fundamental part of the genre and this game? > Realistically soldiers should head in the right compass direction and hope for the best If you implement unit movements in a RTS like this, they'll get stuck half the time you ask them to move anywhere, unless you want micromanagement of unit movement to be 90% of the game, which I don't think anyone would find fun.

card_zero 8mo ago
Yes, but if you were that unit, would you get stuck in a corner, or would you persist in trying to find your destination? I suppose if you make it all the way to the target, you've accomplished pathfinding of some kind, by definition, sure. But an algorithm to avoid getting stuck doesn't have to be "pathfinding" as in an expensive algorithm to find a complete path right away.
- embedding-shape 8mo ago
  Well, depending on how you implement it, there might not be any way of getting unstuck, imagine a wall that is 3/4 circle for example, with a small opening, could it escape with that sort of naive algorithm? Players tend to be kind of sensitive to "stupid unit movements", and not having pathfinding is a great way of triggering that feeling in every play session.
  - card_zero 8mo ago
    There certainly are naive ways, although whatever I suggest here will be poorly thought out and will lead to the next problem. But OK, I suggest a scent trail. Each unit paints where it's been and prefers not to go that way again. Then of course it could paint itself into a corner, so it needs a local-maximum-busting strategy too, which probably means marching off in an arbitrary direction to see if it gets unstuck. This would be behaving like a caged animal, and in a game, that's good, and better than a smarter algorithm. You don't want them to be idiots, but you don't want them to be magic, either. The old "follow the left-hand wall" maze-solving strategy is another naive way to get out of a trap. It's not fun gameplay, but it's naive and it exists, so better naive strategies do too.

HelloNurse 8mo ago

This is naive pathfinding that adopts the shortcut of perfect information. Good looking pathfinding simulates realistic terrain ignorance (no "psychic powers"), but it is likely to be expensive enough to require other compromises (e.g. updating paths less often).

card_zero 8mo ago
You reckon the perfect information version is cheaper than an algorithm that works only on the tiles near to the unit? But this quickly gets too complicated to discuss; there's the confusing matter of precalculation versus live updating.
- sdwr 8mo ago
  The perfect information version calculates the path once on click, the local version needs to recalculate every time the unit moves (and new tiles are "seen")
  - daymanstep 8mo ago
    Recalculating the path every game tick is too expensive. What brood war did was to just have units wait for a second when they collide with something before recalculating the path. This resulted in horrendous "traffic jams". It's also why Brood War players got into the habit of spam-clicking, because the game would recompute paths every time you issued a command, so spam-clicking resulted in smoother movement.

bawolff 8mo ago

At some point its a game and needs to be fun to play. If you are directing a group of five units that might work but if you have 200 units on the field i think it breaks down and is less fun. > But then you (the player) shouldn't have a proper map of your own, either. In aoe2 you don't have a full map. I imagine 0ad is similar being a clone

indubioprorubik 8mo ago

Pathfinding at scale is pretty much a solved problem. Spring. Recoil. SupCom. Starcraft. You can do that, for 10.000 units before you run into problems. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wxwIxz4PaY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wxwIxz4PaY

Onavo 8mo ago
Why is it so bad on sandboxes like Minecraft? Modded Minecraft has struggled with pathfinding for years.
- taskforcegemini 8mo ago
  I suppose 3d instead of 2d with destructible paths adds to the complexity

rdtsc 8mo ago

> Realistically soldiers should head in the right compass direction and hope for the best. But then you (the player) shouldn't have a proper map of your own, either. It would depend where and when. An army on their own territory might know the terrain. An army on enemy's territory would try to send scouts ahead as opposed to wondering randomly, too. So at the army level it would almost work out like the they have "psychic" powers because they have scouts. At the individual units it would depend. But it would also be kind of annoying to play if the realism is increased too much. Like they wander into the woods and get stuck in a bog and die of hypothermia.