I thought I'd use a cheesy title lol.
Basically after reading the
Pinging suggestion I thought up a better way for units to move about together in formations. I'm not sure if this has been asked before but basically formations could be defined in factions (at first I thought they would be hard coded but then I thought it would help make factions more unique). Formations could be defined using a cellmap which is tiled as a pattern.
1=Unit possition, 0 = Space to be left clear when in a group.
The cellmaps could be any size and odd or even, but tiled regardless. Other optinos should be added to choose how it's tiled (whether it's tiled both x and y or tiled x 4 times then another row (y) can be started).
Here's an example:
<formations>
<formation name="block" x="1" y="1"> (this is the standard formation that glest uses now)
<cellmap>
<row value="1"/> (only need one cell becuase they form a basic square block)
</cellmap>
</formation>
<formation name="wide" x="4" y="1"> (this is a wide formation forming like a wall of troops, the cellmap is done across (x) four times before a new row (y) begins, this would have to scale somehow for larger groups)
<cellmap>
<row value="1111"/> (only need one cell becuase they form a basic square block)
</cellmap>
</formation>
</formations>Obviously there's a good amount of change and thought needed to be put into this but ultimately it would be nice to have units move in formation too rather than in one big queue ready to be chopped down and custom formations help make factions a bit more different to each other. Here's a list for this suggestion in order or most likely to least:
- Unit formations rather than all units bunching together when they reach their destination.
- Units travelling in formations.
- Faction specific formations.
- Custom formations.
