Commanding in Empires is, I think, unintuitive compared to, say, starcraft. There is no reason for the minimap and view to be in different orientations. That's is confusing. In starcraft, units are much bigger. If you have a bunch of marines on a screen, you don't need to do a selection to tell where they are, and you don't need to select a unit individually to see if it's a firebat or a marine. I suggest using simple supreme commander type symbols to represent the 3 infantry types and different vehicle chassis types, and putting their icon around infantry and tanks on the main view when zoom is above some level.
1) I would love if the minimap and comm view were always facing the same direction. That would be so much easier. 2) how about just adding an icon over infantries instead of replacing them in the com view. Anyway great idea, Its a hassle to figure out what class everyone is just so I can give build orders to scouts to annoy them.
You need some practice (not much) to handle to com view. Especially on map with a low sky box. There was already a suggestion, that comm view always starts to north direction. But you have to rotate your view, because you have to look behind hills and buildings. So minimap and comm view in the same direction won't work. And rotating the minimap would be to confusing. Icons for the minimap would be great. Squad and class should always be visible. Name and skills should be visible by pressing Shift.
why not just copy supreme commander on the tactical icon handling you zoom in really close and they dissipate, you zoom out a little and they reappear and ofc the icons are always there on minimap
Com view starting north is a good idea if nothing else changes. I disagree about the minimap rotating being confusing. blizzerd: Supcom is what made me think of this. That works fine; I just thought a overlay icon that disappeared at low zoom would be a bit better than replacing the image of the person or tank with an icon.
i never said replace, i thought you wanted to replace them i just said make the icons overlap and dissapear if you are to close communication error here but we agree it seems
blizz i suggested it once but i belive its waaay too hard to code it plus you cant scroll that far away in empires because of the skyboxes in maps.
