I was wondering if the dev had pretty much set up what he was gonna do with that map, he already mentioned that he had to improve it, as it was barely giving any information (position, troops presence, and rally/conquest points).

What are the improvements that the dev has planned?, What are your ideas for the map? (Long and short run)

These have been done already for the next version:
* more accurate player position marker -- also markers for other human players in the same team in online mode
* new markers for attack start/target positions
* alert markers for own bases under attack
* battles have been made more visible

I haven't thought extensively how the map should be improved further. The map itself and the markers can always be made better looking, but what functionality should it offer more that's valuable? The primary purpose is there, you know where you are and you see where the bases are, so it assists you in navigating in the world.

It's already stretching a bit that you see various markers for on-going events, but hey, it's a game after all that's supposed to be fun to play, and following objectives and events only from the radio messages would be pretty difficult, if let's say, changes in attack info would only come through radio.

I have thought about adding something to visualize where the other teams in player's nation are located, but I've got somewhat mixed feelings about it. I know it would probably make it easier to sync things with AI teams, if let's say you'd join the attack from the other side trying to hit the enemy at the same time with the main attack team. Or, you could track if a team is coming your way, you could estimate how long you have to wait, or even, is anyone coming there at all.

But, I always come back to it that I don't really know if the map should be this magic device which lets you see all things that take place on your side of the world in real time. It makes you aware of everything, but is that always a good thing?

Now, discuss and suggest!

In short, yes it should

There's a fairly good consensus on the principle of giving the player all the information he/she needs. Sure, intentionally witholding some information is a valid gameplay building mechanic too, but that is also included already in a way that makes sense; you don't see everything about the enemy on the map. Being aware of your own team enables you to make informed decisions, and not lose because you didn't have the information you'd needed (which is the bad kind of losing, as far as gameplay is concerned).

One other thing I've been wondering about is the screen aspect ratio. The visible gameplay area is not a perfect square, I think? This is a potential (well, actually a very certain) balance issue in player vs. player play. The side that gets to take advantage of the longer horizontal visibility gains an advantage, especially if the other team is unable to do the same in some other location. Therefore one might consider forcing the visible area to a square by adding some sort of HUD/menu/info bar to either edge of screen. This bar could include a version of the map, which would also lessen the cumbersome(ish) need to toggle the tab map in and out.

But yes, HUDs and bars are ugly, keeping the screen clear is pretty and modern.

The aspect ratio is not much of an issue. The mouse cursor look thingie that's in there can be balanced so that you can peek farther vertically than horizontally, given you are using widescreen resolution. In fact, I'd remember it being so already to some extent. It might not be correct for 4:3 or 5:4 currently, I haven't done much testing on those.

The question of all the information the player needs is a tricky one. I'd agree with you 100% on that if the player was controlling all the teams and sending orders to them, i.e. working in place of commander in this case, he/she would need the information where all the teams are located and also where they are going, what they are doing, where they have spotted enemies recently. Now, that you're either a single squad member or a team leader, you probably shouldn't be worried over how many soldiers your nation has in defence in a base far away from you, as it's mostly not your task to fix.

The map should probably have a limited visibility, so that you'd only know the locations of teams near you.

I would like very much for it to be more of a tactical map, something along the lines of arrows pointing to where teams are heading and a symbol to show teams staying put and defending.

_________________

Oasis. Less Running, more rifle.

Funnily enough, a defence situation was precisely my imaginary test scenario too. The way I thought about was that it would be bad if the player lost a base because there was clearly not enough defenders there. While it's not technically the player's issue to fix or worry about, in practice it easily may be. Player's influence on the outcome of battles is arguably bigger than that of any single AI player, so a brave player could single handedly hold a base for a while... If he'd know about the situation in the first place.

Of course seeing a base horribly outpowered on the other side of the map could make the player worry or even go on an ill-adviced marathon relocation effort, but still, I'd err on the side of too much information here. Players, and I for sure, have a tendency to ignore information they learn not to consider critical.

And, actually, only showing the nearby friendlies just might be an example of an unfortunate compromise. It could easily confuse the player, if it's not somehow explicitly presented that "this is as far as you're ever going to see, there is friendlies beyond that even if you don't seem them". Also, some players might prefer to always move with the biggest pack of friendlies they can find ("I want to see as many guys firing as possible!" or "I like to be in a group"), while others might want to be the lone wolf commando. Knowing where the friendlies are enables both of these.

Maybe there should be a concentration of the team's color in each square, as in, where there is a huge concentration of our soldiers, this should cause the square to get more intensely colored to the team's color. I don't know if you should see how the other team is planning, but obviously , if you have a lot of soldiers near the border, they would know what is going in the other side's front squares and if you have no soldiers at the border, you wouldn't know what is going on unless you go check.

I don't really buy the idea of getting confused about the limited visibility, it's really common for games to have similar systems even without clear indicators of range.

Anyway, the direction where I've been taking the map so far, is that it's supposed to visually show you the stuff that is within your current range of either seeing or hearing things (that hasn't been implemented, it was my next intention though) or stuff that you've been let known by the radio. In addition to navigation, the map would work as your soldier's automatic memory, that forgets stuff that are most probably no longer valid, hence the range, instead of an all seeing satellite camera feedback gadget. I don't know if it's a good idea or not.

I can't explain it in clear words as it's still just a hunch, but I'm seeing something slightly intriguing in it that you'd have to live with some level of unawareness even of the doings of your own nation's teams. Maybe it has something to do with such things that it would create more surprises or it would be hard to prepare for some events and it would perhaps generate more urgent and important threats which is fun. Or maybe it's a learning thing, that you need to explore and pay attention on how the AI works or something.

Anyhow, getting back to what you said about losing a base due to having too few soldiers there. I think you're not likely to just lose a base all of sudden as if it would be a huge surprise that it happened. Let's see some scenarios.

1) You've just conquered a new base, or your nation has without you, so the odds are that there are no defenders there in the base, maybe the only defending team is yours, and you and any other AI team probably lost many men in the attack. If you'd now leave the area, you'd know that you just left a base pretty much unguarded which will be highly vulnerable to enemy attacks, even without seeing the fact on the map. So, if you did that and the enemy took the base back, you probably learned something that day and on the next time stayed in the base to defend it until the reinforcements came. The commander sends defending teams to a new base immediately and they'll be there as soon as possible. While the commander sends teams to the new base, he makes sure that it doesn't diminish the defence in any old base too much.

2) Your nation has a base near the border, it's been there a while now and there hasn't been any recent attacks on it, the odds are (if you rely on your superiors) that you have a pretty decent defence there. Now, the enemy has started an attack there. When the fighting starts, you immediately get a signal for help about it if you're not there .."Meh, they can handle it alone". Ok, they actually manage to stop the attack, you'd get notified about it by the radio and you'd see on your map that the danger indicator is gone. Wheh! By now you should've calculated that there's a big chance that the defence in the base has weakened from the attack, so it might be a good idea to go there and check it out and possibly stay there to support them. Also, it's a pretty obvious hint that that's the base the enemy will hit again. Again, you didn't need to see the actual soldiers on your map, you estimated things and went there to see what's the situation. If you didn't go there, and the enemy captured the base on the next attack wave, you probably just learned something again.

This post is getting out of hands in length, I better go buy a new laptop instead

I suppose this can be argued both ways pretty convincingly, as is often the case. Time and playtesting will reveal the eventual truth, if there is any.

Personally, I feel the fun surprises would still be there, provided by enemy, even if the player had perfect information about his own side's activity. Especially so if the enemy knows about diversionary attacks (main attack on base A is supported by very small diversionary attacks on bases B and C too) and so on.

All this thinking about maps, bases, defending and reinforcements makes me think of the actual reinforcement mechanics and overall strategy. There's a few basic reasons why I think there is very few actual war games out there (as opposed to war themed action games, military themed shooters or whatever you'd like to call them): I think the factors that make war a war are 1) supply/maintenance issues, 2) civilians, and 3) strategic backround (which in this time and age refers to things like media and political will). If at least two of these factors aren't represented in a game, I don't get a "war" feeling out of it. Battles are just battles, and if they're not boud to a larger framework, they might just as well be one time armed operations.

For a game like RWR, I think the obvious implications are precisely the reinforcement mechanics. Where, exactly, do the reinforcements come from and how do they arrive to their first assignment? Is there something the enemy can do to hamper this process (like cut off a base from supply/reinforcements and relatively slowly bleed out the defenders, picking them off one by one and eventually overrunning the defences). If this was the case, strategic opportunities and considerations would emerge. An all out assault to capture a base, or maybe the isolate-and-conquer tactic? How would each choice affect the opponent's play and priorities? Is it feasible to try to take and hold that far away base in the enemy's flank, as it would make the reinforcements line long, slow and vulnerable to ambush squads? The possibilities may not be endless, but I think they're... numerous.

In practice, this could mean that the troops are spawned in some "rear" or "reasonably safe" or "we've held it for a while now" base, and they'd run (with rifles!) to where ever they have been assigned as reinforcements. This would imply that they could be ambushed enroute or stopped just short of reaching a base in trouble or whatnot. Same in attack; if a defender feels like he can spare a few good men to hamper the attacking force's reinforcements, it just might be the best, fastest (or only?) way to stop the attack.

... and it's entirely possible all of this is way too fancy and it's just way more fun to shoot the shit out of everything and rush as much as you can

This doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever. I'm supposed to believe that I'm "just a squad leader" and that the defence of the nation is not my task, yet the whole game is based around me defeating an entire invading army? You are basically telling me that I shouldn't care whether I win the game or not because I'm not in charge and the defence was none of my business.

You can't have an open map game, where I am free to go where I want and do as I please, in order to win a war and then tell me I'm not in charge and shouldn't worry about the position of my other forces. If I wasn't the commander, I would be given very specific missions and tasks to accomplish. Tactics would generally be established for me.

Do you remember the original Army Men game by 3DO? If you to it was a top down shooter similar to RWR but you weren't the commander. You were a squad leader or commando. You had specific missions to acomplish on each map and you didn't need the exact big picture. We don't have those specifics in RWR. Do you really think a general would say "Go, win that war, don't care how, just do it. By the way, we're not gonna give you any intel". It doesn't make any logical sense and is totally unbelieveable.