[glob2-devel] flags vs. areas: getting the best of both worlds

[Joe Wells]

Dear Globulation 2 gurus,

Here is something I forgot to include in my most recent big feedback
message, but maybe that is good because perhaps it deserves a separate
discussion.

It seems clear to me that it is desirable to be able to combine the
features of flags and areas.  On one hand, flags can be easily moved,
can be used with the Tab key to quickly find them on the map, can
summon a specified number of globules, can have their area quickly
adjusted (by just changing their radius), and have other controls
specific to their type (e.g., _what_ to clear for clearing flags and
what level of warrior for war flags).  On the other hand, areas allow
indicating a precise set of cells on the map, and can (sometimes
desirably) have a lower priority.  It would be lovely to combine
these, but what could the user interface look like?  For areas, one
most likely does not want to treat each cell of an area like a flag,
where the options can (or must) be specified for each cell.  At the
same time, one does not necessarily want to add the idea of a region,
because this would require implementation and a complicated user
interface for specifying (user input) and indicating (output) which
cells are in a region.  What to do?

My idea is to use flags to control areas.  Any contiguous set of
clearing cells would be automatically governed by a clearing flag
whose circle contained or intersected with one of the cells.  (I'm not
using the word "area" in some of my discussion because it is ambiguous
in English whether the word "area" refers to each single cell, or a
collection of contiguous cells.)  Similarly for a set of guard cells
and war flags, except in this case I think it is important (especially
for sudden unplanned battles) that it would be optional (with the
default being the old behavior) for a war flag to govern guard cells.
If a flag governed a bunch of cells, then those cells would _replace_
the area of the flag's circle as what it controls, and those cells
would cease to function as ordinary clearing or guard cells.  If two
or more flags would govern a set of cells, then which flag a cell is
governed by would be determined by looking for the smaller of the
distance to the flag minus the radius of the flag.  It would be
important that the user interface clearly indicated which set of cells
is governed by a flag (including in the case of the old behavior of
governing a circle).

At the same time, I think it would be good if clearing/war flags with
zero requested workers would act like current clearing/guard areas.
This means that workers would clear resources governed by such
clearing flags if they happened to pass by (but only clearing the
kinds of resources requested by the flag), and warriors would go to
cells governed by such war flags, if they had nothing else to do (and
were of the level required by the flag).

A minor addition:  It might be useful to allow moving a war flag to
optionally move the set of cells it governs.  This could allow things
like "lines of battle" or help to make flanking attacks.

Comments?  Good idea or just stupid?

-- 
Joe