The party/unit controls have always been a big point of contention for a lot of people and I finally think I realized what Radiant is going for. Now that I do, I like it a lot more.
Everything so far in Stonehearth is just the player deciding high level stuff like what to build and where. The Hearthlings do a pretty good job of deciding exactly what they are all going to do. For some situations where we want more control (ex: nobody build I need to get that mine done), we have that ability.
Everything in me wants combat to be the opposite because that’s what I’m used to. Combat is so important because losing units is incredibly expensive, especially if they are experienced. It takes more time to get that unit replaced than anything else so I really don’t want them to die. That’s what makes me want really fine control over combat.
But if I apply the approach from crafting/building/mining to combat, I get a different sort of thing. My job as the player is not to dictate who my individual units attack. My job is to equip my army and give them a battle plan. Group A attack here, group B flank there, archers stand here, etc. What happens in the battle isn’t really up to me. If I prepared well I shouldn’t lose any units and we can celebrate. If I go in with a poor attack plan I might lose everyone.
However, just like with crafting, there are special circumstances where some fine control is acceptable. Just like telling everyone not to build for a while, I might want to tell my army to focus on a specific unit or tell someone to retreat for a while so they don’t die. Those things aren’t bad and can help alleviate frustration for complex scenarios that would be very hard for the game to understand and react to. I think if developed properly, those custom controls should rarely need to be used and that, I think, is the big challenge for Radiant. They need to make the Hearthlings (and enemies) react in a way that we would expect them to when put into battle.
Looking forward to the update!
Wow I didn’t expect this much in alpha 14, It looks soooo good, Why must you taunt us! This looks amazing, Good job as always, Its so exciting to see these kind of things added, the new banners can add some relevance to building too, cause then we can make town halls and stuff. Love all the effort and progress TR, Thanks for working so hard on these features! 
Thanks for the analysis, @jonzoid! You’re pretty much rederived our many, many, many hours of conversation on this topic. We’ve been talking about this one for at least a year. I definitely agree that much depends on the hearthling AI from here out, so they behave intelligently once you’ve given your high level orders.
and the funny part: my patrol point mod has the exact same idea with the banner system - like the safe point 
so its shows again we have all the same spleen (crazy ideas) 
Nice to see some more control abilities! Hopefully the system can be later expanded to allow chains of commands to be executed, further reducing the player’s required input/constant supervision. Established orders might have a chance yet!
(Also, looking forward to the safety standards! Though it might be practical to be able to ban certain standards for certain people OR designate them specifically.)
Also, is there any chance for a dedicated tab/window for displaying ongoing orders, just to keep the screen organized?
Update: Due to a scheduling conflict, Yang will take Tony’s Wed. 8:30am PST stream. The stream will move from 8:30am PST to 10:00am PST. Thanks, and sorry for the inconvenience!
Well that was a lovely tuesday. It is what I’d expect. Not total control, but at least have a form of mitigation and direction of the hearthlings. At least where combat is concerned. Like the 4 key party thing, that will be quite useful.
Only thing is, that means RC will take a while before they get that safety banner. Due to not starting out with that particular class. Just glad you can move the starting flag, or was that changed… Sure I believe it wasn’t. Regardless always nice to have a fall back.
Know I am going to enjoy that system. Great work.
[quote=“Tamorr, post:9, topic:19099”]
Only thing is, that means RC will take a while before they get that safety banner. Due to not starting out with that particular class.
[/quote]i have to agree, in my opinion it would make more sense if the weaver made it, considering they make all the other flag like things…
haven’t you always been able to move the starting banner…?
Wouldn’t know… Might be thinking something else, then again I haven’t been following as long as quite a few here. Tuesdays thing I followed since sometime early last year. But only recently had gotten the game like a couple months ago. Been watching youtube people play… Memory may not be that great, but I try.
So that is good that we can still move it. As long as it isn’t accidentally placed on a house. >< Someones first time into the game on you tube did that. lol
Weaver… yeah it would actually. They seem to make all the flying cloth… referring to the curtains… So in a sense it would be a vertical one of those, and only 1 whole cloth instead of two you spread. Although makes me wonder what the cost will be… 
@sdee please, make a patrol flag so we can choose where the guards should patrol when they aren’t fighting.
It would be awesome if it could be in this alpha, as it would make our cities look awesome with guards standing at the gate or in front of the townhall
well @Wiese2007 has already done this with his mod,
but i do agree it would be nice to get as an official feature.
ok i see i will fix add my normal sentence for TR on the modsite 
edit: done now TR can use it without any legal issues
I’m just hoping for something not too visually intrusive with craftable command banners–if everything is the same size and shape as the starting banner and a banner is needed for every command/gather point, things might start looking a little silly and complicated in a late-game settlement. At the very least, the player should get a variety of aesthetic options so it fits their style better and doesn’t all look the same. A pole-mounted flag here, a banner draped over a large rock there, etc.
But also, I think more specific region selection is needed with these objects. How close are units supposed to be to a banner? If you put a flag up in a tower and try to send a team of half a dozen archers there, will they all go up, or will a few of them end up just standing next to the tower’s base, because it’s “close enough” to the banner? I’ve had this issue several times when building multi-story structures and placing banners and fire pits around them in the past.
Because of this i have make a Little green Banner so its different to the Red attack and blue defensiv Banner xD
I like the new level of control but have two thoughts.
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Why do we need to craft safety banners? Where to go to be safe is something the hearthlings should know by heart. I’m not saying they should figure it out on their own, you should be the one to tell them, but I don’t see why you would need to craft an actual banner instead of placing ghost banners for free. It’s just information.
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In the dev-blog Canth wrote: "Still very cumbersome imo. Why not use basic RTS selection and command? Much simpler and already proven it works."
I don’t know to what extent he wanted it, but to some degree I agree. It’s not that we need more precis control, just the faster way to issue commands. If you have a party or soldier selected and want them to go somewhere you shouldn’t have to click the menu and then click to place the banner. It should be enough to right click on the ground to place it. If you right click an enemy they attack it and if you hold down Ctrl and right click the ground you place an attack banner. It’s not a new level of control. It’s not more micro managing. It’s just a faster way of doing what you can already do. The menu options can still be there for clarity, like the menu in Warcraft.
About selection, if you have the option to give a separate order to a single soldier you will get to situations where you want to give the same order to more than one. Not being able to select them all at the same time and give the order once is just not user friendly. Even more so if you have to click the menu button for each one.
And the argument from the dev-blog comments that “it’s a completely different way to control your units than the rest of the game. It would be a bit weird to have direct control of fighters and not crafters.” doesn’t really work. You already have more control of the soldiers and that’s ok, because they are soldiers. It’s their job to follow orders. Civilians take your suggestions and do things when it suits them.
If they have implented the functions and completed it full working it should be Easy to combine them with the mouse But at First its correct to not change to many settings to look if this goes well with the game and the harmony xD