Too early in the development cycle.
It’s trite, but true: it mustn’t be forgotten that when all’s said and done, we’re still playing an alpha version. There will absolutely be much better control over combat units in the fullness of time, at the appropriate juncture, at the correct alignment of the planets and… well, you get the picture I’m sure 
. Just got to be patient until then.
While I agree about the hands-off, macro vs. micro qualities of Stonehearth (I’ve had to remind it myself in several of my posts), I don’t feel that these sorts of organization systems and commands should simply be written off due to being somewhat RTS.
The order to attack specific units is critical for larger battles, including defensive or siege situations that will likely be more akin to this gameplay–if there’s a group of soldiers outside my walls with only two ranged units or a healer, I want to make sure they are eliminated first so they have no way to attack units on my walls or support themselves in combat.
The other option I see is somehow directing your units’ AI to focus on these types of enemies first, which would either be too easy or somewhat boring for the combat-focused gamer , since all the strategy would be run through a few menus and streamlined optimally for them. This might be a decent system for those who want less to do with the war aspects of Stonehearth and just have it automated, but there’s likely a respective base of players who’d want more involvement and control over these sorts of situations.
I’m not saying to include things like “click one unit, click to move”–far too micro-oriented. But at the very least, I’m hoping to be able to direct combat squads somewhat specifically and set their behavior and strategies beforehand.
I’m sure there are other games that do this, but reading your post has for some reason reminded me of the battle system in Dragon Age: Origins (I also believe Baldur’s Gate used a similar system, as does Knights of the Old Republic), whilst I doubt Team R would want to incorporate the same system due to the ability to pause during combat … it’s still interesting to talk about right?
If you’re not familiar with those games the combat runs in two ways, firstly it can just run automatically and your units attack the enemy units, but you can also pause the game and give orders to your units and queue up abilities to effectively combat the threat.
I agree that for the most part controlling units is far too micro, but for combat, especially in larger battles, some degree of control would be very beneficial.
Expanding control to simply over groups would be very interesting - you set up your groups depending on what you want them to do “Shock Troop” “Healers” “Frontline” “Archers” and then set a group guard area/route and attack orders.
quoting both, as i agree 100%, with both… 
Yeah, the beauty of this as @Teleros said… is we are still in alpha! Im confident that Team Radiant will create a fun combat system that stays true to the spirit of Stonehearth.
They managed it with the trapper (Though obviously that is a much smaller scale), I have faith they’ll do it with combat!
he was just providing his feedback.
You know, the mention of pausing and setting strategies almost reminds me of a sort of FTL: Faster Than Light style of gameplay. It’d be interesting to interpret something like that in Stonehearth’s gameplay, but I can’t see it translating to a multiplayer experience without frustrating the heck out of each other with the Pause feature.
Hi There,
Starting:
As Goblins ruined nearly every unmodded game (they are far to hard to beat early) I started use mods (Sargent Caps and Shild changes, dont remember the name), but always face bugs which move my Soldiers into the ground after a loadgame so my experiance in Combats are rather low.
What I faced so far:
Soldiers seems to Patrol to “random”.
I would like to give them Patrol routes or areas they specially patrol like Trappers areas.
It would be nice to “group” Soldiers to Teams and give them these Patrol routes.
Another thing would be “Flags” you can throw down which call all your Fighters to these Area for Defending.
OR
Add Micomanaging for Soldiers, let me controle them directly to to these things manually, but it would go against the mindset of the game I guess.
I would like the first Idears, they look like more fun.
Next things:
Goblins seems to be to strong or to many, either make them weaker or massivly reduce the amount of them!
My Population is going around 8 people, where two of are Footman, while Goblins attack from 3-8 per Nightwave, while I can defend against 3-4 but more will mostly kill half my City. Latest the second wave ruin all and I’m left with a City of Tombstones.
Never reached more than 10 Nights except for one Game where my City is placed in a nice Mountain Corner but there came NO Goblins or Caravanes at all to my City as it seems… Night 13 and only 1 Caravane reached me, and 0 Goblins.
Fazit:
Give us some way of Mangament to Movment, Strategy and Patroling Areas for our Soldiers to give us a last a chance to fight of Goblins!
Its ruin the Game complete if 3 Goblins enter the City from the left side, killing all your people while they sleep and your Footman Patrole the right side of City, joining the battle after 3-4 of your Workers are already dead… the game is fkd up afterwards and you can start on from 0 again… - no fun! Already started around 40 new games because of things like that… which really makes it hard to get excited more for the game.
Working as in-
Okay, not really. Yeah, it’s a known bug, hopefully it’ll be fixed Soon™.
They’re meant to patrol your stockpiles, or that approximate area.
[quote=“LuckyAce, post:130, topic:6433, full:true”]I would like to give them Patrol routes or areas they specially patrol like Trappers areas.
It would be nice to “group” Soldiers to Teams and give them these Patrol routes.
Another thing would be “Flags” you can throw down which call all your Fighters to these Area for Defending.[/quote]
I think these, or ideas very similar to them, are all planned.
Yeah, I don’t think we’ll see this in the basic game, at least not for regular units (maybe - maybe - special units will have more player control over them, but that’s probably as far as it’ll go). The Trapper started out like this, but (after being disabled for a while) is now zone-based.
If you want to avoid combat altogether, for now you can either ignore goblin thieves (meaning no training footmen etc), or you can follow them back with the camera & delete their micro-stockpiles, which bugs them out.
Other than that… yeah I’m pretty confident Radiant know that goblins are OP at the moment 
. I imagine Alpha 5 will see them hit hard with the good old nerfbat.
I don’t know if this post belongs here or if it’s been touched upon before but since the topic is about combat,
and the discussion is heavy I will post here regardless. I won’t touch upon how combat works now because it’s
all about balancing and ironing out the bugs, so we won’t know if the intended amount of combat is good/bad etc.
Since the game is gonna feature different scenarios in the end, the early goblins would also be some sort of
scenario. My idea was that in the early stages at least, the caravans that come by your town can drop you
hints or just flat out say that there are goblins nearby. The player would then get the freedom to choose between
A: Ignoring it
B: Actively pursue it
C: Prepare for it
If I were to play the game, this would be the solution I would find most enjoyable. It makes for a more
dynamic game experience because it let’s players choose their own playstyle.
Consequences of ignoring it could be dire indeed, but it will also let the player focus on another aspect of the
game and will get further ahead in that area than a player who would choose to actively pursue it or prepare a defense for it, turning workers into footmen thus spending time and resources on making weapons and defensive structures.
The game notifies you in some way that they have seen enemies in the general area, but it doesn’t tell you
anything else, meaning the goblins might not attack at all. But just because the goblins don’t attack now
doesn’t mean they won’t attack later in the game.
Elminating them will end the risk all together, at least for the time being
(You could also be leading your company into a bigger goblin camp than expected lolol)
Preparing for it will eliminate an eventual risk that might come soon
Ignoring it will advance your settlement and technology
All options have risk/rewards, some higher than others
Well then don’t expect combat to be anything worth spending time in, because there isn’t an AI system in a game today that could self orchestrate something like a siege.
Having a bunch of failed attacks because the AI is too dumb to deal with it intelligently will make combat extremely boring.
Thanks for literally just reading the first sentence of what I wrote and then being super condescending.
Yes I know it’s alpha, I talked about the concerns being fixed in general in future versions.
Jesus, hopefully these forums aren’t always this pretentious.
I think it would be great to have a combat system that goes a different direction than most RTS games nowadays. Keep in mind I didn’t COMPLETELY disagree with you, good sir. I do believe it’s going to need work and some degree of control, i’m just of the mind that it shouldn’t go into a full micromanagement style.
Not agreeing with that is ok by me, of course! I didn’t intend to make you hostile. 
hey there @Doc … if you’ve spent a little time here, you will see this is absolutely not the case… not that I’m agreeing that @Teleros’s comments were pretentious… i think they were just perhaps a bit misunderstood?
regardless, i hope this won’t dissuade you from providing additional feedback… the combat system is indeed very much in flux…
In point of fact, I had read your entire post, and we’ve discussed various means of controlling combat units extensively elsewhere, which is why I didn’t respond more in-depth about it.
Eg this topic:
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m particularly curious about what the next mob type implemented is going to be. Will it be something more natural, like wolves or insects, or perhaps something supernatural like ghosts or zombies? We’ve seen a little of both parties revealed in some shape or form previously (wolf mounts and zombies, specifically), so I could sort of see this going either way.
And what’s going to come first soldier-wise: more melee units types or archers? Melee would involve less new ground to design for the engine, but ranged attacks are going to be very crucial for sieges and defense.
I’d love to see archers implemented on both sides TBH, but it might just end up being a more brutish, heavily armed Goblin when your town reached like 30k net worth or something. I think i’d be happy either way.
All I’m saying is that the day where I can build a watchtower and place an archer or two in there will be a very happy day indeed.
In fact, I might even be kind and loving for once.
That’ll be the day. My heart still hurts from your last outburst.
But yes, an Archer Tower sounds like one of the most wonderful things that could happen at the moment… assuming we can keep the buggers up there with a defensive zone or something similar.
and baskets of berries for sustenance… we mustn’t forget the berries! 