This is beginning to turn into a not-so friendly discussion from an outsider’s perspective. Just saying. 
I agree 
@Scal and @Teleros as this discussion has gone into twisting words and repeating us self what if @Scal makes a new post describing the idea he has at this point in time. The discussion can continue after that and we will ignore all previous posts as they are not important for the discussion.
If we do this it would probably help to a healthy and constructive debate. 
I’ve actually already asked the mods if they’d mind at least moving the debate with @Scal into a separate topic (or w/e) just to keep this one clear for a discussion re actual zones 
.
The military topic fits this fine so maybe there?
Also does the idea sound ok with you it will make the give a lot more answers to the problem instead of a lot of bickering (is that how you spell it?) as this is evolving into.
agreed… let’s just try to keep the points civil and discussion “lively” without being too passive (or even directly) aggressive… 
@Teleros did ask to clean up the debate a bit, but to be honest, there is still lots of good, intermingled amongst all the … … enthusiasm… 
everyone just take a nice big, deep breath… and focus our individual chi… 
I agree @Silas, this is what it may appear from outside.
If the internet written communication has something that the spoken conversations don’t is the possibility to write your response with much more time for preparation than you would ever have in a spoken conversation and the ability to review what you wrote and make the adequate changes before you send a message, allowing the text to be well tought and very concise.
And if you are going to show who you are to the internet, a place where people from many areas of the world meet and engage in conversations about the most diverse subjects, then you should show the best version of you.
As for this discussion in particular, I remained reasonably friendly, ignoring or sensibly approaching any hints of provocation that appeared with prudence.
However for the sake of the friendly environment this nice community has always shown to me I’ll refrain from granting @Teleros the response I was preparing for his last post.
Can always take it to PMs if you want .
Putting some long thought into this, as well as skimming some of the . . . longer . . . posts I figured I’d chime in some of the things I’ve been thinking about.
The whole Micro vs Non-micro seems to be a large part of the opposing views. In my mind the way I can see combat working would be with the use of “zones”, “commands”, “squads”
In the zone category you’d be able to drag out zones and paths for your individual units or squads. These would be placed like the other zones in game currently.
- “Defend Zones” where you can set up a squad to defend a small area, such as maybe a gate or a warehouse.
- “Patrol Routes” in which you can assign squads or individual units to patrol
Commands would be things such as:
- “Red Alert” where all your workers go into red alert like they already can
- “Regroup” where all non combat units will rally at a specified point (maybe the standard) and go into a more defensive red alert state
I also have a few ideas for squads. As for how they would work, squads would be small groups of solders that you can give slightly micro commands too. Squads would have the ability to be placed into different states such as “aggressive” to attack anything on sight, “alert” in which they will attack anything that comes within a small radius of them and “defensive” in which they will attack only when attacked first.
How far into micro you can go with squads is the biggest trouble however. I’ve been toying with the idea of having you able to move them by clicking and “placing down a banner” similar to how the trapper use to work. You may not be able to choose which opponents they focus on but you would be able to use them to scout or to dynamically get them to move depending on how a battle is going. Having these easily placed down with a banner makes them easier to deploy in a faster paced combat situation unlike the creation of zones used more for defensive situations.
Having some sort of minimum limit for squads (two being optimal in my view) would limit the users ability to micro specific units but still allow them to create zones and patrols with single units.
Units that are not in squads or placed on a patrol route or in a defencive zone would go about their daily lives, help out workers if need be and maybe do some training or maybe even decide to patrol your stockpiles for a little while.
To me I see this as being a fairly nice balance to the micro and macro.
tldr; By the use of patrol routes and zones as well as commands you can use macro tactics to protect your village/town/city. By adding in the ability to create squads and move them around would allow you to have a little more control over your units without stealing away their “free will” and giving you the face paced Star-Craft hardcore RTS type feel to the game.
I know we have the “Defend” button and the little folks stop, drop items and look about for something to smack, but many times they are to far from the action to be effective, can we also get a “Rally” button so they run to the banner?
I agree, I just scrolled through the thread, because it was so long with so much discussion. Could someone condense it into what people agree and disagree on?
A lot of it stemmed from hypotheses about the eventual combat system in Stonehearth. Because we haven’t even witnessed the first official system from the team to control units/military, we can’t define how much or little zones will play in it aside from drawing largely from other game experiences (which, as you can see, varies greatly).
I honestly think we need a little more authentic game content to flesh out the ideas of zones and military and then comment afterwards, like the Trapper.
Roads are practically a confirmed feature, right? Then I suggest that they serve a game purpose. Why don’t military units patrol on roads when they have nothing else to do / nothing else assigned? They’ll only break their patrol under certain rare conditions [for @Teleros and others who oppose the military running off], such as when goblins come nearby [for @Scal and others who prefer indirect control, and close to the way they act now]. Any stockpiles next to the road could also be a patrol target. However, this doesn’t allow for units patrolling on castle walls, so for that defensive zones and/or patrol routes would have to be implemented. I am personally against this, as for me it breaks the immersion and simplicity [or should I say ease of use], but if it’s the price we must pay to have castles, I will accept it.
I don’t think we can guess how offensive combat will work until there is offensive combat.
First I think this game is great, you guys are doing a wonderful job.
Being able to customize the patrolling path for the footmen would be a great addition to the game play.
I have found that during my games the footmen like to congregate around the farming area. I usually set up a fence around a large area to keep the goblins out and that works except I end up with about twelve goblins milling around outside of my walls. This causing me problems at times when I want to leave the area and harvest outside the walls.
Thank you.
hey there @smig0303 … welcome aboard! 
thanks for the feedback! i’ve merged your thread here, although this thread did spin off into a military themed thread of its own…
I really like the idea of patrol routes because i want archers(and hopefully ballistas or turrets or something) to walk around on top of my castle walls and shoot down at whatever attacks it
i also enjoy the squad idea because i like sending GROOPS OF TROOPS to go raid areas (maybe we should invest time in goblin camps to loot or something ) You know how the goblins burn your stuff at a stockpile right now and how u can undesignate that stockpile to make them stop and confuse the hell out of them (probably not intentional) they should make some sort of goblin campfire which designates the goblins Base and instead of me just undesignating a stockpile i can send my GROOP OF TROOPS!!! 
to the goblin campfire to take out there base and stop them from burning things, also if you dont take out the base more goblins should show up at it at a steady rate and build things at it(so the far away bases that you dont notice until its too late will become fortified) , also should have treasures to loot
and i kind of want to be able to control at least some of my troops individually because i want unique people in my game so i think we should have a HERO proffession where we can control 1 soldier specifically and maybe you could get a set limit of heros to be like for every 10 people you have you can have 1 hero so if i get 40 people i can have 4 leaders to lead my little GROOPS OF TROOPS!!!
i guess we could also add that the hero level would control how many people follow him around
I guess I’ll give my feedback point-for-point here:
-
Overlapping Zones. Love it, within moderation. There definitely has to be a limit to what can be done with overlapping zones. Patrol routes might be the sole use for this, and I wouldn’t mind a separate sort of overlay for military villagers.
-
Merging Zones. Abso-freakin’-lutely. I was actually getting ready to suggest this when I read your post. I even made a little imgur album showcasing how Gnomoria handles nonlinear stockpile shapes. Stockpile - Album on Imgur
-
A separate sub-UI for zones? Don’t mind if I do. I think Stonehearth could take a few lessons from games like Dwarf Fortress and Gnomoria in how its tasks are broken up. Adding an attached entity specifically dealing with zones could be a major boon for the game’s organization.
-
Farming Zones? Yes please. I made a suggestion regarding more Terrain control, in which I mentioned things like Groves and other harvest-able materials being turned into renewable farms. I sincerely hope more environmental controls like this are on their way.
-
Ownership Zones? Surprised it’s not already here! Going back to Gnomoria (a surprisingly-shining example of good UI), the option to assign specific spaces as “bedrooms” for your villagers is a great idea. However, I think the Grand Hall would be better served as the Bunker idea in your Military Zones suggestion.
-
Military Zones? Sounds like something to look at more down the road. I think the game is still pretty fledgling to consider anything more than Attack/Defend right now, but they sound like great ideas nonetheless.
-
Organizational Zones? The hospital is a good idea for a wounded villagers, but I think prisons, arenas and so forth is pretty assuming of what content is to come. Not to say they wouldn’t make great utilities if the content was present, but I’d go for a simple Hospital (beds help recover HP quicker), or a designated Dining Room (chairs offer 10% more comfort than normal).
-
Exclusion Zones? Definitely a good idea considering the city-management aspect of the game.
I think Stonehearth would benefit immensely from these ideas. Great suggestion.
yes please! as my town is expanding and me keeping my stockpiles in the deepest part of the town i want my soldiers to patrol the outer areas, but they are only standing next to the stockpile so a patrol zone would be great!
Reading through the older parts of this thread, I have to say, the zone tool strikes me as a little inflexible for designating patrols; even if zone merging becomes a thing, drawing out zig zags and corners etc. to conform to more complex shapes would be fairly tedious. The zone tool would also prevent patrols over uneven surfaces, for example a wall spanning multiple levels of the natural terrain with a stairway between the levels.
I’d much rather see a more typical waypoint system for patrols, preferably with its own ui as opposed to working off individual units/squads themselves, for better control and flexibility.
Another place it occurs to me zones might be helpful is for graveyards. Gravestones aren’t always necessarily in places that can be rescued… especially if drowning a mile off shore becomes a thing when water is added.
If we were able to designate a zone for gravestones to appear on Hearthling death, that’d become a lot easier.