Would be nice if hitting tab would cycle through selections of units so I could quickly go through and see what my forces are doing at all times. Coupled with a ____ feature (where blank is the next suggestion), it would be very conducive to playing for me, as my system isn't terribly fast and frequently get reduced to about 10 fps or less when the nukes start flying (especially in bigger games), and it becomes very difficult to mouse around and select troops and give orders.

Above mentioned ____ is: Would be nice if, say, the "f" key "focused" in on the currently selected unit. (centered view on unit, zoom in a little bit) I'm used to this from 3d programs where hitting f will zoom and focus on my selection, very useful for getting around.

Also, one thing I find rather annoying is not being able to order multiple units at a time. Sure, you can move them at the same time, but if I want a group of carriers to launch some fighters or bombers somewhere, or even just aiming a group of battleships to attack a certain fighter, I have to go through and select each one and order it, which is painfully tedious. Especially when the target is across the map. Hitting a key should select the entire group (or better yet, shift-clicking so you can select more that aren't even in the same group) and giving orders should give orders for all selected. Very counterintuitive for a strategy game not to have something like this imo.

Just my opinions. Certainly a fun game, I just find certain tedious things not-fun. It's one kind of skill to be able to keep track of all forces and manage them strategically, its another to be able to click and order every single unit before you get nuked.

(Someone mentioned a way to make all subs surface at the same time with the shift key, I can't see to get this to work though)

This is a topic that has come up about once a week since the game was released for Windows. I imagine it will come up quite a bit here, too. So, for the record, this seems to be the general consensus from IV's community:

Much of the challenge (and strategy) of playing Defcon comes from the necessity of having a "Global View," and the ability to micro-manage units across the map. Things like hot-keys for units, being able to tab through units, or being able to break up fleets are generally seen as antithetical to that kind of micromanagement. For example, you have a choice of creating large fleets of six ships, or breaking them into smaller fleets. By breaking them into smaller fleets, you can no longer order them all around at once, but have to order them individually. It is a tradeoff -- control for mouse-clicks. Like many aspects of the game, it is a tradeoff.

At any rate, I don't mean to discourage you, and I welcome discussion of your ideas. Just be aware that all of these ideas have been brought up before, and I doubt that the reception here will be much better than it was elsewhere.

As to getting all of your subs to surface at the same time, right-click on one of them, hit and hold shift, then click on the "Launch MRBM" option. They should all surface at the same time, and be ready to launch at the same time.

xander

Thanks for the insightful and polite reply.

I think I'm not yet convinced that difficulty of command is on par with fun. Tabbing through helps the mechanical process of micromanagement, but not the strategical. You still need to make good choices. If everyone was put on an equal field with equal clicking abilities and only different strategical abilities, I think Defcon would be more fun. I might be mistaken. But at the moment I'm finding myself boundaried not by my strategical facilities, but by the mechanics of mouse clicking and not being able to control defcon as good as I'd like due to computer lag issues. Of course, this is all relative, I'm sure the expert Defcon players enjoy whomping on some newbies time and again, heh.

(I'd think I wouldn't have any issues with this machine having heard reports of people playing fine with 1 Ghz and 500 Mhz machines, so I don't really know why my 1.5 Ghz is failing to deal with the graphics, but I have played with the options and they do offer some relief.. at least I know I will have an intel machine by the end of summer....)

Subs: Thought I did that, but must not have.. maybe I was holding shift when selecting the sub.. goes to test it

Introversion always does some bizarre things. You'll get used to it. Alternatively, if enough people complain (like they did with Darwinia's controls) they might change it ;).