History Main / EasyCommunication

!!!Blatant examples.

* ''VideoGame/TotalWar'' is particularly vulnerable to FridgeLogic regarding this. A group of highly impetuous knights that are completely embroiled in a chaotic mix of friendly and hostile forces will, at the orders of a general half a battlefield away, break off, reform (a very difficult task for cavalry) and then can be ordered by the same general to circle round the enemy army and attack from the rear. The units in this game also don't respond when under missile attack, but in this case its justified as a group of infantry suddenly charging out to attack some archers would throw a players strategy out of kilter and possibly result in the loss of the battle.
** The second half of the trope is subverted in the case of units with the Impetuous trait (usually knights and similar elite units), who can decide to charge the enemy on their own. They invariably do so when least convenient to the player - isn't it just ''swell'' when the linchpin of your defensive line leaves a gaping hole in it in order to charge some dirty peasants halfway across the field? TruthInTelevision, too: that's pretty much how the French lost Crécy.
** Some units will also refuse to break off while pursuing targets, which can wreck things if you need those Feudal Knights to rush over and guard your archers from enemy cavalry, or you need to get your Scottish Highlanders around the enemy to flank those soldiers who are winning the battle against your dismounted knights.

* Some of the ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' games (particularly [[VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade 7]], [[VideoGame/FireEmblemNewMysteryOfTheEmblem 12]], [[VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening 13]], and [[VideoGame/FireEmblemFates 14]]) make the commander an entity to represent the player who can issue someone orders from any distance. Most of the other games simply make the player a NonEntityGeneral (though ''FE 4'' has the oddity of units cross country coordinating).

* Both blatantly displayed and averted in ''{{VideoGame/Evony}}''. On one hand, you can apparently receive news from players miles away instantly. In the medieval world. On the other hand, armies take realistic amounts of time to travel from place to place. (A real headache for alliances whose members are not close together.)

!!!Aversions

* ''VideoGame/{{Praetorians}}'' plays this straight mostly, but if your units get embroiled in battle with another unit, you won't be able to give them orders until the hostile unit is dead.
* ''VideoGame/KnightsOfHonor'' subverts the second half of this trope with your knights who will charge any unit within range, this can get grisly as entire groups of knights fall to the pitchforks of rabble. This is actually quite historically accurate in some medieval armies. Knights, particularly French knights, were notoriously impetuous, and several battles in history were lost due to undisciplined, glory-hungry knights insisting on being the first into battle. The French knights at Agincourt and Crecy were notorious for this.
* ''VideoGame/WarhammerDarkOmen'' has the variant where you can command units normally, but once engaged in melee the only way to get them out is if one side or the other breaks. You can deliberately order a unit to break, which is generally a very bad idea considering that routing units take large losses and are [[NintendoHard nigh]] [[PermanentlyMissableContent irreplaceable.]]
* The squad sergeants in ''VideoGame/FullSpectrumWarrior'' respond quickly, getting their orders over radio, but there's still a delay as they need to verbally relay those orders to their fireteams before they move or shift fire.

* The non-responsiveness problem is averted in ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}} III'': not only are units able to acquire and attack on their own, the "autocast" feature means that they will use certain abilities whenever appropriate. For instance, a Priest left alone with a group of units would automatically heal any injuries. The autoretaliation debuted in Warcraft ''[[OlderThanTheyThink II]]'', if not the first; it also had the feature of an attacking unit revealing itself through the FogOfWar.
** Also, Blizzard RTS games were some of the first to implement a "Hold Position" order, where a unit would stay in one spot and engage anything that came into range, but would not leave its position if attacked from range. This was useful if you were massing forces for an attack and didn't want them getting pulled into battle prematurely by enemy units trying to kite them into an ambush.
** And averted during one of the Undead levels where there's an optional quest to kill an elf from Sylvanas' base trying to BringNewsBack to Silvermoon. By game mechanics this would be redundant, as your adjutant unit warns you when your allies are in battle.
** The expansion's orc campaign is kicked off when Rexxar encounters a dying orc and agrees to deliver his scouting report to Thrall. GameplayAndStorySegregation again, since you can always see what the unit does.
* In ''VideoGame/CenturionDefenderOfRome'', during battles you can only change the orders of the units who are within the leader's range of voice (and each leader has a different one).

* In ''VideoGame/SwordOfTheStars'' Humans and Zuul cannot relay orders to fleets in [[{{Hyperspace}} nodespace]] because the signals wouldn't be able to catch up to the ships in time. The Tarka need to research a specific technology before they are able to communicate with ships in transit. Inside of battles, ships often take time to respond to orders (though this is more due to physical concerns rather than delays in communication) and can be set to a number of stances that limit or increase their personal initiative. However, human and Zuul ships can enter battle in nodespace, which means you can still give them orders while they're a non-entity in real space. It's also mentioned [[AllThereInTheManual in the manual]] that interstellar communication is ''far'' from instantaneous for most of the races. The [[BeePeople Hivers]] and the [[LizardFolk Tarka]] are able to do so via their PortalNetwork and SubspaceAnsible, respectively. Humans have to leave relay bouys near the nodes in order to re-transmit messages through nodespace. Of course, that still means that it takes a ''long'' time for a message to be sent even two systems away (if nodes are located far from each other). The [[SapientCetaceans Liir]] use "stutter-probes" to record audio-messages using their Fleetsong battle language and send them to their destination. Since the probes are much smaller than ships, they can teleport much faster (of course, how do you send a probe to a ship teleporting at FTL speeds).[[note]]Technically, neither is moving at FTL at all. They just teleport minute distances really, really fast, and the comm probes can do it even faster.[[/note]] The [[PlanetLooters Zuul]] and the [[AncientAstronauts Morrigi]] don't really get an explanation for how they're able to do interstellar communications.
** There's also the issue of Command And Control facilities during battle. If all your [=CnC=] ships present are crippled or destroyed, your reinforcements start arriving at a trickle, and you lose the ability to issue commands from the tactical overlay, forcing you to more or less eyeball weapon ranges, asteroid blind spots, ect.
* Interestingly played with in ''VideoGame/{{Achron}}'': giving units commands in the past or the future costs chronoenergy. This leads to an interesting game mechanic of assigning units commanders to create chains of command: you can minimize chronoenergy expenditure by just giving orders to commanders and letting them communicate your orders to their underlings.

* In a non-videogame example, this is mentioned in Creator/TomClancy's novel "The Bear and The Dragon" and explains why treating actual people in this manner is a bad idea.
* Optional in ''Fields of Glory'', a simulation of the climactic battles of Napoleon's Hundred Days campaign. Depending on the difficulty setting, units would take a certain amount of time to respond to your orders, which was explicitly justified on the basis that it would take time for orders to be relayed from the commander to the unit.
* Slytherine's strategy game ''Spartan'' designed their mechanics with this specifically in mind. At the start of the battle it's possible to form your troops up and give them general strategy decisions (advance deep behind the enemy and flank) but once the battle is started it becomes impossible to relay orders more complex than retreat and rally.
* ''VideoGame/{{Majesty}}'' averts this by not giving you direct control of "your" units at all - the best you can do is to post bounties for exploring locations or killing monsters, and whether the various heroes respond to them will depend on their own stats, morale, character type, and whether the bounty is sufficient to cover the effort involved. On the other hand, they'll respond to bounties as soon as you post them, so it's still in effect to some degree.

* While usually played straight in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'', with the exception of fleeing units, the Orcs and Goblins are an aversion - while they will usually do what you decide they should, most units in the list have a special rule that makes them periodically ''ignore'' your orders and settle down to kick each other for a while.
* In ''VideoGame/GraviteamTactics'', the command system simulates wire and radio communications as a prerequisite for orders to be carried out correctly. Commanders of on-map artillery need communications links back to their guns if they want to direct fire on visible targets. Some platoons now have a dedicated wire-laying squad to establish wire links. Certain vehicles may use a limited range radio, or just a radio receiver in lieu of a regular radio.
* ''VideoGame/MechCommander'' and its sequel have orders being issued and followed instantaneously. However, this is revealed to be an aspect of the software and the command setup. In both instances, the player is a company commander, but can assign orders to any unit because of the explicit use of real-time satellite communications between the Mechcommander officer and the unit being controlled--the opening not only has Commander Harrison talking the leader of his unit to relay orders, but also to individual pilots when he splits them up. This becomes FridgeBrilliance when ''Mechcommander'' is played alongside a contemporary ''VideoGame/MechWarrior'' game--the move orders of ''Mechcommander'' are the equivalent of assigned navigation waypoints in ''Mechwarrior'', while issuing new attack or defend orders is simply the equivalent of getting new mid-mission objectives as a pilot.
* Faction leaders in ''VideoGame/BrutalLegend'' giver orders to their units by shouting, and this has a limited range. A significant portion of multiplayer combat involves flying to and fro in the battlefield and giving commands. There are two universal commands: the Rally Army solo, which summons all units via ThePowerOfRock, and the Rally Flag, which creates a flag for newly created units to seek.

* Usually played straight in ''VideoGame/EmpireEarth'', being an RTS, but one level has an in-universe justification where you send a spy to give the enemy fake movement orders, redirecting fuel supplies to prevent them from building units.

!!!Justifications

* Justified in ''VideoGame/{{Starcraft}}'' for the Zerg and Protoss factions because it is explicitly a psychic link. Also might be justified for the Terran faction - the lower units like marines, firebats etc., who are brainwashed, drugged soldiers in power armor. The higher units like armors, fliers etc. are experienced and ranked. Actually, whenever you select multiple units, one of them (the one with the highest rank) is selected as a "command unit", which communicates with you. And it is in the future with rather few units (max 12 units get commands at the same time) - radio is quite fine for that, especially when you consider that there is hardly any cover and that taking cover with a ton heavy walking behemoth is not all that easy or practical for most cases. And for heroes, it can be presumed they are making their own judgements. The Terrans use Adjutants to control their troops, so it's not infeasible that, in fact, the commander's interface literally looks like an RTS and the AI relays orders. For example, when the commander "selects" a marine and then "selects" an enemy to attack, what actually happens is that the Adjutant translates it into orders communicated through the marine's PowerArmor, via either voice or even by highlighting said enemy on the helmet's HUD. The real question here is who controls the units through the "RTS" overview screen in ''VideoGame/StarcraftII'' when Raynor is a playable unit on the battlefield, because the player is explicitly Raynor himself rather than some NonEntityGeneral. Usually, missions with Raynor as a playable unit involve him personally leading a small unit. He could just be literally ordering his squad around verbally.

* The EVA units of ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer'' are noted as simplifying command of troops in the field, helping to justify that part of this trope in ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianDawn'', and, by extension, ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianSun.''[[note]]But not Firestorm, where the Brotherhood has no problems commanding units in the field for those two missions where neither CABAL nor a stolen EVA unit is available.[[/note]]

* Some of the ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' games (particularly [[VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade 7]], [[VideoGame/FireEmblemNewMysteryOfTheEmblem 12]], [[VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening 13]], and [[VideoGame/FireEmblemFates 14]]) make the commander an entity to represent the player who can issue someone orders from any distance (which the [[Webcomic/AwkwardZombie page image]] above [[ParodiedTrope makes fun of]]). Most of the other games simply make the player a NonEntityGeneral (though ''FE 4'' has the oddity of units cross country coordinating)

** Also, Blizzard RTS games were some of the first to implement a "Hold Position" order, where a unit would stay in one spot and engage anything that came into range, but would not leave its position of attacked from range. This was useful if you were massing forces for an attack and didn't want them getting pulled into battle prematurely by enemy units trying to kite them into an ambush.

-->-- On the film '''Film/{{Alexander}}''', [[https://acoup.blog/2022/06/03/collections-total-generalship-commanding-pre-modern-armies-part-ii-commands/ Total Generalship: Commanding Pre-Modern Armies, Part II: Commands]]

In real life, a general cannot immediately give orders to a unit and have them react instantaneously. Messages have to be sent through TheChainOfCommand tp colonels, majors and finally captains, lieutenants and corporals have to be reached, and finally the orders need to be received by the soldiers in the field. In some jurisdictions, the higher command such as a general ranks legally ''cannot'' give orders to privates in the field, and are bound to relay them to the commander of that specific operation. This is doubly true for ancient times.

In real life, a general cannot immediately give orders to a unit and have them react instantaneously. Messages have to be sent, colonels, majors and finally captains and corporals have to be reached, and finally the orders need to be received by the soldiers. In some jurisdictions, the higher command ranks legally ''cannot'' give orders to troops, and are bound to relay them to the commander of that specific operation. This is doubly true for ancient times.

In strategy games, on the other hand, this doesn't happen. When you, the general, click the screen, the orders are instantly transmitted from thought to deed. Its as if there's some kind of psychic link from HQ to the unit receiving the order. Particularly jarring in ancient settings when a general can give orders to soldiers a town away. That general must have one hell of a loud voice, or a very good herald. Pre-radio militaries developed various methods to cope with this problem prior to the invention of radio telephony, such as [[BlowThatHorn trumpets, bugles]], drums, fifes, flags, banners, and standards that modern militaries relegate to use on the parade grounds, but these were once genuinely used for transmitting signals.

Triply strange when the orders are relayed in an environment where receiving them would be very hard (dead zones, caves that block radio signals, stormy weather). And if the player has allies, those manage to feed them intelligence data (up to and including firing blind using only the allies' target painting) with zero delays or misunderstanding. Yes, even in settings where these allies may be aliens, robots, foreigners etc., who you'd expect to have multiple language barriers (and sometimes the only communication between them story-wise being murdering each other).

Admittedly this comes under AcceptableBreaksFromReality, as it would be annoying to wait for your orders to filter down through the proper chain of command. It's also justified in the vast majority of science-fiction settings.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/GratuitousSpaceBattles''. You can design the ships, giving them whatever weapons, engines, etc. you think will be most useful or economical, you choose what ships to deploy to the battlefield, their starting formations, and can even give each ship some general orders like "Stick Together" or "Stay near this ship" or "Retreat when badly damaged" or whatever. Once you hit the start button though, you can either sit back to watch the show, or go out for a beer, as either method will have equal impact on the battle. It can be maddening to watch some of your ships do something mind-bogglingly retarded and have no ability at all to tell them about it.

* ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer'' games have this in spades, if an enemy attacks from outside their detection range they'll just stand there slowly dying, without even thinking to move away. The ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerGenerals Generals]]'' series added an auto-retaliation option that let players allow their units to attack enemies who engaged them from outside their sight range. Being able to rapidly communicate with the soldiers is actually justified in the setting by the EVA units relaying orders quickly and decisively to the troops in the field. The first ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert Red Alert]]'' had an interesting case: most units would not auto-acquire targets unless set to "guard", and would never auto-acquire a building (although this is so they don't destroy anything you wanted to ''steal''). Worse, a particular elite unit, Tanya, could ''never'' be put into guard mode, and had to be directed for every shot - but, with her healthy range and high damage against infantry, she needed something to hinder her. This will actually become extremely frustrating in one particular Allies mission, which is filled with fast-running dogs that come in packs. Hope you're a fast click or you'll be seeing that mushroom cloud quite a lot.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' has sufficient squad-level comms, elite squad leaders, telepathic links and the like to keep their units coordinated, although how Orks handle it beyond "shouting a lot" is anyone's guess. Hilariously averted with one Apocalypse stratagem, however; it prevents players on a team from talking to each other while deploying, meaning that while the troops will be under control ''during'' the game, a fair number will be badly out of position because of where your ally put their tanks.

* Some of the ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' games (particularly [[VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade 7]], [[VideoGame/FireEmblemAkaneia 12]], [[VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening 13]], and [[VideoGame/FireEmblemFates 14]]) make the commander an entity to represent the player who can issue someone orders from any distance (which the [[Webcomic/AwkwardZombie page image]] above [[ParodiedTrope makes fun of]]). Most of the other games simply make the player a NonEntityGeneral (though FE 4 has the oddity of units cross country coordinating)

* In the original ''Franchise/{{Dune}}'' PC game, initially you have to travel places to check on progress or issue orders, but as Paul's psychic ability increases you can contact outposts from further away, only becoming limitless after a forced plot evolution. The Dune universe does have a weird alternative to radio, but that isn't used ''either''.