Terrain

No, as far as terrain is concerned there's plenty of meaning here. All-terrain spiders are quite a niche array of units that cannot possibly compete with wider selection of bots, vehicles and tanks.

Talking from a lobsterpot perspective, high ground, or a wide flatland, or a steep cliff, or a shallow creek, all are very meaningful landscape features that often play a crucial role in unfolding of the game.

When all units have gunship-like terrain movement, then you can talk about meaningless terrain. I'd say that even vehicle and bot movement ability difference can be a decisive factor sometimes.

I also disagree. This is part of what makes Zero-K so unique, there is probably ways to make terrain more meaningfull, but making it unpassable might actually make it less meaningfull, considering it wouldn't be being used for anything but a barrier, instead of some units being able to cross it. And the variety of units makes it so that only a few units can go up super steep mountains or walls, so terrain is definitely not meaningless.

I disagree with Brackman, but since others have written about particulars I'll disagree more abstractly. The premise of the OP appears to be as follows:

"Consider two games, A and B, that both have a feature, X, that has the same sort of effect in both games. The difference between X in A and B is:

• In game A, the effect of X is static, unchanging.
• In game B, the effect of X can be lessened for a cost.

It follows that X is less meaningful in game B than in game A."

I disagree with this premise.

Applying the premise to ZK requires us to find costs to circumventing terrain. These have already been pointed out. Spiders are slow and tend to have trouble in open areas. Ships beat Amph/Hover and cannot go on land, while Amph/Hover are often not the best choice on land. Even if you use Amph/Hover on land or around a coast, the way to use them differs between regions as the threats are different. Hence there is a cost to pathing flexibility.

I also disagree with the statement "ZK has less meaningful terrain than other games" (not said in the OP, but implied) for reasons unrelated to my disagreement with the premise. Here are some reasons:

• Terrain blocks projectiles.
• 3D weapon ranges and innacuracy.
• Terrain blocks LOS.
• Slopes hinder movement.
• Shallow water hinders movement.
• Submersible units and units that float to fire.
• Map deformation.
• Terraforming.

There is a whole set of 1v1 bot maps (eg Barren, Vittra, Badlands, Living Lands) that are fully bot-pathable yet play very differently - in large part due to their terrain. This is a result of terrain blocking projectiles and slopes slowing movement. I think the immutable, uniform, and boolean pathability of most other RTSs makes their terrain much less meaningful and deep than the terrain in ZK.

At least I managed to start a good discussion. :)

The only unit I find float to fire annoying on is archer. It makes it quite easy to be completely outmaneuvered by ducks, hunters or subs, especially if the water is deep. If the water is really deep it will just straight up loose to even 1 raider.

a possible option is to make dirts add the same volume but much flatter