I'm not saying there aren't reasons to think it might be this way, but no one has come out and said it definitely will be, and that seems to be your tone of voice.

Supcom engine? Alright... What does that have to do with not being able to control units?

As you say, assassins are the the only ones in the beta. Even less evidence to say what is true/false about them.

Major redesign. They needed balancing. Note: The entire game is going throught redesigns. That's why its a beta. Maybe Generals need more focus, but that still doesn't say anything specifically about controlling units.

I believe one unique creep means that is their specialty. They can still make all the other creeps that are spawned. Look at Vampire Lord's Achievements: https://forums.demigodthegame.com/323908. He gets one for building catapultasauruses. Maybe he can't control them. Maybe he can.

“There are dozens of minions on the battlefield but none can be influenced by the player.” is the most convincing argument, but the fact that there are only assasins right now makes it feel like he is only talking about the naturally spawned creeps. Also, Generals were almost completely ommitted from that interview, making me think the quote relates to Generals even more. The only quote about generals was "All four of these demigods are being classified as assassins, but another class will be included in the final version: generals. Those demigods command minions who battle for them – sort of a walking army that will make life very difficult for their opponents." Sort of a walking army. Why would he say that if they were the same as any other creep. Don't we already have walking armies? It sounds to me like they are different somehow.

Mike Marr said they are focusing on what's making the game fun. It doesn't mean they aren't going to add other stuff as well. 

And "not like supcom" just means different then supcom. No control MIGHT have something to do with it. Who knows?

"Then you change direction and play on your strengths IE no control". Again, big leap there. Changing Direction = no control? It could mean a lot of things

Again, I'm not saying it's not a possibility, I just don't think there's enough evidence to support that specific claim. Maybe I'm just being hopeful, but why not be?

(Now, if it DOES end up being that we have no control over the minions, not only am I going to be majorly dissapointed, but I'm going to feel pretty stupid. Please don't let me down!)

All I mwean by this is that since SupCom is a RTS and this is based on that engine, implementing basic RTS controls shouldn't be to difficult.  To me the engine is not the limitation.  The limitation if direct command is excluded is creativity, desire to keep the game easily accessible, or to keep the ui simple and uncluttered.

Nice catch.  I saw this a while back, but did not catch the "I love catapultasaurus" achievement. 

Hopefully our question on some sort of direct control can be answered soon.

There are problems with a full RTS control of units: it will make the characters feel segmented and broken compared to each other, it will be hard to balance and the items will also feel segmented and broken. But a system where buying makes computer controlled creeps follow the pre-designated path would be boring and it will probably be hard to make legitimately useful.

I feel the most interesting answer will be somewhere inbetween, but ill be buggered if i know what it is

I'm going to have to agree and respectfully disagree with you.  It looks like the VampireLord achievement for catapultasauruses is unique.  However, after looking over the achievement, though they may know be outdated and useless for the upcoming beta 2 build, all of the general demigods have similar achievements.  For example:

# ----------------
# Oak Achievements
# ----------------

Name = Oak's Army of the Dead
Description = Build 200 units in a single game.

Name = Soul Keeper
Description = Gain 200 spirits in a single game.

# ------------------
# Sedna Achievements
# ------------------

Name = Sedna's Acolytes
Description = Build 200 units in a single game.

Name = Ready the Yetis!
Description = Gain 10 yetis in a single game.

# ----------------------------
# Queen of Thorns Achievements
# ----------------------------

Name = Queen of Thorns' Court
Description = Build 200 units in a single game.

Name = Endless Ents
Description = Gain 40 ents in a single game.

# -------------------------
# Vampire Lord Achievements
# -------------------------

Name = Vampire Lord's Brood
Description = Build 200 units in a single game.

Name = King of the Suckers
Description = Gain 250 vampires in a single game.

# -------------------
# Oculus Achievements
# -------------------

Name = Oculus' Bench Warmers
Description = Build 200 units in a single game.

Name = Eye of the Beholder
Description = Gain 40 eyes in a single game.

200 units in a single game, may be more than they want now, but that would be awesome.  Obviously all 200 would not be recruited at once, but all I can say is this is amazingly hopeful stuff here.  Again it is off the old build, but it definately is good "fact" that we can look at.

OK Trigeminal, good point.  To play Dev's Advocate for a sec - the achievements tell us that at one point generals were able to create two tiers of minion: "units" and DG specific spirits, vampires, yetis, etc.  We don't know that by "units" the achievements were referring to the spawned creeps we already have and not to DG specific, lower-level creeps, but I think that is a semantic point.  "Units" probably does refer to spawned creeps.  

So if we take that premise I'm not surprised it's being reworked.  I don't see how you can balance that against Assassins, and keep it powerful enough to be fun. 

At this point I'm holding out for generals with small groups of controllable unique minions who can be upgraded and synergize with the abilities of the parent demigod.  I feel like that can be balanced against Assassins.  I'm not sure how anything more would work.

I'd love to be wrong

I expect that it will work similarly to Sacrifice.  In that game the wizard could create creeps up to a certain maximum "point" value.  Creeps could be organized into squads, and directed to various places on the map.  By default creeps would follow the summoning mage around.

Creeps could also be anchored to a location, which made them more durable but unable to move outside of their leash.

The wizard had some spell powers that typical direct damage or buffs depending on the spell.

Generals should:

1) Be able to build a few (identical) barracks buildings.

2) Be able to create units (Ents, Yeti's, etc, not portal ones) from these barracks at the cost of gold.

3) Have DIRECT, INDIVIDUAL CONTROL of the barracks' units.

4) Have indirect (move in this general direction, guard me, etc) controls for portal creeps.

5) Be about half as strong (or slightly weaker) as an Assassin when on their own, and have passive abilities that buff their units and creeps (maybe a few cool activateable ones too).

Generals would get gold and XP from both their own kills and a little less when units kill stuff.  This and the passive auras would make it worthwhile to keep them on the field.  When I heard about this game, it sounded great because I could choose between Action/RPG and RTS depending on the Demigod I chose.  Having direct control of units makes it more like an RTS instead of just an Assassin who occasionally loses parts of his attack power incrementally.  If you don't want any micro, don't play as a General .  Having direct control would let you attack multiple fronts at once, which is definitely part of strategy!

Note: I didn't read most of the other posts in this topic, so someone could have said the same as me.

This one, only multiple squads possible and the general is it's own separate unit.  Upgrades, units and skills can be added to squads through level-ups, like how the archer, light tower, trebuchet adds to the Rook.

Generals themselves should probably focus on auras, indirect spells, and auto-attack.

Being able to send squads a distance away from the General would be beneficial, but probably broken as a lack of a tether and powerful squads would mean the general could squat in base.  Maybe use skills to lengthen the tether for the distance the squads can go though.

Has I imagine the generals.  I think the player playing a General, shouldn't control, himself/directly, the minions. Thats because the game is leaded towards the Demigods, and that would cut the feel. Instead he uses his Demigod to give orders, which means there isn't such a thing has cliking the minions. You select only places and objectives instead. Some points:

There could be a range, demarking how much far away can minions go away from the general. Thats because there is a necessity from a RPG opponent to have enemies to kill to evolve, and the RTS players couldn't split everything making it impossible for RPG to defend multiple places.

Then I would guess its important to think first and before, what tactics or strategies would be avaliable for a General player to peform. Respecting the area to where the minions are bound to the General, a squad could try get past the opponent front line from another side, to atack important structures.

The General should have sightly more minions. Form squads should be easy enough but not diretcly like selecting them. I see it like, you click a form squad button, then you click a couple of points on the map showing the squad the way to go accomplish objetive. There could be atack structure etc. Maybe generals could also indirectly lead minion to atack rear or back of enemies for surprise bonuses, so a RPG player should also tkeep this in mind, with his Demigod ready to act, when playing against a General. Maybe Generals could also have the ability to peform formations more accurately to protect ranged minions. Just really that they have some tactical choices, tactical bonuses when doing it correctly with the ability to indirectly control the minions.

[Player shouldn't feel they are more than the Demigod, he is the Demigod trying to ascend only. The others are companions of the same cause. If you could control minions directly it would be like the Demigod is just the leader of the group, not the player and the player must be the Demigod. Thats what the game is about]

random ideas how I imagine it but I didn't played yet.

I meant that each individual Demigod only had one type of barracks. It is fine with me if one Demigod vomits them up .

I really don't like squads; you usually end up with individual units doing things that you don't want them to do.

I know this may be blasphemy, but couldn't generals drop out 2 consumables and that be replaced with a move and attack button which commands their creep.  If not, Why not give them only 2 active abilities and the other two are attach here and move for the creep.  Their other abilities would be area effect abilities.  This gives a nice compromise, though minions are not selectables, they are under your direct control.

Sure there is.  A tether-based general is still going to have some tactical flexibility that assassins don't have, i.e. staying out of sightlines, firing range, etc.  Allowing strong buffs on minions within a short distance of the general makes sense, because if your minions are close enough get a proximity buff then you are in trouble.