Starting next Monday, we begin work internally on the Elemental combat system. It won’t see the light of day for months (tactical combat part anyway). But this is the place to discuss how you would like it to work.
Right now, a unit has Attack, Defense, Hitpoints, and speed. It’s very straight forward. When in battle, other factors come into play too (range of attack, height, and cover).
But obviously there are a lot of other factors that could be looked at. Blunt weapons vs. Cutting weapons for instance. My personal inclination is to stay away from damage types because they add a lot of complexity without really giving back a lot of fun (in my opinion). I’m sure there are those who will disagree but we’ll have to agree to disagree there and perhaps damage types can be made something available to modders later.
I would like to see experience be used more than as simply a modifier to attack and defense and HP. I don’t mean when you train your units (which gives them more HP) but I mean real combat experience causing them to simply be better at combat but we have not yet come up with a way to convey this well in the game.
I would also like to see Mobility be taken into effect somehow in combat. The Mongols conquered much of the known world because they were strictly a mobile army that could easily outflank their infantry-heavy opponents. How to convey this to players is again, a challenge that would have to be dealt with.
What would you guys like to see?
Hello Frogboy,
I've touched up (& added a bit) a summary of my rumble in the thread [Tactical Combat] How to make it simple and provide variety
Thank you
I'm a terrain and special ability kind of guy. I think just attack, defense, speed, and hitpoints is all you need. Then certain monsters might have a special ability to strike 1st, and then only be struck back if the target doesn't die. Or perhaps gain an attack bonus when on a certain kind of terrain. Special abilities can get out of hand pretty quickly, but if the combat is setup to listen to them, they should be easier to implement later either by you or by fan modders.
For me MoM is the gold standard, I would start there. MoM had some balance issues and did not have a small enough granularity (Mostly in To Hit).
What I would like to see is all the MoM attributes with better granularity, and statistic modifications for height and terrain, and Damage Types.
Height
I would like to see units defending higher ground then their attacks get +1 Attack and +1 Defense (A very small bonus)
I would also like ranged ballistic units to gain additional range when firing at targets lower then themselves (But for to hit calculations to use the full distance).
Sammual
At a strategic level...
To make combat, unit design and army compositon interesting should be the goal. To do this, I think it is critical that every combat advantage to be balanced with a disadvantage. For example:
Heavy armor -slow speed, +high defense
Fire damage -susceptable to cold, +continuous burn
Golem -susceptable to magic, +impervious to physical damage
Desert Movement -restricted to light armor, +no hinderance in desert terrain
Having a bunch of skills, abilities, spells, weapons etc.. with these types of modifiers would allow for all kinds of interesting combinations and unique units. To be successful in combat, you can't just worry about your own troops but you also need to understand your opponent. This makes scouting really important. A player could try to have a very balanced army that could address every type of opponent or they could do lots of intellegence and try to customize their forces to best fight their opponent.
I immagine you will need some sort of "quick combat" to abstract a battle result for multiplayer play. I would make it more than a quick calculation. Here I would allow the players to configure combat orders. Let players select the order they want spells cast, formations, agressiveness, stop-loss, etc..
At a tactical level...
Tactical combat is a real challenge. I find that many times tactical battles are not interesting or can take so much time that it detracts from the rest of the game.
I ussually like the tactical combat for a while but it becomes boring because I end up doing the same strategy over and over. If It is obvious what I should do and I'm just repeating myself, then the system isn't good enough. One way to make it much more interesting is by making it have simultaneous resolution instead of turn based. This way players have imperfect information and player skill will shine through. One game that did this well was Combat Missions.
Disciples approach was pretty good because it kept the battles to manageable timeframe, and provided some decent decisions. At the end of the day, those are the two most important factors
I'm running out of steam, the end:)
I know there is a lot of replies, wondering if mine is going to be read. I decided to post here because I think it is the best place to talk about it. Here is the various factors you should consider:
Tactical VS non-tactical battles: Tactical battles has the desadvantage of being long, creates downtime in multiplayer and makes AI harder to devellop. But it makes combat more interesting and allows some micromanaging during the battle. First, I think the game should offer both options like in MOO/MOM, tactical or non-tactical. This way, you can speed up the game by using simple battles. I would even add the option to skip battles during the game if you want a fast resolution.Non-tactical battles could also be used as a temporary combat system for testing the game.
Second, since you can cast spell, even if you want to resolve battles fast, you need to be able to interfere. In MOM, you can't if you skip battles, it assume you cast spells. But for a non-tactical combat resolution, I would prefer be able to see each turn of battle where I can decide to cast more spells before clicking next turn according to how the battle goes.
Non-Tactical battles could be resolved "a la Ogre Battle". Units are placed in a certain formation and during the combat each unit target a unit by themselves according to the priorities (attack weakest/ strongest, etc) you have set. An Idea I had is to use the Infantry, cavalry, archery structure which I wanted to use in some of my games:
Archers attacks first but defender choose casualties
Infantry attacks second, but can only target ennemy infantry unless there is no ennemy infantry.
Cavalry attacks last but can target any unit.
This kind of combat system could be adapted to a computer game. The computer will choose the target according to the priorities. So the only thing the player would need to do is "Set Priority to attack and protect", "cast spells", click next turn, retreat or not, start a new turn.
For tactical battles, I think there is enough suggestions in this thread to make it interesting but you can still consider the following elements:
Army Structure: I presume armies are going to be structured by units. There are other structure possible like in Romance of the 3 kingdom (refered in this thread later on as R3K) which manage a number of soldiers which could be distributed in various units. Personally I prefer the unit structure since there is a so large variety of units.
Area Covered: Do you want the map to cover and area of the world (ex:territory), or cover the city and it's immediate surroundings. In most Civ types of games, Battles are focused around a city rather than a territory. In R3K 11, they had the unique idea of fusioning the tactical map with the world map which creates 1 big map that can manage battles and non-battle actions.
Map types: Everybody knows there are square and hex map. But have you considered the Graph Map ( a series of dot connected by lines). Units would move from dots to dots. You can also make joined attacks by making 2 group of units attack the same target. Graph map could also make the AI easier to design and make the combat faster to resolve since you do not have to move units individually, many times on many square. It also make the player focus on the resulting action. ex: I want to outflank my opponent, I make 1 move and it's done instead of making a series of moves to get the result.
Victory condition: How do you win a battle? That must be weird to say, most of the time, the battle are won when one side is destroyed or when 1 side retreats, but there are other ways to do this. For example, in shaterred union, you fought in an area which contained many cities and you need to control a certain number of cities in order to win. So the idea is that you can win without killing everybody which allows them to retreat and eventually retaliate. I also used the concept of tactical points that you need to capture in order to win. It's a bit like the capture HQ mechanism. Still in a fantasy game, some units like flying and burrowing units can make it easier to capture tactical points due to their high mobility or defense bypassing.
Leaders/Heroes: Everybody likes heroes, and besides questing, I think they would like heroes to participate in battle. I really did not liked how MOM managed heroes in battle because most of the time, it became a unit easily targetted which died easily. I think heroes should lead the battle and be placed outside the map of the battle. If you loose the battle, it could have some chances of beign captured. Heroes should give your army some advantages. You can give him passive advantages like all archers gain bonus, because he is better with working with that type of unit. You can give him some magical abilities: He protect his army from certain types of spells or give him special strategies (see next topic).
Special strategies: If you have few square/hex on the battle map or use a graph map, you could make units or leader have strategies which can allow units to attack and move in various ways. In R3k XI, there are tons of special move that you can use which makes battles more living. But if the map is too large (too much hex) planning the strategic moves becomes overwhelming (which is the problem if R3K XI).
Occurence: How many times will battles occur? This is important, especially in multiplayer for downtime, to know how much time a battle will interrupt the game. It is also important to know the quality of battles, are there few/lot of interesting/meaningless battles. In a game like R3K, Since invasions was from territory to territory, generally an invasion took place with a considerable amount of units and there was not too much battles which give and interest for other players to watch. But for example, in MOM, it happens many time where you have a few units spreaded on the map which happens to have a fight. It creates the problem of having many battles to resolve, which slows the turn, and makes them uninteresting to watch and manage.
This is all I have right now regarding battles. Hope it helps
One more thing about elemental damage type. As you have written, you don't want special damage types. While I understand it to some degree, I think that even if there is no complex damage types system and everything is changed into pure damage, I would like to see one addition concerning elemental damage type.
At first, weapons deal normal damage. Then we can enchant them with elemental power, however fire should have different properties than, let's say wind. Let me just present an example:
I think it was said best that tactical battles are done well if a well-led inferior force can defeat a poorly led superior force.
Also, simultaneous orders for both player n player, or player and enemy ... sounds like a must ... so that skill in battle-formation and battle fluidity will shine through, as opposed to min/maxing on turns.
Combat Atrributes
I would like to see ratings that would affect tactical combat beyond Attack, Defense, Hit Points and Speed.
Example:
01. Initiative in combat. A unit with initiative 50 would move before a unit with initiative 30. The more a unit trains the higher would be its initiative. A units initiative may be affected by its leader - i.e. some leaders give a penalty to initiative while others give a bonus.
02. Discipline. Discipline would be influenced by a units training and their leadership. A unit that fails its discipline check might move on its own to attack the nearest unit that is weaker than it. Example, a unit breaks formation to attack a formation of goblins. A unit ordered to attack a more powerful unit might not move if it fails its discipline check. A militia unit that fails its discipline check would not move to attack a dragon.
Example: A Militia unit has a discipline of 20 and is ordered to move to attack a dragon with a fear factor of 50. There is a 40% that the militia unit will not move to attack the dragon. On the the other hand if ordered to attack another militia unit (with a fear factor of 10) there is a 100% that the militia unit will move to attack it.
03. Tactics Training Bonuses - Units trained at a specific training school can gain a special combat bonus.
Mobile Archery - Light Cavalry Units with this ability can move, attack and move again in a single turn. Normal Light Cavalry cannot make archery attacks from horseback.
Undead Combat - Units trained in undead combat gain a bonus in combat vs the undead as they are equipped with the holy relics required for success (silver weapons, holy symbols, holy water, etc.)
Forest Fighting - Units trained in forest fighting gain an initiative bonus bonus when fighting in forest terrain. One reason why you don't want to fight elves in forested terrain - they will likely attack first.
No damage types?
/sadpanda
I will reinstate my clause for
Morale-how confident the unit is
Endurance-how much fighting has been done
Endurance is simple ... fighting in melee combat (or firing arrows) is a tiring business, so is running at full pace (charging)
The lighter the unit, simply the faster Endurance RECHARGES ... light cavalry would have the fastest recharge rate, while Heavy Armor Tower-Shield users would have slowest recharge rate. No problems, just the way it is.
Of course, if equipping a well armored army actually is VERY hard work, VERY expensive, and VERY time consuming, then I suppose we wouldn't need any penalties for armor. But still, having horses should increase the recharge rate for stamina regardless (horses are also an expensive addition, so should have a quite a few perks)
Larienna, your Reply #155 is one of the most insightful post I’ve seen in this thread, +1 Karma. Army Structure: I understand you meant that existing equipment is distributed to soldiers just right before they leave the city for combat, without training. I can see the beauty of simplicity here (which reduces micromanagement). SD developers talks about training the soldier with their equipment, so they will have some bonus. Personally, I don’t see there is much value in doing the training part; because I do not expect there is much decision needed here, all gamers will train their soldier when circumstances allows. I’ll have a slight preference on the simpler way of Romance of 3 Kingdoms (R3K).Area Covered: Fusing the tactical combat map reflecting global map terrain is an excellent idea, especially there will be RNG in EWOM, making tactical combat extremely variable.Victory condition: Is “capture the flag” the 3rd alternative to Fight or Flight? I am not sure if and how that fits in tactical combat of EWOM.Occurrence & Tactical VS non-tactical battles: How many battles will occur? How long is those battles? I share the same concern, so I did proposed two things already. Make combat short & finish in 10 minutes at most. Make TWish plausible realtime tactical combat more turn-base-ish by skipping animation.
red1939, Reply#156. What you said there is one of the reason why I think there is no need special damage type like piercing vs blunt etc. Magical/elemental damage type can also be simulated easily, by the use of status (e.g. in AOWSM)
Hi,
I agree with the crowd asking for elemental damage types. A fire attack should cause more damage to a water elemental than a cold attack. This idea has been used in lots of fantasy games and settings, from CRPG's (Might & Magic saga, Ultima Saga, etc.) to JRPG's (Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, etc.) to roguelikes (ADOM, Crawl, POWDER, etc.) to strategic combat games (Ogre Tactics, MoM to some extent, etc.). Practically all the good old and new fantasy games have this, it's an idea that has been proven fun and Just Works(tm). Please include it.
As for weapon damage types, I see that as less fun, they tend to add complication (unlike magic/elemental damage types, which are more obvious and whose relevance doesn't extend to all units). However there are other ways of having different weapon types do different things without necessarily adding damage types. Check the weapon system in POWDER the roguelike, for example. In that game, different weapons give you access to different abilities: I don't remember all the abilities right now, but the idea is something like that with longswords you can learn to parry, with rapiers you can lead to disarm, with spears or maces or something you charge, etc. Perhaps it's not the most realistic system but I find it fun, and wouldn't mind seeing something like that in a strategy game.
Finally I would really like to see a turn-based combat option... I always find that in real-time combat my clicking order tends to have a bigger influence than actual tactics, even if I am able to pause the game. Have a look at Might and Magic VI/VII/VIII (not Heroes, just plain Might and Magic). They have real-time combat, probably because it sells more to younger people; but they keep the turn-based option for old-school Might and Magic players. The turn-based option is actually little more than a mode where the real-time combat is automatically paused on a regular basis. It seems to include some further adjustments to make it feel like real turn-based combat, but not many, I think it should be easy enough to code that once you have the real-time mode. And it worked for me. It didn't feel exactly like playing a pure turn-based game, but it felt good enough that I loved those games (if they only came with the real time mode I don't think I would have even bothered to play them to the end).
Yeah, AoW 2. Shadow Magic had a sorta similar system, and it worked like a charm.
I would like you to see working more on demigod. the game has almost died now...
Where is promised modding tool?
Where are promised 2 new demigods?
Erm.....this is the EWoM forum you know... Besides Demigod wasn't developed by Stardock AFAIK. [I don't have that game btw..]
delete.
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As I've stated before I consider MoM to be the gold standard for Tactical combat in a fantasy strategy game. There is very little that I think could be added that would be worth the extra complexity.
As for mobility that should be pretty simple. If the field of combat is implemented in a grid system then certain units can or should be able to move more "Squares" per turn then others. Obviously mounted units would be able to move closer to an enemy in one turn then infantry types would. Terrain can also play a Large part in mobility. Swampland would slow down a unit moving through it or take more "movement points" to move through while Flying units wouldn't be affected at all.
I think Damage Types are essential. We at least need Physical / Magical. What I wold like to see is Physical / Magical with modifiers.
Fire Elemental [Fire Defense] +5
Fire Elemental [Ice Defense] -4
Any attack on a Fire Elemental with a fire modifier (Flaming Arrows, Fire Bolt spells, etc) would be defended against at +5 defense.
Formations and Maneuvers would be nice but would increase the complexity by a lot (Is it worth it?). You wouldn't need to use XP to buy them, you could add them at unit build time as training (Increased build time). Formations and maneuvers should be all about tradeoffs, for example Shield Wall should reduce a units movement speed to the minimum and their vision range by a small amount.
Wow, fantastic post. I can agree with everything you wrote. For 'Magic Power vs. Magic Resistance (perhaps one for each element)' you do not need each creature to have Magic Resistance vs. each Magic Damage type, you just need Fire Elementals to have [+4 vs. Fire] and [-4 vs Ice] mods to their Defensive stats.
Other thoughts.
A morale system would be great but once again is it worth the complexity?
Mobility if handled any way other then a simple 'more mobile units get to move more spaces a turn' gets complex because you then have to introduce Flanking witch requires unit facing witch increases the complexity of the movement system.
This post is already a book so I will end it here,
While this is a fantasy game, morale is [should be] a very imortant gameplay feature imo. Example: You attack a dragon with 200 peasants. I think that most of these peasants should try to flee when they spot the dragon, IF they don't have some serious morale boost at least. [via spells/items etc.] It's realistic like that. Fantasy games needs to have some realism in cases like this.
To-MAY-toe, To-MAH-toe. I prefer resistances because it is a lot easier (I think) to see how a unit resists things with separate resistance stats than looking at defense for modifiers. As we both agree, they both really play out the same, and I have my doubts that they programattically would be easier one way or the other. It should just be about easy to understand presetnation of the data to the player.
Those of you worrying about complexity. Is it because you don't want to think, or because you're worried about how long it will take you to do the combat?
Anyone here that has ever played a TW game, or any of the good table top war games, knows exactly how important morale is to the flow of them. With morale, your 20 guys either win or lose, usually with most of them still alive, and the victor runs down the enemy or they successfully flee the battle. Without morale, you have to grind each other down to the bitter end.
A more complex, more realistic tactical battle, will not take more time. Your computer does all the irritating things, like rolling dice for each unit in a regiment. All of the drawbacks are gone, all of the advantages still present. The better you are at exploiting your advantages, the faster the combat would come to a close.
Now, if you really don't like to think, well...
^ Very good post psychoak. Well said.
I agree with Morale and Flanking. In so many games like AoW or HoMM, you can surround a unit with 2,3, even 4 of yours, and it's has no advantage what so ever. Not only is that really unrealistic (unless your fighting a 100 eyed giant octopus), but it takes away a wonderful part of potential stratagey mechanics.
I had never condsidered Endurance before, but it brings up many possibilites, like how fast do you march on the map (on one game I had, Kohan, you could move units much faster, but only in a collum formation, and you would lose endurance too). It also brings up the possibility of supplies, and supply lines. If units have no line of supply, perhaps their Endurance could go down a tiny bit every turn. And it also prevents a "Stack of Death" from attacking over and over, if they have to regain their Endurace after a battle.
And as for damage modifiers vs Elements, Fire could lower morale (most people on fire don't quite feel up to fighting); Cold could lower speed; Water could lower Endurance (hard to fight and not breath); Wind could, do extra damage to flyers maybe.
I agree with Psy, this game seems to be aimed at the TBS crowd. And the TBS crowd likes the "S"tratagey part of any game the best. And the main reasons for all the economics; building construction; resourse collection; diplomacy; and logistic are all really for just one reason: Battles. Strategic battles.
@psychoak-
Agreed. The most satisfing strategy games I've played have taken more than a day to pick up, often I'm still learning after a few weeks of the intricacies and various strategies I can employ simply as there are so many things to consider that are possible to bring in to a workable strategy. If I can play a game to a competant degree in the best part of a day it isn't a strategy game to me.
I would like Elemental to be of the 'Easy to learn, hard to master' variety. Invariably I find the more complex games fall into this catagory.
@PurplePaladin-
Indeed. I always found it odd in HoMM when Morale is taken into account when you are losing large numbers but not if you surround an enemy or attack from behind. As for supply lines I don't think I've seen them implemented that well in many strategy games (especially TW) so I personally won't be too fussed if their not in but I would like failed upkeep to have more disasterous consequences (desertions, rebellions, defections etc)
Anyway, good posts you two.
I didn't read any of the previous posts, so some of this may have been mentioned. I will haphazardly arrange my thoughts by vague categories; it may not be very organized, but at least you'll know what I'm talking about.
1. Victory Conditions- This should be about breaking enemy morale. Destroying an entire army is somewhat unrealistic and rather silly. Also it makes investment in an army somewhat haphazard; all of it could be swept away in a single poorly arranged combat. Someone mentioned CTF motif. A possibility is capturing battle standards, which could affect opposition morale severely. The details are unimportant to me from here, save no tactical control points or anything like that. And no real CTF, because that's also very silly.
2. Mobility- Make battlefield terrain make a difference. Agincourt is an excellent example of this. The heavily armor french knights found it difficult to maneuever in the muddy ground and as such were much deaded. This is a simplification, of course. My point is that you make a better distinction in mobility by paying attention to terrain factors than you do by actually looking at "speed" factors. A man who fights in heavy armor is trained to move in it; the idea that people in heavy armor move arbitrarily "slower" than other troops in actual combat is somewhat silly. The difference wouldn't be that huge excepting the heaviest of armor types (which were never very common anyhows). It is better to reflect mobility in terms of how terrain affects a unit.
3. Tactical Control- This is easy to overlook. Assuming your battle maps are different from your main map (which I favor instead of the RTK11 approach), it is important to allow player control of where battles take place. A good general picks their battlefield if they have the choice. A player whose leader/Hero/Sovereign is skilled in battle should be given a choice of battlefields, thus picking to their advantage (ie muddy fields if the enemy has cavalry ala Agincourt, open plains if the player favors heavy cavalry, hilly areas for archers and the like). This is a simple, yet oft neglected dimension.
4. Damage Types- I'm pretty sure you're not talking about what everyone thinks you're talking about. Everyone seems to be thinking "no fire damage type!" whereas I'm relatively certain you meant "Should blunt weapons be good against plate, but weaker against chain, and piercing weapons good against chain but weaker versus plate" and so on. Obviously, fire damage will be different from metal damage. The question is whether stabby damage will be different from slicey damage. I fundamentally agree that this gets too complicated too quickly. But if you want to approximate it, I would focus more on how weapon ranges interact with one another. This is a good way of making different weapons significantly different without having to make a million sub-types of damage (and accounting for weapons that can be used in more than one way). Simply put, longer weapons almost always have the advantage. Exceptions could be extremely long range weapons versus enemies with defenses specifically appropriate for them; I have the Spanish bucklermen against pikemen in mind here.
5. Formations- I do think the system could use formations. IE, you make 5 swordsmen and then group them into a formation that then moves as a single unit. They could adopt particular variations as a formation which could give them particular advantages. Of course, this has the possibility of becoming exceedingly complex, but it's also a good way to get a hand on battles with tons of units.
6. Experience- From the original journal, the question was posed as to how to make experience more than just about stat boosts. Two things can be used. Firstly, morale. If units have the capacity to break, then the more experienced a unit is the harder it is to break them, which makes a huge difference without being directly attack/defense stat related. If you combine this with the formation idea (of some kind) from above, then you would see a huge difference in an experienced army whose formations hold and whose men don't break as opposed to an inexperienced army whose formations are sloppy and inefficient, and who wither away under pressure. Of course, better training should give better starting morale, but only experience should make truly battle hardened soldiers.
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