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?
Yea, ENGLISH longbows are obviously superior, but in general the entire peasantry did not have training sessions and such. Maybe their can be certain civics in which all the population is trained in a certain weapon in every-day life, tournaments, ect ... to gain extra starting strength when using that weapon type.
Maybe HP/Strength when using a longbow can represent range. Ultimately an experienced longbow will be better than an experienced cross-bow ... although mercenaries usually preferred the cross-bow for its utility, especially in close quarters (since you could have a bolt pre-loaded).
While you could theoretically alter TONS of things with a well levelled long-bow, a levelled crossbow could be better with ... his shield, and maybe precision. basically it is most cost effective to train peasants with cross-bows than longbows, and its more effective to use levelled units with longbows than crossbows.
However, cross-bows where widely used by Mercenary companies ... even Mercenary/Militia armies, especially in Italy ... aka Genoese Crossbows and Pavise Crossbows.
I should think a "attack skill" should add such things as attack, damage, range, and precision for a longbow ... while cross-bows stay at a flat value.
Even so ... I thing we at least "should" agree, that at normal longbow range for longbows vs normal crossbow range for crossbows, with basic, say peasant troops, the crossbow will do significantly greater damage.
Any concept which can sensibly be stolen from Kohan's combat system, probably should be. (IS/AG, not Kohan II.)
Beyond that comment, I just want to see what you guys come up with.
Kohan.
The key to a successful system is that everything has a purpose and has plusses & minuses. In a finite tbs, we don't want an endless power curve like an MMO. I'm referring to most games crafting where you learn 50 levels of recipies but only use the level 50 ones. I agree that more advanced items should be desireable, but it doesn't always have to be based on damage. This has a few big advantages: 1. Upgrading older units is less important because they don't become obsolete so fast 2. Those who get unlucky with their starting location can still compete. 3. You arn't forced into an arms race, you can CHOOSE to do something different. If I'm forced to do any research path, then I don't think the game is healthy. If everyone is forced down a path, then it isn't really an option.
here are some examples of how upgrades could be done without the the early game weapons becoming totally obsolete..
spears are a starter weapon with good damage, but maybe they break after 5 uses and need replaced at a city(you could decide to keep paying the repair bill or you could start using daggers and swords that don't break) Someone who doesn't have a ready supply of iron can focus on wood and crank out spear troops
Daggers would do less damage than spears but would be cheap to manufacture and fairly indestructable No repair bills but paying more for less damage would give pause
two handed swords use a lot of iron but are indestructable but no shields
two handed axes use some wood and a lot less iron than swords and axes have repair costs but do great damage, but no shields
Certain high grade irons could be required for magical weapons. Then a player would have to decide: Do I make a lot of lower damage but indestructable daggers that don't use much metal, or do I produce a small number of high damage two handed swords that use a lot of the special metal or do I make axes that use about the same amount of metal as daggers and do the same damage as two handed swords, but have an ongoing repair cost.
I think this type of system provides real meaningful decsions and mitigates the pitfalls of every technology being better than the previous one.
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With that said, I think weapons should be kept to a smaller set like club, spear, dagger, single handed sword, two handed sword, single handed axe, two handed axe etc... Weapons would have characteristics like: production time, resource cost, durability, upgradeability (to magic weapons), single hand, dual wild or two handed, armor piercing
I would not tie skills to weapons. Instead of saying a pike is good against calvary, I would put in a skill anti calvary that any unit could learn to get a bonus against a particular unit.
ARMOR TYPES ARE NOT GOOD FOR A GAME, THEY ARE ONE OF THE WORST GAME MECHANICS YOU COULD ADD RIGHT NOW. I dont want rock paper scissors. Infact I would says that the biggest failing point for BOTH galciv and sins was their uses of armor types, in galciv where war was less about tactical(how) than strategic(who) it was not so bad but in sins, god.
I do support some under the hood armortypes for sticky mechanics, but not as A GENERAL GAMPLAY MECHANIC.A distinction between physical and magical should be there, but apart from that No. No. No.NOOOOO.
yea ... I was just saying that different armors have different inherent advantages/disadvantages, but the most expensive armors would have the best advantages, and of course super-rare armor would simply be all-out better.
I could see a mithril and a master-steel having the same defensive rating, but the mithril would not have the weight disadvantage. Starmetal might also have the same defensiver rating, or perhaps greater, with magical resistances built in.
Meanwhile, Chainmail wouldn't be nearly as good as plate, but would not recieve the same fatigue penalties ... while Leather would be a horrible armor (though still improvable), while being the cheapest armor, and providing perhaps fatigue "bonuses" or some sort of parry bonus or rate-of-fire bonus (at least for Bows/Longbows)
double post :/
apologies if already mentioned, but one of the best and simplest tbs combat systems IMHO was SSI's Fantasy General - there were 3 things that made it spesh for me:
Formation: making the long range units weak but powerful support units, encouraged moving in formation, as formations, like real life, are stronger.
Morale: Making units retreat into an adjacent empty space if hit hard (or be completely detroyed if nowhere too retreat) was a neat solution to breaking formations
Experience: making units upgrade, dependant on research and experience, made them more precious overtime, and was an integral part in planning your formations.
In general units had individual strength and weaknesses against other unit types which made for interesting choices: what kind of formation suits this terrrain and this enemy; shall I hold up here; when shall i break formation because breaking formation can lead to powerful counter attacks and losses etc etc.
Just my 2 bob's worth
evil roy
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