Heh, no, I didn't!  While I'm 100% buying the game, I'm not in the beta due to the complete and total lack of time.  Thanks for the info!

Many are discussing the multiplayer difficulties with turn based.  A chief complaint in that are is the time it is going to take and I completely agree.  I remember playing HoMM II using fan made software back in the olden days and those games would last an eternity.  Although, I think Elemental is going to have options that will scale down game length so that they are not insane like the HoMM series.  Unless I am misremembering, however, Elemental has always been developed as single player first and then good multiplayer to be added once SP is solidified.  So from that perspective, I think turn-based makes more since regardless of the time issues.  And as I said, modifying game options should allow for quicker games and those options will include the different game modes that Brad has mentioned.

I am not sure that observation even makes since, but trust me, in my head, it is crystal clear.

Hi Frogboy, long-time lurker here. I have concerns about the approach described above. Certainly, I remember tactical battles from MOM being extremely fun - but MOM was single player only. It seems to me that tatical battles would make large multiplayer games unfeasible. What if you are engaged in five or six battles in a turn - do the other players have to wait around while you resolve them? This becomes especially problematic if the battles resemble X-Com fights where a single engagement might go on for hours.

One idea you didn't list was to have battles in the style of Dominions 3, where armies and heroes are given detailed instructions which then play out automatically. Dominions 3 was not perfect, but this system was a lot of fun - there was always more you could do to tweak the way your army was programmed to fight. It also had the virtue of making multiplayer games possible.

Just a thought. I'm extremely excited about the game.

Although I've been lurking the site for the past month, this post today just caused me to preorder.  For the first time since being a kid, im excited and can't wait to play a game....girlfriend is going to get mad (no I can't go dancing, im going to stay in and, er....clean...really)

Any more info about the combat system coming up in the near future? And dare I hope that more people are going to be allowed into beta 2 (supposed to be a hopeful smiley face)?

LOL I was thinking exactly this Tormy. You have Single Units, Parties of 4, Companies of 10, Platoons of 50 I beleive, and I haven't seen what a legion is but I would assume by extension 100.

The time it would take to build 1000 single units would be insane. What would that be at least 3000 turns and thats with the building bonuses.

Damnit I wrote up a big wall of text but the forums ate it! Oh well.

I'm worried that the promised grandeur of tactical combats will be lost by going to turn based combat. I've probably spent a full year's time worth of my life playing games with turn-based tactical combat, and I can't recall a single situation where I've thought "Ohh I can't wait to watch this battle!" There is just nothing exciting about watching one stack do its thing while everyone/everything else patiently waits for its brief turn to stab things. Magic isn't even as exciting to watch; your magic goes off against a static environment. Basically, watching turn-based combat does not feel like you are watching an actual battle unfold before your eyes.

Whereas continuous time or real time battles, those can be spectacular. I can't count the number of times in games like Total War that I've been as excited to watch a battle unfold as I was to play it! I really cannot imagine turn-based combat having that same effect, although I'd love to be proven wrong.

I doubt it. Turn/Tile based combat is more tactic&strategic oriented than the RTS style combat, and that is what matters. 

That is totally and completely untrue. Turn/tile based combat is essentially like a more complicated, glorified version of chess. The strategy essentially boils down to "Should I put this stack in that box, or in the box to the left?" Now, chess is a highly involved game and you will never find me trying to argue that it is not strategic. The whole point is that you want to try to predict your opponent's moves, and plan your own steps accordingly - or to plan your own steps to try to get your opponent to unwittingly do what you want them to do. But it is entirely strategic, there are no tactics involved; at least, not in any turn-based combat I've ever played.

Continuous time battles have almost as much strategy involved, diluted a little by the greater freedom of movement and the ability to react to a changing battlefield more dynamically. In return, though, you get tactics. As much of it as you want. The direction your troops face can matter, the speed at which they're moving can matter. Your timing and precise placement of your troops is all of a sudden important (in tile-based, you don't fine enough temporal control, nor the precise control over placement to begin with). Movement speed turns into a whole new monster! In Turn/tile based it's just how far a stack can move in its turn; in continuous time, fast troops can ambush, they can intercept ambushes.

Turn/Tile based combat does not have the fine gradient of control required for real tactics. It's about the big picture, in a simplified presentation of the battlefield. Continuous time combat brings in all the details, and sacrifices a little bit of the focus on strategy for a major dose of tactics; it is more like an actual combat simulator, whereas turn/tile based combat is a much more abstract representation.

Basically, turn/tile-based combat is a little more strategic than continuous time combat, but continuous time combat actually has tactics. And continuous turn combat is infinitely times more entertaining to watch. Both methods of combat can get tiring if you have to go through lots of relatively small battles; I still feel obligated to play them myself because the results are so much better than autoresolve, but at least in continuous time combat I get the added pleasure of watching my army destroy the opposition!

Edit: Not to mention, in every game with turn/tile-based combat I've ever played, even those with good AI, it didn't take long for me to be able to predict almost exactly how a battle would play out one the combat screen loaded. For example in HoMM III, I could (and still can, even though I hardly ever play it anymore) look at my troops, the enemy troops, and how they are organized. Because of the extremely coarse-grained temporal and spatial control, there is a relatively small set of good moves available. With a little experience it's easy to predict which of those moves the AI will take, and thus how you should move.

In games like Total War, on the other hand, predicting how combat will unfold is much harder for me. There are just way too many ways things can go to consider them all. Even in Total War, which is famous for its poor combat AI! That is much more exciting for me, and with Stardock's reputation regarding AI, just think about it! 

Apologies in Advanced for the off-topic reply.

Believe me, my friend, you're not the first person to tell me my picture is "scary" ( I know you didn't actually say that, no worries). I think the reason for that is how I cropped my face to use as most sites are very limiting about the size of Avatars. Mine is a little smaller then the allowed size here on the forums because I use it on many different forums and it's currently cropped to fit the smallest one allowed on another site I use. Here's the full picture. Maybe people won't think it's "quite as scary" seeing the whole thing.

I have been thinking about changing my On-line Avatar to the picture of my back tattoo that says "RavenX" but I'm undecided on the matter as of right now. Sometimes I think it's a little funny when people say my picture scares them. Sometimes it even bothers me a little because (more or less) we're all "strangers" on the Internet. Being strangers and not knowing each other it's kinda ok to tell some-one "Hey, you look scary". Still, even though I often role-play "Evil" characters and I tend to enjoy some of the darker or morbid aspects of life, I don't want people being afraid of me or thinking I'm "Evil" in Real Life.

Ya know I got to thinking when people said can you think about controlling 1000 plus units in TB.

Could you imgine trying to control 1000+ units in real time. Seriously while I play the SC2 Beta I have at most 100, mabey 120 units very very tops. And even then in combat all I do is grab the entire lot and focus fire a single target at a time. I just don't have the time to do anything strategically/tactically deeper. What is sad is how effective that strategy can be in small to medium battles.

I agree with you Silicor, but I think that Laser Squad Nemesis is a poor example, we could have a system like in UFO: Aftershock and UFO: Afertlight, this way, even the multiplayer could be done, with a setting like: When time hits X, time stop to issue orders again, this way you could ambush, attack, retreat or even adapt to your opponent tactics... And in Single Player it would be: "stop anytime the player wants" or even "stop if event X happens" (ex: Spoting an enemy and so on...)

BUT, as a I said in a previous post, we still don't know (we only know the theory and not so much) how the Tactical Combat is going to be implemented, I really think that a Screenshot or even a little Movie is a must-have if we are gonna keep discussing tactical combat (Again, we really don't know how it will be done, we know only what has been said and in my opinion isn't enough to begin arguing and judging)

And again I ask: Please Mr FrogBoy, release some new screens, I can't speak for all the people, but I'm particularly Anxious to see something that gives us an idea of Tactical Combat or even of the "Life-Forms" of elemental.

Indeed, I agree, and I agree with Pigeon's post as well. As I said in my first reply in this thread though, I'm happy with True Turn Based as well.

Honestly though, I'd rather see there be a option for Both, like X-Com Apocalypse. In fact, the play style of fight-pause-give orders-unpause was first used in X-Com Apocalypse (that I know of). X-Com Apoc was released in July of 1997. The next game that was even more of a Huge Success that used this "Real Time Pausable" combat system was a game I'm sure almost all of us know and love, Baldur's Gate for the PC (not the crappy playstation versions). Baldur's Gate came out on the PC in December of 1998. Technically, X-Com:Apoc used it first.

The Awesome thing about X-Com Apoc though was that I had the Choice of both. If internally you had the battles set up for real time at any point, it should be a simple matter of just including both that system, And the new purely Turn Based system we're going with now.

Just my 2 cents worth. I'm perfectly happy either way as at least we Can Control the battles.

LoL, thanks Tormy

Dragon Age: Origins used a similar system (I think, havn't played much of the other games you mentioned). It works pretty well.

Since the engine is real time already, would it be possible to implement both modes? Ie in continus turn or RTS mode things play at full speed and you can pause at will, or in TBS mode the pauses are automatic, and once you give your orders the game unpauses for say 10 seconds before auto pausing until everyone gives their orders again?

That would also make the normal TBS formula more dynamic, in the sense that both sides give orders at the same time, and then things happen. It would certainly be more interesting because when you target the fireball, you don't know that all the bad guys are just going to stand there while it flies at them (though they might, since your opponent doesn't know what you're doing this turn until it happens).

In fact, I think a system like that would be awesome.

Agreed, Tridus, and well said. Bioware, who made DA:O, is mostly (or was) the members from the studio "Black Isle" who made Baldur's Gate, which is why they have the same system, which was also used in "Neverwinter Nights".

I like your idea except for there's no need for the "10 seconds before auto pausing" part. It would simply wait for you to hit "End Turn" or "Next Turn". The 10 second per turn would be excellent for Multi-Player though, as would Real-Time or just Auto-Resolve.

Miss one day on the forums..... I fondly remember X-COM, but it could prove tedious trying to hunt down that last elusive alien.... I have not problem with the selection for tactical combat but it will need some improvement, esp as the battles scale up and we still don't know the full impact of the magic system yet.

I look forward to the revamped magic system so the different layers of global, large area and tactical spell effects overlap and clash.

Imbue hero may turn out to be the single most important spell if hero's can do all the SOV's functions in his/her stead. Although I do recall only the SOV could found a city... Time will tell.

Darvroth