I think I see where you guys are coming from in terms of combat speed but I think you missed some important elements. The concept of combat speed is basically the same as action points from other games such as X-COM. The difference though is that the various actions you can take in that game have different costs whereas yours all cost 1 (or maybe all for spells/attacks eventually). Here are a few ideas I think you could make to improve things.
All the numbers are just off the top of my head so please don't place to much weight on the particulars. Just look at the overall consept.
1) Keep the term combat speed but once you get to tactical combat convert those to action points. Give the unit 5 action points per combat speed (or try a few numbers and see what number works best). So a unit with 1 combat speed now has 5 actions points, a unit with 2 combat speed now has 10 action points. The reason for this is mainly to give some flexibility without introducing lots of decimals. There are other options that accomplish the same thing but this is the one I am basing the rest on.
2) Because of #1 it should now cost 5 action points to move over plains. A bit more for forests, hills, etc.
3) So far things are basically the same just with different numbers and names. The first real change would be that each weapon (or any item you use) should be given an action point cost instead of a combat speed modifier. Why? Well carrying a halberd should mean you attack slowly but shouldn't mean that you necessarily all of a sudden can't move. Doing this gives lots of flexibility for interesting weapons that have real differences and removes the current problem of tieing movement and number of attacks together. Now you have the halberd that takes 5 actions points to swing and you have a dagger that take 2 actions points to swing. Dagger attacks twice, halberd attacks once for a normal unit but they both still move 1 square a turn.
4) Armor should be handled differently as well. Instead of giving a combat speed modifier it would have a movement point modifier. Let's say you have a hero now with 2 combat speed which gives him 10 action points. We have researched some type of very heavy armor (full plate or whatever). This armor could modify how many action points it takes to move. Let's say it gives a movement penalty of 2. Now it costs the unit 7 points to move 1 square. He still moves 1 square a turn but if he stands still he could attack multiple times. If he is wielding a fast weapon he could even move and attack in the same turn.
5) Mounts - basically the opposite of what was described in #4, they would give a movement bonus and don't effect combat speed at all. As above but now it maybe costs 3 or 4 points to move a single square (or maybe percentages would work better). Unit is faster but can't attack more frequently.
So to make things simple you do the following. All equipment now has 2 potentially new stats in addtion to what you already had. If it's an item you use such as a weapon or a potion it has a cost to use. All equipment also has a movement modifier and still has it's combat speed modfier. Combat speed should be thought of as hasting or slowing the unit. It will move faster, attack faster, do everything faster (or slower), consequently it should rarely be used. Movement modifier effects just movement. Wearing or wielding something extremely heavy then it slows you down, riding a horse or wearing boots of speed and you move faster.
I know you won't implement this, especially at this late date but I really feel the current system is limiting. The idea behind it is good but in my opinion it wasn't utilized correctly. You are basically using an action point system like is commonly used is squad based tactical games but have tried to simplify actions to a single all-encompassing number. I see you trying to make changes to compensate for this but no matter what you do movement and attacking will be tied together or you will make a compensation that will severly limit things (i.e. can't move after attacking, having attacking use all action points, etc). After release I think you guys should really sit down with some games that use action points and try to come up with a system that works more like they do or at least offers the same flexibility. I'm sure some will mod some kinds of changes along these lines in but I really think the base game should have them.
Some interesting ideas in general. I think the biggest problem is, extra movement isn't that valuable - with the exception that if you can move and then attack, you don't have the problem where its suicide to move into a tile adjacent to a strong melee unit, because it can just kill you on the next turn.
In order for movement to really be valuable, units would need to start much further apart, and ranged damage toned down, so that being able to reach the enemy line faster was valuable.
Or have some kind of flanking/rear attack bonus.
There's a really big combat speed thread somewhere that I can't find right now. The summarized version is that nearly everybody who doesn't work at Stardock doesn't like combat speed the way it works now and wants it changed some way or another to untie attacks from movement. The simplest method was to add a movement stat, and then have an attack use (Movement / Combat Speed) of your points. So with a CS of 1 you can attack once, with 2 you can attack twice (or once, depending on how much you move), and so on.
Yes, I agree that these are also problems but I think it will be easy to change where units start and Brad already noted that ranged combat was an issue. Flanking/rear attacks might not be so easy to implement but I'd rather see the base system fixed first before worrying about that. Introducing a whole new combat system after release is unlikely but adding in flanking or changing the distance of units is well within the realm of possibility. Besides talking about too many issues at once just dillutes all of the points in many cases so I just wanted to focus on one.
I'm not sure if I read that one but I've seen various people complain about it (including me previously). I just had a couple of thoughts about it that were new (to me at least) and that I thought would work so I thought I'd share them. Just having a combat speed and movement speed works but combat speed just feels like it is meant to represent action points so I thought that was a better fit. Plus if you have a move of 5 and cs of 2 what happens if you move 2 and attack? It isn't as clear as a point system. This system is pretty simple and straightforward and fixes a big problem so I just thought I'd give it one last try before release in the off chance they have a change of heart.
It is a point system, the "points" just come from the movement stat instead. Effectively it's how AoW 2 worked (except that in AoW the combat speed was fixed at 3). It worked pretty well.
Whatever they do, I'm not a fan of the existing combat speed implementation at all. Seems like most people aren't. I'm not entirely sure why Stardock likes it so much.
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