The latest poll shows that people are very interested in us taking a new look at the combat system (https://www.elementalgame.com/journals)
One of the biggest complaints we have seen is that weapons are 1 D N where N is the max the weapon does.
While 1 D N is the same system GalCiv II uses, the difference is that in GalCiv, a ship might have many weapons which would tend to equalize the overall damage.
Simply put, there is too much luck involved in Elemental's combat.
The purpose of this post is to discuss other ways combat could be done. What suggestions or preferences do you have AND how would you communicate (visually) to the player how such a system would work?
Thought I'd add in my lot to the discussion. I've actually been planning to modify the current combat mechanics within the current available rule set. Mostly I've been testing different stats but the general gist of the ideas I've been having are below.
Note: All of what is written below is possible by modding the current game (no code changes). I just wanted to show what is salvageable from the current system that can be tried out before any major combat system changes are done.
As everyone keeps saying the outcome of a basic attack is too random. Your attack roll is also your damage roll and your defence roll is also your damage resistance roll. My idea is to bring in two under used stats to make outcomes a little more reliable. The first thing is to rename the stats to what they actually will be so:
Attack - Rename to Damage
This is actually the damage stat. The first thing to do would be to reduce the range of damage so that it never gets beyond say 1-12.
Defence - Rename to Resistance/Soak (something like that)
This is the damage resistance stat. The final values for this stat should end up within the same range of number as the Attack(Damage) stat, maybe higher (as a high skilled attacking unit can bypass armour - see below).
Dodge - Can stay the same or be renamed to Defense Skill
This is your defensive skill and will be the sole stat the determines if you get hit or not. All units would have a base dodge of about 20% and gaining experience would raise this amount higher. Champions would either have a higher starting base or the possibility of a trait that increases the base dodge amount. Likewise dodge will be unlocked so that it can increase when leveling up. Note: the dodge skill currently operates between 0 and 1000 for 0% to 100% dodge, which makes the dodge on shields pointless right now.
Daring - Rename to Attack
This stat is currently only used for one trait. However it can be usurped to become your attack skill. Assuming your target does not dodge your attack then your Daring(Attack) skill will come into effect. This stat gives a chance to ignore Defence(resistance). All units would have a base dodge of about 20% and gaining experience would raise this amount higher. Champions would either have a higher starting base or the possibility of a trait that increases the base dodge amount. Likewise daring will be unlocked so that it can increase when leveling up.
All weapons and armours would then have to be re-balanced to take into account the way the stats are now focused. For example maces/hammers would likely have a much lower potential damage but add to your Daring(attack) as blunt weapons tend not to be affected as much by armour as cutting weapons. Heavier armours would add to your Dodge(defence) like shields currently do to simulate more blows being deflected, while adding in some other penalties like slower movement (not combat speed) and possibly lower Attack(Damage).
I would then probably increase the base hit points of units in general to maybe 10 (and remove HP scaling with experience as this will be covered with Dodge(Defence) and Daring(Attack)). Which will prevent lower damage weapons from getting a lucky one hit kill, larger two handed weapons still could.
UI idea:
how about you left click on your unit then right click the enemy and a menu appears with each action that can be accomplished. in that same menu the actions that can be completed will be highlighted, the other actions that cannot(due perhaps to the inability to move there AND do the action), be grayed out. also it shows potential damage or chance of success of each choice.
thats mainly for normal and special abilities and attacks. the spells would have their own UI. similar to the way it works now except it also shows damage/chance to work .
Awesome this for sure.
Exactly. In many cases it isn't whether the combat system is complicated, it is more whether it seems complicated and a system which behaves illogically seems more complicated than it really is.
Nothing beats the old school computer game tbs combat like Pools of Radiance. I always preferred Pools of Darkness myself as having higher levels gave more abilities to play around with.
Couple additional thoughts...
If they keep it simple and don't move to some sort of initiative-based system, defender-first might be a *little* better than attacker-first. Now its too easy to stomp a powerful enemy by moving in with a few units with are spells.
If they have separate attack vs chance to hit, handle ranged attacks well, have separate magic resistances for each element, add some special abilities, and generally toss in a sampling of the many requests above, then they don't need to keep the 3 separate damage attacks: slashing / piercing / crushing. Those were copied from Galciv's separate missiles / ray guns / projectiles; and GalCiv needed them because it didn't have other complications to make you think while you designed your ships or planned your research. [flame-suit on] They don't very fit will in Elemental, and Elemental has enough else, or at least it will if they implement even 1/3 of our many requests above. A huge battle axe doesn't need a different damage type than a rapier -- just give it a huge damage stat and some combination of (a) low chance to hit ( low initiative, (c) long recharge time or (d) make swinging it take lots of action points, depending on what features they implement. Spears can be distinguished from swords & axes by longer range, first-strike, negate-1st-strike, or even by making them very powerful when fighting head-on in open field and giving them big penalties if attacked from the side or fighting on forests or rough terrain. Etc. Etc.
But at least GC2 showed you the 3 different attack & defense stats, in different colors to make then stand out. If they keep them in this game, make them at least as clear here.
The resistance should be seperated into different categories (Slashing, Piercing, Bludgeoning, Earth, Fire, Air and Water) to give armors and creatures more options. Some armors and creatures should have a negative resistance, that increases the amount of damage (Light Plate Armor should have a negative air resistance, Fire Elementals should have a negative water resistance).
A Combat Speed of 6 increases the number of actions to 7, but i think it should increase the number of actions only to 6 (1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 10) to match the other Combat Speeds.
In addition to the many above suggestions, I recommend a larger map! Much, much larger battle maps! Scaled to the army size: so 1 on 1 encounters could take place on maps of current size, and 20 on 20 epic massacres could take lace on 50x50 or even larger maps.
There are as many different ideas as how tactical combat should be implemented as there are stars in the sky. I'm mostly behind the second poster who said he liked the system as is. i.e. I also prefer simplified combat, and I think that's what the designer wanted from the getgo which is great from my POV. However, there are some problems with the combat system as it is now that I'm seeing which need to be fixed.
1) 99% of the troops move two squares a turn. There needs to be more variety here. Ground units should be able to move 1 to 5 squares and mounted units in the 5 to 10 range, flying units should be more or less unlimited. To support this, the grid size needs to be expanded perhaps another 5squares around all the edges to allow additional maneuver. Also, all units should be allowed to escape or none escape. Why allow champions to escape but not 4-man archer groups?
2) The tactical AI stinks. They focus too much on champions or whoever is weakest. I've had so many battles that I've been outnumbeerd by more powerful troops only to see those enemy troops run around the battlefied trying to run down a champion or weaker melee squad only to have my archers whittle them down from 200 hit points or so down to zero. over 15/20 rounds of combat. I use my "runner" to draw monsters/enemy away from my archers so they can shoot at long range unhindered. This is just dumb. I've had powerful trolls (152 hp) start next to one of my archers (could've easily squashed it with one blow), only to see it move two squares in an attempt to get my champion leaders who were positioned in the rear, wft?? The trolls just end up getting squashed by my archers; I don't even need to move my archers, most of the time they're always safe.
3) There's not enough difference in weapons. Swords are available later than maces yet they're weaker?? .. There simply needs to be more differences in the weapons: it's simply not showing up on the battlefield. I use two weapons in this game as of now & I win each and every time: heavy mace and ceder longbow. You don't need anything else.
4) There's not enough difference in the terrain on the battlefield. Woods should have a significant effect on archers. I can kill any unit with my archers no matter where they are, this is extremely weak & bad. There should be something like a 95% defensive bonus for woods against archers. In fact, I don't see any terrain effects on attack or defense at all. It's simply not showing up in a way I can see. The only thing woods seem to do in this game is make it difficult to see which grid square units are positioned. In fact, I've lost a few units only because I actually didn't see the enemy units behind the tree.
5) This goes along with 2. Certain AI spells are always cast on the same unit. When a troll or magic user casts confusion, it's always against one of the melee units in the front rank, never on the more lethal archers behind, not only this but they cast the same spell on the same unit turn after turn?? wtf, is there something here that I'm not seeing? I'm assuming that the spell had its effect as it said "confusion" in red letters, but frankly, some of the spells I can't tell if they work or not if they don't directly indicate "miss". Also, teleporting units should be allowed to teleport and conduct at least one attack. Those big black spiders should be able to teleport right next to a champion and get one attack on him/her, instead they just teleport around the battlefield stupidly and do nothing with this advantage, might as well just move them forward and not teleport. In general, monsters need to have more range attack, those big slow "slugger" monsters with attack in the 75 to 152 never even get near my macemen as my archers always take them out while they lumber forward at 2 squares a turn. Those that do manage to get that far usually only have 2 to 10 hit points and get smited by the first swing of my macemen who typically dish out 20 to 40 hp of damage per swing.
6) I think that the current number of units allowed on the battle should not be changed. Frankly, I don't want to see "epic" battles because I'll just spend an hour resolving one single battle which I know how it turns out before I even fight. As an analogy: this game is not designed to be an "army" level game, but more of a "company" level game, which is fine with me as I like both as a strategy game player.
Also a bit late to the party here, but I thought I might toss my hat into the circle. Trying to keep it simple and more limited to the base combat system, not the entire tactical experience. Its all interlinked, of course, but just generally:
1) For the overall combat system, instead of a more flat normalization, I was thinking a system like the old board game of Risk might work really well. If you're not familiar, basically you'd get x dice rolls (d6) based on number of troops (or here for attack/def value). You then match dice, starting with highest roll values, comparing attack to defender. Anything the defender wins or ties gets thrown out. Anything attack wins in the comparison, or rolls to which defender has no "dice" to defend, takes 1 loss (HP here in Elemental) per dice.I think this would work well since it would still be relatively simple, and its somewhat easy to eyeball the numbers and know what will happen. It normalizes things for the attacker, since you know when if you have 20 attack dice and the defender 10, you have some guaranteed 10 damage, and the rest has a tighter grouping. Enemies that have a ton of defense aren't invincible, since you still match the dice rolls, still have the chance of sneaking in a hit for low values (ie glancing blows).
A lot of the other current mechanics like piercing or cutting weapons vs types of armor (mentioned in the manual) still works with this system. Just give auto 6 rolls for the defense types, or add points to the base roll as you like, depending on how powerful you want it to be. Dodge rolls might subtract x dice from the attackers dice pool. Other special effects you wanted to add in should play nice, it seems pretty flexible as a system.
The Att and Def values of gear would need a good re-balancing of course . . .and we get to the next issue I see in the base battle system:
2) For melee alone - attack /defend counterstrike should be simultaneous. Stops the big hammer and no armor cheesing that seems popular and would give some options for the tactical system (like first strikes, bows having more flavor and perhaps mounts, etc). Tied into the above it would stop a stack with huge attack and getting a big "guaranteed hit" from ruling everything (unless its a suicide shock troop-- could make for interesting tactic).
There's other things I'd like to see in battle, the idea of flanking maneuvers, auras added, first strikes, more "passive" special abilities than just health regen. But I think that comes in later in the large picture of tactical battles. So perhaps not thoughts for today, but I mention as something to keep in mind for the overall view of what I might like as a player.
UI, I think small circular band around a unit when you roll over something with preview of approximate damages, or making a unit glow briefly (red - likely to kill it on the hit, yellow likely to do 60-80% damage or whatever). So some feedback/ planning without having to target everything, just hover over the unity with your attacker selected or spell readied.
Feedback on attacks - please! Rather than "missed" I'd like to see dodged or absorbed added so I can know why my attack failed -- so my new units I build I can try to correct for whatever I'm missing. Ditto on spells. Miss is different than resisted (in which case I might not try that spell again) or other options. Also things like if you're attacking something with armor strong to your attack, should be mentioned somewhere so you pick a different troop to attack . . though, as is now, generally the difference in attack/def is so great such minor points as armor types seems not to matter (if its even there still).
I know in the end the most important thing will be to have a unified vision, making it all come together top to bottom. So long as that is the focus and whatever system turns out balanced, intricate enough that tactical choices are meaningful and the player has the option of a variety of strategic and tactical options (rather than build x hammer troops and win vs anything, or all archers all the time or whatnot). . .well it will be good. Looking forwards to seeing how it all works out!
Just got the game, and I gotta say that the sheer unpredictability of combat is one of the most noticable thing about this game. I'm of the opinion that randomness shouldn't even be a factor in combat systems like Elemental's. The sample size is low, and if you get a high roll against the right unit, you can change the course of the entire game (forget the tactical battle). Way too much is riding on what is essentially a crap shoot, and I don't see any reason why we should even be rolling dice in the first place. It's too early for me to weigh in on the specifics, but at very least the results shouldn't be so wildly divergent.
My personal opinion on the subject of randomness in TBS is that it's a carry-over from the traditions of table-top gaming, and it's largely unnecessary in a computer-driven game setting. In board games, the paperwork had to be kept to a minimum (preferably eliminated altogether), which meant the game state had to be very simple. If you can make a few generalizations to simplify it further, it's quite possible to trivialize the game. Randomness solves this problem, preventing you from making cause-effect corralations and forcing you to factor uncertainty. As an upside, you get the visceral feel of the dice roll, but as a downside irrational strategies can prevail over rational ones by sheer luck. With a computer game, the machine handles all the paperwork, so you don't need to rely on randomness for depth; you can create very complex game-states, but the human can still comfortably work with them because he doesn't need to crunch or record the numbers himself.
I disagree and believe the opposite is true; that less randomness gives the player more control, more involvement, and better rewards skill.
The problem if unit Y can beat unit X is that there's a 20% chance (or whatever it is) that one player will be rewarded for making a bad decision and the other will be punished for making a good decision. This doesn't reward skill or increase player involvement. It gets worse if you have 5 unit X's against 5 unit Y's. Now there's a 66% chance that you lose at least one of these battles, which restricts your ability to enact more elaborate tactics or set ups. In a game with larger numbers of units, that's okay since you have some redundancy, but in Elemental we don't have that.
I was speaking of involvement not control or randomness. That is, if the player simply builds X units and sends them out willy nilly, assured that they will win against all opposition, the player may be controlling their movements, but the player is also not actually making any decisions or getting involved in influencing the game. It's a non-choice... unless there are other mechanics involves (being able to counter and other smart decisions).
As far as randomness goes, yes, that is true and I agree to greater and lesser extents. Too much randomness eliminates skill. But if we rely purely on unit stats and take away the importance for the player to -have- to make decisions, to be able to make sacrifices and pull off underdog victories, we also take away some of the ability for the player to be smart. There's nothing to figure out; it's just build X, Y, Z, do 1, 2, 3, and you're victorious most of the time. Sure, you're controlling things but you're not really thinking or getting involved. It reduces combat down to a recipe if there is no unpredictability at all.
The underlying goal is not randomness, after all, but predictability of the future. Again, I agree, it is not fun if a game is random. However, it is also not fun if the player can predict with almost perfect accuracy what will happen and can act with almost perfect certainty. What we want to strive for is to minimize randomness but give players unpredictability in which to play with.
As an example, take Tic-Tac-Toe. There is no randomness at all and perfect predictability. I know for a fact that if I am the second player, I will never win if the first player also plays perfectly. I don't think anyone would call Tic-Tac-Toe a particularly compelling game for anyone over five.
Chess, on the other hand. No randomness at all. However, there is also some unpredictability. There are many possible moves and options which themselves have further moves and options available. There is some degree of chance - you don't know what your opponent will do, though you can guess - and risk - you can attempt a risky move and it can pay off.
First of all, I don't really understand why Elemental tries to simplify combat mechanics (one number for attack chance and damage). Is it to make the AI better understand the mechanics?
Generally, pen and paper games must simplify, because it's not fun to calculate hundred numbers for each sword swing. However, computers are good in number crunching, so computer games may benefit from more detailed models of gameplay mechanics - like combat.
Let's look at Dominions 3 combat system a bit - I don't know if many of you know it, but I wholeheartedly recommend it.
Weapons in this game have multiple statistics - damage, chance to hit (attack), defense bonus and reach. It's not so linear (biggest sword kills all), but presents interesting choice for the players. When there is a difference between weapon reaches (pike vs dagger, for example), the shorter weapon user must first successfully defend to shorten the distance. If he is unsuccessful, he suffers damage and is "repelled" back, and has to try again. This way, a formation of pikemen with lousy stats can hold at bay a pack of wolves - just because their long weapons offer them safety. Against a squad of mediocre, but armored swordsmen, they fall easily.
Another important point is that weapons affect defense. Obviously, a slender, renaissance sword with elaborate guard is better for parrying than a heavy, but unbalanced club. Should safety be preferred to ability to inflict damage? Here, units take different roles - one with better defense holds the enemy at bay, while other attacks at range, or attempts flanking.
Lastly, the difference between dodging or parrying the blow (defence), and absorbing the blow makes the system more varied and interesting. A heavy club may never hit an agile opponent, but if he tires down and his high defense stat plummets, first hit will will send him across the floor. A heavy armor may be impenetrable to normal blows, but a single hit with a magic wand may turn its user to stone.
Dominions 3 also has a great synergy of spells and conventional weapons. For example, Yomon has weak, but cheap archers that are nearly useless against armored troops, their arrows bouncing off harmlessly. A clever player will prioritize research of the "Fire weapons" spell, and because armor is only half as effective against flaming weapons , these weak archers suddenly become quite deadly. Undead player can cast "unnatural aging" global spell, and enjoy watching the enemy heroes wither and die of old age in a few turns, while being unaffected himself (long-lived Rylegh are another matter, though). Abysian troops from the underworld have infravision, so the global spell Eternal Darkness gives them considerable advantage.
And so on, the examples are numerous.
I am not saying Dominions 3 is better game, but some of its parts definitely work splendindly, especially the said combat system. There is a lot of detail hidden - the player may just read the result of a battle, watch it casually, or examine the log for detailed explanation of what happened ("oh, my giant got paralysed in the first round, and my footmen were decimated by arrows. Maybe next time, I will forge that protective ring and hire troops with shields").
An ambigious system where there is no clear "better or worse", but forces player to make interesting choices usually contributes to an interesting and immersive gameplay. Creating a competetive AI for such a game is usually quite impossible, though.
Frogster, I see there are two parts relating to "Combat" in the poll, so I imagine both those parts may have their own journals asking for input. As I'm sure you're aware, the two topics for combat are:
The general Combat System & Tactical Battles
What I want to bring up are the threads going on about "Epic Scale", meaning Higher Unit Counts on screen, and I'm wondering if I should bring that up in this thread about "General Combat System" or in the second one that concentrates on "Tactical Battles". I'm sure you or someone in house has been watching the two threads and are also aware of the amount of people that want to see the unit counts drastically raised to match those epic Lord of the Rings battles you use as inspiration in the other dev journals here:
Elemental: scale of power , https://forums.elementalgame.com/343449
Design elements of Elemental discussed , https://forums.elementalgame.com/329219
Of course there are a lot of aspects to the battles where there could be room for refinement, such as adding more magical weapons, skills and abilities that are unique to certain units and/or races, adding resistance modifiers for Elemental and Magical Damage types, adding in Walls and Sieges so we have a use for Catapults, (I really can't wait until we can line up soldiers on top of walls and towers to raid down magical death upon those assaulting our strongholds!!!) , using the terrain to block or hide units, having different formations for unit groups, and different positions that can add attack or defensive bonuses (such as kneeling down to shoot for archers or forming a Shield Wall for mêlée units). I could literally write a new book based solely on the things I'd like to see in a in depth tactical combat system.
I think adding more units to the unit counts as so many of us want to see would fall into this thread though as it's entitled "General combat System" and things like the numbers of soldiers shown seems to be "General" for all the combat in the game.
Having smaller unit counts like we do now is perfect for early to mid game, as our cities aren't yet to the point where they are sprawling fantasy metropolises, but by late mid game to late game, when our cities have thousands of people living in them and are surrounded by high stone walls, having much larger armies to achieve that epic feel that has been the inspiration for the game up to this point seems like a must for many of us.
I still go back and re-read what you said back then and hope and pray the passion you had when talking about the grand scope hasn't changed in the hearts and minds of the devs. Quotes like these from you below really bring a smile of nerdy joy when I think about the possibilities still to come if you remember how you felt when talking about it then. Hopefully your own words here can inspire you again to picture the grand vision you had in mind .
"If you like the Total War series, you can imagine some of what we have in mind except here you can get that Lord of the Rings battle feeling where certain units just make mince meat out of whole squads of enemy units."
and here,
"The mechanics in Elemental are a bit different than the typical 4X game because even in terms of warfare, there are very different paths. For instance, Player A may have a huge army ready to steamroll but Player B may have an incredibly powerful sovereign who can wipe out vast armies and Player C may have built up an incredible well of mana that can be used to decimate vast swaths of the world and all three of these things could come together at once based on which path players take and of course all 3 could lose to Player D who wins through the quest victory condition if they're not careful."
Those words still inspire us to think great things. I keeping seeing my created Sovereign in my mind, leading a great host of hundreds into a last, pitched battle, flinging spells like Avatar the Last Airbender, destroying huge swaths of the battlefield while men explode and fly in multiple directions if the blast was enough to finish off the unit it was aimed at.
Many of us still dream of this and are still inspired by your enthusiasm when describing these things months ago. Will you still keep those visions in mind when planning out the future of elemental Warfare?
Also, some of us are wondering if you'll remain as open to suggestions and improvements from the player base as you were during beta? We can see by these excellent journals here you're still seeking the thoughts of the players and listening to the player community, but is that on the same level, where things could be greatly altered, as it was during the beta?
Will there be a pre-order and beta option for the upcoming expansions down the road as well?
Thanks for any answers given in advanced and keep up the Great Work
@ravenx
Pls, can you stop proclaiming this. There are also many players, who dont want this. For example me. Isnt one big thread enough?
Well, I'm not against the epic unit number like this. But if it is implemented by the Dev, please make an option that give a single unit with the number of soldiers in it, just like in Heroes Might & Magic. So, the high end PC owner will able to play Massive version of battle, while the owner of Low end PC still able to play the game without to worry about the RAM Problem.
I like units going each after the other in turn, but attacks should be simultaneous unless special abilities (like MoM throwing axes, first strike and negate first strike).
Damage should be less random min-max, and can be linear inside that range. So a sword could be 6-8 damage instead of 1-14 for instance.
Armor could work on the same principle, or be a fixed, not random at all, reduction, not altered by Dex either, but with a small chance to be ignored by the attacker (critical hit).
Unit skill must matter in to-hit and parry/avoid.: Experience must not change hit points only, but must also affect chances to hit and to avoid being hit.
Chance to hit and dodge/parry should depend on dex and experience. To hit in melee could also depend on str, and ranged on dex. Spells should always hit to make things simple and magic to feel awesome.
Walls must be walls. NOT bonus to hit points. Walls, visible on the tactical map, requiring special units to breach. Or fly around. Or send arrows above. But generally, units without engineers/crushers/sappers/miners/catapults/trebuchets can't take out walled cities.
Really, I'm NOT proclaiming for You. I'm proclaiming this for Those Who Want It, which are counted in the other two threads going about it. You can't say there aren't a lot of people who want it, because there ARE a LOT of people who want it. If you like, feel free to count those who want it in the Two Threads going about it, please. Frogboy asked for input here, and input is what I'm giving. It's the first time I've replied to the thread so I think I have the right to say it when so many Other People (not you of course) want it and want them to stick to it even if it is "hard to balance". Something being hard to do isn't an excuse in my book not to do it. If you don't do something because it's hard to do, what does that make you?
Please, don't tell me what I can and can't suggest when You weren't one of the people who wanted the suggestion made. We all have our own opinions my friend, and we're all free to speak them. Would it be cool with you if I asked you not to say something just because I didn't agree with it? I don't think you'd like that much, and my entire argument, along with everyone else's was kept in the threads about it. If the head honcho asks for input, I'll give any input I feel the game needs, just as I expect you or anyone else to, ok
this is a really good ultimate goal. even if you allow people to build siege weaponry on site over a couple of turns ala total war games, it will still render it impossible for armies to just walk into enemy cities, from their own city in the space of one or two turns. i hate this, both as someone who does it and someone who has it done to them. it's bad enough in TW when you lose one of 8 cities, but losing one of 4 this way at the start of an elemental game is crippling.
i'd also hope that the requirement to build a building (ie, with floor space) for walls is removed. it's a waste of space, and confusingly, the empire wall doesn't seem to require this. imo the maintenance costs should be removed. i can see the idea, but it's contradictory for walls to require maintenance when other buildings don't. -1g/turn per city can really hurt, and call me shallow, but i just have a childlike desire to eventually build gleaming stone walls around all my cities.
as a final note to this tangent, i think the settlement walls should be moved to another tech category. right now warfare has all the good stuff, and this would really help rebalance things.
I like Walls in combat too. They've been planned from the start so we should see them once they get the time to implement them
Darvin3, I agree with you entirely.
You're in a game with Magic. Magic lets you break the rules, change the odds, and otherwise use "skill" to turn probable losses into wins. Intelligence use of Magic separates a skillful tactician from an average one.
Hopefully there will be special abilities some day too. Again, those add potential for intelligent use. A simple example would be a unit that entrenches itself, gaining defense (with a cap) for each turn it doesn't move. This way you can take a unit that has weaker base stats but, through tactics, turn it into a unit that could effectively stand up to a unit with a stronger base.
I understand that. You wrote it once or twice. And your "official" Thread is ok. I have nothing against it. You want that and you fight for that. Everything ok. In this request-thread you describe what you want and everbody who is with you could say "Yes, i want it".
But other threads are started and written in another context. For example this thread. Frogboy asked for input and everbody is free to give this input, his personal ideas. So pls dont use words like "we" and "us". That would be nice. thx.
Please fix the Defense Rating issue that currently Bogs the Tactical battles down once units with 15+ Defense ratings (most any stack) hit the field.
Can we please have Stacks Offensive and Defensive ratings reduced as the Stack whittles and then dies.
The current special abilities afforded those units with Essence, even small amounts, are simply wasted when facing Defense #'s above 10+.
So I guess I am in with the separate the ATT/DEF mechanic. What it evolves into cannot be any worse given all the great suggestions noted here.
I love to Tactical, but by 500+ Turns, it becomes a chore and boring as hell watching "MISS" float up and out OVER and OVER and OVER...
Lots of good ideas in this thread.
My top three "easy to implement" wish list for 1.09;
Next on my list for 1.13 would be;
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