For those who are not aware, Stardock made Gal Civ II. If you haven't played it, its worth checking out (and if you haven't a lot that i'm about to say won't make much sense).
Combat
Lets jump into the fun stuff. Combat in Gal Civ II was quite simple. each weapon on your ship rolled from 0 to N where N was the damage value of the weapon (Sound Familiar?). The defender would roll 0 to N of the defense type being utilized. If the defense was not optimal, the sqrt of the defense value was to be used. For each point of damage the defense mitigates, it is temporarily lowered by the amount of damage mitigated for the combat round.
Because each ship was to have a plethora of weapons, the law of averages took ensured that you would not have situations like in 1.09 of elemental where your attack would consistently miss. Derek's new squaring method of attacking has fixed this problem with 1.1. What still remains is the armor problem in elemental. Currently in elemental, you could have hundreds of guys with spears attacking a soldier in full plate and the soldier in full plate would win every time.
Armor
The armor value in Elemental could be depleted just like it is in Gal Civ II. In addition, we could have 3 armor types.
Light: Leather, Padded etc.
Medium: Chain Mail, Scale Mail.
Heavy: Full Plate
Now what I'm about to suggest may seem a little bit weird. Instead of Tiering the armors by the type of materials, I would tier them by the quality of the materials.
Tiers
Light: Padded, Leather, Heavy Leather
Medium: Chain Mail, Scale Mail, Dragon Scale Mail.
Heavy: Light Plate, Heavy Plate, Elementium Plate.
More tiers should be added but this is the general idea. The thought is if we had 7-8 tiers, the technology gaps would be smaller. Right now the difference between two tiers of armor is very dramatic. In Gal Civ II it armor was researched more slowly allowing for more gradual increase in protection rather than the rapid jumps.
Armor Types
Each armor type could have its own unique innate effect. In Gal Civ II this was not the case but I think it could add some nice flavor to the game.
Light: The Armor gets a + bonus to defense when in forest tiles. This represents that leather can blend into trees far better than plate or chain mail.
I was thinking on the order of +10% bonus for a total of 20% def in the woods.
Medium: This armor is starting to get heavy. I would apply a -1 movement penalty in tactical combat for wearing this armor (not per piece but rather if you are wearing atleast medium, your at a -1 movement penalty).
Heavy: The armor offers the most protection but the causes significant speed issues. a -2 movement penalty in tactical combat speed should occur. In addition a -1 combat speed modifier should also occur (hard to swing fast when wearing heavy crap .
Damage Types
With the inclusion of armor types, 3 damage types should also be used. In Gal Civ II, 1 defense type was fully effective against 1 damage type. I'm proposing something similar. If the armor type is effective against a weapon, the weapon has its attack reduced by 33%.
Blunt: Countered by Light Armor.
Piercing: Countered by Medium Armor.
Slashing: Countered by Heavy Armor.
Weapon Types
In gal Civ II (and elemental) there are ridged tiers of weapons. The older weapons fall away to be relatively useless. However in elemental, you have several resources to worry about, which does allow some of the non-metal weapons to remain effective if metal is scarce. If the tiers of weapons were material quality instead of a new weapon type, then more variety will exist in our soldiers.
Slashing
Ax
Short Sword: + combat speed.
Long Sword
Scimitar: +1 combat speed, 2h
Piercing
Rapier: + accuracy
Short Bow: + accuracy
Long Bow:
Spear: 1h
Pike: 2h, -combat speed.
Blunt
Lord hammer: 2h, -combat speed, High damage
Hammer: 1h
This is an incomplete list (no stats, more possible weapons to add later). But generally if we had this many weapons to chose from at all times, soldiers would feel more unique (and would have more purpose). The materials for metal weapons could be, copper, brass, iron, ventri, steel, elementium.
Combat Speed Vs movement
An interesting issue in Elemental right now is that combat speed affects both combat movement and number of attacks. I believe these two should be separated (leave global movement to be the same as tactical (with armor type effects). Combat speed would simply determine the number of attacks a unit gets per turn.
Upgrading
A component missing from Elemental is unit upgrades. Upon researching a new armor material or weapon material, your old units are obsolete. Currently veteran warriors have no way of exchanging their gear for newer equipment. A unit should be allowed to upgrade equipment when inside of a city. Some turns should be spent representing the unit "training" with the new weapon. In Gal Civ II you could only upgrade a ships to another design of the same hull size. I would implement a "armor type" restriction so a light warrior could not suddenly switch to a heavy armor.
Technology
If you have made it thus far in this proposal, you are probably wondering why you would ever use light armor over heavy. Well Besides the fact that heavy armor should cost lots of metal, all three armor types would be unlocked after researching the first "crude armor". From here, 3 separate lines of armor would be available for research. The same would go for weapons.
New Combat Mechanics
I've felt that a few things could really add to the game if they were added in.
Attacks of Opportunity
Should a unit leave melee range from an enemy, that enemy can make a free attack (should AP remain).
xxx
xEx
Yxx
In this diagram, Y can move to any of the X's without an attack of opportunity but should Y move else where, then E can make 1 attack against Y.
Flanking/Support
Enemies with only 1 enemy adjacent to them can offer support to allies. Each ally supported in this manner will add +10% attack (or lower enemy def because they are distracted) to its allies. For example
xEEx
x123
In this example, 1 and 2 cannot support because more than 1 enemy is adjacent to them. However because 3 is only touching one 1 enemy, he can support 2.
Morale
Morale was in this game but it was on an army wide basis. I think this should be moved to a per unit basis. I would start each unit at 100 morale (out of 133). The following would affect morale
Ally Retreated: -5 morale (per group level. So the tier 2 groups (3 soldiers for empire) would be worth -10 morale)
Ally Destroyed: -5 morale (per group level)
Enemy Destroyed: +5 morale (per group level)
Enemy Retreated: +5 morale (per group level)
Flanked: -2 morale
No Enemies nearby: +4 morale, none within 3 squares.
Death of Sovereign: -20 (on top of normal penalties)
Death of Family Member: -10 (on top of normal penalties)
Basically morale would work as follows. All attack values (damages) are multiplied by by the morale (a percentage). These ranges would be from 67-133. So if your side was winning, your troops would start to fight better. Units will start at +1 morale per 2 points of charisma on the highest cha character leading them. This gives more reason to use charisma.
Logistics
This was an extremely important technology in Gal Civ II. It allowed you to create bigger fleets. A fleet was simply a stack that would fight together (similiar to a party but you did not have to be the same unit). The difference is in elemental, your "Stack" be of any size and can have "mini stacks" inside of it. I would propose the following change.
Each faction would start with a logistics value of say 4. This means that only 4 units can make up a stack. Now these 4 units could be parties but you are limited to 4 (until you research more techs.
Every 4 points of charisma raises the logistics cap by 1. This allows heroes to act as leaders (not to mention give more purpose to charisma).
Abilities
There is a lack of abilities to be granted to soldiers/champions. I would suggest to allow a unit to be "trained" in an ability be purchasing it for them during creation. The following are some suggestions on abilities
limit
Regular troops get 1 and each level of veterancy allows for 1 more ability (may be hard to implement, dunno).
Ambusher: +20% attack form forest tile
Morale I (II, III): +5 moral per level of the ability.
Poisoned Weapon: -2 health per turn for 3 turns.
Weary: Cannot be flanked.
There is plenty of more things that could be added to the abilities list. There is always room for improvement.
Anyway please let me know what you think of these ideas. I feel that these (+ modification, these ideas are not perfect) could lead to a very potent and fun game.
The type of serious combat overhaul you're talking about will result in a game of profoundly different character. Might I suggest that this be more appropriate as an idea for a modification, as opposed to a change to the base game?
Some good ideas here. Personally, I would switch piercing and slashing below.
This is exactly what still needs to happen in order to make the combat engine live up to it's potential. A major overhaul.
I agree a mod could handle these changes if the APIs were available. I know frogboy said they were planning on releasing them but it would still be awhile.
Your right, I did mix those two up. I do that a lot (especially when coding, I normally reverse the condition on the first pass )
That is the exact reason I wrote this post. I was thinking to myself that even in the current system (1.1, which is way better in tac combat than 1.09) it is still very simplistic. Most of the time, there is only 1 suite of armor to outfit someone in and they will either use the shield and 1h or a 2h weapon. It can get stale fast.
Thanks for your thoughts guys
Good post, good ideas. The one thing that does concern me is the strength of armor in EWOM 1.1. Currently a unit that has 20 or 30% greater defense than enemy has attack can defeat hordes of enemies without taking a scratch. So I would definitively go for defense penalty when an unit is flanked, furthermore I would propose than each non dodged attack when totally blocked by armor does one point of damage, with that mechanic, hordes of weaker creatures could wear down and defeat a much stronger foe with continued attacks.
Oh and there's was something else....now I remember...
I agree, increasing the minimum damage from 0 to 1 would go a long way to fixing a lot of the man vs horde silliness.
Clubs not doing anything against heavy plate is fine. Swords and maces is pushing it way too far, and that's the main "silliness" issue so far. Armor isn't just overpowered, it's grossly overpowered.
Minimum damage of 1 (so long as you hit) can solve the problem but I much prefer the method used in Gal Civ II. In that game if you hit an enemy (you didn't roll a 0 for weapon damage) and the enemy's defense "absorbed" your attack, that defense type is reduced for the combat round. That can be used in this game to make full plate wearers vulnerable to attack.
For example: 3 soldiers with boar spear vs a soldier with Full plate
Boar Spear: 9 attack (They have 0 armor)
Full Plate Soldier: 12 attack, 30 armor
For the sake of the example, lets assume 2 attacks per soldier and they all hit (not worrying about dodge for the example)
Boar Spear Attack 1: 7. This is absorbed by the full plate guy so he as 23 def remaining for the round.
Boar Spear Attack 2: 3, Still absorbed, 20 def remaining
Boar Spear Attack 3: 8, Absorbed, 12 def remaining,
Boar Spear Attack 4: 4, Absorbed, 8 def remaining
Boar Spear Attack 5: 5, Absorbed, 3 def remaining
Boar Spear Attack 6: 7, 3 damage absorbed, dealt 4 damage.
In this example, 3 soldiers with spears could actually hurt a single soldier in full plate. (I made up that def value, forgot what it is). Now as with everything balancing might be needed to keep that system working well (i.e, still keep armor useful. How to handle party attacks etc). Remember your defense is restored at the start of the round (start of either player's turn due to counter attack).
The problem I can see with a minimum damage approach is that it could lend to an extreme Min-Max problem. In a case where I can always deal 1 damage so long as a hit the opponent, I will either build max armor/weapon troops or bare minimum. Let me explain. If i'm behind in the arms race, I can accomplish the same by arming a peasant with a club or a spear. The club is cheaper but should be a less effective weapon. What then happens is the weapons in the middle of the pack never get used (except when they were the best known weapon) and only the very top tier and the very bottom tier are used.
However with a defense reducing approach, any weapon is viable.
I'm not very fond of armor acting like a spaceship's shield. It feels totally artificial. I'd rather have a flat value + percent system (percent that could be determined from the differential between the weapon and the armor). Which would still allow for total damage avoidance in case the weapon is clearly outclassed, but wouldn't otherwise.
This, however, is why I'm not fond of having all weak weapons deal 1 damage when outclassed.
I agree with you, I meant 1 damage point rule as an addition to defense reducing approach not instead off. As I see it 1 point damage rule is important in the early game, in the late game when units have tons of health it becomes insignificant.
I do agree that having the armor depredation does not feel like a perfect solution. It can seem like a person's armor suddenly fell off. Maybe we should leave that to a special ability (Sunder Armor etc) and go to your percent solution. Now I just got a crazy idea. What if Armor ranged from 0-100. When attacked you roll from from your armor value to 100. The value rolled would be the percent of damage blocked by armor. This would probably need some serious adjusting to work but Its just another thought.
So if you had 80 armor from full plate, then you would roll from 80 to 100. What ever you rolled is the percent of damage absorbed.
Regular percentage absorption works very well too (without the rolling). I know guild wars does a system where every 40 points of armor you have, you are taking about half the damage as someone with 40 less points of armor. This creates an armor curve where it is far more important to have armor period than to simply have the best armor.
For Example:
Light armor 20
Medium Armor 40
Heavy Armor 60.
Heavy armor is 40 more points than light so they are taking half the damage as someone in light armor. I'm not suggesting to take this exact system from GW but something similar can be used. The only problem with a power curve approach is that a lot of people can have a hard time imagining the curve.
One point of damage is not much against monsters (Especially on ridiculous) but against soldiers who have 10 hp, it really adds up.
I'm glad you guys are enjoying the post. Lots of good ideas are here. Hopefully we will get blessed by a dev's presence.
Strength requirements: The heaviest armors should require an insane amount of strength to be used effectively in battle, and even then should severely limit ones action points per combat turn. Remember IRL full plate was primarily used as a ceremonial armor. And then to use anything heavier than a pea-shooter as a weapon whould require god-like strength.
Plate armor was devised to counter sword slashes, and is notoriously weak versus piercing (the little cracks between the plates) and smashing (it could be decimated beyond recognition by a mace) attacks.
Just like every other system in this game, the combat does need a major overhaul. Good post jecjackal.
Yea right now, the heavy armor IIRC only lowers dodge. While it should lower dodge considerably, I also agree about the 1 action per turn. The dodge penalty alone is not enough of a penalty to make lighter armors more viable. Honestly, who cares if I'm always hit if I take 0 damage?
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