In a pre-gunpowder world fixed defensive structures like castles were basically unconquerable without massive advantages in manpower or some other kind of factor. That was why sieges could last for months or years, because no credible attack could be mounted.

In a world with magic? Who knows.

I think the point of the "myth of the offensive" in WWII is that people thought that encircling the enemy was "always" possible. Even in today's world, its only possible with massively superior technology or numbers.

It would not be wise to assume that you can always avoid their main forces ... therefore a single axis attack, regardless of the pathing, is not the best approach.

I think that preparing ONLY to attack the enemy's rear guard and reserves/supplies is the very same mistake that all the powers in WWII made ... thinking that their "best weapons" whether it be armor, bombers, or whatever ... would only have to fight the rear and flanks, as opposed to the enemies best weapons ... leaves you poorly prepared.

Instead, it is best to design your best weapons to take on the enemy's best weapons ... and if you get a chance to attack an exposed flank or reserve then HEY, THATS GREAT ... but it shouldn't be your ONLY option for a conclusive victory.

coooooool!  this is looking a lot like what i was hoping it would be like - a table top miniatures game!

have you stardock dudes played any of those kinds of games like De Bellis Antiquitatis or Field of Glory or the modern default of Games Workshop games like warhammer or 40k?  actually field of glory from slitherine has a pc and mac version that's not perfect and the AI is pretty brain dead but it's pretty much as close as it gets in terms of a pc version.  (actually DBA Online is much closer and better but it's pretty much multi-player only and so i haven't played with it much).

(actually, i'm really really hoping that the elemental system ends up being a close pc incarnation of Hordes of The Things (an official fantasy variant of De Bellis Antiquitatis))

that paradigm would offer a lot of true tactical depth e.g.: absolute importance of maintaining your battle lines, missile weapons are basically harassment, terrain is VERY important, manipulation of morale and getting enemies to route is truly how battles are won (i.e. importance of depicting the fact that nobody fights to the last man), and the related notion of the QUALITY OF UNITS (distressingly, you have not mentioned this but i think it is absolutely CRUCIAL) where battle hardened veterans are far more effective and valuable because they are less likely to route than conscripted newbs....

anyway, i totally applaud you for going turn based.  another game system that is similar to table top minis is sega's total war series but the real time element really takes the tactics out of it and makes it more tank rushy imo.

as for the other issues brought up in the post:

- winner take all sounds good.  to have armies not disappear from the strategic map after a defeat on the tactical battlefield would make the game feel very wishy washy and undecisive... not to mention LONG.  so the army could have been killed to the last man or everyone routed for their lives but on the strategic map, they're gone.

- in terms of game speed, some granularity would be nice - so that there's a "full mode" where all combat is resolved for me and for the computer and i get to watch how everything plays out in verbose mode.  then a mode where only my combat is resolved fully and the enemy actions is synopsized with a line of text.  then both is synopsized.  then just autocombat.

as someone who plays the pc version of FOG, i know that i get frustrated waiting for my turn while the computer takes just as long as it do to not only make its move but resolve its combat turn!

anyhoo, i have faith brad wardell!  make it awesome and make the money leap from my wallet!

luck

jin

The One made Sauron so bad-ass.  Plus he was quite a large humanoid.

On the "Winner Take All" point of how many turns does the attacker have to "cap" the battle?   Sounds like a perfect opportunity to incorporate some sense of logistics into the game.  Make N proportional to the number of baggage carts that the army brought along with it, and make those a viable target for the defender to capture to cause N to suddenly drop and put the battle into a "sudden death" mode.

Of course spells, etc... can reduce the need for baggage carts.

Morale should figure into how long battles last also.  Morale systems should have some play in both the strategic and tactical sense.  E.g. Bring along some units just for the morale bonuses.  Assasinate such units of the opposing side.    Tactically, there should be local morale at least in super simple form.  E.g. Have a sense of center, and ight and left flanks.  E.g.Your flanks might crush the enemy flanks, but the opposing superhero with some magic combo might send your center fleeing for their life due to poor morale, effectively ending the battle. 

Morale has real significance in battles since the beginning of time, and without it the units are just Jaga Fett clones.

On the "combined arms" aspect, consider that one's mount makes the benefit of being mounted.  E.g. some mounts provide speed (flanking) or even allow the 'Parthian shot'.  Other mounts provide shock (i.e. an initial bonus in the charging due to mass) (e.g. mammoths) or are essentially "hitpoints".  Some mounts give a combo of the above.

 Shock units that successfully hit should lower some of the enemy morale.

On "randomization", generally any randomization makes the game like craps or slots whichs basically negates strategy. So except when gamboling on a random benefit to try to tip the balance of a stalemate, I think randomization should be limited.  Slight variance is to be expected, so light randomization is to be expected.  In other words if two melee units of equal base strength face off, you expect a variable outcome, but if the omega super tank faces against the wimpy melee unit you do not expect variance to favor the wimpy unit without divine intervention.

That said there may be room for some units that throw some randomization on the battlefield.  E.g. stealth units that just might assasinate a general or hero, etc...

Thresholds is good.  No need to waste the gamer's time with pointless skirmishes that the AI provoked, or were the result of an "attack move".

Terrain considerations, that's great.  Great place for engineer-units as well as special abilities to negate/ablate those (e.g. fly over the fort walls, burn down the forest that the archers are hiding in).  I'd rip the hill/guerilla promotions from CIV4 for starts, as well as give some field fortifications that can be improvised during a battle.  One thought: for each engineer in the army, allow the defending player to set up some free field improvisations (e.g. palisades, traps, mini balistas,etc..).

I like this idea, but it depends a lot of how much the options, or mod capabilities, allow, which itself depends on how difficult they are to program (or allow to mod).  But if they are possible and reasonably feasible, I'd like to see them included in options or (have to the capacity to be in) mods. 

Best regards,
Steven. 

I haven't read through all 17 pages so apologies if some of this has already been decided. Here are my thoughts though:

I think retreats should only preserve champions, all 'standard' units should not survive. But if only champions remain, retreat should become impossible, to prevent endless champion retreats. In terms of time limits, I think rather than a set time-limit there should be a 'reinforcement' time. After, say, x minutes or whatever, the defender can call in units up to one tile away. 2x minutes, two tiles, etc etc, giving the attacker a real pressure to finish the fight within x minutes but not resulting in doom if they don't.

Perhaps there should be a "Don't auto-resolve if a champion is in the army" option. Or, more complex, you can set a flag on an army that says "Don't auto-resolve" my fights. Maybe my favourite peasant, young Bobbert, who has been with me since turn one, is in my army of three men and a chipmunk. I would like the chance to defend Bobbert. He has a wife and child back home you know! Plus a complex back-story but that's a tale for another time.

In terms of time, you could do army scaling? So, if battles were set to 'fast', only 50% of units would actually appear in tactical. Set to 'epic', unit numbers double for tactical. Something like that?

Randomisation:

How about special battles (e.g. city defense) are pre-set, others random? If this doesn't take absurd amounts of development time. Perhaps there could be some little tricks too, e.g. if you attack a Sovereign, there is a pre-generated map, or the defender can 're-roll' the battle-field once or twice. Mix things up a bit.

Thanks for taking the time to read this far . Unless you skipped to this line in which case... i hate you!

I'd say, that atleast in 1player game you should not limit the time of tactical combat. You can always press auto-resolve (it could be also option during combat) if you think it's gonna take too long...

"WINNER. TAKE. ALL. This is the part where we want to hear your opinions. We do ask that you keep an open mind on what we ultimately go with.  My opinion is that the attacking player has the onus to finish the battle in N turns. After N turns, the attacker morale starts to go lower and lower at which point the defender can come out and make mince meat out of them.  The question is, what should determine what N is?  Or should we allow retreating? Should we allow draws?  I’m against retreats or withdraws because it’s one of those things that allows the game to drag on. It’s a strong personal preference of mine that two men enter, one man leaves. (Your heroes will tend to escape though)."

I don't like that. I didnt't like that when playing MoM, AoW1 or AoW2. There are tons of great examples which allow tactical retreats like the Total War Series. You don't want to run player away - create troops (or spells) designed to hunt down retreating troops like cavalry, wyverns, dragons,... fast and hart hitting troops. It completes the strategy ambition you have - otherwise it would be in my opinion just another mainstream kiddy product pretending to be good fantasy turn based strategy.

And why should the heroes only have RPG elements? Have you ever took a look to Master of Monsters (Sega Genesis) or Battle of Wesnoth (PC)? I want to build my armies as well as my cities. I want to have the choice to be able to flood the enemy with countless troops or create an elite strike force growing in experience with every battle. What would be a hero without great companions helping him in his battles (Like King Arthur and his brave Knights)?

And it would be also great if T1 troops would stay valuable until late game and if they wouldn't become totally useless like in AoW2. What would be a great horde people (like orcs) without numbers?

So plz consider this, have a look at the games mentioned and try to fuse this into a worthy MoM successor then I would be willing to buy this.

Rgds

Let's be honest...retreating doesn't take more out of you than chasing.  Better, retreating gives you a better opportunity to choose the fighting ground (to your advantage).

A well-designed retreat is traditionally an extremely important tactic in war.  If you have no ground to hold, you can fall back, regrouping in defensible territory... or you can break into a march after the retreat and meet up with your allied troops.

Generally, giving chase to a retreat is a huge gamble.  I don't see why this should not be the case in this game.  I suggest that units can only retreat if they're on the edge of the map... you can either auto-retreat or retreat manually (and sacrifice troops to slow your opponent, of course).

Oh yeah.  I will always take well-designed random over richness.

Random vs Premade? Random.

Retreat? How about using a battle stance setting before each battle starts. Eg:

Berserk - Will not retreat. Attack and speed bonus.

Advance - Can retreat after 50% losses.

Balanced - Can retreat after 30% losses.

Defensive - Can retreat after 20% losses. Defence bonus. Speed penalty.

Battle time?

Up to 10 minutes for big battles. Good examples: Field of Glory. Age of Wonders. Crown of Glory. Disciples. MoM.

Other?

Hexes.

Unit facing bonuses/penalties.

Unit neighbour morale bonus.

Unit neighbour attack bonus.

Unit dig-in defence bonus.

How about if you, as a player, build anything in a particular area, then it's automatically a premade map for battles.  This may also allow you to add things in the game you can do to improve your "battle map terrain", like even possibly reshaping the land to be a natural fortress if you have a powerful enough spell.  Or you could simply have more "defensive" premade maps based on how much a player has built in that area. Otherwise, any territory where there is no "building" could be random.

Winner Takes All

With respect to the winner take all debate, would it be possible to begin tactical maneuvers before the battle takes place to determine whether or not retreat is possible? For example positioning a unit directly behind the enemy and then attacking from the front with another to box them in. This in confluence with a suggestion above based on Total War retreats would add another element of strategy in that if you don't cut off their rear, you could at least attempt to compensate in battle itself with units with greater combat speed so as to potentially run down retreating units.

Map Selection

Hundreds of designed maps could get stale after a few months, I'd rather see random maps. At least that way there's still a possibility of a map with nicely placed strategic terrain, whereas with preselected maps, there is absolutely no possibility of randomization. In the long run I'd prefer to see long run.

Battle Length Control

I agree with the post above concerning accessories and the like having an impact on battle length. Perhaps battle length could depend on provisions the army has. This wouldn't limit the battle necessarily but players would begin to see penalties after provisions have been exhausted making winning a battle more difficult. And maybe if a player wants to engage in a lengthy battle they could establish supply lines directly from their kingdom. These supply lines themselves would also add to the depth of strategy as flanking an invading army and cutting off their supply lines would be a pain in the arse and could turn the tide of battle. This kind of reminds of COH and the strategic points where a well placed capture could shut down more than half an army's production. Perhaps battle length N would be independent for both armies and would correlate to provisions on hand and the presence of a supply line or lack thereof. 

After I wrote this I began to wonder how this supply line concept would manifest. I think maybe the advancing army could construct something before battle begins to establish the route within a certain radius of the point they are attacking. After battle begins this could appear on the tactical map (maybe some horses with sacks on their backs or something) and if the enemy so chooses they could attempt to reach it and destroy it thereby cutting supplies turning a previously infinite battle into a finite one..

Random Maps always.

Retreating or Withdrawing options for BOTH sides ALWAYS

This isn't suppose to be a chess game so I don't agree with Winner take all.

The problem with retreats or withdraws is usually the ai gets into a ping pong match when it can't ever win. Something would have to be coded into the ai to retreat several squares before looking for new enemies to attack after a retreat or withdraw or to at least join up with another stack to try again.

As far as N goes if the combat is simple and considered fast and quick then a 25 turn limit like in MOM will be fine. But, the running around the map for 25 turns by a flying unit vs a whole army or stack just to prevent taking the square should be eliminated. The army with the most combat points should take the square after 25 turns this could also include bonus points for kills during the battle. I have never liked the run around the map for 25 turns ability in any of these games that have allowed it. It's gamey and in the real world the army would have moved inside of the castle or city while the silly unit flies around above laughing at them but with no power to defeat them. Then a few days later the archery corp arrives and shoots it to death anyway.