Before you read the part of this I wrote, please understand I have the HIGHEST Respect for Frogboy, the Entire Stardock Team, and I am NOT "Calling them out" in Any Way-shape-or form. The end of my post may come off as rude or challenging and I DO NOT mean it to sound that way. I apologize in advanced if it comes off that way.
Frogboy, here is a Massive List of Quotes from this thread. I spent over a hour copying them. I could have copied Almost EVERY SINGLE POST in this thread to explain what I'm about to, but I stopped with just these.
Quotes:
Combat Speed.
So this sounds like movement speed and number of attacks are tied to one another. If that's true I don't like it. A cavalry unit may be very fast but that does not necessarily mean it will be able to attack fast. Maybe I am not understanding this fully though.
Random vs Richness -- First, while exquisitely crafted maps would be nice, I want the battlefield to reflect where I chose to stand and fight. Otherwise we're losing an important facet of Strategy&Tactics. Second, while having hundreds of pre-made maps would solve the 'fought there done that' problem, I question the time/resources to craft hundreds of maps that still are sufficiently unique to avoid that problem. Together these 2 reasons pull me towards random.
Can't there be crafted "spectacular strategic" parts plopped down into otherwise random maps that reflect the chosen battle area, combining the best of both? (yes, another 'want it all' request' )
WINNER. TAKE. ALL.
I'm against this. I'd rather have retreats with the retreating side suffering some sort of severe penalty. I understand the concern about having games drag on, but a winner takes all system will make battles much too risky. It would seem to also eliminate a lot of strategic possibilities, such as delaying attacks, etc. Allow retreats, even if it means that the retreating side is sure to take high casualties or suffer a morale hit for X number of turns.
As for draws...that's interesting. It would be fun if one side or the other could request a parley to ask for a cease fire.
Forcing a player to play out a match in a time frame or number of turns kind of runs contrary to the turn based nature of the game, in my opinion. If attacking is supposed to carry some form of weight, which is clearly is, than withdrawing removes a significant chunk of that weight and drags out the inevitable conclusion longer than is needed. However, its also a good move early when you need to really protect your units as you develop.
I think there should be a threshold for the size of a battle that, once passed, prevents either side from withdrawing and has to commit to the battle. This allows the early game 'careful' strategy while preventing it from becoming the late game 'turtle because I'm going to lose and want to annoy you' strategy.
As already mentioned, this will force later game battles to last longer if not properly addressed, which brings me neatly to:
You mentioned it already, I believe Brad, that a tactical battle can be auto-resolved at any point during the battle? I think this is pretty sufficient to both prevent the longer battles from drawing out into 2 hour slug fests for those who don't want it and to ensure that battles can be as short or as long as a player wants.
Another threshold could be in place, say 80% chance to win, that then allows the person with the 80% chance to automatically end the battle in a multiplayer game if the battle also past the above mentioned threshold to prevent withdraws. This prevents the losing side from drawing out the fight in spite.
As long as there was enough of them, and being tile based it shouldn't be difficult to produce hundreds, I'd prefer the hand made ones that had room to add in additional features to give a sense of cohesiveness - if the map took place on a tile that had a tree or large stone, the game could just add a large scale version of the depicted tree to an already produced map to ensure that it looked correct according to the map. If Disagree: Hour of Darkness - a tile based tactical battle system based on randomized maps - tought me one thing is that random maps can be a blessing and a curse: lots and lots of randomized, similar maps are still just similar maps.
Quoting OMG_BlackHatHedgehog,
Add retreat mechanics! But make units more valuable to compensate, and include the ability to upgrade or retrain existing units. You can sustain heavy losses, but if you "break morale" you should lose units while retreating and also some of your units should "desert" especially if you retreat in enemy territory, where random people (militia?) pick off any stragglers.
Also, for the love of god, Frogboy, fix your servers.
WINNER. TAKE. ALL.I'd rather be allowed to retreat. Yeah games have the possibility to drag on but then maybe someone needs to try new things to get the ball rolling. I agree with what others have said about TW's retreat system for defeated units. Also, I'd like to be able to personally tell which units to retreat or not. That way it can represent a fighting/tactical retreat so not all of your units flee the battlefield. Also, this depends on if AI units have some kind of situational awareness built in. So say your army is being defeated and you have already ordered units you want spared off the battlefield while you want a few others to stay and act as rearguard. Depending on these units' stats, they can fight to the death or disobey your command and run off TW style. I know that's quite the specific example but I hope it makes sense as it could make the larger battles more interesting. Also there should be draws allowed. It happened in real life, where two armies stalemated for a day or two before things were resolved. Also it could portray a day long battle with breaks in-between fighting. It would make fighting over important terrain or map areas more worthwhile instead of having the armies each fallback a few squares or whatever.
Controlling the length of a tactical battle.This should be decided during the battle or in the pregame set-up menu. It needs to be dynamic for battles outside of cities and towns. Sieges and the like should be timed on the food stuffs the village/city has and also of the besieging army, if their logistics holds or something like that.
Randomization vs. Richness.I'd prefer randomization over richness. It makes things more realistic and entertaining. Pre-made maps can, over time, get repetitive. I'd prefer to fit on the terrain I placed my army on. I was also thinking battlefields should always be... maybe 2x as large as the largest army on the battlefield to allow for maneuvering your troops around. I also think it would be cool to allow battles to "change maps." I.e. say you deploy an army just out of sight of a nearby city to engage the enemy. Things go bad and your army is pushed back across the map but still fighting. Soon you realize your city is now apart of the map even though it wasn't originally.
Random vs Rich
Would it not be possible to randomly place "sets" of terrain? So instead of having to craft whole tactical battle terrain maps, you can create battle terrain in bits and pieces, from tiny little rocks that annoy your footsoldiers, to swathes of swampland crafted meticulously with advantages and disadvantages. I'm pretty much against purely richness/set scenes because as someone said earlier, once you know the battle terrains, you can setup for particular tactics EVERY time; I don't believe this would be fun.
Winner Takes All
Couple of ideas that i saw earlier are good: 1) allow retreating, but have magic/items later on that prevent it (orion 1/2 had "warp interdictor" = no retreating).
2) As it is turn based, once the option to retreat is chosen, then the units retreating CAN NOT attack/parry/defend/counter any attacks done on them. Which makes sense, as they should be fleeing with their backs AWAY from the enemy.... Also a good deterrent NOT to pick a fight that you can't win.
Two new points I'm not sure if they have been mentioned yet: 1) Don't allow defenders in Cities to retreat, as they have no where to retreat to.
2) As an alternative to the penalizing gauge I saw someone mention, how about heighten all attack stats as a battle goes on? This would accelerate the tactical battles. The gauge should be adjustable by the player, ie come into effect after N turns, have X multiplier. The alternative would be to weigh up the damage each team has done upon each other, and have the team that has done more damage be awarder the attack multiplier based on either player settings, or the difference in damage done. You could have the second system designed so the multiplier would be calculated and applied after N turns chosen by the player.
PS: to those who think controlling THOUSANDS of troops is an issue in turn based battles.... Look to how you create thousands of troops... You build them as ONE unit, control them as ONE unit. The only issue is having LOTS of different unit stacks, but I cannot see my self controlling more than 15 stacks in the one battle. Already that would be a large maintenance cost, especially if they were stacks of 1000s !!!!!!
Winner Take All -- No. A small force, well-led, using terrain, hit&run, etc. being effective is impossible with WTA as it'd be wiped out in the first skirmish. Many historic/fantasy battles involved such small forces taking on larger but poorly led forces.More reasons for No to WTA:
-Knowing the loser loses all, players will be hesitant to engage unless they have an obviously overwhelming force. This will tend to slow down the game as each side waits for said advantage, and tends to promote 'gamey' Strategy&Tactics (ie doing things designed to fit the game's rules instead of according to good S&T) -- similar to Civ4 SOD type warfare. Maneuvering to obtain an advantage due to terrain is good, but waltzing around waiting for overwhelming numbers may not be.
-If units gain xp over time, WTA kills off the loser's promoted troops, exacerbating the loss. Maybe that's a good thing to some -- it would further tip the balance to the winner and speed up the game's end by increasing the steamroll effect. To others that's not a good thing, as it makes it hard to come back from a loss and removes the back&forth ebb&flow. Being on the ropes then coming back is a lot of fun, and making that even harder than it otherwise would be might not be a good thing.
-If there's differences in unit training/quality, this is one good way to express it (other than merely increasing hit points, armor, damage, etc.). Peasant troops may only have Stand&Fight and Run! Away! options. Veteran troops might add in Organized Withdrawal and Ambush. Elite troops might add in Feints, Spoiling Attack, and Fighting Retreat. Penalizing a retreat with total losses removes one way to distinguish better trained troops.
-Retreats can be offensive (in the 'big/meta picture'). Say a large force unexpectedly approaches your capitol and your main force (who's location is unknown by your approaching foe) is off towards another foe, and you only have a small blocking force available to delay the attackers. Luring the approaching foe away from your capitol and towards your main force by forcing battle would be hard if your blocking force would automatically be wiped out. If some of the blocking force could survive it would present the attacker with a more difficult decision -- delay the assault on the capitol to finish off the blocking force (leading the enemy towards the approaching friendly troops and buying time to reinforce the capitol), or press on to the capitol and risk the blocking force causing trouble behind him.
Withdrawal should be difficult.
I would like tactical battles to be on a map significantly larger than the area between the two forces. If Combat takes place between two adjacent tiles, then the map should be at least 9, with at least as much distance to the nearest point of withdrawal as is between them.
Harrying forces and skirmishers that fight on the move and can't be properly designed to work in a static environment are then functional. It solves many things besides just withdrawal. It would also be nice for combat to take place over larger distances when other troops are in the area. This will allow you to cut off the retreat of the enemy you've beaten.
Withdrawal should also come with penalties based on the conditions. The Total War games use some. An attacker that then withdraws without even fighting should be hit with a severe penalty. A defender a lesser one, but still something that stays with them. Cowardice is often ill received even when it's mistaken intelligence. Commanding units on the field would be seen as incompetent or worse. Units under their command would at the least have poor morale for a while following the occurrence.
Combat length. Why end the battle.
Whether five minutes or five hours, all you need is a time limit. No need to play with morale or anything. Just pick it up where it left off the next turn. Adding any troops that moved in from the edge of the field.
WTA, no.
Personally I feel that the abiliy to skirmish , harass and guerilla your enemy to death is all very viable and interesting tactics combined with the greater armies providing control and siege abilities.
For example I'd love to have my great glittering standardbearing Cav/Inf/arch army in the fields defending and attacking while having smaller patrol and harass forces in say, mountains and forests able to handle enemy scouts and darting out now and then to pick of a few of the enemies main army troops.
It allows for living breathing strategies and tactics not only dominated by the bigger side.
On a side note; in all my years of gaming ( and there has been a lot of those ), I think very few games have engaged me as much as Dominions 3, on the combat side of things at least.
Turnbased tactical combats is allmost always a dealbreaker in bigger MP games ( and I love those, and yes, I know E:WoM is not exactly catered to that in the first place ) , autoresolve can always be done but more often than not leaves you with a foul tase in your mouth as your halfling slingers charge into a wall of halbeards.
In conclusion then? I'd like to see the ability to fight my turnbased battles as I see fit (when not in a MP environment) but being able to (Dom 3 wise) predefine army setup and tactics. With the AI being written as it is I would think there would be huge benefits in providing general combat "AI scripts" , ie. "Flank and attack rear" , "provide shield cover" , and using these for auto resolve.
You could even provide general Cavalry, archer, infantry, skirmisher etc. templates for those not inclined to the micro.
Controlling the length of a tactical battle. Can be made as above. But I think in SP your combat can take as long as you want. MP; let players set a threashold for Min and Max ArmySize (canb both be 0 - unlimited) for when it should go into autoresolve. ( that is ; use manual combat for battles between these values ). I think I would prefer this combined , defineble tactics over the , 5 minutesyou'redonebaby approach.
Randomization vs. Richness. I think in general the combination of both is best. Normally premade things is the most interesting since randomization needs to be normalized to not run out of control... wich in turn leads to things not feeling random a all...just bland... Premade battlefields for different terrains with the ability to set randomized tiles specific for that terrain ( of course tiles could belong to many different terrain sets ) would probably be the most interesting before the community has created 12348679990000 battlefields in the editor.
Frogboy
Combat Speed.
Your combat speed determines how many "moves" / attacks you get during a particular turn. In the begging of Lord of the Rings, what makes Sauron such a bad ass is that he can attack so many units at once. He has, in game turns, an incredible combat speed.
Sauron is a bad ass, but I think that it would be more something like a area attack hitting several ajacent tiles in gameplay terms. (not unlike a dragon breath)
If you only have a global combat speed like you describe, you will have the following problems:
- a unit that have a high combat speed will be able to move very fast while it might not be appropriate
- having the combat speed used for both movement and attacks will make combat more static, as moving will means less attacks
- If you want a big unit to be able to be very effective when fighting hordes of units and give him a high combat speed, it makes this unit able to be very effective against another big unit by focusing all its attacks on it.
For instance, if Sauron has 15 "action points" allowing him to do 15 attacks for 10 damage each, he could also do the same 15 attacks on the same target for 150 damages (ignoring potential damage reduction from armor). If instead he could attack an area for 30 damage in each square (or to each individual figure in the area if squads are managed as unique units in the same square during battle), he would still be very powerful against hordes of mooks, but against a dragon he would only do one 30 damage attack. Still good, but probably not overpowered.
Frogboy
Originally, Elemental was going to have continuous turn combat. That effectively meant real-time. Ultimately, after playing around with it, we decided to implement turn based (simultaneous turns based on combat speed) with tiles.
So both players give their orders, and both are resolved at the same time ?
I suppose that units will be able to change orders if the situation change during their action ?
If you move a cavalry unit and during the move another enemy come between the cavalry and its original target, will the cavalry unit attack this other unit, or will it ignore it and try to continue charging the original target ?
Frogboy
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).
Preventing retreats would also means that each battle must be fought until the death of the very last unit, wich could also drag on.
But if you allow retreats, and have the retreat be simulated in the battlefield (with needing to move the fleeing units to your border of the battle map in order to escape) this too would drag the battle.
I think that MoM did it good : you have a "flee" button, and have a chance to loose some (or all) of your units (and some fame too sometimes).
You could have the movement speed of the fleeing units compared to the fastest enemies to give modifiers to each unit survival chances (fast cavalry and flying units should escape easier unless ther are other fast or flying units in pursuit), and it could sometimes be frustrating to lose a unit that should have been able to flee because it was at the rear of your forces, but at least it would be immediately resolved.
You could also have modifier to the chance of escape depending of if you fight in your territory, neutral land, or in the enemy kingdom. (a unit lost during escape might not be dead but just a deserter. If the war go on near its home, it might be more tempted to join the army again after the defeat that if it was a war of conquest far from his family)
And if a fight last for more that N turns, you could have a auto-retreat from the attacker (maybe with 100% escape chance, the defenders too might be too tired too)
Frogboy
Controlling the length of a tactical battle.
We believe that users should have a lot of control over how in depth they want their battles to be. Should a tactical battle finish in less than a minute or should they last 2 hours? How do we make it so that players can control this?
Warning: sometimes there is no solution that can be satisfying for all situations. If you try too hard to do one, it could make both of them bland and less fun.
Better to focus to one system and optimize it. If the battle take some time but are fun, the players won't mind. Of course, you can still have auto-resolve and the like for extreme situations.
Predefined map elements + random map generation using those elements should be the best of both worlds.
Why did I quote all those? Well, if you go back and count EVERY REPLY, then Subtract replies made by the same person, you will OBVIOUSLY SEE that ALMOST EVERYONE DISAGREES with these new concepts you are introducing to Tactical Battles. You even do a bit of "Double Talk" in your own OP without realizing it (either that or you thought no-one would notice). Here's what you say, just in a different order...
Quoting Frogboy,
Controlling the length of a tactical battle. We believe that users should have a lot of control over how in depth they want their battles to be. Should a tactical battle finish in less than a minute or should they last 2 hours? How do we make it so that players can control this?
Before that Frogboy says this...
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).
(The BOLD Parts are the REAL Important parts of what he says there)
By stating "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." he goes DIRECTLY AGAINST what he just said saying "We believe that users should have a lot of control over how in depth they want their battles to be."...
There is a Direct Contradiction RIGHT THERE. If those limiting ideas are implemented then YOU DO TAKE CONTROL AWAY FROM THE PLAYER....PERIOD.
The only Logical Option is to simply Realize that THE PLAYER can CHOOSE to AUTO-RESOLVE the battle at ANY TIME. THE PLAYER decides how Long or Short a battle is. It SHOULD NOT be decided by some artificial time limitation.
It's just like the debate going on in some replies in this thread about Movement Speed being Directly Applied to Attack Speed. Why is that exactly? Because , Again, they Chose to Simplify The System. They boiled it down instead of having two separate calculations for speed. Why not just include a new parameter called "Weapon Speed" WITHOUT US MODDING IT IN?
Now I hope Some of You people see why SIMPLIFYING THINGS IS F'KING BAD!!!!!! Dumbing Down a System and Making it Less-Complicated is BAD!!!!! It purposefully ADDS DESIGN FLAWS!!!!
Just because something is complicated behind the scenes doesn't mean The Player will be Bogged Down with Micromanagement. This is a Strategy War Game people!!! Treat it like one and stop turning it into a game of F'king Checkers!!!!
I've seen companies do this On The Inside. I Am and Have Been a PROFESSIONAL Beta Tester for MANY Companies. I know the "Real" reasons why things are simplified and it isn't Always what they tell people it is (No I'm NOT accusing Stardock of this, just saying I've seen it first hand). Some companies do it to make it easier on THEM-SELVES, because they are LAZY, or because continued Development Costs are Too Expensive.
I can tell you this though...this is NOT a Real Beta. If it was each and every One of Us would have the Internal Alpha of the game. This grand experiment of Stardock's to work with the community is nothing more then a over-blown marketing ploy. Want proof? How come we aren't talking about balancing? I mean SPECIFIC balancing? How much "Hitpoints" does a Dragon have? How much "Damage" does a Flaming Sword do? Will it hurt a Water Elemental more then a Fire Elemental? Who knows? We don't!!! In a Real Internal Beta and Quality Assurance, these things matter. Stardock DOES HAVE a Internal group of Testers playing a Far Different version of the "Beta" then we are...and that's a Fact.
That Can't happen here though, right? Frogboy has already stated, multiple times (even bragged about it) that with Elemental there is No Rush because of Money. They already have Tons of Money and are Making Money from Other Products so that means they can take As Long As They Want with Elemental. The game won't be Ready until they say "It's Ready", and not a second before...right?
So Why Not take the time to DO THIS ONE PART RIGHT?!!?!?!?! Next to the magic system this is arguably the Most Important part of the game. Don't F'K it up!!! If you do....I'll never buy a Stardock product again.