From what I have gathered, I think that the combat phase is going to be much more simple than some are making it out to be.

In GalCiv2 (for those who haven't played), combat is a very simple affair. You can choose the ships in your fleet, and you can choose who, when, and where to fight. That's pretty much it. You click the button and the battle plays out. You can watch your dreadnaught yank the danglies off of the Iconians in the tactical viewer, or you can skip it altogether and cut to the stats. Once the battle starts however, the player is merely a spectator.

I believe that the "next step" that Frogboy is mentions is the fact that we can now have *some* control over the tactical end of things. We will be able to choose our units, place them where we like on the map, and give them certain commands. After this is done, and the battle is started, I think that we will still be spectators.

I'm fine with this. It worked in GalCiv2, and it will work here, even in MP. I don't really care to have to micromanage battles. I'm so busy giving commands that I can't *see* what's happening; I get tunnelvision. Much nicer IMO to just sit back and be able to watch the battle play out- it's going to be a pretty good show I bet.

You're partially misunderstanding me. If tactical combat were not going to be in the game - if battles were going to play out like they do in GC2, where you have no control of the combat itself, then a leadership skill which improves your troops' combat AI would be a creative and innovative way of handling leadership. However, the moment you add actual tactical combat into the game, so the player has the choice of taking control of his troops directly, what was once a good idea turns into a terrible one. If the player has a hero with poor leadership skills in charge of an army, he would be down-right stupid to auto-resolve combat. The choice becomes the following: Do I auto-resolve, letting a deliberately stupid AI control my forces, or do I step in and take control myself, knowing that I am at least a good as even the best combat AI? The answer is obvious, and it would essentially force you not to use auto-resolve unless you have a high-leadership hero. Basically, it forces you to put in work and probably sacrifice to make auto-resolve usable. And auto-resolve should be usable from day 1, and with results as comparable to human control as possible.

What do you mean by "effectively lead ten men"? Do you mean that hero won't be able to head an army of greater than 10 units? Or that any units that go above that limit will run around like chickens with their heads cut off? Or that the hero will control 10 units, while the player controls the rest? I am absolutely opposed to any idea which would split control of your own forces between you and an AI, so I would not at all like the latter. The former situation would be ridiculous, I wouldn't like that one, either. The middle, however, where leadership would determine the maximum army size is better but Campaigner brought up a good argument against it. If you run into a string of bad luck, or are just in a really messy war, and most or all of your best generals are killed, then you are screwed, with no recourse. Even if you have a huge military remaining, you wouldn't be able to field it. Let's take the nasty war scenario - pretend it was a defensive war, and you manage to fight off the invader but lose your best generals in the process. Now, you have no way of protecting yourself against the next invader. He has 3000 units divided into 3 equal forces of 1000. You have 5000 units, but the largest army you can field is 500, the next largest is 300, and so on. You have the greater military force, but you are artificially limited to using a tiny portion of them at once.

Read below before responding to this, as what I have to say in response to the next part of your post is very much related to this.

I agree completely. But that said, I should be able to field an army of 1000 without a hero at the front if I want. Kind of like in Medieval II: Total War - you could field armies without a general (a captain would automatically be promoted to lead them), but that force would be at a significant disadvantage against an opposing force led by a remotely competent general. A new recruit should be less effective at leading an army (whether that army is 10 or 10,000 strong) than a veteran - but this needs to be implemented in a way that impacts tactical combat and auto-resolve equally. Anything else would be broken.

And anything that splits control of my forces between me and an AI, which will have no clue what my plans are, would also be broken. Brad is great, but I don't think even he could make an AI good enough for that to work well. And having a trait like leadership which limits maximum army size is also somewhat broken, as it would bring back the Killer Stack problem along with some new ones. A general/hero with leadership should not be a requirement for any army of any size, but having one should confer combat bonuses of some sort to make whatever force under his command more effective. The conferred bonus could even be divided among all his subordinates, so having a huge army under a hero with a little bit of leadership will dilute the effect.

Some of you would like to have auto resolve at the max setting right at the start while some others would like to have it scale with experience or something like it.

I for one can't see my army right at the start battle out against the AI at the max setting. There would be no advantage to having a hero leading them. What possible gain could I have to bring a  hero into battle?

When I as the Channeler take command of my troops against another player does it mean that I should use the auto resolve because I might not be a very good tactician so bettter  leave it to the AI to beat my human opponant because it's better then I am. I think not. I think that auto resolve should take in consideration your troops it's experience and the leader's experience. It's only logical.

Sending a grand army in the field and then pointing to a captain in the lines and saying YOu are the leader and all of a sudden because it's auto resolve he becomes the most experience leader in history makes very very little sense to me. You made poor choices and sent your grand army without a proper leader now is time to pay the price. Auto resolve and hope for the best or use you Powerful ability as a Channeler to take command of the battle. Being a channeler does  have it's advantages. You could be thousands of leagues away and you can still take command.

For those of you that still want a powerful auto resolve how about making a spell in the game that sends the essence of the channeler to the battle to take command and this way you have your general and it uses the  best Ai. It could be a possible solution.

I for one think that auto resolve should scale with skill. I find it more true to the fantasy genre.

It's my two coppers.

Rather than have Leadership apply some arbitrary bonus to 'attack', 'defense', 'damage', etc., what about allowing Leadership to affect the responsiveness of units?  Some of the old paper hex-based wargames use a simliar approach to reflect good command and control structures.  Higher command & control ('leadership') allows units to move further, engage in more battles, react to enemy movements, etc.

Morale bonuses for certain units should also be on the table: everyone likes working for a (perceived) winner.

This is pretty much what I had in mind - so that if the hero had low leadership only 10 units might get a stat bonus even if the army size was larger. And as the leadership skill increased more units would get the bonus. This would apply to either auto-resolve OR player controlled - the affected units would still get whatever bonus.

Yes previously I did say that it would use better AI due to the leadership bonus, but Pigeon has convinced me that is probably not a good route to go.

I really like the idea of leadership being part of the equation of "who attacks first" or initiative. That could have a large impact on the outcome and would work well in either autoresolve or player controlled tactical combat.

Have you by any chance played Master of Magic or any of the Age of Wonders games..?

OMG you sound just like me with this "it's logical". "It follows logic" etc. etc.....Some things are FAR from logical and gameplay mechanics in a PC game should follow what's the most fun, logic and realism be damned!

If you seriously mean what you say here then you're making the same mistake(s) that I have made in that you trust WAAAAY too much in logic.

Just like Pigeon says, auto resolve is for those battles which you would win anyway without losses which is not necessary to play since you can't lose.

See above....(for my sanitys sake!)

And what arguments do you have for that point of view except logic?

And how the hell do you find it more true to the fantasy genre..?

I actually think you're arguing for the sake of arguing, to see how wrong arguments people can agree to, because in my eyes your decisions would make for a horrible game. I wonder if you think about how the game would play with your mechanics....

It's clear that Leadership should be scrapped or do something completely different.

And if the combat isn't micromanageable like in Age of Wonders then it's goodbye and see you in Demigod and StarCraft 2 where I can actually control my units.

Let me put it this way, lets take 10 PLAYERS and put them in front of a battle. Say 5000 units for you and 7000 for the AI.

Lets leave the PLAYERS fight out the battles. Chances are some of the players might loose. Because some players might not be very good tacticians. When I played MOM the AI was not good and it was better to play out the battles for obvious reasons. This will not be the case.

Now the same 10 battles played by the AI.

I see one possible outcome. If the AI is always at it's best without any advantages given to Heroes and or leaders in a battle, leadership and or moral and things like that. I fear the AI would win all 10 battles. I don't see that as fun at all.  For me there would be no possible advantages in training heroes to be great generals. I just leave it to the AI and it will win for me.

When the PLAYER takes control of everything if you are good tactician chances are you will win battles because you take everything in. If you leave the AI to do battles for you it seems to me that most people want the AI to do the exact same thing.

I don't like that. I can see why some people would enjoy that. I've played Everquest 1 when it came out. It was hard it was ruthless and it was fun. After a few years, the game became easy fast and without any challenges. Because some people would not want to bother with anything remotely difficult it had to be EASY. I don't want it easy, I don't want everything to be handed down. I want to have to work for it.

I trust in Frogboy to write very good AI he's proven his capabilities and I know it will be good. So what I envision is simple, if the auto resolve is used I want the user to have bonuses and or penalties deopending on who is in commande of the army. I can,t see an army going ionto battle without a leader.

HOWEVER if auto resolve is suppose to take the place of the channeler then everything I have said is nullified and is worthless. If this is the case then the AI should always be at it's best.

Keep in mind my friends that this is just a personal opinion and when the Beta comes along I am pretty sure the majority will take the pot.

Well, if Leadership is an army stat boost due to better tactics and morale from having a great hero, the AI with the smaller army could still beat the AI with the larger army, even if they're the same AI script, because the hero is going to act as a multiplier on the effectiveness of that smaller army.

So Leadership is helping without causing the AI to be deliberately dumber without it.

If leadership just enhances the ai, drop the idea. People who want to play effectively will never invest points in it and handle battles manually. Make it give bonuses to the troops morale or something like that instead.

Tend to agree GW Swicord, but then only thing I don't like about it, is that it takes points away from sexier choices like mega-lightning of doom.  That make me sad.

I tried to phrase my question as neutrally as possible in order to aid discussion and increase odds of a designer response - but I really should just go ahead and say that your response mirrors the concern that prompted my question.  I want leader units that are useful and interesting.  That isn't the same as saying I want leaders to define the value of a given combat unit or group of units.

Then give us betas!  (So we can start evolving )