Yet another unit-design idea

from Elemental Forums

Anybody remember Sword of Aragon ?

It had limited unit types: infantry, archers, mounted infantry, horse-archers, knight, and 5 kinds of heroes.  Each of those could be equiped with a huge variety of equipment.  Infantry could carry swords, pikes, halberds, javelins, etc, etc, -- even crossbows or slings.  Some equipment could only be accessed by units with extra experience.  Most exquipment could only be carried by some unit types -- no plate armor for archers or longbows for knights.  Experience could be bought by training or won on the battlefield.  Units could be re-equipped whenever they were in cities.

So, toss in a few more basic unit types (flying units?), and replace the "unit design" screen with a "unit equipment" screen.  Unlike SoA,  have a way to bypass the busiwork if you don't want to do it.  Maybe just have the default for the next unit you create to be equip it exactly like the last one you built of that type.  As soon as a unit is completed it jumps you into the equipment screen, with the values you used last time filled-in.  Maybe also allow equipment templates to be saved & called up.

Then there are separate buildings/research required for creating the basic units vs the research/buildings required to make the swords/leather armor/plate armor/mithril/unobtainium/whatever, etc.  Recruiting requires few resources -- just the warm bodies, time and a little money.  Equiping can require as many resources as devs can think of.  (For evil factions, the bodies don't even have to be warm, but I digress :)

Then a Death Knight is just a knight with special equipment that a knight can't use until he gets lots of experience.

Experience could still be purchasable, either directly as in SoA (but make it really, really expensive for higher levels), or by building special advanced training facilities (like Shogun Total War).  It was too cheap & easy in SoA.  But we shouldn't have to wait till the knight has made 8,000,000 kills before he can become a death knight.

All the "what if I don't have the resources" issues go away.  Build the knight anyway.  Equip him (temporarily) with a club if you don't have metal for a sword.  Leave him on foot if you are out of horses.  Since the issue of equipent came up, all my years of programming experience have been screaming at me that all the solutions being discussed had too many drawbacks, and it was time to pull back and change the basic approach.

The finances in SoA were simple.  If you had the money for it, and the unit had the experience, you could equip it.  If you un-equiped it, you got all the money back.  Equipment was created instantly and automagically.  I personally would be happy with that system, extended to include all the various resources.  I would guess that many frequent posters would prefer to make the equipment separately and warehouse it, but I would rather avoid the micromanagement.  But maybe you shouldn't get quite all the money back...

Don't go too overboard with the equipment categories.  Just helmet, shield, armor, a wide range of weapons, and few rings/necklaces/items-in-pouches, etc.  Regarding armor, I don't need to deal with separate gloves, greaves, shoes, and things I've never heard of.

I have no particular opinion on whether units should be re-equipped only in cities, or also out in the countyside (like GalCiv 2, except maybe make it slower away from cities).  I would prefer not to do the micromanagement of having to move the unit to the specific city that has the resources.

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Ps:  it scares me a little that equipment and unit-creation have gotten so much attention in the dev journal and the forums, and the combat system as described in the Oct 21 dev journal post seemed so over-simplified.  Other way round, please.

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[edit] there might be separate types for swordsman, spearman, pikeman, etc, but I really want to get away from the GalCiv-2 syndrome of spearman with the tech I had last turn, spearman with the tech I have this turn, etc.

Also, forgot one SoA unit type, "mounted infantry", which anywhere else would be called ordinary cavalry.

5,034 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Goodmorning

Fortunately or unfortunately, individual unit design is a huge part of stardoc's selling point for this game,althoguth the system you're suggesing would be much simpler, it simply doesn't meet the requirments set out by the developers and thier promises.

It won't happen.

 Robbie Price

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top
Sorry, I haven't played SoA, so I can't comment on that :).

While restriction on the weapon type, that a specific unit can equip seems nice, in Elemental wouldn't be so great. The problem lies in the 'openess', developers want to provide us with. You want an archer in a plate? Here you are. No restrictions, you are free to make whatever you want.

Experience shouldn't be purchasable. Period. This makes people care for their units, and watch them grow. If everything can be changed into money, some aspects of the game simply lose sense (as everything - in this case - will turn into money grind). The only thing I can accept is the barrack bonus. If you have a special (higher level) barracks built, your units won't start with the "rookie", but with the "regular" status.

About number of equipment types. I think that weapon, shield, armor & misc. (no additional space for rings or necklace) are ok. So it would be just a shield more of what we have now.
Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

You want an archer in a plate? Here you are. No restrictions, you are free to make whatever you want.
End of quote

What about drawbacks? Will there at least be some penalty to using a longbow while wearing a big-ass piece of metal on your chest? Or for equipping one of your skinny recruits with 50 kgs of armor and another dozen in weapons?

Ps: it scares me a little that equipment and unit-creation have gotten so much attention in the dev journal and the forums, and the combat system as described in the Oct 21 dev journal post seemed so over-simplified. Other way round, please.
End of quote

I'm with you on this one.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

apparantly its going to be a real time or continuous turn combat system. Maybe this means like a Time Action Battle system, where the "speed" of a character means how many times it can make a turn in relation to other units (I would prefer at least 2 or 3 moves for a mounted character in relation to a foot soldier of equal character/ability ... however I admit the speed of a horse has a bit of a maximum, while certain foot soldiers could potentially reach epic-level charging speed if, for instance, they were bezerking sand-dervish hero/adventurers, or Kenyan javalineers/runners, or something)

right, so its unsure wether its how many turns you get based upon your speed, or if its like a NWN or Baldurs gate, where turns and rolls happen with time (in order of initiative) and there are attack rolls, defense rolls, roll saves, ect all done automatically.

Either way, its hopefully going to move away from the blocky turn-based system promised in "battle against the Swamp Dread" or whatnot, and hopefully has no squares or tiles at all (at least not as a set-in stone system) ... if the squares are handled more flexibly, aka merely a division/measurment of land, and not specifically related to unit movement (so 3 units can be fighting in one square, moving diagonally across the square takes quite a bit longer, and movement isn't from square to square ... so a large unit spread out and only 3-men deep could perhaps cover 2 or three squares of land "width" even if it takes several of such units to fill the "length" of a square of land.

I hope crowding comes some-what into play as well ... as usually battles will devolve into mobs of units fighting other mobs of units (as lines start to break and the din of battle ensues) ... however various types of formations can attempt to prevent that (at least somewhat) and a unit that breaks formation should probably be more susceptable to flanking. Which is why I think morale should play a large role. If they are having a great time, in pure bezerk/battle fury, they continue battling, what not .... if they suddenly feel surrounded, outnumbered, ect then things could play out differently.

Different levels of morale for different units, taken to some extremes (even so-far as to say some units could have literally almost no fear) I think would be pretty cool. Although I suppose having a certain type of unit "immune to fear" might be against the *continual levelling* *continual research* aspect. So a unit with 120 fear can still break the morale of a unit with 100 bravery ... however I think *fear* and *morale* should be some-how separated, as almost the same thing but still mechanically different, so a unit can be immune to the effects of morale but can still be scared by a *fear beast* or something. Although I think fear might need to be intrinsically tied in to death mana ... to a point. As in it requires death to get beyond natural fear +100. Although a band of head-hunters or a dragon, for instance, could put skill points (over levelling) into a fear stat in order to learn how to play to the human's natural fears more and more, until they are absolutely completely compellingly fearful.

Also, death magic should be able to add more potent fears than learned fears. Like skillpoints could only buy fear 2 or 4 at a time, while a death-based spell could add as much as 20 fear to a unit at one time. I think death-based fear magic should have some kind of initial cap of natural fear +200, raisable by technology. Although we could lower these fear levels of course, since it seems kind of extreme.

 

and anyways ....NO LIMITED UNIT TYPES!!! I want to be able to imbue essence in units to get Paladins and Clerics, or even have certain *divine* units starting out with a slight amount of essence of their own (quite possibly).

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Teucrian, reply 3
What about drawbacks? Will there at least be some penalty to using a longbow while wearing a big-ass piece of metal on your chest? Or for equipping one of your skinny recruits with 50 kgs of armor and another dozen in weapons?
End of Teucrian's quote

I see what are you getting at - it's not reflecting reality, isn't it? Obviously, it's much harder to move & aim while wearing a plate. But think of a different situation: you have the most typical paladin. He has a big fuckin' sword, HUGE shield and of course a plate. Do you think it's easy - even for such a badass - to swing such sword, in a plate? I don't think so. So, let's add a system that units wearing only chain armor have an advantage against heavily-armored units, due to their mobility. Sure, such paladin will receive less damage, but he might not hit his enemy even once! So in the end such highly mobile troop should be victorious. Oh, but arrows should probably hurt this guy with a chain-vest, more than the paladin. Ok, so the arrows have the advantage against the chain mail. Don't forget about the fact that plate is of course much heavier than any other armor, so you will lose stamina much quicker; that calls for another unit stat!

I hope YOU know what I am getting at, now. The point is, that with such open-ended system like the one proposed by Elemental devs, has to come simplicity. I mean - you will have enough trouble with finding the appropriate equipment, so you shouldn't care about 100's of pros/cons of a specif armor type. If devs wanted to implement such system, they would probably leave us with predesigned units, with balanced HP, DEF, ATK, SPD, etc. stats.

You probably thinking now - so what's the point of this whole unit creator? If I can equip my unit with a bow and a plate, so where is the diversity, or the drawbacks? There is one important factor, that you forgot about: costs. You could make an awfully powerful unit, but it would cost so much that before you could even train it, you would have to wait too long (ie. long enough for your enemies to crush you). Archers aren't the type of guys to engage the enemy in melee fights - they stay in the back; so what is the point of giving them plate? Sure, they would be more resistant to some unexpected cavalry attacks, but still - do you really want to pay so much more (I assume plate HAS TO be much more expensive than a leather vest), for not very notable advantage?

(...)Oct 21 dev journal post seemed so over-simplified. Other way round, please.
End of quote

If you have read the journal, it seems that they are just starting to discuss the tactical fights and their features. Frog clearly stated, that we will have to wait a few MONTHS before we see such system. My assumption is that the system will get much more deep - maybe not as much as some of us want, but interesting enough for majority of players to be satisfied.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Man-o-man...I've been peeking in on this game for a while now, and I'm waiting for it's release with great anticipation.  I say this with the highest compliment possible for a game, in that Elemtenal looks to be the spiritual succesor to Sword of Aragon - one of the greatest games ever made.  That game allowed you SO much freedom and control, and so much flexibility, the like of which I've never seen since for a fantasy strategy game, so I'm very excited and hopeful for this game's release.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

To me, it looked like SD did both very complex and detailed unit creation AND detailed combat. They just have not gotten around to talking about the combat much yet.