Tactical Combat: Turn-based or Realtime?

If I remember correctly (always a big IF), when this screenie was first posted Frogboy specifically said not to draw any inferences from it about the tactical battles and especially not to draw inferences about the grid.

Personally, I prefer turn based since real time has the disadvantage of one player's lag causing them disadvantages.  This said, the 'turn based' need not be all of one side moving then all of the other side.  If some sort of initiative system were in place so units moved in order of speed, then a turn might have units on the different sides taking turns to move based on their initiative.  It would also be nice to be able to give 'reaction' orders, such as archery firing at units which moved close or cavalry attacking (or retreating) if threatened.

I suspect that the Elemental team will end up with a really smooth tactical combat system that will probably be much better than anything that any one of us could devise.  I am looking forward to seeing what they give us and having fun with it.  Just because it will be different from what I might have done doesn't mean it won't rock.

The original description was "continuous turn based". Despite a few attempts to explain it, I've never been really clear on just what that is.

I only want turn based.  If I want real time, I'll go play StarCraft.  I am but one man, and I want time to consider my moves, and be able to react to the moves of my opponents. Anything else starts tending towards a clickfest and I don't have any desire to spend the hours it would require in order to simply train reactions.

I want to win because I had the better units/strategy/whatever, not because I was able to out-click my opponent.

A great example of continuous turn based combat done right is Laser Squad Nemesis. It offers the advantages of turn-based (lag not a disadvantage, time to carefully consider options, etc.) without many of the disadvantages (long wait times while the opponent carries out their turn). I would be ecstatic if the team could achieve this level of depth in just a sub-component of an already great game.

Either way, combat orders should be simultaneous. There should be some element of suprise when facing the enemy.

In this way, you can't always bank on a battle going perfectly according to plan ... there will always be contingencies to prepare against, and potential penalties for not preparing against them. I think this also makes cavalry more flexible in general ... in North North African Campaign of WWII showed that a tank commander could be quite successful by doing little more than thinking on his feet. I feel cavalry should be the same way ... you get more movement so you have more time/flexibility to adapt your battle-plan to unforseen circumstances.

Sins of a Solar Empire uses continuous turns.

That picture is not a good demonstration as its basically a mockup to give the general concept.

That's not continuous turns... That's turn-based. It's just each unit's turns are tracked separately. When it's one of your units' turns to move, you know precisely what will happen when you click on where to move or what to attack or activate an ability, up to some randomness. In continuous turns, you and your opponents are both acting simultaneously - you basically share turns, so you don't quite know what's going to happen because things might move/the 'board' might change and your actions might not necessarily have the intended effects. At least that's my understanding of it... I have only ever played RPGs with continuous turns, though, and I'm not entirely sure how that would translate into a game like Elemental's combat.

"Turns" and Sins really don't go in the same sentence. It's effectively an RTS.

Astrath, well said.  I am abandoning this thread to start a new one.   

Is that what that means? Is this just a guess of yours, something based on an explanation from Stardock, or from playing some other game? It sounds reasonable, but...

Well, the first thing I thought of was the board game Diplomacy. All the players simultaneously write down their orders and then, once everybody is satisfied, the orders are revealed and carried out all at once. The process would be greatly simplified in a computer game, because you can give orders as normal, clicking on units and directing them where to go or who to attack, and the computer will do all the work. So that makes sense, too.

The second idea that came to mind was, is it some sort of pseudo real-time system, where both players can queue up orders for all of their units at any time, but the commands would be carried out in turn order. I guess it would automatically tick through the initiative, with characters doing whatever they were told when their turn comes up. That sort of makes sense, too.

Then the third thing it could be is something like the system used in Fallout or various other RPG's. Your unit has 'action points' that slowly increase in real time, with it taking a certain amount of points to perform any action. Which... is plausibly something that could be 'continuous turn based' but doesn't seem all that appealing to me.

Then there's what you said... which is actually the standard model for a lot of different games (Like Chess, as you mentioned) and most Strategy RPG's that I've played. I'm not sure what makes this so revolutionary or different from 'standard' turn based, it's just turns that involve a smaller number of actions.

Mostly a guess. I think some other forummer told me it worked like that, but didn't explain it as clearly.

I personally miss turn based tactical games.  I do prefer the speed/inititive of the creature to determine which creatures move first and how often.  Adds a bit of depth to a combat system that is lacking in real time games that all too often are determined by who can click amazingly fast the best.

I think RTS games get a bad rap from TBS players who discount the mental acuity it takes to make decisions at the rate that progamers do. That said, Elemental's battles should be TBS. 

Turn based is more suitable for beginners. With RTS you have to think on your feet like you would in a real situation.

If you mean the mental acuity it takes to memorize and repeat a sequence of tasks and to train yourself to do them very quickly, yes. I agree..

After watching a few professional matches of Starcraft for example, everything is decided at the start based on what the players had decided to do.

"Real" turn based is a much better system than continous turn based. This is my opinion. [...at least in a game like Elemental.]

sorry, but that´s completely "bullshit" ! Turn based games have one great advantage: the AI is much much better than in any RTs games, because it has more time to "think" of theri moves and take everything into consideration.

If you know "Fantasy General" or the newer "Fantasy Wars" or "Elven Legacy", you will know, what a good TB Game looks like. These games are always superior to any RTS game considering the demand of a challenging AI. Total War series fails here with every part of the series although the game and its engine is great.

while an RTS might boil down to who can click the fastest, I do not feel the same way about real time battles. The battle will only ever consist of as many units as you start with (other than possible reinforcements from a nearby stack, to arrive at a fairly random time) ... and you start far enough away from the enemy that you just set-up the move orders and watch them go for awhile at first ... this is when you decide which terrain to use, and what over-all formation to set your forces in (although arranging them some-what before the battle even starts would be a nice ability, instead of randomly placed :/)

Therefore your "moves" will only come at the pace of your army's speed. Also, I think having a walk and a run is a good idea. Run generally gives a charge bonus, moves faster, and uses fatigue slightly more quickly. short bursts of speed can help you to aquire the proper terrain you might need for a certain over-all formation strategy, in as much as which units go where, and at what points in the terrain ... however use the run function too much and your soldiers will be weary as the enemy arrives fresh.

There could even be two basic strategies ... scramble for territory, and the wait n' see. In so-far as assuming both sides are fielding the same type of units.

I thought the AI in Elven Legacy was pretty poor... It wasn't easy, but the difficulty didn't seem to stem from the AI as much as simply being greatly outmatched in a number of the scenarios. Sure it was a fun game, and they did some things very well, but I played it through once and had no desire to return to it.

Honestly, I'm not sure I agree with you that turn-based combat has better AI in general over real-time combat. Sure, Total War's AI had tons of problem (path-finding being especially bad), and after a while you can destroy superior armies with few/no losses. But I could do the same thing in HoMM, AoW, etc... In those games I could predict exactly what the AI could do, just like I could in TW, and I could manipulate it to provide me with an easy win. Long story short: I didn't feel any more challenged by the AI in games with turn-based combat than I ever did in Total War.

Now I will say that I had to think a little more in fantasy games with tactical combat, but not because of the AI; because of the magic. Magic adds an entirely extra dimension to combat, and when you have lots of nifty spells it is not always obvious which to use when. But Elemental will have combat magic, whether it's RT or TB combat. It also adds an unknown in the form of not really knowing what the enemy is going to do magic-wise (and/or not being able to prevent it), which helps throw off your ability to manipulate combat a little.

THis screenshot is obselete. This was confirmed by BoogieBac.

Training is certainly a large part of winning a Starcraft match. However, even executing a routinized strategy still requires being able to keep track of a large number of variables under enormous time pressure.

'Clicking fast' is just one part of winning an RTS match -- it might be a necessary condition, but it certainly isn't sufficient. Claiming that all RTS games are mindless click fests is the TBS'ers equivalent to the RTS'ers claim that TBS'ers are dumb because they can't think in real time.

just to throw out my 2 cents.  I want to pressure them to look at a *more* turn based approach than what they were discussing at PAX.  Mainly because I want sequenced turns to be an option, and I don't want "wait to issue my moves until the other guy has issued most of his to see what he is doing" to be a factor.  Though that is related more to the over-land map than tactical combat (I honestly wouldn't have a problem with real-time tactical combat)

yea, It would be nice for simultaneous movement ... although If they start automated, and its a good automation, it should be hard to tell when its "just the computer" and when it is the human player making a move. Of course if you CAN wait n see, meanwhile your people are on their automatic route, and the human player can give feints ... since its simultaneous even if you do wait for him to move before you move, thats just playing defensively, you lose the advantage of initiative but gain the responding/reaction advantage. Although there is no reason that they won't counter-move after your re-adjustment. Its the cool thing about relatively real time "battle simulators" as opposed to the RTS (click to build more troops Naowwgh) and even turn based battles (although simultaneous turn based "orders" with fighting happening in real time would not be so bad).