Tactical Combat once again

Frogboy said to think Magic:Total War in terms of SCALE of battles. A lot of people concluded that means combat is going to be like Total War, and I haven't seen anything to justify that leap of logic. Everything I have heard is that combat will play out more like X-COM than anything else, I think it is going to be much more like MoM than it is like Total War. I think it is oging to be on a grid, which right there should put a lot of your "Real Tme" concerns to rest.

I think we have decided that army-size limits, and "units" will not be instated. (most likely we can't have an army of over 10-20,00 men, or whatever would fill a 2-3 mile wide battlefield, but basically no tightly restricted rules for only wielding small armies)

Also, real time tactical battles does not equal RTS, its "continuous turns" a la Baldur's gate, so no matter how many times you click, you will only get to have so many attacks per *round of action* or something. Usually one attack unless your extremely fast hero or magical creature. Also, all your units will be automated (I assume under a basic idea of directives) until you personally order them during a *turn*, and they will follow that order for at least a turn (hopefully longer) ... for instance, you can order unit A to move to point X on the map. He will take y turns to reach point x, and upon reaching will resume his basic automation (defensive/ offensive/ skirmish/ ect) until you grant him another order. Also, you can change orders at any time (and hopefully can assign waypoints along the battlefield). If its some-what like Total War, as advertised, you should be able to select a number of units, and click + drag along seclected destination to assign 1)-where the units are going to stop walking 2)-the direction the row is facing (I guess it could be a collumn) 3)-how deep the collumns of the row will be (3 men deep, 2 men deep, 5 men deep) and of course how spread out the row will be upon the same token. Also, there will most likely be several basic formations, like tight, loose, and special ... with special being derived from what weapon you are wielding + Shield or No Shield + horse or no horse.

Im gussing horses will only have wedge as special for melee and Cantalabrian circle as special for horsearchers, while spears + sheild will have some sort of turtle special, and spears by themselves (2H spears) will have phalanx as a special.

I too vote for typical turn based combat, but can live with simultaneous turns. Also, I would like to say "no" to formations. While it seems cool, I don't think it would bring much to the table. It's much worse than with elemental damage - it wouldn't do ANY good to the game. Do you really think that wedge formation would be so great? I rather say that the power is in numbers, experience & power, than in some artificial formations. They just doesn't seem to fit and make any difference.

In terms of realism, you are completely and totally wrong. Formation was one of the most important factors in combat. Pretty much everyone knows what a Phalanx is, even though the word has very few uses in the modern world. The Macedonian army kicked ass not because it had better equipment or even superior individual soldiers, but because they fought in phalanx formation - which was at the time the pinnacle of military tactics. An [ancient/medieval] army split up into intelligent formations would utterly annihilate a much more numerous but disorganized military force - this has happened many times in the past. 

The wedge formation in particular allows the formation to break through the enemy line, and allows successive layers of the wedge to widen the gap and also prevent adjacent enemy soldiers from attack the layers of the wedge that passed through from the side or back. If it's a very tight wedge, the momentum is extremely hard to stop - because you have to stop much more than just the momentum of a few individuals, too. Wedge formations can also turn much quicker than most other formations. Formations are anything but artificial, and different formations are more/less effective vs. others. (For example, wedge formations are countered pretty well by concave ranks, because then the entire wedge hits the defenders at about the same time, minimizing its advantage).

In terms of gameplay, depending on how combat works out I may or may not agree with you, though. The more turn-based and the more grid-based combat is, the less I'd care about formations. The more real-time and the more free-field combat is, the more I care about it.

Hannibal's collapsing line should be all that needs to be said about the importance of formations. (In real life).

There are no tactics to tactical combat really, without them. You might as well hit auto resolve and let the numbers crunch.

indeed, im not asking for arbitrary bonuses for certain formations, but the ability to change how the soldier's in a given cohesive unit are orgainized (say in a square, rectangle, triangle, or winged/wedge) could hold a great impact in the battle.

Even say, an inverse curve/ concave formation vs an outward bubble/ convex formation could be interesting .... concave could try to lure the opponents in ... while convex could be a useful "psuedo wedge" formation for elite troops, although might weaken the center of say, a lower-morale/ less well-trained and equipped unit (because its a non-linear front).

It would be kinda cool to have an option in-between battles (on the battle-map) to have a "unit editor" where you can click on a unit, maybe a double click or a right click, (once you already have its army selected) and the unit is presented  on a small, blank "battlefield" You can use the mouse and several intuitive options to move the density of soldiers to make any kind of formation type, wether thin concave curve, thick punching triangle, broad shoving wedge, dense "hold the line" default formation 5-10 soldiers deep, A spread out, 3 man deep line to cover ground, possibly at an angle or a slight curve ... possibilities are endless. Of course, certain formations will be found better than others, and more situational than others. I would guess default would be Tight formation and Loose formation, although they are just stored in "formation 1" and "formation 2". Probably with more technology you can make spear formations more layered/denser (very effective, and same with pole-axes), while your battle-axe bezerkers can have an out-ward fan bezerkers formation, in order to shoot in all directions from a central point of soldier density, in order to march safley in melee formation, and then to gain space for high-radius damage swings during a bezerkers charge.

Anywho, if all soldiers are individual objects (which I think they are) it will be a straight-forward and intuitive battle-system, and the different shapes you craft your units into would have an actually significant effect on the battlefield (might want either a turtle, loose, or shield-wall formation to protect against archer-fire ... but its not effective against melee (espcecially axe) just because A) axes and pole-axes can possibly rip your shield from you and B ) loose formations, and especially constricted (turtle) formations, are not well suited for melee (a fact).

Eventually the more flexible Hastati formations were able to defeat the graecian phalanx, because of manueverability on the battlefield (among other things) ... so while Phalanx is the best formation regardless in tight quarters (between a rock n a hard place), Other formations can prove more effective vs the slower yet more powerful formations ... especially if, like the Hastati, they had javellins to fling at melee from a short-skirmisher distance. A phalanx might could break formation and charge at the javellin throwing swordsmen, but that would be worst idea, because breaking rank with spears is near-suicide vs swords, although a well-layered Tight formation of pikes or pole-axes (up to 3 or 4 layers of pikes) can be quite successful vs swords.

I will give an example ... in a tight unit of pole-arms, people will hold their weapons over their comrade's shoulders, and due to the reach you can get many attacks per turn for people within range, although its only deadly effective vs an enemy coming straight from the front. Any flanking or out-manuevering can spell defeat ... so you need them at the center to push forward, and protect their flanks with auxiliary units, as well as having as many such units standing shoulder-to-shoulder to not allow any to pass by.

Yes please formations. It would really add to the game. It may be hard to program realistically but it would be awesome...