Unit Merging

Sounds a great way to have regular units have experience and still be able to merge stacks.

Best regards,
Steven.

Wait, is there some way for me to take my three individual forward observers and make then into a single unit?

Not yet.

I can see some difficulties with this; would they have to have *exactly* the same equipment to merge?

I wonder if unit merging would best be worked into an upgrade mechanic.

But definitely it would be great to be able to merge individual soldiers into parties when you research the parties tech.

But this would have balance issues unless they change the system so that group stats don't stack completely.

If groups worked normally, it would be basically impossible for this to have balance issues.

(and, at face value this assumes same-template soldiers)

If groups work as they currently do, then merging would be a huge balance problem, because I could build up individual armies of small soldiers, and then when I happen to hit the squad upgrade tech, I instantly merge the individuals into parties and massively increase the power of my army.

If 3 5/2 soldiers in a group are still three 5/2 soldiers, then its not much of an issue, but its a huge issue if three 5/2 soldiers in a group instantly become a single 15/6 soldier.

See not sure I see it as bad as you.. because we all have same option to merge... so we all could create equally powerful units for weaker ones..seems fairly balanced to me in that respect..

however I do see your point, and I do like the three 5/2 soldiers vs 15/6 soldier as a better representation of whats happening.

Inter-faction balance is not the only kind of balance.  We want the various techs to be balanced with each other too.

I can see early game being a rush to parties if you can easily tough units from your merged peasants.

Still, this is all very secondary to the three 5/2 vs one 15/6 issue.

dude. Three 5/2 soldiers should always be three 5/2 soldiers. Not some giant 15/6 soldier.

Three units operating in a coordinated manner would be more effective than three units operating independently.

This is true, and giving merged soldiers some small bonus due to the "coordination" of working together as a unit would be good. But turning three 5/2s with 10 hp each into a single vastly superior ubersoldier, 15/6 with 30 hp, goes beyond any believable "coordination" bonus. Basically you pile enough guys with spears together and you get a dragon, i.e. a single unit with lethality and survivability that no regular* human could ever achieve, they don't behave at all like a bunch of guys doing individual damage that can be killed individually.

Edit: Not that I'm against merging units, this should definitely be in, UI permitting. Just that I disagree with the way any party/squadron/etc of soldiers functions, as discussed in this thread.

*Obviously sovereigns and champions are a different story, but remember here we're talking about peasants pulled from the general population and then given some equipment and training, not heroes or magic users.

Yes.... hence why they attack together and all of them get to do their damage before the defender responds.  And why they have a shared hitpoint pool such 

There is no need to make three mooks as good as a giant.

The combining of squads into a single super-unit is a major contributing factor to the massive dominance of attack over defense.

Its one thing when weapons are ~strength 8 when armor is strength 5, but its quite another to have attack be strength 24 when armor is strength 15.

It will be much easier to balance the stats of monsters and champions if (for example) a defense stat of 12 is always very good - and isn't easily overwhelmed by three basic peasants with axes.

There are alternatives ways to make parties squads and platoons worthwhile other than additiuve stat mashing.

1. Squad Equipment
2. Squad special attacks
3. Commanding Officers

Squad Equipment represents all the cool weapons and gear that an army uses that no individual solider could manage.  For Example:

• Ballistas, catapults and trebuchets for powerful long range attacks
• Wagons for increased strategic map movement
• Banners for increased morale or a magical bonus to any stat
• Wild pet monsters or animals like bears or trolls (like the troll that the orcs in Moria attackd the Fellowship with in LOTR!)

Squad Special Attacks- all the interesting alternative attack styles that we want armies to have to make tactical combat actually be tactical.  These have been detailed in other threads so I wont list them hear but would include things like, charge, sunder, cleave, knockback, whirlwind, shield wall, etc etc.

Generals - I am a bit fuzzy on how to implement this gameplay wise but I think armies should have Generals, squads should have Lieutenants etc.  The type of commanding officer you attach to a squad could give it special attacks or a passive bonus or something.

Well, if we are keen on having a squad share the HP pool, and not lose any soldiers ...

Then I'd say keep same attack and defense of a single unit (5 and 2) ... pool HP ... and give it 3 attacks instead of 1. (or +2 attack speed)

either way ... it needs to have 3 attacks of 5 instead of 1 attack of 15. And it needs to have only 2 defense still.

Or maybe a +1 "coordination" defense bonus. But not a defense multiplier! nor an attack multiplier.

These do not need to be combined.  It is perfectly fine to have a squad "lose" individual models as it takes damage, but to automatically regain those models when it heals back to full strength.  This is the design I would favor.

So in once sense the hp pool is shared (the unit will heal back to full strength and numbers as long as it has even one hp left) but in another it is not shared.

We also don't need to change the movement/combat speed or anything like that; we don't need to model the individual "attacks" separately.

Its just, when a unit with 3 guys and attack 5 makes a single attack against an enemy, the game processes this as 3 separate attacks of strength each against the entire defense value of the defender.

All from a single right-click attack command.

[Another advantage of this; by a central limit theorem, the distribution of the result of 3 attacks of 1-5 will be much more weighted towards the mean than will the result of a single attack of 1-15.
So adopting this kind of system will also help make combat results more predictable.]