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[Suggestion] Putting more tactical in tactical battles.

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[Suggestion] Putting more tactical in tactical battles.

from Elemental Forums

As it stands tactical battles are much better than they were in WOM, but they still need some improvement.  I really like the initiative system, and the new abilities.  these give us some tactical options, but there are a few things things that i think would make it go along way to being better.

1: Most importantly; the battles need attack of opportunities.  this is vital in how you set up your attack.  locking enemies that are weak vs your particular unit. for those that don't know what an attack of opportunity is; its basically anytime you move out of a square that is adjacent to an enemy it gets a free attack against the moving unit(just one though even if it passes through 2 adjacent squares, but if the moving unit is adjacent to 2 enemies they would EACH get one). this would allow you to protect your casters and archers.  it would incentivise you to use units with better dodge to go after these units, or use units immune to certain forms of attack(like fire immunity) to use that path instead.

2: Secondly Tactical placement is also very important.  Flanking so that when a unit has 2 or more other units adjacent to it gives bonuses to those units attack.  i would go as far as say that for each unit that is next to an enemy unit you get extra bonuses.  so if an enemy has 2 of your units adjacent then they would gain a 5% bonus to attack, OR the enemy would have a 5% penalty to dodge.  if a unit is completely surrounded then that unit gets a max penalty or the attacking force gets maximum bonus of 50%(40% + 10% surrounded bonus\penalty).

3: ranged attacks are less effective without straight line of sight.  this is kind of an equalizer in that if your ranged unit has to fire through the square of another unit that is adjacent and in directly in front of your ranged units target then it gets a penalty to hit or damage whichever is deemed most balanced.

i think this would go along way to improving tactical battles just through code alone. not a programmer so not sure how much work it would actually be to implement.

18,917 views 36 replies
Reply #26 from Elemental Forums Top

In my opinion - just make tactical battles look and feel like in AoW:SM. Problem solved :D.

Reply #27 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Mtrixis, reply 22
GC2 didn't have tactical combat, and research/war strategy revolved around building to counter your opponents choice - vastly different game situation than FE.

Too much detail in tac combat in a game like this bogs it down to the point where you dread getting into wars in the late game (unless you _really_ love fighting), because you can't always rely on the auto-battle to handle medium size fights efficiently.

Not jumping on you repeatedly, just stating my view on the matter
End of Mtrixis's quote

Hmmm, another good point, and no damage done, because i have a high defense :)

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Reply #28 from Elemental Forums Top

the tactical battles the way it is seems a little to much like the old musket battles where everybody lines up in a row and fires at each other until one side is all out of people.  i want the battlefield to feel a bit more dynamic than that.

Reply #29 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Mtrixis, reply 22

Too much detail in tac combat in a game like this bogs it down to the point where you dread getting into wars in the late game (unless you _really_ love fighting), because you can't always rely on the auto-battle to handle medium size fights efficiently.
End of Mtrixis's quote

Yeah I hear you.  

But right now, for better or worse the tac combats take up a large amount of the players' time and attention.  One way to go is to be fun enough that you *do* love the fighting and zoom in all the battles in the big wars "Total War" style.    Or, If Auto-battle is going to be the default then  make that excellent (visualizer, auto-algorithm that protects heroes and rewards balanced armies in a satisfying way) and just marginalize or even scrap the tac combats "Europa Universalis" style.  Of course there's been a lot of effort invested in the tactical screen so that is hypothetical.

It's hard to give Auto and Tactical combat equal consideration in the design.  Let's say you're designing shield wall ability.  In a tac combat game maybe you'd make it add DEF to his neighbors.  In an autocombat game maybe you'd make it add DEF to all other infantry. What is going to be Elemental's identity?  It's possible to do both of course, either by thinking very carefully about the abilities to make them equally useful in both modes, or by having autocombat be a relatively detailed simulation.

Right now the devs are trying to execute a very ambitious balancing act to try to make the battles *both* fast and exciting/tactical.  They've done a lot of the hard work in terms of rough balance and it's at a good starting place.  But, in my opinion, right now they're at an awkward point caught in the middle, like kinda both slow and non-tactical (and we don't trust the Auto algorithm enough to default to using that).  Lets all hope they can get it the rest of the way there! 

 

Reply #30 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting alborrelli, reply 24

Attacks of opportunity I see as a must. To simply be able to walk past a unit is unrealistic ...UNLESS you do it all in one move.

For example: If at the end of your 1st turn you end up adjacent to an enemy and then on turn 2 you try to walk away from them, THEN you are subject to a AoO.  BUT, if you walk past them all in one turn without ever being stopped next to them, you should be able to avoid AoO.  That way there's more tactical choices to be made,... which is good.

Then you could introduce a unit perk that allows them to attack someone even if they pass them all in one turn.

See how this all adds tactical spice?


Bigger maps also good for me.
Terrain bonus/negatives is important to me. Archers should get range bonuses on hills.
Defenders should get defense bonus on top of hill.
Should also get attack bonus if attacking from a hill if you're a Cavalry unit (chaaaaaaaaaaarge!)
Tactical deployment of your units should be allowed. Or, at the very least the ability to set up your units before they come into contact (a la Dominions 3) should be allowed that way they enter battle already deployed in a reasonable formation.
Range of archers should affect accuracy (maybe even damage) and damage should be ZERO at melee range.. or at the very least their defense should incur a penalty if you're in melee range of an enemy.
 
End of alborrelli's quote

I agree with all points and would add charge effect and LoS for missles and missle kind of spells.

Reply #31 from Elemental Forums Top

It seems to me the biggest deficiencies in tactical battle right now are

1) the inabilty to initially place your units on the tactical map

2) the fact that you can wait for the AI to come in to melee range to attack on your terms.

A unit should be forced to move their full range of motion every turn (like an action point system.) 

If you stand passively you should be considered flat-footed and gain a severe penalty to your next dodge.

If you stand guarded you should get a penalty to you next initiative round.

A caster should be considered flat-footed once they complete a spell.

Reply #32 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting King_Felix, reply 26
In my opinion - just make tactical battles look and feel like in AoW:SM. Problem solved .
End of King_Felix's quote

 

I used to think this, now I believe that this franchise will end up with much better:  E:wom = making the engine  E:FE = making the game 'Next' = all the gooey goodness

Reply #33 from Elemental Forums Top

my points:

 

  1. battlegrounds should be (much) bigger. Right now, cavalry units are able to reach an opponent in one turn! This should never happen, unless there's a unit with teleportation ability. It's especially important in larger battles. Make it so that foot units have to take at least several turns to reach a standing foe (maybe by cutting their movement to 1). This way, the battles are more tactical and don't evolve into a scrum, shooting units are more useful, positioning is more important and there's more time to use special abilities.
  2. more special abilities, from passive like poison, breathing, armor-piercing, thrown attacks before melee, to active - defensive stand (increased defence for a turn or two), arrows that slow down, stunning, attacks that push opponents away. That's the easiest way to make battles more interesting.
  3. (1) might get archers pretty overpowered, to balance it out, they should be unable to shoot into melee (or they could, but with danger of hitting their own)
  4. attacks of opportunity (mentioned earlier)
  5. tile bonuses/minuses (mentioned earlier)
  6. special tiles (mentioned earlier)
  7. some kind of cap on how much mana can be spent in a single battle, probably influenced by techs or sovereign
  8. flanking (mentioned earlier)
Reply #34 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Nehanski, reply 33
some kind of cap on how much mana can be spent in a single battle,
End of Nehanski's quote

I don't know what it is, but anytime anyone mentions capping something, it just makes me crankier than normal. 

Maybe I just need anger management... 

Reply #35 from Elemental Forums Top

i can get behind having only a certain amount of mana available for each combat.  it does seem a little over powered to have all of your mana available. early game this is a non-issue due to the limited mana, but it could get crazy by mid to late game.  this should be in the technology tree; a tech that increases your farcasting ability, or perhaps buildings that that can increase your combat mana.  these could be tech buildings or special city level up buildings that you can choose from.

Reply #36 from Elemental Forums Top

Yes, I meant exactly what Stmorpheus said. It was fantastically done in Master of Magic - you have a magic power pool, which can go into three things: spell research, mana generation (both obvious) and magic skill. If you put magic points into the latter one, you can use more mana every turn (on overland map and in battles).

Of course Elemental won't use the exact same mechanics. However, controlling how much mana is available for casting is a nice way to balance out if magic is overpowered (I think it's not right now, warrior heroes swipe everything). Even more so, you can create some fun random things this way - spending too much mana might for example lead to magic leaking out to the world, resulting in randomly changing terrain or summing hostile monsters. Another way to keep wizards in check. First you have to balance heroes to normal units, though.