[idea 0.914]champions, soldiers, monsters as a paper, scissor, rock

from Elemental Forums

I was reading some of the other posts and I was caught up with the idea, of not being able to explore the map fully before conquering it. I thought back to the games I've had so far and it kind of sounded familiar. There are obviously many isssues and questions with the open border. I mean one wouldn't want an army travelling their realm even if it was to kill a nasty golem, or doing some quest(what, a 7 company army lead by a sovereign going to search some ruins, and your not here to pillage my villages... riight...).

So I had this idea, what if champions, monsters and trained soldiers related to each other as sort of the paper scissor rock way. Champions being able to handle all monsters alone potentially as they level up through traits that would increase attack and defense against elemental, twisted etc.  while staying in a fairly even bases with soldiers(increase a single unit base hp to 12 for example), increase the potential of normal weapons and the special weapons and armor would have a more circumstantial bonus. While all monsters getting a sort of fear aura of sort reducing attack and defense of normal trained soldiers, aura scaling in power as the monsters get bigger and nastier(I think the aura could be multiplyed with squad size as x3, x5..x9).

So why? I was thinking this has the potential to solve many issues. First champions would not be able to fight wars alone against other civilizations(taking cities etc.) which imho they allready can't, but some seem to be able to... dunno.

Anyhows second point being that you could simply allow champions to roam the realm, maybe make some more dangerous zones that would be sure to last till the late game etc. and would finally really give the champions this adventuring sub-game that is so cool and enjoyable about the game.

Also, one additional idea, is that sov. and champions should have a natural higher movement speed than normal soldiers. I think an increase it to 3 at least. Also I think a sort of escape mechanism before the spell should be available to champions alone. for example, if not adjacent to the creature has a chanse to escape and end up in a random adjacent land. Should be a sort of ability.

So all in all that would allow champions to really play the role in adventuring and quest kind of glory while real wars would still have to be fought with soldiers etc where champions would be more of a support mage role and less of a capable fighter as a alone against a 100.

7,985 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

If champions can flee then it makes fighting them super annoying. They could cast a blizzard or fireball spell then run away every single time you attack them. I think the current system is good enough, though I probably would prefer permadeath or the AoW 2 system.

 

I agree that perks that benefit against certain enemy types would be useful. You have to remember though that because of the way units are created it is not trivial to make such distinctions. Horses are generally pretty easy to detect, but lets say you wanted light infantry and heavy infantry like in some RTS games, that seems like it would be difficult to do in FE.

If you just want three categories, Monster, Solider, Champion, maybe Mounted Soldier as a 4th, then I think it would work. I don't think it should be automatic though, I think it should be tied to abilities and perks chosen on level up for Champions and in the Designer for normal units.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I would be all for a small handful of Champion abilities which could be chosen to make them more useful against single-model units (monsters, champions, and single model bandits), but I would be really hesitant to actually encourage the development of a Monsters beat Units beat Champions beat Monsters dynamic.

 

They are three distinct things with different roles to play.

Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

There is already a paper-rock-scissors effect in place for some pairings. For example, definitely don't try to approach an Earth Elemental with infantry because of how EEs do damage to each member of a stack. Conversely, a summoned EE is awesome for mopping up the militia that pops up when I'm attacking a city.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

So why? I was thinking this has the potential to solve many issues. First champions would not be able to fight wars alone against other civilizations(taking cities etc.) which imho they allready can't, but some seem to be able to... dunno.
End of quote

 

It's very easy. It seems every character I get to Level 14 or higher tackles entire armies by themselves and I wonder what use a military is besides as garrison for when my heroes aren't around. This has occurred with Warriors, Assassins, Fire Mages, and currently a Death/Air Mage.

 

I'd be against any 'Hard Counters' (i.e. Rock always beats Scissors, Scissors always beats Paper) but I'd certainly like to see a softer version of this. One idea I mentioned in one of my ramblings was limiting most (single unit) attacks so that they could only kill up to a single soldier in a group in any one strike. I mean, getting a lethal blow on one poor sod's jugular doesn't tend to kill all his mates at the same time. While certainly some weapons/abilities/spells may allow multiple targets, those that didn't would find themselves severely hampered against large armies. Heroes would still be powerful on the battlefield but not quite as unstoppable as they are currently.

 

Mages still pose a slight problem if we're going the verisimilar route though... There no logical reason a Contagion or Fireball spell wouldn't wipe out an entire group at once. Perhaps better access to magical resist gear is all that's needed to prevent high-end magic users from completely dominating the battlefield with a single spell type.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

I cannot express how much I despise rock-paper-scissors approaches. So I won't try.

But I agree that solo heroes taking, and especially holding cities, is immersion breaking.  I think that the game should try to make this strategy less viable. How? Here are some ways:

1. Every adjacent unit removes .5 move for the next turn.

2. Every attack after the first for the unit's turn hits at a cumulative -10 dodge and +1 critical chance.

3. Every unmatched soldier in the attacking unit gets an armor piercing bonus of 10%.  Thus, the last member of a nine member unit attacks a hero with 80% armor piercing.

4. Initiative penalties for being outnumbered.  Hard to watch everyone fighting you.

The above rules, properly tuned, will make it much harder for a hero to take on 81 soldiers and win. But it will still not be impossible. I personally like Epic heroes.

 

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Tuidjy, reply 5
3. Every unmatched soldier in the attacking unit gets an armor piercing bonus of 10%.  Thus, the last member of a nine member unit attacks a hero with 80% armor piercing. 
End of Tuidjy's quote

 

I think this is the seed from which a good Champion/Unit balance will grow.

 

Not sure that it needs to be something as complex as stated above. Maybe just make the assumption that a Champion fights as well as about three people, so give groups of 5 people a benefit against them, and a group of 9 an even larger bonus.

 

Considering that groups do a decent job of putting out damage, its the survivability that is the largest concern for Units. Not sure how to elegantly approach that without making it RPS, though.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Rock paper scissors is evil incarnate. Bad, very bad, artificial, gamey, like a zombie gnawing off your leg. Annoying. Play Empire Earth series. You will see.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Galactic Civ II was filled to the brim with rock-paper-scissors tradeoffs, and it worked great. For tile-based games like this FE, I don't have any problem with it. I do encounter problems with rock-paper-scissors tradeoffs in real-time strategy games like Age Of Empires, especially when it's tricky to keep units of different types separate so I can get the battlefield matchups that I want. But I'm sure that's due to my very limited skillz.