As I play the latest round of RTS games, and think back on previous big ones, I noticed something common throughout.

Whenever you try to retreat your troops from battle, they either a. cannot stop fighting and so cannot move until the enemy is dead, or b. move away slowly and take damage from the enemy as they continue to attack.

I was thinking perhaps we should have something like this.
A simple movement penalty moving away from enemy troops isnt really enough. Especially when you can just cycle troops in and out of battle position with relatively no noticable penalty.

So what about a movement penalty AND a damage penalty from adjacent enemy armies.
Something like a 20-25% damage inflicted when you move away.

Any thoughts?

i think u should have a tryout on that with a game to see how it works and if the people who play it thinks its better then they shall post and move on from there

I think 20-25% is to high. Consider that if I am next to two enemy troops I just took a 50% hit - big ouch. But 10% might work well - enough to take into consideration that you might not want to move, but not so much that you would pretty much never move. Also, ranged troops should not get to deal damage this way - only melee.

Also what if I move a troop from one hex to another, but am still adjacent to the same enemy troop the whole time? Would I still take damage for moving in that case? Or do I only take damage from troops that I become physically 'disengaged' from in combat?

I think also that if this is done RPS and melee vs ranged penalties/advantages should be ignored during the free damage phase.

Last Edited : Wednesday, 29 September 2004 - 22:42

I don't like the idea of giving them damage.. perhaps increasing the penalty they receive for pulling away so that they cannot move too far. This could be rationalized by saying the men are wounded and it slows their speed of travel. Giving them automatic damage isn't the cure.. because that doesn't automatically happen in a retreat, but if you catch them it does.

if you were to try to incorperate this:

you'd need to assign retreat values to troop types, levels of expertise, and such.

a troop that has rps advantage should really be outnumbered/outclassed 2 to one or more before it has to take on a retreat penalty.

something that makes no sense, for instance, 400 scouts retreating from 5 swordsmen. or even 700 swords, since they'd have rps advantage... I don't think they should take this retreat disadvantage (of course levels of experience would play a part as well)

any range should have EXTREME penalties, even if they out class melee by a lot.

(I've argued for range penalties like halving the range when two or more enemies are touching, how is this concept so different? have fun changing things without the consent of the majority req, in things like this I support you! hehe.)

actually Zander, in melee combat, if you retreat midway through your side would take considerable extra damage.

imagine your troops just decide to stop, turn around and run. the enemy would have a number of free parting shots at you.
afterall, melee isnt just 1 line of troops facing one other line. its all in combat.

maybe 25% is too high. the idea is that moving away from an army incurs a damage penalty, as it would be in real life, and as it is in most RTS games.

it also makes surrounding an important enemy troop that much more valuable, as retreating would be more costly.

whether RPS or ranged penalties are applied to the retreat penalty, i dunno. probably not to ensure overall fairness.

at the moment, its just an idea.
i think it would increase the tactical strategies, but then again, it could be total crap.

Yes Req your right you would get injured there, but a proper leader would also inflict wounds on his enemy in that situation. Realistically he would rally his troops to him and cut a path through the enemy so he could exit in that direction and covering his sides and tail to reduce losses. Or at least thats what I would do.

Overall i guess i am neutral.. i'll adapt if it changes and i'll play the same way if it doesn't.

what about the zoc we are using now?

I don't believe that I could be in favor of this change.

OK, let's say a player has attacked/engaged another and finds that he/she doesn't have a fairly equal force/armies. Probably, the invader has suffered major damage in his/her error of judgement...and will usually, suffer even more loss before the retreat and regroup can be accomplished. Isn't that cost high enough already...without adding an additional penalty? In my experience, a premature attack (either insufficent armies or bad positioning)will provide an automatic penalty of lost troops.

Another side effect of this idea would be that players would then be more cautious before engaging. Knowing now, IF they fail and have to retreat, their troop loss would be increased above the normal damage the defender could inflict.

While I've been here in WOL, changes made seemed to always be to encourage conflict and discourage players remaining in defensive positions (waiting for someone else to attack),....wouldn't this idea actually promote more defensive play? In my opinion, it would...I don't think we need it.

i dunno. i think the opposite can be argued.

get your troops in faster and surround your weaker enemy so they cannot retreat, or if they do, they take large penalties and you can then chase them or regroup.

it could cause players to jump into battle faster using more strategic formations in order to gain the advantage.

both sides need to be looked at.

id be more in favor instead of a reatreating - to have simply a the more sides your surrounded a + to attack say 5% damage per side your unit is surrounded. cause there are people who stick thesmelves in holes in there walls.... now normally thats a 2-1 hit ratio which means you have one unit there moves in to attack, then you HAVE to movei t back and cycle another unit in... now this isnt a retreat but a fighting withdrawl.... these tactcis were common in the military. you dont turn your back to your enemy but you give ground and back up till you can safely disengauge. THEN a fresh unit comes in to batter your weakend enemy.

SO instead id be definately in favor of say if you surround a unit on all sides, that should give every unit that attacks it a 30% attack bonus cause A) the enemy army has to form a circle thining its front line on any given point, B)they dont know which point the attack will come next. and C) 30% is a good amount not to high not to low, 2 sides would be 10% 3 15% 4 20 % 5 25% 6 30%, 1 side of course wouldnt get you any bonus.

DoRW... that "cycling" technique is for modern warfare.
That doesnt apply in medieval times with swords.
You cant swing a sword one moment, then withdraw a large distance and move a new army in.

Remember, we are talking armies here. If it was 10v10 troops, how on earth can all 10 troops retreat from hand-to-hand combat, and a new set of 10 troops come in and take over, without taking any damage? Its impossible. The enemy army would definitely get some free shots in. With melee, there is no such thing as a "fighting withdrawal without damage".

But you have always said that gameplay is more important than realism.

I don't know if it would improve gameplay. Maybe, maybe not. An educated guess would be that heavy movement penalty for moving out of a ZOC hex would be sufficient. That would make "cycling" possible but not too effective since the retreating unit wouldn't be able to move completley out of the way. Now it's possible to move it way back.

I also like the bonus for surround amount based on the sides your stacks are touching an enemy stack. I think this simulates multiple fronts, (or it can be a penalty if your surrounded on multiple fonts, works simmilar).

What I like about Req's sugestions makes sense. We see the attack as 1 hex to another, but in medieval times, attacks were a spaguetti, were the two troops mixed and hacked themselves to pieces. So I see what he's trying to simulate and I think it is good.

The amounts on either are TBD.

Why don't you set up a few non-ranked games and you call it testing (1 or 2 level 10-20, 1 or 2 level 20-40, etc.). You set up this rules for this games, and we can try them out before they are being "pushed" into actual games.

Req, pehaps there should be a way of declairing a fighting retreat? where you move extreamly slowly, defending.Instead of the idea of running away which is really diferant.this way you can take the attacks in defeance mode.this way if you want to retreat in to a nearby castle of somthing...
edit:
meant defending retreat and the movment would have to be extreamlly small, if your basing it on meadieval history than it has been done in 1 or 2 situations and the hit and run tactic should be considerd to special troop types which are fast and quite weak.I hope this helps at least...

Last Edited : Thursday, 30 September 2004 - 14:23

The way I imagine zone of control:

If you had armies on two sides of you, but not to the left and right, in reality you COULD try to run to the left or right...but the point is that you'd suffer huge losses. So the game doesn't let you do anything suicidal like that. If ZoC prevents you from moving to a space, that means that making that movement is too risky, you'd suffer losses passing by the enemy. However, moving from next to two enemies to a space with no enemies means that it was safe to do.

I don't support this change. It doesn't improve gameplay at all, just adds in another silly little formula that'll make things hard for new players. Gameplay is more important than realism, and this ISN'T a real time strategy game...its turn based. Aside from retal damage, the enemy really shouldn't be able to cause damage when its not their turn. Besides, its not that hard to immobilize troops with ZoC...no need to make ZoC more powerful...it's already possibly the most powerful force in the game.

plus in all honesty req if you back up and fight defending and giving ground, your opponent would have to Move with you, so if you moved back that enemy unit would move foreward TAKING the ground you give... a fighting withdrawl in mideval times was still a factor. until the offense decided to stop its onslaught the defenders could simply keep backing up, defending blows and trading blows as they went.... your not at a disadvantage in a duel if you back up.... and let your opponent take more ground, expand a duel to include hundreds of partners fighting and you still get taht same factor. Honestly its not a big deal now how its all set up, the only thing id change is a % based on ZoC to simulate the fact that your army can not guard all fronts as effectively as it can one.

I agree with Sage. Don't enact this useless change.

TL

Req you are right that when a unit withdraws it would take damage. But it would also deal damage as they are protecting themselves as they pull back.

The ZOC already effectively prevents a unit from moving if you properly suround it. If you Include autodamage for retreats then you would have to change the ZOC to allow for Units that have an opening to be able to retreat. Whether there are five units or two by them. The game plays great right now, if you want to make a change try DoRW's idea about damage, every unit beyond the first gets an extra 5% damage.

well 2 main things why i thought of this...

1, it is incredibly unrealistic and silly that you can cycle melee troops in 1 turn. its just imposible in reality and kinda cheesy in gameplay. who can cycle the best is often the winner, when not one other game i know of allows cycling of attacking melee troops in 1 turn.

and no, in medieval melee combat, it is not possible to retreat in any way without taking damage and your opponent does not immediately follow.

if you move away now, the enemy does not follow, which means they stay where they are you are running away. therefore it makes sense that you should be penalised.

2, i still dont like the whole turn system.
Player A gets to move and act 20 armies or more in a turn while Player B can do absolutely nothing.
I've never seen this in a game either, and to me it sucks.
With this sort of retreat penalty, it gives the "waiting" player a bit more support, as only the "active" player is effected by the retreat penalty.

ZOC is helpful, but as shown by the importance of the "cycle strategy" its not that useful. Perhaps the older ZOC was better.
I just thought that the inactive player needs a bit more support and perhaps injecting a bit more realism might improve the gameplay and strategy involved.