TaurusRex raised this issue and I thought it was worth discussing outside that thread...

"Is there any way that combat can be resolved without having to be the quickest to make our moves?"

The biggest problem at the moment is that a turn is spread out over a loooooooooong period of time. In that time, many players log in and out, some more that once.

Which is made worse by that fact that you move your ENTIRE army in 1 turn. This could mean you move 1000's of troops in a short period while your enemies are not even online.

This is further compounded by the "immediate" system that we use. You click attack, and damage is done, regardless of whether the enemy is online, has moved or has yet to move that turn.

All we can really do is try to minimise the effect of logging in more than once per turn, and try to somehow balance how much you can and cant do per turn, as well as the effect of being online & offline during combat.

OR, we try something completely different...

an idea which came to mind was more passive combat.

by that i mean, you dont actually DO the combat itself, but rather you plan it and it happens each tick update.

eg...
currently you move your Swordsmen next to some Spearmen, then click click to attack, and the damage/combat is done right away.

instead, perhaps you move the Swordsmen next to the Spearmen, and wait.
ANY enemy Melee troops touching during a TICK update, is counted as "in battle" and thus do damage.

For ranged, you would still use the click-click method to select who you wanted to shoot at, and every TICK update it would try to attack them (even if they started to move away).

How much damage they do would depend on sizes & turn speed. There would be no BP% for combat as damage is done each TICK, not all at once.

Currently, ticks are every hour. So some may think this is bad as it could allow players to quickly move troops out of Melee range before the TICK. Well, we could shrink the "combat" ticks down to 15 or 30 minute intervals. Of course the damage done per TICK would be quite small, it means over the course of the turn, it would be equavilent to doing 100% damage now.

It would solve alot of balance problems and fairness in terms of turn lengths and timezones, etc.
The big issue of course, would it be fun??
It would change the game to be a more strategic simulation style game rather than a tactical action game.

Good or bad?

Last Edited : Saturday, 16 October 2004 - 07:57

Well for me I am happy to play one game at a time and I am an intensive player who logs in quite often so for me yes this would be "great fun" and I have a slow connection which I think may be a handicap if my performance was dependent on my quick reaction which should only be a requirement of an "action arcade game" but definitely not a great campaign strategy game as this is.

Will there still be when the action does initiate a first move (i.e. first attack advantage) or will action occur simultaneously?

It almost seems like realisticly there should be a first strike advantage but I would probably always lose to these "quick draw youngsters".

Also a long time ago you was concerned about something being put in the way of a pre-planned move like a building.

PS:
Anyway I think it sounds great and I think you should put this "new version" on CD and market it.

TR

no, damage would be simultaneous.
just like in real life in combat. you wouldnt get 25 swordsmen all attack 30 spearmen and kill many, while they waited and then the survivors finally attack back.

it basically means it doesnt matter who logs in first, and there is no first-strike advantage. its more based on formations and combat strategy.

the only issue is of course if you move your troops in, and 2 ticks later (in a 12 tick/hour turn game) the enemy moves the troops 1 sqr away and moves better troops in for the remainder of the turn. i think there would need to be some sort of retreat penalty in a system like this IF combat had already begun.

otherwise if your enemy logs in just after you, he would always just move his troops away and you'd never do any damage.

either that, or once troops are engaged in combat, they cannot be moved until the next turn or something... i dunno.

I like this approach.

I think it needs some ironing out a little of the issues on regards of multiple contacts, etc.

But I do think that your statement about swords attack spears and then later on spears attack swords doesn't not happen, the attack is simultaneous.

But how will it work???.

Somehow one player innitiates contact, and strikes.
Will the engine at click end do attack with retal from sword to spear, and then it will do attack of spear to sword, sum casualties, and inflict death toll?.

It is unlikely that 1st strike would be innitiated by rock vs paper, so if my rock is attacked by paper, I would not attack back, not at least with that specific match.

How will this be addressed?, it will mean double RPS bonus for the paper stack, wouldn't it?

Aha
So that's why the retreat penalty
but I think locking combat would be just as good.
This would be like playing a "Battle game" within a "Campaign game". The key would be that the action occurs almost real time so it wouldn't really be a problem of units be locked for hours at a time.

Also I wasn't thinking properly because units would in reality be moved into position (i.e. not as if when they arrived something had been built).

TR

NO. This is a bad idea, how do I move troops up to the enemy if I only want it to block and not attack?
This is after all an online game not an offline one, I dont understand the need for penalizing thoose online...

no, there is no first strike at all.

infact, when you move your army next to an enemy, it does not yet attack.

Only at each TICK do attacks take place.
Each TICK the system will check for melee troops touching, and ranged troops in range of enemies, and do the combat routine.

Both armies damage is calculated at the same time.
Which is what its like now, altho only with retaliation attacks included.

This idea there is no retal strikes, because both armies attack at the same time. There is no first strike and thus no second "retal" attack.

eg. Spearmen are touching Swordsmen.
During the TICK, the Spearmen & Swordsmen fight, and both sides take damage as per normal. Only the damage done will be a % based on the game speed.

i dont think it penalizes anyone.
it just means damage is done over time, just like everything else in the game.

MP & BP regenerate each tick, so all this does is make Damage also be delt per tick instead of all the damage being done as soon as you click attack (and then sit there for the rest of the turn as you regen).


Also, if you move your troop next to an enemy army and NOT attack, do you think the enemy will not attack you back? I doubt it. Especially if you're using it as a blocker of some kind. They will certainly destroy it to get it out of the way.

The only difference here is instead of you sacrificing the army and doing no damage, the enemy will take some damage as well. remember, there are no retal attacks, so that whole method of combat is gone.

Oh!, I get it!, it is kind of like an erosion attack.

Instead of doing 100% (or whatever the attack points are) you do 100%/(ticks per turn) attack.

How would this then affect regen of BP/MP of stacks?

Normally if your not attacking, you build up attack points slowly, this would mean that you consume your attack points slowly, so every turn you slowly attack with less and less force.

I might want to send a troop in as bait for my opponent to attack. After he swallows that bait my real attackforces now comes into action, while he is out of mp, how will tactical manouvers like that be possible? The game will be a lot less interesting if tactics is minimized.

Maybe a "switch" could be turned "on and off" (i.e. a toggle block/attack switch);
but at first I thought it was a valid point
and now I'm not sure.

When we say "block" that is our "game terminolgy" but on an American football field a line blocker is making contact with the opponent lineman. On a battlefield a spearman would be jabbing his spear at the enemy horseman and casualties would occur.

However maybe we would be able to have a few modes of behavior like "attack/block/defend" which can be "toggled". There would be time to do this type of action because the idea is that we would have several minutes to create a "close quarter battle formation".

TR

you're still thinking in terms of BP and retal attacks.
They wouldnt exist in this system.

There are no BP at all.

Instead of generating BP each tick and using them all when you attack, its the other way around.

Each TICK it attacks a small amount (full damage / ticks per turn).

So you could send in armies to bait your enemy to move a certain way, or use up MP. this would not effect that.

However, the whole concept of baiting troops to attack you to use up Retal would be gone. Not that that is a great thing to have in a game.

This way would be better as you have to use balanced tactics based on simultaneous combat and no retals.


And yes Taurus... the whole concept of 1 army blocking another without any combat is very unrealistic and kinda silly. How are those 10 Spearmen preventing the 50 HC from moving forward?

Another thing, will I now have to wait 12 hrs after I moved to see the attackresult? Or will the game have fixed times for when the battles are happening.

Troops would do damage each and every TICK.
(so long as they are still touching during that time)

So instead of 1 large attack every 12hrs, it would be 12 smaller attacks each hour. (automated of course)

and the only thing that regenerates is your MP.
thats all that you need, as combat is automatic when in range and is a % each tick, so you dont need a BP system.


another idea i had was that while in combat, your MP regenerates at half the speed, or less. after all, its hard to imagine movement regenerating while in combat. at least not at the same rate as if you were not in combat.

How do you handle when I move my spearmen next to two enemy scouts. I'm assuming you would have the spear do half damage to each scout? Or in other words evenly divide the damage the spear does between all adjacent enemy units.

In such a scenario though it would be nice to be able to order the spearmen to focus its attacks on a single enemy unit (like the one preventing you from retreating. Maybe what you would do is give each of your units a priority target. All other adjacent enemy units take 10% damage and the priority target takes the remainder of the damage. So in my example above one scout would take 10% damage, the target would take 90% damage. If my spear was surrounded by 6 units though, 5 of the enemy would take 10% each while my priority target would take the remaining 50%.

Ranged could work differently - if they are next to enemy melee then a higher percentage of their damage is forced to go against adjacent melee.

I don't like it....at all....and this isn't just me being conservative.

so in order to do full damage, I would have to log in every 30 minutes??? So the people who can only log in twice a day do crap damage, and the people who log in every 30 minutes do full damage....

This will make it harder for the people with things to do in real life and easier for the people who sit and wait for the ticks.

what it hink req is saying is that every turn you have your unit and anothers unit touchin, they do damage to each other.... removing the BP% from them....(ie if a unit does 1200 damage max and your in a 12hr game... that means every hour youd deal 100 damage to units next to you... this would be augmented by who is next to you, type of unit and any +/- additions to attack defense.

ranged im guessing would auto fire on anyone in there range? or how would you do that req? keep them on a BP%?

and then also for those that log in every hour, you can avoid melee attacks and circle your ranged troops to keep the enemy at bay but get your shots off.

Exactly, DoRW. The person who only logs in twice a day is at a severe disadvantage to the person who stays online all day. The 1st person can move up with melee troops, and set ranged troops to attack at the next tick. Then the 1st player logs off, to return in 12 hours. The second player, the obsessive one, moves his melee troops one space away from where they were (both to avoid the melee attack AND the ranged attack) and then uses his ranged to pick off the opponent. Even if the 1st player logs on and moves his troops, he's still going to be gone for 12 hours, and the obsessive player won't let him get any shots in. At all.

Yes in that scenario you described ,Req I would have to be there at least every hr to check if I need to withdraw or change positions also how does the system know who to attack if there are more players involved? Can I tell the game whos my friend and not in a battle?