I understand the point you're making and think it's a good one to make, but I still think a hexagonal battlefield would be beneficial to the game.



Firstly the Battlefield doesn't have to be exactly a hexagon, just wider on the outer edges and remove the corners that are never used. As for the funnelling this may create, then surely this is what you would want to do - squeeze those pesky archers into the end so you can grind them into the dirt



As for the number of tiles, this can be kept the same by simply moving the pair of hexagon tiles on each corner to the sides. I've yet to see any AI use these corners for anything. Also as my little experiment of having the AI unit chase me around the map proved, you needed the width rather than the corners as you wouldn't want to be blocked into corners. And this is a valid tactic as you may want to save your level 7 unit that's just had a mauling and there is still 4 rounds of battle to go.



Another point of the hexagonal (or close to) Battlefield was so when reinforcements arrived they appeared on the map in the direction from which they existed in the world map. The rectangular map we have doesn't represent this very well. In fact I'm not sure it does it at all but instead throws them in at the flag points.



Finally the movement (once we have units that move more than 1 or 2 squares I hope) would require a little more space to the edges in order to tactically use this speed, otherwise the movement of these faster units would do nothing more than place them in range of bow/crossbows as they can not avoid the symmetrical placement the AI gives on initial deployment. The army is normally covering an area of 5 to 6 tiles and ranged units are able to fire up to 3 tiles from their starting tile. To get any chance of closing you need either units that are significantly higher in Life/Defence to survive the 2 to 3 turns to reach the archers, or hope they use all their movement points in moving and not firing. My point isn't that cavalry (or other speedy) units wouldn't be hit, but rather by using the wider battlefield they could avoid half the ranged units while closing quickly on the other half.



For me at least the idea of a widened (heaxagon like) battlefield is anything but aesthetics. Though it is also an idea worth poking to make sure it makes sense too

I'd also like to see units being a bit more durable. It's pretty rare I see a battle go to round 3, and I don't think I've ever seen one go to round 4. They obviously can't be made TOO long, but I think 3 rounds should be the average rather than the current 2.

Just a couple of quick suggestions: Pre-battle screen should have the option to pull back or withdraw and this is once per turn. Secondly, if the battle ends without either army being defeated, the one with least healths and most losses - pull back automatically.



PS: Did anyone suggest that allied players should be able to join a battle together? 4-4 for instance.

Hey! the 9x9 grid isn't fixed.



What do I mean? Well I've just had a battle near my city and the 9x9 grid crossed over it at the corner, so the city area was included in the battlefield. That gave it an additional 10+ tiles and a shape like a bloated square "p".

Line of Sight means that ranged units cannot attack units they couldn't see naturally, but all units would still appear on the battlefield. For example, you can't shoot through a full hex of forest or over a ridge. This mechanic would allow melee units to approach ranged ones under cover.



Fog of War (units you can't see don't appear on the map) introduces some problems. I can hide in the fog and make you run around and find me (since you can't target me), luckily you'll find me so you can target me in the next order phase (assuming there is one). I don't think it fits well in this system.



In general, ranged units should start with less attack than melee and the weapons should scale up at a slow rate. Range is their advantage. Dekari Rangers coupled with a hero with "Perfectly Balanced" have 5 range, which can cover ~2/3 of the map from the back row. Alternatively, there could be a damage reduction if the unit is further than 2 hexes away.



As for deployment, I'm not sure if the AI simply doesn't move their units or if deployment is supposed to be visible. It would be silly if it was visible because in multiplayer, the players are going to constantly be shifting units in response to the opponent's deployment changes. You move your archer up, I'll move my melee unit up, then you move your archer back, so I'll move my melee back out of range, etc.

I'm inclined towards Propbuddha regarding the current size and shape of the battlefield; I think it's just about right. There's room enough to maneuver around without being so large that you could just run around and never engage the other army for the six phases, unless you've really picked out terrain that allows for that, or the other army is made entirely out of units that can only move one hex. As for the shape, I'm not entirely convinced that a hexagonal battlefield is really that much better than the current rectangular one. I think regardless of the shape, you could still position ranged units such as Dekari Rangers in a way that would leave no "blind spots" so to speak, and when you're able to pin an army against the water with nowhere to go, I'm not sure that the battlefield shape should help you get out of that; you've either taken a positional advantage over that army or made a positional error which your units are going to pay for, and that strikes me as working as intended. In addition, I think making the battlefield wider hurts units like the Harmonics or the Ended for having just one movement point. A wider map would make it even easier get around their AoE attacks, and deny any pressure they would be able to put on the enemy army. Given how easy it is already to avoid and deal with them with ranged units, these guys would probably see hardly any use at all unless given some kind of buff to their movement.



Upon some reflection about what both of you are saying though, I think ranged units have such dominance right now because they can literally see everything. There's no fog-of-war here. I don't know if this is what Propbuddha is referring to in the LoS mechanic, but one of the ways you can take away a range advantage is to become "invisible" to the ranged unit; someone has to spot the target before the ranged unit can take a shot at them. Currently in EL's battle system, there can be no element of surprise outside of having reinforcements in the fog-of-war on the world map or hidden in a city's garrison, and I think this is a weakness that could be addressed.



I think adding the fog-of-war could add a lot of strategical depth without having to break out the buffs or nerfs to any particular units necessarily and add more interaction with the terrain. For instance, forests could hide units such that you could only see them if you were right next to them, cliffs could provide an advantage in vision along with the bonus to attack/defense as units on the lower half couldn't see up it while the unit on top the cliff can see further, etc. As well, it's been mentioned before that one of the strengths that flying/cavalry are supposed to have is in scouting; perhaps flying units could provide a vision advantage such that you could see up cliffs and units in forests, while cavalry would provide a faster scout but not the same kind of vision. Something like this would make the units a little more interesting than x unit has lots of this stat and y unit has lots of another. And provided the AI is also able to utilize this/be hindered by it, AI battles might become more interesting.



Finally, I strongly agree with Propbuddha that the deployment of your army is really going to matter against stronger opponents, and because of this, I don't think you should be able to have such easy access to your enemy's deployment as we do now without some sort of cost or specialization. The fog-of-war could function as a way to hide the deployment of your units from the enemy and the enemy units from yours.

As long as the battlefield doesn't get deeper (more distance between deployment zones and/or more room for ranged units to run away), I don't think tweaking the shape will hurt/help much and I'm certainly open to tweaking. Reinforcement flags are not placed in the absolute edge of the battlefield and your diagram is tilted 30 degrees (battles initiate across hex sides, not hex points) so it's hard to envision where the reinforcement flags would go.



My biggest concern on battlefield size changes is stalemates. Right now we are playing vs a dumb AI that deploys randomly and charges its units at random targets. If the battlefield gets bigger, it's going to be harder to chase down a "real" (strong AI or multiplayer) opponent in six rounds. A smart defender is going to stay exactly 5 hexes away from your Dekari Rangers standing on a cliff at the back line and circle around your Tenai Walker. A bigger battlefield equals more opportunities to avoid combat. The current size feels right.



I think cavalry seems weak due to the missing mechanics (LOS, flanking bonus) and the quality of the AI. To do a flank move, you need to move them into position in the first order phase, then charge in the second order phase. Without line of sight, coupled with massive ranged firepower at the moment, there's no way to do without a huge risk of getting pelted with arrows. Also, since the AI is very predicable, you usually know where they will be so these moves are unnecessary. Those extra movement points are going to be critical against stronger opponents as cavalry units are fast enough to stay out of archer range and charge in for the kill.



I don't want to be too critical because I think what Amplitude is doing with this is brilliant. When we can play "real" opponents things are going to be interesting. The deployment phase is going to be very important and your never going to be too sure where your opponents will be. Using passive orders like hold ground may result in a unit sitting out a couple rounds. Attackers are going to have to be more aggressive and stronger armies or risk stalemates. Players will be smarter about where they fight and will bring in extra armies for very large battles.

I think we would all agree that the AI is pretty dumb at this point in time



For me the tactics used against the dumb AI though would probably not work that well in multi-player. I'd be quite happy for the enemy to be trapped in a corner where I can throw my own spread out ranged units at them and not suffer from adjacent hit damage. Can you imagine the damage a buffed Ended with its 'Lightning Chain' or the Silics unit with their 'Beam' attack (up to 3 units in a line) would do to your troops all standing next to each other and no way out. Anything with an 'Area of effect' weapon would be devastating.



In multi-player you'll end up with far smarter deployment and movement of army units. Couple that with reinforcements joining from the correct direction ("there coming from your six") and an increased movement on units like cavalry (please make this happen), then that rectangular map is going to get very cramped in the middle for any meaningful tactics and would just become a melee that seriously disadvantages factions with weak infantry.



Alternatively we have another tactic with an army of ranged units split and placed 2 tiles from the wings dominating the entire battle area and able to support each other. Widening the map would stop this happening as there would always be an edge or a central corridor out of range.



One of my biggest fears for the game in single player mode is that battles will end up being a slog it out between heavy infantry or ranged units exchanging fire, with cavalry/flying units being nothing more than a cheap (or not as the case may be) sacrificial unit to run a blocking move in the first turn so units are funnelled. I'd hate this to be the case as the game has so much more to offer with some really well designed units to enjoy using a dynamic terrain with height, obstacles and topography. In fact it's the wonderful terrain that make the battles strategic and is so, so much better than ES and battle cards. That's why I really want to see this work.



My other issue with the rectangular map is that when near the coast units are trapped with only one option to move available around the water to get involved. This could be an game flaw, but the rectangular map doesn't help. I've already seen this happen on a couple of occasions.



So being inspired by your detail and good arguments Propbuddha, I'm hoping the diagram below helps explain my thinking on this.



The layout uses the same number of tiles as the current Battlefield map. It fits better with the fog-of-war when new tiles are revealed on the battlefield. It allows the reinforcements to come in from the correct direction and deployment. It allows for the added width to utilise flanking strategies. It stops ranged units totally dominating the battlefield.



Greyed out tiles are the original corner tiles, now moved and highlighted in faded orange. Arrows show reinforcement directions. What do you think?

Not sure what factions you play but I frequently use the corners with Ranged units as sometime the better ground is there. Granted the AI is dumb and will chase you.



A hexagon shape is not a requirement to have units reinforce from the proper direction (and I agree it's strange that reinforcemets always come in from the same side of the map):







As for the AI, it's pretty dumb at the moment and I don't think it's a good idea to change the system based on current AI behavior...

@ MysteryOne



Yeah, we've been bouncing around an idea of a retreat button with some sort of penalty for running away to fight another day



I don't know if the pre-battle screen as is works. Something I been meaning to flag up but was carried away in talk tiles, movement, range Has anyone seen anything happen when clicking on the move forward backward buttons?



@ Faust



I've only had 2 battles that lasted 3 rounds. Then again I'm using ranged units against the AI.

At this point in time it's safe to say the AI is a little dumb and I'm still not sure if the ranged units are over spec or the melee units are under spec. Not to mention whether the battle mechanics are restricting the AI or the AI isn't using available battlefield options.



Personally after playing the game with ranged units for a while, it feels little easy against the AI. I think ranged units should be able to fire no further than 4 tiles, starting at 2 with no buffs, and they should be able to move 2 tiles or 1 and fire. But it's all up for grabs at this point.

Here's my issue with a hexagonal map:



If the sides of the map are 5 hexes long the battlefield will be 18 hexes smaller than the current map (taken from the corners) and there will be a funnel in the back, so flanking will be harder.



If the sides are 6 hexes long, the map will be deeper than the current map (11 hexes vs 9 hexes) which will give units such as archers another row to run away and hide.. You still get that funnel in the back too.



If the sides are 7 hexes long (not shown), the map will be quite large and they'll be two more rows to run away and hide..







I really don't changes are necessary as game play should always trump aesthetics. Placing the flags shouldn't be too had on a square map.

Sorry for the double post, I wanted to mention a couple of things that aren't related to what I posted above:

• I'd like to be able to order a move command regardless of whether or not a unit is currently occupying that hex. There are many cases where I could not move as I would have liked because the game doesn't allow me to move units to a hex occupied by another, when I know that unit will not be there when the phase is resolved.
• Fog of war should be a part of battles. This could hide the enemy's deployment as well as make the terrain more interesting. Ie. forests could hide units, units on the lower half of a cliff couldn't see up it, etc.
• I'm not sure that I should be able to see any other units apart from the ones I am fighting on that battleground (ie. other faction's unit stacks).
• On the world map, I am able to find enemy armies in the fog of war just by using the pathing of the game and looking for where the battlefield pops up. I shouldn't be able to do this.
  
  

Maedhros wrote:
I have to disagree with the idea units that have suffered damage should deal less damage. I've seen this mechanic on a number of games and when combined with melee counter attacks it greatly devalues melee units as just by doing their job they quickly lose usefulness.

Though I do agree with the idea that units (at least the ones that are comprised of 3 or 6) should lose some effectiveness when they have taken a substantive amount of damage, I think Maedhros has a good point. Being a rather large fan of melee combat (I like swords far more than I like bows), it wouldn't be very fun if once my sword-flinging units took too much damage they would subsequently become rather useless after doing their jobs. That said, since I still agree with units suffering some penalty to damage on being wounded (maybe less than 50% HP), I think there is a good opportunity here for different unit sizes (ie. the Tenei Walker, compared to the Necrodrone, compared to the Stalwart) to make a difference in the game other than just being visually different. For instance, because the Tenei Walker is a large unit comprised of just one, perhaps they would only take a 25% penalty to damage on being wounded, where the Stalwart might take a larger one, say 40%, if wounded. To balance things out between melee and ranged, perhaps ranged units would take a much larger penalty than even the melee units would, maybe 66% or something, upon being wounded, which would make it paramount to keep your ranged units protected, and thus create a kind of synergy between melee and ranged units, where the ranged would support the melee and the melee would provide protection for the ranged. In addition, perhaps heroes could negate this penalty for the units which it shared its class with; for instance, an infantry hero would negate the penalty for melee units but not ranged, while a ranged hero would negate the it for ranged units but not melee ones.

Starfire512 wrote:
Since we are talking about mechanics here, it seems to me that RANGED units are way too powerful. I think the primary problem is too many units move at a speed of 1. If all units had a minimum speed of 2, it would be better. Otherwise, all your going to see on every battlefield is cavalry and ranged units.

I agree with this assessment, though I'm not so sure that the problem lies in the movement speed of 1 necessarily, but rather that the range of archers is probably too big; ranged heroes seem to have a base range of 3 and Dekari Archers have a range of 4 plus their movement speed debuff (I haven't played the Vaulters so I'm not sure of their range, I think it's 3). This isn't even to include the army skill that boosts the attack range of ranged units by 1 (which I think, only seems to work on the Vaulters' heroes). This range allows for the units to kite so effectively, especially if they are Dekari Archers, that melee units don't have a chance unless they are faster (ie. have more initiative) than the archers, or have high movement speed such as Centaurs (4 speed) or Ryders/Stalwarts (3 speed), or both. If neither are available however, then you must have other ranged units to deal with the enemy's ranged units. This is fine I suppose, but it does reduce army diversity, and that's not very fun, like Starfire says. As such, I think there are two ways to deal with ranged units currently, perhaps with the damage penalty if wounded on top of it: either keep the current attack range but units may only fire if they have not moved, or lower the range to 2 hexes for the generic ranged unit and 3 for Dekari (as I feel like they are working as intended, but perhaps too well) and keep the current mechanic. Either would necessitate greater care in the positioning of ranged units and provide another role for melee troops to play in the protection of ranged units.

these guys make some of the best looking games only if they could Endless space/legend but only if it felt different for each faction. But by the way DOE looks great and has a great personality

@indigav - Regarding your question as to what happens if all units in one army are not killed at the end of battle, I don't expect the mechanic will change from what it is now: a draw.

@ Seek



Well spotted. I was suppose to pose it as a question

Should have said ...can you deduce from that...



What you're confirming is that the entire battle will be conducted with either 1 order phase, 3 order phases, or 6 order phases. 6 order phases means you get an order in each battle round



I would like to know what happens after 6 rounds when you haven't killed off the enemy. Do you enter into another battle (which seems a waste of time)? Does the other force get a chnce to move off and gain a height advantage or city defence? Do they or you receive a penalty for fleeing the scene?



Maybe it's at 6 rounds because there is no retreat option



@ Zenicetus

Like many of the ideas here on the forum, the first question should be "can the AI handle it?"

I concur. It may be fine in multi-player, but a lot more people play games against the AI (even in multi-player you'll have AI factions) so the AI must be able to use that order. Which is why I'm always wondering if in battles the AI is choosing not to use the strategy open to it, or if it can't.

Sushiy wrote:

• Flanking!!! Comeon, thats a standard, everyone wants it, the hexagonal engine is great for it (see Civ 5)
  
  

Flanking would be great, but only if the AI knows how to do it as well as the player. The AI in AoW3 is very good at flanking attacks; in fact it's absolutely ruthless at it, which sometimes leaves its units a little too exposed. If we can get that kind of AI for the tactical battles along with severe penalties for flanked units, then it's a good idea. Otherwise, it could just be a player exploit.



Like many of the ideas here on the forum, the first question should be "can the AI handle it?"

indigav wrote:


Minimum unit set-up is 1 phase x 6 rounds = 6 points of player interaction

In-between unit set-up is 3 phases x 6 rounds = 18 points of player interaction

Maximum unit set-up is 6 phases x 6 rounds = 36 points of player interaction

This is not correct (sorry) What SpaceTroll said was that there will be 6 rounds of combat, with options to give orders

once each round (six times - "advanced")

once every two rounds (three times - "normal" - this is the way it is now) or

once at the beginning (one time - "simple" - basically autoresolve after positioning units with initial orders)



The number of rounds per combat instance will not change, in other words.

MysteryOne wrote:
Pre-battle screen should have the option to pull back or withdraw and this is once per turn. Secondly, if the battle ends without either army being defeated, the one with least healths and most losses - pull back automatically.

You shouldn't be able to "pull back" once you decide the opponent is too strong or you're taking a beating. It would be abused.



The "Master of Disguise" skill allows you to see the enemy composition per-battle...

You shouldn't be able to "pull back" once you decide the opponent is too strong or you're taking a beating. It would be abused.

So is saving before every battle and reloading to play again, but there is only one way to stop that, and an Iron Man setting wouldn't actually stop it from happening in any other setting, plus in mutli-player it's a nightmare. Not to mention that as a legit action it would also be open to the AI.



"Just as I was about to nail that little bugger to the cliff face he up sticks and legs it. Damn I've got to chase him again."



I think a penalty to a legit tactic should be there as an option. My idea was for the retreat to incur a damage round to all fleeing units and for a random select unit to act as cover, which more than likely will get killed. If you make this a random option then the player would have to consider this action carefully as the opposing army will still be there to fight again.