I'm looking at this from a multiplayer perspective, single player do whatever you want...



Think about how this would play out. Every time a player gets into a battle they don't think they can win they could simply escape with less damage. What you describe (chasing an enemy around the map, catching him only so he can escape by pressing a button) is not fun.



The retreat option is already there. Either stay away from enemy armies you don't want to engage on the world map or hold out for 6 rounds. No "easy button" is necessary.

Think about how this would play out. Every time a player gets into a battle they don't think they can win they could simply escape with less damage. What you describe (chasing an enemy around the map, catching him only so he can escape by pressing a button) is not fun

I agree with that. Which is why I added that there has to be a real penalty to the fleeing army - Loss of a random unit + damage to all other units. You can also add a bonus to the routing force. A temporary confidence boost for the next 5 -10 turns, or something. Whatever it is would be worth the while for the victor and the fleeing army would be considerably weaker. Thinking on turn based bonus, you could also limit the retreat action to once in every 5 - 10 turns. That way if they get caught again, not only are they weaker they also can't escape.



Just wondered how this would work with the Hero ability "Last Stand"?



I think it would work in multi-player and solo, also the AI in both modes would be able to use it. However after all of that I do agree with Propbuddha on the the point of the game already having battles that last only 6 rounds and the option to move units to stay out the way. A little difficult I feel with the narrow 9x9 square we have currently and archers that can split to cover both sides at the same time. But possible all the same to stay out the way for most of your units.



I believe the strategy required at this point is an army with your own ranged unit

Check out Lt_Miles feedback on what the dev team are looking at. Impact on units, hero and battle mechanics



/#/endless-legend/forum/6-game-design/thread/3570-g2g-endless-legend-s-list-of-community-feedback

Propbuddha wrote:
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 agree on your concerns about more edges to hide in a hexagonal battlefield.



Actually my fast proposal would be to make the funnels of a hexagonal field or the corners of a rectangular field the "retreat" fields. Only one unit per retreat field and round can flee, making it easy for single units to flee and hard for armies, that will run into a veritable traffic jam.



Moreover, I'd like it if reinforcements came into a semi-extended battlezone. They'd start in a battlefield two more hexes deep, out of which they can freely move, but not attack, until they enter the battlefield proper. This would prevent slow and powerful units from appearing instantaneously at the back of an enemy's ranged, give some strategic freedom in arranging your two-pronged attack and allow the foe to see what's coming for him from the reinforcement-side. It also should work with all forms of battlefields.

For anyone wondering if they can mod how combat works and the mechanics for the battlefield (Probably not the shape though), the dev team have confirmed that modding will be done through xml files. Here are a few quotes to warm you up.

ThorTillas wrote:
Sorry for the delay guys.

We have had some discussions going on our side about your post, and modding aside, we are currently building up both the improve list and the feature list for the upcoming months...

And to be honest, writing a post in English takes some time ^^... at least for me...



First of all, thanks a lot to have taken the time to write your thoughts and wishes. It always amaze me how much time you guys spend on helping us to improve our(your?) game.



Then to the point: yes we will support modding as much as we can.



...



Modding the data:



We started in Endless Space already, by providing an extensive amount of xml files, allowing the game designers and the modders to modify the game contents without the need of a programmer’s intervention.

We have extended the access to event more data customization in Endless Legend, you should be able to modify the following:

• The game economics,
• The factions traits and balance,
• The world generation settings,
• The units statistics, along with their equipment,
• The items database,
• The heroes and their skills,
• The visual mapping of almost every simulated entity in the game,
• The quests to be triggered, their mechanics, their rewards, the loot tables…
• All the AI parameters…
  
  

… and much more!



(Thanks to Eric and SpaceTroll for the revisions)

SpaceTroll wrote:
Anything that is accessible to game designers, including AI factors, will be modable. We can totally affect the targeting behavior of the AI in combat for instance, which affects how the AI considers its troops, the terrain and the enemy.

Now the Faction Creation competition has moved to the final stage of a G2G vote, we have 3 possible winners. This concludes "quest 1" and then we move to "quest 2" which as described is...

Quest 2: Hero, Units and City

• Submit your Hero, Units and City based on the winning Biography.
• Vote for your favourite proposal in the forum polls.
• The best three submissions will be chosen for a GAMES2GETHER vote
  
  

Great opportunity to add a hero and units, but I wonder if we'll get something different. Some Hero or Unit that has a twist and therefore can change how the battle may work out. For Instance a Hero Cavalry unit that can boost unit movement by 2, or provides SharpSense 2 giving the army a boost against ranged fire.



What about a unit that is flying with SharpSense and is anti-cavalry, working as a support unit to ranged armies from being flanked?



I think the options are plenty even as the battle mechanics stand and I hope we get something wonderful, but I also hope the battle mechanics can be given a little polish too.

Has anyone seen a flying unit in battle, cross a ridge or cliff to engage units?



I've been looking for it and have yet to see this mechanic used. Instead every flying unit I've engaged have landed and act like infantry walking around obstacles they could fly over.

I think the devs said somewhere that it was still WIP but I don't remember where, sorry

T41 wrote:
I think the devs said somewhere that it was still WIP but I don't remember where, sorry

Now when that gets implemented the gaming dynamic fro battles will change.

I wonder just how many of us have tried different game settings with varied terrain? Currently I feel the best mix is hills and ranged units. By the time any opposing unit walks around the obstacles the ranged units have made them look like a porcupine. And very dead.

I think that the "Hold ground" option must be improved, because it is useless for melee units with high initiative.



Suppose we have a melee unit, A, with initiative 2, and a cavalry unit B, with initiative 1. A is separated by B by one hex, so it can't enter melee combat immediately. Now I tell unit A to don't move and stand ground.



The current behavior is that A simply loses the turn, because there is no unit within it's attack range. Then B approaches and attack A *first*. This means that with the stand ground option, to have a high initiative is *bad* for melee units...



The solution for that is that the stand ground option should give a *first strike* against passing units. This would increase *a lot* the usefulness of melee units: you would have to avoid being close to a melee unit standing ground, or risk dying before reaching your target. It is Zone-of-Control placed in it's due place in this game.

About the game shape. I believe it should be a *rectangle*, and not a simple square. The current battlefield is 8 by 9, and the deployment area for the attackers and the defenders is roughly the same size. If you think about that a battle happens between *two* hexes, the board should be a little elongated, to represent an attacking party entering a defending hex. I would say 8 by 12, giving some rows in the front and back as a "retreat zone".



This elongated map layout would make possible to represent a unit defensive status: for example, if an attacking unit attacks a unit with no movements left from the last turn, it would be an "ambush", where the defender would have less squares on where to deploy their units and the attacker tiles will be closer.



If the defender didn't move in the turn, it gets "fortified" and gains an extra row for deploying their units, more strategically. If the unit spend more than one turn in "fortified" state will allow the army to add "fortification" units, that can be impassable terrain (like moats, or fences), or fortified positions that would be like the city garrison tile (like "sandbags" or "trenches")... Each unit with full movements left at the end of the turn gains a "fortification point". With 2 fortification points you can create a "fence": an immobile unit, with 1hp, that blocks the way. You can make the fence stronger, by spending extra fortification points. My suggestion is that the fence gains 10 hitpoints per era level per fortification point. The fortification point is kept at the tile, not the army, and the moment there are no units left in the tile, the fortification points in that tile are lost. There will be a limit of 20 fortification points per tile, or 30 per district/city tile.



And if the defender unit left the turn with some movements left, then the combat is a "meeting engagement" where both attackers and defenders have about the same space, and a row of neutral ground could be added between the two.

Please no "retreat zone". Having a deeper battle field will just allow archers to run away and hide in the back line. If you want to have space, don't deploy on the forward line...



The battlefield size is perfect as is...

Propbuddha wrote:
Please no "retreat zone". Having a deeper battle field will just allow archers to run away and hide in the back line. If you want to have space, don't deploy on the forward line...



The battlefield size is perfect as is...

By retreat zone I mean only some more maneuvering tiles, not a tile where units will vanish from combat... These are the combat maps I'm thinking about:



AMBUSH: attack a unit with no movement left.





MEETING ENGAGEMENT: attack a unit with some movements left.





ASSAULT: attack a tile where at least one unit was kept without moving.









And we can add the rule that if no defending unit is present in the defense deployment area, a real retreat is made, causing the position (say, a city) to be taken, will force those pesky archers to stay and fight... This would model properly a retreat (another requirement made in another thread).

I had noticed that the Critical stat seemed to be working independently then the choice of weapons, I just haven't joined all the dots up yet.



@Gewar

What unit was you referring to? I would think that a flying unit would also have this as they take no notice of cliffs.



I just seen a Deamon with attack stats better than my starter Hero and still I'll beat it as it's not ranged and doesn't use its full movement count to close. Is this the AI being dumb, or battle mechanics?

I'll start with troop initiatives.



For me they seem a little out of kilter. Cavalry go charging in (even when unmounted - Vaulters Dawn Officer) before ranged units have softened up the target. That just doesn't make sense, especially when units generally has a lower defence level then the attack level of the enemy.



My suggestion is that initiative can be accumulated in an army from the different units and then assigned to units in the army. This would give the player a greater customised experience and allow for different strategies based on what tech, resource and units they have available.

I have a lot of thoughts on this, but the developers have been clear that this isn't finished and there are a few bugs. Here's a list of stuff i'd like to see..

• Faster deployment (double click to skip walking animation)
• Reinforcements that come from the direction the source army is.
• Reinforcements arrival round based on distance from the battle
• Armies do not reinforce if they participated in or are about to participate in another battle this turn.
• Ability to choose what units will participate as reinforcements (i.e don't send my settlers into battle)
• Targeting UI for movement "steps" based on where the unit is planning to be after each round, rather than the target hex
• Multi-step orders in targeting phase (i.e. - Hold position round 1, then move there round 2, then attack round 3)
• Ability to hold ground and prioritize a target
• Defensive stance that means something
• Defense stat is more meaningful (armor seems a little pointless at this point. HP is good though)
• Special abilities are more useful (ex. Confidence = 20% less melee damage. Not that great)
• Flanking mechanic (more damage/less defense hitting an engaged unit from back 3 hexes - Calvary would be more useful)
• Wounded units (50%+ HP loss?) lose combat effectiveness, but aren't completely useless
• Ability to push back a unit in melee
• Units get bonus if they are supported (friendly units adjacent) in melee combat
• Line of sight for ranged units (i.e archers cant shoot through forests)
• Balance power of ranged and melee units (Ranged are better at the moment)
• More clarity on what is going on = Tooltips on unit abilities and terrain
• Overall faster animations, some are very slow.
  
  

Most of all - AMPLITUDE'S vision for a streamlined system that can be played in a couple minutes simultaneously with the rest of the game must be preserved!



EDIT: For cavalry to behave the way you want currently, you need them to hold ground until the second targeting phase, then send them in.

Great start Propbuddha



Agree. It's work in progress and good work too.

EDIT: For cavalry to behave the way you want currently, you need them to hold ground until the second targeting phase, then send them in.

Thanks for that. It just didn't dawn upon me that I would need to hold. But then that's the point of this - player expectation versus learning the game

The only issue I'd have with this is that it doesn't seem to match up with attack/defence unit specs. When you look at the units it is easy to see they are far better attacking than defending, so naturally you'd go for the offensive option to gain the advantage and that's when the initiative spec of the unit bites your backside.



However I'll give my next battle that order and see how it goes. Just as soon as I rebuild the cavalry that decided to kill itself as a selfless example of stupidity to the rest of the army lol

Propbuddha wrote:
I have a lot of thoughts on this, but the developers have been clear that this isn't finished and there are a few bugs. Here's a list of stuff i'd like to see..

• Faster deployment (double click to skip walking animation)
• Reinforcements that come from the direction the source army is.
• Reinforcements arrival round based on distance from the battle
• Armies do not reinforce if they participated in or are about to participate in another battle this turn.
• Ability to choose what units will participate as reinforcements (i.e don't send my settlers into battle)
• Targeting UI for movement "steps" based on where the unit is planning to be after each round, rather than the target hex
• Multi-step orders in targeting phase (i.e. - Hold position round 1, then move there round 2, then attack round 3)
• Ability to hold ground and prioritize a target
• Defensive stance that means something
• Defense stat is more meaningful (armor seems a little pointless at this point. HP is good though)
• Special abilities are more useful (ex. Confidence = 20% less melee damage. Not that great)
• Flanking mechanic (more damage/less defense hitting an engaged unit from back 3 hexes - Calvary would be more useful)
• Wounded units (50%+ HP loss?) lose combat effectiveness, but aren't completely useless
• Ability to push back a unit in melee
• Units get bonus if they are supported (friendly units adjacent) in melee combat
• Line of sight for ranged units (i.e archers cant shoot through forests)
• Balance power of ranged and melee units (Ranged are better at the moment)
• More clarity on what is going on = Tooltips on unit abilities and terrain
• Overall faster animations, some are very slow.
  
  

Not quite sure why you don't like defense - its currently the most useful stat in the game.



Besides that, all good ideas. Definately need faster animations, and slightly more depth (flanking or surround bonus, enemies loosing a portion of their strength as their health decreases). Most importantly, need additional control each order phase. Allow moving to an occupied hex (try to move to it anyways), a new support friendly order (try to protect from damage, attack their same target, or use any special abilities on them). More stances, or at least a way to change priority of stance vs order (no more hold position archers charging after their target). An option to have units focus on draining enemy action points vs finishing off weakened units.



What I think would be a cool way to quickly add more depth and general strategy without getting bogged down with ordering every unit: Replace the general (all units) stances with a global modifier system similar to cards from endless space. No need for cards to cancel eachother - they can do that through soft counters. Eg:

CHARGE!: Cavalry +10 init, +1 move, charge bonus doubled

Arrow storm: Archers -1 range, +25% damage

Defensive Stance: Units which do not attack receive additional defense and counter attack damage

Reckless assault: units deal more damage on offense and take less counterattack damage. Otherwise, defense significantly reduced

Last stand: Your units ignore the loss of strength from missing HP

Fortify: Ranged and infantry prepare stakes, increasing defense vs flyers and cavalry

Turtle Formation: Infantry -1 move, -35% damage from archers.

Pincer: Units attempt to get behind enemy lines. Flanking bonuses doubled.

Fast March: Infantry +1 move, vulnerable to flyers, archers.





Still, the most important part

Propbuddha wrote:


Most of all - AMPLITUDE'S vision for a streamlined system that can be played in a couple minutes simultaneously with the rest of the game must be preserved!

To me the whole battle system in EL is (at least in its current state) more or less pointless.

Like in ES I see no reason to do battle manually - it takes a lot of time for no real benefit. I'd rather throw an extra stack in and save my time for something that is more fun, like improving my cities or research techs.

I doubt that will change unless I have manual control over the units (which is, if I understood correctly, not part of the design philosophy).



As for the few times I have actually fought a manual battle I concur with the following points above:

(1) Units need faster animations.

(2) Reinforcement mechanic/logic needs tweaking.

(3) Unit stats have to be more pronounced (as it is, it seems that I'll just build the "strongest" unit all the time, e.g. Tenai Walker for the Wildwalkers)

(4) Flanking/Swarming could have a significant combat effect (but more of a balance thing, not too important atm).

(5) Damaged units should certainly lose offensive power.

(6) More tooltips/info icons about terrain impact (planned, iirc a dev post from the weekend).

3ntf4k3d wrote:
To me the whole battle system in EL is (at least in its current state) more or less pointless.

I wouldn't go that far. I really like the system and there's potential to tactically fight your way out of a bad spot or hold the enemy off and quickly escape the next turn (provided a UI prompt doesn't stall your hasty retreat). There's a lot of opportunity to make it more "tactical" though, without ruining the core concept or slowing things down to where battles take a long time to finish.



I like the concept of hero skills being being tied to "special orders" that give you stronger bonuses for a couple rounds during the battle (ex. EcthelionHelm's "Defensive Stance"), rather than flat buffs (ex. +2 Defense).