I can agree that the battle system needs work, but I don't think it's entirely pointless or inconsequential. If the player's decisions didn't have a meaningful impact on the outcome, I doubt I would have managed to use two Wild Walkers Archers (upgraded with tier 1 iron armor and bow) to take out 2 Centaurs and 2 or 3 ogres before the remaining 3 finished me off, just by cleverly placing my archers at the beginning of the battle. (I really wish I'd had recording software running at the time.)

Admittedly, with complete control of every turn, I might have fared even better, as I could have focused fire and fallen back more efficiently. Such a system would probably drag out the battles, however, and it would not allow me to command a different battle at the same time or manage my empire.



Yet, while I can get behind the design philosophy of this combat system, striking a balance of player involvement and quick resolution of turns, I have to agree that it needs a lot of work. First and foremost, the battle interface needs to be improved to provide a lot more feedback. If I build an Agache Shaman and he casts Barkskin on my Tenei Walker, I want to know what bonus that actually gave me. If I select a unit of archers, I want to see their range. If my units have bonuses against a certain unit type, I want to know. And I want to be able to see the initiative order of my units during deployment. I have had more than one battle plan in mountainous terrain fall apart because I accidentally placed the unit with the lowest initiative in the choke point, and every other unit could not pas it for a whole turn.



For that matter, how does the combat system even work?

It's easy to notice that units act in initiative order, from high to low. But how exactly is damage calculated? Judging by the numbers I've seen come up in my battles, Defense simply reduces incoming damage by its value. Critical chance appears to be the probability in percent (but I haven't yet closely observed enough battles for a proper conclusion on that.)

And for that matter, do the "-Slayer" attributes of the different weapons even work? I have found them in one xml file, attached to the "base weapons," but they are not mentioned again in the entries of specific weapon, material, and tier combinations, and they do not show up as unit capacities when equipping a weapon. For example, claws are supposed to be knightslayers, as are Crossbows; Hammers are supposedly Warriorslayers, and Axes are FlyingSlayers (for whatever reason). And all shields supposedly give bonus defense when blocking. But are they really, or does this not work yet? I'll have to do some testing on that. I'll try to get some results by tomorrow.







Anyway, on to discussing and suggesting improvements.

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.
  
  

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.

Everything underlined is something that I think I have read the devs mentioning as a planned feature, everything in bold is something that I think should be in.

Wounded units definitely need to lose some efficiency, as we can not usually focus fire to make sure we kill as many units as possible. After all, after the first target is dead, the units pick new targets on their own, and they love to spread fire.

As much as I'd love to see the changes in the reinforcement system, I'm aware that the devs need to take into account the balance of strategic and tactical decisions. With just 4 or 5 units per army stack in era 1, getting even a stack of two behind the enemy before you attack would be devastating.

Forests completely blocking line of sight to ranged units does not strike me as a good idea. However, a reduction by 1 tile, or a massive reduction to ranged damage while standing in forest tiles, may achieve a similar effect without rendering archers completely useless in forest provinces.

Flanking and support are great mechanics, but I don't think they should be a core feature of the combat system. Rather, I think they would make great capacities: Assassin units that get huge backstab bonuses, or a hero who drills his troops to fight in phalanx, giving them a huge defense buff while adjacent.

Multi-step targeting, unfortunately, could easily be implemented in a way that makes battles a complicated mess, as the different orders will just pile up, and in the end they could just give us complete, direct control.

Finally, I think an easy way to fix the cavalry issue, and my aforementioned issues with my entire army getting stuck for a whole turn, would be to allow us to delay a units initiative step by dragging it on the initiative bar, but it would be stuck at the low initiative until the next chance to give orders. Being able to order cavalry to hit & run so that they would attack once, then fall back from the front lines, would be a great addition, too, though not a must-have.







Now, for some features I would like to see:

A retreat button in the pre-battle screen or a "retreat hex" on the battlefield. I have played so many battle through all three phases simply to save my lone scout from certain doom.

Zone of Control/Attacks of Opportunity: In one of my early battles, I had to watch an enemy just walk right through a hex occupied by one of my own units, and at other times I've seen cavalry run down the entire width of my battle line behind them to get to my archers, with nobody reacting to them (This happened to Panczasu in his Wild Walkers LP, too.) This would also add a lot of options for new abilities: More than one attack of opportunity per turn, ignoring enemy zone of control, etc.

Issuing move and target orders: This ties in with the initiative issue. Too many times have I found myself watching one unit block the only tile the next unit could reach and attack the enemy, even though the first unit could have walked a tile further or picked the one to the right/left and allowed both to attack.

Targeting Stances: In addition to the movement stance of offensive/defensive/hold, I would like to be able to pick a preference for the automated target choice: Closest target, lowest HP, lowest Def, highest attack, ranged, cavalry, force move... Which ones would actually be needed could probably fill a whole separate discussion. "Use active ability" could be a possible stance, and would even allow for special hero abilities that cost dust ("spells" if you want to call them that). Alternately, they could allow up to four successive move and target orders, which the unit will attempt in descending order of priority, selected the same way it works on the research screen. E.g. click on one unit, then another, so if the first dies, your unit will attempt to attack the second instead. Click on a unit again to remove them from the "queue" of orders.

Units that did not move receive a small bonus to defense or retaliation strikes (perhaps only if they have shields). This may or may not be a reasonable addition, or it could simply be a special ability granted by spears or especially large shields.







All that being said, I also want to bring up a few concerns with the deployment and movement in combat.

Deployment zones always being perfectly centered on the positions of the attacking and defending stack can backfire badly. I have once or twice beaten a vastly superior force by the simple expedient that they received only a single hex to deploy. I can see this being intended during sieges, but one of the battles I won this way simply happened at the tip of a peninsula, so the rest of the enemy deployment zone ended up covered in water.

Furthermore, the movement penalty of forests has turned more than one battle into a tedious slog of watching units creep forward at 1 hex a turn, until the battle ended in an inconclusive draw with nary a scratch on either side. On the other hand, Dawn Guard can easily reach the back of the enemy deployment zone on open terrain in one turn, but that strikes me as working as intended.

I've also heard some players argue for a larger battle area, but I am not certain that is required. If it is, a single hex extension in one or both directions may be enough. However, a larger battlefield does not exactly mesh with my experience of crawling battles.







I really want to see this battle system succeed. I think it's a great solution to balancing strategic and tactical decisions in a 4x. Ideally it will reach a state where it provides enough depth for player decisions to be meaningful, yet cuts out all unnecessary and confusing complexity. I'm tempted to say that the raving Dominions 3 fanboys prove that it can work.

I think the battlefield size is very close to perfect.

@ The Cat-o-Nine-Tales... Wow

If you have a line to the dev team, please ask them what is active and what isn't in the battles. I'd love to know what the unit effects are doing and as you say which of the battle mechanics are running and how.



@ Propbuddha - Agree that a streamlined system for battles should be maintained



I'm happy with the size of the battlefield but I'm not so certain that it's shape is correct. I think something hexagonal would make more sense as the tiles are the same, which would make moving around and flanking more important because currently all the battles I've had have just been a rush up the middle for a slog it out match. Perhaps that's just the AI being dumb.



Also totally agree with the movement of units in battle. This needs sorting. Some of the stuff is nonsensical. Why do my archers have to get next to a Vinesnake, as an example, to shoot at it. Oops you and the infantry unit have all been wiped out by that circular attack of the tail. I know there are options to pick each unit and make them stand their ground, but this doesn't work for the AI as this fine tuning would not happen for their units. It also ties in with the initial placement as The Cat-o-Nine-Tails points out. Why do archers pick the low ground when high ground is available? Surely the Battle mechanics can be tweaked so units pick the high ground by default if available and the type of unit can have a weighting for a preference, like avoid forested areas if your cavalry.

The main issue I currenlty have with tactical battles is that a units damage output doesn't decreaes if it loses health, that has to change.

Small update: As of version 0.4.3, the special capacities do finally show up in the tooltips, and a brief test shows that they do seem to work.

indigav wrote:
I'm happy with the size of the battlefield but I'm not so certain that it's shape is correct. I think something hexagonal would make more sense as the tiles are the same, which would make moving around and flanking more important because currently all the battles I've had have just been a rush up the middle for a slog it out match. Perhaps that's just the AI being dumb.

A hexagonal battlefield certainly should be considered. In addition to your valid points about maneuvering, a hexagonal battlefield might also fit better into the aesthetic of the game. That shape would also make placement of "directional reinforcements" easier, though finding the correct size might take some testing.

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:


A hexagonal battlefield certainly should be considered. In addition to your valid points about maneuvering, a hexagonal battlefield might also fit better into the aesthetic of the game. That shape would also make placement of "directional reinforcements" easier, though finding the correct size might take some testing.

I'm considering putting that as a poll. Just noticed that for some bizarre reason this post has been placed in the sub-forum of Games2Gether. How it got here when I started it in the main forum I have no idea

Propbuddha wrote:

• 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!

That are some good suggestions here.

Hi,

I have a quick minor sugestion (sorry, if it was already mentioned - I didn't read whole thread yet):

- when unit has cleave ability (to attack multiple targets in meele) it shouldn't be able to hurt secondary targets behind the cliff.

Gewar wrote:
Hi,

I have a quick minor sugestion (sorry, if it was already mentioned - I didn't read whole thread yet):

- when unit has cleave ability (to attack multiple targets in meele) it shouldn't be able to hurt secondary targets behind the cliff.

I agree it should not, unless the unit can also attack across cliffs anyway because of some other ability. That one took me completely off guard the first time I fought a Vinesnake.





I would also like to take this opportunity to mention that after extensive testing, I'm getting the impression that the "Critical" stat does not only reflect the chance of scoring a critical hit, but also the damage of a critical hit completely independent of the base weapon damage. A Marine with a 25 attack Crossbow and tier 3 glassteel armor can score 50-60 point critical hits on top of the ordinary damage of the attack

Dear all,



Firstly what a beautiful game we have here and I hope that it goes from strength to strength.



I've started this thread because as I looked I couldn't see a single one discussing the mechanics of the battles. So I hope we get some real interesting posts in here about how the battle mechanics work, where the bugs are, and how we could improve what is in game on early release.



The floor is open people. Any one for a dance?

I voted for the hexagonal battle map idea, mainly just for the aesthetics. It would allow more room for flanking, but that would only be a good thing if the AI knows how to use it that way.



Also, I support the idea of damage output decreasing with HP. I tried AoW3 recently and didn't like how the fixed damage-per-unit works there. When every unit has full combat power right up to the moment it's killed, it encourages too much focus-fire from both the player and the AI, instead of other tactical options.

I think what erks me the most about current battle mechanics is that you can only choose who your units attack the first round then if they kill the unit you wanted dead first they do whatever the hell they want. I have seen my units make some stupid attack decisions and it is frustrating as all hell.



But yeah I agree with a hexagonal battle mechanic. Only makes since considering the tiles are hexagonal.

I think what erks me the most about current battle mechanics is that you can only choose who your units attack the first round then if they kill the unit you wanted dead first they do whatever the hell they want. I have seen my units make some stupid attack decisions and it is frustrating as all hell.

You're not alone.



The problem with making every move a player requirement is the length of time it will take to complete a battle. My favoured option is to have a few additional orders that you can give to any selected unit. Such as...



Attack weakest unit

Attack strongest unit

Attack nearest unit

Attack from flank (Auotmate with left/right starting point)



I'm know there are a lot of other options, but I'd like to keep it simple to understand and these seem to fulfil that teeth grinding, hair pulling situation of having your units run across the field to engage units at random.

indigav wrote:
You're not alone.



The problem with making every move a player requirement is the length of time it will take to complete a battle. My favoured option is to have a few additional orders that you can give to any selected unit. Such as...



Attack weakest unit

Attack strongest unit

Attack nearest unit

Attack from flank (Auotmate with left/right starting point)



I'm know there are a lot of other options, but I'd like to keep it simple to understand and these seem to fulfil that teeth grinding, hair pulling situation of having your units run across the field to engage units at random.

How about just allowing us to set attack priorities for individual units by holding down the shift key? This could also Incorporated move orders like you could run to the rear of an enemy unit and then attack them to get a flanking bonus.

Brilliant, simple and intuitive. I like it



Now all we need to know is if it's possible, because I'm sure a lot of people will like this.

It might create problems considering the movement of the enemy is not static. Idk I am not a game developer .

I'd like to know too. No need to give up just yet, and there is the back up plan of addition unit commands

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. Right now archers are already very powerful and I think making units weaken each time they take damage would only put this further out of balance. Hell, not to mention how much more powerful it would make the broken lords healing mechanics. A fun risk/reward perk is often when a units damage goes up as it's health goes down (say a berserker unit or some such)



I would love to see a zone of control mechanic for melee troops. Or perhaps just put it on certain weapon types (spears) along with lower damage to give the player a choice when assembling an army. As others in this thread have mentioned it's somewhat annoying when an enemy just walks out of melee. If a flanking mechanic was added the zone of control would make that more interesting too.



I like the current battlefield size, making it much larger would make the fights longer without adding much.



While I would love to have more control over where my army stands I think the current targeting fits the hands off design philosophy.

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.



Frankly, it seems like the AI is having an extremely difficult time dealing with my stacks of 6 ranged units (and a ranged hero). Nothing survives to even get in melee combat. To make it worse, I've started removing all the armor on my ranged units and the only upgraded thing is a better bow. So, cheap, high damage, ranged units. Very difficult to defeat.

@Maedhros - EL attempts to counter this issue by only allowing one attack (whether initiated or counterattack) per round. I'm not sure that it does it to the extent it needs to but it's certainly better than Civ5 as I see it. What do you think of my proposal below?



@Starfire512 - I worry that increasing movement would necessitate a larger battle map. I'm not sure this is desirable (as it is now, it often uncovers quite a bit of terrain in the early game). I would prefer limiting ranged to a lower field of fire, personally.



One option which would go nicely with the "less HP less damage" thesis - which I would absolutely like to see - is that "ranged do less damage against enemy with less HP". It's justifiable (fewer people in the army make those remaining harder to target), deals with the current range-being-OP situation, and does not make ranged irrelevant (ie, giving ranged a whack with the nerf-bat and making them useless). Ranged should also have a more moderate range to their shots imo. i think these changes would let us solve a host of issues: differentiate between ranged weapon types more succinctly (make xbows more powerful the closer the range, let there be a longbow weapon type that had an AoE effect with a penalty to damage, etc.), give range it's own role (weaken units for melee to finish off, historically their place) and allow for combined arms to be optimal (rare for 4X games).



To note, I am a fan of Civ 5's HP-to-damage ratio, which is essentially -10% damage for every 20% HP lost (so 80% HP=90% damage, 60% HP=80% damage, etc.) - it made injury matter, but didn't make damaged units irrelevant. I wouldn't mind this sort of system implemented in EL.



Also, I've mentioned this in another thread, but if anyone wishes to try it, you can set the combat orders to occur every round by making a very simple XML edit: Go to C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\Common\Endless Legend\Public\Simulation, open the Battle Sequences with notepad, and edit the three lines that say "2" to "1". (Note this will make combat last half as long as previous, but I don't see a way to edit this - in a way, it makes it more interesting, more of a skirmish, making pursuing the enemy a choice rather than decimating them all in one battle - or vise versa, of course.)