Elements that are currently bad, poor and in some cases and situations just plain terrible,

• terrain advantage
• positioning advantage
• abilities
• initiative
• morale
• archers
• melee balance vs archers
• unit composition
• home advantage
• minor faction balance
  
  

Alternative System



Initiative & Discipline

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initiative is a fixed stat, not enhanced by anything (archers have lower initiative, ie. they like to attack after the other army does, most of the time)

every round your units roll for initiative, based on their FIXED initiative stat

"discipline" is added, and is now the stat enhanced by glassteal

discipline gives small bonus to attack stat (fixed value + % stacking bonus) when performing maneuvers and also unlocks sophisticated maneuvers

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Manuevers

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all default aoe abilities are removed (both minor and major faction ones; so more OP Zealots, lightning Ended, etc)

all damage enhacing equipment, tech, etc are removed (extra damage is reserved for maneuvers as well, though you are still allowed to stack tons of attack)

aoe abilities are reserved for maneuvers and are the advantage of a player who focuses a lot on glassteal equipment since you'll need high discipline to unlock the high level maneuvers that involve aoe

you perform a maneuver by selecting multiple units and giving them an "combined force order" if you select the right combination the units will perform a special attack simultaneously (sometimes with extra graphic effects involved)

the units roll their initiative by a single roll from the unit with the lowest initiative among them

the simplest maneuvers may involve just a few units: 2 knights + 1 archer = combined assault maneuver (+20% defense on knights, +20% attack on archers), 1 giant + 3 knights = lockdown maneuver (enemy units are immobilized)

some maneuvers may require positioning: 2 groups of 2 cavalry attacking from opposite side gives a "surrounded maneuver" (+100% attack)

some maneuvers are based on what you're attacking into: 2 melee + 1 cavalry attacking a group of isolated archers gives a flanking maneuver (+40% attack, forces units into melee, -70% damage on range units when forced into melee)

some maneuvers are based on just walking: move 3 knights or caverly + 3 archers togheter = charge maneuver (+100% defense from archers)

and some maneuvers ca be defensive: select any 3 units of at least 2 types and give them hold position orders while all in city tiles = "hunker down" manuever (+100% on damage and +1 retaliation)

the most damaging menuvers require a certain level of discipline to be available for use, if any of the units dont have it, though luck no fancy maneuver

the top tier manuevers have absolutely brutal aoe consequences, everything from damaging any "ball of units" ("velley fire") to going though groups and doing full damage

there are plenty of manuevers to satisfy most playstyles

manuevers are a bit biased towards melee units (as in they have more)

manuevers encourage players to keep diverse armies; since no manuever would require just 1 type of unit (ever!)

manuevers encourage chess style logic of being protective of "key" units; if you have 5 archers and one melee unit then if you lose that melee you're pretty much boned as far as manuevers go, so make sure he's safe and in position

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Home Advantage

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-1 discipline and -50% discipline bonuses when fighting in enemy territory

+2 discipline +50% discipline bonuses when fighting in home territory

+2 discipline and +100% discipline if fighting in capital region (does not stack with friendly territory)

+3 discipline if defending city (does not count for reinforcing armies; stacks with other bonuses)

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Terrain

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winter does not affect combat or map movement

Units favor terrain types, that's all, try to keep them on tiles they are happy on and away from tiles they are not

Archers and Caverly hate forests (some maneuvers just dont work)

Foot soldiers love forests

Forests grant 80% reduced range fire

Elevation grants range bonus to Archers, but no attack bonus (+1 range per elevantion)

Archers have -80% attack when shooting from forests; no range bonus either (can't see anything)

Elevation grants +50% attack bonus to flying units when attacking from elevantion down

Foot soliders and cavelry move +100% faster on arid terrain and grass (archers dont recieve bonus)

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Minor Factions

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minor factions are sidegrades (as in like Magic the Gathering cards, not silly broken Hearthstone card system), usable by all races, different special maneuvers based on race units; there is no dumb elite minor factions (demons, etc) and crap minor factions (sisters of mercy) in the system. Units when just fighting in balls are equal in strength, only when they combine forces do they become dangerous

minor faction armies can and WILL combine with each other (only 2 types at most however), reconquer their villages, "free" neighboring region villages, etc

some minor factions hate each other and will kill each other

if you already have a caverly unit and you pick a minor faction that's caverly and you then perform a meneuver that has BOTH a caverly unit of your type and a caverly unit of the minor faction you get +25% "harmony" bonus for the combined force. You do not get it if you only use minor faction units or only use your own caverly, only when both are involved in a maneuver.

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Although I agree that a rework is needed, your proposal loses sight of the point of the battle system - it should be a quick combat where you can make a few meaningful choices, not a tactical slog. I can understand the desire to add some meaningful choice (rather than spam archers with maximum damage), but at this point I might as well play AOW.



I do like the idea of rolling for initiative though. Would help change some things up.

Well in my view, the problem of "quick combat" is easily fixed by just having a solid auto-combat system.

I think for the decisive battles that matter having more depth is much more desirable.



The game could force "all insignificant battles get auto-resolved" though an option. Where insignificant = very few forces involved, and how few or under what conditions is something you can customized in the game lobby. eg. all minor faction battles are insignificant, all ai battles are insignificant, if a force has over 70% chance to win it's insignificant battle. etc.



I don't believe the execution would take that long either. The system actually scales well in that regard since you give orders to several units not micro manage one unit at a time like you do now. So as long as "maneuvers" have "large army" versions (ie. lv2 of a maneuver involves 2 times more units, lv3 involves 3 times, etc) the execution might actually be faster since a player would be giving a single order to a whole bunch of his army. The system also has a lot of potential for streamlining, eg. (a) offer a list of potential groupings in the battle screen which the player can just select and give maneuver orders (b) allow for player to predefined groups before even initiating battles, (c) allow the player to define "favorite maneuvers" for an army and highlight them in battles, etc.



I'm not dismissing the possibility that it would make the battles slower, but I believe it's entirely just as possible with tweaks for it to be negligible or much much faster for late game battles (which lets face it, those are the ones that take time). Also the devs original idea of 10 armies ducking it out several times isn't particularly conductive to short battles either (especially late game).