This post is intended to nutshell my more verbose questions in the modding forum: https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space/forum/37-modding/thread/16260-questions-re-how-retreat-and-offensive-retreat-work-based-on-battlecard-xml-file



To the devs: How are "Retreat" and "Offensive Retreat" intended to work? Based on a comparison of the card tooltip text against the cards' mechanics in the xml code, the tooltips don't appear to match with the actual mechanics, and it even seems like it's possible that neither the tooltips or the mechanics are matching the developer's intention of the card.



How is each card ("Retreat" and "Offensive Retreat") intended to work for each option of "my card countered the opponent's card", "opponent's card countered my card" and "neither card was countered"?



It appears, based on the BattleCard.xml file, that they currently work like this:



RETREAT

• No counters: They fire their weapons for two rounds, you don't fire your weapons, you retreat from the battle.
• You counter their card: they don't fire their weapons, you don't fire your weapons, you retreat from the battle.
  
  
  • (EDIT: After some testing, it appears that even though the card text says that "Retreat" will counter a tactics card, it only really blocks the card, and the number of rounds before retreating is still two, and the enemy is firing unopposed for those two rounds.)
    
    
• They counter your card: This card cannot be countered.
  
  

OFFENSIVE RETREAT:

• No counters: They fire their weapons for one round, you fire your weapons for one round, you retreat from the battle.
• You counter their card: They don't fire their weapons, you fire your weapons for two rounds, you retreat from the battle.
• They counter your card: They fire their weapons for the full four rounds of the phase, you fire your weapons for the full four rounds of the phase, you don't retreat from battle.
  
  

burlsifu wrote:
This post is intended to nutshell my more verbose questions in the modding forum: /#/endless-space/forum/37-modding/thread/16260-questions-re-how-retreat-and-offensive-retreat-work-based-on-battlecard-xml-file



To the devs: How are "Retreat" and "Offensive Retreat" intended to work? Based on a comparison of the card tooltip text against the cards' mechanics in the xml code, the tooltips don't appear to match with the actual mechanics, and it even seems like it's possible that neither the tooltips or the mechanics are matching the developer's intention of the card.



How is each card ("Retreat" and "Offensive Retreat") intended to work for each option of "my card countered the opponent's card", "opponent's card countered my card" and "neither card was countered"?



It appears, based on the BattleCard.xml file, that they currently work like this:



RETREAT

• No counters: They fire their weapons for two rounds, you don't fire your weapons, you retreat from the battle.
• You counter their card: they don't fire their weapons, you don't fire your weapons, you retreat from the battle.
• They counter your card: This card cannot be countered.
  
  

OFFENSIVE RETREAT:

• No counters: They fire their weapons for one round, you fire your weapons for one round, you retreat from the battle.
• You counter their card: They don't fire their weapons, you fire your weapons for two rounds, you retreat from the battle.
• They counter your card: They fire their weapons for the full four rounds of the phase, you fire your weapons for the full four rounds of the phase, you don't retreat from battle.
  
  

Well with retreat, if you don't want a scout or colony ship to die (usually only in first 100 or so turns max) you press retreat, it survives. With Offensive Retreat, you want to retreat but take out as many guys as you can before that. Basically it

Retreat makes your ships leave immediately, while Offensive Retreat lets them fire a few volleys first (but they take volleys in return). In neither case to missiles fire.

werewolf_nr wrote:
Retreat makes your ships leave immediately, while Offensive Retreat lets them fire a few volleys first (but they take volleys in return). In neither case to missiles fire.

If I remember correctly, missiles take 2-3 "turns" to reach the target, and offensive retreat leaves 1 turn before, so their would be no point in firing missiles.

Well explained burlsifu!

stasik28 wrote:
Well with retreat, if you don't want a scout or colony ship to die (usually only in first 100 or so turns max) you press retreat, it survives. With Offensive Retreat, you want to retreat but take out as many guys as you can before that. Basically it

Tonight we dine in hell

I'm not sure that, as you wrote, "offensive retreat" has no counters? I just looked and It's classed "Tactics", and I believe I've seen it countered. If your enemy counters tactics, OR will fail and you will be stuck in another round of combat.



As such, if you want to do "retreat" in your first slot and then hit "auto", as long as they don't take you ship down in one round, you should be OK ( and it won't matter if you watch the CG battle anyway ).



If you used "offensive retreat" and hit auto, you scout might wind up fighting the whole way through. I'm pretty sure this actually happened to me once, and I lost a scout because I thought OR was a souped up R. I've also caught the AI trying an offensive retreat which was fun..



I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure I'm right...

foifoi wrote:
I'm not sure that, as you wrote, "offensive retreat" has no counters?

Would you please point to where someone said that, as I don't see any such comment in this thread.



EDIT: Ah, I think I understand what happened. Where I have written "no counters" in my first post, I just mean that that's the result if neither your card or your opponent's card is countered (e.g., I play "Offensive Retreat" and my opponent plays "Short Circuit". Neither card is countered, so it will have the "no counters" result.)



It seems that, unfortunately, there was some confusion about my question.



1. This question was intended to the devs, for the most part.

2. I understand why I would use either card; my question was to better understand the intentions the devs had for what would happen regarding number of rounds of firing, what is intended to happen when one of the cards counters a Tactics card and what is intended to happen when the "Offensive Retreat" card is countered.

3. I understand how the cards are currently implemented; I asked my question because there are currently other cards (namely "Short Circuit") where the text on the card does not match the current implementation of the card. Therefore, I thought that it's possible that either "Retreat" or "Offensive Retreat" are not currently implemented as per the devs' intentions.



In short, intentions and implementations are two different things. I understand how "Retreat" or "Offensive Retreat" are currently implemented; I'm just trying to see if that matches the devs' intentions of those cards, including all "counter" possibilities (which is why I wrote it out explicitly). For example, there is currently no difference between playing "Retreat" as normal, and playing "Retreat" and countering the opponent's Tactics card, besides disabling the effects of the Tactics card. I want to see if that's intentional. As another example, the card text for "Offensive Retreat" currently says that the player gets an unopposed round of fire, which is not correct; that round of fire is not unopposed. Therefore, we have an example where the card text does not match the implementation, and so I want to know if the text matches the devs' intentions (in which case the implementation is incorrect), or if the implementation matches the devs' intentions (in which case the card text is incorrect).



PLEASE stop explaining how to use either card (including the fact that missles won't fire); I fully understand all of that.



I'm looking for a much more detailed investigation into the intended implementation (and, therefore, intended card text) of the two cards.



Here's an updated version of the current implementation of both cards, with certain words changed to try to avoid confusion:



RETREAT

• Regular: They fire their kinetics/beams for two rounds, you don't fire your weapons, you retreat from the battle.
• You counter their card: They fire their kinetics/beams for two rounds, you don't fire your weapons, you retreat from the battle.
• They counter your card: This card cannot be countered.
  
  

OFFENSIVE RETREAT:

• Regular: They fire their kinetics/beams for one round, you fire your kinetics/beams for one round, you retreat from the battle.
• You counter their card: They don't fire their weapons, you fire your kinetics/beams for two rounds, you retreat from the battle.
• They counter your card: They fire their weapons for the full four rounds of the phase, you fire your weapons for the full four rounds of the phase, you don't retreat from battle.
  
  

Devs, does this implementation match your intentions for these two cards?

burlsifu wrote:
PLEASE stop explaining how to use either card (including the fact that missles won't fire); I fully understand all of that.



I'm looking for a much more detailed investigation into the intended implementation (and, therefore, intended card text) of the two cards.



Here's an updated version of the current implementation of both cards, with certain words changed to try to avoid confusion:



RETREAT

• Regular: They fire their kinetics/beams for two rounds, you don't fire your weapons, you retreat from the battle.
• You counter their card: They fire their kinetics/beams for two rounds, you don't fire your weapons, you retreat from the battle.
• They counter your card: This card cannot be countered.
  
  

OFFENSIVE RETREAT:

• Regular: They fire their kinetics/beams for one round, you fire your kinetics/beams for one round, you retreat from the battle.
• You counter their card: They don't fire their weapons, you fire your kinetics/beams for two rounds, you retreat from the battle.
• They counter your card: They fire their weapons for the full four rounds of the phase, you fire your weapons for the full four rounds of the phase, you don't retreat from battle.
  
  

Devs, does this implementation match your intentions for these two cards?

I didn't understand it, that was just my guess :P.



And I don't see why it wouldn't be what they intended. It all seems correct here, not sure what the problem is.

stasik28 wrote:
And I don't see why it wouldn't be what they intended. It all seems correct here, not sure what the problem is.

In my opinion, there is a problem because:[LIST=1]

The Endless Space wiki says that, if your "Retreat" card counters your opponent's card, your opponent does not get any (i.e., they get zero) unopposed rounds of attack on you: http://endlessspace.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_Action#Specific_Battle_Actions

I've seen posts on the forum where people think that, if your "Retreat" card counters your opponent's card, your opponent gets one unopposed rounds of attack on you (when I can find the post, I'll link to it).

The current card text for "Offensive Retreat" does not match its current implementation; the card text says that, if neither you or your opponent's card is countered, you get one unopposed round of attack on the opponent, which is not true. Instead, if neither card is countered, both you and your opponent fire one round at each other.

The XML (found in BattleCard.xml) for the "you countered the opponent's card" part of the "Retreat" card just looks strange to me, like as if the devs were editing it and didn't finish (e.g., the "Counter" section doesn't contain a "BattleAction-Retreat" tag): [CODE]





BattleCardDescriptor45













BattleCardDescriptor46

[/CODE]

[/LIST]So, those are the reasons why I'm asking.