Rationale/Introduction:

Humankind’s combat is a gigantic leap ahead of Civilization (Civ) V and VI’s combat system, but it is not new. It’s essentially a stripped down, but polished version of the combat system from Endless Legend 2. It distinguishes itself from the Civ series in two main ways. The first way is that one pursues military aims through the strategic layer on the world map and a tactical map whenever battle is initiated. Units have different movement points depending on whether they’re on the world map or the tactical battle map. On top of that, there’s one more thing that really makes combat in Humankind much more complicated that Civ V/VI and other assorted 4X games – turns are simultaneous. The stance system that I’m about to introduce is an attempt to work within the simultaneous turn framework and make it easier to navigate whilst adding a little more needed depth in HK’s combat both on a tactical and strategic level. If it’s possible for a one player to defeat another in a war using better strategy despite a disadvantage in resources, technology, or numbers – I will consider it a success.

Army Stance System:

1. Normal: the default state of an army. The army exerts a zone of control (ZOC) during wartime. The army has a normal line of sight (LOS) radius and normal movement points. This army has a 50% chance of being caught in an ambush. You use this stance in enemy territory when you expect battle. If caught in any ambush, its deployment zone will be normal. 

1. Travel/Culumn: the stance of the army that wishes to travel faster to get some place in a hurry. Usually used in friendly territory when not expecting combat. Vision radius of army reduced by 2, movement points increased by half (Movement points x 1.5). This army has a 100% chance of getting caught in an ambush and when forced into battle ones units are auto-deployed in a column in the direction of travel of the army. This army exerts no ZOC and can even pass through friendly armies tiles (but not end its turn in the same tile as any other army). 

1. Ambush: this is the stance of the army that wishes to ambush another army and force it into combat. If successful, one with have a deployment zone all around the enemy army giving you the initiative to attack weak points and press every advantage at your disposal. The army in ambush mode can only move one square per turn, has a normal vision range, but has a ZOC of control range of two hexes. Should any army move into your hex, you have the option to ambush them (can set it on automatic and check which nations one wishes to ambush or all of them) and attack. Should you decline an attack, the ambushing army won’t be detected unless an enemy army passes through them or by them with scouts. While there’s only a 50% chance to successfully ambush an army in normal stance, the ability to have an extreme flexibility in deployment will remain. If an ambushing army moves into another tile, it must wait one turn to prepare. During this preparation turn, it will be visible per normal rules. Armies can only go into ambush stance on forested or hilly tiles.

1. Guard/Fortify: this is the stance of the army that wishes to prevent free passage of enemy armies or agents and or fortify itself in preparation for a fight against odds. It takes two turns to go into guard/fortify mode. On the first turn the army will be in guard mode, have +1 vision, and have a ZOC of two tiles through which other armies cannot pass without battle or permision. On the second turn of guard stance, the army will be fortified for +25% strength (alternative   idea: +5% strength per turn up to 25% maximum). Fortified armies will suffer less to bombardments but will have ½ movement points and reset the turn timer on guard status/fortified status each time they move. 

Switching Between Stances:

The crux of this stance system is how armies switch between stances as if an army could cycle through all the stances at will ad infinitum, there wouldn’t be any drawbacks or nuances to managing one’s armies. It will take a certain amount of movement points to switch between stances depending on the size of the army and the era (tech requirement of the army). More advanced and larger armies will take more movement points (or it will consume all their movement points) to switch between army stances than a smaller or less technologically equipped military. Larger armies and more technologically advanced armies naturally have a lot more moving pieces in the background that are required to sustain high numbers and powerful weapons and so it would follow they’d be sluggish compared to their lesser counterparts. 

The rough parameters would be below as follows:

1. Neolithic: No movement point cost, max two status changes per turn.
2. Ancient Era: 
   1. ½ Max Army Size (MAS): no movement point cost (MP) for army stance changes (max 2 per turn)
   2. MAS: one MP per stance change
3. Classical Era: 
   1. ½ MAS: no MP  cost for army stance changes (max 2 per turn)
   2. MAS: one MP  per stance change
4. Medieval Era: 
   1. ½ MAS: 1 MP for army stance changes (max 2 per turn)
   2. MAS: 2 MPs per stance change
5. Early Modern: 
   1. 1/3 MAS: 1 MP for army stance changes (max 2 per turn)
   2. ½ MAS: 2 MPs for army stance changes (max 2 per turn)
   3. MAS: 3 MPs per stance change
6. Industrial Era: 
   1. 1/3 MAS: 2 MP for army stance changes (max 2 per turn)
   2. ½ MAS: 3 MPs for army stance changes (max 2 per turn)
   3. MAS: 4 MPs per stance change
7. Contemporary Era:
   1. 1/4 MAS: 2 MP for army stance changes (max 2 per turn)
   2. 1/3 MAS: 3 MP for army stance changes (max 2 per turn)
   3. ½ MAS: ½ total MPs for army stance changes (max 2 per turn)
   4. MAS: All MPs per stance change

Information Warfare:

There’s hardly any information warfare in Humankind or any 4X game for that matter, outside of the basics that come with the Fog of War. If you can’t see the enemy, you can’t see what they’re doing or what type of army they have or don’t.  Every unit in the game sees the same amount of range, even if they’re on a hill! Detection range is constant across all units and aside from certain camo units there’s no way to hide your units in trees or hills though rudimentary sight blockers exist. As soon as an army is in sight of the enemy, they can immediately ascertain the disposition and composition of it. There’s no way to deceive the enemy or pierce through the veil of his deceptions. Ultimately, this makes warfare straightforward and boring. But if vision changes and information warfare changes were implemented properly, we could turn Humankind’s combat into chess. Overnight, warfare would turn into a thinking man’s game simply by adding another theater of combat to it: the information theater (as opposed to air, ground, and water).

Vision Changes:

All units currently have a vision radius of 4 and a “detection radius” of 4. That is to say, your army can see an enemy army 4 hexes away and its composition to boot. I propose separating units into scouts and non-scouts who have two different vision radii and detection radii, with different parameters for each. These vision changes will be the foundation upon which the information warfare of the game will rest.

1. Scout Units:weak military units that have enhanced range
   1. Vision Range: 4 hexes 
      1. Detection range:4 hexes
         1. At 4 hexes away, your scouts can see an opposing army but cannot make out its nationality, size (how many units in army), or what units comprise it
         2. At 3 hexes away, your scouts can see any army’s nationality, approximate size, and approximate composition
         3. At 2 hexes away, your scouts can see any army’s nationality, size, and composition
   2. Visability Range: 2 hexes (seen from 2 hexes away)
   3. Extra Rules:
      1. Armies that have a scout in them have the detection capabilities of a scout while having the visibility characterisitics of a non-scout unit.
      2. There’s a limit of 1 land scout per city (possibly 2?) and 1 naval scout per port.

1. Non-Scout Units: 
   1. Vision Range:3 hexes
      1. Detection  range:3 hexes
         1. At 3 hexes away, your units can see an opposing army but cannot make out its nationality, size (how many units in army), or what units comprise it. 
         2. At 2 hexes away, your units can see any army’s nationality, an approximation of its size, and approximation of its composition.
         3. At 1 hex away, your army can see all of the information of the opposing army.
   2. Visability Range: 3 hexes (seen from 3 hexes away)

1. Spy Units:same as a scout, but defenseless. Its strength is only used for razing purposes.
   1. Vision Range: same as scout
   2. Visability Range: same as unit it impersonates
      1. Scouts/Spies can figure out the identity of the spy from 1 hex away.
      2. Units can only figure out the identity of the spy if they engage it in combat
      3. Spies/Scouts of a nation impersonated by your spy can identify it from 2 hexes away
   3. Special Rules: 
      1. can disguise itself as any unit that you have researched
      2. same, but can disguise itself as any enemy that you have encountered (no impersonating the Mongols if you’ve never met them)
      3. Spies embedded in armies appear to be a normal combat unit to enemy scouts.
      4. Spies embedded in armies can make them appear bigger or smaller but enemy scouts can see through this illusion at 2 hexes away. Armies without scouts embedded in them or nearby will not see through this illusion until they are adjacent.
   4. Other:
      1. Limit of .5 spies per city.
2. Other Rules:
   1. Terrain:
      1. Hills: increase a units visability range by 1 but increase its detection range by 1 as well (Scouts would now have a 5 hex vision range and it’s ability to discern each level of information on an enemy unit would be increased by 1 as well. Same goes for non-scout units).
      2. Forests: decrease a units visibility range by 1
      3. Cliffs: Same effects as hills, but units in the vallies below the cliff are wholly unable to see the unit above them, unless they are a scout or have a scout in the army.
   2. Grievances:
      1. No grievances are generated because of any nation until its units are identified
      2. Spies impersonating other nations generate grievances towards the nation which is being impersonated. Spies are able to raze and therefore generate “false flags”.
      3. If a spy are discovered, major grievances are generated against the spy’s nation for the nation who discovered the spy’s identity and the nation that was impersonated
      4. If you discover a spy in a foreign nation’s territory, you have the option to disclose this information to that nation for an opinion buff with them and potentially a malus with the nation to whom the spy belongs. Other nations can also do this to you!

AI and Scouts:

Every other era, information will be more and more important and more and more damaging in enemy hands. Consequently, every other era will see the AI more hostile towards enemy scouts. In the first two eras they may politely ask you to stop scouring their lands and make little effort to chase the scouts off unless they see an opportunity with local superiority of numbers. In the medieval era, they will actively chase your scouts away if not outright hunt them down. Grievances will be generated (in addition to trespassing grievances) if you continue to scout their lands despite their pleas. They will stop short of declaring war unless they already dislike you, already want to attack you, or already have a high war score against you for some reason. In the last two eras, they will actively declare war against you and if they win will impose a “No scouts for X turns” policy against you, depending on how much warscore they have. In turn, AI will similarly attempt to scout you more every other era but will adjust their efforts depending on personality and relations between them and your nation.

The AI will actively seek to build as many scouts as it can support to either integrate them in their own armies or seek to use them as mobile (and sometimes hidden) watch towers.

AI and Spies:

The AI attitude towards its spies will be determined by its relations to its neighbors and what kind of civilization it is. Militarist and expanisionist civilizations will be more aggressive with their spies whereas other civilizations will be more defense. Grievances generated by spies will be major and false flags will almost instantly cause war in the event the ruse is discovered. Spies will be a powerful, but limited resource that if used well can turn the tides of a war or seal an opponent’s fate before the first shot is even fired. If misused, however, one can find oneself facing a united front of two or more enemies. 

I have more ideas about information warfare but I will keep this suggestion more narrowed in scope to make it easier to digest.

What do you guys think?

Wald

ViggoStarhopper wrote:

Love your idea about stances! My greatest frustration with the combat system, currently, is feeling I have a lack of tactical agency. The AI always has the upper hand in a "simultaneous" turn system. This would go a long way to win that agency back. I've honestly stopped playing HK and gone back to Civ because Civ's combat at least approximates strategy. (That should say a lot!) In my experience, most strategic decisions I have made in HK end up screwing me over. I have to assume their design philosophy is as follows:

Thanks a million! Yes, this idea was borne out of frustration with the simultaneous turn system and how the AI seems to always, always magically initiate combat and that vaunted first round advantage seems to turn your plans into dust.

I even wanted to give each stance an "initiative value" to determine order of priority for going first. Initiative values, in this manner would offer some hard boundaries around which to work during simultaneous turns. For example, the "guard/fortify" stance would always initiate combat since they are in a prepared position. Same with an ambush stance. The travel stance would have the lowest priority and would almost never initiate combat and thus be relegated to its purpose of fast movement and reinforcement into an ongoing battle. This wouldn't completely solve the difficult of navigating simultaneous turns but it would help a lot.

ViggoStarhopper wrote:

1.) Every Retreat is Strategic Retreat - This is the gold standard for strategy. You can't hit what you can't find because all units get to pull movement points out of their ass when they retreat. Did those units just march across from another nation to meet your units that have been lying in wait since last turn in a position you determined to be defensible? Obviously their exhaustion, lack of supplies, and cowardliness should give them a speed boost! So fast, in fact, that they receive no damage from the attempted attack! Better yet, in their confusion, there is a 50% chance they get free movement further into your territory (though in my experience this is closer to 90% of the time with them landing on an outpost or resource about 80% of the time). Good thing you placed your encampments and defensive troops wisely. Now leave your encampments and use those troops to go play whack-a-mole in your own empire!

This is something that I hate as well. I don't units should magically get 1.5 movement points when retreating and go in some random direction. At the very least, it should be normal movement and have certain priorities like a) no "retreating" into enemy territory and b) retreat away from enemy units. There has to be a better way than the system we have now. The worst is when you attack an army with one of yours. Magically, even if all of its movement points are used up, it retreats 1.5x movement points away. And on top of that, all your army's movement points are zapped even though combat did not happen.

dwefdwe

ViggoStarhopper wrote:

2.) Defenders Must Oblige the Attackers - Regardless of unit compositions and whose territory you are in, the defender is honor-bound to request of the attacker where they are allowed to camp and deploy units. The highest honor, though, goes to the defensive archers/ranged units who have agreed not to loose/fire until they have smelled the blood of their allies.

3.) Walls and Garrisons are Weak - Everyone knows real men fight in the open field! (Because how else can you effectively retreat?) Garrisons are just choke points where your troops get to either die one at a time behind the walls (with reduced damage output due to obliging the attacker in #2) or forget their strategic advantage and run carelessly into open field to meet their attackers where they are now at a disadvantage both due to #2 above and because you were smart and built your garrison in a defensible position and you are now standing in your intended kill zone.

Yeah, sieges are very wonky right now. They definitely should look at AI siege logic and hell, I think defenders should be able to build siege engines too, to force their enemies to either attack or withdraw from the siege. Currently sieging is very one sided in a way and the AI logic enables lots of cheesing.

ViggoStarhopper wrote:

I may have gotten carried away with the sarcasm, but your suggestion fixes many of these problems. I would suggest adding a mechanic that gives archers/ranged units in a defensive stance either a chance to attack first or give them a Zone of Fire where attacking units moving within both their range and LoS receive damage for each ZoF tile they have to move through to attack. This calculation for this damage could also possibly be reduced based on the attacking units speed (movement points) with the theory being fast units are harder to hit. I think this could be an elegant solution that would fit within the simultaneous turn framework.

I don't think you got too carried away - I have bouts of sarcasm like that too, though it comes from the same place as yours - frustration that this game is not as good as it could and should be!

As for this mechanic that you describe, ideally if someone passed by a guard unit they would be forced to battle with the guard stance army attacking first. However, I do like the idea of maybe a tile outside of the ZoC being a potential firing zone that would cost armies x health to get through. So your idea could work with mine!

ViggoStarhopper wrote:

I also love the idea for planned ambushes. A great way to add even more combat viability to the games terrain/elevation system. I would also like to see an increase in stealth units and a use for using scouting in late game. I would possibly add that you can only ambush in your own territory or neutral territory at full effectiveness. If you set an ambush in enemy territory there should be either reduced effectiveness or a greater chance of it backfiring somehow. Ambushing in enemy territory could also potentially have diplomatic/war support effects.

This is a great idea and I may have to make a separate post expanding on ambushes and stealth. My inspiration for information warfare comes from the RUSE game (WW2 RTS) where information warfare was the name of the game and imperfect information was baked into the gameplay. I definitely think that ambushes should be for home territory and neutral territory mostly with a disadvantage when attempting them in foreign territory (maybe downright impossible with planes?). 

ViggoStarhopper wrote:

In terms of your ideas on Information Warfare - I would like to see the scouting and army comp visibilty in a balance patch, but the rest implemented as a large DLC update that focuses on diplomacy and espionage. Your stance system lends naturally to many things I would like to see added to such a DLC. Your focus seems to be on spies and false flags, which I believe would be great additions to the late game. I also see the opportunity to set your armies stance to Raider, Mercenary, Crusader, or Pirate with possibly the same identification mechanics. 

Overall, great post! I know I was quite critical about the current experience, but that's only because I believe this game has some truly great potential. I hope my ramblings at least make some sense. Haha! Keep up the good work!

Yeah - the army stance and vision changes are the primary framework of my ideas. The information warfare/scout/spy element build off of it. 

Could you elaborate on raider, mercenary, crusader, or pirate stances?

Thanks for the compliments and suggestions!

Wald

Kynrael wrote:

Thanks for this post - a lot of interesting ideas, and quite well detailed. Keep em coming!

Thank you! I have more threads to come, one of which will go in depth on information warfare. As for this post, the hardest thing for modders to implement would be the toggleable “army stance” system so I am very happy that a dev is taking notice. 

Wald

I like some of the ideas from this thread. Primarily the stances and hidden army composition feel like something the Total War series did well and I would love to see.

I certainly don't like the idea of being easily able to tell if I should engage an enemy. Having spies would be very useful mechanics that help reveal more of the army composition. As should just being in the relative vicinity of the enemy over time reveal more details. 

That would also mean I could just try my hand at attacking blindly to see their army composition, but then retreating should have an attrition to the units as a cost for losing such a wagger.