Hey all!

Some of you may know that combat was one of the aspects we wanted feedback on during the first Steam OpenDev. As we continue to work on improving it, we'd like some fresh feedback on the state of the combat as it is now, even if we still have a number of other improvements we are working on or considering.

So please, use this thread to share your general impressions about combat. If there is any combat-related topic in particular that you feel deserves more extensive discussion, please feel free to open a separate thread for that.

And feel free to let us know what you think of the balance of units, too!

Combat was enjoyable enough when it occured. Here were my two main issues with it:

1. Retreating locks the movement not only of the attacking army, but also any supporting armies.In my opinion, the radius in which armies reinforce each other is too large. Retreat is basically a "Get out of jail free" card by nuking movment of opposing armies unless you are encircled.

2. But even if you are encircled, or you encircle your enemy, there is actually something of a disadvantage for the encircler: it seems the units behind the enemy can't be used in your first round, instead the first unit in the encircling army becomes attackable by the enemy on their first round. The end result is dead units that would never be lost in a straight fight since they are alone behind the enemy. Not allowing these units onto the battlefield in the attacker's first round really robs them of the tactical advantage they should be rewarded with for outplaying and outpositioning their opponent. Unfortunately, if you want to catch armies that just always retreat, there isn't really another option.

I second the issue with retreating armies and wrote about it in my First Impressions post. As the attacker you have no choice whether or not to bring reinforcing units in, unlike the Endless series, and when the AI decides to retreat it often happens immediately anyway which is a bit jarring.

I really want to give combat more of a chance, but having finished an entire game of OpenDev, the one big feedback is this: Retreat. Retreat has to either go, or be severely nerfed. It really doesn't belong and turns wars into a joke where the only remotely interesting target are cities and units turn into glorified tarpits.

The little actual combat I fought was interesting, if mixed. River attack modifiers are EXTREMELY unintuitive, and most of the time the -3 combat modifier for fighting near rivers becomes a "so be it" thing instead of an actual tactical consideration. Elevation modifiers are impactful as expected, crazily so. You can easily win battles you shouldn't have by forcing enemies to fight uphill, even with melee only

On the strategic layer, as stated in the start of the post, retreat is a HUGE issue that basically ruins all the combat testing. 90 % of my battles was watching the AI retreat from bad battles, to the point where wars basically turned into a game of poking the AI into retreat enough to force surrender (with the odd siege)

It would probably be for the best if the retreat option was severely nerfed. You should be able to retreat if you're in a bad position, but it shouldn't kill the attacking army's momentum (I'm thinking notably of Total War's implementation where enemies can pursue you immediately if you click retreat, and often catch you if they have enough movement left). Also the AI should, for lack of a better word, be more courageous. I've seen them retreat from battles they had a better power rating on

I know sieges are a bit on the edge of all this but they were basically irrelevant for me. All game I was able to assault cities turn one even with units that would do horribly in real life (all cavalry armies notably). I'm not sure if it's an issue of the AI not ever putting military units in their cities to garrison them, or automatic garrisons just generally being weak (though I was able to cast away aggressive independents from my cities using them, so they aren't TOTALLY worthless either)

1. Gunpowder Units are quite powerful maybe a little bit to powerful, while gunpowder units should take reduced damage from melee compared to ranged they should still be vulnerable to melee as in the current state the feel a little but to powerful.
2. The hun unit is annoying to play against as it has basically twice the power of a similar unit, is able to outmaneuver easily and frankly feels broken. frankly it may be ideal to give the Ming the chu ko nu with the ability to fire twice but has reduced damage compared to a crossbow and move the Ming to the medieval era as well and simply add the Qing in the early modern era with rocket carts considering gunpower use was more prevalent during the Qing dynasty.
3. toning down river and height advantage modifiers would be a nice change, furthermore adding stacking franking bonuses would be a good addition as it would punish players who leave a gap in their ranks.
4. Horseman should be toned down and instead rely on franking attacks to do damage, as such a change would take advantage of the mobility of cavalry.
5.  Perhaps giving light cavalry a flanking bonus and heavy cavalry the charge bonus would help differentiate the roles of each unit type and add to the tactical layer.

Annihilat0r wrote:

dylanstrategie wrote:
All game I was able to assault cities turn one even with units that would do horribly in real life (all cavalry armies notably).

I second this. It seems a bit too easy to take cities at the moment. You just have to be there before the enemy army and the city is guaranteed to be yours. I have not used the siege mechanic once. Being inside walls should be a much stronger modifier, at least as strong as uphill (which is crazy strong in my opinion).

The modifier from walls is +6, but it's true that militia garrison is quite weak and not even that +6 makes them very good at defending just a bit.

Ground units are too strong in naval combat, no need to recruit naval units.

Annihilat0r wrote:
Walls break movement. Right now, if there happens to be an unoccupied space inside the city walls, a unit can just enter the city and attack the units inside on the same turn. Climbing walls should deplete the full movement, like embarking on a ship for example.

This is really needed. I'd go further, unit has to stop before the wall and can scale it only if there are no enemy units on the walls on either side of the tile they want to enter. Enemy walking into a town should be a result of major blunder on defenders' side and should be easily countered, so there's more reason to take down walls rather than walking around them.

I think the real problem people are experiencing with Sieges is that the AI just doesnt keep up with the player, even on Serious difficulty. Mowing down Classical era Militia with Crossbowmen is like fish in a barrel. Or hunting Ancient era Warriors with Knights. 

The only times I encountered even fights or fights that weren't in my favor was when an Independent Faction spawned with era appropriate units and attacked one of my old units that was on sentry duty. Other than that I always had the tech advantage, which is massive, and steamrolled every fight I was in.

City walls need to be majorly buffed. Currently I do not see any reason to attempt a seige because as soon as I start combat I just move from outside the walls to inside if there is a free space and just fight inside the city. Why have walls if your opponent can just ignore them?

The buff from being inside the walls is far too weak, personally I think it should be suicide to attempt an attack unless using a ranged attack. Give me a reason to start a seige and knock those walls down first.

My recommendation is:
1. Walls cannot be crossed by land units at all. Full stop.
2. You can attack the walls with a melee or range unit to do minor damage per turn (more if unnoccupied by enemy)
3. If an enemy unit occupies the wall being attacked it fortifies it and it takes less damage than usual. But the unit takes damage also. This way if you're defending you can stall them long enough to bring in reinforcements.
4. Seige units can of course attack the walls to destroy them, but do minor damage to enemy units.

I think something like this would go a long way to making walls more significant while making it much more challenging to take a well defended city.

Walls as impassable (but damagable) seems like it would be much better.

FinalFreak16 wrote:

City walls need to be majorly buffed. Currently I do not see any reason to attempt a seige because as soon as I start combat I just move from outside the walls to inside if there is a free space and just fight inside the city. Why have walls if your opponent can just ignore them?

The buff from being inside the walls is far too weak, personally I think it should be suicide to attempt an attack unless using a ranged attack. Give me a reason to start a seige and knock those walls down first.

My recommendation is:
1. Walls cannot be crossed by land units at all. Full stop.
2. You can attack the walls with a melee or range unit to do minor damage per turn (more if unnoccupied by enemy)
3. If an enemy unit occupies the wall being attacked it fortifies it and it takes less damage than usual. But the unit takes damage also. This way if you're defending you can stall them long enough to bring in reinforcements.
4. Seige units can of course attack the walls to destroy them, but do minor damage to enemy units.

I think something like this would go a long way to making walls more significant while making it much more challenging to take a well defended city.

Yeah, think this would be better. Districts already seem to have health, but so far that doesn't do anything. I disagree with part of point 3, the wall should take the same amount of damage, to discourage people from only attacking unoccupied walls. Sieging should be removed and Assault should be changed to a multi-turn siege with an expanded battlefield. Siege units should either

1.  Be constructed normally, like other units
2. Made by chopping down forests in battle

I didn't really experiment with the combat much and instead opted to always use the auto-resolve (but I do that in every game so that's me and has nothing to do with this game) but reading the comments above most of them seem really sound.

The one thing I'd add about retreating is to consider adding a routed modifier debuff that lasts at least 2 rounds but more like 3-5 rounds or until the unit returns to a city, that gives a large malus to combat strength a +2 to speed and removes the ability to retreat (or even potentially engage in comabt) until the malus wears off. Paradox took years to fiddle with this in their games. If you remove retreating entirely or nerf it too hard then you end up with frustrating stack wipes. If you leave retreating to easy and loose (as it is now) then you can never pin down and kill a unit.

I noticed that I in the neolithic era I can consistently (if not always) win combat with tribes, even when somewhat outmatched, but if I reload and auto-resolve, I regularly lose battles, even when I have 3-4 tribes and I'm facing 1 tribe or deer. Don't trust auto-resolve, at least during Lucy.