AoW/MoM style tactical combat

I've always been disappointed that the Civ series hasn't used the stack vs stack turn based tactical combat model on a separate screen like the Age of Wonders, Heroes of Might & Magic and Master of Magic series. It's a shame especially for FFH since this model is the defacto standard in fantasy 4X games.

I was wondering, if someone with experience could answer, would it be possible to hack in an info panel that emulates this in FFH? Looking at the Python code for the way the corporations panel has been rewritten to play the Somnium card game, it doesn't look like the idea is too far fetched. If those panels support stacking static gif images, with transparency, anywhere on the panel and support detecting mouse clicks on any X,Y co-ordinate, it's actually possible to create a 2D top-down or isometric battle screen similar to MoM. Even possibly using hexes.

There would need to be other changes of course, like making the individual attacks similar to Civ V and other fantasy games, where one participant doesn't have to die after each duel. But these would be easier to implement.

Has anyone messed around with those panels enough to say whether this is a possibility or not? I reckon even a crude emulation of tactical combat would be better than the current SoD style combat that just doesn't fit a fantasy game.

I dunno; the SOD has made an appearance in places... ("They have HOW many behemoths?!")

The problem here is where to focus the game.

Civilization is about building an empire across the span of history and wars are largely strategic: the focus is on building good armies and getting them where they need to be. You often win because of a technological advantage.

HOMM is about making an army to support your quest, loosely organized around a set story arc. Its focus is more tactical: you often win because you use your army and abilities more effectively.

And of course there games like Wesnoth (tactical, focus on making your units awesome), WoW (personal, focus on using your abilities), etc.

Civ 5 makes battles much more tactical, and is closer to what you're thinking of as the canonical fantasy game. FFH also made combat more tactical, with magic and special unit abilities...

In some ways I really like the idea of representing army battles with a tactical view... though Civilization isn't a fast game to begin with, and that would just slow things down more. Plus, trying to do too many things often means a game does too many things badly (opinions differ, but I personally didn't like Spore).

If I had time to do this, I would probably do it in Civ 5, adding all the cool fantasy micro stuff like fireballs and heroes to the tactical battle, and representing armies as a single unit in the "strategic view" that would be more like Civ 4. And there would have to add some kind of autoresolve mechanics. This would all be a huge undertaking, and I don't know what would come out of it.

falconne said:

I've always been disappointed that the Civ series hasn't used the stack vs stack turn based tactical combat model on a separate screen like the Age of Wonders, Heroes of Might & Magic and Master of Magic series. It's a shame especially for FFH since this model is the defacto standard in fantasy 4X games.

I was wondering, if someone with experience could answer, would it be possible to hack in an info panel that emulates this in FFH? Looking at the Python code for the way the corporations panel has been rewritten to play the Somnium card game, it doesn't look like the idea is too far fetched. If those panels support stacking static gif images, with transparency, anywhere on the panel and support detecting mouse clicks on any X,Y co-ordinate, it's actually possible to create a 2D top-down or isometric battle screen similar to MoM. Even possibly using hexes.

There would need to be other changes of course, like making the individual attacks similar to Civ V and other fantasy games, where one participant doesn't have to die after each duel. But these would be easier to implement.

Has anyone messed around with those panels enough to say whether this is a possibility or not? I reckon even a crude emulation of tactical combat would be better than the current SoD style combat that just doesn't fit a fantasy game.

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falconne said:

I reckon even a crude emulation of tactical combat would be better than the current SoD style combat that just doesn't fit a fantasy game.

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It doesn't fit any sort of game, actually (or at least, it isn't worse for a fantasy vs. another sort of game.)

Dales combat mod did seem like it attempted to do some improvements like this, though I did just read about it and don't know in detail what it actually did.

as a guy who loved age of wonders I gotta say the novelty of the tactical combat system fades away after a while. as others have said, it's just inconsistant with the scale of the game.

now people will say just make it optional! sure, but that doesn't work, as that would mean you would be forced to use it otherwise you'd be fighting your battles in a VERY unoptimal way.

I do like civ5's system, even with all its current flaws, since I like how it adds tactical combat without a separate combat system that feels kinda artificial to me, plus it keeps things kinda quick and simple with its low number of units.

falconne said:

There would need to be other changes of course, like making the individual attacks similar to Civ V and other fantasy games, where one participant doesn't have to die after each duel. But these would be easier to implement.

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I do agree that something like this would make Fall From Heaven a better game though (Provided someone could design such a new system.) It is probably the biggest weakness of the game that it has to rely on the Civ 4combat system, which does have a lot of issues that are hard to deal with using smaller tweaks. (Though the game would likely have to be rebalanced a lot to fit with the new system.)

falconne said:

I've always been disappointed that the Civ series hasn't used the stack vs stack turn based tactical combat model on a separate screen like the Age of Wonders, Heroes of Might & Magic and Master of Magic series. It's a shame especially for FFH since this model is the defacto standard in fantasy 4X games.

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Play some games in the Total War series and you'll quickly see the futility of this. The AI is already lacking in strategic level tactics and you want to add on another layer that effectively puts the AI at a disadvantage? You'd end up having to do the same thing you do now at the higher levels, give the AI some huge bonuses just to compete with even a mildly crafty human player. Granted, against a human player it might be fun, but until AI advances in leaps and bounds it is always going to be a limiting factor in game development.

I also agree with gekko that it doesn't scale well. In Civ4 at least I see myself as commanding huge numbers of troops that just happen to be represented by a dude with a sword on my map.

I think Firaxis made a huge error in judgment in Civ5 going to one unit per tile. The AI in Civ4 was pretty mediocre and had a difficult time dealing with choke points, Civ5 only made the problem exponentially worse because now the pathing algorithm and AI not only have to deal with terrain chokepoints, but those created by its own and other units. And it doesn't take many games to realize that the AI can't handle the situation very well. I am pretty disappointed Firaxis used a blunt hammer to try and fix the problem of stacks when there are plenty of elegant solutions as seen in a number of mods, like FFHs assassins and guardsmen.

travathian said:

Play some games in the Total War series and you'll quickly see the futility of this. The AI is already lacking in strategic level tactics and you want to add on another layer that effectively puts the AI at a disadvantage? You'd end up having to do the same thing you do now at the higher levels, give the AI some huge bonuses just to compete with even a mildly crafty human player. Granted, against a human player it might be fun, but until AI advances in leaps and bounds it is always going to be a limiting factor in game development.

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The combat AI is "good enough" in TW to be fun, at VH level, but that's RTS and a whole different kettle of fish. In this case I'm talking about the turn based tactical battles from the Master of Magic and Age of Wonders style games which has become standard for every fantasy TBS game. While it's still a lot of effort to code an AI to handle it, it's a lot easier than coding an RTS AI. It plays more like chess and the AI can brute force it.

I really dislike the SoD principle being applied to Civ as it is, but in fantasy games even more. It reduces the game to who races up the tech tree the fastest and has the highest production.

Fantasy games, like FFH, aren't running in the same scale like Civ itself, from 4000BC to the future. They shouldn't be about racing through the eras like in Civ and combat should be more relevant to the game.

I noticed from hanging out in the Elemental forums that many ex-Civ players left the game behind because of the combat model (they prefer the fantasy turn based tactical combat). It was for that reason that FFH didn't keep them here either.

I guess most of the players who preferred this style left Civ ages ago, so an effort to implement it would be futile. But I did notice several people in the Civ V forum mention they should have gone with AoW style tactical combat instead of trying to implement tactical combat on the strategy layer, which is causing all kinds of logistical and scale problems.

call to power 2 had pretty nice tactical combat

[to_xp]Gekko;9748254 said:

call to power 2 had pretty nice tactical combat

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Not sure if this is sarcastic, or an actual opinion, but it does I could actually see a Call to Power like system adapted to something resembling tactical combat. (Not as complex, obviously, but it could handle many of the same combat ideas that tactical combats handle.)

Implementing CTP2 combat would be good for base Civ and it shouldn't be too hard to implement. You don't even need to display the progress graphically.

However, for a fantasy game, I think that auto-resolve style battle isn't fun. Individuals and heroes are more important in fantasy. Also, you can't really control magical abilities if you have CTP combat.

falconne said:

Implementing CTP2 combat would be good for base Civ and it shouldn't be too hard to implement. You don't even need to display the progress graphically.

However, for a fantasy game, I think that auto-resolve style battle isn't fun. Individuals and heroes are more important in fantasy. Also, you can't really control magical abilities if you have CTP combat.

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I know CTP 2 allowed the player to retreat at any point in the battle, so I can imagine a CTP 2 like system where after each round, the player could cast spells, possibly rearrange units, etc. (Which is a borderline tactical combat system, though a very limited one.)

CTP2 combat is probably my favorite combat civilization game combat system, though it does have its issues as they all do.

Pickly said:

I know CTP 2 allowed the player to retreat at any point in the battle, so I can imagine a CTP 2 like system where after each round, the player could cast spells, possibly rearrange units, etc. (Which is a borderline tactical combat system, though a very limited one.)

CTP2 combat is probably my favorite combat civilization game combat system, though it does have its issues as they all do.

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Yes but at that stage, you may as well allow AoW style combat, since it's only one step forward and more fun (at least, in my opinion).