General thread : Unit & Unit combat

Trying to help organize the various ideas around here (thanks for Ybbor for his own organization) and gathering them in some threads dedicated to specific aspects of the game.
New ideas in latter posts will be organized/summarized in the first post.

Here the topic is the Unit & Unit combat system and other related ideas.


NEW STATS

* Morale : allow for surrendering or on the contrary hearoic fights. Could be combined with support so that unsupported troops (surrounded) have a morale penalty.



BONUS & MALUS

* the existence of class (maybe even sub-class) of units (armored, mounted, distance shooting,....) to enable the use of some specific troops bonus vs others (ie anti-tank vs armor bonus) which allows for a deeper strategy in combat and more diverse units.


SUPPORT

* Upkeep :
Different upkeep for different units, not just need upkeep or not. This allows for mercenary units (quick to build but more expensive).

* Support - supply :
make some units dependant on a supply train (immaterial) : for instance some units could not go further than a certain number of tiles from a city or an established supply depot.

reserved

Updated !

Your ideas are welcome !

Hi Loulong.

My contributions, for what it's worth:

1) Not sure about morale, 'cause I sort of imagined that you didn't ALWAYS completely destroyed a unit that you attacked-merely killed about 90-99%, with the rest either running away or being captured. I definitely would like to see a chance for surviving foot soldiers to be captured as POW's! Also, though, if my combat system below is used, then a morale check could be made, at the end of each phase of combat, to see if a badly damaged unit is routed or not (the amount which constitutes 'badly damaged' would depend on the unit XP- conscripts could be routed at only 25% damage, wheras Elite units could recieve as much as 90% damage before a morale check is needed!)

2) I would like to see a change to the current hp system-perhaps making it based a larger scale (perhaps even 1-100). This would help to even out the results of combats. Also, lack of HP should degrade other combat stats-depending on unit morale.

3) Would like to see Firepower make a comeback, for much the same reason as point (2). Firepower is a combination of raw power of the hit and its armour-breaching potential.

4) I would like to see the notion of 'armour' in the game. This number would deduct from the attackers damage! Different from defense, as the latter signifies the difficulty of HITTING the other unit, rather than its ability to withstand a hit! For example, a division of foot soldiers have a better 'defense strength' than a division of tanks-because the former are more agile. When you hit a tank, though, your chances of actually doing significant damage are reduced, because it is more heavily armoured!

5) I agree that it would be great to see different 'categories' of units, such as mounted, ranged, long ranged, tracked etc-and give units different attack/defense bonuses/penalties against certain unit 'categories'! In addition units should get different bonuses and penalties for different 'attack strategies' (see my post below for details!)

6) I know I say this ALL the time , but I also want to see units have an Operational Range-the base distance that they can move outside of friendly territory-be it a city, outpost, fort or your own national boundry-before it starts to suffer degraded performance. These would mostly occur in HP and FP, but might also effect Attack Strength. Units outside Operational Range would also be unable to heal until they returned to safe territory! Certain terrain types could also increase or decrease operational range (roads and irrigated hexes, for instance, would increase OR wheras jungles, marshes desert and mountains might reduce it!) Certain specialist units would be able to ignore the OR penalty of certain terrain types (alpine troops, for instance, would ignore the mountain penalty to OR!)

7) Like the combat bonuses/penalties for different unit categories, I would also like to see the same thing for attacking into, or out of, different terrain types. This would be good as, with point (6), it would add another level of strategy to the game. You would have to choose your battles with greater care, with an eye to the surrounding terrain, and consideration for your distance from your-albiet abstracted-supply lines!

8) Units should have a Range statistic. High for artillery and tanks, middle for most industrial/modern rifle units, low for archers and musketmen and non-existent for melee units. This is the 'distance' that a unit must be from its target before it can attack. Starting Ranges will be mostly 'abstract', and based largely on the dominant terrain that the units engage in. Each phase, units can close the range by a certain distance. In addition, some units should have a minimum range, in brackets, below which the unit CANNOT attack. This will give a certain advantage to melee units-over ranged units-if they can survive long enough to get within range! This is the stat that I am least certain about-as it may make the game uncessesarily complicated!
Like to know what people think, though


Anyway, those are all my thoughts-like to see what others think!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Some thoughts on Combat:

1) Each turn should comprise of a Movement (1) Phase, a Combat Phase, and a Movement (2) phase. This would allow players and AI alike to respond to an obvious threat, by reinforcing a position. With stealth units and the like, suprise attacks would still be possible, and even if you know an attack is coming, you may still not have any units within range to reinforce with!
The movement (2) phase is so that any units which have retreated from battle, or any great leaders generated by a battle, can move to relative safety-or even so you can move reinforcements into the fray.

2) It should be possible to give your units a broad 'attack strategy'-this would comprise of an 'attack type', and a 'target category'. Attack types range from Attack+ (an overwhelming attack) to 'entrenching' or even 'fall-back'! 'Target category' would comprise of 'Ranged Unit', 'Artillery Unit', 'Mounted Unit' etc.
By checking a box for each, you'll get a basic 'attack strategy'. Each type of 'Target' and 'Strategy' will obviously have its own set of pro's and con's. If you can't be bothered working out what these are, then you can simply leave all such decisions to your 'Generals' (i.e. leave it to the AI to decide). You can change your 'attack strategy' after each 'phase' of combat, according to changes in the situation on the battefield.

3) Each combat should be broken up into 'phases'-perhaps around 10 in the ancient age, and coming down to around 4 in the modern age. Each phase would consist of a 'face off'-where units that are within their attack range can attack each other-after this all morale checks for routes and POW capture are determined, then the phase ends with a pop-up screen telling you how things stand with your units-which ones have been damaged (and how badly), which ones have routed or been captured by the enemy, the current range of each unit to their closest 'target unit', the number of prisoners you have caught, and an estimate of the damage the enemy has recieved! At this point, you can click on each unit and either (a) give them a new 'attack strategy', (b) order them to 'retreat' (c) order them to heal (if they are within their Operational Range) or (d) change nothing. This process will continue until either the max. no. of phases is up, or one of the sides surrenders, retreats or is destroyed! If unit(s) retreat, it may be possible for the enemy to track them down and start the whole process again! If they surrender, then a diplomacy screen should come up-where you can negotiate terms for the surrender, such as safe passage for survivors, exchange of prisoners (or payment for prisoners-in money, resources or land) or payment of reperations to the victor-again in money, resources or land!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I’ve been giving more thought to range and I reckon it can be done, if its left quite simple and abstract-in fact, I’m not sure it would work as well WITHOUT range.
The way I see it working, then, is that when two forces engage eachother, it will be at a base range-according to terrain type-from 2 for Jungles and forests, up to 8 or even 10 for open plains and deserts. Stealth units will always engage an enemy at their optimal attacking range-unless the other side has a ‘stealth-detecting’ unit amongst them.
A units range stat. determines whether or not the unit can hit its target. For instance, on an open plain, a unit with range 6 would NOT be able to hit any enemy units at the start of combat. Each turn, depending on the ‘attack strategy’ of the unit, this range can be reduced until it closes to range 0. Modern artillery would probably have a range of 10, most infantry units would probably have a range of 6, Archers would only have a range of about 3 and melee units would only have a range of 1.
A ‘standard attack’ strategy means the unit is remaining ‘in position’. A ‘Charge’ or ‘Attack+’ (Overrun Attack) moves the unit forward at 2x normal. An ‘Attack’ or ‘Advance’ strategy moves the unit forward at a normal pace. Other attack strategies include ‘flank’ (which moves the unit forward), ‘harry’ (stand-off), ‘entrench’ (stand-off), ‘entrap’ (moves unit forward). At normal ‘speed’, foot units move 1 range band per phase, mounted units move forward 2 and mech units move forward 3 range bands.
As I mentioned in the above post, when you click on a unit, it will bring up a pop-up screen with a list of ‘attack strategies’ down one side, and ‘preferred target’ on the other. Next to them would be check-boxes, that you can click on to assign that unit its preferred attack method and target (which you would probably decide based on what that unit gets the greatest bonus for!) When units engage each other, you would see the standard animation you see in civ3-with each unit, in turn, being shown. After the phase is complete. A pop-up screen will appear, giving you a run-down of how the fight went. I envisage this screen having a brief run-down of the fight from your military advisor. Then, underneath that, a picture of each unit will be shown and, next to it, the HP it has left, its current rank, its morale, and what its current attack strategy is. If you click on the picture of a unit-it will bring up a the previous mentioned pop-up of attack strategies. Here you can change your attack patterns and, at the bottom of the screen, you will have a choice of ‘Retreat’ or ‘Heal’.
Anyway, hope this is enough detail for you guys, and I’d love to hear what you guys think of all of my ideas.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Aussie_Lurker, the game designers will be very unlikely to adopt such a detailed combat system. They do not want the game to be a wargame. If they incorporate range (and I am all for that!) then the simple way would be to give units a range value and allow that many shots before the other side closes for close combat.

Thus, if archers had a range of 2 and warriors a range of 0 then the archers would get two rounds off before close combat. Later, the archers go up against WWII style tanks with a range of 6. The tanks would get 4 shots off before close combat ensued.

Actually, my range system isn't that much more complex, its just that the number of free shots you get will also be dependant on how 'fast' the unit moves too!
Also, I don't think any of my ideas turn the game into a wargame. The tactics I mentioned merely involve checking a box for that unit-and you could have defaults based on what that unit is best at! My ideas also don't make combat an any more dominant aspect of the game. If anything, my ideas will make people have to think a bit more before they engage in warfare-and thus reduce the warmonger tendancy slightly. For instance. You might want to start a war with your neighbour-but you now have to consider your terrain and, in particular how deep into enemy territory you can venture. Defending your 'supply points' (i.e. forts, outposts and cities) will now become important. This will help to add some greater depth to the combat part of the game-rather than the current 'I'll just send 3 Stacks O' Death' and take what I want, where I want!' approach. The best part is that the depth is added with only a very minor increase in difficulty. Plus, with the option of leaving ALL of the big decisions up to your 'General'.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

My "general requirements" for units and combat....

1. All variable information about the unit must be visually displayed with the unit and must not impede the visibility of other important information (e.g. the Civ3 hp bar). This probably allows two bars (one for health and one for morale???)

2. Combat resolution must be clearly visible. I should be able to watch and know almost exactly what happens.

3. Combat resolution must be fast. It's PART of the game...it's not the game. It should be quick, whatever happens.

4. NO pop-ups or anything that requires closing or quick viewing. Simply show the results clearly on-screen.

5. Units are units are units. There should be no check-boxes to differentitate one type from another or anything distinct between identical types of units. (Having a unit that is better in forests, for example, would be fine, but it shouldn't share name and/or graphics with another unit.)

6. Keep a fairly high degree of randomness. War is crazy and really weird things happen. There should be no "guaranteed wins" or "guaranteed losses".


NOTE: The idea of range can still be incorporated into this model, but the "closing speed" and "range" of a unit would be fixed for each unit and wouldn't require user intervention. I think deviating from these "requirements" too far would result in something different from Civ (not that it couldn't be a good game, but it would NOT be Civ, at least IMO).

Suggestions:

1. Make the A/D values MUCH larger, so there can be easier and finer differentiation between them. 10/10/1 warriors and 240/180/3 modern armor seems a fine start to me. Would allow easier tweaking of UUs and various other units for better balance (e.g. immortals become 36/18/1 units replacing 30/20/1 swords or something similar...cavalry become 56/30/3 for a little less overpowering a unit, etc.)

2. Make combat have more options than win, lose, retreat. I would add draw, for example, where two units fight but neither is killed (I envision a number of rounds of combat, where each round results in attacker damage, defense damage, neither damaged, both damaged). This would also allow two units to destroy each other, a not-too-uncommon event. (A way to implement this would be to simply have the attacker and defender simultaneously roll. If attacker's random value is less than A/(A+D) then the defender is damaged. If defender's value is less than D/(A+D) then the attacker is damaged. Simple, elegant, but adds some depth). Combat would then end after a certain number of ronds, even if no one was victorious (LOTS of options on number of rounds. Needless to say, this variable should be moddable! (and might depend on experience level, age of development, etc.))

3. I like the idea of attacking terrain being an influence on combat. It should be. Exact implementation is unimportant, in my mind.

Arathorn

I could live with your system, Arathorn. The one other thing I would add to the list, though, is the armor vs defense (and firepower) suggested above.

I definitly agree with Arathorn regarding the unit A/D values. Thus the unevenities between some units would be easier to balance.

eg. now in civ a group of people with swords and like can kill a group of rifleman ??? or it is hard for an artillery to destroy some middle aged units ???

annoying is, that it is no use to go for military tech advences because you cannot use them as effectively as they could be in reality. too much effort for the advance but mostly the number of units counts when a battle starts.

Val

Yes, it would be easy for an middle age army to destroy/undertake an undefended artillery stand!

I think any combat system that is thought up should be able to be explained to a novice in no more than 3 sentences. If it is more complicated than that, it is probably too complex. Civ4 should not strive to be a realistic wargame that only the grognards will understand and enjoy.

Ok, to warpstorm's criticisms (which are very valid)
1. Attack value (easy to understand, this is the chance vs defense that damage may be inflicted by attacking unit).

2. Defense value (similar to attack, this is the chance that the defender will inflict damage instead of attacker)

3. Firepower value (this is the multiple by which damage is inflicted.)
3.a. Any unit with either attack, defense or both will have a FP value (default is 1)
3.b. damage is a variable (probably 1-3, possibly 2-4) for each FP

4. Armor (this is the amount of damage per round that a unit can absorb without losing hp. Armor 1 reduces damage by 1. Armor 2 reduces damage by 2)

5. Hit Points (This is the amount of damage that a unit can sustain--possibly typically in the 50's, 100's whatever playtesting says works)

6. Range (This is the number of attacks a unit gets against a foot unit, it will also determine attacks against lesser-range units)
6.a. Archers with a range of 1 get one attack before duking it out hand to hand.
6.b. WWII style infantry have a range of 3 (just for argument sake) they will get two shots at archers if attacked.
6.c. Units on the attack have their range reduced by 1 (never less than 0) or by half to reflect that they have to find the enemy.

I'm pretty much on the same page as you, rcoutme, but I would like to put forward the following alternative suggestions:

1) Attack Strength: Pretty much agree with you on this one !

2) Defense Strength: In my opinion, should only be the chance of a unit AVOIDING being hit. So unit 1's chance of hitting Unit 2 will be (Unit 1 Attack strength- Unit 2 Defense Strength)/(Attack+Defense). So, a unit with AS 5 attacking a unit with DS 3 will have a 25% chance of hitting!
The difference between the chance and the number generated by the rnd will be the 'damage factor' For example, lets say the rnd is 10%, then the damage factor is 15.

3) Firepower is multiplied by the damage factor to get the actual damage done. So if the previously described unit had a firepower of 2, then it would do 30 points of damage!

4) Armour deducts from this damage, as rcoutme has said, to give you the actual damage inflicted on the unit. So, as an example, a unit that had an armour of 10 would sustain 20 points of damage!

5) HP is pretty much as has been described-but should probably work on a 1-100 scale, or even a 1-200 scale, to put the final nail in the coffin of the 'spearman vs tank' scenario !!

6) Range is, again, pretty much as rcoutme has explained it!

7) Operational Range: As I have described before, this is the number of hexes a unit can travel OUTSIDE of 'Friendly Territory'. The more hexes outside of this range a unit goes, the more damage the unit sustains between turns! For instance, say the base damage rate is 5/hex, then a unit caught, between turns, 8 hexes outside of its OR will sustain 40 POINTS of damage!

8) Morale: This is the % chance that a unit will be routed. A units base morale is multiplied by unit level and by % of total hp remaining!

Anyway, to my mind, thats still PRETTY DARN SIMPLE !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Both of the last two posts were more than 3 sentences. I don't think they'd satisfy warpstorm

I like the new improvements on the combat system. I have another idea. How about a new field of units..... Space. You could near the end build spy satalites and communication satalites. You don not actually controll their movement or see them on the map but they are spying for you the same.

judgement said:

Both of the last two posts were more than 3 sentences. I don't think they'd satisfy warpstorm

Click to expand...

I agree. I can though support Arathorn's suggestions, with indeed the only one thing to add, and that is Operation Range of a unit. But then in the sense of Aussie's suggestion : limited penetration away from homeland. I like the concept of an "outpost", but then not built by workers, but by military and exploratory units only. It could also give an answer to the eternal question of the supply lines, in my very modest opinion though.

Basically it's what Aussie says. Unit outside the operation range should get damage or a penalty anyhow. Unit range depends on:
1. terrain movement cost (e.g. mountain cost is 3, hills is 2 as it is now)
2. distance to nearest friendly settlement (city, colony or outpost)
3. unit movement points (fast units have double OR)

What does this mean? How can we upgrade the operation range then?
a. Building new cities nearby (settlers) or conquer one in war;
b. Building colonies (workers, of course on resources only);
c. Build roads (workers) in neutral territory (if left);
d. Build an outpost (military and scout units).

Building an outpost :
A. can only be done by military and scout/explorer units;
B. not possible in already friendly civilised terrain (outpost dissapears when friendly borders enclose it);
C. could take a small amount of turns, depending on terrain, and not possible in some terrain types: tundra, jungle, desert (except "oasis"). This would reflect the enhanced natural protection of those harsh environments against foreign intruders, as their possibility of limiting enemy OR (no supply!) (same for mountains, but then because of greater move cost). Historical example: The Nile-region (Egypt) was naturally well protected by the surrounding desert until enemy cavalary was able to pass it!
D. at the coast side could harbor friendly ships and let them heal (slowly);
E. provides the known extra eliminate-the-fog-of-war bonus;
F. might provide a small extra defense bonus (say 10%);
G. when left deserted, can be claimed or destroyed by rival civs or barbs.

To put it simply: the outpost could be for ground units (and maybe vessels) what an airfield is now for air units. It allows a larger operation range. But, it's not built by workers.

As an example some OR's:
Settler: infinite; Worker: infinite; 1 movement point ground unit (warrior): 5 or 6 move points. So being two mountain tiles away from a friendly settlement is the limit. You need to start an outpost to get further (this would also slow down exploration of the map in the beginning. Besides: getting a map of a goody hut now has increased value, and defeating barbarians could give you a free outpost apart from the money!); 2 MP ground unit (scout) : effective 12 MP's. Problem: vessels? (though carriers and nuclear subs could have OR infinity because of the nuclear reactors).

Indication of how far you are away can be done in the movement disc. Apart from the number of moves it would take to get to the tile you are pointing at, an extra number, the distance (in movement points) is indicated as well. When crossing the OR-limit, it might light up red instead of white. And It should not be too difficult to calculate the effective distance of units, should it?

What do you think?

Regards,
Jaca

Regarding Arathorns suggestion #1. "Make the A/D values MUCH larger, so there can be easier and finer differentiation between them. 10/10/1 warriors and 240/180/3 modern armor seems a fine start to me. Would allow easier tweaking of UUs and various other units for better balance (e.g. immortals become 36/18/1 units replacing 30/20/1 swords or something similar...cavalry become 56/30/3 for a little less overpowering a unit, etc.)"

I find this very interesting! My suggestion to overcome this problem was to work with 5S costs as a base instead of 10S. I saw in Conquest (haven't bought it yet!?) that the Curragh is priced 15S! Very good! Is this in Conquest now, I mean the 5S base?

Anyone else noticed the rule of thumb in CIV PTW of about 10S shield cost per attack point for attackers, 10S per defense point for defenders, and an extra cost of 50% for fast units? At least for the Ancient and most Middle Age units.

1. Attackers: 10S per attack point (Warrior 10S, Archer 20S, Swordsman 30S, Medieval Infantry 40S). Standard foot soldiers get a Defense of 2 after Iron Working, except the Longbowman (which does not require Iron!);

2. Defenders : a cost of 10S per defense point (Warrior 10S, Spear 20S, Pikeman 30S and I find Musketman overpriced for its 4 Defense, despite its (useless except against Longbowmen) extra attack point);

3. Fast units: cost 50% more: Horseman (2-1-2) 1,5*20S = 30S. Knight (4-3-2 in CIV PTW): 1,5 * 40S = 60S plus 10S for the extra defense point = 70S. Gallic Swordsmen: 1,5 * 30S = 45S. The Gallic (50S in CIV-PTW) is maybe also slightly overpriced, especially as a UU. The Chariot is definitly overpriced. It should cost 15S instead of 20S. That would make them appear more often.

So some units are in my opinion overpriced and most Modern Era units by far underpriced : Modern Armor in PTW for a poor 120S!
But then again, Arathorns suggestion (or a version of it) could make it work even better.

Regards,
Jaca

Arathorn said:

1. Make the A/D values MUCH larger, so there can be easier and finer differentiation between them. 10/10/1 warriors and 240/180/3 modern armor seems a fine start to me. Would allow easier tweaking of UUs and various other units for better balance (e.g. immortals become 36/18/1 units replacing 30/20/1 swords or something similar...cavalry become 56/30/3 for a little less overpowering a unit, etc.)

Click to expand...

I agree with the concept, but 10x stats (i.e., 10/10/1 warriors) seems a bit too far for me. Its easy to see that a 2 attack archer is twice as good as a 1 attack warrior, and just as easy to see that a 20 attack archer is twice as good as a 10 attack warrior. But do we really need 19 attack units compared to 11 attack units, and so on? The higher numbers make simple comparisons between units a little harder, and after a point, the ability to have finer distinctions doesn't really add much.

This is really only an issue in the ancient age, anyway, when a single point increase (due to a new tech, or in a UU) can sometimes feel like too much. In the later ages, the jump in unit stats between tech levels is usually more than 1 point anyway (i.e., 4/6/1 riflemen jump to 6/10/1 infantry).

I think it would be better to just double all stats (or at most, 5x). If archers were 4/2/1 and warriors 2/2/1, I think you'd have plenty of ability to have finer distinctions, tweak UUs, etc. If swordsmen were scaled up to 6/4/1 (from 3/2/1), people would notice a difference if immortals were tweaked to 7/4/1 instead of 8/4/1. Likewise, 11/6/3 cavalry instead of 12/6/3 might be a distinction you could detect. But I don't think most people would notice any difference between immortals with 36 attack and immortals with 35 attack, or notice cavalry having 56 instead of 55. 10x states would offer, IMHO, too much room for fine distinctions: the distinctions would be so small that they wouldn't make much difference in the game.

Just my opinion, of course...