Battle Plans

[ADLOTS]

One aspect I would like to see in these games, and im not sure if its already been discussed, is the making of battle plans. Basically you have a very basic, almost civ1 like view of the land and you plan a battle (sort of like the chessboard layout you see the generals having in movies)...

two reasons:

1) You get combat bonuses for battle plans (the closer you stick to the plan the more the bonus, basically speed/offense bonus). This is to reflect training and preperation that your officers get.

2) Make espionage a bit more interesting. Basically, when your playing only you know how you plan to attack your enemy and where. If your plans are actual data then they can be stolen. You can also make fake plans, or have mulitple plans and chose only to follow one. The more plans you have the less of a bonus you could get. (this is to simulate a Normandy like d-day invasion). This is a good something to do while waiting for MPP, NAP (if they get introduced), ROP of MA to expire. Also your enemy can spy on you and find out if your planning on attacking, this could dramatically improve AI.


Another thing would be to have contingency plans. Like if a certain AI declares war what are you gonna do? where are you gonna position your troops? Etc.


Stupid idea? too much micro-management? I dunno, ive always thought this could improve the game.

 

[rhialto]

I sincerely hope this never happens. I am the zeigeist of my people, not some lowly field marshal.

 

[brinko]

it would be nice to see at the end of the game, what the battle plans were for everyone, seeing that the only way one could watch a rival fight another rival is if one was stuck in between and was master of the world.

it would be a cool idea in the end to observb ancient battles to modern battles...but it would probaly mean more cpu, and more head ache for the designers....

 

[Kayak]

So if I make twenty attacks in one turn I'd have to plan them all out? While I love this game I do like to finish one once in while.

 

[ADLOTS]

I re-thought the idea, and instead of a seperate battle plans menu, you could advance the go-to feature.


You could have a Go-To in like an attack plan mode, where you use waypoints. Basically, you plot out a path for stacks of units to go, and you can set a delay on when these waypoints are triggered (manual or automatic).

Seeing as your already moving your units into position anyway, this is just a pre-determined path for your units to go. You can manually deviate some or all units as per the enemy that you encounter. And you could set it so that the closer your units are to that line that they are following, the more of a battle advantage they recieve.

Ontop of that, you could create forks in your waypoint system, alternate paths, this way you can account for unforseen problems, and also confuse your enemy if they steal your battle plans, that way they would only steal one particular battle plan.


If your already moving your units, and this is just a predetermined way you could move your units, it may make things easier down the line, where you can just click "follow waypoints" "or execute battle plan" and your units just move out in the way you decided.


The basic idea is to give bonus' to players for planning, and do give more dimension to spies.

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

I like this idea, it would make the game more in depth. Also Field Marshals are NOT lowly, look at Napoleon.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

Have anyone here played one of the Europa Universalis or Hearts of Iron games?
I haven't, but I think the combat there is more abstract, would that be a good thing to introduce in civ? Anyone with experience from any of those games..?

 

[rhialto]

I like this idea, it would make the game more in depth. Also Field Marshals are NOT lowly, look at Napoleon.

Compared to being the zeitgeist of the people, even Napoleon is a lowly nothing. Besides, he wasn't so much a field marshal as a king who led from the front.

@Loppan Torkel
In the HoI/EU/Victoria system, your units have a list of stats, the most important seems to be the number of men, which seems can never be replenished except by building new units. Any time two opposing units are in the same tile, they fight, and the number of men depletes until one side decides to run or one side wins.

Seeing as how civ lacks actual numbers of men as a game concept, and is not a RTS game, I'm not sure how well this could be transferred.

 

[sir_schwick]

I think I understand what you are trying to do, but this definitely needs refinement.

1) All players units would move on a WE-GO basis. This was the plans actually make sense and no one gets the turn placement advantage.
2) Units would move differently then now, and they wouldn't have to be in the same square to interact. They would hae a one or two square 'engagment' zone.
3) Part of plannign would be deciding stance, which would effect efficeincy, respones, and speed.
4) If your unit does not finish all of its pre-planned move, it just continues on the rest of the moves the next turn. This way you can make a big plan and then modify it as events change.