Thunderbrd
C2C War Dog
Introduction to the C2C Combat Mod
Step IV - Stamina, Surround and Stampede
Before I fade out of close involvement for a week or so here I wanted to get the rest of the Combat Mod basics explained. So although your heads may yet be spinning with everything I've explained so far, I'm pressing on because its only fair you know in full what the Combat Mod lays the groundwork for.
Tonight, we'll discuss the 3 S's of the Combat Mod. Stamina, Surround and Stampede.
Stamina
This is a category of abilities and adjustments to Units and effects during combats those values apply.
The first section of these deals with modifiers that take place over time spans.
We have:
- Strength Adjustment per Round:
As a unit trait: iStrAdjperRnd
As a promotion trait: iStrAdjperRndChange
This value can exist as a positive or a negative. When it exists on a unit in the positive, it will be expressed as Rage. As a negative, this value is expressed as Fatigue.
This is a Combat Modifier % adjustment that accumulates every round on that unit within the span of a given battle. As you may recall from the previous introduction, a change the combat mod brings us is the ability to have our unit values recalculate between every round of combat.
This is one big reason why that fundamental change in the combat mechanism was established, so that we could represent a unit that strengthens as it gets into the fight, perhaps due to a Berzerking ability, an Emotional state such as an indomitable will to achieve victory due to a fierce loyalty, or an animalistic panic driven fury that grows as the battle goes on.
And it also allows us to depict units that, for whatever reason, be it an Affliction suffered, extremely heavy armor, weaponry or gear, or an Emotional state of despair, depression or simply low morale(to come in the next round of Combat Mod features), fades over the course of the battle as weariness sets in.
In fact, as a rather radical idea, I would like to propose giving ALL fleshy units somewhere between -1 to -10% base starting StrAdjperRnd to reflect that as a living breathing being, they'd naturally tire over the course of a fight. At vehicles we'd start seeing this vanish. This could be applied via wide sweeping SubCombat Auto-Promotions.
I'd like you to consider some of the interactions this value has with other elements previously introduced.
For example, Armor. When you're up against an armored opponent that you don't have quite enough puncture to ignore the armor completely, (if it was tooo capable of being overcome, why's the unit wearing armor in the first place?) you'll find that combats take longer (in round counts anyhow) to resolve because each hit counts for less.
If you're strengthening throughout the fight (the hits you're taking forcing additional recalculations from injury and pain suffered) you'll want to embrace a longer combat and would actually not mind taking on an armored foe because you'll just be given the time to build up steam (or at least be growing in strength enough to counter the damage you're taking while your opponent won't be so lucky.)
If you're weakening throughout that fight, however, the armor is going to become a crippling problem for you as the longer you go, the weaker you get, even if you're opponent can't hit the broad side of a barn!
Anyhow, this one tag opens up a whole world of promos, abilities, natural hindrances, affliction hindrances, equipment effects and emotional effects to work with the concept of adrenaline vs exhaustion!
On a side note: It seems Koshling may be identifying how recalculations each round are affecting odds more accurately than my guess which was something along the lines of
. I was going to simply allow this value, and any others that may impact the battle during its scope, to be an uncalculated variable into the odds if nobody of a better math mind than I could apply it somehow. It seems we do have that skill set though so that's good news! What do you think Koshling? How capable of taking this tag into consideration could the odds be adjusted to be?
- Strength Adjustment per Attack:
As a unit trait: iStrAdjperAtt
As a promotion trait: iStrAdjperAttChange
This is similar to the above but lets not let it get us confused. Multiple rounds take place during one battle but SOME units can yet make multiple attacks in a given game turn, usually via use of the Blitz ability.
This tag is for those who make multiple attacks in a given game turn.
Like the previous Strength Adjustment per Round, this one is also expressed differently if it amounts to a positive or a negative. Positive is Rampage while negative is Tires.
For the positive, Rampage, the value represents the Combat Modification Percentage bonus the unit gets for the rest of the turn after making an attack (cumulative). This bonus resets to 0 after the end of the turn, however.
So if my Light Tank has a Rampage of 10%, after every attack in a given turn my tank gains a +10% Combat modifier to the next battle (which resets to 0% modifier at the end of the turn.) This represents Units that have a mindset or physical conditioning that makes them grow with determination and confidence with each victory but it runs flat once they take a real breather.
And the opposite occurs for Tires, which represents units that lack resilience, grow tired, resentful, weary of having to attack repeatedly but gain back a bit of will to go on after being allowed a good rest.
These will be PERFECT automatic values to help represent Morale! But they can also represent basic mindsets in cultural promos, an inability to focus too hard for too long from an Affliction, a resent by the unit for the war they are in (possibly war weariness linked or cultural conflicts creating auto promos?), or perhaps a leak in the gas tank from a Critical. The term Tires is meant to be a bit of a pun due to the fact that many units that can carry on multiple attacks are currently vehicular in nature... If you guys want a different term I can change it.
This tag, in the positive, would be good for a Commander unit to pass along to his stack as he presses on with praise and encouragement and rousing speeches between attacks.
- Strength Adjustment per Defense:
As a unit trait: iStrAdjperDef
As a promotion trait: iStrAdjperDefChange
You're probably getting the idea on these by now. Within the scope of a given game turn, if a unit with a value on this tag defends and survives, it gets a cumulative combat modifier on the next defense equal to this value, which can be either positive or negative.
In the positive, this value is expressed on a unit as Determination and in the negative as (currently though may need to be changed as its term seems to need use elsewhere soon) Demoralization.
Determined city defenders can be hell to overcome as I'm sure you can immediately imagine. But Demoralized defenders can more easily be overcome with multiple attacks.
Aside from some promos and affliction interactions, I don't currently have a lot in mind for this tag until the Emotional Promotions come into play at which point they'll become very influential details making war as much a mind game with the enemy as a physical one.
- Withdraw Adjustment per Defense:
As a unit trait: iWithdrawAdjperDef
As a promotion trait: iWithdrawAdjperDefChange
Some runners and mounts may grow faster with each successful flight from combat in a given turn, their nerves becoming wired like steel traps with repeated escape efforts, while others, including vehicles that have been stretched to their limits with each retreat, may become exhausted of all that sprinting without a rest and as a result may grow less capable of getting away.
These values are expressed in (positive) Reflexes vs (negative) Frays (Again, a bit of a pun indicating frayed nerves from numerous frays.)
Once again, this is primarily a developable skill with promos, an emotional state, a rational inherent value due to the nature of the beast or vehicle (and may help to give us ways to differentiate varying types of mounts with equipment promos - differing horse breeds perhaps?), or an affliction creating a unique drag in your judgement or sprinting speed.
Now let me return to those afflictions for a moment to explain a few tags that fall under the Stamina category that influence the catching and recovering from Afflictions:
- Fortitude:
As a unit trait: iFortitude
As a promotion trait: iFortitudeChange
Fortitude is a unit's ability to generally resist and overcome afflictions. A hardy fortitude is highly resistant and capable of shaking off these nasty effects while a weak or negative fortitude is going to be a lot more likely of being sickly and laid out longer when poisoned or critically injured.
Cultural promos could influence this value. Units themselves could have a wide variety of inherent initial values. A line of Promos should be available for units here so if you find you're biggest bugbear in your game has become a nasty disease or an enemy's poison, you can have a way to develop your units to shrug off such effects. Fortitude can also be strengthened by techs and bonus access while you happen to sit inside your cities.
It is important to think of Fortitude as the GENERIC equally applicable to all Afflictions resistance, though you will find some Afflictions cannot be overcome or denied by fortitude alone still (but it will always help in those efforts!)
In short, Communicability checks made to see if you're unit caught a disease from an attack or proximity to another unit or the city its in are directly % modified by the value of your unit's Fortitude. And Overcome checks made to shrug off an Affliction are also directly manipulated by this metric so a 10 Fortitude = a +10% chance of recovery every round on THAT individual unit.
- Aid:
As a unit trait: iAid
As a promotion trait: iAidChange
This tag is for the healers! Healer units that happen to be on your stacks will impart their aid value to modify those units chances to resist and overcome afflictions in exactly the same manner as Fortitude. However, just like the Heal value, they can only grant to other units the HIGHEST VALUE of Aid present in the stack so multiple healers with the same values can't help any more than the first.
I felt healers needed a ton of added depth and between their ability to develop skills to directly cure individual afflictions as a mission, develop Heal for basic injuries, and Aid to handle the wide variety of all afflictions generically, I believe I'm finally giving them the depth they needed.
Now, you'll be able to specialize different healers for differing purposes! It may finally BE worth having more than one with your attack stacks and some specialist healers in your nation to move around addressing problems with afflictions as they come up.
Note: Buildings may give an Aid value to their plot as well. The best Aid from buildings and the best Aid from units present in the city WILL stack so obviously a city is the best place to come for help (though if your affliction is a disease, you may spread your horrible infection to the people of the city, or even the healers attempting to help thereby causing a bigger epidemic than you intended.)
And lets talk about what I've included as a hint of things to come in the next Combat Mod development round that also falls under the category of Stamina:
- Endurance:
As a unit trait: iEndurance
As a promotion trait: iEndurance
Endurance is a value that helps a unit counteract any existing Fatigues or Tires effects that may be present on the unit (and is thus a different value than Fortitude as it has a differing numeric scale to consider!) Each point of Endurance is quite effective, reducing your Fatigue or Tire effects by the same value.
It cannot, however, cause a unit to exceed those values into Rage or Rampage effects.
It also helps to counteract Elemental Damage effects. More on that below with the first example of an Elemental Damage.
Endurance should be developable via promos and can be a way to give a unit some inherent flavor as well. Again, cultural promotions could be useful here, and it could commonly be found in Combat Class auto promos where it should apply across a wide application of unit types.
- Deals Cold Damage:
As a unit trait: bDealsColdDamage
As a promotion trait: can add the ability to deal cold damage with bMakesDamageCold or will remove one cause for damage to be cold with bMakesDamageNotCold.
Some catapults built in icy terrains may fling huge ice boulders (an equipment) or the clubmen made in those regions might utilize an Ice Sickle Club. These few rare examples of why a unit may deal cold damage are nothing, however, compared to what we can do with the bColdDamage tag on a terrain that normally dishes out terrain damage! (Note, the tag for that is set up but I haven't yet implemented it cuz I wanted it to be explained here first!)
Cold damage is an overlapping value that gets applied to a unit when the unit suffers damage from a 'cold damaging source'. It heals at exactly the same rate as the rest of its damage and with all the same modifiers though it assumes it's the first portion of any damage you heal.
It will appear volumetrically different to the damage on your unit however as it reflects the actual HP damage suffered from a cold source, not the percentage of your overall combat strength that's usually represented on an injured unit. Remember from the last intro that all units have 100 max HP and any loss is the percentage of damage the unit can take overall.
The effect of having Cold Damage on a unit is that it directly reduces your dodge and precision values equal to the amount of cold damage you have. In other words, you're too cold and as a result clumsy and slow to fight effectively so its directly impacting your accuracy and reflexes in a fight.
Its easily healed if you get out of the zone causing the damage and you can tolerate it better with Endurance, as noted above.
A unit may also be made to be Cold Immune (doesn't take off or deny all Cold Damage values being on the unit... just negates the negative effects on Accuracy and Reflexes completely.) The tag for a unit is bColdImmune and for Promos is bAddsColdImmunity and bRemovesColdImmunity.
I plan, for the next round of Combat Mod tags, a Cold Damage resistance that would work a bit like armor against cold damage sources, reducing the amount of cold damage AND actual damage the unit receives from any source dealing Cold Damage, but as I said earlier, just including this much is meant to be a hint of what more is to come in this department.
I think it goes without saying that Mammoths should be Cold Immune! But keep in mind this too, if a unit is able to negate the effect of a terrain damage that also deals an Elemental Damage value along with it, it will also deny the Elemental Damage as well, so our current tags that make a unit immune to damage from tundra, permafrost and snow will still work to make a unit immune to taking any Cold Damage from terrain (but won't keep it from taking some and being affected by it from a unit that may dish out Cold Damage!)
And we now move on past Stamina to the second S of the evening:
Surround
I don't know about you but I LOVE the Surround and Destroy option! While I'm not much good at complex AI work in this dept and recognize we still have a lot to do there, I figured since we might work it out soon for the ai, it should probably be done in light of the following new tags that are largely designed for promotion lines and innate benefits for certain species (like wolves!) and unit strategies.
So to jump right in, we have:
- Unnerve:
As a unit trait: iUnnerve
As a promotion trait: iUnnerveChange
As wolves surround their opponents they growl and threaten, circle around and leap in now and then to distract from the real attacker who takes the shot. This wolf pack tactic led to inspiration for Unnerve.
The Unnerve value of a unit is the % greater strength that unit is considered to have when supporting the setup of a surround and destroy bonus.
Surround and Destroy bonus is based not just on positioning around the enemy, but also on the strength of the units surrounding relative to the strength of the defender, and only the greatest strength on any given surrounding tile is taken into consideration for setting up surround and destroy support for the attacker.
This means that a wolf, with a +100% Unnerve value and a base strength of 2 would generally be considered a strength 4 unit when supporting an attack with greater surround and defense bonus simply by being there in another adjacent tile to the defender.
Horsemen who learn and utilize these tactics can become holy terrors if they catch you in the field! But lets try to keep this benefit limited to the very quick and agile for only those could feint and weave in an effective enough manner to provide the sort of support that Unnerve implies.
The big downside of trying to develop troops with this ability is that you're usually trying to promote for this value on units that rarely ever get the chance to, themselves, be the attacker!
Additionally, consider that the Unnerve bonus will not allow a unit to push surround and defense bonuses for the attacker past the cap of 60%... they just make it easier to get to the cap.
- Enclose:
As a unit trait: iEnclose
As a promotion trait: iEncloseChange
A spear wall closes in around you. Everywhere you turn you can see no escape, nowhere to run! Your foes have you completely closed in and now you must turn to fight, knowing you're back is against the wall!
Enclose does not increase surround and destroy benefits innately, as Unnerve may accomplish. But what it does CAN be even more effective.
Unnerve is the % your unit may modify the maximum surround and destroy bonus cap when playing a supporting role in establishing the S&D modifier.
So the way it works is like this: normally the S&D maximum bonus is 60% but if you have a unit that happens to have an Enclose value playing a role in generating the S&D bonus for your attacker, that unit's Enclose value is added to all other supporting units' Enclose values to get a total Enclose value. That total is the % modifier to adjusting the 60% cap, so if I get a total of 100 Enclose out of all my supporting Surrounding troops, my S&D bonus maximum has jumped up to 120%! (60% * (60% *100))
The main thing to remember here is that the unit with Enclose MUST be the selected unit on its plot to be taken into consideration as a supporter in the S&D calculation (remember, only the strongest vs the defender will be counted, evaluated on what the odds would be if the unit attacked the defender, if more than one potential support unit is on a given adjacent plot) so you would want to make sure that you either have your Enclosing unit standing alone, or among weaker units in comparison to the Defending unit.
This ability, if used right, can make for a HUGE bonus stemming from S&D if you've got enough strength surrounding the opponent to benefit from the increased cap anyhow.
Can anyone say Spear Riders? Such units should be capable of gaining and using both Unnerve and Enclose to devastating effect! NOW the true source of the Keshik's old world dominance can be truly revealed.
- Lunge:
As a unit trait: iLunge
As a promotion trait: iLungeChange
"As I was eyeballing all the other wolves closing in around me, nipping at my heals wherever my back was turned, one big one, the alpha I believe, leapt at me with a mighty snapping surge, pinning me down and tearing at my throat!"
Lunge is the ability those units would have that specialize in being the foremost attacker in any surround and destroy effort. Generally a promo earned ability I'd think, though I'd say nearly all wolf/canine units would have some natural inherent ability in this dept. A charging knight or horse raider could also have some.
Lunge is the percentage amount this unit personally modifies any existing S&D bonus when it attacks. Therefore, if I have, for the sake of an example, a 100% Lunge, and I've got a capped out S&D bonus of 60%, I've got a 120% Combat Bonus Modifier when I attack!
When you consider how all three could work together, you suddenly see a battlefield where surround and destroy seems overwhelmingly powerful (despite how difficult it is to really develop the other two support abilities much as the supporters rarely get the opportunity to attack unless its in a city siege situation.)
However, like the Moose who's learned how to rapidly react to these wolf tactics, a unit can develop a counter to surround and destroy bonuses entirely:
- Dynamic Defense:
As a unit trait: iDynamicDefense
As a promotion trait: iDynamicDefenseChange
"So I pulled my dagger and gutted the beast and bounded to my feet with the momentum from my thrust, spun, pulling the dagger from the Alpha's belly and in the same motion, flicked it up into the jaws of the next wolf I could hear leaping through the air behind me. I ducked the next as I drew my scimitar and from there danced as a whirling dervish. It was not long before the last straggling wolves fled from the scene yelping from painful slashes across their flanks."
Dynamic Defense is reserved for the truly agile, nimble footed, lightly armored defender who appears in battle to have a 6th sense for incoming attacks. Or for those that actually have 360 degree vision. Some confident prey animals that have grown accustomed and equipped to handle being surrounded might also benefit from this value. Turrets in city defenses... the list can go on.
The way it works, of course, is its a percentage which the defender reduces the total S&D bonus the attacker is getting after all his/her modifiers. So while S&D bonuses can really be next to limitless with strong Enclose, Unnerve and Lunge benefits all working together, they amount to little against a strong Dynamic Defender.
Last but not least (for this introduction anyhow... there's still a bit more to explain on the combat mod but perhaps less immediately critical) we have the final S of the evening:
Stampede
- Animal Ignores Borders:
First, let me take a moment to note that Animals are normally not allowed inside civilized borders. However, perhaps a beast has killed a human and has as a result become fond of human flesh (killer tiger phenomenon), or an elephant has gone rogue, or the animal simply doesn't have the presence to respect a human presence (snakes in the grass). I've now added a tag for animal units, bAnimalIgnoresBorders that enables an animal to enter borders if set to true. Yes, AI units will recognize such an animal and behave with knowledge that it can in fact breach the boundaries like a normal barbarian.
Additionally, there's bAnimalIgnoresBordersChange, which can be placed on a promo (as a number of those examples up there suggest) that makes the animal now able to enter borders where it previously was incapable.
Animal incursions should still be fairly rare until we get some more advanced AI sorted out for them which is another primary project for Combat Mod II I wish to address.
- Stampede:
Currently, if an Asiatic War Rhino attacks, it sacrifices itself at the end of battle even if it won. This is because the animal can't pull back after a fight... it's so savage that it must carry on in its war path once it has begun and will fight itself to the death.
I found it unfortunate that we assume it dies after the first fight.
So I developed bStampede to address this. bStampedeChange will add the ability from a promo and bRemovesStampede on a promo to knock off one source that adds it - if there's only one source it will remove the ability.
The Stampede ability is kind of like a crude Caveman era Blitz. When a unit with Stampede attacks and wins a fight, if there are any other opponents on the same tile it attacked, it will attack the next one, then the next one then the next until either the Stampeding unit is dead, or all defenders on the attacked plot are vanquished. Usually, if unit balance is in tact, the stampeding unit only makes it through one or two before it dies but hey, it tries its hardest or else!
This ability is kinda cool to see in action...
Now, you may have a unit that survived Stampeding once or twice and has promoted a bit and now you value that unit more. Stampede should be considered as much of a penalty as a benefit as its completely reckless, so advanced training promos should start to remove the causes for the unit to have developed stampede. But training that makes some animal units extremely aggressive may also incidentally add a cause to have stampede. I'd hate to be the rider on an elephant trained to 'go Rogue' on a city!
Most herd animals like bison, aurochs, even wild horses, could be seen to stampede too. But then again they rarely get through your first defender right?
In combination with stampede, particularly powerful is collateral (sets up the next attack), positive strength adjustment per attack (Rampage), and perhaps other abilities I haven't considered yet.
- Onslaught:
War strategies often come full circle after a while. This ability works a bit like Rampage as well but is more for those really advance mechanized units. Onslaught (a reworked tag) allows a unit to repeatedly attack the same attacked plot until it finally suffers damage that takes it beneath fully healthy. Not so useful if your opponent is evenly matched of course, but if you go in to wipe up the scattered remnants of a force that's been bombed down to meaninglessness, quite useful. An injured unit may not perform an onslaught until healed.
bOnslaught will give a unit the natural ability to Onslaught while bOnslaughtChange can add it from a promo. No reason to remove it so there's no bRemovesOnslaught here.
In the next Combat Mod round, I'd like to give some promos the ability to Onslaught to a threshold less than 100 HP (so could continue attacking until it takes enough damage to reduce it below 80 HP etc...) but it would be so powerful to apply that it really should be used only on extremely advanced tech units.
I figure by now your heads are REALLY spinning trying to take in all the possibilities you might encounter on the battlefield of C2C in a version or two. So I'll leave you with this to consider for a while as I take a week out from constant modding. When I return, I'll explain Power Strikes and how the new mechanics affect the value of First Strikes, the Affliction tags and mechanics behind diseases in greater depth and get into introducing the Strength in Numbers gameoption that comes along with the Combat Mod.
