My Second Fighting system Idea!

[moopoo]

Yes, I know, I've done this before. Yes, I know, I should learn how to mod. I will. Some day. in the mean time...

MY (second) FIGHTING SYSTEM!!!

My newest system is based on two systems already in BTS: Withdrawal and unit directions (yes, this is actually only in the afterlife mod, but it's still there )

First the directional thing. This part is a simple one, and one that has been floating around here since BTS. The Idea that when units fortify, they fortify for a specific direction. In this direction they get an excellent defensive bonus (100%, say). They get a lesser bonus from a 45 degree angle (75%, again for arguments sake). a lesser bonus again from the side, and no defensive bonus from the back.

For the system to be most effective, units on a tile must all be facing the same way. This would create the need for defensive lines. It could also be changed for specific units - for example, pikemen could get excellent front-on defense, and crap back defense, whereas archers would be pretty all-round (pun intended).

Next - withdrawal. First of all there could be a defensive withdrawal. It would only take place when a unit has less than 10% health, and doesn't occur if the unit starts with less than 75%, so that offensive units can still kill units

Offensive withdrawal. With the excellent defense from front-on, attackers need a way to breakthrough. offensive withdrawal is the key - with High chances, around the 80% mark i think. However there is a catch - your withdrawal chance lessens, the more units you have on a tile. This is the best way i can think of to recreate logisitics problems encountered on the field with taking a pant-load of units intlo one little area.

So lets recap. Units only get good fortify bonuses from front on, so defensive units will be spread to cover corners, and back each other up. the one direction thing means you'll be better off defending land rather than cities. To counter this awesome defense, attaking units get good withdrawal - but only if the general (you!) has planned his attack properly. Find the weak spot and drive your forces into it.

One final thing that I just thought of - supply lines. This could be recreated by needing a road/rail route to your nearest city, otherwise health recovery is severly diminished. Also, the health recovery could depend on food from the cities to emphasis pillaging.

What dost thou think?

 

[xienwolf]

Sounds like units would have to be cheaper so you can have more of them overall. But possibly enjoyable.


I'd remove the 45 degree angle considerations though, only use the front/back/sides. You can never cover yourself from attack on the 45 degree, thus it would be exceedingly rare that anyone EVER attacks you head-on, no matter how well you lay your defensive lines. Allow a unit to have 3 Tiles in which they defend solidly instead, then you can create a box around your city and be covered from all sides.

X = High Defense
O = Low Defense
_ = No Defense
T = Defender

Facing North

XXX
OTO
___

Facing East:

XO_
XT_
XO_

Facing Northeast:

XXO
XT_
O__



Using this setup you would still have vulnerable tiles, Strong tiles, and moderate ones. Though few would be moderate.


So to Defend a city you could achieve:

XXXXX
XTTTX
XTCTX
XTTTX
XXXXX



Where C is now your City and each T unit is facing out from the city.


Lose one unit and now:

XXXXX
XTTTX
O_CTX
XTTTX
XXXXX


With the now vacant spot being a weakness for the 4 Units nearby (and if you got no troops in your city, who cares, you lose!) And the O is a moderate spot for each of the diaganol facing corner units.

 

[seZereth]

I like it. might be cool to see in action with regiments and formations... getting some battlefield feeling.
now someone mod it in and teach the AI to cope with it.

 

[moopoo]

Cool! two positive comments, from no less than the FFH team!

I hadn't thought about unit costs. I guess this could create a flow-on bonus in that with cheaper units, you could have a good play with them before they become obsoleted, without having to fiddle too much with tech times.

 

[EviltheMonkey]

You could also use this idea to better impliment cavalry and to a lesser extent light infantry/skirmishers.

Instead of no defence bonus from rear attacks, line infantry units could get a defence penalty (say make them half-strength) whereas cavalry would get not penalties or bonuses from any direction. This would make cavalry an effective flank or rearguard unit which would be historically accurate and add yet more incentive for combined arms forces.

As for the graphical impliementation would it be possible for the unit to have some kind of visable barrier to indicate their facing like a low wall, sandbags or breastworks?

 

[moopoo]

I was thinking to change their units defensive formation to be a line, where the line is oriented toward the side you are defending against. That would work well with your idea, especially with units such as infantry and machine gunners.

And yes, it would be a better implementation of Cavalry

 

[GoodGame]

I hate to say it, but I think the idea is needlessly complicated. It would be appropriate for a tactical-themed scenario.

I think what you really want is more granularity to the Fortify bonus, and more ways to help nulify that bonus. For instance, instead of the vanilla 5% bonus per turn to a cap of 25%, why not make it 5% per turn to a cap of 100%? And why not an engineer bonus that allows a unit to fortify at say 15% per turn? And a sapper promotion that nullifies the fortication bonus in steps of say 25%, 50%, and 75%?

That's better than tracking facing in what is not a tactical game. Also, tiles are non-descript, but likely large areas, so restricting units to only one facing is artificial.

Your "offfensive withdrawl" basically sounds like some sort of all-out-attack. It sounds like trading strength for a percentage bonus, like maybe sacrificing health after a battle for a 50% net bonus and a zero chance of withdrawl; E.g. units gets 50% net bonus, but if it survives, its health is cut an extra 50% at the end of the battle. I could see giving that to a warlord unit as an optional promotion (e.g. in the tier of leadership, tactics, etc.. promotions ) that benefits all units in the stack.

Logistics is always a good thing. Applying strength modifiers for supply as well as strength recovery makes sense.

 

[moopoo]

One of the main points of this idea is to draw battle, at least partially, out on to the field - A higher cap will do exactly the opposite, encouraging a couple of units to sit in the cities for all eternity, safe in the knowledge they are twice as good as they should be. City Raider is essentially the same thing as your sapper bonus, and beefing that up wouldn't solve anything either. This, as a whole, would also add to the stack of doom problem.

I don't feel it's needlessly complicated - I think Civs mechanisms somewhat simplified. I think it sounds more complicated than it is. All it means for the player is to defend in lines, and attack in such a way the negates those lines, by either finding and striking a weakness, or going around.

I not really sure what you mean in your last paragraph - rephrase please?

 

[GoodGame]

Probably the actual values would need some tweaking, both for the rate of fortifying and the rate of sapper promotions to get a balance between the sapper and fortification ability to promote more field battles. I won't argue that.

As a practical mod for Civ4, tracking unit facing would add further to the computational burden. I'm not saying that it would hold no value to the future in Civ5. Thematically, it doesn't fit to me because battles seem more operational than tactical in Civ4. Adding a sense of battle lines in a grand tactical sense (think Napoleonic) without having a tactical mini-game would be something reasonable for Civ5 assuming better computers/better programing.. Just getting simultaneous, combined arms combat like Dale's mod is an achievement for Civ4.

My last point was I was generally agreeing with you about adding logistics in some capacity to the combat system.

One of the main points of this idea is to draw battle, at least partially, out on to the field - A higher cap will do exactly the opposite, encouraging a couple of units to sit in the cities for all eternity, safe in the knowledge they are twice as good as they should be. City Raider is essentially the same thing as your sapper bonus, and beefing that up wouldn't solve anything either. This, as a whole, would also add to the stack of doom problem.

 

[moopoo]

Aaaah I see. yeah Offensive withdrawal is a way of keeping the high defensive bonuses in check - The system might work better with a civ3 attack/defence strength system, now that i think about it.

It would add to computer burden, but I don't think it would be by a huge amount. With my very limited knowledge of programming, I envisage a set of different tactics, one or two (attack/defence) assigned to each unit type to give the Computer a hint about how to use it. The tactics themselves would be defined by the SDK, with some (hopefully small) crossover to python if nesseccery. SDK doesn't slow the computer down nearly as much as python, and i'm sure there are many other mods that have made much more comprehensive changes without a noticeable lag.

Thankyou for response and feedback