Thoughts on combat system

[ThunderLizard2]

I like the idea of having a separate tactical map. Much more possibilities versus having combat take place on the strategic map like Civ VI. What are people thoughts on the pros and cons?

 

[8housesofelixir]

Pros: All very obvious, especially a nice blend between 1UPT and non-1UPT.

IIRC there are 2 Cons: Currently the mechanism doesn't allow a 3rd party takes part in the tactical battle; and that it may messed up player sequences in multiplayer.

 

[Siptah]

Currently the mechanism doesn't allow a 3rd party takes part in the tactical battle

Is this really true? I mean, I can imagine that there is no slick solution (yet) how to sort things out when three different war parties meet in a free for all. But I sure hope that in team games (multiplayer or against the AI), an allied faction can participate in the form of reinforcement or something similar.

And to the OP: I really like the way Amplitude handles it in Humankind (and before in Endless Legend) with the tactical map that is really just the strategic map. It's less immersive compared to how Age of Wonders III and Planetfall handle it, which create larger and more detailed separate maps (with obstacles, defenses only in certain directions, etc. sometimes feels like XCOM). But Humankind has the bonus that you are not locked into the battle. You can still order units and cities 'during' the battle, send reinforcements in etc. And the battles feel less detached from the 'main' game, albeit being a mini game. Civ VI and Civ V are, in my personal opinion, the most tedious and least interesting option of the three. I think that of all games entitled civilization, the apocryphal CTP games had the best combat system, actually.

 

[mitsho]

The main advantage for me is that it's easier to move your army around, the main negative is that it can be less intuitive to learn and harder to hold chokepoints (in the battle set-up, it's easier to jump around). That makes the system more dynamic rather than the slow slog of civ's 1upt. It also creates the main wildcard: battles can be more decisive, so if you botch one battle, it's easy to lose a war. But if you win. I tend to see this as a positive, but it may be very frustrating as well.

The main challenge I sea for now with Humankind is less the actual way combat works, but how diplomacy (and thus declaring war/settling for peace) is set up. I'm also dubious about the "support units" like saboteurs and unconvinced on naval battles. And I think it will be difficult to include artillery support and airforce into these pitched battles - we haven't seen the modern era yet after all. So yeah, too early to tell?

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The system is head and shoulders above the mobbed Strategic Map that results from 1UPT, and for the Ancient - Early Modern Era (largely Pre-Gunpowder) the bonuses and tactical effects of the various units work very well: charging Knights, steadfast spears and pikes, etc. It feels 'right'.
BUT, as was posted above, the tendency in the past 150 years (late Industrial, Modern Eras) is for more and more of the 'combat power' to move off the immediate Battlefield. First as Indirect Fire long range artillery after 1900 CE, then as mechanized reserves that can intervene almost instantly and air support for both attacker and defender after 1940 - 41 CE. In the contemporary Era, that trend has if anything accelerated, with modern individual infantry companies or battalions (in other words, lower than the In-Game unit size) being able to call down artillery, rocket, cruise missile, or drone-launched weapons in support, and access satellite reconnaissance data almost at will. That's a lot of influences that don't show easily on any Tactical Map system, and we have't seen how any of it might work in the game.

I still think the basic system is an Order of Magnitude better than 1UPT on maps the scale of a 4x World-Spanning game like Humankind or Civ, but the Devil is in the (Modern) Details.

Stay tuned. . .

 

[8housesofelixir]

BUT, as was posted above, the tendency in the past 150 years (late Industrial, Modern Eras) is for more and more of the 'combat power' to move off the immediate Battlefield. First as Indirect Fire long range artillery after 1900 CE, then as mechanized reserves that can intervene almost instantly and air support for both attacker and defender after 1940 - 41 CE. In the contemporary Era, that trend has if anything accelerated, with modern individual infantry companies or battalions (in other words, lower than the In-Game unit size) being able to call down artillery, rocket, cruise missile, or drone-launched weapons in support, and access satellite reconnaissance data almost at will. That's a lot of influences that don't show easily on any Tactical Map system, and we have't seen how any of it might work in the game.

IIRC the size of Tactical Map would increase based on the Era; the more modern the Era is, the larger the Tactical Map. So I guess the "long-range fire" part of the modern battlefield will be covered. Unsure about the representation of "smaller, more professional units with comprehensive support" part though.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

IIRC the size of Tactical Map would increase based on the Era; the more modern the Era is, the larger the Tactical Map. So I guess the "long-range fire" part of the modern battlefield will be covered. Unsure about the representation of "smaller, more professional units with comprehensive support" part though.

Given that the allowed size of Armies increases throughout the game, the battlefields would almost have to increase as well. The increase in range of modern artillery, though, was Dramatic: Direct fire guns in 1895 CE could fire 3 - 4 km at most before they justcouldn't see targets any more. Even light (75 - 76mm) indirect fire artillery could reach twice that range by 1905 CE, medium howitzers 3 times, and modern 150 - 155mm divisional artillery can 'service' targets 15 - 25 km away. Without even considering Very Long Range missiles, cruise missiles, drone-launched munitions, that's a huge increase in range compared to even the most modern small arms and tank-mounted weapons, enough I suspect to make some kind of 'reinforcing fire' from outside the tactical battlefield necessary in the Modern Era.

And then, of course, direct support air power is a Pain to get right in games, because it can be both offensive (on-call attack aircraft) or defensive ('Air Cover') or Non-Tactical (attacks on HQ, supplies, reinforcements, artillery positions) - and all that doesn't even include 'Strategic' air power attacking enemy cities.
I will be very interested to see if they give us a look at Modern Combat with all the extra complexity befofre the game launches . . .

 

[mitsho]

But how does that work then. The battlefields were already large in Lucy, do they now in the modern era cover the whole nation?

Yeah, I'm very curious how they do that, and it shows a basic problem of those historical 4x strategy games: The first thing players encounter are the early eras and that's why they also are the most polished as you want people to buy the game and first impressions count. This is also where they start developing since that allows them to show gameplay early on. But... that also means the late game often is neglected, and thus paradigm shifts we know from our history (the above mentioned change in warfare style, but also the demographic boom ("Hockey Stick") and Industrialization/Globalization/Digitalization) are incorporated very poorly into the gameplay.

This development style makes sense, it'd be weird to build the third level when you haven't done the first floor. But I'd wish for once that one developer would focus on the later eras more - or is okay to rehaul that whole era in a DLC when it shows that it just doesn't work as well with the current combat mode.

We will see

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

But how does that work then. The battlefields were already large in Lucy, do they now in the modern era cover the whole nation?

Yeah, I'm very curious how they do that, and it shows a basic problem of those historical 4x strategy games: The first thing players encounter are the early eras and that's why they also are the most polished as you want people to buy the game and first impressions count. This is also where they start developing since that allows them to show gameplay early on. But... that also means the late game often is neglected, and thus paradigm shifts we know from our history (the above mentioned change in warfare style, but also the demographic boom ("Hockey Stick") and Industrialization/Globalization/Digitalization) are incorporated very poorly into the gameplay.

This development style makes sense, it'd be weird to build the third level when you haven't done the first floor. But I'd wish for once that one developer would focus on the later eras more - or is okay to rehaul that whole era in a DLC when it shows that it just doesn't work as well with the current combat mode.

We will see

Since they have indicated a Reinforcement mechanic to add units to a battle from outside the battlefield, I would suspect that a variation of that would allow Fire from long-range units off the tactical battlefield as well. This, I would think, would be the simplest way to do it, and also very effectively show the strength of artillery support to your front line units. BUT haven't seen any examples of game-play late enough to show this: Lucy stopped just short . . .

 

[Tiger Genocide]

Since they have indicated a Reinforcement mechanic to add units to a battle from outside the battlefield, I would suspect that a variation of that would allow Fire from long-range units off the tactical battlefield as well. This, I would think, would be the simplest way to do it, and also very effectively show the strength of artillery support to your front line units. BUT haven't seen any examples of game-play late enough to show this: Lucy stopped just short . . .

Now that is a really cool idea.

 

[ThunderLizard2]

The system is head and shoulders above the mobbed Strategic Map that results from 1UPT, and for the Ancient - Early Modern Era (largely Pre-Gunpowder) the bonuses and tactical effects of the various units work very well: charging Knights, steadfast spears and pikes, etc. It feels 'right'.
BUT, as was posted above, the tendency in the past 150 years (late Industrial, Modern Eras) is for more and more of the 'combat power' to move off the immediate Battlefield. First as Indirect Fire long range artillery after 1900 CE, then as mechanized reserves that can intervene almost instantly and air support for both attacker and defender after 1940 - 41 CE. In the contemporary Era, that trend has if anything accelerated, with modern individual infantry companies or battalions (in other words, lower than the In-Game unit size) being able to call down artillery, rocket, cruise missile, or drone-launched weapons in support, and access satellite reconnaissance data almost at will. That's a lot of influences that don't show easily on any Tactical Map system, and we have't seen how any of it might work in the game.

I still think the basic system is an Order of Magnitude better than 1UPT on maps the scale of a 4x World-Spanning game like Humankind or Civ, but the Devil is in the (Modern) Details.

Stay tuned. . .

What are you suggesting for artillery and air power?

Since they have indicated a Reinforcement mechanic to add units to a battle from outside the battlefield, I would suspect that a variation of that would allow Fire from long-range units off the tactical battlefield as well. This, I would think, would be the simplest way to do it, and also very effectively show the strength of artillery support to your front line units. BUT haven't seen any examples of game-play late enough to show this: Lucy stopped just short . . .

Maybe next open dev will include air units?

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

What are you suggesting for artillery and air power?



Maybe next open dev will include air units?

IF there is another Open Dev, I sincerely hope it includes at least one of the last two Eras, or both, to show off whether the game remains balanced to the end and to show off the late-game combat system with the maximum-sized tactical battlefields and the Reinforcing mechanic.

Mind you, for an April release, we're running short of time for another Open Dev, feedback from same and corrections from the feedback to all be implemented . . .

What I am hoping for Modern (20th century) artillery and airpower is that they are Reinforcing elements not on the tactical battlefield itself but able to add their firepower in some way to the tactical battle. That would replicate neatly the effect of indirect fire artillery and air support, and modifiers could include a lot of the 'special variations in both - like artillery units with Fire Direction Centers being able to add their fire to more than one unit in the same battle, or air units with a Forward Air Controller being able to attack any enemy unit within sight of a friendly ground unit with increased effect.
Not having seen late game combat, or Tech Tree yet, there's no telling how much complexity or detail they have in combat developments in the last Eras. In a game at the Grand Strategy level like Civ or Humankind, the myriad of military developments between about 1890 and 2021 CE, even discounting nuclear, chemical, space, and other 'exotic' weapons, is hugely complex and can be more trouble than it's worth to the game unless carefully considered, abstracted where necessary, and tested extensively.

 

[Catoninetales_Amplitude]

Currently the mechanism doesn't allow a 3rd party takes part in the tactical battle; and that it may messed up player sequences in multiplayer.

We definitely thought about it, since players have been requesting that since Endless Legend, but it won't be available in Humankind either, at least not at release. Hopefully we can add it later, but I am in no position to say if there are technical hurdles. ("Messing up player sequences in multiplayer" on the other hand is not a hurdle, since turns are simultaneous anyway.)

I'm also . . . unconvinced on naval battles. And I think it will be difficult to include artillery support and airforce into these pitched battles - we haven't seen the modern era yet after all. So yeah, too early to tell?

On the naval battles as you may have seen them in Lucy, I would just like to quickly mention that ships with ranged attacks were bugged in Lucy and could not fire at land targets. It is intended that your ships with ranged attacks can support your armies in battles.
As for artillery and airforce, I think we have a nice system for that, but you'll have to be patient before I am allowed to talk about that. (And trust me, I so badly want to...)

IIRC the size of Tactical Map would increase based on the Era; the more modern the Era is, the larger the Tactical Map.

The size of the tactical map, if I recall correctly, does not depend on the era, but on the number of units that are involved in the battle. Since armies get bigger with the eras, so do the battles. And yes, in my experience they can get quite large.


All that said, I find that Era 4 already shakes up the dynamics of combat quite a bit: The majority of units being ranged makes it a lot harder to hold chokepoints (or even the high ground, as that hill over there might be even higher than the one you are standing on...), while Line of Sight becomes more important, as well as the Defense Bonus from trees and buildings. It's a lot harder to kill those militia during a siege when your troops don't go into the houses to stab them with their swords anymore... It took me some time to adapt, after being so used to the "Rifle units are just melee with another name" of many other 4X games.

Edit: Fixed (admittedly punny) typo of "jokepoints."

 

[ThunderLizard2]

We definitely thought about it, since players have been requesting that since Endless Legend, but it won't be available in Humankind either, at least not at release. Hopefully we can add it later, but I am in no position to say if there are technical hurdles. ("Messing up player sequences in multiplayer" on the other hand is not a hurdle, since turns are simultaneous anyway.)


On the naval battles as you may have seen them in Lucy, I would just like to quickly mention that ships with ranged attacks were bugged in Lucy and could not fire at land targets. It is intended that your ships with ranged attacks can support your armies in battles.
As for artillery and airforce, I think we have a nice system for that, but you'll have to be patient before I am allowed to talk about that. (And trust me, I so badly want to...)


The size of the tactical map, if I recall correctly, does not depend on the era, but on the number of units that are involved in the battle. Since armies get bigger with the eras, so do the battles. And yes, in my experience they can get quite large.


All that said, I find that Era 4 already shakes up the dynamics of combat quite a bit: The majority of units being ranged makes it a lot harder to hold chokepoints (or even the high ground, as that hill over there might be even higher than the one you are standing on...), while Line of Sight becomes more important, as well as the Defense Bonus from trees and buildings. It's a lot harder to kill those militia during a siege when your troops don't go into the houses to stab them with their swords anymore... It took me some time to adapt, after being so used to the "Rifle units are just melee with another name" of many other 4X games.

Edit: Fixed (admittedly punny) typo of "jokepoints."

Any news on late era battles? Would be great to understand how planes and such will factor into battles both tactical and strategic.

 

[kaspergm]

I like the idea of having a separate tactical map. Much more possibilities versus having combat take place on the strategic map like Civ VI. What are people thoughts on the pros and cons?

While I haven't played the game, I was at first very enthusiastic about the idea of having a separate tactical map, but my main concern would be how it handles bringing in support units. If a battle continues until one army is destroyed once two armies engage, we're basically back to stack-of-doom in the sense that the strongest army will always win the battle. This may or may not be a bad idea - it's obviously a realistic scenario, and as long as the winning party is not magically healed after the combat, it may also turn out to be balanced. On the other hand, it does put a lot more pressure on the player to have always a defending army of proper size at choke points, but again, that may not be a bad idea given how one of Civ5/Civ6's major weaknesses imo. is how you can basically go through the entire game without an army relying simply one a few key units and city walls for defense.

 

[Elhoim]

It's not "separate map" per se, but more of a cordoned off area on the strategic map, and you can bring reinforcements to the battle. The battles also last a number of game turns, and there are some victory conditions. So let's say two armies meet, fight starts and will last for 2 turns. The next, turn an army from each side joins, battle area gets bigger as there are more units, and battle will last longer. If you are the attacker and capture the enemy command post, the battle ends at the end of the turn.

In some ways is VERY similar to Civ V/VI, but instead of moving units one by one outside of battle you move armies, and the conflict is a bit more focalized in an area.

 

[CoconutTank]

I do like the Endless-style combat system, if only due to how it consolidates units so that the map isn't as cluttered. Armies/navies are basically control groups for moving units together, which beats having to move units one at a time.

Letting battles become a separate battlefield that fully becomes 1UPT is also fine to me, since stacks of doom is still mostly alleviated in this case.

The way battlefields are drawn can have some really weird results though, causing some areas to become very narrow or completely unreachable. The enclosed area, along with some uneven terrain, can sometimes create some awful chokepoints. Dealing with that is sometimes worse than what one gets in Civ 6, because one's units can't leave the battlefield until the battle is completely finished.

Being able to bring in reinforcements is a huge deal. I feel like Organized Warfare needs to be researched asap. Without it one's armies become too easy to pick off individually, and one can't defend against sieges correctly either.

What I'd like is to let units leave the battlefield completely. It'd take their turn to do so, but it'd be a way to retreat once a battle is basically no longer worth continuing, or to let the unit leave and rejoin as a reinforcement on another part of the battlefield that's been cut off by how it's drawn. I don't know if I want the battlefield to be drawn bigger, since that won't necessarily prevent this problem.

A legacy trait that lets a civ treat outside tiles directly adjacent to the battlefield as part of the battlefield would be cool though. A legacy trait that causes rival reinforcements to be delayed by 1 turn would also be cool.

 

[ThunderLizard2]

While I haven't played the game, I was at first very enthusiastic about the idea of having a separate tactical map, but my main concern would be how it handles bringing in support units. If a battle continues until one army is destroyed once two armies engage, we're basically back to stack-of-doom in the sense that the strongest army will always win the battle. This may or may not be a bad idea - it's obviously a realistic scenario, and as long as the winning party is not magically healed after the combat, it may also turn out to be balanced. On the other hand, it does put a lot more pressure on the player to have always a defending army of proper size at choke points, but again, that may not be a bad idea given how one of Civ5/Civ6's major weaknesses imo. is how you can basically go through the entire game without an army relying simply one a few key units and city walls for defense.

You're right about Civ V and VI. I went through entire games with a few archers.

Generally liking combat so far in HK. Only six more weeks to try it for real.

 

[Solovey]

In some ways is VERY similar to Civ V/VI, but instead of moving units one by one outside of battle you move armies, and the conflict is a bit more focalized in an area.

I would say the main difference is that in Humankind 1 combat turn doesn't equal to 1 global map turn.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I would say the main difference is that in Humankind 1 combat turn doesn't equal to 1 global map turn.

The Humankind system turns Battles into a separate Tactical Game within the larger 4x game. The movement of units, timing, and important characteristics of the units are all different from the 'game map' and its actions.

This has quite a few consequences, some of which are not obvious at first glance. Obviously, it threads a neat line between the old Stacks of Doom in Civ and the 1UPT: You have Stacks on the game map, but they 'unfold' into 1UPT when you go into battle, giving you the tactical interaction in battle without having your 'army' spread for hundreds of notional kilometers over the 'strategic' map.

Less obvious is that the unit characteristics can be very different in influence between the strategic and tactical games. Take Hun Horse Archers. Strategically, they come fast and cheap, from converting population in Outposts directly (a clever way of symbolically raising an army by calling up all the mounted herders in your population and representing In Game the great strength of the pastoral groups, that every man in the group was both a rider an and archer from boyhood because those skills were the basis of their herding economy) The Huns are extremely dangerous against other Classical armies - again, check the Historical box, because it reflects the historical reality. They are very fast, usually able to out-maneuver other armies with infantry unit on rhe game map.
BUT
Take them into the early Medieval Age, and they face Crossbowmen and Pikemen and Knights (oh My!) and the Knights have a Tactical Bonus when charging, the Pikes have a Tactical Bonus against anything on 4 feet and smaller than an Elephant, and the Crossbowmen can outshoot horse archers all day. The Huns are still very mobile, they can still ransack you to distraction, but in regular battle they are at a severe disadvantage. Go to Mongols and upgrade them to Mongolian horse archers, and they stay useful a little longer, but the comparison between Mongolian and other Medieval units is nowhere near as favorable to the horsemen as it was for the Huns versus other Classical units. Lesson: Horse archers start to outlive their usefulness as other arms become more sophisticated, and by the time you get to gunpowder, they become little more than mounted targets.

Also, the sheer amount of Tactical peculiarities is far, far more than in Civ. By my count (from the Victor Open Dev) there are over 50 Unit peculiarities just in the first 4 Ages of Humankind - through the Renaissance/Early Modern Era. These range from units that get extra advantages from Ransacking to the old familiar Spearmen/Pikemen bonus versus Mounted to strictly 'battlefield' advantages like: cannot be seen except by adjacent unit - an 'Ambush' advantage.
This results in an incredible variety of tactical interactions on the separate, tactical map, both among Emblematic ('Unique') units and regular units: combining Civ VI's Promotions and Classes of units all in one mechanic (which should be carefully looked at for Civ VII, IMHO, because it is potentially much more flexible than the current Civ VI set of systems).