I would thoroughly enjoy the proposed Action = Move system. I think it would provide a lot more flexibility.

In order to keep cavalry from being too obnoxious, give a person riding a horse a combat speed penalty. That way if they have  6 moves, they are not attacking 6 times in one turn.

I apologize, I cannot seem to get Block quotes to work properly, therefore quotes will be small, bold, italic in the following text.

 

Below is the system we intend to implement and we look forward to your thoughts on this:

1. When a unit attacks another unit, that units gets to retaliate (if it can) against the unit that attacked it.
2. Action Points = 1 + Your Combat Speed.
3. Moving a tile uses 2 action points.
4. Attacking and casting a spell uses 1 action point.
5. The placement of units on a map will be based on the the composition on the units going into the battle.
6. Units will have various special abilities (that's why the action tab looks so blank right now).

 

1.) Definitely necessary. In my opinion, a unit should be able to retaliate up to its Actionpoint limit - retaliate should cost the same as attacking, and be taken out of the defending units next turn. That way a unit can always defend (even if it just moved across the map), but it is also possible to lock down a strong unit by throwing lots of little pests at it.

2.) Action Points = 1 + combat speed is good, however this should be separated from movement:

if you do this, just to take your sauron example, sauron would have been faster then any cavalry since he has so many action points, which is of course ridiculous he is slow but can attack often. same with heavy cavalry fast but only one very strong attack per round etc.

2. and 3.) If you want to limit strategic movement, but enable lots of movement in tactical, make tactical movement 2x strategic movement. Or multiply strategic movement by a certain percentage of combat speed to arrive at a comfortable tactical movement speed.

If this is not acceptable, I hope you go away from 2 AP per move (which would result in immobile plate wearers) and go to 1 AP per move, 2 AP for woodland, hills, swamp, etc.

4.) Sounds good

5.) As I detailed in https://forums.elementalgame.com/388257 I would prefer an Army setup screen that we can use to turn a heap of units into an army (which does not lose cohesion when entering a city) that comes with pre-determined placement. Positioning should be influenced by the strategic map only in so far as to determine from which angle armies attack (and even that might not be necessary - the standard 'Attacker on Left, Defender on Right' would be awesome.

6.) That's cool, but please (as mentioned by another poster above) list AP cost and total available AP.

And by a way of review of current 3B tactical combat: I feel units start too close to each other (attacker to defender) and aesthetically I would prefer a 'left to right' setup as opposed to the current 'top to bottom'.

This sounds like a very good way to handle this.... lets run this puppy up the proverbial flag pole and see if it waves!

Okay let's look at this as a session to identify area's of public perceived weakness. Without the need to redefine the wheel in the process.

Q: What is it we need to accomplish in combat?

A: Have a system in place that is both easy to use, makes sense, and feels fun and logical.

Proposed ideas, have been

• Action Points. Which assign each action (movement, attack, spells, counterattacks, etcetera) a point value.
• D&D style Combat. You have a Standard Action, and a Move Action and a minor action. 
  • Standard Action
    • Can be used to Attack. (The number being determined by your combat speed.)
    • Can be used to cast a spell. (The number being determined by your combat speed.)
    • Can be used to set up a Counter Attack.
    • Can be converted to a Move action, or a Minor Action.
    • And other ideas the groups come up with.
  • Move Action
    • Can be used to move up to your unit specified distance. (This doesn't affect your attacks.)
    • Can be converted to a Minor action.
  • Minor Action
    • Can be used to use an item. Draw a weapon. Etc.

The interesting thing is, in both cases they are semantics. They do the same thing. With different words.

The key pieces then is to express the differences. Movement should be separated from the number of attacks, as envisioned by Frogboy referencing Sauron.

Sauron didn't move a lot in those opening sequences. He strode forth. (Move Action). Ended adjacent to an enemy unit. And because he had a fear aura about him he was able to attack without the good guys getting an counter attack action. And he did this several times. Using an attack action to attack a square containing units of troops. In some cases he was able to shift between swings. And that last part isn't an absurd idea.

But I think that would of been more for a special ability in this system. Normal units, can attack a number of times equal to their combat speed. With the attacks broken up between moves. As long as there are movement points available.

So a knight group, is adjacent to a group of goblins, they attack, the goblins if any survive counter attack. But assume they all died. The knights still have 1 more attack available. (Their combat speed determines the number of attacks.), so now they use their Move action. To move up one square adjacent to another unit of goblins. The knights attack, dealing their damage. The goblins counter attack, dealing "Their" damage. And the knights are finally done their turn.

Now... Sauron on the other hand. He's got say a 3 combat move. And a 5 combat speed (which translates into 5 attacks.) So Sauron uses 1 move to go 1 square. Ends adjacent to three units. He attacks each unit once, dealing the brutal damage. And in each case he wipes out a unit. He has the option after each attack to move another step if he feels inclined. For now, he wipes out the other two units, moves another square up, and uses another attack wipes out that unit, uses his final move, steps up and uses his final attack to wipe out another unit.

So that puts us at phase one. Classification. Which would work better, and more intuitively. In each case, they function similarly. Action points with move and attack do face a bit of an issue with explaining themselves in each part.

But maybe a Hybrid version.

Movement should be pulled out and separated from the rest of the action point tree, or reduced to costing 0 points. But allows you to move up to your Tactical Combat Movement distance. Which you can do at anytime before or after any other action?

So take the Sauron example. He's got a Combat Tactical Move speed of 3. At anytime he can use up to 3 of his movement, including the minimum of going 1 square at a time.

Heck you could even represent that with a physical Bar of action points. Up top you've got red bubbles representing the number of "Action Points" you've got to spend per that unit's turn. And right below that bar, is a blue a number of bubbles representing the movement available at any given time.

So that way it's easy and visible.

And then with a UI box indicating your actions. Move, Attack, Cast a spell, Use an item, Ready an attack, Charge. 

(Charge would be a special one, that as you move, it applies a bonus to the damage of an attack performed for every square extra beyond 1 that you have gone. And at the end of the charge, you still have a number of attacks available depending on your Combat Speed).

Hmmm this latter one here seems to do the job, without the worries of a Cavalry unit having super movement and then each movement point being somehow translated into attacks.

Just that each unit should have movement points. And Action points to do things like cast and attack, and ready attacks as triggers, and using items, or powers on the items.

(Sorry if some of this seems disjointed, I was writing this in between solving problems as they crop up here at work.)

Um, why not just use the amount of moves units have on strategic map also in tactical combat, and combat speed as a number of attacks? That way you could get that heavy cavalry with lots of moves and few attacks, or a berserker with less moves but no armor and many attacks. This may be a stupid idea, since I haven't had a chance to test the newest beta yet and therefore have no idea what the tactical combat even looks like, but thinking about a simple solution this came to mind. And it leaves the problem of what does using items/special abilities cost? Well special ability=attack could work in terms of cost at least. Just a thought. I think this is basically now starting to sound like the hybrid idea by Gorstagg

but there is no good reason to do that

mounted units move fast on tactical map AND strategic map

footman move slow on both

the final system should follow this logic

yeah after i thought a bit this basically solves most of problems

 the only problem with this system is that attack speed then becomes TOO strong if you just multiply your attacks without having to use those points to move

also lets not forget you can  use attack speed to cast spells etc

you cant really have a xcom like combat cause xcom was all based on  guns and hidden enemies etc etc

@Gorstagg

This might work, but it wouldn't have the choice of "Should he move one square or should he attack twice".

AP = Combatspeed

Move = fMovementCost (Base=2.0, Fast Horse=0.5, Fast runner = 1.0, Flyer = 1.5 etc. Lots of things can change this)

Attack normal = 1 AP

Attack for dual wield = 1.5 AP - DEX/60 up to a min of 1.0 at 30 DEX (if anyone can reach that)

Attack for 2H = 1.5 AP - STR/60 up to a min of 1.0 at 30 STR (if anyone can reach that)

Spell or Ability = Every Ability and most spells should have a predefined cost, which maybe INT can improve.

Counterattack subtracts 0.5 for normal attack and 1.0 for 2h/dual of either this turn's AP or the next turn's. So if you want to save AP for the next turn, you might not want to spend all AP this turn. THe STR/60 and DEX/60 will also decrease this for 2H and dual, down to 0.5.

Yes Gorstagg ... our thoughts are *almost* identical on this

Overland movement (I called it movement)

Tactical Movement (I called it speed)

and Weapon Speed (I called it finesse)

This is a fine system, but how do you show the points to the player? To a12 year old who is bad at dividing numbers?

I think the math is good, but it can't be presented this way. Even for us good at math, you don't want to have to do a lot of multiplications/divisions in order to know what you can do.

Such a system should probably be presented like having Combat Speed points, 1 attack = 1 point, 1 move = (combat speed/move speed) rounded to the nearest (highest?) integer.

Retaliation is a must.

Attacking should cost 0 at the end of a move (charge). This may not be for all units (special ability) and may have a drawback (in which case the charge would be optional), but it would really make it harder to wait for the opponent to come near and then strike him down thanks to higher initiative.

Dominion's way of lowering defense of units that are ganged upon is something I like a lot, although it goes against the über unit like Sauron in the movie killing everyone around him (although in Dom, super combatants do wipe the battlefield all by themselves).

So, here are some ideas:

Archery:

- line of sight, obstacles

- damage is reduced per range

- time for reload for some weapons (crossbow etc) costs movement/action points

- attribute for "the critical hit" - this is a low percentage possibility to hit where there is no armor (perhaps also for melee combat)

- different heights of attacker and defender result in bonuses etc. (also for melee combat)

- a command where you tell your unit a target and a line of fire, so that this units automatically aims on that target as soon as this crosses the line of fire (perhpas you and your unti have to learn this. Only veteran units are able to do so and you need to have an intelligence value of some kind)

Retaliation:

I like the Imperialism II system: You have to prepare for counterattack and that costs a movement point. So to be prepared you have to spare one movement point or you won't retaliate.

- different units retaliate a different number of times (like HoMM there are units that retaliate every time, some don't at all (too slow), and so on)

Command ability:

I really would like to see differently qualified leaders. You could do this via level and intelligence (see above) but that does not feel realistic (so a high level magician would be a good general?) - Did you think about some kind of attribute system like in HoMM (tactics, logistics, different magic schools, trade expert and so on). This would add to the roleplaying aspect of the game. I want magicians, thiefs, warriors, generals, healers, business man...

yes on a general principle you are right

but in a fantasy world  a  horse is faster than a footman

both on a strategic and a tactical pov

you are right

you dont have to

but its fun!

how can you not love having horseman running and charging towards enemies?

that is only accomplished if the movement is the same on both maps(or if there is a relationship between the 2 but lets keep it simple)