edit - del.

i imagine that stats on items are very temporary and will change following the development of combat system

Great suggestion!

As for the case of units with a combat speed lower than 1, you could have attacks and other actions consume AP's from the next turn. So for example an unit with 1 move and .5 combat speed could attack an adjacent enemy, but it would not be able to do anything in the next turn. You do create another issue with this sollution though, because it would only be logical to allow the same thing to apply to units with a combat speed greater or equal to 1. A unit with 10 move and 1 combat speed would then be able to move 9 tiles, and still preform an attack. The next turn, it would only have 1 AP left, so it could make 1 move, or attack again, using up AP´s from the next turn.

Hmm, the more I think about it, the less I think this would be a bad thing. But it would look very messy, when most units will not start a turn with their full AP´s.

But still, I really like the idea. It would also allow for some great special abilities that could be used in combat. Just off the top of my head:

• Sprint: Increases movement speed and decreases combat speed for one turn. This would allow a unit to move to another part of the battlefield quickly, but it would cost it some attacks.
• Fury: Increases combat speed for one turn. Allows an unit to attack more for one turn.
• Berserk: Doubles combat speed for one turn, lowers defence. Unit can attack a lot more, but leaves it vulnerable to counter attacks.
• Unnatural speed (for lack of a better name): Doubles movement points for one turn. Allows the unit to move more, attack more, or both. Think of fast moving vampires and other creatures like that.

I'd like to see coordinated attacks between multiple units as mentioned in this thread.

I'm also curious about how you plan to have tactical battles actually look. I would assume the current model is just filler until something more polished is implemented. Might I suggest making a partially dynamic battle sequence for the visuals of an attack and counter attack.  This would create six visual categories of battles.

1 vs 1

few vs few

several vs several

many vs many

1 vs many (same visuals for 1 vs few or 1 vs several)

few vs many (same visuals for few vs several or several vs many)

The dynamic portion of the visuals would only require that the same exact sequence isn't played out for every single battle. That is one thing that always bothers me in games. I hate it when every single attack or death looks the same. Although I would take a single well done sequence to what you see in most turn based tactical combat.

I would think this could also be a solution to your problem with creating distinct combat animations for the numerous combatants in Elemental. Some creatures would still require some special attention of course, since a dragon or spider wouldn't fight the same way as a soldier but I think this is worth some consideration.

I'd like to suggest a system that incorporates some of what's already been suggested in this thread, while also incorporating some changes to make weapon type matter more and deal with some of the issues that have been raised regarding the usefulness of essence to melee sovereigns.

Action Points - Each unit gets a set number of action points to spend during their turn.  The number is species-dependent, but unrelated to training or armor.  I'll put base numbers in for this entire post, but they're only for illustration purposes and would be changed to achieve good balance.  Let's say humans get 50 action points per tactical turn, trogs get 60, urxen get 40, dragons 100.

Action cost - Every tactical option would have a base cost associated with it. For attacking with a weapon, it would be based on the weapon type. For magic, it would depend on the spell you were casting. Each special ability would have its own base cost. Movement base cost would depend on the characteristics of the square you were moving into (i.e. forest, mud, plains). So, if you wanted to hit with a dagger, it would cost 10 AP, a sword would cost 15 AP. Moving into a plains square would cost 20 AP, moving into a forest square would cost 25 AP.

Some abilities, spells, attacks would be usable to retaliate during your opponents turn, provided you had researched the necessary warfare technology to entrench, retaliate, riposte, whatever, and provided you had ended your turn with enough AP remaining. So, a unit who chose to entrench and spend no AP in a turn could retaliate against more attackers than a unit that had moved across the board that turn.

Modifiers - Here's the part where things get interesting. Each action cost is subject to modifiers based on the unit's statistics. So, each additional point in dexterity decreases the AP cost of all edged weapons by a percentage. Strength provides a percent discount in the AP cost of using edged weapons. Intelligence decreases the AP cost of spellcasting, so more intelligent mages can cast more spells per turn. Movement speed provides a percent discount in the AP cost of movement.

So what about essence, which has been previously useless to non-casters? Essence provides a percent decrease in the AP cost of everything, after all other modifiers have been considered. So, now there's a reason for combat sovereigns to keep their essence, because as long as they have it, they move farther, attack more times per tactical turn. It also provides a reason to imbue combat, non-caster heroes, because they're better, more heroic, special, even if they aren't casting.

Weapon choice becomes more interesting as well, since there's a compelling reason to sometimes want to be able to mount several small attacks against multiple opponents versus one huge hit with a huge AP cost.

Armor could also be included in this system as a modifier, where heavier armor provides a % increase in all AP costs.

All of these calculations should be invisible to those who don't want to know the math, they just know that each action on the combat field has an AP cost. It allows you to have fast cavalry because of their movement modifier, but they can only attack more often if they are also dexterous or have fast weapons. There's only one stat for players to track, which is how many AP each unit has left that turn. It would be useful to have a button to allow a unit to save a set number of AP at the end of the turn if you're trying to save enough for a specific retaliation type.

Having different attack costs for different weapons and having each stat modify AP cost feels like things would get really complicated really fast and it would be difficult to remember how many attacks you can make for each. It's not good to need a spreadsheet just to figure out what kind of a get up is good for a unit and it would be a pain to balance.

The system needs to be relatively simple so that any player can understand how much a unit can do in a turn and why.

I'm going to make a case against Action Points. Bear with me.

Let's say we have an X-Com or Fallout type action point system. Have you ever done an Aimed Shot and Snap Shot to maximize the number of shots you could do in a turn? Think about what that would look like in real life, to carefully line up a shot and then take a completely un-aimed shot. Now, making two snap shots makes sense to me, or one aimed shot, but a snap shot and an aimed shot does not.

Now let's go back to medieval combat. You step forward, hit a guy. But you have action points left, so you simply walk away. On a small scale that makes sense, but in unit-to-unit combat it's really sort of strange. Maybe a group of skirmishers can do something like that, but I think most foot-troopers would be more likely to dedicate themselves to the fight. Not to mention if it was real-time the defender would most likely choose to pursue the guy has he retreats.

The fact that unspent actions point are wasted is kind of annoying, especially when you'd want to, say, spend 2 action points starting an aimed shot and 3 your next turn finishing it.

It's not as though this is an insurmountable problem. But, for the effort of balancing it right and avoiding these bizarre situations I'd simply want a good standard action/movement action system, that I just think is much more simple.

There's a reason I don't think this would work very well. That is, some creatures, like zombies, golems, and constructs might be slow on the tactical map because they don't move very fast. However, they also don't sleep, and they don't stop to eat, so there's a good argument to have them go at a decent overland speed. The one problem would be you might get horse/golem armies traveling real fast across the strategic the overland map. This might be solved by giving non-living troopers a travel bonus only when exclusively traveling with unliving kin.

i like spitz take on AP, it is similar to my own idea of it posted earlier.  if you keep the base combat speed the same and have it unaltered then have things(weapons, armor, spells etc) modify that AS you use your attack, move, cast commands this would be very deep.  as far as keeping it simple, simply have a small screen that shows how many you have left for each action, attack, cast, move etc.

I kinda like this idea.

Assuming you don't want to do special abilities, and you really want the Action Point method rather than just spliting the stats into Movement and Attacks, how would Ashton's suggestion work?

Combat Speed System #1

1 Combat Point = 1 square of movement
Making an Attack = Total Combat Points / Weapon Speed


A unit with a Spear might work like this:

6 Combat Points
Spear 3 Weapon Speed

This unit could walk forward 4 squares. The cost of using his spear is (6 / 3) or 2 points. He can attack once.
He could walk forward 2 squres. The cost of using his spear is still 2 points, so he can attack twice.
He can stay in position. The cost of using his spear is 3 points, so he can attack three times.

What's the upshot? Give a spear to a unit with 9 combat points.

9 Combat Points
Spear 3 Weapon Speed

This unit could walk forward 6 squares. The cost of using his spear is (9 / 3) or 3 points. He can attack once.
This unit could walk forward 3 squares. The cost of using his spear is (9 / 3) or 3 points. He can attack twice.
etc.

What does this situation create?

Weapon Speed of 1 can attack Once
Weapon Speed of 2 can attack Twice
Weapon Speed of 3 can attack Thrice
Weapon Speed of 4 can attack Four Times

And on. Basically, this suggestion creates a system where using a weapon always takes a set percentage of Combat Points, and the Weapon Speed correlates directly to the maximum attack. Sauron is possible because you give him a Combat Point of 6 and a weapon speed of 6, or 7, or 8 or whatever. So long as you round the cost up  you always get up-to Six attacks, or more. He can't cross the battlefield.

By contrast you have a unit with a Combat Speed of Twenty, but he is using a lance with a combat Speed of 2. He can cross the battlefield but will only get two attacks. Even making one attack takes 10 combat points from him.

It works and it can be balanced. Does it do what you want it to? It also has limitations. What if you want to give a bonus combat speed point to someone as a result of a unit stat? If their weapon is normally a 1, it doubles their attacks. If it is normally a 5, it does much less. Basically weapons have to be locked to a specific combat speed, which is great if you funnel the stat bonuses elsewhere.

Agreed.

In terms of tactical combat, I really think AoW:SM had it done well. Had cover, high-ground, movement penaltys by terrain or spell...

And takes care OK of the retaliation without abusing...

Units had a "moves" stat. Moves used the same number overland and tactical. Numbers ranged from say 12 for a very slow unit (like a zombie) to 40 for flying dragons or calvary. The highest possible was 50. The base movement cost is 4, modified by terrain and abilities (less on roads or with a haste enchant, higher in forests/caves/etc without abilities, flying units ignored all penalties except for one in mountains).

In tactical combat, an attack uses 1/3 of your moves (effectively the proposed system here with combat speed locked at 3). If you didn't move or moved less then 1/3 of your moves, you could attack 3 times. The map actually showed you when you picked a spot to move to by marking the path and color coding, green was 3 attacks, yellow 2, and red 1.

Counterattacks were handled the same way, using your moves from the next turn. So you could "lock down" a unit by attacking it enough times that it didn't have any moves left.

There were lots of abilities that could modify how things worked. Ranged units had "fire" abilities for arrows or cannons or whatever that could only be used once and consumed all remaining moves (in the proposed system here a combat speed locked at 1). First Strike let a unit always hit first, dual strike let a unit get two attacks per attack, and so on.

It was a good system. The suggested one is almost identical except combat speed can change, which is an improvement. But it's pretty easy to understand. CS 1 = 1 attack per round. CS 5 = up to 5 attacks per round, depending on how much you move. It's simple and intuitive, but also pretty powerful in what it lets you do (Sauron can be created, but you can also make Calvary that are faster without being able to attack 5x more then a ground unit for no sane reason).

edit - As for cover, there was LoS. Things like being garrisoned inside a city with a wall would block ranged LoS (but you could shoot out of it), and melee had to break down the door to get in the city. Melee could attack walls (with abilities like crush wall to boost damage or wall climbing to bypass entirely), and magic/siege weapons could attack walls directly. Trees and even other units provided similar LoS cover.

For ease I'm replying to this post.

From what I'm seeing so far quite a few people (me included) are envisioning a system in which movement and number of attacks are seperate stats, but interact with each other.

The movement stat determines how far you can move (duh). The attack stat (weapon speed) determines how many attacks you can do by dividing your movement speed by your weapon speed. In the above example, weapon speed was static at 3 which resulted in a maximum of 3 attacks for units that moved less than 1/3 of their movement speed.

I like this system, because:

1. It separates movement from number of attacks (I could give a unit a weapon with speed 20, movement 1, and this unit could carve up 20 opponents, provided these opponents are directly next to it, or, on the other extreme, I could give a unit a weapon with speed 1, movement 20, and this unit could run across the entire battlefield in one turn, but could only hit one single time)
2. It connects movement and number of attacks (Each time I move, I lower the total amounts of attacks I can perform - and conversely, each time I attack, I lower the amount of tiles I can move)
3. It allows for Special Attacks - simply give Special Attacks a 'weapon speed' and use them like attacks (they decrease the amount of possible movement in the current turn)
4. It would also work for retaliation.

@Tasunke:

How much different would you like Overland Movement and Tactical Movement? I'm not sure that it is necessary:

1. A unit that can move far overland should also be able to move far across tactical maps
2. Under the above system movement would already be disconnected from #attacks, so a unit that attacks often (Sauron example) would not necessarily move very far overland, and conversely a unit that can move far overland would not necessarily be able to attack very often.

I would say that if there is a perceived problem between Overland Movement and Tactical Movement, that would be because Tactical Maps are very small so far, and you start out only one square away from your opponent. Fixing movement differences between Overland and Tactical maps could easily be adjusted by either:

1. adjusting Tactical Map size
2. applying a modifier (e.g. Tactical movement = 50% of Overland Movement, rounded up to the next positive integer)