Questions about the combat system

Speculation go!

But seriously, we don't know, there's not even going to be tactical battles in the first beta deployment.

This is why I've created this topic. ;)  It's a very important stuff in a game like this.....

Huh....the devs should know the answers?

actually mate thats one of englishes main strengths, you have to actually try to write it badly for it to be hard to understand. Its fairly insensitive to gramatical errors. (unless of course someone wants to point out your errors, in which case its a bloody nightmare)

in short english has a very well defined and fairly incomprehensable syntax however 95% of people ignore this and make themselves understood without too much dificulty.

P.S I did edit this post with the intention of correcting my spelling mistakes, but then I realised that its probably more illustrative to leave them in.

I'd have to disagree with that statement :D  There is a lot of leeway, yes, but as with any language, whiel there is flex you have to follow the rules to be understood.  And on a slightly less technical level, I've seen some people with truly atrociuous grammar and spelling who don't have to 'try' to be completely illegible.

Bleh....It looks like, that the devs are "ignoring" specific threads. Weird...either way, if Elemental's combat system will "copy" the primitiveness & randomness of the Civ4 combat system.....maybe I won't buy this game, or -at least- I will wait for a demo / proper informations about it. Don't get me wrong, the game looks awesome already, but this is an important stuff imo. Especially since we will have tactical combat in the game [thankfully]...Ah well, Civ4 fans won't care about things like this, but I do...and imo real strategy/tactical players [ie. wargamers] will also care. Peace.

What is so wierd about them not showing up?  That's SOP.  They show up in some threads, but expecting them to show up in a given thread is insane.

Not only that, but expecting them to show up in a thread about a topic that they've volunteered almost no information about is even more insane. It's not like they haven't told us about certain topics because no one asked - we've asked. Either they aren't sure enough themselves that they don't feel comfortable telling us (and then face people's ire when they decide to change things), or they simply want to keep that piece of information close to their chest for whatever reason, be it marketing or something else.

I was going to point out your (incorrect) use of its vs. it's until I read that sentence. But I guess I just pointed it out anyway Also, you repeated the its vs. it's mistake in your P.S.

I saw their presentation at PAX, and they did mention the tactical battles just a touch.

Here was what was mentioned:

-Tactical (X-com-like) grid field.

-Bonuses based on terrain type (hills increasing ranged effectiveness and melee defense, for instance), "High-ground" was specifically mentioned.

-Deformable terrain, though the degree to which it is deformable was pointedly not mentioned

We were also shown some of the troop design.

-There will be a "Quality" slider. Better troops will take longer to build, but be more effective than basic.

-You will get to "equip" troops as you see fit with certain armors being better than others, and likewise with weapons.

-There was some mention of strategic resources "allowing" weapon/armor upgrades, though the only specific thing mentioned there was that "having more iron means you can build iron things faster".

Sorry I heard nothing on damage types, but at the very least, I expect (speculate) Melee, Ranged, and Magic.

I still find it weird, that we don't have any informations about the combat system/mechanism. Ah well, patience is a virtue, isn't it?

PS. Thanks for the infos Malsqueek.

One of my main hopes is it does not play Unit A Kills B, B kills C, and C kills A

I like Units having some extras but no Cav always loses to Heavy Inf.

THings like that shift it more to a giant Chess Match.

IMHO

Lee

^ Well, you are talking about the "Rock, Paper, Scissors system". It's still much better compared to Civ4's randomized and primitive system. Either way, we shall see that what's gonna happen in Elemental. The Beta is close now...also maybe we will be able to mod in new dmg & resistance types also...who knows...:D

Either way, if the combat system will be at least as good as the AoW 2. combat system, I will be very happy.

RPS balancing is a different issue than randomness.  Civ4's combat sucks because Civ combat always sucked because integer + random means who knows who's going to win.  RPS balancing means you often have very contrived and forced counters (sometimes very hard counters) so that you 'need' xyz units to fight abc units or you lose.

What they have in common is they're popular because they're conceptually easy.  I'm hoping Elemental is less random and more logical than either; MoM was nowhere near as random as Civ, for instance, and the only cross-unit balance issues were raw power and immaterial, flying, resists etc.

Ok, going through these questions one at a time as opposed to getting bogged down in debate.....

1. I am assuming that the att/def stats are the only ones available, but I don't know the amount of RNGing that goes on, or what the algorythms are. Magic is likely going to be done in more or less an "overland" system that uses the same damage variables as conventional attacks (although this is not at all confirmed).
2. There are definately terrein modifiers in the game. I think that most of them are just for speed, but it would look kind of odd not to have them for other stats as well.
3. No word on this one way or the other. In fact, no word on whether there will even be damage types at all! Usually when the devs ignore stuff like this it means that they are either not sure how to do it or that it is not in the game, but type systems are such a common and fun feature of fantasy combat that it would essentially have to be some game-killing reason for them not to be included. Maybe the devs just assumed that we assumed they would be in?
4. Yes. Oh, how we will be able to mod this thing..... types will probably be in Python, but they might also be in easier-to-use XML format......
5. I am assuming that pretty much every "natural" ability will have an item that does the same thing, just because that's how it usually (always?) works. And the items should be very easy to mod, if you have a model for it.

I actually really liked the MoM combat system. If I recall correctly, the "Attack" value was the number of 33% chances to hit each "model" in the unit got, and each "Defense" was a 33% chance to resist any hits that were done. Things like "+ to hit" added 10% per +, and damage types would shift what "Defense" was used (eg: magic/armor)

I found that system did a pretty good job of emulating both skill and quantity "value" of units, and left enough up in the air that you still had to care about your tactics and terrain to win. 6 swordsmen with 1 attack each were likely to do 2 wounds per "round", and from there it was down to how many hit points and how good the Defense of your opponent was.

I'd like to see Elemental wind up perhaps a little more complex than that, but anything of similar elegance would make me a very happy boy.

Of all fantasy strategy games, I liked Age of Wonders II: Shadow magic  tactical battle the most. Destructible city walls, different damage types and abilities... I'd improve the tactical magic system (make it more powerful) but that is it.

Unit construction is where GalCiv went wrong - for me, at least. 3 damage types and 3 shields and no special abilities. The fun constructing your units is in the fact that you cannot be completely sure if your build will work.  Unit construction in MOO2 worked very well and was fun. If you are just stacking numbers, trying to get attack and defense as high as possible, you can go with Civ system and just have predefined units and no tactical battles.

I think MoM magic system was influenced by Magic:The Gathering with all the local and global enhancements. Merging AoW and MtG system in tactical battles would be ... interesting. Especially if magic was able to *really* change the rules - e.g. not just "mudstorm - speed -1" but "for every unit that dies you get a free skeleton", "if you have more units than your enemy giant eyeball with help you, otherwise it will help your opponent". There are enough examples in MtG...