I imagine there would be a way to give units special properties in battle. (I really hope) So if you wanted to have a giant lumbering hulk of a creature you could do something like add an ability that specifically reduces the rate of attack to say half or one fifth the usual based on the units strength. Or maybe alternatively you could add an ability that divides all damage done to the unit by 5 and rounds up. Both would have a similar effect.

Please abilities like this. Please frogboy. Give us power. Let us script them ourselves. Your game will go far.

Yeah, that could be tricky to navigate.  I guess it also depends on how much time ellapses in any specific segment of the battle.  If each second in the battle corresponds to a real second... well, you can see the implications. 

I would think each real second in battle would equate to about 15-30 seconds. (maybe 3 seconds?)

Anyways, I think its already obvious from posts that we can control the speed of battle. As long as its in the proper proportion, so that like in total war, we believe a battle to take place in real time (because they travel across the ground in speeds we are used to) as opposed to  "actual" real time where such a battle could of lasted for HOURS (instead of 30-40 minutes) ... although it seems most would prefer a 10-15 minute battle, which is respectable.I mean, in the multiplayer FFH games, fights are fairly rare, and there are generally only 3-5 major battles, even if lots of minor skirmishes (stack of doom vs stack of doom ... those are fun :D)

Well, in a different portion of my post I said he'd be a really tough creature with a very powerful but very slow attack. If he only had 1 ATK, then he would hardly ever deal any damage at all to anything except units with very low defense. And he'd be completely worthless against any unit with 10+ DEF.

Although... if HP also affects the effective rate of attack, then 1 ATT might even be too much! If he's fighting a bunch of peasants, each of whom have say 1 HP... If he has 5k HP he'd slaughter huge quantities of peasants. a 5k:1 HP ratio, corresponding to relative attack speeds, would result in massive peasant losses.

Coupling 'survivability' with 'relative attack speed' seems like it'd make it impossible to have creatures that do large quantities of damage at a very slow rate, and also be able to still incur damage against the very powerful units of the game like dragons. To accomplish the latter, a high ATT is needed. But to accomplish crazy survivability, a high HP is needed. But the combination of high ATT and crazy HP is an insane damage-dealing machine with ridiculous survivability. You cannot get one without the other...

I know what HP is in RPGs, so I know that when characters gain experience they don't gain just HP but also skills, feats and more things (D&D). The character doesn't simply learn to avoid better the hits but also to develop new abilities and skills that make him more effective in his role. I'd prefer Mekton Z system (to mention one as usrely there are others too) in which your health was mostly the same during all the live of your character and experience "only" meant to be able to develop skills.

I don't mind my elite superduper guy dying because Spearman Doe had his lucky day, just ask Goliath. And a system like Legend of the Five Rings RPG is quite better than D&D's (which I love mostly) because combat is simply deadly by nature no matter your rank (specially if you participate in a battle and decide, or are ordered, to be in the front lines).

So Frogboy, please, really change that name for the HP. Maybe Veterancy? Training? pwnage?

Oh I get it now. It sounds good, however it should work like this imo:

This rule [HP reduced = less effective in combat] should only "be valid", if it's a group of units. Example:10 swordsmen in a group -> a couple of swordsmen gets killed -> "HP" reduced to let's say..50% -> 5 swordsmen remains alive -> the group will be less effective in combat.

However, what if it's a single creature, like a troll or dragon for example? If it's gets damaged, should it be less effective in combat? I say no.

Yeah, this is a very good point.  While it seems a bit confusing innitially that a unit's life points are connected to something like attack speed, it's a lot easier in a large battle to assess the situation if you can just scroll over a unit and see a fewer number of stats than more.  I'm going to assume that most units will have a linear progression of life point and attack speed growth, but in the cases where you need to make an exception--- like in Pidgeons powerful, lumbering monster, you can add special traits that a represented by a small box shaped icon in the unit's info card.  It's kind of like in Master of Magic, when you right click a unit.  It shows you all the spells that have been cast on it and special abilities like first strike, armor break, blessing, etc.  Eventually, you would come to recognize these traits by their icon as you scroll over units on the battlefield.

In the case of Pidgeon's lumbering monster, you could add a trait called "lumbering" which reduces his attack speed by 80 or 90 percent and increases his damage by 80-90 percent.  But he would have high HP (or strength, as it is called) and high attack and defense.  The net effect is that you'd have a monster that would deal just as much damage to large creatures whether he had the trait "lumbering" or not, but he wouldn't be able to crush scores if peasants.  On the battlefield, if you were fighting such a creature, you'd mouse over the lumbering monster, see that he has this trait, and act accordingly (swarm it with lower soldiers and hope he doesn't trample his way through your ranks to the "big uns."

Likewise, if you have a "tornado devil," that is supposed to deal a small amount of damage but hit many targets without having a billion life points, he can be given tons of HP (or strength as it may now be called) but give him a trait that makes him take 9 times more damage from successful attacks and you'd get the desired effect.

That seems like a pretty good solution, Demiansky, I like it.

In fact it works very much like the way I'm starting to want magic resistances to work. If most units won't have magic resistances, it is not worth displaying a half-dozen different resistances scores that will nearly always be 0. Using modifiers analogous to your idea here would allow for magic resistances in all their glory but without causing a visual mess where it doesn't actually add anything (in the case of zero-resistance troops). Likewise here, the proposed combat system seems like it will in general work pretty well in most cases, and the exceptions can be dealt with accordingly.

Edit: credit where credit is due. I just noticed that Sarudak had a very similar idea earlier in the thread that I somehow missed.

Lol thank you... No one took notice of my idea. The key point is I want these abilities to be customizable with scripts. Something similar to like what you can do in Battle For Wesnoth. Because there's no way that Stardock can possibly predict all the awesome unit abilities and properties that we will imagine.

Lol, sorry I missed it, the way it was worded led me to think you meant something else.  Yes, the modding potentials of this method are very large indeed.  And as pidgeon mentioned, magic resistances can be made to work with spells and spell resistance too.  A spell might have a "fire damage" "box trait" that specifies what kind of damage the spell is doing.  Conversely, a unit might have the "fire resistance trait" which gives a unit a specific advantage against spells that have the "fire damage" trait.  Like Sarudak alluded to, interchangeable and customizeable scripts for every kind of effect that you might want to create yourself, which produces huge modding potential. 

Yes exactly. The key point for modders will be having some kind of standardization in properties. Probably we could organize them into libraries so that multiple people don't all start implementing the 'lumbering' trait in different ways. Because if that happened then if you were using multiple mods you might have no idea what the lumbering trait really means for each unit that has it.

Yes definately.  I can see different traits having a sort of World of Warcraft like icon system where you could apply any one of thousands of icons to whatever trait you might be creating a well as make your own.  And each specific script could be combined with any other particular script.  For instance, you could have a "water strider" trait which gives a unit water walking and increased speed.  You could have a "rugged hillman" trait which gives +5 hitpoints but -25 percent XP gain.  

Every element of physics in the game could be made a property to be added to a trait.  In theory, you could have a trait like "slave driver" which your sovereign or hero could gain, which gives a production percentage boost to building construction and a hapiness loss in the city that the trait bearer is posted.  You would basically be taking a script from the lumber mill building and adding it to the trait.  Or you could make a trait like "dedicated researcher."  In this case, you'd take a script from city population qualities and add it to the trait.

Yes, HP needs to be called something else. Tying Maximum Life to Attack Speed though....I don't know. It just sounds odd to me. As it was said earlier in the thread, I'd have to try it before I make judgment.

Well, if it IS tied together, then specialty abilities Like Lumbering and Whirlwind-Devil should probably coded in, usable as a modder source, as well as allowing said values to be altered (to make other such traits). A minor issue though. For the most part simply having more hitpoints makes more sense to me ... in an odd sort of way. Of course, in the system I am used to, most units have 1 HP, while elite "base units" have 2 HP, and a general could have as many as 10 or 20 HP (but usually less than 10), and all general bodyguards had 2 HP. I think War Chariots might of had 3 HP for some odd reason, while Chariot Archers had 2 HP.

Regardless of where I am conceptually "coming from" I don't mind the new HP/Strength system, although I think there should be a "speed" stat. I think having a speed stat is A) already going to exist, and B ) could represent the relative rate of attack based upon HP.

For instance, having low speeds would imply 1 attack regardless. (or 1 for every 100 hp), while having extremely high speeds could mean 1 attack for every 5 hp. Or something like that.

It could be a very simplified system, where speed is from 1-10 (or it could be called agility, and movement could be separate), where 1 speed has 100% slow, 2 speed has 80% slow, 3 has 70, 4 has 60, 5 has 50, 6 has 40, 7 has 30, 8 has 20, 9 has 10, and 10 has 5% slow. Where the percentage is 1 attack per round based on that many HP in relation to whatever 100% ends up being. We could have 100% to be 100hp, or we coudl have 100% be as low as 20HP, where an agility of 10 would net you 10 attacks with 20 hp.

Now, Obviously there are more sophisticated ways of making the system work. In any event, I think we should try it out at least into the next beta, where there will theoretically be multiplayer battle-betas. In this case, we can address the various elements of battle with a little experience using the new system under our belts, before we simply think that HP is a "health" mechanism.

I would like to see the Strength/HP system work. I do hope that morale, at least, is also added in. (with endurance being the other one, which is slightly less important than morale, but still quite important)

Speed is how far a unit can move per turn... Just because somebody's on a horse doesn't mean he should be able to hit the guy on foot more often. I prefer merging strength and attack speed into one stat like what's currently planned than factoring speed into the mix, too. It would overemphasize speed, i think, which is already valuable (in most combat systems, anyway). 

If they add morale, endurance, and traits/abilities/properties/whatever you want to call them into the current system I think I will be pretty pleased. The traits would be able to handle things like magical resistances and vulnerabilities, exceptions to the normal combat rules like lumbering, and special abilities. The one thing none of these can really address well are what to do with caster units, unless all caster units will have essence - in which case essence could be the determining trait.

Oh - and willpower/discipline. This would factor into base morale (or maybe it would modify how quickly morale changes in battle), possibly also into base endurance, and would also determine resistances to mind effects. Personally I think it'd be remiss not to allow us to train our elite troops to be more resistant to mind effects - and even more remiss not to have this for fantastical creatures! Edit: I suppose this could be handled by traits as well, rather than as a stat unto itself.

Will be interesting to see how this hp or 'strength' system will work.  Personally I like having attack be separate from damage, and defense separated from protection.  This way you can have someone who is really good at hitting things, but doesn't damage much with each hit, or someone who is really good at avoiding hits (high defense) but if he doesn't have armor (low protection), so if he does get hit, it hurts, and vice verca.

Seems to me the dragon should have very high protection, but relatively low defense, since it's really not that hard to hit a dragon.  This will require then someone who can do a lot of damage, but doesn't necessarily have to be very precise with his hits to hurt the dragon.

Personally, I kinda like the system in Dominions for example, where a more experienced person gets higher attack (hits more accurately) and higher defense (can dodge hits), but doesn't do any more damage or get better protection unless he's better equipped (and where hit points are relatively unchanged as they are tied to how 'big' you are).  But I'll keep an open mind and see how this HP mechanism works out, as it might accomplish something similar.

I would say this depends more on the weapon Robin Hood is using and which one surprises the other.  If Robin Hood has a magical bow of acid given to him by Merlin and using volcanic arrows of melting then my bet would be on Robin Hood.  Heck with some basic training and the right weapon even I could take out a tank.

  Unfortunately if you give an elite soldier 1000 HPs and a regular peasant 10 HPs ... with both units wearing leather and paralyzed why would the elite soldier be more difficult to kill??   OR  Why would the elite soldier survive a bolt of lightning as a minor wound when the same lightning strike would turn the regular peasant to ashes??

I think the operating assumption there was that Robin Hood never met Merlin, and didn't have a magical bow of acid and volcanic arrows of melting (or nuclear weapons while you're at it). The fact is if you give a unit that isn't able to scratch a dragon such incredible equipment, then in all likelihood that would transform said unit into a a unit that would indeed be able to hurt the dragon.

So I don't really see where you're going with that little anecdote.

Heh, I brought up the same argument not long ago, and I concluded that in the end that doesn't really bother me. Well, having an elite soldier with 1000 HP when peasants have just 1 would bother me, but I don't think we're meant to read too much into the numbers. Personally, I think so long as HP of regular units is kept under control (within a fairly small range, preferably not really ranging far above 10), then it doesn't bother me. I've been convinced that it isn't fun when your Uber elite troops walk onto the battle field and then get fried just as easily as everybody else; they represent a significant investment and it is not fun to see them crumple just as easily as a peasant - particular under something that will be as common as magic! (This also allows high-damage single-target (or small-area) spells to really have different uses from low-damage, many-target spells). Not to mention of elite troops are just as susceptible to magic, particularly offensive magic, as the lowly rabble, then the counter to elite troops will become magic - no ifs ands or buts. And that's not really any fun.

Because an elite, well trained, expensive unit being offed by a single spell is so imbalanced that those units would quickly become useless in the face of a strong channeler and a horde of cheap units that can't be killed as quickly due to sheer numbers.

Beisdes, its seems highly unlikely any trainable unit will get to 1000HP.

im pretty sure the only thing to get to 1000 HP will be the SOVEREIGN!!!! (and perhaps the ever-rare Groglock)

That being said, im sure some Spells will have an Attack value (like earth and Air spells, and certain ice/fire spells) while others will simply ignore defense and do damage directly to the HP. Elite units should ALWAYS have a better chance at surviving spells. it just makes a game BETTER!

I see early fire-arms being inaccurate, low range, expensive .... but requiring very little training (peasant hordes) and bullets (if they hit) to ignore defense and directly damage the HP.

Well-trained musket men will be able to form a box-formation Napoleon style (or ranks Civil War style) .... and perhaps someone will be lucky enough to get smooth-bore rifles ... and eventually perhaps we will see rifled weapons. The only thing this will improve is range, accuracy, and rate-of-fire. Damage and Ignore defense is the same for all guns. Im just throwing it out there on the basis that we might have guns and cannons. Now on the realm of cannons, I think hollow shot should have a large area of attack, and granting an Attack value, probably equivalent to some mid-level earth spell, due to flying pieces of molten shrapnel (not a guaranteed kill) ... however, Solid shot will be single-target (small area) and ignore defense like the guns do.

Anyways, these are my two cents. Probably would have to progress quite far upon the Civilization, Military, (and maybe Diplomacy) tech trees to get access to gunpowder and Firearms ... and probably would have to pursue a very specialized path along the Civilization techs, to get the stuff that unlocks gunpowder for Military.