Hello to all and quick question

As far as I know practically nothing changed. TB strategy map and TB tactical battles.

Oh, I also am interested in the scale of tactical battles. Will they be at least like on this image?)

The thread could be considered to be a bit "out of date" (I'm waiting for beta 2 to be out before I update it again, and even then tactical combat is not in until beta 3).

Last news about tactical combat are here: https://forums.elementalgame.com/382931 (with a comment or two in another threads but I have no links right now, sorry) Latests previews don't touch tactical combat.

Thanks for the link Wintersong.

I'm not a huge fan of turn- and tile-based combat due to its chess-like nature. I may be missing something, but can anyone point out the advantages over the TW model, where you can pause at any time and give orders ? As far as I understand, the tiles in Elemental are square, which would seem to make for some pretty crude manoevering and flanking, no ?  

At the moment we have no idea how things like flanking will work, if they still exist. Other then that they changed it to tile/turn based, we know very little about tactical combat.

Turn/tile based combat = chess like indeed. You have more time to think & plan if the battle system is turn based. Also the turn based system is more "strategic oriented" imo.

With all due respect, how is it more strategic or gives you more time to think than a system where you can pause any time to issue orders ? I'm not trying to troll, it's just that I don't see it. A continuous time/pause system combines the best of both worlds, with no downside.

Except the guy who pauses every 10 seconds in mp...

I think WEGO is the way to go.

Turns aren't the issue, tiles are.

My problem with the pause system is that most people will end up turning that option off in multiplayer since its such a hassle leaving it on. Then you have an extremely fast paced Real Time Strategy game with a steep learning curve that isnt meant to be played purely like that. 

For example the speed times 5000 illuminator spamming mod in SoaSE. 

On another note about that i would be extremely interested to see a modern day turn based multiplayer game thats not under the Civilasation series. :) 

Continous time/pause system in MP?? No thanks. It would be extremely annoying if your oppoment would pause the battle in every 5th second....as for why is it more strategic? Perhaps it is not, if you compare it with the real time/continous turns & pause system, but that system wouldn't work in MP. Real time without a pause function could work, but I don't like it. WEGO is better, but I still prefer the turn based system.

If the main issue is "what happens in MP" then I see the argument for WEGO. Even that, however, could be addressed by having a timer on the "pause" function in MP (eg. you can only pause for X seconds, every X seconds). Perhaps that's too hard to code though, I don't know. Just seems to me that MP in the TW games works just fine. In fact, it's arguably the best MP battle simulator out there.

Having said that, my main concern is really the tile system. Everything I've seen about the game shows square tiles. That's fine on the strat map but in tac combat, that's very clumsy and not strategic at all. How do you flank effectively, or even charge at an angle ?

There's not exactly a lack of tile/turn based combat games either. It doesn't actually make things more strategic, it really just makes things slower. Nobody in their right mind is ever going to do a five army battle using tile/turn based tactical battles.

We may have TW but why fix what ain't broke ? In the same way that the WASD/Mouse system has become a standard for FPS -- because it works best, simply put -- once a developer has worked out an optimal way of conducting large-scale battles, why go back to something more clunky ? There's certainly room for some innovation (like timed pauses in MP, for example) but it seems to me that this is a step backwards. The TW battle system is polished, responsive, and extremely epic. Tile/turn-based battles, on the other hand, look archaic, a bit like the plastic toy soldiers I used to move around as a kid I'm keeping an open mind, though. Stardock is a very good company and I'll give them the benefit of the doubt until I see the combat.

I'd like to point out that the issue I have with the combat isn't the turns, it's the tiles.  WEGO captures almost all the advantages of a RTS system, and eliminates the issues with better reflexes and APM in multiplayer.

I don't agree with you, but this is a matter of subjective opinion. It's pointless to argue about something like this.

I must disagree that TW-style battles are the optimal way of conducting large scale battles in games. Maybe it's currently the most popular way. And optimal fun for those who like it.  

Others like tiles/turn based more. Or WEGO which is also great when well implemented. But why argue that all games should keep to one battle system or the other? That would be very boring. Instead we can enjoy them all, in different games.

The point is which system should Elemental have? It was billed with one of them, then changed to another one. So, in changing the system in this case, I could pose the same question. Why should this game use a system that's already been used in the TBS 4x genre so many times?

The TW series have made a great RTS breakthrough but that doesn't mean every single game has to follow what they have done, like most MMORPGs look at WoW because Blizzard was so successful with it even though many features have been seen in many previous games. Yet you still see games come out that are not canon and they do well, like action-mmorpg (C9, Blade and Soul, Mabinogi Heroes aka Vindictus).

Personally I like this tile type of turn based combat, it reminds me of the good old days of HoMaM and a little bit of AoW2 (I never actually played 1). If it works it works, so far people have liked the first beta so lets see where stardock takes us next =D Looking forward to it guys!! *crosses fingers for there to be a beta by the time work is done*

So much talk about multiplayer and I still haven't seen Frogboy say that he is ready to sacrifice single player experience for multiplayer one.

That said, I'd expect him to stick to the "If you do multiplayer in your game, you do it well or don't bother at all.".

I'm gonna have to agree with Wintersong here. Brad is definitely the guy who does it right, or doesn't do it. At least my experience with him and Gal Civ and beyond.

Which is why I'll gladly give the game the benefit of the doubt. However, to say "we already have TW so let's try something different" is a bit disingeneous. There have been a lot more tile- / turn-based battle systems out there than there are well implemented continuous play / pause battle systems, and the former have fallen by the wayside recently precisely because TW introduced a better way of doing things. Not perfect, but nothing else evens comes close to capturing the epic feel of a large-scale battle. Again, I guess it's a personal matter; I just want to feel like I'm commanding a battle, not playing chess with my old uncle.

People who want to play multiplayer are obviously going to speak up about it.

tatical battle wont matter in mp as most will skip as they lead to 10x longer games

unless of course everyone knows eachother and commits to them

IIRC Froggie has said, that they've found the current turn/tile based system "more proper" & fun compared to the old battle system.

 *EDIT*

Here is Froggie's post with regard to this.

I am only willing to skip the small/unimportant battles in late game.

Now we're getting somewhere. Yes it is a personal matter of taste, the question is how much abstract you want the battle experience to be.

TW is hardly like realistically commanding a battle, it is simplified so that you can grasp details, see results quite well, analyse, issue specific commands, and the troops actually try to do what you want. You can even pause time to consider options! Still, for most people it feels more strategic than a realistic battle simulator would be.

Turn/tile based is even more simplified (abstract), making the details, results, choices and commands even clearer. This actually makes deeper strategic thinking possible, since it is easier for the logical mind to grasp and analyse.

Chess is a very abstract and simple battle system, but with incredible strategic depth.

The game "Go" is even simpler than Chess, but more strategic, if you should believe those that play it. Personally even I find Go too "dry".

But I do love playing chess with my uncle!