question about tactical battle UI in gametrailers video

I was going to start a new thread subject about this simular topic, but I think I will just add to you question:  I was about to send all the links to the demo videos to all my gaming friends.  I wanted them to see all the great things about the game, and get excited and buy it too (I preordered the CE).

Then I saw the tactical battle part.  Yikes .  I know it's not the retail/full game.  I know it's not finished yet.  But I chose to not send the #3 video (with the 100+ turns example) to my friends.  The main reason being the tactical battle example looked very, errrr, umm, primative, bland and "meh".  I'm sure (or hoping) the retail version will be much different, and I also understand that was one small unit vs one monster.  And I'm also hoping I just missed seeing the morale meter somewhere.

Anyway, my reason for this message is not to complain or yell "doom" but in in the hopes that an entire demo video will be made of just the tactical battles, to show the masses how great it is.  I don't want people to think that tiny little "right-click bitch slap" was all there is to combat.

I hope stardock will consider making a full video showing all the great combat features, so I can send "that" video to all my friends too.  The battle example in video #3 could really give people the wrong ideal about the combat imo.

P.S.  Please don't get mad at me Frogboy, I just want people to see the best of the game (cringe/flinch) and I don't think that video does the combat part of the game justice at all.  (Ducks and Covers under desk).

Since I am not in the Beta, I have been very hungry for tactical combat information.  Combat and Unit Design are the two areas of the game that I am most excited and yet concerned about.  I am mainly concerned about the combat because I think it will be too simple to make unit design challenging and interesting. 

I actually saw a few things that encouraged me:

• the size of the battle field was reasonablly large
• terrain supposedly did something!  Brad mentioned he could get in the forest for 'cover', but I'm not sure what actuall affect that would have on attacks though....
• the graphics looked better than I had seen in most combat shown.
• the battle was not a oneshot alpha strike contest.

-Purple, I don't think a simple request for a trailer focused on aspects of combat is providing the moderators with ammunition for ire or banning.  The point of the forums is feedback for the team.  As long as your post is trying to contribute a useful perspective or idea I am sure it is appreciated.

If it makes you feel any better, I felt the exact same way. And I too hope that someone at Stardock can make such a video.

This was basically my "complaint" on the GT thread (that's now locked, so I could never clarify). The combat looks boring (key word being "looks," not to be confused with "is") in the video. Sure, I think they could make it look a little more exciting by having all the units attack or something, but that's literally just a visual thing that isn't major. The video just didn't manage to show off the tactical element of the battles at all, which in turn made it look like a slow, grid-based battle without any flare.

If we could get a video of let's sau a 5v5 battle (or larger, don't know what the max is) between kingdoms/empires that really highlights the strategic nature of the game, then it's much easier for me/others to go on another forum and get other people interested.

Since I've always been relatively satisfied with Civilization's auto-resolve battles, I'm sure I'll love Elemental even if the tactical battles truly are boring (though I'm pretty sure they won't be). But I would like to help push the game on other forums, as I see this game not getting nearly the amount of attention that I think it deserves. I just need some ammo.

-----------Back to the TC's point-----

I haven't heard of that getting axed either, but I just went over that battle sequence and yeah, I also couldn't find any reference to unit morale either. I'm not familiar with what every icon on the screen is supposed to represent, so perhaps it's one of those, but I'd be inclined to think it's either the beta UI or it was quietly shelved until post-release.

The battle UI is definately a bit disappointing. The UI in the early mockup images looked so much better

I suspect the battle UI might not have been finished, after all Brad said there were still bugs and stuff do be done to tactical battles.

Frogboy also said the tactical UI improvements won't actually in the game for another week. What's in the video is not final.

but to be honest - seeing the mockup of the UI.. it's a bit sad that they didn't incorporate them into the game. this stay true for the Overland UI as well. But I will more than happy if I'm wrong

Yeah, I loved the old mockups, but they decided to go with "minimalist" GUI. Can't really fault them for it. At this point as much as I like pretty UIs, functionality is more important. Sounds like it might be possible to skin the UI with a mod anyway, to create something flashier.

Just a note: We can modify the UI as well.

I think the GUI is the second important part beside gameplay. If I need 3x times do find all the time the info which normally would be in a compact way there I would go for the first part. And to change a GUI with patching is all the time a bit critical.. with patches everyone would suppose to have minor tweaks.. if you have to completely re-learn the game cause the GUI is different, this is not really nice.

And with regards to minimalistic GUI: if I look into the kingdom reports - research, etc window or the spellbook, minimalistic is the last word that would come to my mind

What I miss or dislike most currently is the minimap.. if you are not careful, its not available (the icon has to be found ) and if it's there, its all the time looks like it is overlapping something

But yeah, I agree.. one of the most important aspects for myself will be a modded UI afterwards, I will look forward for the campaign/game and the modding (which is already damn fun)

i think that tactical battles are fine as is, i just wondered what is going on with morale.

Agree with OP, a short video of the Tactical Battles would be great. I've registered now just so I can reply to this thread. I've been lurking the game since I discovered it a month or two back. Really interested to see more of the tactical battles. It's probably the only thing holding me back from a purchase tbh.

The tactical battle UI from beta 4/game trailers doesn't remotely resemble the finalized UI.  The one in beta 4 was simply there to allow users to test the basic engine.

As we keep trying to explain to people, and this is why we'll be changing future betas to require some steps before joining, our betas are not DEMOS. If you want a demo of the game, wait until after it's released.

We will be putting out videos and walking players through the actual finalized game in the next week or so.

Also, morale is a big factor in tactical battles as is terrain.

nice, i can't wait until the game is out.  its gonna be legendary.

I also recently watched the gametrailers video and everything was just gravy until the tactical battle section   I know it's been said that it's going to be improved, and I'm sure it will, but the core mechanics of it were pretty unimpressive (2 units trading boring attack animations, with number-crunching and stats to sort out the winner) and I don't know if a little polish will make a dramatic difference.

I'm also wondering how terrain will be useful.  If most(or many) battles are going to be mashed out by melee units, I dont see how terrain bonuses will play a huge roll.  Is there any sort of fog of war? 

If not, wont melee unit 'A' simply be most advantaged by attacking enemy melee unit 'B' first?  That means you have to chase them down and get first strike in order to do more damage.  How will terrain be usefull unless it just incendently happens to be convienantly next to the unit you are attacking?

Your not going to put your melee unit on a patch of trees and wait to get attacked first just for a terrain bonus. 

Sylenall, it may be that the attacker has a limited amount of turns to win the battle.  That should insure a hard pressed battle in most cases.  I"m sure that a defener will do just what you said, get his units to all sorts of cover, I would.  All sorts of ranged attacks and spells will be available too, so I'm guessing a defender could only bob and weave so much.  There will also be different defence ratings, hit points and damage, so I'd venture a first strike would usually not be a death blow.  Also, if the video is still representative of the current build, I saw a "miss" in there too, which could make melee a bit exciting ("I've got them now! Swish. Oh #&*@"). 

The only thing I dislike about the tactical battles is the scale. In the mockup above, they actually seem to be fighting in a specific location whilst (or at least...) in Beta 4 it just seems as though you are fighting on the world map.

I'm sure that the tactical backgrounds will be much more varied then the drab ones we have seen so far. There was a post a while back explaining that they only put in a few pre-made tactical battle maps for the beta. I hope we get some like the mock up as it looks very rich and involving.

As for scale, i aslo want to see how large the battles can be. At present i can only normally field 2 large armies and the A.I isn't smart enough to match me.

Can't wait for the 24th, still in two minds about upgrading to the CE version...

You may think I'm crazy, but I didn't mind the tactical battle system in the trailer one bit. It evoked fond memories of the original Final Fantasy Tactics. The only thing I didn't like was being able to cast like 4 spells per turn.

I entirely disagree - this is a huge part of combat strategy in "Battle for Wesnoth" (one of the best turn-based tactical strategy games I have ever played), putting your guys at the edge of a wooded area and picking off guys who are forced to stand just outside the woods makes a lot of sense.  Otherwise the force sitting in the woods still represents a threat to the opponent's forces and will cause them to get flanked later on.

-tid242

While I don't worry about the UI, I'm just a tad concerned about the Tactical Combat Animations. The movie showed a squad of 3, fighting some troll-look-a-like creature. One of those soldiers marched over to the troll and they started bashing eachother up. So far so good. Only, I wonder, what happens if a 3-man squad meets another 3-man squad. Does every soldier walk over to one of their counterparts and start bashing eachother up? Or will it just be one guy versus another, leaving the rest of the squad stand by idle? And I reckon the entire squad's health is a combination of the health of the individuals. So, will one of those guys keel over once a certain amount of hitpoints is lost? Or will they only bite the bucket if the entire unit is reduced to zero hp?

Trivial issues I'm raising, I know. But I'm liking the current animations. It would strike me as odd to see a big unit only attack another big unit in a duel-like fashion.

I approve of this.

I think its needed to be differentiated.. if we are talking about the UI, we are talking about what we see in the vid, not what is currently in Beta. In the vid, there is an upgrade to the beta version.. still, I myself don't be convinced that this is what I want to have.

If it's regarding the combat itself, yep, I agree that we have to see whats in the end :-) 

To be honest, I specifically didn't pre-order early because I was afraid I'd be too tempted to try out the beta and then expect it to basically be an early demo.

So I agree with the changes as well.