Spicing up tactical battles

from Elemental Forums

FE is a good game, and with some relatively minor improvements it can be a great game.

Tactical battles are a big, tho skippable, part of the game. yet they are fairly bland.  Is there any terrain effect besides 'open' and 'block'?  If so, what have I missed?

Suggestions:

1) maps are too small, and the 'walls' that hem us in are too obvious.  Make them bigger.

2) archery and spell range (other than the burning hands and similar spell range) appear to be unlimited.  They should have a more limited range.

3) add more terrain effects such as:

-woods (halve non-flying movement, doubles defense vs. ranged attacks and all flying attacks, hides units at start of the fight until they move)

-streams/gullies (stops non-flying movement upon entering, halves non-flying movement upon exiting, non-flying attacks from this terrain vs. non-stream/gully terrain are halved)

-hills (increases missile range but not spell range, 'uphill' non-flying attacks are halved)

-shrubs/scrub (non-flying movement halved, +10% defense)

Currently there is little strategy/tactics in tactical battles in this RTS game.  There are more possibilities than those presented above, of course.

In WoM beta we asked for tactical maps to reflect the big map terrain, that's still something I'd like to see.

 

11,772 views 15 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I wish there were a 'head about to explode' smiley. :troll:

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

1) I wouldn´t like that. It would make tactical battle take too long. "Standing here, going there." I don´t think that would be fun. 

2) This is a good idea. It sounds simple and easy to implement, thats just a guess.

3) This would spice up every tac.battle, but i´m not longer sure if it would be good idea for FE, because it sounds like stretching the tac.battle and i don´t want them to take much more time.

 

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I love OP ideas, all tactical fights may be devised in three ways - simplified tactical as is now with some introduction for terrain, LINE OF SIGHT penalties, etc,

and third, most complex terrain defining, bigger map, with surrounding units and cities&outposts/terrain magical and spell effects participating.

 

I would like to have that...

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

1) maps are too small, and the 'walls' that hem us in are too obvious.  Make them bigger.

2) archery and spell range (other than the burning hands and similar spell range) appear to be unlimited.  They should have a more limited range.

3) add more terrain effects such as:

Well they should definitely add in #2. I could also see some more larger maps, although not too much larger. There are a few fairly large maps in existence but increasing the average size of maps by about 25% would allow for a little more maneuvering. Derek and the team have discussed #3 to death. In the end they decided they didn't want to add it in because it would make tactical battle success too important and diminish the strategic aspect of the game. Personally I think even very slight terrain bonuses would add a lot to the game without making them too important in the grand scheme. 

Personally I would like to see more interesting tactical abilities in combat. Right now a lot of units have no abilities and the ones they do have are uninteresting. Look at some other games like Final Fantasy Tactics for inspiration here, they have extremely deep tactical battles based around interesting abilities. Awhile ago I posted a thread that listed some ideas for unit abilities, of which they have already implemented one. Other then troop abilities there needs to be far more interesting monster abilities, especially for bosses. Why do tough monsters have such uninteresting abilities? Some examples of possible good ones are:

Great Smash: Does normal damage and knocks back a unit 3 tiles. 

Crush: Damages all unit within 2 tiles of caster but has a casting time of 1, can't be interrupted. 

Shadow Rift: Does slight damage to all units within 1 tile of target location and summons a lurk there. No casting limit. 

Wind Devil: Target unit is teleported to a random tile. 

Entangle: All nearby units can't move for 3 turns.

Shrill Storm: All units take a small amount of random fire, ice, or lightning damage unless they resist. Summons 3 random fire ,earth, air, or water shrills to random locations. No casting limit. Cooldown of 3. 

Earth Spike: Target unit takes mild piercing damage, is knocked back 1, and the target tile becomes blocked. 

 

Large monsters should be acting like mini bosses that you want to fight because it's fun, unlike now where they all are just slow melee buffs. How about some fast moving ranged ones or summoners that sit back and throw waves of units at you? Even the melee ones should have cool abilities that require you to think and dodge. 

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

I like all the ideas presented here.  I know FE is supposed to be more strategic than tactical, but it certainly couldn't hurt to spice up the tactical a bit.  I wouldn't mind if the battles were a bit longer if they included actual tactics.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Perhaps, an FE Expansion pack will enhance tactical battles with improved in-game and optional stand-alone tactical battles (aka Warhammer).

 

For the existing game I would like to see;

  1. Greater variety of tactical maps - rivers with bridges, in-city maps, ravines with archers on higher elevations, etc. (simple)
  2. Terrain that blocks line of sight and ranged attacks, not just movement.
  3. Range limits for missile weapons - i.e. Short Bows - 10 tiles, Long Bows - 20 tiles (simple)
  4. Spells that affect line of sight (i.e. Darkness, Fog, Rainstorm, Dust Storm) for both sides - i.e. Fog: Line of Site is reduced to 3 tiles for all units (enemy and friendly).
  5. More tactical orders for combat units (not just fortify)
Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top


1) maps are too small, and the 'walls' that hem us in are too obvious.  Make them bigger.

2) archery and spell range (other than the burning hands and similar spell range) appear to be unlimited.  They should have a more limited range.

3) add more terrain effects such as:

-woods (halve non-flying movement, doubles defense vs. ranged attacks and all flying attacks, hides units at start of the fight until they move)

-streams/gullies (stops non-flying movement upon entering, halves non-flying movement upon exiting, non-flying attacks from this terrain vs. non-stream/gully terrain are halved)

-hills (increases missile range but not spell range, 'uphill' non-flying attacks are halved)

-shrubs/scrub (non-flying movement halved, +10% defense)

Pretty much agree. I think SD went with hemmed in tactical maps as a way to add a constrained element to counter the unlimited range of archers and casters. I do enjoy the added restriction, despite how unrealistic it is. I would presume that with the addition of more terrain effects as well as limited range for different equipment and spells would allow for a relaxation of the hemmed maps. Some maps....especially the caves and temples, I'd leave them in place...but in the open area maps that are meant to be open area....other restrictions should inhibit the battlefield.

 

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

The lead designer Derek Paxton did say in an interview that if he had and extra few months magically appearing before launch, he would have used them to add more variety to the tactical game. link

So maybe we'll see some additions to it in some future updates.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Spice it up. Totally agree.

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Lantros, reply 2
1) I wouldn´t like that. It would make tactical battle take too long. "Standing here, going there." I don´t think that would be fun. 

2) This is a good idea. It sounds simple and easy to implement, thats just a guess.

3) This would spice up every tac.battle, but i´m not longer sure if it would be good idea for FE, because it sounds like stretching the tac.battle and i don´t want them to take much more time.

 

 

1) I have to disagree with you and agree with the OP.  It doesn't have to be huge, but larger would be better.

2) I believe bows do have a range, according to their code.  Problem I think is due/solved by #1.  Bigger maps mean the other side starts outside the range.

3) I have to disagree again and agree with the OP.  Variety is good.  Tactical battles requiring more thought/planning/strategy is a good thing.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Supreme, reply 11
2) I believe bows do have a range, according to their code.  Problem I think is due/solved by #1.  Bigger maps mean the other side starts outside the range.

They do have a range entry, yes, but it only works, if you use special abilities like Double Strike. This is probably due to the fact that ranged attacks are effectively spells. However, I wonder if this could get fixed by adding a UseWeaponRange entry to the corresponding spells. 

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top


Re: Archers

The use of Archers in FE could be enhanced by adding;

a. Support for missile ranges. (Easy)

b. Support for Blocking Terrain: Line of Sight (Moderate)

c. Extra Abilities for Expert Archers: i.e. Veteran Archers shoot 1x, Expert Archers shoot 2x (i.e. expert archers load and shoot faster)

d. Extra Ability for trained Veteran Melee Units (i.e. Arrow Shield - Units don't move and hold shields above their heads to receive defense bonus vs. ranged attacks)

e. Wind Storm (Air) and Fog (Water) spells that reduce line of sight and attack ranges for all units on the battlefield (enemy & friendly)

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Edwin99, reply 13
b. Support for Blocking Terrain: Line of Sight (Moderate)

Really really hard. What would actually be moderate would be to add tiles that increase ranged dodge. So if your on a forest or fortified tile you have a better chance to dodge ranged attacks. The current engine doesn't support LoS at all.

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting DsRaider, reply 14
Quoting Edwin99, reply 13b. Support for Blocking Terrain: Line of Sight (Moderate)

Really really hard. What would actually be moderate would be to add tiles that increase ranged dodge. So if your on a forest or fortified tile you have a better chance to dodge ranged attacks. The current engine doesn't support LoS at all.

I was assuming that existing code; in first link below, could be used as the starting point for the LOS calculation and that this calculation would be made as the targeting cursor moved over each tile in the battlefield.

Some posts on the topic:

http://www.webwargaming.org/lineofsight.htm (includes Java Code for LOS) 

http://www.simmonsgames.com/design/LineOfSight.html (interesting article on LOS) 

PS: Note I like the game as is. Comparing it to Elemental or the beta from 3 months ago and the difference is like night and day. The maps, the spells, the new city mechanics, return of essence, the city types. Its just a good game - and for me the difficulty is just right as I have not stumbled upon the optimal strategy yet.

Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top

Hate to make a hard task even harder, but remember if you manage to hax the .exe to enable LoS in tactical battles ... the AI isn't set up to be able to deal with tactical battle LoS it in their own offense or defense, and it would also need to be worked into Auto-Resolve battles.