RE: Initiative > Movement and Armor > First Strike

Being encumbered (armored) does not mean a unit reacts slower when talking about unit movement. 

Example: Knight in Armor sees peasant and he instinctively charges - he has the initiative - and this is not affected by his armor (encumbrance). That said, the knight can not move as fast or as far as an unarmored peasant during a comparable movement period.

Armor (encumbrance) and your weapon strike range (length) should affect your chance to make a first strike during actual combat. An unarmored peasant may be able strike first with a spear when attacking a knight in plate-mail armed with a dagger. 

Though the knight may have the initiative in terms of unit movement - the peasant with his longer spear may be able to strike first when both units meet to engage in combat.

Thus:

1. Initiative controls when a unit moves.

2. Armor & Mount affects movement points (i.e. Heavy Plate moves 2 tiles. Leather, Chainmail & Magical Plate moves 3 tiles, Mount Moves 4 tiles)

3. Armor & Weapons Strike Range (i.e. Dagger vs Longsword vs Spear vs Polearm) affect chance to strike first during actual combat.

Some interesting ideas on overwatch/reaction moves...

Overwatch doesn't need to be too complicated to work well - the first game i saw overwatch used well was called 'rifles' being a game so old that it probably won't even run on windows 98 OS!! In that game you play American civil war, and various other European wars with the weaponry of that era. You have various options at your disposal with each unit - several different unit formations, and you can give them overwatch orders as well. One interesting overwatch order i forgot about was 'return fire'. So if an enemy infantry unit approaches, and shoots a volley at one of your units, it returns fire and uses up a number of movement points but not all. If the enemy unit has any movement points left, it might fire another round and again your unit returns fire on overwatch. In this game, with all that shooting going on, the morale of the units goes down fast, and in 2 0r 3 turns somones unit breaks and is either destroyed or runs off and cannot be commanded for a period of time. For infantry In Rifles, i liked to mix up my overwatch orders - some units in key positions i would set on return fire or hold, others i would set on fire when enemy moves in range. All depends on my strategy for withstanding the enemy turn. Hold orders are useful for units in very important key positions so that your unit does not return fire at all and therefore will not attract any further overwatch return fire from the enemy. I then use all of its movement points shooting during my turn anyway, so there is little disadvantage.

Artillery in Rifles have overwatch as well, but it is of little use to me because i usually take all the available movement points of artillery myself during my turn to take out key targets (i may also use up all the movement points of infantry as well myself during my turn rather than leave any overwatch on, depending on the circumstances of the battle) Now AI artillery on the other hand was most annoying in Rifles, since usually the AI has artillery on overwatch that pummel my advancing forces during my turn - so i have to try and use expendable 'cannon fodder' units to charge in first.... much like real life warefare!!!

The most spectacular thing in Rifles are the infantry battles when large forces move into close combat. When the units are all up close and the next turn comes around, all the overwatch units respond to each other down the line in a massive chain reaction, and there are demoralized units running off in all directions, absolutely awesome!

Some important points:

1) Movement points are all combined in one group which serves firing and moving. This gives some advantage to the defending force which i think is quite reasonable.

2) Movement points are renewed during that players turn and only unused movement points carry over and are available for overwatch during the opponents turn.

3) Cavalry are the only units in rifles that can actually move under overwatch and engage in melee combat.

4) When cavalry or any other units do engage in melee combat in overwatch or otherwise, the opponent unit always has a return stike (as it is in Elemental already)

There are other games that i have seen using Overwatch but there is nothing of note i  can add other than what the game 'Rifles' has already provided.

Those are some good points, Edwin.

For the sake of gameplay, however, I think that it would serve better for the vast majority of weapons to strike at the same time, and have "first strike" as a trained ability which increases the value (and therefore cost) of the unit.

Certainly require those units with first strike to be armed with a certain selection of weapons; I mean striking first with a hammer when your opponent has a Poleax is just silly.

I like the proposed unit infinitive based on combat speed that I believe is part  in 1.1? The random roll to see who goes first as a quick fix is a good idea.

Hello Frogboy, et all.  May i suggest this relativly simple adjustment to the battle screen, changing it from a one side moves, then the other, to a round system.  Following that I have added some other items to flesh out -enhance the round system.

Tactical Battles

Current system uses the ‘combat speed’ of the unit to determine its APs allotment.  One side acts, then the other.  Repeat until only one side remains on tactical field.  Side that acts first has immense advantage.

First change:  Determine APs based on the unit’s movement. Higher movement = more APs.

Now use the units ‘combat speed’ and change it to ‘initiative.’  (Actually, can leave the ‘label’ alone if you want…just change its function to initiative in the tac screen)

Finally, change the combat acting queue to be unit specific, not ‘side’ specific.  Now assign every unit (of both sides) a place in the combat acting queue.  Ties are decided in favor of the unit currently having more APs. 

Each unit now is given commands when its ‘turn to act’ comes up in the combat acting queue.  When the last unit in the current queue ‘acts,’ the round is over.  All units (except those ‘frozen, etc.) are now assigned a fresh set of APs to use.  The number of APs is based on their respective current initiative.  The PC now assigns all units a place in the next ‘combat acting queue.  Rinse, repeat.

Initiative per unit – not side.  Action points refer to how much a unit can do (already in game).  Initiative refers to when it can expend its APs.

This, all by itself, would remove the horrible advantage given to whichever “side” ‘moves (uses all its action points) first. 

Definitions of words/concepts:

APs = action points. 

Act = unit uses its APs to move/attack/fortify/cast. (User may now give it commands)

Initiative = units current ‘combat speed’ (as in current code)

Round = completing one combat action queue.

Combat action queue = the order/ sequence in which each unit of either side is assigned to act. Each unit ‘acts when its turn comes up in the combat action queue.

Initiative = determines where in the ‘combat action queue’ each unit is placed: highest initiative first, lowest initiative last, etc. Ties in the sequence are resolved in favor of unit with more APs, and if APs are =, then a random roll.

Immediate commands: (unit expends its APs immediately)

Move, melee, volley, cast, fortify.

Next design steps:

ALL UNITS: Reduce the strength of units that have zero AP’s remaining.  (say 10%?)  Defenders should have an advantage, just not the all or nothing of the current system.

ARCHERS: Redesign archers so that as range increases, the attack strength of the volley decreases.

Create various types of bows with various strengths and ranges.  Give archers a sight range increase if on higher ground then their target.

CONDITIONAL COMMANDS:

“Round” refers to when all units, both sides have, as permitted by each unit’s initiative, either expend their APs obeying an immediate command or have been given conditional commands. 

Immediate commands: (expends units APs immediately)

Move, melee, volley, cast, fortify.  (Already in game)  

Conditional commands are assigned to units so that they don’t use their APs immediately.  The APs are stored in the unit (for the duration of current round) and used to act (implement/do) the conditional commands currently given the unit.  Unit waits and responds to actions of enemy units.  APs are not, however, accumulated from one round to the next.  Once the round is over (all units of all sides have acted), any unused APs are gone.  The unit used its time doing the conditional command.  It may have acted in response to enemy actions, or it may have waited for an opportunity that did not happen.

Suggested conditional commands: Once unit expends its APs, it will only defend.

Close and Melee = engage if enemy approaches within x (trigger) distance.  X is assigned per unit, 1,2,3,4, as part of conditional command.  When triggered, the unit immediately moves towards E and melee attacks.  ((so, some units with an enhanced ‘counterattck’ would just defend, while units with enhanced attack strength would move towards E and attempt to attack first.))

Volley engage = archers volley at E if it gets within x distance.  X may be assigned per unit, 1,2,3,4,5.

Counter volley = archers volley against archer unit that just attacked it.

MAGIC USERS: Redesign MU (magic users) so that as spell levels increase, so does the related casting times.   Also, the number of levels the caster is above the actual spell being cast reduces casting time of that spell.  The following is illustrative.  I really don’t know what percentages, etc. would be effective.  However, consider the pace of the battle given the above ‘round’ system…  Developers decide percentage, AP cost, etc… [or allow user to modify these in a game customize input page.]

Level 1 MU casts level 1 spell = uses 100% of base cast time.

Level 2 MU casts level 1 spell = uses   90% of base cast time.

Level 10 MU casts level 1 spell= use   10% of base cast time.

Level 10 MU casts level 5 spell= use   50% of base cast time.

Each 10% of MU time consumes an AP.  So, some spells take a long time to cast – perhaps the MU will stand and work on casting a powerful spell while the troops go through several rounds of movement.  Interesting?

BTW, i did post this oneother place, before i found this more appropriate place.  Sorry for the double post.

How about overwatch defensive moves for countering first strike?

On the first round of combat, the defending side is allocated an extra round of movement points towards making overwatch defensive moves and each defensive move costs X amount of movement points. So the attacker still has a chance to focus their attack on an individual unit and run it out of defensive moves or hit points, whichever comes first! Then overwatch defensive moves can still be used during the rest of the battle wherever movement points are left over from the previous turn.

I like the idea of whomever going first only getting half of their action points on the first turn (be it attacker or defender).

Something else that might be implementable on the short term would be to allow ANY unit that is attacked (be it ranged or melee) to immediately conduct one counterattack, up to their counterattack allotment.  This way, if an archer or channeler is targetted, but not destroyed, they can immediately counterattack 'at range'.

Also, you could allow melee units that are attacked at range to move 1 square towards the attacker as their 'counterattack'.  This would use up 1 or 2 'counterattacks', depending on what is deemed 'balanced'.

In the case of spells that target multiple squares, perhaps only one of the surviving units should be allowed to counterattack?  Not sure what would be best here.

This would make targetting channelers a little more risky...

This also got me thinking.  If some 'instant' defensive spells were implemented, such as deflection or spell negation, this might make things a little more interesting... Deflection would add 'x' value to the players defense, and cost mana each time the player was hit, for as long as the spell was active.  Negation would work similarly.  That's a topic for another thread though.

this is an awesome thread.  I love seeing the ideas played out here.  many fit together so well.  SD has its tactical battle set up already designed:  right here in this thread!   Using movement rate = AP, combat speed = initiative, setting a "round' based tac combat unit acting queue, conditional commands, and then adding the overwatch concepts: will create such wonderful, and exciting options/tradeoffs in battle. 

Now all we need are pole weapons to counter cav charges.  and facing.

Another layer, more operational:  Prior to battle, have a marching order assigned to each stack.  If this wasn't done before battle, a SOP gets implemented.  This 'marching order', or 'whatever, one calls it would have the computer place that sides units in a certain way.  I am tired of archers being in the front, and the armored macemen in the back.  LOL.  Perhaps making the combat screen larger (more squares!) and scaling down MPs (APs) and ranges, might allow sides to prepare for battle better. (unless they are sneak attacked, then they are in line of travel, and sneak attacker can set up on flank, etc... )

Have the initial placement of each side be such that running away takes 5 + turns, or close of the runaway zone for five turns, whatever.

Tactical Battles

Current system uses the ‘combat speed’ of the unit to determine its APs allotment.  One side acts, then the other.  Repeat until only one side remains on tactical field.  Side that acts first has immense advantage.

First change:  Determine APs based on the unit’s movement. Higher movement = more APs.

Now use the units ‘combat speed’ and change it to ‘initiative.’  (Actually, can leave the ‘label’ alone if you want…just change its function to initiative in the tac screen)

Finally, change the combat acting queue to be unit specific, not ‘side’ specific.  Now assign every unit (of both sides) a place in the combat acting queue.  Ties are decided in favor of the unit currently having more APs. 

Each unit now is given commands when its ‘turn to act’ comes up in the combat acting queue.  When the last unit in the current queue ‘acts,’ the round is over.  All units (except those ‘frozen, etc.) are now assigned a fresh set of APs to use.  The number of APs is based on their respective current initiative.  The PC now assigns all units a place in the next ‘combat acting queue.  Rinse, repeat.

Initiative per unit – not side.  Action points refer to how much a unit can do (already in game).  Initiative refers to when it can expend its APs.

This, all by itself, would remove the horrible advantage given to whichever “side” ‘moves (uses all its action points) first. 

Definitions of words/concepts:

APs = action points. 

Act = unit uses its APs to move/attack/fortify/cast. (User may now give it commands)

Initiative = units current ‘combat speed’ (as in current code)

Round = completing one combat action queue.

Combat action queue = the order/ sequence in which each unit of either side is assigned to act. Each unit ‘acts when its turn comes up in the combat action queue.

Initiative = determines where in the ‘combat action queue’ each unit is placed: highest initiative first, lowest initiative last, etc. Ties in the sequence are resolved in favor of unit with more APs, and if APs are =, then a random roll.

Immediate commands: (unit expends its APs immediately)

Move, melee, volley, cast, fortify.

Next design steps:

ALL UNITS: Reduce the strength of units that have zero AP’s remaining.  (say 10%?)  Defenders should have an advantage, just not the all or nothing of the current system.

ARCHERS: Redesign archers so that as range increases, the attack strength of the volley decreases.

Create various types of bows with various strengths and ranges.  Give archers a sight range increase if on higher ground then their target.

CONDITIONAL COMMANDS:

“Round” refers to when all units, both sides have, as permitted by each unit’s initiative, either expend their APs obeying an immediate command or have been given conditional commands. 

Immediate commands: (expends units APs immediately)

Move, melee, volley, cast, fortify.  (Already in game)  

Conditional commands are assigned to units so that they don’t use their APs immediately.  The APs are stored in the unit (for the duration of current round) and used to act (implement/do) the conditional commands currently given the unit.  Unit waits and responds to actions of enemy units.  APs are not, however, accumulated from one round to the next.  Once the round is over (all units of all sides have acted), any unused APs are gone.  The unit used its time doing the conditional command.  It may have acted in response to enemy actions, or it may have waited for an opportunity that did not happen.

Suggested conditional commands: Once unit expends its APs, it will only defend.

Close and Melee = engage if enemy approaches within x (trigger) distance.  X is assigned per unit, 1,2,3,4, as part of conditional command.  When triggered, the unit immediately moves towards E and melee attacks.  ((so, some units with an enhanced ‘counterattck’ would just defend, while units with enhanced attack strength would move towards E and attempt to attack first.))

Volley engage = archers volley at E if it gets within x distance.  X may be assigned per unit, 1,2,3,4,5.

Counter volley = archers volley against archer unit that just attacked it.

MAGIC USERS: Redesign MU (magic users) so that as spell levels increase, so does the related casting times.   Also, the number of levels the caster is above the actual spell being cast reduces casting time of that spell.  The following is illustrative.  I really don’t know what percentages, etc. would be effective.  However, consider the pace of the battle given the above ‘round’ system…  Developers decide percentage, AP cost, etc… [or allow user to modify these in a game customize input page.]

Level 1 MU casts level 1 spell = uses 100% of base cast time.

Level 2 MU casts level 1 spell = uses   90% of base cast time.

Level 10 MU casts level 1 spell= use   10% of base cast time.

Level 10 MU casts level 5 spell= use   50% of base cast time.

Each 10% of MU time consumes an AP.  So, some spells take a long time to cast – perhaps the MU will stand and work on casting a powerful spell while the troops go through several rounds of movement.  Interesting?

Comments;

1. Archery - I like the idea of penalizing the accuracy of an archery unit that moves.
2. Unit Initiative - Trained units (Expert and Elite) should receive a bonus to their initiative.
3. Flank Attacks - There really needs to be some advantage for attacking a unit on the flank or its rear. I would like to see a rear attack impose a -25% morale penalty on the defender and trigger an immediate panic check.
4. I like the idea of unit commands - i.e. fortify, shield wall, charge, prtotective volley, counter spell, etc.

In terms of Flanking attacks, I dont know if it makes more sense to give a unit sides, or to penalize its defense for having more than one of its primary sides (flat sides, not diagonal) in contact with an enemy unit.

If facing matters, then you're going to have to deal with what happens when the unit turns to counter attack a unit. In other words, you will be able to game a unit into exposing its backside to a strong unit by simply having a fast unit move up and attack it.

For ranged units, I see very little reason for a ranged attack not to require a unit to not move, and use all of its actions. I'm willing to sacrifice quite a bit of realism for the sake of a compelling tactical combat experience.

I'm against "facing rules" in such a battle system.
That definitely requires that turning takes up movement points (or it would be ludicrous) and so introduces a wholly new level of micromanagement. Also it's the wrong time scale. With units "doing nothing" most of the time it just looks wrong that they would watch patiently while the enemy unit crashes into their flank. And yeah, it's too exploitable, IMO.

Purely positional rules better fit with the scale and it's easier to train the AI to make use of that.
The "value" of attacking from this square instead of from that square is easy enough to distinguish. With facing rules constantly changing the value, AI would be dealing with a very unstable system and could end up constantly chasing the dials without being able to "see" the right option. (nothing new there - just basic control theory)
Rules are only useful if the AI can use them, too.

I might be good if units got a chance for a 'free hit' (that might use AP, but if so it should be optional to take the chance) whenever an enemy moves out of an adjacent square (even if it is moving into another adjacent square), making it hard them from running passed the front line a beat up on archers and spell casters. Then flanking would be going around the front line as it usually refers to in large battles.