[Jam3]

Originally posted by General Tacticus:

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Originally posted by Jam3:


Insofar as realism is concerned I would think that armies perform recon and determine enemy movements and plan theirs accordingly. I disagree that armies somehow maintain a posistion, choose a destination, with no information except a "best guess" then march out, possibly missing opposing forces entirely.

Actually from a "realism" point of view, in a fantasy world, one would think divining spells would be specifically crafted to recon and spy on ones enemy, especially an offensive army in ones own territory.

Well, in the medieval world, armies ran around each other sieging castles, and rarely met - and then only because both parties agreed to meet. Armies were just too small to effectively trap each other, and recon and information was very slow...

Of course, in a fantasy world, spells take care of some of the problems... as they do in Dom2
Did you know that "magical" attacks in Dominions take place before armies move ? You can use a magic to teleport your army on top of theirs, or to try to kill the commander, trapping the men, or summon a magical army. The only thing you can't do is guess where he is going... probably because the other side has its own diviners doing counter spells and looking at your army, to see where you're going so they can alter course accordingly.

Think about it : your diviners tells you he's moving north. You start moving to intercept. His diviners tell the ennemy commander you are moving north. He alters course to ambush you. You alter course to avoid the ambush. He alters course back to his original target... and nobody is going anywhere fast

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I find it really hard to believe that people really think that somehow medieval armies did not employ scouts, use spies, simply talk to people in the region they are in, and as the defender of an invaded land try to use ground that would be advantageous. Also the province partitioned map does not lend itself to the movements of these armies; geography, roads, towns, ports, etc were what really determined how movement worked, not some arbitrary turn based system (whether simultaneous or serial). And since you can't model this type of reality you should model it on pure gameplay alone. For single player this means, corraling the AI in simultaneous turns, or have a more classic style chess type serialized movement. I obviously like the chess type of gameplay.

History is full of examples showing how much good recon impacted the ensuing battles. By the way I have read alot of military oriented books, but I have started to find several shows on TV, namely the history channel, that have much more credible and current information. Namely there is a series called "battlefield detectives" that is absolutly outstanding.

I hate to speak with some air of authority on the european medival period(appx 1080a.d.-1415a.d.) as it is not my forte, I am more of a roman era person. But I know enough about the period to know that most assertions about the period about how stupid they were, how heavy there armor was, etc etc is nothing more than current day myth. I know that for any serious discussion about the period you have to understand heraldry, diplomacy of the royals, and ransom.


Also i think this type of comparison is fairly limited in its application of "realism" to FANTASY strategic games. I do agree than it does add alot to the general context, feel, and flavor of games like this. If the medieval period were at all applicable to any point of realism in this type of game you would have Knights that would roam the battlefield looking for someone of his own status to engage.

What simultaneous turn boils down to in its most absolute form for single player is "corraling the AI". By learning the behavior of the AI you simply count out turns and match up a movement phase into an intended target square, predictable and boring. All your doing with serial turns is eliminating this frivolity and getting down to a game of engagement and defense, something AI's are pretty good at, its like chess. Alot of this has to do with maturity of AI as a whole.

Now as far as multiplayer is concerned I think simulataneous is definetly the way to go. Not only does it speed the game up, human players are notoriously unpredictable making the "corralling" a mini game in and of itself.