Malfador, Bring back retreat option from SEIII

PvK · #1 February 20th, 2002, 02:32 AM

Ok, let me quote a smaller part. Regarding your colony ship example:

quote:
Originally posted by geoschmo:
... This has the effect of greatly increasing the speed of the colony ship in relative to the attacker.

I don't think it increases the speed of the colony ship in any way. Say it is speed 5 and the warship is speed 6 (the typical ion engine example). In the first place, if the colony ship used its strategic movement on its turn (the usual situation), then it can't retreat and gets stomped immediately. However, if the colony ship didn't move at all on its turn, then it will be able to retreat five times. If the warship starts adjacent to the colony ship, it will be able to try to engage it six times, and on the sixth time, it will catch and stomp the colony ship. This actually coincides quite accurately with what would be expected for a speed 6 ship to catch a speed 5 ship that is one sector away and wants to flee - in a precise simultaneous movement system, this is exactly what would happen.

PvK

Marco · #2 February 20th, 2002, 10:09 AM

I completely second the system explained by PvK, but I think there is some more point to solve:
1. What happen if the retreat movement is in a strategic location with others enemy units, may be from another player ? In this case another tactical battle begins among three or more players, very difficult to handle with the new retreat option. A possible solution: prevent retreat in strategic locations with enemy units.
2. The direction of the retreat in the strategic map: a “forward retreat” tactic to bypass enemy units, let say a enemy blocking fleet at a warp point, must be allowed or not ?

Marco

geoschmo · #3 February 21st, 2002, 02:54 AM

Pvk, You are correct to a point. When I stated that the slower ship is gaining speed, I was talking about the fact that in the combat screen the attacker can close on them, and then after they retreat and the attacker persues, they are back to the same distance at the begining of the next combat.

You have a good point about in a true simultaneous motion system the attacker and the colony ship would reach the same point at about the same time the colony ship ran out of movement points. Of course the attacker doesn't actually have to reach the same point as the colony ship, only reach the point of where their weapons can be in range. But coding that would probably complicate matters so much that it wouldn't be worth it.

SEIV doesn't have true simultaneous turn movement. What he has done is break up the turn into 30 "days", and then a ship with 6 movement poinst gets to move every 5 days, and a ship with 5 movement points gets to move every 6 days.

I suppose that allowing retreat would simulate the effect, but really combat should not occur to begin with, until the persuer catches up to the colony ship.

Geoschmo

PvK · #4 February 21st, 2002, 02:18 AM

quote:
Originally posted by geoschmo:
...
I suppose that allowing retreat would simulate the effect, but really combat should not occur to begin with, until the persuer catches up to the colony ship.

Yes, definitely, unless only some of the ships retreat. That is, the game should determine which ships are retreating and if they have the speed to do so and a legitimate retreat direction, and then only start a combat where there are ships that aren't running or that are too slow to get away.

PvK

Edit/P.S.: Of course, ships should still be able to change their minds during combat and retreat, for example if they get bLasted but still have speed.

[ 21 February 2002: Message edited by: PvK ]

PvK · #5 February 21st, 2002, 02:23 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Marco:
I completely second the system explained by PvK, but I think there is some more point to solve:
1. What happen if the retreat movement is in a strategic location with others enemy units, may be from another player ? In this case another tactical battle begins among three or more players, very difficult to handle with the new retreat option. A possible solution: prevent retreat in strategic locations with enemy units.
2. The direction of the retreat in the strategic map: a “forward retreat” tactic to bypass enemy units, let say a enemy blocking fleet at a warp point, must be allowed or not ?

Marco

Yes these both have to be resolved.

SE III denied retreats into sectors with hostile ships.

I mentioned earlier that forward retreats have to be limited somehow. I thought SE3 did pretty well by simply basing retreat direction on map edge used. Thus, it was possible (in tactical combat, anyway) to break through enemy forces, but only if you actually did so in tactical combat.

PvK

Marco · #6 February 21st, 2002, 10:21 AM

Quote:
--------------------------------------------------
I mentioned earlier that forward retreats have to be limited somehow. I thought SE3 did pretty well by simply basing retreat direction on map edge used. Thus, it was possible (in tactical combat, anyway) to break through enemy forces, but only if you actually did so in tactical combat.
PvK
--------------------------------------------------

Sadly I never played SE III, nevertheless I agree this is a possible valid solution, but my question was about the strategic implications of this tactic, specially for AI players. In the situation of a warp point defended by a blocking fleet, how the defender can counter the tactic of waves of fasts ships slipping trough the blockade by forward retreat ? If the forward retreating ships are not pursued, they are free to attack the supposed defended quadrant, if they are pursued, the defending fleet must abandon his blockade position, may be allowing other enemy ships, with movement left, to enter the quadrant. This situation is difficult to handle even for a human player and I doubt a effective counter tactic can be developed for AI. This would eventually result in an advantage for the attacking player, specially against AI defending players, which can unbalance the game.
But this is just my opinion, may be in SE III forward retreat works fine.
Marco.

PvK · #7 February 21st, 2002, 11:42 AM

With tactical combat in SE III, you can use a warp point to retreat, which I always thought was neat and appropriate.

In SEIII I think the AI won't use warp points when retreating, but will run for the nearest map edge, so it is possible to break through a warp point IF your ships are fast enough or survivable enough to get through the defenders intact. In fact, I remember designing warp point blockade runner ships with retreat orders to try to do this versus a human player blocking a warp point, although I didn't end up using them.

With the defender firing first (as of Gold), I would expect the situation to be OK - a warp point defense fleet would get to bLast anything coming through, but it might be possible to try to break through - sounds interesting rather than a balance problem to me.

A ship that manages to break through a warp point will need a speed advantage of two to be able to elude pursuit from the defenders in turn-based mode. With retreat implemented though, it seems like a "pursue" yes/no order might be called for for simultaneous mode games.

To work really well, the whole issue will doubtless want some careful design, then testing and tweaking, and should probably be an option that can be turned off if desired.

PvK