SE IV The End Of An Era.

[PvK]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:

quote:

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Originally posted by PvK:

Combat Mission is an excellent example of that stye of play. I like it, but there are weaknesses even in such a well-done rendition. One is it relies on an extremely good tactical AI, which Combat Mission has but SE and SF don't.

So? SE5 would suffer the same from lack of a good combat AI with any combat model, other than the Starcraft-style RTS model, which noone wants.

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I was saying that Combat Mission needs more sophisticated AI than many other designs, to work well, and that may be an issue with similar designs for SE5. The Combat Mission tactical AI is very complex and well-done. It's still a source of frustration and limitation at times, though. If it were done about as well as the AI in SE4 or Star Fury, Combat Mission might be an frustrating disaster, with units shooting each other, vehicles ramming each other, dropping artillery on itself, etc. Part of this is because the system puts the details of execution under AI control for a while, to react to the real-time action as it unfolds. I can easily imagine falling into a similar design in SE5, with some big issues. It doesn't have to be that way, but it's a danger.

At least with full-control turn-based orders as in SE4, there is no danger of "the AI did something really stupid and I lost my fleet because of it!" Well, there is if you don't break formation in tactical combat...

PvK

[Siegebreaker]

It could be dual turn-based & RTS, like Fallout Tactics, with in RTS units moving and firing as long as they have action points.
I don't think that game its that much of a click fest.
(Oh well, yes it is. )

[ March 01, 2004, 20:07: Message edited by: SB ]

[narf poit chez BOOM]

*staggers out of the thread, muttering something about 'not even thinking of reading all that!'*

[Captain Kwok]

Aside from 'real-time' combat resolution, another idea I see viable for SE:V that can eliminate most of the quirks with the current SE:IV system is some sort of 'staggered' turn-based movement. Rather than Player 1 moves all his ships and fires, then player 2 moves all his ships and fires - have movement alternate between them like this:

Player 1 - Ships A,B,C
Player 2 - Ships X,Y,Z

Order of Movement/Fire
A-X-B-Y-C-Z

This is more like 'real-time' in its execution and will go a long way in improving combat, and from a programming aspect much easier to do.

Battles between fleets of unequal size can still be handled rather easily, if a player is outnumbered 3:1, then the player moves only 1 of his ships for 3 of his opponents etc.

[Atrocities]

Originally posted by David E. Gervais:
I downloaded, installed and played the demo of GalCiv and I was not at all impressed. It played like someone made a turn based arcade game. (think pac man one turn at a time) I would not call GalCiv the Queen to SE:IV's kingdom, it's an In-Law at best.

But hey, I've seen oogles of Ads promoting GalCiv, and even though it's not as good as SE:IV I bet about 1000 times the number of people have heard of it.

But I digress, I already *****ed a bit about this in another thread.

Nuf Said, Cheers!

There sales for Last year out paced SEIV 10,000 to one. Advertising does wonders for the bottom line. You have to spend money to make money.

Also the game is sold in stores.

[klausD]

However there are also clever turn-based mechanics to avoid such problems (which Malfador hasn't found yet by Version SE4 Gold 1.91), and it's of course possible to still have dumb problems with a real-time system (see collisions and point defense in Star Fury, for examples).

Yes, this is an old problem. Sometimes I think the designers of computer wargames do never take a look to board wargames. The most problems arising with computer game rule design are already solved by SPI, Avalanche or AH years and decades before.

So the problem of the ship initiative in SE4 could be solved with formation activation as beautiful depicted in the panzergrenadier series of Avalanche Press.

bye
KlausD

[Paul1980au]

Well a more advanced and adaptable AI combat system in SE5 would be helpful

[Fyron]

The "clunkiness" can often be replaced by other problems, though (e.g. Star Fury).

Please stop comparing games of entirely different, unrelated genres. It hurts your arguments more than helps them.

It's possible to needlessly overlook strengths in both ways. Yes computers can do things board games can't. But that doesn't mean computer game designers can't take advantage of many solutions and concepts from interesting board games. The point was that it's frustrating to see games with lots of potential that suffer from some needlessly limited game mechanics.

Such as turn based combat, which is needlessly limited.