Repel attempt bonuses

[PvK]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
... While we see the whole combat played out in detail in dom to me what is key is that the unit vs unit balence is good.
... The details are cute but I would not change one to be more "realistic" unless it improved general balence so I think thats the sort of question we need to ask. ...

Keeping in mind my Version of the suggestion (i.e. as below, giving full-damage in repel attacks, but never more than one attack per turn, and no repel for units which had just attacked)... I would expect that the balance implications would be:

* Weapon length would be slightly more important.

* High-morale units would be more affected by enemy weapon length.

* High-damage-capacity units would be more affected by enemy weapon length.

I don't expect it would be unbalancing. I think it would just make the length factor a little more important, and a little more important in situations where it currently isn't important (especially, high-morale units who aren't about to die froma 1-point hit). I would expect balance to be improved.

Part of what I'm trying to say is that ancients combat is not something you reason out using commen sense. You need to read as many primary and secondary sourcs as possible and focus on what the ancients consider the salient features of combat.

I agree with that point, particularly for a game trying to be historically accurate. While Dominions has some nice elements of historical accuracy, however, it's about pseudo-historical units, often a-historical matchups, and also lots of fantastic and magical elements. There is a really enormous number of possible match-ups, most with no historical precedent, so I would contend that the main effort should be to have mechanics that make some sense, so that as many matchups will play out in reasonable, intuitive, and understandable ways.

Moreover, for the question at hand, for the point you made to be relevant, one would have to assume or imply that the existing mechanic is the result of careful historical research, and that it offers superior results to a more common-sense mechanic. I don't know the devs' reasoning for the 1-point max damage on repel, but my expectation is that it's not because of scientific/historical group-combat results analysis.

I assume the reason IW has repel do max one damage is a design decision to only apply so much complexity to the problem. It might be a bit of a chore to implement something more like I suggest, and the current mechanic at least gives some fairly-reasonable effect of weapon length, without the over-simplification leading to unbalanced results. That is, if you allow a full-strength attack, you need to keep track of who has attacked and when they can next attack, in order to avoid someone getting too many attacks per turn. That would be more complicated to implement and more complicated to explain to players, so I expect they decided it wasn't worth the effort and the current solution was good enough.

To stay on track, what I've been saying all along is that ideally, if IW agrees it'd be worth their time, I'd like to see it work this other way. Overall, the existing mechanic is ok, just a little bit silly and insignificant in some cases that don't seem to make sense, because of the 1-hit damage part.

...
So how should a Giant hitting a body of spearmen be represented? I think if the Giant manages to close then there is no problem in it getting the first real strike. It has brushed aside the opposing spears as the holders trembled in fear and burst into their ranks.
...

How a giant plays out versus a bunch of spearmen is relevant, but is only one combination of a nearly-infinite number. However, it's as good example as many of how the current situation is somewhat unfair and inappropriate. Why would you say there is no problem and assume it has brushed aside spears? Why would anything do that without a specific ability to do so? I'd say it should only be able to do that if it in fact does manage to avoid, brush, or shrug off the attacks, and that ideally there would be appropriate mechanics for this. Mechanics that make sense are the best way to get results that make sense, when an infinite number of detailed combinations are possible.

PvK

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
So how should a Giant hitting a body of spearmen be represented? I think if the Giant manages to close then there is no problem in it getting the first real strike. It has brushed aside the opposing spears as the holders trembled in fear and burst into their ranks.

The closest historical equivalents I can think of are all those colorful battles that took place in the hellenistic era. Elephants routed light troops easily, but when facing steady pezetairoi they were in deep, deep trouble.

[Keir Maxwell]

Not quite the right analogy Nagot as I did say spearmen and a Giant not a pike block or even a hopilite phalanx. Better to use the example of an elephant crashing into spearmen which is much more of an unclear issue and very dependent on morale and organisation of the spearmen in question. Repulse attempts should probably include the morale of both sides in the calculation.

In general I feel it is not worthwhile trying to amend the Dom II combat system to make it fit better with the realities of individual combat. Rather we should be looking at the troop type matchups and trying to get them right and improving the unit feel of the game. I'd love to see push backs and well trained troops showing greater cohesion etc. However I recognise these are major changes and not part of the immediate priorities.

I do think history has a huge importance for understanding the way combat in dominions should work. While there are obviously many departures from reality in dominions there is a historically inspired core to Dom and getting that "right" will make the rest fell more plausible.

Enough from me.

Ciao

Keir

[Pocus]

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:

quote:

---

Originally posted by PvK:


Another thing that could help the whole combat resolution, would be to shuffle the moves of all melee units, rather than having an entire side all move at the same time. Missile units could still all fire in Groups. This would help reduce an entire mob getting to attack before their enemies, based on an accident of which entire group moved into range first.

PvK

A long time ago we tried to implement simultaneous moves, but it introduced several problems and the battles were much more difficult to inspect and understand with mages casting spells from side to side. We decided it was not a good solution.

---

this is very intriguing. Would you care to expand your answer? Why it posed problems? A system with simultaneous moves seems to be far more realistic AND fun. Was it a balance question, or a coding problem?

Have you played the GMT serie of ancient battles? There was this kind of system, with better leaders trumping the weaker ones. I always liked the game flow resulting from this mechanic.

[Mortifer]

Originally posted by Pocus:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:

quote:

---

Originally posted by PvK:


Another thing that could help the whole combat resolution, would be to shuffle the moves of all melee units, rather than having an entire side all move at the same time. Missile units could still all fire in Groups. This would help reduce an entire mob getting to attack before their enemies, based on an accident of which entire group moved into range first.

PvK

A long time ago we tried to implement simultaneous moves, but it introduced several problems and the battles were much more difficult to inspect and understand with mages casting spells from side to side. We decided it was not a good solution.

---

this is very intriguing. Would you care to expand your answer? Why it posed problems? A system with simultaneous moves seems to be far more realistic AND fun. Was it a balance question, or a coding problem?

Have you played the GMT serie of ancient battles? There was this kind of system, with better leaders trumping the weaker ones. I always liked the game flow resulting from this mechanic.

---

Hm actually this is a good suggestion. I guess it wasnt a coding problem btw. KJ will let us know propably.

[PvK]

My counter-suggestion on the simultaneous issue, would be to have spellcasters and missile attackers alternate from side to side as they currently do, but have units who are moving or doing melee attacks, have their sequence mixed up between sides. This would keep the efficiency and clarity for missile and magic events, and keep the nice "barrage" missile attacks. Melee would look a bit more chaotic and it might be harder to see who hacked whom when, but it would help the "balance" issues of entire armies moving and attacking all at once while the enemy front units can't do much.

PvK

[Chris Byler]

Originally posted by PvK:
My counter-suggestion on the simultaneous issue, would be to have spellcasters and missile attackers alternate from side to side as they currently do, but have units who are moving or doing melee attacks, have their sequence mixed up between sides. This would keep the efficiency and clarity for missile and magic events, and keep the nice "barrage" missile attacks. Melee would look a bit more chaotic and it might be harder to see who hacked whom when, but it would help the "balance" issues of entire armies moving and attacking all at once while the enemy front units can't do much.

PvK

There's a problem with that suggestion: the same unit can move and fire in the same turn (happens all the time when firing at fleeing enemies, in fact).

I don't really like the advantage given to the army that strikes first, either, but I think it's a symptom of a deeper problem: melee combat is too deadly too fast. That is why missile troops are less effective, battlefield magic is weak, armor is too powerful: melees are over in 2 or 3 rounds, before missiles or magic can do much damage and before fatigue can accumulate. Because melees are over in 2 or 3 rounds, the first strike is much more important.