Oh boy alot of questions

[Saxon]

Just to be clear, there is a chance that armies will meet if they cross each other’s path. I was having a tough time with one game, as we kept going for each other’s province on the same turn. I do not know how the location was chosen, but when I ended up defending, my army did not move, even though I had told it to.

I knew I could win and did so, three times in a row. The problem was, I was defending each time!

You will notice it when you win the battle and then look at the map expecting to be holding the province you attacked. Instead, you are where you started. When you read carefully, you will see what happened.

As for realism, I throw my chips in the corner which holds real movement takes place at the same time and it is hard to tell where someone else is going. Holding on to what you take is hard, so while stopping the rampaging army is hard, it is also tough for them to hold on to what they take. Sure, I hate it when someone gets through my front lines, but that is as it should be.

There are 2 distinct movement phases. The Friendly Movement phase and the Moving into Enemy Territory Phase. The Friendly phase is before the Enemy phase, so if you guess right, you can move an army into a previously undefended position where you opponent thinks you are weak and end up defending it.

The main issue is the fact that the magic phase is before both phases, so you can lay on the magical pain with the full knowledge of where armies are if you have proper scouts/intel.

[General Tacticus]

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

[ January 21, 2004, 09:49: Message edited by: General Tacticus ]

[Jam3]

Originally posted by General Tacticus:

quote:

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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.