What about interactive Tactical Combat ?

[Taqwus]

Hullu said:
One more comment on the information people.

*snip gratuitously insulting strawman*

Try again without a bogus reductio ad absurdum. You don't play Dominions 3 blindfolded, do you? If not, you play with information. The question is what information is one likely to have.

I submit that any sane commander will, given time to prepare, attempt to determine his troops' capabilities before ever seeing an enemy. Ever hear about training exercises and war games? At the moment, you can't even see the placement of your troops without a battle -- if your squads are large enough, you can get some fairly silly or dangerous results. It would also be obvious to see how mixed-unit squads behave, what commanders might consider casting or doing -after- they've finished their scripts, how eager your troops are to charge through killing clouds, et al.

If you wish to object to excessive information, the obvious points to object to include the lack of fog of war during battle replay regardless of whether it's real or simulated -- you know EXACTLY what happened, which is tricky -- while you may be able to count bodies on the field if you win, would you really know how many enemies were wounded, or what was cast, or all the equipment belonging to enemy leaders? Units are never misidentified or miscounted. In particular, information would justifiably be worse with a rout, while individual details are more likely to be lost in a large battle... and if everybody dies and you have no scouts there, where are your eyewitnesses?