Combat Initiative...

[Crash]

I believe making weapon firing simultaneous would make the tactical combat system more fair, though I admit that it'd be even more tedious to have seperate movement and firing phases for each side.

About initiative and missile dancing, just don't dance. Launch your salvos, and take your licks. Alternately, if you believe the mechanics give you an unfair advantage vs the A.I., research different paths, try using torps or hellbores as your main battery of choice. Reserve any missile installation to satellites or other non-mobile units. Just my 2 cents.

Crash.

[Talenn]

Crash:

Of course you can simply choose not to exploit holes in the AI. I do it all the time in SE4. It makes for a far better and enjoyable game.

But I think it is something that should be addressed at some point. If it cant be fixed, then missiles should be altered in some way IMO. Players shouldnt be forced to not use certain mainstream weapons if at all possible.

As far the combat initiative goes, this is EXTREMELY important in MP games IMO. Going first is a tremendous advantage to have all the time and it really unbalances the game IMO. And it would certainly help the AI if it was allowed to go first in combats from time to time and I'm all for adjustments that will help out the AI.

Barnacle Bill:

As stated earlier in the post, retreat from combat would cause alot of problems on the strategic level of the game. I agree that intuitively, ships should be able to retreat from combat, but within the current game system its a bad idea IMO.

Picture this situation: Enemy fleet moves into a system where you have 3 or 4 planets. You have a defense fleet orbiting the main planet. The enemy is in range to hit a couple of the planets on their next move. How do you defend? If you attack the fleet, they simply retreat and then stomp on whatever planets they like. If you take away their movement the next turn you either 1) simply delay the inevitable while they tie down your fleet into attacking them every turn or 2) retreat is STILL pointless as you are locked 'strategically'.

Sure, you can always choose to defend the warp points but then why bother having the rest of the system maps? Just have Warp points and planets as that is all that will ever matter. No battles will ever be fought in space as the weaker force will always retreat. IMO, there is no way to implement a retreat system that cant be exploited given the 'IGO-UGO' turn system. Maybe someone can come up with one, but I seriously doubt one that isnt ridiculously complicated can fill the role.

Thanx,
Talenn

[evan42]

quote:

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Originally posted by Talenn:

Sure, you can always choose to defend the warp points but then why bother having the rest of the system maps? Just have Warp points and planets as that is all that will ever matter. No battles will ever be fought in space as the weaker force will always retreat. IMO, there is no way to implement a retreat system that cant be exploited given the 'IGO-UGO' turn system. Maybe someone can come up with one, but I seriously doubt one that isnt ridiculously complicated can fill the role.

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Actually, this problem has been solved in many other strategy games. I have been playing a game called Stars for a long time, and it too has a battle board (but much much smaller).

Basically, when a ship wants to retreat, it will take a fixed number of turns. So, let's say it will take 10 turns to retreat from a battle in SE4. When the retreating ship runs to the edge of the map trying to avoid the attacker. If the attacker can apply enough damage to the retreating ship before the 10th turn, it wins. Otherwise, the other ship will successfully retreat from the battle.
I am not too sure about the exact number of turns for a ship (with 3 movement points) to move across the battle map. If it takes 10 turns to do it, then we can make it 12 turns to retreat from the battle. That will give the attacker 2 turns to attack. If the ships involved has higher movement points, then it will take even less time to move through the map.
So if the retreating ships has higher MP than the attacker, then it might retreat without a scratch. OTOH, a slower or same speed retreating ship will have to endure at least 2 turns of attacks to retreat.

[ColdSteel]

Evan42,

I think that sounds like a balanced solution and would work. Wonder if MM ever tried that and, if so, why they didn't implement it.

[Talenn]

Evan and Coldsteel:

IMO, that would still not work. Dont get me wrong, I'd LIKE to see retreat be an option, but not at the cost of no longer being able to fight decisive battles. And that systems for retreats still doesnt solve that problem IMO.

Its nearly impossible to cross the tactical map in 10 turns (or whatever) let alone actually inflict meaningful damage. Even if you lengthened the time required to 15 or so, it still wouldnt be enough to stop someone from simply refusing to give battle if that was their intention (and it would be every time they felt outgunned). I think ColdSteel summed it up well if you interpret the 30 turn limit as the 'auto-retreat'. Maybe it should only end the combat in 30 turns if one side has pushed a 'retreat button'? If that was done, I'm sure that it would FEEL different and that retreat was possible.

No, something far more complex would be required I'm afraid. IMO it would require an actual 'inertia' movement system so you cant simply reverse direction at will etc. Then you could require a player to enter with 'x' base velocity (maybe based on their movement strategically beforehand?). If they could overcome or convert their velocity and then still be able to turn around and run, then fine. That would also give the enemy time to build velocity for pursuit etc. But that is adding whole new layers of complexity to the game--turn modes or whatnot and thrust capacity etc. It would be neat, but prolly aint gonna happen any time soon.

Given the current 'abstract' movement system, any form of retreat will be far too easy to accomplish before the enemy can prevent it and we are left with the strategic impasse that I mentioned below. Trust me, I've worked on many a turn based game system and its a difficult problem to solve. Even games like Age of Wonders (fantasy turn based) eventually had to adopt a system in which only the attacker could retreat.

The ability to force a decisive conflict MUST be present or the game falls apart. As of yet, I dont see how a system that allows the weaker force an easy escape to be able to still have decisive battles.

Talenn

[This message has been edited by Talenn (edited 01 January 2001).]

[Barnacle Bill]

Talenn:

Under my proposal, you could only retreat if the other side doesn't have a speed advantage.

If you are faster, you SHOULD be able to evade the defenders in open space and get at the planets.

This is realistic. Let's look at the early 20th century naval paradigm. A force of "fast" (30 knot) battleships could evade an intercepting force of "slow" (25 knot) battleships and accomplish its mission.

How do you defend against this? First off, it gives smaller but faster ships an important role throughout the game to delay raiders until your heavies can catch up. This would be true both at the tactical level (preventing retreat) and at the system level (intercepting a heavier raiding force with the intent of sacrificing themselves to hopefully inflict engine damage on enough raiders that the raiding force cannot outrun your heavy force that arrives later).

Admittedly, it would work best with proportional movement at the system level.

Something could also be done similar to "Stars" in which ships can be ordered to intercept an opposing force. It seems like in one of the MOO games, enemy seekers moved during your turn - one square toward your ship on which they were targeting every time your ship moved one square. Sort of automated proportional movement. A fleet ordered to intercept an enemy fleet would move like that during the enemy's turn, borrowing against its movement allowance from your next turn. Fleets could be given orders to intercept anything coming through a warp point, with options for threshholds (number and/or type of ship) and/or ignoring the first "x" targets that warp in. This would limit the ability of the invader to decoy the interceptors and set up sort of a guessing game (which is very realistic - look at real life naval history).

Finally, the best defense is a good offense. If your own raiders wack the enemy refueling bases they won't have the endurance to reach deep into your territory. This could be enhanced by eliminating quantum reactors. Purpose-built raiders would have to sacrifice weapons for fuel load-out. While I was at it, I'd doctor the ship designs & components to make sure you can only build a cheap tanker on a slow "freighter" type hull and extending warship range would be expensive in both resources and hull space.

[ColdSteel]

Talenn,

I see the point. After thinking about it some more I think that we have to consider the 30 turns a "tactical combat round". In between these combat rounds, weaker ships that survive the initial round have a chance to flee if they desire. So, in SE4 retreat actually occurs but it occurs outside of tactical combat altogether and between the "rounds". I think this is one of those cases where the SE4 combat and the MOO combat, though sharing many similarities, also have some profound differences that aren't apparant until you play it a while. I'm having to restructure how I think about it for SE4.

I think this is where a decent (thick) manual that at least outlines this kind of stuff would have been helpful for those just learning the game. Let's hope someone, somewhere puts something like that together.