Simple, Reasonable Disengage/Retreat Rule

[Jubala]

I really don't care how it's done as long it is done and is somewhat logical and can't be abuse too easily. I just can't see no reason why a single frigate (for example) have to die when attacked by 25 battleships when it's clearly fast enough to run.

WWII would have been very interesting if a solid unpassable wall suddenly appeared behind the troops as soon the enemy was spotted.

- Sarge, they outnumber us ten to one, lets get the hell out of here.
- No can do corporal. They see us and the rules says we can't run then.
- That sucks sarge!
- Yeah, I know. Now charge them and hope you take one with you.

Doesn't sound like a likely scenario to me.

The way to get to your enemies fleet and kill it is to go after something your enemy has to defend. That way he'll either stay and fight giving you the chance to hurt him or he'll run and you'll still hurt him by taking/destroying what he was supposed to defend.

[Talenn]

Jubala et al:

Yeah, but WWII would have also been interesting if Naval Combat had had no inertia. Oh, and it would also be interesting if you werent allowed to fire until your enemy had done so..."Gee Sarge, they moved into range, can we bLast em now?"..."Easy Private, its not our turn yet. We'll get to fire as soon as they are all done"....

As you can see, tactical combat is an ABSTRACTION. Its not meant to be a 'realistic' space sim. What it does is give you the chance to pit your designs and tactics against the enemy's within the FRAMEWORK provided by the tactical engine. The 'no retreat wall' is simply another abstraction added in order to make the game work.

As I've pointed out before, there is going to be no simple way to implement retreats without screwing up the strategic game. I'd like to see them add something as an option so everyone can be happy. I just would NOT want to see it added without the option to turn it off. IMO, adding retreats without ALOT of other tweaking would result in an EXTREMELY boring multiplayer game.

If any of you ever played Lords of the Realm and LotR II, you might recall how easy it was to split your armies down, run in around the enemies territory and lay waste to their econ. Any time they tried to attack you, you just ran from the battle. It even included a 'morale penalty' for running, but a single army could still do it enough to ruin you. This is what would happen in SE4 too. Players would send fleet after fleet into your territory and never engage your fleets. You'd have to defend EVERY planet individually. I think the game would be HORRIBLE if a retreat system were to be tacked on.

The only way it could work IMO would be a pretty hefty re-vamp of the tactical engine, the ship design process (so smaller ships are faster and more maneuverable) and the strategic movement. Without those changes, the retreats will simply be another exploit for players to use.

Talenn

[Jubala]

Talenn, Yeah I know. It's an abstraction. And I agree WWII would have been very interesting if ships hadn't had inertia and the defender would have had to wait to fire until after the attacker.

For the record I don't really like the inertialess shipmovement in combat all that much but I can live with it.

But I really dislike the "I fire You fire" system we have now since it gives such a tremendous advantage to whoever gets to fire first. I have expressed this dislike in countless threads and suggested other systems I think would be better where both sides fire at the same time to eliminate the firstfire advantage. I won't go into detail here and now, but the bottomline is I'd be very happy if the combat system got an overhaul.

As for retreating ships/fleets causing havoc in your rear, that's what fixed defenses are for. And to avoid that you have stop them at the warppoints and that's what warp point defense is all about. And when conducting a warp point assault the only way to retreat would be back through the warp point. And if you don't want the enemy to run away from you need to have faster ships to run him down with and keep him engaged so he can't retreat and damage/cripple as many as possible for the main battleline to deal with once they catch up. That's what engine destroying weapons are for.

I think it can be done. I also agree it should be an option so those who want it can use it and those don't won't have to. I have seen many good ideas on how to implement it and with a little thinking and later testing I seriously believe it can be done and not be abusable.

Just came up with another idea on how to do it. Split every sector into quadrants (subsectors, whatever) with the center being surrounded by 8 adjacent quadrants. Like this:

XXX
XCX
XXX

Where your ships are at the end of combat is where they are in the sector after combat and their movement is limited by where the enemies ships are. A=Attacker who retreats, D=Defender, C=Center

Sectorquadrants:

XXX
ACD
XXX

Retreaters move choicies in systemsectors: C=Combatsector, B=Blocked, A=Available to move to, I=Chance of intercept depending on enemy orders.

AIB
ACB
AIB

With a kind of zone of control system like this (or related) the retreating player can't just sit out the battle and then move past the defender but has to circle around. That costs movement points which gives the defender a chance to intercept. It can still move back to where it came from which should be back home and if it isn't you're in trouble anyway. I'm not saying that this system alone would do the trick, it's just another idea the needs refining and combined with one or more of the others brought up here it should end up being a working system in the end.

[Seawolf]

Ok,

To all those guys who want to do a massive revamp of tactical combat here are some things to consider that are a MAJOR roadblock (IMHO)

1) Use of supplies while retreating. Can someone explain to me how a ship that has enough supplies to travel MONTHS! (as each game turn is a month) can use them up in 1 turn retreating from combat? If you running you are just using fuel and since in space you just get up to a speed and "coast" even that consumption isn't that much.

2) if stratigic movement (SM) is used to retreat they you need to keep track of how many SM's each fleet had before combat so that they don't go over their max amount. Which would allow that a ship that has faster engines still getting caught if they have less SM.

3) If you allow for unlimited SM after retreating then the ratio of movement between ships is all off. ( Hurm if I attack his fleet and retreat I can get to that wormhole this turn rather than next turn)

4) Which way does a fleet retreat too?

5) I could lead to never ending combats, my fleet runs, they follow, they run into another one of my fleets they run etc.

6) Turn rates?! I suggest if you want that level of detail play Star fleet battles.

7) The more factors you put into the game, the level of coding increases geometricly. Maybe a better solution would be to design an add-on program that we could use to play tactical combat and then have the results put back in to SE IV.


This is a empire high level kinda game. I think that the fact you can play with tactical combat is a great option and I love it! But to make this the focus of the game I think is a mistake.

As always this is IMHO.

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Seawolf on the prowl

[General Hawkwing]

Seawolf, that sums it very well.

[dmm]

quote:

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Originally posted by Seawolf:
Ok,

To all those guys who want to do a massive revamp of tactical combat here are some things to consider that are a MAJOR roadblock (IMHO)

1) Use of supplies while retreating. Can someone explain to me how a ship that has enough supplies to travel MONTHS! (as each game turn is a month) can use them up in 1 turn retreating from combat? If you running you are just using fuel and since in space you just get up to a speed and "coast" even that consumption isn't that much.

2) if stratigic movement (SM) is used to retreat they you need to keep track of how many SM's each fleet had before combat so that they don't go over their max amount. Which would allow that a ship that has faster engines still getting caught if they have less SM.

3) If you allow for unlimited SM after retreating then the ratio of movement between ships is all off. ( Hurm if I attack his fleet and retreat I can get to that wormhole this turn rather than next turn)

4) Which way does a fleet retreat too?

5) I could lead to never ending combats, my fleet runs, they follow, they run into another one of my fleets they run etc.

6) Turn rates?! I suggest if you want that level of detail play Star fleet battles.

7) The more factors you put into the game, the level of coding increases geometricly. Maybe a better solution would be to design an add-on program that we could use to play tactical combat and then have the results put back in to SE IV.


This is a empire high level kinda game. I think that the fact you can play with tactical combat is a great option and I love it! But to make this the focus of the game I think is a mistake.

As always this is IMHO.

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1) Haven't you noticed that going 7 sectors in a turn takes more fuel than going 3? So clearly they aren't using "get up to a speed and coast" engines. Sci-fi junkies know very well that space empires can't depend on 20th century, action-reaction engines. The amount of fuel that you'd have to carry is outrageous. Instead, you have to warp space or some wild idea like that. For such engines, it's not silly to propose that running at top speed uses fuel much faster than normal cruising.

2)& 3) I hadn't originally proposed using SM points to retreat. Just comparing max SM to max SM, in order to find relative top speeds. But you bring up a good point: a fleet with only 5 SM left out of 8 maybe shouldn't be allowed to outrun a fleet with 6 left out of 6. This might be the solution to the worries that people have about never being able to force a fast fleet into a decisive battle. If an attacker has SM=7 and defender only has SM=6, then the attacker would always use up at least 1 SM moving onto the defender, so now their remaining SM is tied (assuming the defender didn't move).

4) A retreating attacker moves back in a straight line in the direction he came from. A retreating defender moves in the direction opposite to the attacker's incoming direction. This allows the attacker to set the line of retreat. If the opponent gives chase, both fleets get moved. If the chaser catches the retreater, then combat takes place in the appropriate sector. This rule prevents an attacker from using retreats to get past a defender. Combine this with a rule that one can't retreat through a wormhole (because you have to use wormhole engines or something). So a slow fleet could pin a fast one up against a wormhole and force a battle. One wierd artifact is that you could also pin the enemy up against the system edge. Although that's another nice way to force a combat, it is just the kind of artificial boundary that we don't like in combat. However, we could come up with some sort of reasonable explanation for this much more easily than for combat. (Examples: you'd run into the Kuiper belt, you'd be too far from the star to use your gravitic engines, you'd run into the interstellar microwormholes, etc.)

5) I don't think that's likely to happen, unless the players are really stupid.

6) Just for the record, I never suggested that. It's a cool idea but probably beyond the scope of SEIV.

7) I really think that my retreat suggestion would not require much extra code. Your suggestion is also a good one: put in an option to have the tactical results entered manually. This has been suggested before, with regard to ground combat, and I think it is excellent.

I agree that MM shouldn't concentrate on the tactical too much. However, allowing retreats as I have suggested is meant to improve the _strategic_ part of the game. Also, trade and diplomacy are not very good at this point, and it is hard to win with just intel ops, so the combat part is most of the game.

Consider the following: Player A creates a warp point into B's system. He brings his 10-ship fleet through, intent on destroying colonies. But B has a 15-ship fleet nearby in that system (guarding a stable warp point). Under current rules, it wouldn't do A any good to split up his fleet, because B would just destroy them one after another using his whole fleet. But with my retreat rules, A can set B a strategic puzzle by breaking up his fleet. Should B keep his fleet together and maul most of A's ships while allowing some of them to attack his colony? Should B split up his fleet as well and try to take out all of A's ships? Or should B fall back on his colony(colonies)? That is all _strategy_.
Or consider if B has two 5-ship fleets, and they use all their MP to join up into a 10-ship fleet close to A's fleet. Player A attacks, thinking he can take them on, but once he sees them, he wishes he could retreat. Under the current system, he's dead. Under my suggested retreat rules, he's got a chance of running back to his wormhole. That is more realistic and improves the _strategic_ play of the game.

The only problem I see with my suggestion is that it creates more decisions for the AI to make.

[Seawolf]

dmm,


It was a post to eveeryone not just you. I also notice you didn't talk about the supply usage or the fact that some ships would get more movement than others.

As far as your example goes in A where you have a 10 ship fleet verses a 15 ship fleet ( I assuming that you are playing in a simultanous game otherwise this doesn't apply) if there is more than 1 colony to destroy if makes sense to split up your fleet and force him to do the same. if not you get a free shot at a colony or 2.

But in either example the strategy, IMO, is the decision you make to split the fleet or attack a group of ships. Not, having an out in case it was a bad decision.


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Seawolf on the prowl

[God Emperor]

I must agree with the earlier comment that the game is a strategic level game with a tactical option to test your ships, similar to MOO2. Combat should not dominate it.

However, does anyone have any comments on my earlier suggestion? - reproduced as follows;

I do like the idea though of factoring in ship speeds and relative supply levels into a retreat system. I know it would involve a bit of code but the following might help;

Include a retreat order option. If selected by a player, the code looks at the relative average speed and supply differences of the attackers warships and defenders (retreating player)ships (all ships, not just warships) and modifies the combat round length with 20 turns being the base. The calculated number could be kept hidden to keep a bit of suspense ("damn when is this combat round going to end", says the retreating player).

I would suggest that there be a minimum combat round length and a maximum (most players who want to retreat are usually dead by turn 30, so theres not too much point going beyong this).
The base 20 combat rounds would also help reduce the oddity of a tiny ship with 1 or 2 missiles taking out decent sized planet in one combat round.
Thoughts?

[Seawolf]

Since you didn't read my prior post it seems,

Supply should have no impact on retreat. If the ship has enough supplies to travel for months in space then they should be able to run away from a fight.

Can not average speed, if so then ships that would have been left behind would surive and that makes no sense.

WHy have min combat turns? if you can run away why would you hang around then run?

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Seawolf on the prowl

[God Emperor]

Supply, I tend to agree on, given the overall scale.

Minimum turns - that just reflects issues such as surprise or trapping of an opponent, although the tactical system doesnt reflect these scenarios in the ship dispositions. Primarily it is suggested just to make the system work ie not disrupt the strategic game level but provide a little variation in the tactical level.

As for how speed differences are taken into account, perhaps slower ships should be left behind. In the scheme of things it may not be such an issue, I for one tend to build colony and cargo warships (based on Destroyer and Lt Cruiser hulls in the early game) just to get that extra one movement point (maintenance cost is hardly ever an issue really) so my ships all have the same movement rate anyway....