What about interactive Tactical Combat ?

[PhilD]

Graeme Dice said:
I'd love to see a combat simulator that came with a fully featured input mechanism that would allow you to run hundreds and thousands of test combats based on an easily set up input file. I think that's just the researcher in me talking though.

Hey, I don't want to turn experimenting in dominion into real work, but yeah, some automation would be nice. I'd still prefer manual setup (with a possibility of editing your last setup, say - that would be good enough; being allowed to copy things over from a game in progress, like an army and total research, would be gravy).

[Taqwus]

A combat simulator would be useful, provided it did include such things as research, gem allocation, a palette of items, scripting, et al.

Regarding orders, I'm still seeing some fairly silly friendly-fire -- ex. a death mage casting Soul Vortex when surrounded by living friendlies with no enemies anywhere near, and no real prospect that there -will- be enemies near (given the 'surrounded by living friendlies' instance). Wouldn't mind non-routing units also not playing Follow the Hydra, running straight into Clouds of Death, et al. *shrug* And nature mages are a wee bit happy with Touch of Madness... casting it on one's pretender seems slightly sacrilegious. ;p

[UninspiredName]

Another thing such a huge change would do is kind of slow down the multi-player. Seems like it would be a pain to need to wait for an opponent to input commands for every turn of a battle.

And I also like the current method. One cool feature would be to give units more commander-like choices for actions as they get more experience. And it wouldn't be that hard to make a 'Fire carefully' command, would it?

[Gandalf Parker]

The simulator that Johan uses is horrible.
Personally I found this to be easier
http://www.dom2minions.com/Mini.shtml

It gives you a mini map of just a few provinces and two test armies. You start an Era 1 game selecting the Mini map, start as Arcos and Ermor (human players on both), then have the armies both attack then empty province next to them.

Edit the .map file (its plain text) for different armies armies to try other simulations. You can use any units, give equipment, give gems, give spells, give experience. Prior to the combat you can set combat actions to try different tactics. This is a fairly easy way to test it over and over.

[NTJedi]

Gandalf Parker said:
You can use any units, give equipment, give gems, give spells, give experience.

Currently there's a bug with giving nations spells at the start of a game via map edit commands. Basically the spells are only available for the first turn... then PoooOF the spells are no longer available. This is probably effects battle spells too.

[Gandalf Parker]

Well first turn is about all I need to test an army against another army. Or does it poof before that first combat?

[Hullu]

I think a combat simulator would be a bad thing.

People would use it in MP to optimize and calculate odds. Sure, it's hard to get exact information about the enemy but it's doable with scout forces(attack, station a few cheap squads near the middle of map, with retreat order(s)). And once you have approximate information and approximate information abuot enemy orders - you could just brute force the 'perfect' tactic for yourself pitting the army you saw against your 'main army'. Definitely this would be a huge advantage compared to if you weren't using it.

Thus, I find combat simulator a bad thing.

[Agrajag]

Considering how you can already do that if you really want to, this isn't a good reason not to add a combat simulator...

[Endoperez]

Agrajag said:
Considering how you can already do that if you really want to, this isn't a good reason not to add a combat simulator...

Err... I think you just said that the fact that we can already do everything a combat simulator would let us do isn't a good reason not to make a combat simulator.

[Agrajag]

Endoperez said:

Err... I think you just said that the fact that we can already do everything a combat simulator would let us do isn't a good reason not to make a combat simulator.

Yep, I just did.
Because a combat simulator will make it a lot easier and more comfortable.
Just like we can already give a unit special abilities using #copystats, but its still much better to have a new command for what we want.
Or just like you can make 5000$ if you work hard enough, but you'd still rather get the same amount of money and work less. Or do you like working for 1$ an hour?