What about interactive Tactical Combat ?

[UninspiredName]

I like the idea of a Battle Simulator, personally. It's hard to abuse it for multi-player reasons, considering how many unknowns you need to consider when looking at an enemy army, even with scouts. Scouting doesn't mention the four Magi the enemy has with the army, that one of them was (For some reason) empowered to cast Blade Wind, and that the Archers have experience 3. Even if you attack with that scout to get some more information you still can't predict Morale checks, projectile deviation, Magic Resistance saves, etc. And even after that attack, you still don't know the scripts for later turns, if the foe will add more units, if a Global Enchantment will be cast, or many other things.

I can't imagine it would be that hard to program in either, since it's basically lettting the player punch in variables for something the program's already doing.

[Sindai]

I think a battle simulator would be really cool.

If nothing else to try out all of the really expensive summons and spells that you rarely get to use in a full game.

[Hullu]

One more comment on the information people.

Wouldn't it then be cool that you could simulate all the battlers before you submit your turn.

"If there enemy doesn't bring reinforcements, do I win?"

I think it would utterly ruin the game. But it's more information, so the people who want information would definitely want the game to just tell you if you win or lose even before you fight? It'd be fun playing then when you'd know all you'd be losing in every fight (unless conditions change, they don't always change). And against indeps they never change, what fun would taking indies be after that! "Hmm, if I move this squad two suares to the north, I reduce my losses from 2 units to 0, whee!".

Too much information is bad. Enough information is good, and enough is a personal preference.

I think Dominions is pretty well around the 'enough' for me right now, there's some details I'd like to know, but definitely I don't want to be able to check my battles before I fight them.

[Twan]

If Johan has the time to work on the tactical engine I would prefer anything improving the tactical battles in the actual game (more choices of orders, better AI, etc) over a battle simulator. I am not strongly against the concept but don't think it's so necessary (adding 2 or 3 map commands, to determine the dominion of a province, the research levels of a nation at start etc..., would make any simulations possible, and looks easier to do than a whole program).

About tactical MM, I've also not the same opinion as many people here. Having more choices will never be seen as a bad thing by me, I would be glad to have options like playing with longer scripts, deciding how long the troops hold before attacking or chosing the spells the tactical AI is allowed to use. The strategical part of the game has lot of possible different settings, I would like to have as many options for the tactical part.

[Cainehill]

Hullu said:
One more comment on the information people.

Wouldn't it then be cool that you could simulate all the battlers before you submit your turn.

"If there enemy doesn't bring reinforcements, do I win?"

I think it would utterly ruin the game. But it's more information, so the people who want information would definitely want the game to just tell you if you win or lose even before you fight? It'd be fun playing then when you'd know all you'd be losing in every fight (unless conditions change, they don't always change). And against indeps they never change, what fun would taking indies be after that! "Hmm, if I move this squad two suares to the north, I reduce my losses from 2 units to 0, whee!".

*yawn* One note Johnny, the way Dom works, you can have the _exact_ same battle, with the same troops, same scripting, and win with zero casualties one time, and get butchered another time. Or have you forgotten the pretty darn significant random factor? Spell / missile targeting - one time they hit friendly units, another time they hit the enemy. One time a key commander gets spells off, the next time they fail an MR roll or get killed by an arrow. One time a unit keeps fighting with 75% casualties, another time they turn and run after taking two minor arrow wounds.

[thejeff]

True, but if it's trivial to run the battle a few dozen (hundred?) times, it won't be hard to minimize losses.

Much more significant is that you can't know what your opponent forces and scripting actually are.

[Hullu]

Much more significant is that you can't know what your opponent forces and scripting actually are.

You can get a pretty good idea about that if you feed some sheep to them before the big fight. Although you can't know them exactly, you might now them better than a 'wild guess'.

[PhilD]

Hullu said:

You can get a pretty good idea about that if you feed some sheep to them before the big fight. Although you can't know them exactly, you might now them better than a 'wild guess'.

... which means, if you get to fight some random "retreat" scouts, you should change your scripts. Maybe just reverting left/right (top/bottom in the scripting screen) could work, if you don't feel like really changing your battle order (I have no idea how precise people's battle orders can be).

But, the random factor is pretty important, or at least it was in DomII - while the randgen bug still was there, it wasn't that rare to completely wipe off the opponent in the replay, just to discover you had actually lost...

[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?

[Taqwus]

Now, the obvious retort to that is that information on enemy capabilities before and even after contact is made is going to be fairly dubious; furthermore, that some capabilities are difficult to simulate safely.

That would suggest
(a) simulated melee, with minimal lethal spell use, between units one actually has, and

(b) actual combat against target summons that one has little compunction killing -- for instance, summoning Mechanical Men, phantasms, low-level undead, any living units if you're the Ashen Empire... that -would- allow demonstration of lethal capabilities or lack thereof. Done in-game, this would cost resources.

Ex. in-game command 'Stage attack' for a leader, where the mage serves only to direct the target units in an attack but does not actually participate.

That would be fairly realistic, avoids the palette / spoiling issues, and still gives useful information regarding what troops might do (whether they tire too easily, whether they can hit the broad side of a barn, et al)... and, as a battle, it would actually give experience to the units.