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TOPIC: Warlords V Design Proposal- Introduction
Re: Warlords V Design Proposal- Introduction 13 years ago #203
The key thing is the enemy also takes risk and if you don't kill the enemy hero stack then you WILL lose the game. And if you don't take their cities you WILL lose the game. If you don't kill their non-hero stacks you WILL lose the game. So what's your point? What is crucial to Warlords V is bonuses. You want to have a stack that has +5 bonuses and -3 penalties for the enemies. Heroes can carry multiple bonuses both positive and negative. This is why not being able to recruit heroes in cities is key weakness in Heroes III Now you're just confusing the hell out of me. You're using the game mechanics of a game that doesn't exist to justify heroes being key in Heroes of Might and Magic 3? Or maybe you meant Warlords 4 instead of 5, and Warlords 3 instead of Heroes 3? But that's still confusing because Warlords 3 and 4 are two completely different games. And how can not being able to recruit heroes be a "key weakness" when that limitation applies to everyone? It's just the rules of the game. As the player it's your job to figure out how to make the most of the situation the rules define. As a game designer it's I2's job to come up with rules that make the game fun. If you want to criticize the rules you can't validly do so by pointing to some make-believe unfairness. Instead, you need to provide a logically consistent rationale for why the rules are suboptimal in providing fun/entertainment/enjoyment. without heroes you are essentially wasting your victories because you aren't building up the kind of unit you need to decisively go on offensive. I can't really comment on the "go on offensive" bit except to say that it's counter to my experience with W3. My offense almost always consisted of hoards of disposable troops and not heroes. (Like I mentioned before, I used heroes mainly for defense and quests.) I guess you would call my offense "indecisive". I guess I could also counter by saying: By not having your heroes defending your cities (you know, those ones the AI keeps attacking over and over again while you are busy being offensive somewhere else) you are "wasting your [defensive] victories". Note that offense (against a city) is inherently dangerous/deadly in W3. The reason for that is that you can put 4 stacks in a city (2 in W4) and all of those units get to defend (along with the city defense bonus), but you can only attack with 1 stack at a time. (Personally this is one thing I kind of didn't like about the game -- but there may be game-play trade-offs I am not thinking of that make it a good game design choice, and it never stopped the games from being fun, so I've overlooked it fairly easily. I do find that the Age of Wonders system where all adjacent stacks get "sucked in" to battle provides way more game-play goodness in terms of strategic positioning of stacks -- and the AoW AI is actually pretty good at playing that game too.) However, that said, I think I have a bit better picture of where you are coming from -- you would always like to have some heroes available (even if they are lowly ones that have to be built up) so you can "capture" XP into a unit that is not a disposable troop that will soon be killed off. First, note that (in W4) there are units besides heroes where this is already true (e.g., units with bless, heal, terror, etc). Second, I don't think allowing the mass production of hundreds of (zero upkeep) heroes is the best way to achieve what you want -- it has too much other negative impact on the gameplay and on the feel of the game. I think it would be better to modify the odds of a new hero making an offer. For example, if you have less than 3 heroes, the chance that a level 1 hero makes an offer would be higher than normal, more so if you have less than 2 heroes, and if you have no heroes the odds could be high enough that you are likely to get in offer in just a few turns (as long as you have enough gold). This feuture already exists in Warlords IV I think and definately in Warlords III. What you were suggesting is that they create two systems of combat, I am against that. ??? In W3 combat is always auto, yes? (I.e., there is no player interaction during combat -- it just feeds the units into battle as per the fight ordering the side's player pre-set.) W4 may have both auto and manual (though I haven't looked -- if so it defaults to manual and I've only used that), but its "system of combat" (or so I am claiming) is very poor. So yes -- only one system of combat, I agree. But if it is going to have both auto and manual, make it something fun to play when on manual. Warlords tactical combat has always sucked. You can't make it not suck, or it wouldn't be Warlords any more. There, I translated your text into plain English. (OK, it's not a 100% fair translation -- tactical didn't really suck in W3, but I2 has changed other game features that make it suck in W4, and other games have set better standards. Details follow.) I think there are several factors to consider:
War is not blood sacrifice Turtle. It's not, you have got 1000 of your own men killed, now here is your reward 10,000 enemy casualties, it's you have killed 10,000 enemies but unfortunately 1000 of your own men died. I never said that - you're just presenting a strawman. I said "you do what you have to do". Specifically, I did what I had to do to both keep my heroes alive and conquer cities. I find it a bit befuddling that not only are you complaining that your heroes die when thrown into unwinnable battles, but you now seem to also be complaining about non-heroes dying when thrown into unwinnable battles. But (per the current tactical combat rules) if they don't die, then the battle was won/winnable. Logically that would seem to indicate that you are complaining about the very existence of unwinnable battles? Or maybe it just means you want a "retreat" option. I could agree to the latter -- the tactical combat could use a number of new features to make it more fun and less annoying. I managed to win the whole of Warlords III campaign without ever having to throw any unit stacks away at all in that manner. All that shows is that none of the cities were very well defended. When a city is defended with 4 full stacks and the only attack option is (as always in Warlords 1..4) 1 stack at a time, you will lose the first stack (unless the defending units are all very weak and your units are all very strong -- and even then you are likely going to lose some of those strong units). I have nothing against using Kamikazee tactics against a powerful foe but to be forced to use such tactics against a essentially defeated foe is really irritating. It doesn't matter if all of the rest of Germany has fallen -- unless you can convince them to surrender, you are still going to lose men taking out that last machine-gun pillbox. And it's not so much irritating as it is the sad reality of war. (And having read Seppuccu's response I guess I have to add -- no, you don't get to take out the pillbox with a nuke, nor bunker-busters which didn't exist at the time.) Maybe the AI could be taught to surrender. But even then it shouldn't do so until you are vastly stronger than all of the other players put together. Because until then, even with just one city left, an enemy can try to hold out and hope that you get your attention diverted away from them long enough so they can build back up again. (And if they fix fog of war so no one, including the AI, can see anything they shouldn't be able to see, then the AI will not even be able to tell if you are vastly stronger than all of the other players put together, and will therefore never surrender.) And again, it's really the Warlords "legacy" of having multiple stacks (and now towers) defending while you can only attack with one stack that results in you being "forced to use such tactics". If you really want to change that reality, then you need to either get rid of towers and only allow one stack of defense in a city -- or you need to allow multiple stacks to attack at once. |
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Last Edit: 13 years ago by Turtle.
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Re: Warlords V Design Proposal- Introduction 13 years ago #204
Turtle wrote:
I think it would be better to modify the odds of a new hero making an offer. For example, if you have less than 3 heroes, the chance that a level 1 hero makes an offer would be higher than normal, more so if you have less than 2 heroes, and if you have no heroes the odds could be high enough that you are likely to get in offer in just a few turns (as long as you have enough gold). Agreed. Turtle wrote: W4 may have both auto and manual (though I haven't looked -- if so it defaults to manual and I've only used that), but its "system of combat" (or so I am claiming) is very poor. W4 has both options. Turtle wrote: There's this thing called "technological advancement". Things that don't advance die. The Warlords series needs to advance. And that means changes. Tactical combat that resembles something that was already simplistic when it came out in the 1990s is going to have a hard time cutting it in the 2010s, especially when so many players have played so many games with good, fun tactical combat. Valid point. But how evolve it and still keep its core, without turning it into (an inferior copy of) Heroes of Might and Magic or Age of Wonders? Turtle wrote: Maybe the AI could be taught to surrender. The AI could surrender in Warlords I & II so it shouldn't be too hard to add. But key enemies should perhaps never give up, and on the highest difficulty no enemy gives up. Or? Turtle wrote: -- or you need to allow multiple stacks to attack at once. Ooo. Hey hey hey, I think this is something! You mark several stacks and attack with all of them at once! Then Hero and other bonuses should still only apply to their related stacks (like with the stacks in cities in W4). Still doesn't tackle the main concern here though, which is how the tactical combat should be shaped. |
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"Negate does not negate Negate."
--- KGB "Moreover, I advise that Daemons and Dark Elves must switch places on the Race Wheel." --- Marcus Porcius Cato
Last Edit: 13 years ago by Seppuccu.
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Re: Warlords V Design Proposal- Introduction 13 years ago #206
But how evolve it and still keep its core, without turning it into (an inferior copy of) Heroes of Might and Magic or Age of Wonders? I think everyone can agree that the one thing it should not be is an inferior copy of anything (including previous Warlords titles). In the specific area of manual tactical combat though, I don't think there is anything to evolve. Warlords 1..3 didn't have a manual tactical combat system at all, and Warlords 4's manual tactical combat system is best buried very deep and forgotten. (It's kind of like when they did the Star Trek episode that mixed TNG with old clips from TOS and when asked about the lack of ridges on the old-style Klingons, Worf indicates that Klingons "don't like to talk about it". It may be a discontinuity, but it's for the better.) But key enemies should perhaps never give up, and on the highest difficulty no enemy gives up. Or? It just occurred to me that surrender doesn't make any sense. If being vastly out gunned results in surrender, then why wouldn't pretty much every neutral city just surrender as soon as your army was at their gate? That doesn't sound like much fun. And having warlord-less/hero-less (neutral) cities with weak defense stacks fight while warlord strongholds surrender is just too jarring. You mark several stacks and attack with all of them at once! Rather than explicitly selecting, I really like the way AoW handles this (suck in all adjacent stacks -- even 3rd parties where you may not even know what that 3rd party is going to do), and I'm not sure if I can think of a better way to do it. It's very simple and natural. It would also basically subsume the city fighting rules (where all stacks in a city defend) because stacks in the same city are naturally adjacent so of course they all defend. (In AoW cities allow for so many stacks that it's not always true that all defend, but with only 2 or 4 stacks per city like in Warlords they would always all defend.) It also handles defense outside of cities (i.e., if your opponent is running around with multiple stacks that may try to gang up on you, they can't pick off your stacks one by one as long as you travel in a pack). It's also triggered if you attack a structure that has no enemy/neutral units sitting right on it, but does have enemy/neutral units adjacent to it. Still doesn't tackle the main concern here though, which is how the tactical combat should be shaped. I think that is really wide open. While using a AoW/HMM style tactical could work...:
On the other hand, if I2 is prepared to make really good AI (noticeably better than AoW's), I say don't worry about #2 and just go for it already -- a lot of players would kill for smarter tactical combat. If instead I2 wants to stay with a simple AI (which necessitates "dumbing down" the complexity of the tactical combat to the point where the AI is at least reasonably able to handle it), then at the very least some of the annoying bits have to be fixed. Just brain-storming a bit here (and making myself wanting to start programming this up): Tactical screen: Each side has a reserve area and a battle area. A side's battle area consists of 2 columns by (up to) 8 rows of unit slots. (The number of rows is reduced if it is greater than the total number of units available.) The column nearest the enemy contains melee slots while the other column contains ranged slots. Melee-only units can only be placed in melee slots, ranged-only in ranged slots, and units with both attack types can be placed in either type of slot and will use the attack type corresponding to the slot type. Tactical combat: Fighting happens in simultaneous turns (i.e., up to 32 units swings/shoots at once). A unit always swings/shoots at the enemy directly in front of it. If there is no enemy unit directly in front of it, it will attack an adjacent row (one up or one down, randomly if both contain units). If no adjacent row is occupied, then the unit can not attack that turn. Melee units attack units on melee slots first, and units on ranged slots only if the adjacent melee slots are all empty. (I.e., you have to fight past the melee units before you can start hitting the ranged ones.) Ranged units on the other hand shoot straight first (i.e., can shoot between melee units so long as there is no enemy melee unit directly in front of them) and when there is no enemy at all directly in front of them prefer to shoot in an adjacent row that has an unprotected ranged unit. Multi-attack units can only hit units that are adjacent (first unit in each of three rows centered on the multi-attack unit's row). Tactical support: Some units such as healers/blessers can perform those functions while in the reserve area. (In fact, if they are in the battle area they have to choose between attacking or performing one of those functions -- or to stream-line battle, maybe they always attack when possible and only use their other functions if they can not make an attack, with the rationale being that it's too hard to heal/bless/etc. while you are getting attacked yourself.) Tactical unit movement: At the start of battle, all units are in the reserve area. Units can be moved from the reserve area to the battle area, or in the other direction (battle area to reserve area), or from one battle area slot to another. Moving from the reserve area to the battle area is always instant (happens between one battle round and the next). Moving away from a battle area slot (either to another slot or to the reserve area) is either instant or takes one turn. It is instant if there are no enemy units that could possibly attack you (attack your old slot). Otherwise it takes one turn. (During that turn the unit is still at the old slot and can still attack and be attacked accordingly. Maybe the unit loses its ability to attack that turn if it is moving to the reserve area rather than another battle area slot.) Tactical movement ordering: Movement can either be serial or concurrent. If serial, sides take turns moving one unit each until one side is done with movement (at which point the other side finishes all of its moves for that turn -- note that no moves can be "taken back" -- any given unit can only be moved at most once between any two rounds of battle or before the first round). If concurrent, then both sides make all of their moves (without the other side being able to see what those moves are) and all movement is applied simultaneously after both sides indicate they are done making moves. If any unit has been commanded to leave a battle area slot but that movement is deferred due to the presence of an enemy that can attack, then that fact is indicated to the opponent (but the unit's destination is not visible to the opponent). Tactical retreat: For the attacking side only, any/all units in the reserve area may retreat at any time. (Once a unit has retreated it can not return to battle.) Tactical surrender: If either side indicates that they are done making moves while they have all of their remaining units in the reserve area, then they surrender. Their units are all destroyed. (There will have to be an "are you sure" on that "end movement" button when this condition is present!) As much as I like my own ideas above, I think there could be more refining. For example, any city walls could be displayed between the opposing battle columns and any seige weapons in ranged slots could attack them (as well as towers). (The walls of course provide their normal bonuses, and knocking them down to various levels of destruction erodes those bonuses until they are effectively completely destroyed and provide no bonus. I think when walls/towers are destroyed the victor should have to pay some repair costs to get them back up to snuff -- much smaller than full purchase price, but still something. Without repairs, damage from multiple battles should accumulate and persist between turns.) One big weakness of the above system is that it can't handle a 3-way (or N-way) fight (which can happen if you use the AoW mechanism of sucking all adjacent stacks into combat). |
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Re: Warlords V Design Proposal- Introduction 13 years ago #207
The actual combat in Warlords V needs to be abstract and impossible to affect once initated. Not only does this save a lot on the development costs, it also sets the game play focus where it should be: namely on strategy. The focus on strategy is the one thing that makes Warlords different from other TBS-games. Bring in too much tactics and you wind up with a game no different from Heroes, Age of Wonders or Disciples.
There are things that can be done to increase the depth of combat without making it a tactical mini-game that interupts the flow of the game. 1. Fighting order: Being able to set each stack to either its own custom fighting order or the default one. 2. Combat formation (just a wild suggestion that I have not given much thought): Being able to choose different combat formations - on a stack basis - that would be applied in the event of combat. The ideal formation would depend on the units in your stack, the units in the enemy stack and the formation of the enemy stack. There could be a primary combat formation and a secondary one that you would configure pre-combat. The secondary one would be applied if the enemy gets the upper hand. There could be formations that all stacks default to but also the option to configure specific ones for specific stacks. There could be a number of predefined combat formations and you could also make your own custom ones and and save as part of your template. Pitting different formations against eachother would have to be follow some kind of rock, scissors, paper system for sure. The inherent qualities of the units and the stack as a whole would of course have to tip the scale more than the formation but between two otherwise equal stacks the formation should make a difference. 3. Hero spells: Choosing one offensive hero combat spell and one defensive one to be used in the event of combat. The logic behind restricting it to one offensive and one defensive spell would be that it makes it more of a gamble and success stems from knowing the enemy well. Just a few ideas. To be honest I have my own plans for a TBS-game a few years down the road so it's not that important to me how Warlords 5 turns out. I will get things my way, one way or another |
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Last Edit: 13 years ago by Onslaught.
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Re: Warlords V Design Proposal- Introduction 13 years ago #209
I agree with Onslaught. If you add tactical combat you no longer have a strategy game. You have a hybrid no different that many other such games.
Plus it also eliminates the possibility of PBEM and online games. Yes, you can fight tactically online but games take FOREVER and only a few ever get completed compared to DLR where tens of thousands got played. Other suggestions that were in the old forum that could be applied to battles were: 1) Day/Night. This would be chosen by the attacker (with a default setting so you don't have to chose for every battle if you don't want to). Some units would benefit from day or night with extra bonus's or penalties while some would be unaffected by either. Some skills like archery would be for all intents and purposes useless at night. 2) Weather. Could be randomly selected by the game based on the square (more likely to be snowing in snow hexes, more likely to be raining in a swamp etc). Potentially there could be spells to select weather (sunny, rain, fog, snowing, sand storm). Once again units/skills would be affected by weather. KGB P.S. Aren't many of the things you are asking for in War V already in Elemental: War of Magic? |
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Re: Warlords V Design Proposal- Introduction 13 years ago #210
I agree with KGB and Onslaught.
I was very disappointed by introduction of tactical combat in W4. Great ideas Onslaught, for defensive spells especially. They could activate in case of hero battle. This would improve defence significantly. It could be a list of spells sorted by importance e.g. 1. dispel 2. chain lighting 3. ... and you could have mana enough to cast spell #1 but not enough of it for spell #2/#3. |
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Darklords players, you are welcomed here: lastcitadel.ru
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Re: Warlords V Design Proposal- Introduction 13 years ago #211
The people has spoken... I guess I'm perverse then for actually liking the silly and rudimentary tactical combat of W4, and thinking that it added a humoristic element to a concept that otherwise borders on being trandiloquent and pretentious.
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"Negate does not negate Negate."
--- KGB "Moreover, I advise that Daemons and Dark Elves must switch places on the Race Wheel." --- Marcus Porcius Cato |
Re: Warlords V Design Proposal- Introduction 13 years ago #212
Molotov wrote:
I agree with KGB and Onslaught. I was very disappointed by introduction of tactical combat in W4. Great ideas Onslaught, for defensive spells especially. They could activate in case of hero battle. This would improve defence significantly. It could be a list of spells sorted by importance e.g. 1. dispel 2. chain lighting 3. ... and you could have mana enough to cast spell #1 but not enough of it for spell #2/#3. I didn't really expect this thread to blow up so spectacularly. I support the tactical combat system of Warlords IV and think that Warlords V should operate under a similar system. KGB wrote: I agree with Onslaught. If you add tactical combat you no longer have a strategy game. You have a hybrid no different that many other such games. Plus it also eliminates the possibility of PBEM and online games. Yes, you can fight tactically online but games take FOREVER and only a few ever get completed compared to DLR where tens of thousands got played. Not if you add the option of preset order, so you set what order your stacks deploy in before the battle for specific armies. Warlords III has 'tactical combat' because it allows you to customise the load order of armies. But rather than forcing you to do so everywhere at once, Warlords IV allows you to do so for specific battles. I fail to see the degeneration from being a true strategy game. |
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Re: Warlords V Design Proposal- Introduction 13 years ago #214
Slayer of Cliffracers,
With "tactical combat" I mean a turn based or real-time mini-game where you pit the units of your stack against the enemy stack. Although I generally support having many game options, I strongly oppose making the tactical mini-game optional, and this is for 2 reasons: 1. Getting up close to your units in this time and era of pc gaming necessitates high quality models, cool effects and top notch animations. Anything less and it's just comes off as ridiculous. High quality models, cool effects and top notch animations are very time consuming and expensive to make and implement. That time and money would be better spent on making terrain textures, cities, ruins, sites, units, sound effects and music blend together well on the strategic map. After all, it's on the strategic map we want to spend most of our time playing the game. Otherwise we would not be warlorders. 2. The Warlords community is small enough as it is; splitting it up in a hybrid community and a strategic community will do more harm than good. We need to stay together to keep the game alive. |
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Last Edit: 13 years ago by Onslaught.
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Re: Warlords V Design Proposal- Introduction 13 years ago #215
Onslaught wrote:
With "tactical combat" I mean a turn based or real-time mini-game where you pit the units of your stack against the enemy stack. Although I generally support having many game options, I strongly oppose making the tactical mini-game optional, and this is for 2 reasons: Well according to that definition Warlords III has tactical combat. You are allowed to decide the exact order your troops will deploy in before each battle- the only difference between this is that in Warlords IV you get to flexibly decide the order within each battle rather than universally and inflexibly. To go back to Warlords III would be on this instance a definate step backwards simply because the Warlords III system of tactical combat is a lot worse, especially when you factor in individual unit abilities and experiance which have been added to Warlords IV. Onslaught wrote: 1. Getting up close to your units in this time and era of pc gaming necessitates high quality models, cool effects and top notch animations. Anything less and it's just comes off as ridiculous. High quality models, cool effects and top notch animations are very time consuming and expensive to make and implement. That time and money would be better spent on making terrain textures, cities, ruins, sites, units, sound effects and music blend together well on the strategic map. After all, it's on the strategic map we want to spend most of our time playing the game. Otherwise we would not be warlorders. It does not require many graphics not used on the strategic map. There is no need to actually depict the units 'tactically combating' because it's all abstract and best left to the imagination anyway. The whole thing can be a sort of card-game by which you play your cards and the enemy plays theirs. Sort of like Warlords III but with Heroes IV game mechanics. Onslaught wrote: 2. The Warlords community is small enough as it is; splitting it up in a hybrid community and a strategic community will do more harm than good. We need to stay together to keep the game alive. I am not in favour of two options as I have argued before. I am in favour of a slightly touched up version of Warlords IV 'tactical combat' rather than returning to Warlords III 'tactical combat' and judging from the development diary the team agree with me. There is one principle that I would like every game sequel to follow. It is 'never completely get rid of things once you've introduced them'. Doing otherwise merely alienates a section of the fan-base while those who do want to get rid of things are clearly not angry enough to stop playing the game. |
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Last Edit: 13 years ago by Slayer of Cliffracers.
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