Military | Battles | Major Spells

No, that sounds pretty good.

Swordsman:
Class - Melee
Offensive Strengths - Ranged, Melee
Defensive Strengths - Ranged, Melee

Spearman:
Class - Melee
Offensive Strengths - Ranged, Cavalry
Defensive Strengths - Ranged, Cavalry

Archer:
Class - Ranged
Offensive Strengths - Magic, Ranged
Defensive Strengths - Magic, Ranged

Crossbowman:
Class - Ranged
Offensive Strengths - Magic, Melee
Defensive Strengths - Magic, Melee

Mage:
Class - Magic
Offensive Strengths - Melee, Magic
Defensive Strengths - Melee, Magic

War-Monk:
Class - Magic
Offensive Strengths - None
Defensive Strengths - None

Lancer:
Class - Cavalry
Offensive Strengths - Melee, Cavalry
Defensive Strengths - Melee, Cavalry

Hobelar:
Class - Cavalry
Offensive Strengths - Melee, Magic
Defensive Strengths - Melee, Magic

War Monk needs Offensive and Defensive Strengths (At least SOMETHING).

If they're all the same, though, why not just call them "Strengths" and only separate them when they happen to be different?

Because.

I'll just assume that "Because" is shorthand for "Because I'm the Gamemaster, bitch, and I get to do whatever I like."

I don't exactly have a counterargument for that.

But, at least make Priests slightly more effective against just Melee.

Looks like I get to rewrite all the troop descriptions . I still prefer the Weakness system, it's already in-game and easy to conceptualize.

Except it's not, Ascertes. Imagine a situation where I have, say, crossbowmen and mages attacking a group of warriors. Now, both of those troops are strong against melee, so logically both of them do more damage than, say, archers. However, melee troops are weak against magic. Does that mean that in addition to dealing extra damage, mages deal extra extra damage? Goes a little bit too far.

War-Monks aren't meant to be used for fighting, Lime. That's why they're not strong against anything.

Well, they are a Magic-Based troop, so I feel like there should be some effectivity against meleers. It'd still make it a relatively weak troop that is best as a support unit, and, since units cost so much now, it'd bring some more benefit to the unit, and more reason to recruit them.

I'm tired of typing on my phone, so I'll reply once I get home.

Limes wrote:

Well, they are a Magic-Based troop, so I feel like there should be some effectivity against meleers. It'd still make it a relatively weak troop that is best as a support unit, and, since units cost so much now, it'd bring some more benefit to the unit, and more reason to recruit them.

Except that everything else also costs more - War-monks are just as good now as they were before.

1. I have no issue with War-Monks, though I do think we should establish, here and now, exactly what prayers they can use for both themselves and on their allies, what their range is (since we have sirokis!), etc. I didn't like their ambiguous nature in GW4, even if it simplified things a bit.

2. We need to think of a better term than "Defensive Strengths"; I'm tentatively going with "Resistances" for now. But I'm still not quite sure how Weaknesses don't work.

Let's take the example you provided: Swordsmen being attacked by both Mages and Crossbowmen. Since I don't recall off the top of my head what kind of damage bonus a unit receives when attacking a unit that is weak to it, let's assume 150%. Since the Swordsmen are strong against Melee and Ranged units, reducing incoming damage from those classes by, say, 50%, the Crossbowmen would do slightly more damage than regular Archers - let's say, 75%. I'd call the Crossbowmen's armor-piercing property a "trait", and I'll agree that there wasn't any sort of clear indication of how much the trait affected damage. In this scenario, the Mages would kill far more Swordsmen than the Crossbowmen, which fits with both the Swordsmen's strengths and weaknesses, but the Crossbowmen's trait would allow them to kill more Swordsmen than Archers in the same situation.

With the Strengths and Weaknesses are they stand now, I guess you could break them down into both Offensive and Defensive Strengths and Defensive Weaknesses. When I read "Strong Against", I think my unit will fare well when fighting a unit it's strong against; not only because it does more damage, but because it can handle the damage that its enemy deals to it. I think I need to change the terminology to "Effective Against", indicating both offensive and defensive bonuses.

I'm a bit iffy on whether or not there should be a damage penalty included in Weaknesses (which could be changed to "Ineffective Against"). We know some magic spells will splash against leather and some arrows will deflect off or fail to penetrate plate armor/shields, but a sword won't do less damage cutting through cloth. I guess there could be some kind of personal magical shield going on. However, that would be up to you.

If we include that, it'd look like this:

Swordsmen
Effective Against: Melee, Ranged; deals +50% damage to and receives -50% damage from these classes.
Ineffective Against: Magic, Cavalry; receives +50% damage from and deals -50% damage to these classes.

If you want to tackle new battle mechanics, let's try calculating how much damage potential a cavalry charge will have . I don't care how simple or complex it is, so long as Cavalry units do a lot of damage on the charge, then reduced damage after 1 Battle Round (since they're locked in melee unless the owner pulls them out). Factors like whether the enemy is in a tight formation, ready to counter the charge, will have to be considered, as well as charges from the flanks/rear (because I'd love nothing more than to spam my hammer-and-anvil maneuver on the tactically challenged).

We should note that "Cavalry" when referenced in the Effective/Ineffective Against property refers to the charge; once they're stationary and engaged, they're basically Melee on horses.

The problem with simply listing what the troop is effective against and then applying that to both damage given and damage received is that the damage you give is determined by the weapon you're using, and the damage you receive is determined by the armor you're wearing. There's basically nothing stopping you from giving a swordsman leather armor. His attacks would be good against melee and ranged, but his armor would make him weak against melee but strong against magic. Giving him ranged armor doesn't make his attacks effective against magic, it just means he doesn't take as much damage from magical attacks. Sure, it works fine as long as the armor the troop is wearing corresponds the attack style it's using, but that's it. Really Ascertes, I've got experience dealing with the strengths and weaknesses. Trust me when I say they don't work.

You'll have to talk to Siroki about charging. I'm letting him decide whether or not he wants to incorporate it. I just think it gives cavalry a lot of power that isn't countered by the other classes.

If you want to break it down like that, then specify armor/weapon type strengths and weaknesses. I think it's a lot of unnecessary complication because the standard troops DO match the weapon they're using with the armor they're wearing, as defined by the Triangle. Unguis approached the idea of mixing and matching weapon/armor types before GW4, but it wasn't too popular. I won't say it's impossible, of course, but I don't see the appeal outside of perhaps Unique Units or researched ones.

As for Cavalry, yes, they're supposed to have an advantage. They're the shock weapons of the good ol days, and the main resource needed to recruit them is exclusive and limited. Once they're locked in melee, they'll lose their charge bonus until they disengage, reform, reposition themselves with enough distance, and charge again. Besides, no horse likes spears.

I can't dictate how troops are handled based solely on the basic troops the players are offered at the start of the game. We can either have standard cases where we have a set of handling procedures, or we can have a standard and special cases, each handled differently. I like standardizing, and taking the care to work a little harder now to catalogue stuff will save me a ton of time later having to explain special cases, exceptions and so forth.

Other things I like is simple numbers and balance. Using a swordsman to fight a pikeman will make the swordsman deal 1.5 times the damage it would usually, since his attacks are strong against pikemen's armor. The pikeman will deal 2/3 of the damage it would normally, since the swordsman's defences are strong against the pikeman's attacks. 3/2 and 2/3 are good numbers, they offer impact to type effectiveness.

Alright, now what if, instead of troops only having offensive and defensive strengths, everything they're not strong against they're weak against? That would mean that the swordsman, who already has 1.5 offensive bonus, gets his damage increased by half again due to the pikeman being weak against melee? The swordsman would deal 2.25 times the damage it would inflict normally. And, since the pikeman's attacks would be inherently ineffective against the swordsman, even before the swordsman's armor is taken into account, the pikeman deals only 0.444444... times the damage it would normally. Less than half!

And since everything you're not strong against you're weak against, this would basically make all the base troop vs. modifiers either 4/9, 1 or 9/4. The spread is just too damn high! We'd still be forced to keep the 2/3 and 3/2 due to the special and unique units potentially having special case offenses and defenses, which will then require making exceptions and overall more work.

Basically, the numbers don't match. Having both strengths and weaknesses will make the impact too high, and lowering the effect produced by the types will make the numbers awful and cumbersome, in addition to weakening unique research units.

I'm not trying to make the numbers more difficult, don't get me wrong. I'm also a fan of standardization. I'm just looking for the easiest way to explain and think about these units' stats.

Alright, updated the standard units table. How's the wording?

Magic still doesn't require line of sight. If you want them to, I'm open to suggestions of other ways to buff mages.

Their buff is the different types of spells they can use (all the elemental types). I'm sure there will be situations where diversity is valuable, particularly when interacting with the environment (using Earth spells to knock things down or Fire spells to set dry brush alight, Water spells to extinguish fires during a siege, Air to... uh, make your Commander's hair and cape flow majestically in the wind, etc).

No. That goes outside the game mechanics too much (and quite frankly is the most ridiculous buff to anything I've ever seen). We already have a utility mage in War-Monk, we don't want another utility mage that can, on top of having tons of utility, inflict as much damage as the other pure attack troops.

Mages are troops that inflict damage. That's it.

Then we call them Fire Mages and we keep the LoS restriction. If you have something to measure attack speed, then perhaps they can cast spells more quickly than Ranged troops can use their weapons.

Damage is measured as DPS, not in attacks (as you should know since the combat system is public knowledge). The mages don't actually even use elemental spells. They more or less just will bolts of unrefined magical "omnienergy" into existence and shoot them at their opponents. That's what you get for not studying magic.

I know, but I'm not gonna check when you're here to tell me .

Fine, if this "omnienergy" is affected by gravity or each bolt can be controlled by the mages telekinetically so that they can be made to arc, then I'll remove the LoS restriction.

The latter. They may not have studied magic too much but they know how to make things happen with magic.

Fixed, then. I made sure to specify "non-elemental" because people are going to try to use elemental spells in the manner which I described (i.e., to manipulate the environment).

For the question on the cavalry "galloping" ability:

Yeah, I can see that working, but not as an ability of a cavalry platoon. I think this would be the 'ability' that a Commander must use. Essentially the ability would go as thus:

The commander would activate the ability, choosing a group of cavalry.
The commander will then send the cavalry from point-A to point-B.
The cavalry will then charge from point-A to point-B, preferably making a beeline unless environment prohibits this.
Should the cavalry pass through a platoon of soldiers, the cavalry will attack the platoon at increased damage.
They cannot stop moving until they reach point-B or die trying.
The Commander then goes into cooldown for the Gallop ability for one/two battle turns.

***

Which then begs the question... What else can a Commander do?

Edit: I will begin crunching numbers to figure out the fine tuning of this once I'm done with the map. Due to serious poor planning, the map is on the laptop while the formulas are on my desktop. ;~;