Landscape

Its effect on armies

from Elemental Forums

One thing that I would really like to see in this game is a varied landscape mechanic that gives certain units an advantage over others in different places. For example, if you have some rangers and you send them into the forest, they should move much faster, and deal more damage, than for example a large war-wagon which would most likely get stuck. This would give you a reason to create different kinds of units, rather than just spamming "the ultimate unit of *insert cool word*" over and over as soon as you've reached that level of civilization.

Also, lets say that there is a tall mountain-pass that you need to cross. Now, if you bring archers, their accuracy would most likely be reduced due to strong winds and the like. And, if it would be snowing, they would be completely useless since they wouldn't be able to see their enemies.

Civilization IV had a system like this, but it wasn't very advanced. It was mostly like "stand on this hill and gain 20% damage", which isn't very realistic since standing on a hill would also make you more vulnerable to air-attacks and so on.

 

So I simply think that giving the landscape, and its effect on units, some real thought would give the game a more varied and fun gameplay, where you have to take different advantages and disadvantages of your units into consideration.

 

What do you think?

8,184 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

A great idea, I think. Variance within an army is always a good thing. You could have forester units that move fast in forests and can hide in them, like you said, that would have an advantage against knights, but on an open field they would be decimated and so on.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Maybe they can give a bonus to certain combination in an army.

 

As the OP said, instead of having an entire army of dragons you get different groups together and you get something like a moral bonus.

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm realizing that we need to hear a lot more about how the boundary between the cloth map and the tactical map works. It could be something like the difference between staying at icon level in GC2 and not using the combat viewer vs. using the combat viewer &/or zooming down to 3D.

If it's anything like that, then getting complex terrain within a given combat zone might be too high a map burden. But then, I'm typing from a box that has far more basic storage and processing power than some of the mainframes I used to feed and clean back in the '80s.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

i certainly hope stardock won't fall into the classic trap of obsoleting lower tiered troops, when higher tiers of research are reached. This makes for a dull, linear, and  simple game. Research should expand your possibilities, not just make you stronger in different areas, although this could also be part of research.

I mean, give it a thought: whats more interesting:

 

research completed! you have reached chain mail. Now your armor is twice as strong as before. Next level: doctrine: heavyer armor. now your armor is thrice as strong.

OR

 

You have aquired the iron resource. new research possibilities: chain mail

Research completed! you have reached chain mail. You can now equip troops with the following:

Chain mail (+2 armor -1 move).

You can now use chain mail in your magic item creation.

You can now sell chain mail to other civs.

You can now research "armor piercing", pre req: bows&xbows

You can now research "plate mail"

Aquire "Coal" resource, will allow you to research "steel", "steel" unlocks superior armaments.

 

or something :D

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

I second that. All the scaling will be for naught if your dragons don't have armies of infantrymen to trample over.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

One thing that I would really like to see in this game is a varied landscape mechanic that gives certain units an advantage over others in different places. For example, if you have some rangers and you send them into the forest, they should move much faster, and deal more damage, than for example a large war-wagon which would most likely get stuck. This would give you a reason to create different kinds of units, rather than just spamming "the ultimate unit of *insert cool word*" over and over as soon as you've reached that level of civilization.

Also, lets say that there is a tall mountain-pass that you need to cross. Now, if you bring archers, their accuracy would most likely be reduced due to strong winds and the like. And, if it would be snowing, they would be completely useless since they wouldn't be able to see their enemies.

Civilization IV had a system like this, but it wasn't very advanced. It was mostly like "stand on this hill and gain 20% damage", which isn't very realistic since standing on a hill would also make you more vulnerable to air-attacks and so on.

 

So I simply think that giving the landscape, and its effect on units, some real thought would give the game a more varied and fun gameplay, where you have to take different advantages and disadvantages of your units into consideration.

 

What do you think?

Yeah, I agree, "terrain modifiers" are definitely a must have. :)

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Nights, reply 5
I second that. All the scaling will be for naught if your dragons don't have armies of infantrymen to trample over.

I believe Frogboy's already on record about the game having exactly that sort of potential.

It might be hard on the lower-end boxes, but scalability is clearly a major theme for Stardock game devs, and what could be more fun than having an RPG feel while the computer gave you a gaming table that would make the Napoleonic wargamers drool if it were physical. One of my old D&D circles was really into mass-unit battles, but budget limits meant that the hordes-o-whatever had to be represented by six-sided dice with their dots painted different colors. It worked, but would have been so much more fun with a horde of decent figs.