Of Water and Morale

I'm not sure yet about your detailed morale suggestion, but I completely support the two basic premises you mention.

"Fighting to the death" is something that annoys me in many strategy games too and I would really like one where a defeat does not mean the utter destruction of the losing side almost every time.

I also suppot giving running water greater meanig (above a food bonus or alike).

The problem with not fighting to the death is that then you need a lot of battles to ruin an enemy's fighting ability, while in real life a rout was devestating to the army as large amounts of materiel would be lost. The question is how to represent this. I'd love not to have fights be even as devestating as in total war, but the question is how to make a loss damage the enemy. Damage morale for the next few turns? Have low morale routers disappear? Have units that routed need resupply with the equipment they need for construction while units ordered to retreat keep their gear? This question is the reason developers keep taking the lazy way, but I'm hopeful that SD can figure out how to make it work.

Water should naturally be a very fast transit route for goods convoys, so ports will have a huge advantage, and also allow the fast movement of units over water. I'd like to see water double a unit's moves or so, but also be able to upgrade water routes with infrastructure and superior ships so that travel can be as fast or faster than the best highways for considerably cheaper. Also, making sea trade a lot more profitable a la total war would also be great.

Water is also an engine for warfare. A seaside city will have a much harder time controlling its aquatic borders than it will those on land. Medieval tech does not allow for submarines but remember that magic is involved. Imagine a whole army of water breathing troops marching right up to your door. Its not as if you can rain arrows upon them. Heaven help you if your city is based on canals...

I'd be much more worried about the fact that you can bypass outposts in most cases (usually water isn't near mountains, go figure, and artificial watchtowers back then weren't all that good) and can move fast enough to slip in a huge army before the city can be garrisonned properly and take it by surprise. Make the owneer think about keeping enough troops in the town to hold out in the keep if they're surprised rather than relying on mobile troops and watchtowers. Plus, water breathing troops sound expensive. Another consideration is how perilous to make water travel and how hard to make it to use in bulk and how to implement both qualities.

Water breathing troops are about as expensive as troops with flaming swords. There is a magical investment involved but we can't quantify that just yet because we don't know how the system works.

As to travel, the devs have made it pretty clear that the gameworld is "dead". Magic is what made it liveable and much of the magic is sealed up where it can't do any good. If the land cannot support life then I would imagine that boats would have a crappy time at sea.

nah, I'd actually think that they'd have a really nice time at sea, except for the getting stranded because there's no wind bit =p. It'd be interesting if you could put magic into the wilderness around a town with a focus on defense and have sea beasts that defend against enemy ships or something like that. Or a control over the winds that makes them hostile to the enemy fleets, causing storms and/or becalming them before they can strike depending on the caster's focus.

I was thinking more along the lines of the water turning acidic and eating your boats out from under you.

The sea is neat because it is divided into distinct zones. There is the surface and the sky above it is one part. The shore wherever it touches land. And the sea depths and floor which are more or less out of reach, to us anyway. In order to travel on the sea its likely that us as channelers would at the very least have to use our magic to keep the wind manageable. Boats dictate a port which requires us to make the shore liveable as well.

I wonder if the depths will play a part. If dragons can live in a dead world then imagine what would live in a dead sea.

I would love for the combat system that is used in Close Combat to be used in this title.

Morale should go with fatigue or any system that simulates a unit cohesion. In ancient warfare an army would go retreat with about 10% or 15% of casualties. But in most games retreating is never a good thing because you lose eveything. there should be a way to do a real retreat. And the choice of where you fight would become a real strategic element.

You retreat, then you lose a bit of morale and you're fatigued. So if the attacker has prepared for that opportunity they have some fast units in reserve. In most games there's never the need to have reserve.

Seconded, Morale is very important in tactical combat. Without morale it is pretty much i got a bigger army so i win, which is unrealistic. I play alot of WHFB, with my new chaos army : P, and it is soo fun to have a much smaller army and smash the opponent to peices and see him run from one awesome charge.

 

I personally thing the way WHFB does moral is supperiour to say the way Total War does. But that is my opinion. Becaused, if your soilders kill say 10 of their and they kill 1 of yours per round, and then they flank you with a second unit why should my soilder instant break instead of fighting a few rounds till my soilders are the ones taking greater casulties. After all what good is Evil super soilders if they runaway why outnumbered by peasents who they can kill in their thousands?

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Boring rule explaination to why i think WHFB morale checks is superiour to TW games

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For those who don't know WHFB rules morale works by each unit having a Leadership stat (ld). Every round of combat points are allocated for things like, how many wounds taken(casulties or in the case of really scary monster how close they are to death), whether the unit has a standard bearer, how many ranks they have, whether they outnumber. And typically its one point per wound, one point for flanking, 1 for a standard bearer(most units have a standard bearer in the front rank as part of the 'command group' of the unit) and one for each (complete) rank and so on(there is acutally quite along list of them). Scores are totaled and the loser has to take a 'panic test' where  they role 2 dices and attempt to get equal to or under their LD minus how much they lost.

So lets say i've got: 12 armoured knights fighting in two ranks of 6

and i'm facing 2 groups of swordmen (20 each in 4 ranks of 5), one of which is flanking the knights.

So combat would work out something like this.

Armoured knights being in every way superiour to swordsmen, 2 of my knights have died in exchange for 6 from one group and 3 from the other.

My points would be:                                                Their points would be:

1 for standard bearer                                              2 for their standard bearers

9 for wounds caused                                              2 for wounds

                                                                           1 for flanking

                                                                           First unit has 14 only so only 1 rank                                                             (the front rank is not counted) 

                                                                            The second unit has 2 complete ranks. 3 Total points from ranks

                                                                          1 point from outnumbering

total: 10                                                              Total:9

In this case the swordmen lose combat and must role 2 d6s and get lower than their leadership,most men have Ld7. So would have below a 6. Of course when they break they begin fleeing and my knights have to option to persue in which case if they reach them they all die, no saving them. However if they escape the onslaught next turn they can attempt to rally in which case they would have to roll 2 6d and get under 7. In which case the unit reforms and fights on. Units within range (6 inches) of fleeing or destroyed units have to take a panic test as well.

 

In additon there are some other specialist rules like Terror, which dragons, and giants, and their ilk cause. Where any unit within 6 has to take a panic test. A tactic know as terror bombing is where you take a flying terror causing unit like a Dragon, or Deamon, or those type of things and jump around the back of the enemy. So they take their panic test, you are safe because you are behind them, and then you pumle them with spells and breath weapons from said unit, so they take another panic test. Then next turn you hop behind the next unit.

 

As well as Specialised rules for losing combat agianst such unit. Instant break, unless you roll snake eyes on the panic test.  As well as a really nice rule about Heroes and Lords(the respective leaders and genrals which you pay through your teeth for), where any unit in range of them can use their leadership instead of their own. So a peasent could be inspired by say your king and thus have its leadership risen from 7 to 10.

However in the TW games this is a mess. Though i do own the most recent TW game (medival 2) i haven't played it much simply because i like kicking the Romans butts. That said the morale system in R:TW is artosus(like my spelling) in one battle, i with 2 Gaul warbands and a Genral (noble) cavelry unit killied over 2 thousand spaniards who were besieging my city. I waited at the top of the hill, the centre of a barbairan city, and they filed in they charged my warbands and i flanked them with the  cavelry and within 20 seconds the entire army was in flight and i persued and killied them all. This really irriated me as I was playing on hard. And the overveiw of the battle was something like- 140 of my men deployed, 14 died, 1800 dead enemies. Anyhow

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As for the problem with killing their units you could have it so that only units above half strenght return to the owners control. Which would mean you'd have a use for 'fast calavry' (unarmoured knights) whose job would be simply to harrass missle units and hunt down fleeing units. As after all if a unit ran after taking 2 causlties it should catch itself and say "hey wait we did better than we thoug" and turn arround and try and hit the oppnent in the flank. And if above 1/2 and escaping the feild why would it not try and regroup and make a last stand?, after all its not like you beat it throughly.

As for water, I would have though that A. furtile tiles would be near rivers. After all for them to be furtile their has to be green stuff, which needs water, which will drain to somewhere. Hopefully the random map generator can take that into account or you'll have some stange stuff, like huge rivers running through deserts (civ 4)  .

And B thus most cities woulf be situated along a river (which lets face it is realistic), and the actuall control of said water becomes less imporant because you are all on a river. That said posioning rivers would be cool, but as long as the posion doesn't drift upstream to me. Oh and reshaping landscapes so they affect another wizard, diveriting rivers or raising mountains in his feilds should be a act of war. I just hope the AI is clever enough to notices it.

But more importantly I really hope they do Naval warfare. That said thou i know NOTHING of how ancient naval warfare happend, well naval warfare before the cannon. But i would assume it would involve a lot of boarding and ramming.  If their arn't seas or naval combat, then you can bet your bottom dollar that they'be in an expanison.

 

Anywho, thats my 2 pence.

I like the WHFB and I think it would wrok well with one that accounts for all the variables that the CC one does.

That is another thing I really miss in most games.

Reserves are are most vital part of any military engagement, but in almost all games the most effective strategy is to use everything you have at the same time.

Another somewhat related issue are stacks of doom => One army that is so massive that it completely annihilates anything (but another stack of doom) in very short time while taking minimal losses itself.

I remember how in Sins people kept making that argument... and discovering just how much fun it is to try and use that mega-fleet-of-DOOM (TM) against a set of smaller fleets that scissored in behind you.

Sometimes it is the only strategy. Normally you should be able to send in reinforcements to a battle and rotate out tired troops for fresh ones. Another part is these reinforcements arriving from other directions apart from "behind your lines".

Most games with tactical combat are missing some or all of these things.

Insofar as water is concerned, the point I'm trying to make with my initial post is that naval warfare is a very important aspect of warfare and always has been, as the bulk of the world's population up until the industrial revolution lived on or near the coast or a navigable river.  It was simply the only way to move bulk goods.  Therefore cutting off a city's ability to move food by blockading its port or cutting off its river access was a very (and often the only) effective way to siege a city.

 

Good ideas on tactical combat, I like what I'm seeing.

Heh, I really don't want to derail this nice thread, but Sins didnt allow that.

Fleet battles were mostly dependent on the number and type of ships, the capital ships and micro management.

What it DID allow were partisan and commando style attacks. Those could be very useful (and entertaining). They were no alternative to stacks of dooms though, only an optional additional tactic.

Any "unfocused" fleet in Sins would be quickly defeated, bypassed or simply ignored by a dedicated and well designed fleet.
Many small attacks might have a psychological effect, but a good player would simply use his stack(s) of doom to annihilate the enemy's economic base (stations only, ignoring the planets) while using the reinforcements he continuously produces to engage the smaller fleets.

In Sins this is actually a good thing, as the pacing (game length, travel time, damage output vs. health) of the game demands a focus on the typical RTS "strengths" (micro=advantage and a wide array of short and long term strategies while at the same time forcing the game into certain "grand" patterns). It channeld Sins games into a series of big fleet engagements.

While the same design does work in 4X games they don't have to apply it.

I agree with everything that's been said about an emphasis on water travel versus overland. Hell, entire empires have collasped or been forced to give up huge territories just because they weren't able to keep up the infrastructure needed to supply cities that weren't based on navigable waterways. It ought to be the same in E:WoM, especially with how training units is done.

For example, if I have a city located on a river delta that I've built to focus on developing, let's say 'mithril' armor. Now I've got three other cities; one located on the shores of a nearby island/landmass about hundred miles away, one located upstream on the same river that my mithril city is on about eight miles away, and a third that's located maybe sixty miles on a road. Now if I want to train soldiers with mithril armor,  the training time should be shorter for the cities located on waterways even though the landlocked city is closer to the mithril center. Why? Because overland travel was arduous and costly. I mean when the Romans controlled all of France, it was quicker and easier for them to send grain in ships that went around Spain rather than taking the direct, overland route.

Having this reflected in the game would be awesome and force players to really consider the placement of every city in the game not to mention force them to consider what sort of infrastructure in place to maintain their kingdom. And just think of the pain a well timed and directed raid against said infrastructure could cause?

Edit: Just a few spelling errors.

[quote]Hopefully the random map generator can take that into account or you'll have some stange stuff, like huge rivers running through deserts (civ 4)[quote]

Evert heard of the Nile?

 

Water-side cities can have walls over the water. For instance Byzantium.

 

Morale is fine to use considering pursuit can kill off most troops if you have fast pursuers, leading to fights that are more one-sided than fights to the death. But then you must take care of the scattered troops. In a province based game, it's possible to destroy all fleeers if they have nowhere to go, but in a freeer map, mopping up fleeing units may be a pain.

I liked the idea that only a fleeing unit that retained over 50% of its strength would be able to retreat on the strategic map... if over half the unit (or possibly army) was destroyed in a single engagement then the rest should just melt away.  I think this would be fairly accurate, as keeping an army together after such a disasterous defeat would be extremely difficult, with exceptions being leaders and heroes (who should be allowed to make their way back unless they were killed or captured).

 

Actually, at one stage it did, really it did.  Didn't last too long before people started figuring out ways to make micro benefit more (Dangit!) but it did.

Europa Universalis was a game where Morale was huge for your armies.  You could outnumber the enemy 2 to 1, and still get routed, because they would break up and 2/3 of your troops would run away when they were attacked.  It also made it difficult to completely destroy an enemy, because they would continuously retreat whenever they were losing the battle.

If I recall, in EU: Rome (and I think EU3: In Nomine as well) they added rules to prevent the common problem of a continually running stack.  If an army twice its size routed it in less than five days (and armies can't retreat voluntarily for the first five days) then the smaller army would be destroyed.  That was to prevent having to detach a large army to continiously chase down those annoying 1-2K armies that just refused to die.

You are correct.

I think an answer would be to have light cavalry be able to mop up routers, something where if the enemy routs the first n slowest routers will be killed/captured by the light cavalry and everything fast, maybe being able to send units off the field to try and catch up with routers based on their relative speeds. So if there's a pesky small stack out there, you can hit it with something that'll get it to rout and cut it down with your light cavalry fairly easily as it doesn't have the numbers to escape. To go with this and prevent units of light cavalry from being invincible as long as they rout, I'd say if they retreat from a mixed stack and the other units get killed, they disband or run back to the enemy capitol, taking them out of the fight for a while. Or they just remain as a scouting unit that doesn't have a ton of fighting power, that's also possible.

Well, at some point you have to have the army scatter... otherwise it will get very irritating trying to chase down armies comprised of five or six lucky souls who happened to survive out of an army of 7000.