I think that the game's engine should definately support that sort of thing, even if the #s don't work out to create those sorts of conditions in a regular game: it may not be historically accurate, but someone will undoubtebly play with the unit costs to make it work.

I love the idea of battles that span more then one game turn. . . but i'm not sure how feasible it is, or what advantage it brings.  (with the exception of sieges)

Given that it's X-Com esk does a battle only last n turns,  then you return the next day?  Do your troops retreat, or just stay put till you get back to them? If they are staying put, does that mean the battle raged for 24 hours straight?? if they semi-retreat is it not easire to declair the battle a statemate and have the next turn be a new battle, what do you 'gain'  from forcing the next day's engadgement.

What if you're just about to win, finnally got into a good possition and the day ends? tough?, can you 'envigger troops' to squeese some extra battle time out for a winning possition (if you do, do you fight with an advantage over un-enviggered troops?)

It's a LOT of questions, and not too many answers. I'd love to see it, if done well,  But i'd shutter to be the one trying to plan it all out so that it would work well.

just my thoughts, take care

The way I see it, when night comes, you pretty much have to stop what you are doing and hunker down, as both sides will be exhausted and no-one will be able to see.

If battles have tarrain and landscape and tacktical advantages, do you hunker down where you are, what if your spread out?


and what about semi-nocternal magical animals? or night hunters Cat, owl?

still want it to work, but can't see it. yet at least

Best wishes

Well, I see nocturnal thingies as a bit of a special weapon: they can attack at night, when people are defenseless.

I think that most of us (living as we do in a time with on-demand electric lighting) underestimate how, well, dark night really is. In rural areas without streetlights, it gets really BLACK, and fighting becomes all but impossible.

Unless skies are clear and the moon(s)light is strong. Here in North Florida, we regularly have full moons bright enough to read newspaper headlines by (you could read articles too, but your eye doctor wouldn't like you making a habit of it).

Still, even though night battles are possible if uncommon, it might be way to much to ask of the art team to be able to make usable, good-looking night battle art that would only be used once-in-the-right-moon.

I can't say anything to the feasability question, but NTJedi mentioned assassinations and possible flexibility for spell casting. I think just the idea of starting a battle with a 'do you want to continue' question is interesting. Plus I really hope to see Elemental outgrow GC2's tendency to make all battles complete slaughters for the loser. Historically, that's the exception and not the rule, and in game terms it really undermines the role-playing aspect of being Evil. If the good guys take no prisoners 'by design,' how can you seriously expect to be feared because you take no prisoners?

One good reason to have a battle last more than one day is to tie up your enemies forces.  Say you build some units with strong defense and good siege, but only decent attack and send it towards an enemy town.  They're going to WANT to hit that force.  If you can use that unit to tie up the enemy for a while, you can use other armies to attack other points.  Basically, you can set up feignts (sp?).

Try reading the newspaper on the ground, in deep grass, brush, anything that casts lots of small shadows.  Being able to see something in direct light a foot from your face, and being able to see the army in the tree line are two different things, night time combat was very risky before the invention of night vision goggles, still is even with them.

Well theoretically they shouldn't have to create any new art - just change the lighting from bright and warm to dull and cold.

That said, I agree that night-fighting should, if included at all, be largely restricted to special units with specific training or natural abilities to see/function in the dark (natural night-vision or incredible senses of smell or hearing).

And the moon. Let's not forget that. Although, does the world of Elemental even have a moon? All the screenies we've seen are in the daytime.... And also, a simple "flare" spell like the one in Kitkun's screenshot could enable night combat for all units.

There is no real problem with night fighting, Magic makes like very easily. . .  it's how you would devide battles into game turn able units.  Art and justifications can be found after the fact. How you make it WORK, and work well, is key.

One could have the last turn be a 'retreat or chase' turn where both players are given the option ot disengage, remain or Prosue.  If one team chooses to disendage and the other procuse,  the prosueing team would have preset orders to chace the disengadging team in the next game turn.  if you choose to disengage in your last turn all your troops will auto run toward your starting side,  If both sides choose to continue you get one last turn of fight before end of turn (and neither team can move for the remainder of the turn) and if one team retreats the other team gets one turn to lob one last volly of attacks at the retreating figgures before giving chance.

This would have the advantage that a small band could lead an army into an ambush (land where the defending army has tactical advantage.) Which would be neat.
Could that work? would it be to limiting?
Thoughts?
Best wishes all Robbie

I have never played a game with that feature, so I wouldn't know how it plays out, but I admit it could be interesting.

If the battle system is set up in such a way that larger armies lead to longer battles, then a set # of turns can represent a day of battle. This way, you can reinforce your forces in battle between turns. And if a battle is split between day and night, some creatures, like the undead, can gain advantages during those turns during the night.

It is probably too complicated, or away from established conventions, but I'm just tossing leaves in the air in case others like it.

Lets also hope the battle system will allow for multiple players on the battlefield...  this will definitely increase strategies and will be significantly more fun.

https://forums.elementalgame.com/360025

What worries me is that we don't know how long a turn is (Do we?).  I remember Shogun: Total War, where a battle that wasn't resolved in a day wasn't resolved in a season.  I mean, I'm sure the turn-rate isn't nearly that fast, but even week-long turns as seen in GalCiv (And Elemental's turns do need to be long enough for family trees) make any multiple-turn battle short of sieges kind of ridiculous.  Reinforcements are important, but it seems better to implement them in a one-turn timeframe than extending battles so unnaturally.  It seems to me the really important factor in stopping "slaughter" battles would be viable retreat mechanisms.

I dunno.

There is a part of me that really want to support the idea of protracted battles, but I don't see any good and elegant way of implementing it.

If you give things a "fatigue" trait, what happens when one team runs out and the other has a little more fatigue?

If you go the turn limit route, doesnt that mean that you could just play fox-n-hound and tug your opponent all over the battlefield for two, three, four turns until your big army can get there? Tell me the AI will account for that...

Do the forces separate at the end of the turn, or do they go into the same square as a "battle"? If they separate, why risk losing troops in a rout if you are going next turn? string your opponent along, and then walk safely away.

Seiges are already fairly well depicted by existing TBS models, with a slow-producing city trying to win a war of attrition against several stacks of external troops.

I hate to be "that guy" but I just don't see this type of thing adding more to the game than it takes away.

Recipe for disaster. Weak flying unit against strong ground units with no anti-air attack. No incentive for the flying unit to attack, no way for the ground units to attack.

If they do it "right" then your Sovereign will be able to cast a spell anywhere you have an army on the map. Like how in Mom or AoW if your "Channeler" wasn't with the attacking army as long as the battle was taking place in his lands the attack spells would come raining down from the sky. Kiss that weak flying unit bye bye.

Of course until we get a build with those kinds of attacks and units we won't know for sure.

Actually, this example is culled from Master of Magic and Age of Wonders. For example, defending with Nightblades, which were invisible, or Golden Dragons, which were flying and magic immune, are popular strategies in those games. Without turn limits, battles could turn into an endurance race, or a game of chicken.

Battles should and probably will have a retreat option. As for indecisive or multi-turn battles, well, do 4x games need to be any longer than they already are? Mop up is already the most boring part of the process.

Games that do multi turn/day battles. Romance of the Three Kingdoms series. Total War series. It works just great on these games.

It forces attackers to attack instead of 'camping' and 'sniping' enemies. And it allows defenders the strategy of fighting a delaying battle to hold of the enemy until reinforcements arrive.

Of course, both games mentioned have very deep focus on tactics and tactical battles, which is why the time limit system works. From examples of what i have seen of WoM's battles, the tactical battle will be a lot more simple thus, eliminating the usefullness of multi turn/day battles.

^- yes, yes and YES!!! one time in Rome-total War, entire armies had exhausted themselves until there were only a couple hundred men on each side, and my commander had no-one to help him defend against the enemy commander's attack. Basically, there were maybe 3 bodyguards left attached to the enemy general?

Then, as I was ordering the rest of my army to route and destroy the rest of his army, the two generals, alone now, were battling it out (must of both had heroic scars trait) for a solid 5 minutes!!! on normal speed. Thats an epic example in a game where people normally die within 5-30 seconds of direct combat. (exceptions abound of course)

mop-up is boring, sure. But if we are facing the highlight of the game, the ultimate battle ... the decisive battle which all human players online are unanimous in the thought that its the very deciding factor of the rest of the game ... doesn't it deserve the ability to draw out said battle as long as possible?

of course, even though Total War excelled in tactical prowess as stated before, the AI was truly horrible!

I would love for Elemental to have as much battle-field tactics, and delay tactics, as in total war, but if the AI can't handle it, I would not want the single player element to be weakened.

I really like the idea of battles being resolved in more days. It opens up for new strategic elements like:

- reinforcements

- morale and fatigue (optionally)

- supplies (optionally)

- sieges

- anti-reload-trick

The first 4 points are self-explanatory.

The last point is quite interesting: How many times happens in strategy games to begin a battle being unsure about the result, but with the confidence on the option to reload the game and retry the battle many times experimenting different moves to suit the conditions and eventually winning.

This scenario (that, in my opinion, breaks the fun) could be just a bad dream with the more-than-one-day-battles.

It makes me remember some elements of Patrician III, where you had to take decisions (like sending a fleet exporing America), but you had to wait months (game) to see the result of your actions, highly discouraging the reload trick and making the game more enjoyable.