Range in Tactical Combat

Elemental: Total War

Yeah.. Has a nice ring to it. But anyway.. What you are suggesting sounds like a cool idea, though the min/max ranges need a bit of tweaking, I do not know if that is what they (Stardock) had in mind for combat. At least not yet. I imagine the next game within the Elemental series will have a bit more hardcore tactical combat. Hopefully things like cool sieges and real battlefield obstructions, flanking maneuvers etc, all the goodies will hopefully make it in the next game.

Now, Throwing Knives used to have completely terrible ranges. Made the item entirely useless. As they do basically no damage, and to have a player or npc standing just 2 squares away from you throwing a dagger for 1 point of damage seemed.. Out of place. The knives now give some of the lower level units in the game a decent boost to their offensive threat. Not much mind you, but again it is a low level implement. Though if you changed the throwing of a dagger to a wounding item, one that say.. implemented a -1 modifier to your initiative for about 2-3 rounds, then I could totally get behind the range of them being reduced.

Definately something here....the farther the shot, the worse the accuracy. Seems very plausible.

I've noticed that while melee units have to move around obstacles, ranged units can shot through hills.  I can understand that area spells probably should impact the entire area but it doesn't make that much sense to hit something you have no line of sight to either.  I'm new so perhaps have missed something.

No, you haven't missed anything. Ranged units can shoot through anything (even their own allies) and don't care how far they are away from the target or whether there is a big chance to snipe their dear sovereign in the back and kill him (ooops, sorry sire!). It's a thing that always rubbed me the wrong way, but it's certainly not high on the priority list, because it would actually take some time and effort to fix it and the complexity of tactical combat has never been the main focus in the development process.

Indeed, a few small but fundamental changes to add complexity to tactical combat would improve the game a lot, and some kind of range/obstacle occlusion/towers & walls system for archers could be a part of that.  With the walls giving archers a big benefit unless countered by either siege or magic.

There's no need to reinvent the wheel, the system in Age of Wonders (in this specific aspect, including the move and shoot rules) was pretty good.  Add in some terrain bonuses that favor infantry, slow the combat down by a factor of about 2 so maneuver comes into play, consider weapon effects with a bit more subtlety than the current crop of "x2 damage you win if goes first", all things that are accessible in the current game framework I think.  But, this feedback has been coming ever since the beta of WoM, I think simple and fast tac combat continues to be a conscious design decision.  It seems to me that unfortunately it has been neglected that this simplicity trickles up and makes the strategy/logistics layer simple too (Cavalry with whatever your best weapon happens to be for the win).  Kael's changes have been in the right direction but, IMO, not nearly far enough.

Thats what i do expect from LH. Heavy tactical combats. like in chess. Every figure should be meaningfull and have a role. You could take some good examples from Kings bounty. There combats are looong and every mistake or wrong placement can cost a lot.

I also lack of defencive spells in this game: sumoned obstackles, bariers against range atacks (not air buff but real bariers like big rocks or something which you have to overcome or destroy), clones, taunts (could be tanking skill), debufing shoots (could be ranged skill), something like stone skin from heroes of might and magic or shield buff. I think now LH has enough damaging spells but lacks of debufs and battle controlling spells: like gives more counteratacks per turn, puts enemy or yours unit into rage, sacrifizes one for onother, gives reflection, ignites and so many more. Now many of it is in factions unique traits, but it could be also in magic schools... I totally agree that damage spells shoul have casting times while debufs should be instant that would encourige more usage of it.

I am also not happy about city sieges. They sould have much more defence as a city. In middle ages taking a city ussualy fortified was always a costly thing to do. It required more numbesr as an atacked and lots of preparation and even then it always was a costly atack. Cities should have much more archers than they have now and with much better bows and magic staves. Catapults should come as a defence tool much earlier. You can design that it would not took all its force against mosters if you dont want them to had to hard time... its all in your hands i think.

I personally feel archery in Age of Wonders was it's biggest weakness in tactical combat. I actually very much disliked how it was handled. Not being able to shoot over anything was simply far too restrictive. I can perhaps understand not being able to shoot over your own units at an adjacent enemy on the other side (without friendly casualties) but this isn't how AOW handled it. Anything in the path of your shot regardless of what you are shooting at was in your way. That is terrible. Also, the useable range of archery in AOW was far too short to accurately represent a unit of bowmen shooting at an enemy. With archers shooting from 150+ yards away, even the fastest of cavalry units would take a game turn (archers get another shot off) to close that distance. This is fairly well represented right now in LH.

An accuracy penalty is also the wrong way to represent the difficulty of hitting targets at distance. A damage penalty would better represent this. With a lower percentage of launched arrows hitting the target, overall damage to the target would be lower.

I agree that there is room for improvement with respect to the AoW system, including the specific points you make, but for my tastes LH hasn't yet done so.  

Excellent discussion above.  One comment about archers:  Archers (excluding crossbow?) don't shoot through allied troops, they shoot a volley of arrows over the friendly troops. CB is direct line of fire, so, should hit friendly troops in the way, as well - unless CBs have a height advantage...

I would like to have had some skills unlock as the unit gains veterancy.  

So at level 1, for sake of argument let's say it starts with something like: single direct fire shot with some combination of: range penalty, height or terrain or walls effects, object occlusion, and/or "move and shoot" penalties.  Simulating a novice archer, taking direct aim the way he used to do at womp rats back on the farm.

Level 2 unlocks indirect fire mode, avoiding light occluding obstacles including low unroofed walls and intervening troops, but at cost of a steeper "Scatter" penalty to damage proportional to range 

Level 3, passive, reduces Move and Shoot penalty

Level 4 unlocks opportunity fire, holding fire until the enemy makes an action, but then it ignores some fraction of local terrain cover penalties (designed to counter ENEMIES IN COVER)

Level 5, passive, reduces Scatter penalty

Level 6, unlocks suppressive fire, reduces the initiative of enemy unit, perhaps at the cost of some damage (designed to counter single HEAVY HITTERS)

Level 7, passive, reduces vulnerability to ranged damage if the unit didn't fire the previous turn (incl. turn 1)

Level 8, unlocks sniper shot, ignores friendly unit occlusion and hits for +damage any enemy engaged in a melee 

Alternatively for AI/user simplicity you could have all these active skills available from the get go but they are reduced in effectiveness until you level up and gain an appropriate trait.

Various unit traits could selective boost one aspect of the archer's role over another; starting with 1 level could be important to get that first critical "professional" ability (in this example, indirect fire).

... etc.  Maybe this goes too far towards wargamey grognard complexity, or maybe my specific ideas aren't perfect.  The exact details aren't the point, the point is (a) any number of more tactical 'hooks' could add meaningful decisions to the unit design and empire building strategic layers which IMO are lacking ( b ) different types of units could shine on different battlefields, promoting combined arms in an organic way (c) for fun factor within the tactical minigame itself, battles should sometimes last long enough that multi-turn spells or tactical maneuvers are desirable.  Or simply, that it matters which spell you cast.  Locations with heavy cover like forests or walled towers are one approach to making that happen, but then you want (at least veteran) units to have the tools to counter these situations.

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I sort of like where is coming from the idea of the big axe cleave and the spear lancing thing ... the problem is that in the absence of too many other traits, abilities, cover, counterattack by defenders etc. coming into play they, the net result is to just front-load everything into turn 1 of the engagement.  IMO those abilities are too powerful and should be reserved for some kind of veterans or elites (maybe horse-spearmen and horse-axemen only) while common infantry get different abilities that aren't so front-loaded.  (attack at range 2 or immunity to counterstrike for spears, swarming/flanking bonus for axemen)

I liked Warlock's unit level progression ability.   The FE/LH units level up, but don't really get much than some hp.

This has always bugged me. It makes so much more sense to have your city defended by ranged defenders than a bunch of guys with clubs. Your city is a permanent emplacement which you (should) have spent some time fortifying, especially if it's a fortress. Why then is your entire defence force top-loaded with melee units, when you could (theoretically) make use of your defensive emplacements by stocking them with trained archers who can snipe an approaching invader? I understand having a level of melee defense too to keep them off your archers, but I think it should be more weighted towards ranged.

Also, amen to more ranged weapons and staves. Right now, bows take a long time to get (you can't really make any "ancient-era" archer stacks without significant technological investment) and there aren't really that many to choose from if you don't have the "Archer" faction trait. Same goes for staves, but those don't even have a trait that boosts their diversity (correct me if I'm wrong).

As a last point, I am hesitant to bring up HOMM for comparison, but I actually enjoyed the way their city sieges worked (despite the large number of limitations and problems associated with it). You actually had to break down a gate and/or walls to allow your attackers to stream into the city and slaughter the defenders; up until that point, you were more or less at the mercy of the enemies' ranged units. I also must admit to liking the way ranged units worked in HOMM, on the balance.

I still think this could be implemented.

Some ranged weapon suggestions:

• Javelins; available from the start. Weaker damage than bows. First available range weapon.
• Throwing axes. Available at the same tech as axes.
• Also one suggestion for any DLC: Extended tech tree with renaissance techs like gunpowder, add weapons like bombards and matchlocks.