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| Thread: More Strategic Battle Elements - (other than the size of your army) | |
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actionjack
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted November 19, 2008 07:14 AM |
bonus applied by alcibiades on 26 Nov 2008. |
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More Strategic Battle Elements - (other than the size of your army)
Its been while, but dropping by quickly to see whats up 
Read a few interesting threads, and spark me some ideas...
More Strategic Battle Elements
Those who studied the Art of War (or pretended to, like me ) Would know that the size of army is only part of how a battle is won. Other elements, like weather, and land, play a major part of it, allowing even a smaller army to defeat one that is much larger than they. However, just feel don't see this as much represented in Hero games, which often comes down to who can mass a larger army faster.
Thus would introdue, or emphisis on some elements of the game to create a more strategic play.
-Terrain-
Where you fight would usually determain if you die or not.
Thus picking a battle field is as important as having soldiers.
Would like to see where the battlefield changes depend on where you fight, and further more, more elements from the field map be represented in the battle map, and play a bigger part in how they effect your troops. So for example...
Tree/Forest
Allow you to set up Ambushes (or if the Hero that that skill)
And in battle, there would be more trees. The larger one would block out a square, while a smaller one you can walk by. However, they would make larger-units move slower, and unit that are next to/on a tree be better protected against archer or flyer.
Narrow Path/Cliff
Could be a path throught cliff, vally, dense tree, bridges, etc.
Like the movie 300, it would limit the passage way, allow only a few unit to engage one another at time.
Uneven Terrain/Hills/Rough landscape/Swamps
Make the movement (on battle field or on field map) much slower. Also the higher ground would gain extra attack power or defensive power. Not effect flyers as much.
Open Field/ Flat land
Allow units to move faster.
Thus as you can see, certain army build would work better on certain battle field.
-Army size and Speed & Movement-
A larger army tend to move slower than a small one. Thus would add a mechanic that a hero with large army moves less space on the field map than one with smaller army (I think its already in the H3 or H5..) More so, could apply the same in battle too, where a creature with large stack not only move slower, but their initative also decrease.
This could allow the Guerilla-like hit-and-retreat tatic to be workable against large army (especially on a favorable terrain)
But also Higher leadership attributes would help neglate some of that too.
-Weather-
Rain, fog, sunshine, cloudy... all which could have effect on field, and in battle. They could be a random factors. (but make you think when to pick your fight)
-Day& Night Cycle-
Could introduce a day night cycle (warcraft 3 anyone?)
Certain unit or hero could perform better on day than night, and visa versa.
- Lurker/Monster -
Add more dynamtic to the monster on the fields, like some could not only stand guard, but also move around /hunting / patroling. Or even have them wondering onto a battle field.
And added to the fact that they might sleep/active in day .. or night, or in differnt weather, or some Hero's ability to sneak pass them, allow more strategic movement in the field map, allow you to take advantage of this factor.
-Hero Abilities-
It open up alot of room for new hero abilites or spells.... like Ambush, First Strike, Backstrik, Defender, Escape Artist, or spells like Forest Maker, Earth Breaker, Rain Dance, Night vision etc. (I will leave up to your imagination on what they would do)
Thus from all the possiblites, could imagin a scenario where you have a smaller army than your oppoent. But in able to lure, them on to a favorable battle field/time, or doing some sneaky ambushes, or luring them to the den of monster, could allow victory even in this odd.
Same goes if you march with a large army, which you might need to split into several group like venguard, avantguard, scouts, and more.
Of course, to fully have it work, many key mechanic need to change too, especially the Hero's field map movement, battle fatigue, and army exchange. (would imagin it would work with a Action Point (AP) system) Won't go into too much detail on that... and will just leave it open as a suggestion
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted November 19, 2008 08:41 AM |
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Welcome back - it's been a while, hasn't it?
As always, you bring some refreshing and new ideas - I would deffinitely love to see some of these developed in more detail, just to see where it would lead us.
About the whole battlefield / strategy thing - I think some of this is already implemented in Heroes 5 - i.e. the number and type of obstacles vary on the adventure map location. However, this could deffinitely be developed further to add new kinds of obstacles - trees, for instance, that not only limit access, but also blocks line of sight, i.e. prevents you from doing ranged attack to units behind, or at least provides cover, just like city walls.
I would also love to develop a skill branch that focuses on choosing the battlefield - for instance, perhaps you get the view of a larger area (30 x 36 tiles or something like that) - and then get the option to choose which 10 x 12 field is best to your liking, i.e. most favorable obstacle combination. That would deffinitely be awesome, but also rather tiresome in terms of time consumption - obviously, you wouldn't want to waste time on this for every single battle against a neutral stack of Peasants. Maybe you could switch to this mode during tactics phase if you thought it was relevant - and only vs. enemy heroes, it was also there by default first.
Could you explain some of the ideas you had in mind with Hero skills? Sounds interesting.
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What will happen now?
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MattII
Legendary Hero
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posted November 19, 2008 09:33 AM |
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You raise a good point, battles, particularly those like Agincourt, Crecy, and Flodden Field owed a lot to terrain.
Not sure about weather or day/night cycles, but you might want to include things such as obstacles (units standing behind them get extra ranged defence), and battlefield degradation (the more units travel over a particular spot the more movement it takes to move over it again).
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darksequence
Hired Hero
For great justice!
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posted November 21, 2008 05:26 AM |
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Quote:
but you might want to include things such as obstacles (units standing behind them get extra ranged defence), and battlefield degradation (the more units travel over a particular spot the more movement it takes to move over it again).
mmm that would be difficult to comprehend for new players maybe if it where a skill or perk.
I hope that in heroes 6 they make tactics a main skill instead of a perk. It opens up new possibilities like bonuses/nerfs for terrain and formations.
Also, the army size speed and movement, was already introduced in heroes 4 where, if I remember correctly, the movement of your army/hero on the map depended on the speed of the creatures in your army.
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alcibiades
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
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posted November 21, 2008 01:15 PM |
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Quote:
Also, the army size speed and movement, was already introduced in heroes 4 where, if I remember correctly, the movement of your army/hero on the map depended on the speed of the creatures in your army.
The speed, yes, but not the size. However, I don't like the idea of making army size reduce your speed - I understand the idea of guerilla warfare, but it will make long games where you will reach large army sizes a real bore.
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What will happen now?
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jiriki9
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Altar Dweller
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posted November 22, 2008 01:05 PM |
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I like your ideas, had allready implemented some of them, like weather and ambushs, in my idea of homm6...but I'm not sure wether I want wandering units back (they had kidn of this feature in heroes IV and I have a very nasty memory about it, when my level 6 main hero with a rather small army ended his movement in the movement range of a group of about 20 Champions, which were in this game tier 4 creatures ) although it defintiely would be more realistic...
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