MalrinGuller

Join Date 07/2005

Idea for Combat (not too complicated or graphicy either)

Ok I know that the dreams of a ship combat system where we give ships orders and fight out a battle and everything are not gonna happen. Yes its sad I know (at least for some of us). However, I strongly believe that having the only user input into the combat process be what ships are present and what their designs are is not nearly sufficient. Personally, I really like to feel like I have some hand in the battle itself. Therefore I have come up with this idea:

When a battle takes place a new screen pops up and displays info on each fleet. Then the player can choose from a list of strategies. Each option will have different advantages and disadvantages and will be more or less effective against other strategies. The player will not know what choice his opponent will take. Then once the player selects one he clicks a button and the battle is resolved based on the regular combat abilities of the fleets and also the strategies chosen. This way we can have some input into how our fleets fight.

Examples of strategies might be something like:
all out attack: large bonus to attack values, large minus to defense values
defensive formation: inverse of above
standard: just use the normal values

ideas

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It looks superficial, and does not add any strategy depth. There is already randomness in combat, this will create even more randomness.

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I think I'm with MxM on this one. I've seen this sort of thing on other games and it doesn't really add much to the strategy or fun factor.

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I think that would likely be a micromanagement issue. Where I think it would work is fleet vs fleet battles, so you can optimise your defense and offense scores.

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And I still think that Master of Orion I combat style was the best.
It could have some improvments but I liked using bioweapons on planets

Btw: jokes aside but I DO think that GC2 missing one crutual combat element - combat with planets , meaning an option to build "defence stations" or "planetary guns" or/and "orbital defences" and planetary shields and having ships to destroy them before transport could land.

Also MOM1 style animated ground combat could be nice , no need for "per-unit" tactical control , just nice looking

animation corectly representing numbers of forces , their ground combat technology used (as clothes , armor guns in hand and such ).

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Without adding a sub-game for combat (such as the master of orion series) I'm not sure how planetary defences could be integrated effectively.

I suppose a planetary shield might force the attacker to bombard for a turn or so until it is overpowered. Say a shield generator could withstand 40 points of damage, a fleet would either need a combined attack strength of 40+ to knock it out in one turn (invade turn on 2) or the fleet would have to bombard over consecutive turns until it reaches the target total. So if a fleet had a strength of 10 it ould take 4 turns of bombardment to overpower the shield so that the troops could land on the fifth turn. If the bombardment was interrupted then the shield would be repaired.

The other method of handling planetary defences that springs to mind is for the defence structures to turn the planet into a 'ship'. Planetary shields add defence points and planetary weapon batteries add attack points. The planet then acts as a ship object on the map but simply cannot move and fights only in defence, or possibly could attack enemy craft immediately adjacent to it.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2411

We are looking at the ability for players to build improvements on their planet that act as defense systems. They'd be powerful but they'd take up a precious tile too.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2411

With regards to picking different formations, options, I don't think it would really add to the game. After all, why pick one option over another? There'd have to be some sort of reason in order for it to make sense and most reasons I can think of would add a significant level of micro-management.

Bear in mind, even as-is, GalCiv II combat is a whole new level above GalCiv I's. Now you have 3 types of weapons to choose from with 3 counter-measures. That adds a lot of depth to waging war. The fleets are another thing too. Do I use a bunch of fighters or a couple of capital ships?

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However, I strongly believe that having the only user input into the combat process be what ships are present and what their designs are is not nearly sufficient.

I disagree. I think Frogboy's right to keep it simple. I often had tens of combats in GC where there was a big superiority. Needing to click on anything to fight these would be a waste of time and delay turns for nothing. The only reason I played the battles in MoO was the ai was so inept. I'd rather not have the ability to fight them than fight a pitiful ai. Keep it simple.

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