Paper, Rock and scissors?

[SoldierOfTheMany]

Hi

I am expecting this game to have a very simple combat model ie archers beat horsemen who beat infantry who beat archers etc... and different formations which counter each other. My question is how important will formations be? Will a group of cavalry be able to eat its way through a roman shield wall? Will cavalry be able to break a line of spearmen?(in real life cavalry won't even charge home on well formed spearmen) Will units fight together as a company or will it turn into a mob fight, every man for himself, in other words will a formation move and stick together in a fight and perhaps gain large defence bonuses.

This isn't my game but

Things I would really like to see:

Line of sight playin a huge role, not knowing your surrounds should be punished. Archers can only fire if they have line of sight.

Archers don't automaticaly hit their target but calculate the targets speed and direction.(will their arrows be realistically effected by gravity?) just like in Myth:TFL for example.

A shield wall of heavy Infantry should be highly resistant to attacks along its front from other Infantry, Cavalry but maybe not to arrows rained down from above(volleys) and javlins.

Of course height advantages.

Hiding in forests, slow speed in forests, Cavalry disadvantages in forest and perhaps no formations allowed while in forests.

Other ideas:

Cavalry attack bonus while attacking in formation(generally line) Whenever Cavalry attack they generally close the gap slowly and then charged at the last minute so all horses would drive home at the same time.

Morale, I hate morale actually, look at RTW's mass panics. But done subtle? Maybe. Again formations would play a huge part in this troops surrounded by friends fight better. Something tells me that morale as in units running away will not play a useful part in this game as there will be too much 1vs1 combats.

Cavalry standing still in melee? This really shouldn't happen can they be made to move around while attacking.

Thats me.

[TheCobra1]

When you first star out when villagers chop down tree's it's totally random where they fall (even on the villagers themselves!) until you reserch something. that's my idea.

[Wijitmaker]

Welcome to the forums SoldierOfTheMany. I'll attempt to answer a few of your questions because they are good ones that I don't believe have been answered before for the public.

Many of these things you have suggested have been pondered over by the design deptartment already. Due to us being a hobbyist group that is developing this game on our freetime with no financial compensation... most of the nifty features we wanted to put in have been shelved until a time comes when we have the support to impliment them. We'll see what 0 A.D. part II brings us. For now with part I, we are focusing on the basics of an RTS.

RPS - We do not have specific bonuses that state that spearman always beat cavalry, cavalry beats archers, archers beat infantry... etc. What we do instead is jostle around the numbers of units stats such as the three attacks (hack, pierce, crush) the three armours (hack, pierce, crush), hit points, attack speed, attack rate, blah blah blah. We want to keep it fluid and realistic. Do away with these simple RPS concepts. Down side is... it will be very difficult to balance - especially with 3 ranks of citizen soldiers per type. However, an open beta should hopefully help with that.

LOS - We toyed around with this idea, even what we called "keyhole" LOS. Unfortinately not feasible for part I.

Archers - We hope to impliment inaccuracy with distance... but time will tell if we can squeeze that in.

Formations - We have them down on the todo list, they will also yeild statistical bonuses and penalties when in certain formations.

Height advantages - yep

Forests - yep (at least similiar to what you have suggested)

Charging - yep

Morale - we have a plan ready for part II. Units wont run away, but instead have aura bonuses and penalties (could be hitpoints, attack rates, damage, etc..) around special units that give or take morale.

Standing Cavalry - Moving cavalry would be a nice visual for eyecandy. However, I don't know if the programming time involved to do it well would be worth it.

Falling Trees - depends what direction the tree is placed in the world (which happens to be random).

[SoldierOfTheMany]

Thanks

One more question:

How will hits and damage be calculated? ie will attacks always hit in hth combat or will a high ?defence skill? deflect most hits and will damage be random to a certain degree? Realistically speaking it's very hard to hit a spearman or swordsman who has a huge shield but much easier to hit a horseman in melee.

[Wize1]

Whoa dude, you seem to be expecting a game made by god himself O_o

[Endoperez]

Will longer weapons (like spear) have bonus against shorter weapons (like dagger, sword)?

The project is VERY interesting, and already looks great. Really 3d, free, historical, with Balearic Slingers... This project puts a smile on many faces for sure.

[Belisarivs]

Will longer weapons (like spear) have bonus against shorter weapons (like dagger, sword)?

Not bad idea, but what if pikeman misses swordsman? wordsman paroaches, and thus makes pike useless.

My idea is, that pikemen (palanx) will have same number for min and max range. When deployed in formations at least three ranks deep thay will be destructive when attacking, but will be vulnerable when they break formation or are attacked from flanks or rear. Yhis will be IMHO absolutely realistic, as Phalanx was used by Alexander to stop enemy and then was enemy attacked from flanks by Companions. When Companions disappeared from battlefield, Phalanx was vulnerable and deffeated by Romans, because it didn't have flanks and rear protected by cavalry.

Also phalanx and other units with heavy weapons should turn around slower than regular infantry (Legionary) as it is rather hard to operate with 6 m long Sarissa and Phalanx formation should have even bigger problems to turn pikes from front to other sides while Roman Legions should be pretty manouverable. Barbarians even shouldn't have any formations.

Edited November 12, 2005 by Belisarivs

[Belisarivs]

When you first star out when villagers chop down tree's it's totally random where they fall (even on the villagers themselves!) until you reserch something. that's my idea.

Personally, I don't like it. I don't want to have all villagers killed by falling trees. BTW anyone with something what can be seldom called intelligence can estimate where will tree fall quite well.

Another idea:

What about stamina and different speed for walk/run/charge (yes I like Total War series)?

Edited November 12, 2005 by Belisarivs

[Titus Ultor]

We should try to avoid too much micromanaging of armies. Remember, you'll also want to be expanding your economy at the same time, and advancing your civilization in general. Notice that Rome: Total War has you do the socio-politico-economic stuff in one screen, and the military in an entire seperate type of game. If that doesn't highlight how much focus the military would take for that kind of micromanagement, I don't know how else to do so.

[Belisarivs]

Well, but when I set workers to their task, there is nothing to care of (of course, I have to look sometimes if resources aren't depleted and so). And if I'm fighting, there is no time and need to take care about aconomy, because it is set up and running.

At least option to enable or disable Stamina and different speeds should be in game and player will decide whether he is able to be competent commander under those contitions or not.

Edited November 15, 2005 by Belisarivs

[Deacon_Raptor]

Personally, I don't like it. I don't want to have all villagers killed by falling trees. BTW anyone with something what can be seldom called intelligence can estimate where will tree fall quite well.

Another idea:

What about stamina and different speed for walk/run/charge (yes I like Total War series)?

ES did that for AoE3 too........except then for the same reason they took it out. Falling trees killing enemy mil = cool. Falling trees killing all your woodies = not cool.

I personally did not like the Total War series, however, I recognize it as a seperate form of RTS. To me, as a hardcore Age of... RTS'er RTS will always be simultaneously managing econ and mil, and micromanaging both. The Total War series of games is a stunning combat machine, far superior to anything Age of... has ever come up with, however, that is because Total War, with no econ, can focus entirely on military combat action.

Same is true of Total War's opposite, the SimCity series. That series is almost entirely about economic and building management, with little to no military interaction.

The Age of... games, as well as Warcraft, and other such "true" RTS's, will always be doomed to mediocrity for both the ranges. They have to maintain some form of balance between econ and mil, and cannot do either *really* well.

Anyways, that was kindof uncalled for I guess lol, but hey, its true IMO.

Age of Mythology had a rock-paper-scissors system, and I personally did not really like it.....it was way too simplistic. Any idiot can learn a R-P-S system, it takes somebody with true intelligence to master a more complex system, such as the one that was found in Age of Kings.

[Belisarivs]

I love AoK, but Medieval: Total War as well. But when is Economz set up and running, zou don't have to take care about it so much. And when you are attacked or in ffence, you barely fcus on economy, but focus on military. And as I said, option to enable or disable tactic finesses should be in game. Player will choose what he want or not.

[Radagast]

I like the idea of cavalry moving during their attack. It could be taken much farther, though, if cavalry units carried their charge streight through the enemy formation and attacking as they go. Once they are all behind the formation, they should wheel around and charge again form the back. This would make cavalry charges much more realistic in that once they reach the front line, they wont just stop and attack until that line is dead and then move on to the next one. This would also limit the effectiveness of cavalry and make infanty and archers nessecities to finish off the enemy after its formations had been scattered and damaged by the cavalry. This would eliminate the "Super Cav. Rush" that had so dominated the Age of... Game Series.

The prices for good cavalry units might even drop a little bit because they have to cost what their worth. This solves the Persian War Elephant problem, because in reality, it is no more difficult to maintain a mahut and his elephant than a chavalier and his horse.

If morale were to have a substancial effect on the game, it would be fun to have cavalry charges weaken moral as well.

[Mabuse]

RPS - We do not have specific bonuses that state that spearman always beat cavalry, cavalry beats archers, archers beat infantry... etc. What we do instead is jostle around the numbers of units stats such as the three attacks (hack, pierce, crush) the three armours (hack, pierce, crush), hit points, attack speed, attack rate, blah blah blah. We want to keep it fluid and realistic. Do away with these simple RPS concepts. Down side is... it will be very difficult to balance - especially with 3 ranks of citizen soldiers per type. However, an open beta should hopefully help with that.

Now in AOK (which is a very balanced game, and due to that very good) a spearman don`t win "always" vs a knight for example - in fact they lose vs it in 1v1 - put are able to beat em with 2 or 3 vs 1 while being cheaper.

also Cavalry has no Attack-Bonus vs Archers, they have instead a basic Pierce-armor. (and are fast)

Btw, the Pierce-armors and bonusses are excellent balanced in AOK (ok i repeat myself here )

In my Opinion an Attack-Bonus for vcertain UNits vs certain UNittypes is IMO no bad solution, becasue you now may give spearman high crush armor, so that they can stand vs cavalry (if cavalry make crush damage), but this would basically the same . Not much difference if i give spaerman an attack bonus so that they are better vs knights than vs other units, or i give em a high Armor vs cavalry attacks -

nope ? (in fact it would be unrealistic to give em armor instead of attack-bonus )

So basically i don`t mind that "simple" RTS concepts, especially if i think about that spearman have in fact an attack-BONUS vs cavalry - and surely not crush-armor

The Spear is good vs cavalry (damage), not the fact that a spearman carries a spear make it more resistant to crush damage

anyway, if i see people talk too much about realism it makes me flee anyway

[Mabuse]

Line of sight playin a huge role, not knowing your surrounds should be punished. Archers can only fire if they have line of sight.

Archers don't automaticaly hit their target but calculate the targets speed and direction.(will their arrows be realistically effected by gravity?) just like in Myth:TFL for example.

A shield wall of heavy Infantry should be highly resistant to attacks along its front from other Infantry, Cavalry but maybe not to arrows rained down from above(volleys) and javlins.

Of course height advantages.

Hiding in forests, slow speed in forests, Cavalry disadvantages in forest and perhaps no formations allowed while in forests.

Other ideas:

Cavalry attack bonus while attacking in formation(generally line) Whenever Cavalry attack they generally close the gap slowly and then charged at the last minute so all horses would drive home at the same time.

Morale, I hate morale actually, look at RTW's mass panics. But done subtle? Maybe. Again formations would play a huge part in this troops surrounded by friends fight better. Something tells me that morale as in units running away will not play a useful part in this game as there will be too much 1vs1 combats.

Cavalry standing still in melee? This really shouldn't happen can they be made to move around while attacking.

My coments:

- Line of sight is a useable concept

- Infantry may have formations which make then more resistant - standard and useable

- archers don`t automatically hit heir target, but may traget the point a possible target would be at when moving with same spee in same direction ? come on, its standard

- arrows realistic affected by gravity ? they may shoot in a bow idf the target is more distant - thats it.

- height advatabge ? standard.

- forests with advanatges and disadantage ? Nice Idea - but anyway standard, if the forest are walkable

(btw you should álo not be able to make certain formatiuons if the place is not enough for them - standard )

- Bonusses for cavalry while in Formation. Standard for any formation. if it won`t be a bonus then they would be useless - and in fact formations were used becasue they offered advanatges - standard

- Morale ? Now you want it all realistic, but hate Mass-Panics (which occured IMO), now you have to decide if you want to insist on TOTAL REALISM or not. If yes, then mass pAnics are also STANDARD

- wow, now you hate MASS-Panic, but Horses standing still in Melee would be complete unrealistic or whta. Lets agree about a compromise - we cut out the Mass-Panic and then you just imagine that a Horsemen hacking at its opponent and standing still, would be riding around in realtity, but just not displayed in game.

agree ? OK.

[Mabuse]

now thats only my opinion - most of the things are standard anyway, just like attack bonus

[Mabuse]

btw, if archers hit always i could also live with that. i have no problems with some restrictions in reality-factor.

compensate it with lower fire-rate and thats it

and now i apaologize for posting 3 times a row

EDIT: ups it was 4 times. Now i revealed that i can only count to 3.

EDIT2: Btw, before now someone tells me that in reality some cavalry was vulnerable to archers (if they were not over them of course ) then i agree and just say that in AOK the archers use theri bow also in Melee and thats also not realitic, or that Horses can`t trample theri opponents which is also not realistic -

so many unrealistic things and i still love the game, while other went straight into the dustbin

[Aeros]

btw, if archers hit always i could also live with that. i have no problems with some restrictions in reality-factor.

Archers don't always hit, and they work best in volleys

[Wijitmaker]

So basically i don`t mind that "simple" RTS concepts, especially if i think about that spearman have in fact an attack-BONUS vs cavalry - and surely not crush-armor

I can understand that

Something you have to keep in mind is that RPS dyamics was created years ago when computer had difficulty trying to simulate real warfare. For example, in games like the original AoE (or perhaps even older?) there was only one type of an attack (no peirce, hack, crush, etc...). So in order to have their little 16bit-pixel-sprite-spearman an advantage over a knight was to code in a bonus that says: versus a knight the spearman has a 50% higher attack strength.

Well, games (and computers that run those games) have developed to a point that we don't have to use RPS dyanamics as a crutch to try to relate realistic simulation to the players. We can actually simulate most things quite effectively without.

And this is why we won't be hardcoding bonuses for units in the game. We instead will use the game as the engine that drive the simulation dictated by the unit statistics (in their entity .xml files).

[Titus Ultor]

Archers can, if used effectively, have a great advantage over cavalry. Remember Agincourt? If the cavalry's mobility is done away with, it is fairly vulnerable to even sword-armed infantry, especially when the horse is unarmored. Which is why, in traditional RTSs, mounted melee troops have always been given unrealistically high armor ratings and hit points. They're really actually more vulnerable than unmounted troops if you can stop them from moving much. They're simply larger and more obvious targets, and they can't wheel around to face you as fast as you can move around them (believe it or not, but a man can run circles around a horse trying to turn about without wheeling around). Their weapons are awkward to use on the left side, and their shields are entirely unavailable on the right.

It's excusable, however, that AoK makes the horse troops stop moving to engage enemies. Could you imagine how difficult and complex the graphics and mechanics of the game would be if mounted troops were wheeling about constantly? Also, the numbers used in RTSs (particularly in 0 A.D., where we project that we won't pass a population cap of a hundred) are never enough to really simulate how horses would get bogged down in a sea of men.

Oh, and an elephant and mahout would actually cost much, much more than a horse and rider. Elephants eat more, require much more room and more training to be used effectively in war. Also, horses are much more resilient to different climates (elephants wouldn't do well in Gallia; look what happened to Hannibal's army up in the Alps).

[Mabuse]

Archers can, if used effectively, have a great advantage over cavalry. Remember Agincourt? If the cavalry's mobility is done away with, it is fairly vulnerable to even sword-armed infantry, especially when the horse is unarmored. Which is why, in traditional RTSs, mounted melee troops have always been given unrealistically high armor ratings and hit points. They're really actually more vulnerable than unmounted troops if you can stop them from moving much.

Sure. But i can tell you also many other Situations where hvy Cavalry owned the Battlefield Which was quite more often than Agincourt. Also in later Times, the defense of Cavalry from ranged units was always important. Ranged units have not the ability stopping Cavalry that charge at them (if not extreme firepower or significant superiority in numbers)

Also one thing about Armor, the fact the knight were mounted allowed them to wear Armor that would be impossible for Foot-Units - even the Horses were strongly armored in Cases. And due to that much more weight and higher trample damage.

Now in the Time-Line that 0ad features that may be something else though. For example RomanCavlary may be vulnerable to archers, but if the Cavlary can reach the archers they may do great damage to them. and due to the fact that they are FAST ....

[Mabuse]

"easy" solution for "moving Cavalry" :

simply force the player to move them on their own

btw, if there is a charge formation for cavalry (should be avialable for all cavalry this charge formation should have certain adantages for Horsemen - but this formation will be dismissed after a certain time when the formation had contact with enemy units - or is activated by default whenever a mounted unit hits a Unit while moving - crush damage ?)

after that the caalry will fight with their regular stats which are weaker.

so for anohert successful attack, the caalry have to move on (retreat or ride thrigh the enemy line, reformate and charge again)

keep em moving, if the enemy unit group is weakened enough after the charge, the cavalry may mob them simply up of course.

sometimes after the charge the cavalry wil be sourrounded, so that retreating or riding through the enemies will be simply to much casualties, so that stand+fighting is better solution also

may depend on sitiation, the best attack of cavalry, the hvy charge shopuld in any way bring great bonussess with them. perhaps other weapons like spearman, may neglect this cavalry ability

it will be intersting to simulate that.

But i agree with TitusUlthor that the use of cavlary may strongly depend on Situation- so if your goal is to simulate this, you should try to implement something in this direction

keep em moving, if possible

nice to think about it.

btw, pls try to go for another POP cap than 100 or 150. I mean why unpopluar 3d in a RTS instead of thousands of units ?

We have the Year 2005, and if your 3d does not support immense Details, it shoul dbe able to handle a few more units, and if even this is not possible by the game-engine -

i must say to be honest, i would have gone for 2d instead.

2d offers enough advanatges, and real RTS Fans will prefer more Units and 2d

[Mabuse]

If the cavalry's mobility is done away with, it is fairly vulnerable to even sword-armed infantry, especially when the horse is unarmored.

btw, as i just read this i remembered that the Lt Cav (unarmored) in AOK lose vs Swordmen

at least if it has no Bloodlines

whatever ...

about my moving Cav-Bonus - i meant it that cavalry should have a general (charge)bonus if it moved a certain Time and deals damage then. after dealing the damage the (charge) Bonus is used up and the Cavalry can stand and fight or move to fill this Bonus again.

how this may look in practice i cannot judge atm, maybe the Cavalry charge, and the player pulls from time to time some cav out, with the time the players get used which distance they have to chose which makes the Horse get the bonus back, but still near so that it will join combat on its own This is then a form of micro which makes the cavalry better -

or the whole Cav is chosen and retreats to charge wit full strengh again

but maybe this is also crap

At least i offer my abilities for the unit "balance" section -

maybe i can help in the planning stage a bit

[Belisarivs]

Did you play Medieval: Total War, Mabuse?

Ther eit was solved this way (and mostly realistic).

Units had 3 speeds. Walk/Run/Charge. Units had stamina and faster you moved, faster want stamina down.

Units also couldn't run up the hill, just walked, and units running down the hill moved faster and got bonuses.

Also units had two types of attack. Charge and normal attack. When you ordered your units to charge enemy, stamina went down faster and they did diffeent damage to the enemy, then, they continued fighting, normal attack was counted. Also units with pikes, spears or lances had bigger charge than units without it (units could have two or more weapons).

[Mabuse]

no. would like to check it out though. But don`t ahve the game.

However - in my suggestion there is no stamina that go down while moving - instead there is a charge-value that go up while moving - and is a certain Factor that is added to the attack Vlaue (perhaps) if Full 1.5 (or even 2.0 or higher depend maybe also on the class hevier units get more )) - if zero 1.0 - for example)

the charge move is maybe restricted in a certain direction, so changing direction by 180 degree may set the Valaue to 0 (1.0) again

of course this can be done also easier - in any way should the attack out of movement provide a nice bonus for cavalry.

then while standing they fight with normal stats. if the player uses (extensive) micro he may use this to his advantage, and even master this certain unit type.

if it is worth it to care less of other areas (eco, other units) in this situation