Army combat

As a way to spice up army combat a bit, I was trying to think up various modifiers we could put in place that would make armies a bit more interesting yet be fairly simple. Below are a couple ideas.

1. Terrain advantages for flying or non-flying armies for certain types of terrain. This would apply across the board to all armies. In forests and indoors, ground armies would get bonuses, due to the constricted space for movement. In open fields, mountains and on water, flying armies would get bonuses due to the open area giving them increased mobility compared to their opponents.

2. Terrain advantages for specific cabal armies. Elementals do better in extreme environment conditions such as the Volcano or Winter, due to heat and cold being less of an issue for them. Warmaster armies do better in open fields, as they can spread out and use their numbers and tactical experience to envelop the enemy. Knight forces do better in mountains and enclosed spaces, as they are experienced at holding the line at a choke point against demon hordes. I can't think of a specific example for Nexus to round this one out, but the idea should be clear. The reverse would also be doable - give certain cabal armies weaknesses in certain types of terrain. We could also give these areas income bonuses/penalties to enhance their value, or make the bonuses apply to attack or defense only.

The basic idea behind this is to make certain areas stronger or weaker for certain cabals. This would give increased strategic importance to holding these areas - if Knight forces have more bonuses in an area than Nexus forces, but Nexus forces will be stronger in the area behind it, it becomes all the more important for Knight to hold the first area because the second will fall even more quickly. It may be easier for Savant to take the Dragon's Teeth because of the open skies, but those WM forces entrenched in the Elemental Canyon forests will be mighty hard to dig out.

To me, something along these lines seems like a small and easily implemented change that could make things just a little more interesting. Thoughts? Contributions along these lines?

This is definitely an interesting aspect. If implemented, I would like to possibly see it take effect only when the leader is within the area.

Great Idea Pali

This is definitely an interesting aspect. If implemented' date=' I would like to possibly see it take effect only when the leader is within the area.[/quote']

They could be enhanced through leadership - have some small degree of bonus/penalty reflecting the terrain always there, and have that boosted by leadership on top of the normal leadership bonuses, making leadership and spending time with your forces that much more useful. Perhaps make the flavor text for the battling change a bit, reflecting the leader's presence as well?

I'd also still love some sort of way in which your character could contribute directly to army combat... perhaps some sort of battle mode your character could enter in a room where combat is going on, where mobs consistently spawn for your character to fight for some amount of time, draining the enemy armies of strength as they are defeated (preferably groups of mobs, to make it feel more like you're in a large battle). It could be done like a guild quest in a way, offering alternative difficulty levels of enemies (with appropriate phrasing, of course - an easy level of enemies could be "hit and run on the flanks", medium "stand the line", hard "charge head on"), which would both allow weaker characters to contribute without fighting very powerful mobs as well as allowing flexibility for how involved you want to get in the fight depending on the risk of enemies showing up. If you're forced to flee, the enemy army gets a temporary power bonus because of the morale boost from forcing away the enemy general, so you'd not want to pick a mission you can't handle (edit: perhaps lasting until you successfully complete a mission against the army you failed against earlier?).

It'd encourage cabal members to spend more time in game and give them something to do when they don't have enemies around. Edit: Give cps for completing missions against armies, and I guarantee it'll encourage cabal members to spend more time in game. While these kinds of things would speed up the pace of army combat a bit, frankly, I think it's a bit too far on the slow end right now anyways - for the most part, it's rather boring paperwork that soaks up cps for a rather slow improvement in cp gain and slow change in the world. Let's spice it up a bit and up the rewards.

Now I'm going to bed, so you people play around with this.

I like it. It'd be cool and effective to do this or a system similar.

I'd like to see variance to troops, not necessarily elemental/terrain difference, but an addition to the types. As it is now, we all have the same type. Everyone just does: c 10 t 10 aa . Make it to where you can create mounted, archers, phalanx, etc etc. What will you take? Creation of a siege weapon can move quickly through bastion, but if an enemy cabal player sends a unit designed to destroy it, then you'll be ****ed.

Nothing about what we have now is anything like a battlefield. Its mass production of troops to damage fast. 0 strategy. I'd LOVE to see more done with this idea.

I like it. It'd be cool and effective to do this or a system similar.

I'd like to see variance to troops, not necessarily elemental/terrain difference, but an addition to the types. As it is now, we all have the same type. Everyone just does: c 10 t 10 aa . Make it to where you can create mounted, archers, phalanx, etc etc. What will you take? Creation of a siege weapon can move quickly through bastion, but if an enemy cabal player sends a unit designed to destroy it, then you'll be ****ed.

Nothing about what we have now is anything like a battlefield. Its mass production of troops to damage fast. 0 strategy. I'd LOVE to see more done with this idea.

Excellent idea. I'd envision it working best with five unit types: archers, swordsmen, pikemen, cavalry and siege units. Siege units would bust bastions, swordsmen could remain the more expensive elite unit that does decently in all situations, and the others would be a archers>pikemen>cavalry>archers roshambo. It could also incorporate terrain advantages and disadvantages.

I think it would be a good idea to have the armies passively reclaim area's close to their cabal. That way there is always something happening with Armies and never a stagnant point when you can do no more.

**To further that: **I also think that you should be able to attack any army in your way. If Savant hold the Northern Road and you want to get through to Nexus territory you should be able to attack the Savant armies/Bastions without having a vendetta.

IF IT THEN CAUSES A VENDETTA WELL THAT'D BE LIKE ROLEPLAY AND STUFF RIGHT?

I think it would cause people to make hard descisions... Do we force our true enemies all the way back but make the savants collateral damage? Will the Savants retaliate by declaring war or make whoever pay back the damage in another way? Tithing? Treaties? Maybe the Savants are too pressed by the Warmasters to declare another war and have to just take it on the chin. Maybe savant is full and the most powerful in the lands and whoever it is will have to consider if they can afford to make them angry.

Such a simple change which I think will make things more interesting.

I like both those ideas as well, Aulian, particularly the second.

Keep 'em coming, people! Anyone else with ideas on how to spice up army combat? I think this is somewhat important, as a caballed char often spends a lot of time and cps dealing with armies, and it'd be very helpful for it to be more fun than it is.

**To further that: **I also think that you should be able to attack any army in your way. If Savant hold the Northern Road and you want to get through to Nexus territory you should be able to attack the Savant armies/Bastions without having a vendetta.

Maybe add penalties (during the battle) for a unit, if battling non-vendettaed army on their grounds, due to lower morale. It would be good to have some penalty in this, so that one faction wont just run over everything.

One way to prevent all-over war without vendettaes would also be that areas can be conquered only from vendettaed faction.

Bastions can be created only on either own land, vendettaed, or unclaimed, preventing creation of (effective) blockades on grounds you don't own/ain't gona conquer.

But on the other hand, doesn't NA-pact allow you to march your troops thru their areas? If it doesn't, it should.

While in the other hand, if you can march your troops on areas controlled by faction you have no diplomatic relations, this allows "suprise" attacks. (no quotes if the vote passes quickly)

Perhaps after a certain number of bastions are captured an auto-vendetta would happen? Say once a full area was lost? I also really like the idea of a hefty morale penalty for attacking a non-vendetta target.

Perhaps after a certain number of bastions are captured an auto-vendetta would happen? Say once a full area was lost? I also really like the idea of a hefty morale penalty for attacking a non-vendetta target.

Tieing this into the original idea, maybe thats Nexus's point of difference? They dont suffer the morale loss because they dont care who they kill being all evil and stuff? Whilst other cabals mentioned by Pali get a Terrain advantage nexus dont get a morale penalty for attacking non-vendetta'd targets.

Terrain advantages for specific cabal armies. CONT.

I like that as well.

I think that Nexus should have the biggest penalty exactly because they have the least restrictions, and even more reason. As help file hints, Nexus' primary (or secondary) objective is to conquer the world.

But if there's other penalties for wanton warmongering (like autovendetta), then it's perhaps not so big of a deal? Rather nasty trade-off for not having any terrain-bonuses (yet how about minuses?).

But then, how we prevent such from happening that one player causes his faction to be in vendetta with every other (with armies) within hours?

That'd be up to the other members of that faction. You either control your people, or risk all-out war with the entirety of Aabahran.

I mean if that doesnt work then remove the function. If you killed too many of my armies passing through I'd just declare war anyway.

I think the auto vendetta idea is restrictive... What if the cabal doesnt want to automatically declare war because they are too weak too? What if they would take it on the chin and ignore the damage?