Elegant decision!

[Balance44]

So now the “adjacent hex rule” (one of strong features of the series btw) is replaced with “both sides choosing for tactical combat up to 3 armies in near by area”. That’s great and resolves many problems, from technical to strategic ones.

Just curious how it works with allies or vassals? Can you involve vassals into combat if you’ve been attacked? Can you take control on their forces in tactical combat?

 

[Big J Money]

By aliens, I assume you mean allies, and I'm curious about this too.

For what it's worth, I would have no idea your thread is mainly a question, based on your title. It might be easier for a dev to notice it if you reword it to reflect the question you'd like answered.

 

[Burjis]

I can't remember as far as AoW3, but in planetfall, your allies and vassals, as well as the factions that were friendly with you and were at war with your enemy joined the fight if they were on the adjacent hexes.
In AoW4, I'm assuming if an ally AI is within the reinforcement range, you will be able to select them as reinforcement that would join the battle but they will be controlled by the AI, not you. If an ally AI attacks or gets attacked and one of your armies is in their reinforcement range, you will probably be given the choice to participate in that fight or not. They could further add to the system to make it more complicated. For example, they could make it so that opting out of reinforcing a friendly army when they are attacked would hurt your standing with them if you have a defensive pact.

 

[Technogremlin]

Just curious how it works with aliens or vassals? Can you involve vassals into combat if you’ve been attacked? Can you take control on their forces in tactical combat?

i think they will join you in combat:

Any stack inside the range that is friendly (Defensive Pact/Pact of Loyalty or higher) can join you in a fight. The system always chooses the 3 strongest stacks in the range to participate in combat.

but theyre probably under ai control

 

[Uriak]

I found this to be pretty big news. I found the "chess tacticts" in PF kinda tedious, with the risk of a stack separated by one tile to be obliterated. Tactics should be only involved at the... tactical level (aka in battle)

I wonder if it would be possible to not engage a weak stack if a stronger ally stack is in range (aka your lone scout taking the slot) maybe it's a bit complicated...
And maybe there are skills that actually change that reinforcement range ?

 

[Iguanaonastick]

I wonder if it would be possible to not engage a weak stack if a stronger ally stack is in range (aka your lone scout taking the slot) maybe it's a bit complicated...

Yesterday's stream actually showed this is possible:

When stacks join the battle, there's a checkbox next to them on the pre-battle screen. You can deselect it to opt out of joining the battle. The example they gave was "you may not want your scout joining."

What I don't know is if you can swap stacks in. i.e. if there are four stacks in range... can I deselect one and select another? Comments so far suggest not, which would be disappointing.

 

[NEHZ]

I wonder how that works when you're being attacked in a pbem situation. Because even if you run on autobattle, opting in/out supporting armies would require input from the defender.

 

[Iguanaonastick]

I wonder how that works when you're being attacked in a pbem situation. Because even if you run on autobattle, opting in/out supporting armies would require input from the defender.

Good point. Maybe only the attacker can choose? Kind of makes sense that if you're being attacked you can't opt out...

 

[Vibromaster]

There are no settings or mechanics to increase the amount of stacks that engage in a combat. It's always 3 stacks max per side. Any stack inside the range that is friendly (Defensive Pact/Pact of Loyalty or higher) can join you in a fight. The system always chooses the 3 strongest stacks in the range to participate in combat.

From an other thread

 

[Triumph Jordi]

I wonder how that works when you're being attacked in a pbem situation. Because even if you run on autobattle, opting in/out supporting armies would require input from the defender.

As always has been the case with our Multiplayer, the Defender does not get a choice moment when they are attacked. So as in the past, the attacker can choose to Auto or Manual combat and the game will go from there.

 

[Balance44]

As always has been the case with our Multiplayer, the Defender does not get a choice moment when they are attacked. So as in the past, the attacker can choose to Auto or Manual combat and the game will go from there.

And what about allies and vassals? Can you involve them / take control over their forces in TC?

UPD: I see exactly the same discussion in the neighbouring thread

 

[Balance44]

By aliens, I assume you mean allies, and I'm curious about this too.

For what it's worth, I would have no idea your thread is mainly a question, based on your title. It might be easier for a dev to notice it if you reword it to reflect the question you'd like answered.

You’re right. My question emerged after I made the title of this post )

 

[ZhukoDim]

Hm, don't like what I've hear so far. So if for example a defender have full 3 stacks of units but his lone scout got caught by 3 full stacks of enemies , defender have to fight with this lone scout and 2 of his stacks, right?
What about units that stand behind city walls and enemy attacking some lone unit near it? You as a defender again have to fight with your main units for this useless scout?

I mean I understand that you have to adapt for such new system and do not have scouts or weak stacks of units near your main ones but I have a feeling that it may work better, no?

 

[Triumph Jordi]

What about units that stand behind city walls and enemy attacking some lone unit near it? You as a defender again have to fight with your main units for this useless scout?

Any units that are in defensive positions i.e. City Walls or Infestation Defenders will not join a battle if a stack outside of it is attacked. So you won't be able to attack Free City Node Defenders or an stack outside of the City to bypass a Siege.

And what about allies and vassals? Can you involve them / take control over their forces in TC?

You do not have control over Allies/Vassals during Combat. They are controlled by their owner whether that be player or AI.

 

[Iguanaonastick]

Any units that are in defensive positions i.e. City Walls or Infestation Defenders will not join a battle if a stack outside of it is attacked. So you won't be able to attack Free City Node Defenders or an stack outside of the City to bypass a Siege.

Probably the best approach. But it does run the risk that players can pick off AI units that are just outside the city but couldn't (or didn't) move far enough to enter it. (I.e. there's a strong garrison in the city, but the small stack outside gets picked off even though the garrison would have won the battle if they had joined.) Hopefully the AI is good enough to prevent that.

It also suggests that there will be room for at least 3 stacks inside a city, because otherwise the city defenders would always be outnumbered by the attackers in a siege... but I'll wait for the siege dev diary for more details on that.

 

[Vibromaster]

Probably the best approach. But it does run the risk that players can pick off AI units that are just outside the city but couldn't (or didn't) move far enough to enter it. (I.e. there's a strong garrison in the city, but the small stack outside gets picked off even though the garrison would have won the battle if they had joined.) Hopefully the AI is good enough to prevent that.

I quite like that actually! It sounds like siege warfare 101 with skirmishes outside the walls.

 

[Triumph Jordi]

It also suggests that there will be room for at least 3 stacks inside a city, because otherwise the city defenders would always be outnumbered by the attackers in a siege... but I'll wait for the siege dev diary for more details on that.

I mean a City is 7 hexes, you can put a lot of units in there.

 

[Sifer2]

Yeah I kind of miss the "Logic" of the old system. But it will make things a lot less tedious on the world map when moving armies if you don't have to keep them right next to one another. One thing that's unnecessary but they could do is still make distance on the world map matter by having reinforcing armies take a certain number of turns to arrive on the battlefield depending on how far away they were on the world map. But it should be fine either way.

I like that large battles will usually be more fair now with 3v3 instead of ending up as 3v4 like before. Although that means we lost a whole army from max battle size. I wonder why they didn't make armies 7 units max instead of 6 to account for that.

 

[NEHZ]

One thing that's unnecessary but they could do is still make distance on the world map matter by having reinforcing armies take a certain number of turns to arrive on the battlefield depending on how far away they were on the world map.

Would undermine

But it will make things a lot less tedious on the world map when moving armies if you don't have to keep them right next to one another.

 

[Burjis]

One thing that's unnecessary but they could do is still make distance on the world map matter by having reinforcing armies take a certain number of turns to arrive on the battlefield depending on how far away they were on the world map. But it should be fine either way.

I was wondering about that too. We still don't have much info about how distance on the strategic map affects the distance on the tactical map. It doesn't really need to be a number of turns delay for units to arrive. They can be placed farther away on the tactical map.