In need of tatical combat.

[AndrewT]

I have to disagree again. The time and effort put into a tactical system would be better spent on debugging or other development tasks. Making it optional makes it even less part of the game.

I've played board wargames for over 25 years. There are tactical, operational, strategic and grand-strategic games. Different scales appeal to different folks, and a game that tried to bung them all in would the worst of all worlds, not the best.

Some want to game just the attack on the farm at Waterloo, some the whole Napoleonic era. There is room for all, but not in the one game. If you truly want mediaeval tactical combat there are plenty of other games for you.

 

[unmerged(4944)]

I'm against tactical battles for the reasons above, especially the diversion of resources it would take paradox.

However, it might be worth allowing armies to exist in one of several modes, so the player gives toggles a button to select the "mode" the army is operating under. In other words they would represent the general instructions or mission the army is operating under.

They might only be able to be able to be changed every few weeks depending on commanders (the button could glow fully to indicate orders can be changed). Very hypothetically they could be something like:

Aggressive - combat bonus but suffer more losses if defeated
Engage - combat disadvantage unless have more cavalry
Cautious - combat disadvantage unless have more cannons
Preserve - combat disadvantage but suffer less losses if defeated.

this would give a tiny bit of control to the monarch without recourse to a tactical system. would be interested to hear improvements on above set of missions.

 

[Johan]

We will not have tactical combat in EU2.

 

[unmerged(5040)]

EU is not the right game for tactical combat and please keep the military side simple, the present diversity of units is in my opinion close to ideal.

What EU2 needs is more diplomatic and economic options!

 

[unmerged(9)]

While i agree that complete tactical combat would be not only impossible to do but totally out of scope, I still think the Empires in Arms model would work. For EU3 perhaps?

Marcus

 

[unmerged(3773)]

Originally posted by Sir Keats
The degree of depth to the current EU1 is great but beyond even the rather crazy monarch missions and in general weird AI bugs, the greatest problem is watching armies of three or four times the size of their opponents getting beaten badly by armies that do not even possess the same level of technology. What I would humbly suggest is that with the incredibly detailed and awesome tatctical level combat engines available like their Waterloo engine, or maybe something like a "Gettysburg" engine one could have the choice of entering into tactical level gaming. Particularly when the "crap" is hitting the fan. Finally one can blast those annoying little cavalry armies of the tartars, persians, and other barbarians with cannon fire and massed musket fire!!!! God loves those who have the technology and the armies that employ it.

I feel extremely sorry to give this example but it is the big one that comes to my mind:
Azincourt 1415

 

[Steph]

Originally posted by Martinov
Aggressive - combat bonus but suffer more losses if defeated
Engage - combat disadvantage unless have more cavalry
Cautious - combat disadvantage unless have more cannons
Preserve - combat disadvantage but suffer less losses if defeated.

It's a bit what I suggested. Not a real tactical combat "Shogun like", but a way to influence the battle, by simply popping a window asking for a global tactique for the battle (like outflank or charge). I suggested to do it round by round, but it can also be done only once at the beginning of the battle. And that won't use a lot of resource

 

[Steph]

Originally posted by AndrewT
Making it optional makes it even less part of the game.

It would be less a part of the game for you if you don't like it, but for other people it will be full part.
Personnally, I would like to have a "battle resolution window", where I could influence the battle a bit (as it was done in the BG or in Empire in Arms), but NOT a tactical game (I agree that would be silly), and have a better idea of it.
Like : 1 round you lose 10% of your troops, the ennemy loses 40%. What do you want to do for the next round ?
- Retreat
- Charge
- Outflank
- Defend
That would be enough for me, with a few info, like the name of the general, the size of each army...

And if you want, let the computer handle the battle for you and give only the final result!

There's no need of to much resource (no graphics except the window itself), it could fit easily in the game (just a guess, I don't how it is coded) as it's only text, some functions to calculate the losses. No real time, no animation...

 

[Aetius]

I think a better AI for the computers use of armys and resolving some of the more unrealistic facets of the game, like the fact that attacking moving armies sets the movement so far to 0, would spend programming time better even for EU3. I like the fact that small rubbish armies beat big good ones. It makes the game less predictable.
On the other hand co-operating with a developer to develop a battle simulator for multiplayer games based on the armies could produce a nice add-on.