Non-instantaneous battles

HM, your ideas are interesting regarding the excitement of a battle. And we must consider that would be useful for fighting Factions as we could reinforce an attacking ally/NAP member.

More, this is intersting because we could have big battles bettween 2 sides without doing any siege and risk to demolish/destroy a city.

And this is important to precise with that idea you are creating a flee option with messengers.
For me there are some things to think about this subject:

1)  to be more realistic an army may not flee instantaneously, it may have a certain amount of loses by trying to flee... for exemple, we can imagine that when occuppying time is ended or when a messenger arrives, it put the army in raid mode.

2) we may consider if it would be judicious to add an option when you are occupying a square. I think about order to this occupying army either to flee if it is underattacked either to defend against any attacks... either to flee only if the attacking army is bigger.



Finally what about assassins? For you would they be able to enter a battle what stays on a square? and if yes what would happen if a division lose its commender, or if the army lost all its commenders.





Edited by Mandarins31 - 26 Sep 2010 at 07:01

I suppose it's also noteworthy that a decision would have to be made as to whether a party was considered attacker or defender (important for determining their battle effectiveness relative to their unique stats).  As I see it, there's two reasonable ways it could be handled:

1) Anyone present before a battle starts is a defender (like now), and anyone initiating battle or arriving after it begins is an attacker (regardless of who's side they take).

2) Anyone present before a battle starts is a defender (like now), and whoever sides with the defender after battle begins is also a defender.  The other side's participants are all attackers regardless of when they arrive (thought it's obviously after the first defender).

Which is better isn't nearly so clear-cut as what I've discussed so far.  #2 is probably simpler/more compatible with existing battle resolution code (handling terrain modifiers etc.) and also more equitable, but I haven't fully thought it through yet.


Edited by HonoredMule - 26 Sep 2010 at 05:36

this idea needs to have a bit more refinement, as all good ideas do. for instance, if two armies begin an engagement and a third party wanted to reinforce one of the original combatants, how would the third army know what to do?

I think this is a great idea because of all the new tactics it could allow. For example, if army 1 attacks army 2 from the west, then the owner of army 1 might be able to send another attack to the same point, but from the east (Using the not yet implemented rally points maybe?). This flanking could give a % attack bonus to the flankers, or maybe even scale the bonus with speed, which would make a lot of sense in my mind.  This is just one of the many possibilities.

Without being interrupted, the outcome would be exactly the same--it just takes longer to finish.  However, you could use scouts to track progress even before you know the final outcome, and recall if you don't like how its turning out...or if close enough, send reinforcements.  The basic behavior of battle and calculations that determine outcome would be unaltered, but making it span a non-instantaneous time frame and holding the participants there means that additional forces can participate in the same battle--yet only to the extent that said forces are present during that battle.

Balance would be altered somewhat given that (for example) two equal armies could attack an occupation matching their combined strength and the battle would be balanced instead of outnumbered 2/1 twice (provided the attackers arrive at the exact same time).  Some additional territorial control is enjoyed as well; battles close to a participating player would be in that player's advantage as he can reinforce or withdraw quickly and the long-distance enemy cannot.  But by far the greater difference would simply be that warfare becomes something that participants can observe over time.  This is more about making the game interesting than fairness or even control.  Battle conditions could actually change in response to additional (mostly pre-planned and executed/launched) actions.  And instead of simply being told the final result, players would be told every time the course of battle is altered, having the opportunity to carry out further instructions.  Players become much more involved/engaged spectators.

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In my opinion, live player-controlled battle is a drastically huge change from how browser-based games normally work and infeasible socially if not technically as well.