Medieval Combat (0.9.4 Beta)

[PsychoticKittens]

Because Zombie Horde was too hard for me to complete alone, I gave up. But here I am again, moving on with another project more manageable (hopefully). Because alot of the code required was already done in previous project Modern Combat, this shouldn't be as hard.

To give an idea of the basic principles of this, its based around siege warfare, and population styled units.

No- I don't mean having a limit to how many units you can have, infact its the polar opposite.

Each person in the unit is miniscule, but a unit can be compromised of 10, 25, or hundreds of people of the same type of unit. For instance a single spearman would have 1 hp and do 1-1, but a unit of 100 spearmen would have 100/1 hp, and do 100-1 when it struck (minus resistances and "evasion-resistance"). Damage is increased by using the formula that Base Damage is multiplied by the current value of Hitpoints divided by Maximum Hitpoints (or in this case, a single one of that units Hitpoints, 1.) Because each spearman has 1 hp, and there are 100 (100 hp) damage is multiplied by 100. Similarly, if there were 100 Swordsmen (who have 2 hp) the total would be 200 hp, 200/2 would still be 100x damage.

Due to the fact that its unlikely 100 people would evade 100 attacks, evasion is now in the form of a secondary resistance. When struck, after regular resistances are calculated, the damage taken is multiplied by the chance of the enemy to hit a unit, so a percentage (lower than in default) evades damage. I.E if 100 Axemen attacked another Group of 100 Axemen on flat terrain (80% evasion) 80% of the damage the Axemen did would be nullified and they would do 80-2 instead of 100-2. (of course, their damage would go down for the second strike after they were struck) This also means that RNG plays no part (but unfortunately it also means some units have a 100% chance of dying and doing absolutely no damage in certain cases.)

Along with population styled combat, Castles are built of Building Units. A Central Manor, Fort, Keep, Citadel, Palace, or Cathedral (which determines some qualities of the castle, and what that castle is better or worse at) 6 or 9 buildings attached to the Center, Walls Built between 3 to 5, or 7 hexes away and farms built between 3 to 5, 7, or 9 hexes away the distance you can build out depends on your Center of course. Farms have serfs on them that provide food to the Center, it's stored there and used by Town-units connected to it to provide extra income. If you don't have any towns you don't need to farm, but you don't get any additional income from what the center gives you. Along with towns you can also build 4 Kinds of Structures for Recruiting Units, Markets to improve Towns and build Caravans for carrying food and gold, and Churches to research new units and tithe your citizens for extra income (even if they're not fed.)

When properly built it is very difficult to destroy a castle with just infantry, so of course there are Siege Weapons specifically for destroying walls and buildings. Siege Weapons (along with archers, javelineers, and axe throwers) can all shoot furthur than adjacent hexes using long ranged attacks. Yep, there's Real Ranged again.

I plan on putting a special "Messenger Unit" to allow unofficial teamwork. Because most of the maps won't have official teams (though you can put them if you want) its impossible to teamchat. with the messenger unit you can send it between one of your castles, and an opponents castle to send a private message (using a text box hopefully) or declare something to the entire game in a flamboyant and risky fashion. There's nothing quite like some jerk in fancy clothes coming up to your castle walls and yelling up to you that you have 3 days to give him a caravan of 10 gold before he lets his trebuchet's unleash hell on your city.

Hopefully this add-on will be strategically balanced and interesting to play against other players, once it gets finished.

[Hiebe]

This sounds very good but what woul the max on units be in each group? I can see 100 spearmen but maybe horses would be a max of 50 or something like that. Also would ranged units come into play ?

[PsychoticKittens]

There are real ranged units. There will (hopefully) be limitless populations.

If I have to increase max_hitpoints to increase hitpoints over max (for increased population) I might put a 99999 limit. which hopefully would never, ever be reached. ever.

[Hiebe]

I don't know. I don like having masses of armies walking around with no way of killing them. Ever thought of battalions or rigements and stuff like that ?

[PsychoticKittens]

if the enemy has "masses of armies" it's very likely you would have just as large, in which case it's still the same amount of balance cause I balance units by how much you spend on them.

[Mabuse]

hmm.

so i can make a unit consisting of 100 axeman which does 100-1 (minus enemy resistances)
but i can also make 100 units of 1 axeman (which would have 1-1 then, and could also act very convenient as a meat shield, absorbing the attack of a 100 axeman unit) ?

also the thing with the 1 strike units is (at least how far i understand it), that in case a 100 axeman unit (has 100 HP and does 100-1 damage) fights a 50 axeman unit (has 50 hp and does 50-1 damage), the 100 axeman unit could kill the 50 axeman unit without getting any retaliation. does this make so much sense ?

imo, it would be optimal to break it all down into regiments and battalions, with a swarm atack and 10 strikes (on full health, if they lose health they lose strikes also due to swarm attack), regiments could be possibly restored/reinforced in cities (or whereever you get them from)


this would also allow to keep the "luck factor" (though with less impact), and make battles more enjoyable.

[Hiebe]

I agree with mabuse. Let's say someone who hasn't played
before has a bad start. Hoe is he going to defend himself( or herself) from bigger armies of vetren players

so in the building idea. Would you start with on castle some yroops then build with a worker or whaat will happen. I'm still confused a bit

[PsychoticKittens]

you start with a lord next to a spot that can found a Manor. When you build the manor you can construct 6 buildings around it simply by right clicking. It can also have farms within 5 hexes of it, which Serfs get 1 food from per turn if they stand on it. Extra food is stored in the manor.

Towns give income but require food from Farms
Churches Research, and cause Towns to Tithe extra gold even when they're not fed.
Markets Produce Caravans, and Increase Towns "fed income"
Barracks, Archery Ranges, Stables, and Siege Workshops build units.

if you upgrade your manor to a Fort, you can build walls within a similar (but smaller) radius to farms. walls are units that are resilient to most things aside from siege machines. You can also dig moats (not a unit) and upgrade walls in increments of health equal to the starting one for the same cost; Walls can be upgraded To gates at the cost of some of that hp per increment, but this allows you to drop a drawbridge over moats.

Then a Fort Can be Upgraded to Keep, Citadel, Palace, or Cathedral; which specifies the castle's pro's and con's (Keeps are average and increase size, Citadels are defensible but weak economically, Palaces are reverse Citadels, Cathedrals research quickly and Tithe well, but their Markets are terrible and their walls/center is fragile like Palaces)

That's about what you can do when building a castle.

and:

Yes it is possible to make fodder splits of 1 unit that would be used to waste a poorly used unit of 100; but similarly that unit of 100 could split of two units, and not waste the 100 to kill the 1.

Every unit has a Counter (atleast 1) and something it Beats (also atleast 1), You can start with no units researched, Level 1 Tech, Level 2 Tech, or Every Tech. But you always start entirely even. If your opponent makes his castle better, or produces better counters, or researches really efficiently; sure you'll lose if you didn't, but in a regular game with someone less skilled you'll still say "gg" and try to learn from the experience.

Some units don't have 1 strike. Axemen actually have 2. '1-2' this second strike increases their maximum capacity for damage while weakening their first hit. Meaning They're the Anti-Spear because of their damage output per unit, but Swords beat them due to having more hp and blade resistance. I'm doing my best not to have some uber unit you can just spam to win. every unit has something that kills it. So if someone was silly enough to just make 1000 axemen with their gold (which would be equal if neither player upgraded) by that point, the other player would likely notice the huge group of axemen the enemy has been producing using Scout Cavalry, and then Defeat them with a Mix of Scout Cavalry, Swordsmen, and Bowmen.

It's fairly obvious in the recruiting menu's what beats what. It tells their resists, damage, health, and movement.

[shadowblack]

So, can I surround a unit of 100 with 6 units of 1 and keep it from moving for a turn?

[Hiebe]

Hmmm sounds good to me. Would there be any possibility if building more keeps or border forts maybe or maybe villages perhaps to either gain food or money. I sy have one big castle an have a couple small outlying outpost/forts and villages outpost being able to have troop buildings and villages making mucho money


Just idea for you mod.

Would there be special maps an such for this mod ?

[PsychoticKittens]

it only runs on maps made for it, and yes, there are multiple places to build castles.

and yes it is possible to surround a unit with 6 units, but at the same time, if you have more than one unit adjacent to eachother it would take more units. Units have no zoc in this, because they're all 'level 0'. (Units with Melee now have a ZoC) Edit as of 2/24/11

surrounding a unit would cause losses with little damage output though, since unless they were spearmen they would die without retaliating more than likely. And if you have some archers hidden in the fog behind the unit the enemy tries to surround, archers (or even better shortbowmen/bombardiers who can shoot more than once a turn) would be able to pick them off, maybe all of them if they split before attacking. And atleast open up a way for mr. surrounded to get out of his captors grip. If you can use another unit to kill off atleast 1 of the splitters, you can split your own surrounded unit and obliterate the split up surrounders.

another "not so sporting" tactic would be spamming population 1 units that are cheap, and filling as much of the map as you can, Units like Spearmen or durable units like macemen would be able to counter this by making a wall of slightly larger groups, and then killing one, and moving a second layer of similar strength units to kill another layer (or just hold that one). This is a theoretical counter of course.

[Hiebe]

Sounds like a great mod to me can't wait for it.

How long do you think a normal game would last?

[PsychoticKittens]

I have no idea. All I've been able to do so far is code stuff, and test that things work. Playing myself wouldn't really do that well anyway (and so much of it isn't done yet). It'll probly be afew weeks atleast before I can test it fully.

[Hiebe]

LOL well i guess i will have to wait !!!!!!! but good luck if you need any help testing or some map making (though im still learning too) i will be able to help just send me a message

[Captain_Wrathbow]

I sort of feel guilty asking this but- might you happen to have some idea of how long it would be before this is finished, or at least mostly playable?

This sounds awesome, I can't wait... I'll have high expectations since Modern Combat was so great.
Good luck!