Displaying the odds of a combat is fine when trying to decide who to attack during the combat but not when I'm sitting in the unit designer trying to build effective counters or surprise the enemy with a new combat strategy. I think the dynamic unit design combined with a potentially large number of modifiers will create a system that just means  a bunch of time spent sifting through the results of the last battle log for relevant effects and modifiers to figure out what to create now. To some this might sound fun but to me it sounds like busy work. I do enough data analysis while I'm at work, thanks!

Don't forget though that you have to repeat the process for each piece of equipment on the soldiers. Even if each item (weapon, armor, helm, amulet) only has 1 or two effects the number of items to track can stack up quickly.

Edit: I do see your point about limited resources and that is fine. I guess in the end I am mainly concerned about is that I would much prefer to see a system where a soldier will have 1 or 2 significant effects that opposing players can easily recall both from a mechanical AND an emotional standpoint than a bunch of mundane little things that are hard to recall. This also gives units a "flavor" that I think would otherwise be missing. One thing that always bugged me about GalCiv2 is that despite the crazy customization of units ships with different equipment didn't feel unique from each other. Dinky little modifiers are not memorable in the sense that they do not impart the epic atmosphere I'm really hoping this game will contain.

Edit2: Here's an example... In HoMM, the Cavaliers had a charge ability that allowed them to do greater damage the further they traveled on the field to their target. Getting hit with that ability was memorable because it had a significant effect on the way the unit was deployed and used, and the opponent knew it was a good idea to slow them or root them ASAP so they could not use that ability. It was memorable and counters were available that could limit their power. That's the type of thing I want to see versus something like "+6% blunt damage resistance".

I'm all done now, I promise! Back to work.

We'll have to see how it works out, but I'm not too worried about it being a problem. Sure you might see some unit with a lot of abilities, but you know that guy is important. You won't see peasant armies where every single peasant is wielding flaming life drain swords and wearing armor that deflects ranged attacks.  (And if you do, it means resources are too plentiful.)

Something I'd like to see in the combat system that isn't often done anymore is differing stats for melee vs ranged attack power. Most games use a single stat, and it really doesn't make a lot of sense that an archer forced to club someone over the head with his bow is just as effective as a swordsman.

You could implement it by allowing units to have a melee and a ranged weapon equipped when you create them. In tactical combat, they'd have the option to use their ranged weapon, or move (and try to close to melee range). Or you could save resources by not giving them a secondary weapon at unit creation.

(In that system it'd also be possible to make a weapon with both melee and ranged attack power, for example if you had javelins that can be thrown or used to stab someone like a spear.)

No, I think you misunderstand. I trust that the UI will be able to display DPS. I think combat speed modifier is superfluous and unnecessary. In effect, it's just a multiplier to your attack. I don't think we need it for melee combat.

But yes, for archery, crossbows, and cannons it is important we calculate load times and rate of fire.

I think a reasonably skilled hammerman (or "large-weapon" man) could keep a daggerman at bay as the daggerman struggles to get in range. In either case, it's actually the daggerman going for the pounce and kill, while the bigweaponguy is the one that makes many strikes to try and keep the daggerman from closing in.

My point is that DPS rates don't really reflect this dynamic. The daggerman simply isn't going to make 20 tiny cuts to equal one hammerstrike. A fight between two intelligent opponents isn't going to look like that. I don't think that DPS rates are really all that interesting in that context. I'd much rather have more interesting abilities that really affect combat.

Point is, what you've got here are not 4 stats but 3... Damage Type, Range Value, and Damage Per Second.

Melee reach/range is important; it's why spearman and pikeman should get first strike or something like it.  Regardlesss of the method or name of the bonus, it seems reasonable that an equally trained and armored team of pikemen vs swordsmen should start combat with the spearmen really tearing them up at first. 

Frogboy, you're looking for a level of complexity somewhere between something like Civ IV or Elven Legacy and Dominions 3, right?  Far as I can tell from the game specs so far, the army building/development is going to be:

Take guys (and gals).

Give them equipment.

Train them.

Upgrade equipment as resources/tech allows.

That means that you are always going to have at least 3 different types of stats interacting (possibly 4 when you deal with mounts).

Natural stats of guys.

Stats of Weapons/Armor.

Benefits of training/experience.

and possibly stats of mount.

All those factors should produce interesting considerations - wargamers call them "guns or butter" decisions.  Ideally, the whole thing should be understandable enough that somebody who doesn't really want to get deep into the tactical considerations can create an army with relatively understandable units (archers, cavalry, pikes, swordsmen), go out, and do just fine, but the hard-core number-cruncher can build specialized units to exploit the strengths/weaknesses of their own or the enemies armies.

You also want this to be relatively moddable.  Of course, that doesn't mean it has to be simple - Dominions 3 is anything but simple, but highly moddable, because it has a lot of factors that combine to create interesting and sometimes unexpected results.

Also, guys, I don't think that when Frogboy is talking about stacking damage types, that's he's talking about it in the context of army creation.  He's talking about it in the context of modding and enchanting.  You would not be able to build super-weapons with 5 piercing, 5 crushing, range 100, but you could mod it (hopefully making it ridiculously expensive and high-tech/rare resource based).

Personally, I would really like to be see - hey, I have the metal/tech skills to make chainmail now - my light spearmen unit is in supply range (another good application of the Outpost/supply mechanism).  Click on the spearmen, hit "Upgrade Equipment" - see a list of available gear, as well as cost in materials/coins (based on the size of the unit and the cost of the gear) - hit "Chainmail" - resources come off my global, spearmen are better, everyone is happy.

That would also allow me to adjust my armies on the fly to fight certain opponents - got a horde of light-armored goblins - lets go with tower shields and shortswords for my unit.  Fighting heavily armored trolls - let's switch to halberds or 2-handed axes.

One of the reasons you don't see that is because in most games, the developers tell you what units you have to play with.

In Elemental, players decide what weapons they have.

So for me, as a player, my archers are going to have daggers. Someone else may not see the point and have their archers only have bows. But I'd give my archers bows and a melee weapon. This way, if someone closes the distance, they have a different weapon they can draw on rather than being purely massacred.

To the best of my knowledge, they've never even said what Combat Speed Modifier does.  It may have more to do with initiative (who's attacks get resolved first) and nothing at all to do with DPS.  So the dagger may just inflict its damage to the enemy before the enemy's return swing with the larger weapon is calculated.  If the dagger happens to kill an enemy unit or two, then they never get their return attack.

It's sort of like First Strike in MoM, but more finely grained.

Ah, so there will be the option for archers to have a melee weapon, goody!

Yay.

The beauty of player-designed units!

So we can decide between versatile archers, who will be more expensive and so we'll have fewer of them, or highly specialized/vulnerable archers, which are cheaper so we can have more of them.  Sounds like fun.

Or we can just make horse archers, and give them a big honkin' sword in addition to their bows!  They'll be expensive, but they'll be quite the versatile force.

Music to my ears Yay!!!

Erm....let me ask you something. Your mage can cast 2 spells: Iceball and fireball. The target is a fire elemental. Which spell your mage should cast? Magic school / element vs. magic school / element "counters" like these must be in the game, else the tactical part of the game will be heavily handicapped.

Great!

I'm a little curious about why all the rock/paper/scissors bashing is going on here?  It's obvious that the game is going to be considerably more complex than: infantry better than archers better than cavalry better than infantry.  But some weapons and armor DO have advantages in some situations.  They MUST, or why build anything except the cheap knives and leather armor?  

Managing trade-offs is what makes games like this fun, and what makes tactical combat interesting.  Just because some things are better than others, in some situations, doesn't make it a simple relationship.  I want a degree of complexity here high enough to make me consider how to wring the most advantage from a situation.

However the weapon/armor stats are implemented, there absolutely should be some solid mechanical advantage to EACH choice, assuming equal tech levels all around.  Even better, there should be several ways of accomplishing particular battlefield situation.  I would like to be able to equip my men with swords made of magical ice, in the event that I lack iron but have lots of magic, for example.  But when I fight the guys over the hill with the armor made from burning stone... that is going to suck for me.  And it should - why would it not?

For those of you railing against rock/paper/scissors - you don't want it simple, we get it - now propose some better ideas for interesting complexity.

I agree, I think the objections are to simplistic rock/paper/scissors.  I disliked GalCiv2's combat for that reason.  In Elemental, where we can make proper use of combined arms and battlefield maneuvring, it makes sense to represent the natural advantages/disadvantages of using certain equipment.  Archers will be vulnerable to cavalry not because an arbitrary game rule dictates that they take extra damage from cavalry, but because they're slower than cavalry and not well armoured.  That makes sense, and puts the responsibility on the player to properly protect their archers from cavalry on the battlefield.  That sort of rock/paper/scissors is a good thing.

That being said, I consider all of the above to be considered part of Seige Equipment. As in, some units should have the ability to build a rope ladder (or regular ladder), or be a sapper/tunneler, or build a makeshift seige tower, or build a makeshift battering ram.

In the end, this *specials* seige equipment, which is more unit-based (you can make an archer that has the ability to make a rope ladder/carries a rope ladder), will be for Cities that you could take "if only" you could get over that wall. Needless to say, heavily defended Citadels won't be defeated just because a few of your units have rope ladders.

However, if ALL of your units have rope ladders, and your General (Champion) has the ability for "night attacking" and perhaps the army as a whole has some sort of stealth options (or has been seiging for a number of turns as to reduce their ability to keep vigilant watch) then you might very well be able to sneak into a city of equivalent force and fight for the streets. Of course, you run the risk of being detected before all your units are inside ... and then the units that already are inside will be slaughtered, and the rest of your army will have arrows firing upon them. Of course, if your half the way inside, you might try to distract the archers by those inside the walls, and attempt to get the rest of your forces inside the walls as soon as possible ... or even get a few units to open the gate, and defend the opened gate as your units pour in.

Its a very tricky thing, and being detected would be a huge loss to your armies. And at what time you are detected is probably dependent on your Stats, based on the RNG. Of course ... if the Guarding army doesn't even know your there (you were able to stealthily approach) OR if their diligance has dropped to zero (due to loss of morale) then you should be able to completely sneak in. However, if the defending General has some serious Diligence Stats, and the Nightfighting ability as well, then there is no way you could actually sneak inside (although he might "pretend" to allow you to sneak, and then attack when a quarter of your forces are upon or inside the walls, so you should read up on the enemy).

This being said ... its an option mainly for more lightly defended cities where the wall feels more like an arbitrary obstacle than a Strong Staging point for a grand defensive battle. For Grand battles, during the day, you will need proper Seige Equipment (or magic) to bring down the walls.

In Sauron's case, his mighty staff of Doom, or whatever, could simply tear a whole in the gate (or even in a wall?) and he wouldn't really "need" seige equipment to get past walls, but it would still help the rest of his army.

I was thinking about armors : often in games big armors are always better than light armor in every situations. But gig armors should have a movement and attack speed penalty (unless some training ?). Plate armor isn't the right armor if you need ninjas. But if it's just a "10 defense" then we would see those armored ninjas ...

Yes. If a city is defended is defended by nothing more than a wooden palisade. Sieging armies should not be defeated by a 10 foot wall simply because they didn't bring a battering ram. All these options, rope ladders, tunnels, climbing the wall by hand. All of them have a chance of success, some bigger than others. Your job as a commander is to pick the right one for the situation you face.

The point being, we should never be defeated by a wall just because the wall in the way. There are always options. So you didn't bring siege equipment, and don't have the ability to build any? Time for plan B.

This. RPS is just a term for "balance". How you implement this can vary greatly. What I don't want to see is cavalry getting a +X bonus against archers. How is this justified? While most archers will be at a decided disadvantage against horsemen, there will be examples that break the mold.

I could give each of my archers a shovel, and by the time the cavalry arrive, they could be facing a 10 foot ditch.

/Your mage can cast 2 spells: Iceball and fireball. The target is a fire elemental. Which spell your mage should cast? Magic school / element vs. magic school / element "counters" like these must be in the game, else the tactical part of the game will be heavily handicapped/

Exactly the kind of RPS which adds no tactical depth to game. It's efficiently a no-brainer: you have bad solution (using the same element), good solution (opposite element), average solutions (the rest of elements). No thinking involved.

Some posters above displayed some good examples of RPS.

Having Flaming Swords and Ice Axes is, actually, a perfect example of RPS done wrong: having things like that forces players to keep "Fire legions" vs Ice enemies, "Air legions" vs Earth enemies etc.

Much better implementation was already suggested somewhere in FB blog: replace "bonus damage vs opposite element" with specific bonuses. Make Fire inflicting more raw damage. Make air attacks faster. Make earth attack armour-piercering. Make life-sucking attacks weakining. That's what makes combat deep, not thinking "OK, so I'm going to face some ice creeps... gonna forge as many fire weapon as possible, which I'll scrap after we get to the earth creeps".

The same goes for spells. If I chose fireball over iceball for the sole reason it suit the target element best, you are doing it wrong. They should be fundamentally different.

I think a mix of both is best.

They should be both fundamentally different and there should be weaknesses/resistances to types.

->

Absolutely...this is what I was talking about as well.

Iselwin, I understand that what are you talking about, but it was a very simple explanation. Example: Make air attacks faster? Make fire inflicting more damage? What? That is all? Besides it looks like that you are talking about enhancements. It's a small part of the magery business. Also, what is this have to do with element vs element counters? Your suggestion can work very well as an additional subsystem [like enhancement], but that is all. There must be counters between the various magic schools, like ice vs. fire. That is what making the magical schools diverse, fun and tactical oriented.

You shouldn't need to worry about having a fire army to begin with.  Your awesome enchanted flaming swords aren't awesome if everyone has one.  Cool stuff needs to be hard to create, or there's nothing rewarding about it.

Just using damage modifiers for resistance does suck though.  I'm hoping for critical effects.