While extra attacks for extra members does make since in some scenarios, it doesn't make since in all. For example, if I am a hero fighting 100 enemies in melee, all 100 enemies cannot attack me at once. I think there could be a simple solution to this.

Max Soldier Attacks = TargetNumSoldierSize + 1;

So if the unit sizes are 1, 4, 8 and 12 (i think that used to be the largest, never got past 4 myself), then a single model could only be attacked by 4 people. In the same manner a unit of 4 could only be attacked by up to 8 people etc.

Now if morale were still in play, i would definately give a morale penalty for fighting larger units (Being horribly outnumbered can be unnerving).

Yeah, I agree. I lean towards max attacks = the average of the attackers and the defenders. But you'd have to leave the exact choice of formula to playtesting i think. You'd also have to give all your monsters a "size" stat that represented the size of unit to which they were equivalent (which is probably a useful stat to have in the game anyway and could have lot of other interesting uses).

But like I said I think it's pretty secondary.

Hmm. While it is very possible to normalize results artificially, I fail to see why it’s better that way. In fact, I think it’s slightly murky and deceptive to do things like this “under-the-hood.” I think it’s more intuitive and realistic to roll attacks individually. It allows the game to cover situations lie “if my archers fire a volley, some arrows are bound to hit,” vs “the catapult can hit hard, or not hit at all.” Which is better, to fiddle with your random number generator to produce these results, or arrive at them naturally because my archers do what they do in real life, and fire more arrows? If you want ping pong to be more like Tennis, is it better to change the weight of the ball, or to go out and play tennis?

I have twice as many guys, I fire twice as many arrows, I do twice as much damage. That's a wonderfully simple and intuitive idea to base a combat system on. Why not keep it?

A poor consolation I think. I expected special abil;ities anyway. I think it’s a cool for the game to give the player meaningful choices. For example, your archers might be great at mowing down infantry, but when you’ve got an enemy sovereign coming at you, you might do better recruiting a catapult, or getting a magic sword for your own sovereign. I’d rather have these kind of good mechanics in the game as standard for every unit, than rely on fiddly special abilities that will likely be unbalanced and never used by the AI.

I fail to see why you are in such a hurry to strip away depth from a combat system that is pretty lacking in that regard already.

The other way to cover some of this is, as Sethai said, to limit the damage per attack, and let all units melee.  MOM worked because units with multiple figures couldn't each have a 40 attack; they were more like a 2-3 attack, and with buffs and training they could get up to a 5-6 attack each.  That unit, by the way, was a force to be reckoned with, since it was 8x6 attack.   Single units could have brutal attacks, like the sky drake with its 20+ attack, which could kill mulitplel figures in a unit per attack (since damage was applied until a figure died, and then any remaining damage was applied to the next figure, and so on).

I'm in favor of lesser damage for weapons, and larger damage for single unit monster type attacks.  Monsters should have "claw-claw-bite" type damage, with weapon classes of their own.

Now, we haven't yet started to talk about multiple MONSTER figures in a unit...Pack of bears, anyone?

But you still end up with a single board unit getting multiple hits at full strength. As soon as you start thinking of the stacks as single units (which is in reality what they are) the multi-hit approach means you can kiss goodbye to balance - it really is that simple. As I said, there should be 'some' benefits in battle but the real value is survivability.

Imagine we never had parties in the first place. How much simpler would it have been to get Tactical Combat balanced. I bet if that was the case we wouldn't be still thrashing it out 12 months later.

Think in terms of single units - then change the stacks to act as single units.

I have to say I agree with Sethai and Winnihym on this one. The multiple attack thing worked well in MoM and made it unique. Like Winnihym says, careful balance with the numbers was what made it work in MoM. That balance was helped by distinct unit types instead of free designing. The way I see it, the high fantasy world also worked better thematically. WoM wants to have realistic humans and powerful champions. That doesn't really add up. A lone human wielding a sword can't cope very well against 8 humans wielding swords as well if there's no magical advantage.

WoM power curves are difficult to balance. When both the figure count in units as well as figure damage go up at the same time, the growth is exponential. MoM went for small linear additions with the only exponential additon being the possibility to give to hit bonuses which raised the 30% hit chance. That's what made halfling slingers so cool. Initial stats were low, but their inherent bonus to hit coupled with 8 figures per unit instead of the normal 6 gave attack bonuses more bang for the buck than it gave to other units. That kind of subtlety is hopefully coming to FE unit design.

I never played MoM but are we really comparing apples with apples? In MoM could you:

• Design your own units (armour and weaponry)?
• Use the same equipment across various unit types (as in, heroes in WoM share the same equipment tree as all other units and races)?
• Decide on the number of units in a party?
• Have parties regenerate (heal)?

If the answer to all these is 'Yes' then perhaps WoM could be balanced (WoM does all of the above). But if even one of these is 'No' then we are not comparing the two games fairly and WoM will be nearly impossible to balance unless the parties can be made to act as units - operating within a narrower band of attack and damage.

To expand on the four points above (and keeping in mind I haven't played MoM) - by designing your own unit I mean with the flexibility you have with WoM where you have no limitation on the weapons or armour you can apply to a unit. The fact that 'Halfling Slingers' is mentioned makes me think that they are a pre-determined unit type with pre-determined armour and weaponry which can in turn be tweaked to balance the unit. What if the sling was available for all units in the game and that bigger creatures got a damage bonus because they were stronger? Would you ever bother recruiting halflings again?

When you built units in MoM could you decide on the number of units in the party? And could you build up the numbers in the sorts of scales you have in WoM? Games tend to either have units of pre-determined multiple units or stacks where you can add any number of units. But in the variable stack armies, when a unit dies it doesn't come back - but you can add new members to the stack.

WoM is a very unique beast as far as I can see and I still think they need a way to simplify conceptually what they are delivering with stacks.

No, you couldn't design your own units, but let's talk about balance.

Balance includes things like how long it takes this unit to make it to the field, what its vulnerabilities are, what its strengths are (attack), and its cost.  If, in the course of 50 turns, I can put out 2 stacks of 12 units, armed with good attacks (which we'll define as an attack 30), those units can put out 360 attack in 50 turns, or a strength gain of +7.2 atk/turn.  If I build a monster that takes 50 turns (I know we don't, but stick with me here), if it has a 360 attack, and the hit points to match it, it's actually a better thing to have than the stack, because it will continue to put out a 360 attack all the way through its life on the battlefield, whereas the stack of units, as figures are killed, starts to put out less and less damage, making it a progressively weaker unit as it is worn down.

What balances that is that the stack averages it's 360 attack over a wider range of output.  It does 12 30 strength attacks, so the probability of it doing SOME damage each turn is pretty good.  If the monster only gets a single, 360 point attack with the same odds of hitting as the other unit, it may miss a lot, or just have poor luck.

Solutions to balance this would be to have the monster have better probabilities of hitting, or be able to attack faster, or (like MOM) have damage from the attack be able to spread over multiple units (so that the monster can kill, say 6 units at a whack on a good roll).

Really, to balance combat, at least to me, is a combination of hit probabilities (dexterity and/or intelligence), damage on hit (strength), evasion (dexterity), hit points (constitution). 

There are solutions here, we just have to have enough variables to move things around.  With the queued battle occuring in EFE like in HOMM, balance could be something as simple as "with more units in the stack, the speed of the stack goes down (gets fewer attacks per turn)".  You can bring more pew-pew, but you ainna gonna fire that often, so it might be better to have fewer units that can take out some of your pew-pew before you even get a shot off.

Just for completeness' sake, Das, MOM did have same equipment across unit types (bowmen, spearmen, swordsmen, and halberdiers were common to most races).  You did not decide how many units in a stack; that was decided for you.  All units regenerated on the tactical map, with HP recovery being a percentage based on your total, and it happened independent of where you were on the map (MOM did not have ZOC).

Great post winnihym. MoM might not have had unit design, but really when all unit design amounts to is different numbers for attack and defence, the difference this makes to the balancing is pretty slight. The point is that we need more variables. 

But I don't even think we need stuff like to hit. We should just make better use of the variables we already have. The easiest solution would just be to make ALL units behave a little more like groups. IE, monsters make 3 damage rolls between 1 and 30 and add them together, instead of one roll between 1 and 100. If we then give weapons a higher basic attack, then we can have a system where no attack value in the game is more than maybe 50 or less than maybe 10, and we can get much closer to the scale of numbers in MoM.

The problem at the moment is that the monsters and heroes have huge attack values in order to differentiate each other, SO the units equipment needs to have very high attack so that combined they can compete, SO the strength of that equipment ends up becoming more important than the number of soldiers.

And because we have just a few dice with billions of sides, we get randomness and unpredictability. We need more dice with fewer sides.

We just need to be more honest about how the game works already. Units of knights don't have 400 attack, they have 40 Damage and 10 AttackS. So let's start saying that on the unit stats. Then start making use of that AttackS stat for other units.

If you can make monsters and individuals powerful without having having 10x the damage of individuals (by giving them multiple attackS as well), then the whole sorry chain of consequences i just described falls apart.

Look at other game systems like dungeons and dragons. You don't just get one attack that increases in damage to astronomical levels as you level up. It improves, but you get multiple attacks as well. If you did just have one attack then you'd get the same silly sickness elemental has.

It will reduce randomness, make groups and heroes/monsters more easy to balance (because they behave more like each other) AND retain that distinction between large units and powerful individuals.

This, precisely.

A monster or hero in D&D isn't formidable because he has a sword of uberness that can be forged, bought at auction, and sold as scrap to 50 men at arms.  He/she/it is formidable because of their stats, and because they found a killer, unique, magical weapon.  Or forged it at great cost, time, and blood.  Recall, MOM had the spells "Create Item" and "Create Artifact" that allowed heroes to be the superhuman units that they were.

Let monsters have amazing stats; that will make them a challenge.  Let heroes get godlike stats, that will make them formidable.  Let standard units not get amazing stats, and not be able to have vorpal weapons.  I'm all for magical weapons and armor, but like MOM, you don't go to hell with the joke; you get a +1 buff, or some such.

Monsters in D&D have always had multiple attacks:  claw/claw/bite for a dragon, claw/claw/claw of the Xorn.  Spitting attacks, gaze attacks, all that richness of combat and interplay is lost to us currently because of the paucity of special attacks.  If EFE does one thing, let it be that all of the combat stats are mutable, and we can mod in (easily, in XML) additional attacks per round, and modify parameters.

This is supposed to be a TBS in an RPG world.  RPGs use stats to change probablilities on every single thing that happens in the game world.  Why isn't Elemental doing that?  There was a conversation a while ago where training times were tied to stats and weapons and armor needed minimum stats in order to wield.  If you wanted someone with a lord hammer, it took 22 strength and 22 constitution to wield, and a unit starts at 10 across all stats.  It would take 24 turns, training a single stat up one point each turn, in order to get that unit out.  Yes, you could have multiples in that stack, once you had the technology, and that would make them difficult, but at a loss of speed and defense (can't swing that lord hammer very wide when your best bud Joe's standing right next to you...).  But then, here comes the monster with 3 attacks, at 20, 20, 30.  He's fast and mean.  He'll very likely kill 3 of your guys in your stack before you can start to dish out, so which one's better?

We're arguing for pretty much the same result but via different methods. You guys are wanting individuals and monsters to be brought up to match parties while I want parties to be nerfed to match individuals and monsters. When I read your reasoning it makes sense if the game can control scales and equipment - but it doesn't!

In WoM party size goes up 4, 8, 12 and 16. A size 16 party is really worth a hell of a lot more than 4 x size 4 units. And exactly the same equipment can be used on your heroes. So the game struggles with trying to balance having heroes compete effectively with parties - which is still what you're suggesting as well. But it doesn't work and it never really will unless parties are looked at to make them conform more to individuals.

Lets say you get the game balanced well for 4-stack parties vs monsters and individuals. Oh look - here comes an 8-stack party now. And then here comes a 12 and 16 stack party. It is this multiplication factor that is shit in WoM and makes balancing the game just about impossible. If, as you describe is what happens in MoM, the parties are pre-determined - then there wouldn't be a problem. But in WoM everything is open-ended making balance really difficult.

I think I have to respectfully disagree, Das, unless we can define what balancing really means.  Is a 4 stack with longswords balanced to a 16 stack with longswords that has 4x less speed (ie, attacks come 4x less often)?  What if the 16 stack takes 4x longer to build?  Costs 4x more?  How is the attack calculated, for the stack, or for each unit independently?  Let's consider this for balance:  I have 4 4x stacks, you have one 16x stack, equivalent power output.  Lets say they both have the attack capability to kill up to 8 units at a time, given the armor rating of each.  Which is better?  the 4 4x stacks, obviously, since they can output more damage than they are capable of absorbing.  That is, they can knock out, potentially, half the 16x stack's units per attack (and if I get 4 of them, I can potentially wipe the entire stack out before it gets to attack, if the speed is faster for smaller groupings) but the 16x stack can at best take out 4 units, because that's the size of the group.

I hear what you're saying, and I don't think we're too far afield, but I favor bringing powers up rather than nerfing power down.  Larger numbers give finer subtlety to the calculations, whereas bringing power downward makes it harder to have fine control.  I'd rather have larger damage per attack (DPA) with larger hitpoints to compensate.  That way, if my 4 4x stacks have a DPA of, say 10, and your 1 16x stack has a DPA of, say, 45, they might be an even match, but then special attacks and defenses become much more of a decider, because they can adjust the DPAs up and down more effectively.

Great conversations!  Let's hope someone who actually matters is listening!

What's clear is that some consolidation is needed. We can't go on with there being two completely different types of unit in the endgame, one with 10 attacks at 20 damage each, and another with 1 attack doing 200 damage. You can either simplify the groups down to the level of monsters and turn those extra guys into simple attack and defence bonuses, or you can make the monsters and heroes more like the groups with multiple attacks.

Increasing attacks would keep the distinction between groups and monsters (groups would have more hp and attackS, monsters would have higher defence and damage (attack)), but at least make the two types of unit comparable. Plus it would introduce a natural normal distribution of results, and more importantly, preserve the simple idea that 2x guys = 2x arrows fired = 2x damage. This way there is literally no difference between 4 groups of 4 archers and 1 group of 16. And why should there be? If anything, large groups need to be more than the sum of their parts, because they cost 4 times as much and are less flexible logistically.

But we're repeating ourselves now.

What gets me is this:

We know that when the game says a unit of 4x guys has 4x the damage of one, it really means that it is simply rolling the same damage 4 times and adding them together. Multiplying the attack is just a misrepresentation of the truth.

But what about defence numbers? If the game is really adding up the defence stats and making the individual attack rolls against the combined defence, then how does a group ever manage to harm another. And if it is making the attack rolls against the individual defence values of each guy, then isn't the game basically lying to us? (ie the only defensive advantage of having a group is more HP)