What gameplay rules can allow a more structured battlefield in a strategy game? A game with front lines, bridge heads, pincer movements, flanking, surrounding and forcing a surrender, etc. One key issue I think is mobility. Too much of it and the shape of the battlefield can change and fade away very rapidly. It''s like trying to make a sculpture in smoke. But without mobility the whole game may turn boring and slow. Some solutions: - different mobility for war time and peace time: (Panzer General did this - infantry and artillery units could mount up in their trucks and travel very fast, but doing so exposed them by dramatically lowering their defense). - limited traffic (on roads, railroads, etc.) One unit can move across the railroad very fast. Twenty units will take a lot of time to do so. - logistics: gathering enough fuel to be able to move very fast and very far takes a lot of time. Any decision to make a move reduces mobility as well by fuel consumption. A failed tank attack for instance may start by rapidly destroying and changing battlefield shape, and end up by creating shape in form of a immobile salient waiting for reinforcements and re-supply. - controlled mobility. If strategic plans like encircling are to work, combatants must be able to change the mobility of their opponents. Aggressive air attacks, artillery barrages, sabotage, laying mine fields, destroying bridges. - static defenses and terrain features: these don''t change anymore once in place, creating shape instantly. Another key issue is the value of having battlefield shape. Shape must be essential to victory, more so than inflicting damage. Solutions: - a bonus against concentrated groups (artillery and air attacks more effective, etc.). This should make sure that nobody shapes his army in one giant blurb and moves around wiping everything out. The traffic point I mentioned also works here. - trading space for time. Gameplay rules should give a large advantage to slowly retreating units. You can formulate this in another way: attacks don''t necessarily need to cause a lot of damage but rather force the enemy to retreat. This of course gives inherent value to having enough terrain to retreat to, therefore it gives the battlefield shape a lot of value. - encircling - it should be the single most effective strategy. Gameplay rules should give huge penalties against encircled units. Logistics are one way to do this. The previous point on trading space for time is relevant as well, as is the bonus against concentrated groups. Encircling makes shape amazingly important. You can conquer very strong defenses without a fight by simply threatening to encircle those. - damage model. I mentioned this earlier. The point of an attack shouldn''t be to inflict damage as much as to herd the enemy into a desired shape. User interface: Shogun Total War isn''t very different from Age of Empires but for the user interface (well, it is, but still...) Simply allowing easy creation of shapes will ensure their existence.

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One key issue I think is mobility. Too much of it and the shape of the battlefield can change and fade away very rapidly. It''s like trying to make a sculpture in smoke. But without mobility the whole game may turn boring and slow.

Agreed.

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- controlled mobility. If strategic plans like encircling are to work, combatants must be able to change the mobility of their opponents. Aggressive air attacks, artillery barrages, sabotage, laying mine fields, destroying bridges.

Damage to vehicles and reduced visibility (e.g. driving through smoke after a bombardment) could also be used to decrease mobility.

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- a bonus against concentrated groups (artillery and air attacks more effective, etc.).

A bit contrived. If you make artillery sufficiently inaccurate, landing around the target area but rarely exactly upon it, it should naturally become far more effective to fire on concentrated groups where many of these misses will strike other units.

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- trading space for time. Gameplay rules should give a large advantage to slowly retreating units.
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This of course gives inherent value to having enough terrain to retreat to, therefore it gives the battlefield shape a lot of value.

Interesting.

Play some traditional wargames for ideas

The major thing lacking in strategy games that pass themselves off as wargames is having logical groupings of units. Without these organized groupings of units, you may as well forget about having structured battlefields like you suggest. So integrating units into their hierarhical organization helps some of these things (ie. having platoons, companies, battalions, regiments, etc etc).

Formations are another key ingredient as they determine alot of the functionality of combined units. A spread out skirmish formation means that you take less damage and have increased visual coverage, but it also means that your own firepower is less concentrated and you are more vulnerable psychologically. Traveling in column can improve speed, but also can allow for devestating defilade attacks against them. Therefore the creation of formations and their affects on units should be established in the game rules.

Morale and logistics are also very important for a game like this. Having good morale conditions will restrict your opponents actions, thereby allowing you to control his mobility (along with good rationalization on the enemy player''s part in realizing that a certain area of the battlefield will be a deathtrap). Logistics also puts a contraint on player offensive capability in that if he overstretches his supply lines, he comes very vulnerable. Logistics is not as important in defensive measures, but still important.

Communication is another key component. Depending on the tech level of the game, and how large and sophisticated the forces are, everything requires communication for Commanders to proceed. As was shown in Iraq War II, even Sat Phones were not 100% reliable, and had we facedan opponent as technologically savy, we''d have to deal with counter-intelligence and ECW teams. Being able to disrupt communications is an extremely important strategy in modern warfare (the last two Gulf Wars, the initial targets were Command and Control structures).

I think the most important part of having structured battlefields is realted to mobility as well....but it concerns the battlefield itself. The map should not be contrained in any way. In other words, it should be borderless. Players should chose when and where they want to fight...not by the dictates of the game designer or level designer. By being able to choose the location of where units will be placed creates a huge opportunity for strategic planning. This is I believe however the hardest technical undertaking for a game. All the other elements are relatively easy to implement compared to this.

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Original post by Dauntless

The major thing lacking in strategy games that pass themselves off as wargames is having logical groupings of units. Without these organized groupings of units, you may as well forget about having structured battlefields like you suggest. So integrating units into their hierarhical organization helps some of these things (ie. having platoons, companies, battalions, regiments, etc etc).

I was thinking in the same general direction: without a user interface that allows easy deployment of forces in different shapes, the game degenerates in the shapes that are easiest to micromanage. Shogun Total War is a good example of how far a good user interface can go. Much like programming languages, game engines should allow the player enough expressivity to create different shapes.

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Formations are another key ingredient as they determine alot of the functionality of combined units. A spread out skirmish formation means that you take less damage and have increased visual coverage, but it also means that your own firepower is less concentrated and you are more vulnerable psychologically. Traveling in column can improve speed, but also can allow for devestating defilade attacks against them. Therefore the creation of formations and their affects on units should be established in the game rules.

Yes. Btw, formations aren't necessary fully simulated, they can be abstracted.

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Morale and logistics are also very important for a game like this. Having good morale conditions will restrict your opponents actions, thereby allowing you to control his mobility (along with good rationalization on the enemy player's part in realizing that a certain area of the battlefield will be a deathtrap). Logistics also puts a contraint on player offensive capability in that if he overstretches his supply lines, he comes very vulnerable. Logistics is not as important in defensive measures, but still important.

Morale, logistics, fatigue, troop cohesion - they all are renewable resources - in time they regenerate with little other cost. The reason they are very important is that while they can effectively cripple an unit, giving one side a huge but temporary combat advantage, actually making the most of this advantage is a matter of battlefield shape rather than damage count. An attack can bring chaos, loss of moral, consumption of supplies and exhaustion to an enemy, but unless this enemy is surrounded, or if the front lines aren't broken, the attack can be as easily a failure.

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Communication is another key component. Depending on the tech level of the game, and how large and sophisticated the forces are, everything requires communication for Commanders to proceed. As was shown in Iraq War II, even Sat Phones were not 100% reliable, and had we facedan opponent as technologically savy, we'd have to deal with counter-intelligence and ECW teams. Being able to disrupt communications is an extremely important strategy in modern warfare (the last two Gulf Wars, the initial targets were Command and Control structures).

The information war can be an extremely important part of a conflict. I don't see it directly related to the concept of shape though.

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I think the most important part of having structured battlefields is realted to mobility as well....but it concerns the battlefield itself. The map should not be contrained in any way. In other words, it should be borderless. Players should chose when and where they want to fight...not by the dictates of the game designer or level designer. By being able to choose the location of where units will be placed creates a huge opportunity for strategic planning. This is I believe however the hardest technical undertaking for a game. All the other elements are relatively easy to implement compared to this.

Well, the map has often borders in real conflicts as well.

I think that the best way to let player choose their fights while keeping the designed starting conditions is to make the game start unbalanced. Because the battlefield changes rapidly at game start, soon the designers influence fades.

[edited by - Diodor on June 13, 2003 4:13:19 PM]

The only time borders matter in a war is when there is a so-called "neutral" country in the way. So if you want to create a grand strategic wargame in which you have a world of nations, not all of which are at war, then this is a possibility.

But in something like WWII, there was really no such thing as borders since even "neutral" countries like Switzerland and Argentina (or was it Brazil?) covertly helped the Nazis.

Communications can play a part of the structure of the battlefield in that the terrain can influence communications. In Vietnam, the dense jungle canopy along with some hilly terrain could often disrupt radio signals. So depending on the technology and the terrain, communications can be affected, in turn affecting where troops can go.

I think the best way to represent trading space for time is to give advantages in combat to the defenders. Stationary troops that are dug in have better aiming, and present less of a target. There''s also a psychological aspect of charging against dug in forces. Actually, orderly retreats are hard to pull off because you have to leap forg your units in order to provide covering fire to the withdrawing units, but the advancing units don''t have to leap frog. And the mere fact of turning your back on the enemy is a daunting one. In fact, it takes a very good leader to perform good retreating skills, and it was a hallmark of generals like Robert E. Lee and Erwin Rommel that they could do this.

This also begs the question of leadership. An army isn''t just the troops or its hierarchical organization. It is also about the quality of its leaders, from the top to the bottom. But what exactly do leaders do other than pass orders from the top down to the bottom? Well, at the lowest levels, they provide tactical expertise on what to do. Mid-range commanders that are still in the midst of the battle can have a strong affect on morale, and the high level officers are the "choreagraphers" of the battlefield itself.