Hi Im working on an idea, think total war campaign meets "advanced wars" and warlord 2 battles kinda. But what about balnce and unit functions in battle? I was thinking in the lines of: inf: dam soaker, good vs inf vehicles (armoured cars etc): good vs inf tanks: good vs vehicles and inf at guns: good vs slow vehicles, bad vs inf (ie tanks) rockets/artillery : long range good vs all but weak in close combat bombers: good vs vehicles fighters: good vs bombers What are your ideas? Imagine the armies line up and pick targets. What takes out what? I know this is loosely described but its just on idea plane for the moment. Think simplified combat like advanced wars to gameboy advance. Thanks Erik

For good balance in a game like this, you need to understand what combined arms are, and why they are used.

The 'power' of a unit is based more on where it is, not their weapons.

A tank isn't much good in the middle of a jungle, but other than jungle rot, an infantry unit is right at home.

Infantry without any motor support isn't worth much in the middle of a plains, they have no where to hide, and can't move fast enough. A few IFVs will rip them to shreds.

A tank is at home in wide open country, with few trees or buildings to get in its way, but in a city it gets taken out by shoulder fired rockets carried by infantry that fire, then run through buildings where the tank can't follow or get a clear shot.

You seem to be thinking mostly in health & damage factors. As you point out yourself, your analysis is simplified.
The essence of making a simplified combat is to take only a few of the parts that matter.

You could factor in location as Talroth pointed out, but you can go in many directions. The board game Axis and Allies has a reasonably simple system that gives combined arms of infantry, artillery, armors, AA guns, fighters, bombers, submarines, transports, destroyers, carriers and battleships.

The game Laser Squad Nemesis gives you selection of only 6 units, but with a list of roughly 14 stats each that will have you decide where and how you want them to act. It gives deep strategic gameplay that is hard to simplify into rules, although most of the time you want to circle the enemy, grenade fortified positions, position your snipers in fortified positions and if you do have to do a charge, give cover fire.

The game Galcon is purely about positioning.

What part of warfare do you want to symbolize?

im probably only gonna use in city or outdoors as location. My system for now is based on att vs def, like so:

militia_infantry
def 2 (is infantry)
att_inf 3
att_veh 1
att_chopper 1
att_air 0
city_bonus 1

light_aa_gun
def 3 (is vehicle)
att_inf 2
att_veh 4

artillery
def 2 (is vehicle)
att_all_ground 4
long_range true

So if a <att 3> projectile hits a <def 2 unit> it has a +1 modifier to calculate damage dealt in that blow.

The question was mostly concerning what "classes" of fighting units you could have and what their "role" in the fighting would be. I kinda like the system they use in advanced war but do you have ideas regarding how that can be expanded or improved given my first post?

thanks for the input
E

So you'd like to create something like this http://zh-classical.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadget_trial. Live expectancy of common infantryman was next to zero.

The problem is you should know something about military, military tactic and weapons. Otherwise you are creating just another puzzle, or RPS game, and quite a lot of people would shrug it out.

I often say who cares about balance, if that game is interesting it has low need for balancing.

If it's going to be multiplayer, then you need balance. Single player mode allows you to invent scenarios that will be appropriate to certain unit types or tactics, but in multiplayer there has to be a good element of maneuvers and counter maneuvers so that it's not just a Zergling rush or Turtle&Tech every single time.

If you're really hung up on making it a reflection of modern warfare, and are setting it in cities, then you'll have to deal with realistic scenarios such as one-shot vehicle destruction via IED or strikes by aircraft against which the only counter is to run and hide, or bombardments with no apparent source and no way to retaliate. Lose the HP bars and the armor types and use dice roles to decide whether a shot missed or hit. Consider logistics, such as moving wounded soldiers or getting supplies to troops that have been pinned down.

Modern warfare is kind of crappy. Door to door searches, environments with many non combatants and a few hostiles that are unidentifiable, constant immersion in a population that hides threats and the constant specter of boobytraps and death without any opportunity to do battle might be your problems. Or, from the other perspective, being grossly outmatched in terms of training, resources and technology, being unable to procure basic sustenance for yourself or your men, and the myriad threats of aerial strikes, orbital surveillance and unseen commandos with riflescopes worth more than your entire squad's gear combined would force some unconventional tactics.

I advise you to build the game fromt he top down, with balance as your objective, and then dress the game pieces up like Marines or ninjas or gangsters or hoplytes as you see fit.

I dont know if im misinterpreting things, but usually games use a rock, paper, scissors as a model.

Such as
Infantry > Artillery
Tank > Infantry
Artillery > Tanks


But, I would have to agree with the position of the army would have to do alot with it.

I also agree about the modern warfare bit, but this doesn't have to be Baghdad. This could be a totally different situation, but yes, combat is getting more advanced to the point where humans dont have to risk their lives as much.

Since you said you wanted this type of game to be in cities, you would probably have to go with the Baghdad type of tactics, which would be quite a bore for the players (In my opinion), unless you were the under-dog (Not necessarily the "bad guy"). A good example of this is in the game 'Freedom Fighters', besides the point that its a 3rd person shooter, it emulates this style of tactics, while still having you be the "good guy".

You need to remember, 99% of the time artillery is in support of other units on the battle field. You don't have an artillery group heading out to duke it out with an armoured column expecting to win.

Without other units backing them up, they'll die against an attack of any size.

Infantry in the open will die against anything, even a vastly smaller infantry force, but infantry that is in prepared areas, with lots of supplies and deep fox holes or other defences positions. Those men are there short of being massively outnumbered and over run (at high cost to the attackers) or having the snot bombed/shelled out of them.


Where the men are, what they have, and how much time they had to prepare is how things need to be measured up. If a tank always beats an infantry unit, and an infantry unit always beats artillery, and artillery always beats tanks, then you have a very boring rock paper scissors game.

thanks for your replies.

its not gonna be like realistic urban fighting. I mentioned advanced war as a reference. I start to realize i cant get much further with this idea before i got more to show becouse most of this suggestions are conserning a completely different game.

The balance will also be done using cost and availableness (the main game will be sort of real-time total war campaign with cities producing stuff). I will probably add lots of modifiers (mainly for infantry) like sandbags, defending town. Artillery will be very weak if they are caught in close combat etc

Anyway, i think my design is a bit clearer to me now

What about ships?
patrolboat, weak explorer
sub, good vs battleship
destroyer, good vs sub
cruiser, good vs air?
battleship, good vs ships and bombard land maybe?

What do you think it is in regular RTS game, take Age of Empires for example.

Cavalry beats ranged because of their speed.
Ranged beats Infantry because they can hit them from afar.
Infantry beats Cavalry because of infantries sheer power.

Of course there are other variables to add, and such, but the core is still the same.

I took a quick glance at this article after a quick google search, and from what I read it backs my core- rock, paper, scissors gameplay:

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20070123/chelaru_01.shtml

Its actually a really good model for gameplay!


Also, sorry but im not really getting the concept. Im thinking what your explaining is a real time game (building wise) then battles are handled like Advanced Wars? It sounds like a really interesting concept, but small things like vehicles are more powerful than infantry, but infantry are versatile and can cross rivers, travel without road, can enter buildings and set up ambush's, etc., while tanks have to follow roads, but are extremely powerful.

Just my 2 cents.