I wrote down a few ideas about ground combat after Geoff told me to look at Into the Breach as an inspiration for my space combat tactical non-interactive system (I found ItB mechanisms very interesting indeed, but not fitting for a non-interactive system, so a better inspiration for ground combat than for space combat).
I'll copy them there since it's more appropriate than in a thread linked to a specific chat meeting.
For both balance and playability, we don't want to have the Ground Combat map bear hundreds of units in late game, which would make the ground battle turns require hours of play.
How to achieve that best would probably to make current "ground troop values" be "Mecha logistic support values", and have the logistic required by Mechas scale exponentially (I'm not the best with mathematical formulas, but we probably want to make easy to have around 5 Mechas on the battlefield, and make quite hard to have more than 15).
Bonus if we have the formula scale exponentially for each type of Mecha ("close combat", "ranged", "support", whatever) rather than for the raw number of Mechas : more diverse teams mean tactics prime power.
Player investment in the ground combat would then come in the form of better Mechas.
To make it interesting, probably not by giving them really more raw power (again, a little bit more in damage ability, movement points, hit points and armor is not a problem, but these also should have their costs scale exponentially to keep things fun : if we let the more advanced player get indestructible Mechas then the invasion is absolutely no fun to the defender, and consequently even to the attacker).
But by giving them new (and fun) abilities, as well as a bigger number of abilities per Mecha (again, with an exponential cost for this number of abilities; ItB uses 2 per Mecha, it should cost a real lot to have more than 4).
That would mean that a more powerful player can mount devastating attacks if s/he plays well, but also that the less powerful player still has a chance to counter their enemies if they play with better proficiency (at least being able to achieve secondary objectives, to limit the damage).
Having the more powerful player able to chain a series of clever attacks that brings all their enemies Mechas in the exact position where a "push all" ability will send them in an Electric Minefield if the opponent made a mistake in their Mechas positioning is way more fun (to both players) than having indestructible all-powerful Mechas crush enemy lines without efforts...
Another thing that such tactical, many-turns ground combat could bring is fun diplomacy : you ask temporary allies to help you invade a planet, and after a few turns they decide that it's better for them to just take the planet for themselves...
It also allows for continuous diplomacy while the invasion is taking place : any side getting pummeled on the ground by an enemy alliance could try to offer bribes to one of the allied enemies to have them switch sides.
If we make allied invasion forces' cost scale less exponentially than a one-player invasion force of the same size, this would actually be a frequent occurrence that negotiations happen "on the ground" at each turn (since all invasions would benefit from an allied force doing it/opposing it).
Considering the legal aspects of taking inspiration from Into the Breach : Ideas can't be licensed.
I don't think very loyal to copy an existing game even if the law allows it, but :
- ItB didn't invent Mecha combat
- ItB didn't invent isometric wargames (and we don't have to use an isometric grid anyway)
- We obviously can't copy their Mecha models and graphics, but they didn't invent Mechas, so if we design our own it's perfectly fine
- ItB didn't invent units with special abilities, so if we avoid copying their exact abilities and invent our own it's perfectly fine (and yes, some very basic abilities like "pushing the enemy" will be copyed, but ItB didn't invent them either)
Also, here's Ophiuchus' answer on that initial thread :
I'll reply to the "troop representation is a lot of work" issue that Mechas avoid that problem entirely.
We can still introduce specific Mechas/goodies for specific Species when we want (and have someone willing to do the job), but we don't have to.
And to the idea about a "Tower defense minigame" that yes, it's a good idea.
Not sure how to integrate it with what I propose, though.
Also I'm not opposed to restricting this fully-ItB-like combat mechanism to some ground combat only (so as to make them meaningful, rather than a mandatory drag), if we can find good ways to do it.
Maybe like I proposed in my initial idea, if you go to the third self-quote of this message, before I switched to a full planetwide battle : have each player decide where they send a Mecha team (taking the risk of having them destroyed).
I proposed that for each planetary invasion, but that could be done otherwise : a limited number of Imperial Mecha Specialists, that one can deploy on important invasions
Maybe through download of their digitalized consciousness, to allow their deployment in a system cut out by the enemy : we want it to be a strategic choice to deploy or not, we don't want the player being forced to have Mechas everywhere. So just force a number of turn for this "download", and maybe limit the number of Mechas downloadable depending on some characteristics on the planet (including its supply status, so that disconnecting a planet still has some benefits to the attacker).
What we would want in such a situation is both to reward a strategy of multiple simultaneous invasion (forcing the enemy to abandon some planets or disperse their forces) and to allow single planetary invasions to succeed if well prepared and executed.
I'll copy them there since it's more appropriate than in a thread linked to a specific chat meeting.
During the chat, Geoff advised me to look at Into the Breach; from the little I've been able to find, yes it's a very interesting combat system, but its main strength (having units work more by their combination than their individual strengths) is a bit at odd with the non-interactive part of my system : since, when designing your "Combat Doctrine", you can only guess where the enemy may be on their part of the grid, I'm not sure that I can design a system which uses ItB principles in a fun and efficient manner.
In my system, the player has to balance between using generic orders and fleet disposition and fleet composition that will work averagely against most enemy Combat Doctrines (that is, where the player's ships will be able to shoot at the enemy wherever the enemy goes on the checkerboard/battlefield) and trying to craft more specific orders/disposition/composition that will work only (but devastatingly so) if s/he's able to correctly guess where the enemy ships are going to be.
Maybe it's possible to have the same flexibility with an ItB-like system, but I don't know how to do that.
Also, my system is designed to work with the current Ship Designs available in FreeOrion (though it invites some additions and can accommodate/benefit from even more additions); I'm not sure that Into the Breach would allow that.
I had the occasion to play some "Into the Breach".
Indeed, the game is quite good; I'm a bit frustrated to have only three mechs, though - it makes it more a puzzle game than an actual wargame.
Anyway, it confirms my impression : yes there are very interesting mechanisms in it, but they'd work way less optimally in a non-interactive combat system.
And also they would probably require completely reworking the ships and weapons that we have now, while my system is designed to work with what we have.
Mechanisms similar to those used by Into the Breach would probably be very interesting for a ground combat system, though.
Both because we have no real ground combat system so we'll have to design it from scratch, which means that we can design it around mechanisms needed for an ItB-like approach.
And because ground combat could afford to be more interactive, in a turn by turn system (one ground combat turn per global FO turn), making conquests way slower than pure starlane control.
If someone has good ideas about how to implement some ItB-like mechanisms in the Non-Interactive Combat System I'm implementing for spatial combat, why not, but I personally can't think of any.
I'll write it here before I forget it : I had a few ideas about an Into-the-Breach- like combat system for ground combat : on the planet, depending on its development (mostly its Infrastructure level, but also global Empire policies, techs, whatever) there are a certain number of strategic locations.
Like, "Main supply depot" : if the invader doesn't control it, he gets wiped out if s/he loses control of the star system).
Or "Spatial defenses control center" : as long as the defender controls it, s/he can fire at the spaceships in system.
Or "Economic node" : once the invader controls them all, the invasion is completed.
Or "Transportation hub" : the player who controls it interdicts enemy reinforcements to nearby locations.
Each player decides each turn to send teams to some of these locations (if a player has an overarching advantage, s/he can send teams to all of them, but that should be a rare occasion).
Combat is resolved in each of these in a turn per turn system (a turn for each global turn).
If we allow tactical combat to take place against the AI (so only one player need to be online in MP games), we can decide some rule to decide which player will be the active one (controlling their units) while the other(s) will have their units controlled by AI.
A simple rule would be to have the defender be the active one (so one needs a seriously bigger invasion force to win, as AI certainly isn't optimal) but to allow daring raids we may have some other factors deciding this (like stability on planet, presence of leaders, Species opinion¹, Influence projects, Policies, whatever).
That would allow to have 4-rounds combat per Galactic turn instead of one for one.
There even could be the possibility to have most fights decided by one player being active against the AI, at a rate of 4 rounds per turn, while a few (those were the players sent a leader, if we have leaders in the game; or whatever other rule) would be fully player-vs-player tactical combat, at a rate of one round per turn.
That would simulate both rapid cleansing of some areas and slower entrenched combat in other areas (think blietzkrieg vs Stalingrad).
¹ Actually that could be the simplest rule : whoever has the better opinion from the planet's Species gets to be the active player.
Most of the time it'll be the defender, especially on their own planets, but not always.
Another option would be to have the whole planet be an ItB-like map and have strategic objectives on them (again, Supply depot, control centers, whatever).
Into the Breach uses 8x8 maps, they're way too constrained for a real wargame rather than a puzzle game, so probably the best would be a 12x12 on a Tiny planet, and add four rows and columns per planet size after that (so 28x28 on a Huge planet if I count well).
We remove the turn limit that exists in Into the Breach, maybe keep some constraints (like if the Invader controls less Supply depot on the ground after 4 turns that he's got troops, and is not supplied in the Galaxy Map, the invasion fails - or at least his excess troops are dismantled).
The invasion succeeds when the invader controls a number of Cultural Centers equals to the difference in Species opinions between both Empires (if the difference favors the invader, the invasion succeeds when the defender ceases to control a number of Cultural Centers equals to the difference in Species opinions).
We could also have preparatory fight on Orbital Stations to gain some strategic objective before the ground invasion, that would play with the same 4-turns limit than ItB.
Or five-rounds limits, all the five rounds occuring in the same Galactic turn, with one player being the active one and the other being run by AI.
The War Mechas theme of ItB fits extraordinarily well both with its game mechanisms and the general Space Opera theme of FreeOrion, so I really think we should model ground combat on something similar.
The enormous possibilities provided by the diversity of Mechas, abilities and goodies and planetary environments could provide a really fun game inside the game.
I believe that except for a few of them, these abilities and goodies should not come from specific Techs and buildings, but from the existing Techs and Policies and whatever.
For example, the Gravitonics tech would unlock the "Grab" ability of Mechas, the "Dimensional Burrowers" special would make the planet have some "Chasms" which destroy any non-flying Mecha falling on them, the "Xenological Hybridation" tech would make some buildings have tentacles or spores or whatever (so, able to attack nearby units)...
Each Metabolism could get specific Mechas and/or goodies.
Of course, to make this actually fun and not a repetitive drag, we'd need to have it mean something for the general strategy...
Having planet invasions be more complex, and lasting longer (so needing more strategic commitment) than just dropping a few troopships is already a good addition to the game.
Having invasion play very differently according to Planet size, environment, inhabiting Species (we could even have Native homeworlds get a completely different defense system), should also be a good addition to the game.
But we need to allow things like daring raids if we want to add to the possibilities rather than limit them.
As usual, the goal should be to give agency to both players, not remove agency from them.
Possible objectives beyond sheer planet conquest would do that :
- Getting Supply (on the Galactic Map, I mean) from the planet; this from capturing Space Elevators and Supply Depots on the ground
- Cutting Supply (ditto) to the enemy from the planet; this by capturing Transportation Nodes (maybe each one captured reduces Supply by one)
- Destroying a specific building
- Hampering enemy propaganda (reducing the player's Influence, or Species opinion, or even more interesting, making some of his Policies cost an Influence upkeep until the end of the game, or disabling his ability to build some Influence projects)
- Helping rebels to win Independence
- Sabotaging warships from the ground
- Crippling Planet's production for a while
- Pillaging : getting a lot of Production Points (by getting control of Economic Nodes)
- Kill leaders, even maybe the Emperor himself (game consequences to be determined)
- Kill population, if we implement Atrocities
- Disabling a specific Focus (by taking control of Command centers; how many Command centers the invader succeeds in taking determines how many turns the focus is disabled for the planet)
- Espionage : getting information about current Research, disabling research progress on some Tech, maybe even stealing Techs or disabling the ability to research some specific Tech for a certain number of turns (espionage/sabotage missions could be limited in the number of turns they have to complete, and could also use a "active player vs AI" mechanism, where four rounds or more occur in a single Galactic turn; they could also be done with a normal one-turn-per-galactic turn mechanism, but with a squad of Mechas storming a Science Facility in the map, either just by getting control of it, or by getting a chance to overrun it in a 4-rounds-per-Galactic-turn-with-only-one-active-player mechanism)
- Bringing Stealth to the warships around the planet, or removing said Stealth (by taking control of Radar Stations, Planetary Stealth buildings,...)
Also, allowing stealthy teams to invade through the Shield (that is, even if the enemy planet shields are not depleted), with a maximum number of invading Mechas determined by Stability, Policies (i.e. Terror Suppression allows more enemy Mechas to come undetected as the population will not report them to hated authorities), number of Rebel troops, Species Opinion and the like would bring much more diversity in tactics and strategy in the game.
For both balance and playability, we don't want to have the Ground Combat map bear hundreds of units in late game, which would make the ground battle turns require hours of play.
How to achieve that best would probably to make current "ground troop values" be "Mecha logistic support values", and have the logistic required by Mechas scale exponentially (I'm not the best with mathematical formulas, but we probably want to make easy to have around 5 Mechas on the battlefield, and make quite hard to have more than 15).
Bonus if we have the formula scale exponentially for each type of Mecha ("close combat", "ranged", "support", whatever) rather than for the raw number of Mechas : more diverse teams mean tactics prime power.
Player investment in the ground combat would then come in the form of better Mechas.
To make it interesting, probably not by giving them really more raw power (again, a little bit more in damage ability, movement points, hit points and armor is not a problem, but these also should have their costs scale exponentially to keep things fun : if we let the more advanced player get indestructible Mechas then the invasion is absolutely no fun to the defender, and consequently even to the attacker).
But by giving them new (and fun) abilities, as well as a bigger number of abilities per Mecha (again, with an exponential cost for this number of abilities; ItB uses 2 per Mecha, it should cost a real lot to have more than 4).
That would mean that a more powerful player can mount devastating attacks if s/he plays well, but also that the less powerful player still has a chance to counter their enemies if they play with better proficiency (at least being able to achieve secondary objectives, to limit the damage).
Having the more powerful player able to chain a series of clever attacks that brings all their enemies Mechas in the exact position where a "push all" ability will send them in an Electric Minefield if the opponent made a mistake in their Mechas positioning is way more fun (to both players) than having indestructible all-powerful Mechas crush enemy lines without efforts...
Another thing that such tactical, many-turns ground combat could bring is fun diplomacy : you ask temporary allies to help you invade a planet, and after a few turns they decide that it's better for them to just take the planet for themselves...
It also allows for continuous diplomacy while the invasion is taking place : any side getting pummeled on the ground by an enemy alliance could try to offer bribes to one of the allied enemies to have them switch sides.
If we make allied invasion forces' cost scale less exponentially than a one-player invasion force of the same size, this would actually be a frequent occurrence that negotiations happen "on the ground" at each turn (since all invasions would benefit from an allied force doing it/opposing it).
Considering the legal aspects of taking inspiration from Into the Breach : Ideas can't be licensed.
I don't think very loyal to copy an existing game even if the law allows it, but :
- ItB didn't invent Mecha combat
- ItB didn't invent isometric wargames (and we don't have to use an isometric grid anyway)
- We obviously can't copy their Mecha models and graphics, but they didn't invent Mechas, so if we design our own it's perfectly fine
- ItB didn't invent units with special abilities, so if we avoid copying their exact abilities and invent our own it's perfectly fine (and yes, some very basic abilities like "pushing the enemy" will be copyed, but ItB didn't invent them either)
Also, here's Ophiuchus' answer on that initial thread :
Ground combat has a similar problem like space battle: there can be more than two opponents (and on the ground we also have rebels). And I think that is the main reason why ground battle "has to be" 1-turn at the moment - its quite messy to find a fair automated solution.
Some generic ideas:
- maybe ground combat is a good place to prototype for space combat; many of the learnings could apply to space combat and it won't tilt the game balance, so we can simply merge it to the master branch and iterate fast with player feedback
- i would like to have multi-turn combat in order to give a choice between effective invasion (less troop cost) and fast invasion and have the possibility of reinforcements. with the current mechanics hm.. maybe a way to increase max rebels (by spending troops?) instead of directly invading
- if there is combat on a planet it should decrease stability, creating local rebels
- there might be gradual take over (e.g. empire1 owner -> empire2 invades, fighting empire1 -> empire1 looses control - planet looses empire1 tech.. bonus ; fighting continues with empire1,empire2, and rebels -> empire2 gains control and planet gets empire2 tech.. bonus; fighting continues -> empire2 eradicates empire1 troops completely and rebels
- we need to answer what such a feature brings to the whole game
- it should not prolong/take up player time unnecessarily; which either means opt-in; or it means that in at least 90% of cases, an automated solution should be possible and optimal; or we need fixed amount of action points one can spend per turn
- having invasions take multiple turns opens up options for tactical mini-games; because in the single-turn case (e.g. with stealthy invaders), the defender does not have a chance to act. but hten it is even more pressing how many turns/how much player time an invasion is supposed to take (see point above)
- a bit different from space combat are the roles; on ground, only one empire is the owner while in space that is not necessarily true: the closest thing is that there might be blockaded ships; also we dont have rebels in space (yet); currently also, there can be only enemies of the owner (no peacefuls or allies).
- with the strong definition of the planet owner fighting a bunch of its enemies (which might hate each other), there might be an asymmetric or actually two different games in here - a tower defense and a raider game (does anybody know an asymmetric 1vN tower defense game)
- in principle there could also be tactical combat after the fact; so one would not be able to influence the combat itself, but re-claim more resources by playing better
I think having a single player fighting an AI and judging how good a player plays is a way out of the multi-invader problem.Or five-rounds limits, all the five rounds occuring in the same Galactic turn, with one player being the active one and the other being run by AI.
That would also kind of work for bad defender AI, as one could measure just how much success there was as compared to "bad" attacker.
But the whole tactical battle hinges on attacker AI, for which we realistically do not have resources.basically my idea would be to heavily restrict it, so each player has to focus. maybe one would need to pay influence to actually play a battle.Of course, to make this actually fun and not a repetitive drag, we'd need to have it mean something for the general strategy...that would be nice/thematic +1Having invasion play very differently according to Planet size, environment, inhabiting Species (we could even have Native homeworlds get a completely different defense system), should also be a good addition to the game.Possible objectives beyond sheer planet conquest would do that :
..fun ideas..![:mrgreen:]( "Mr. Green")
one thing which is non-thematic or a lot of work is probably troop representation. we have egassem mountains, cans of worms (george in armour), ....
probably classifying everything into dunno three or four categories of ground troops and putting the species icon on it
I'll reply to the "troop representation is a lot of work" issue that Mechas avoid that problem entirely.
We can still introduce specific Mechas/goodies for specific Species when we want (and have someone willing to do the job), but we don't have to.
And to the idea about a "Tower defense minigame" that yes, it's a good idea.
Not sure how to integrate it with what I propose, though.
Also I'm not opposed to restricting this fully-ItB-like combat mechanism to some ground combat only (so as to make them meaningful, rather than a mandatory drag), if we can find good ways to do it.
Maybe like I proposed in my initial idea, if you go to the third self-quote of this message, before I switched to a full planetwide battle : have each player decide where they send a Mecha team (taking the risk of having them destroyed).
I proposed that for each planetary invasion, but that could be done otherwise : a limited number of Imperial Mecha Specialists, that one can deploy on important invasions
Maybe through download of their digitalized consciousness, to allow their deployment in a system cut out by the enemy : we want it to be a strategic choice to deploy or not, we don't want the player being forced to have Mechas everywhere. So just force a number of turn for this "download", and maybe limit the number of Mechas downloadable depending on some characteristics on the planet (including its supply status, so that disconnecting a planet still has some benefits to the attacker).
What we would want in such a situation is both to reward a strategy of multiple simultaneous invasion (forcing the enemy to abandon some planets or disperse their forces) and to allow single planetary invasions to succeed if well prepared and executed.
Statistics: Posted by LienRag — Fri Jan 31, 2025 11:24 am