Conquest Forums – Simultaneous Turn-Based Strategy Game

[Szeral]

So, if I'm right, the reinforcement systems works like this:

Count all points of cities under your control. Distribute them to all cities, giving a higher percentage to those cities that are closer to the center of your empire. The received points are places in a queue, first a Trooper will come out, then a Tank, and at last a Bomber. Then the cycle starts again?

Since besides the right unit combos and flanking it's important to fight with majority in an area, and considering the time it takes to move a unit across the map, it's important to "manage" your reinforcements to the fight.
It seem therefore that you best fight "backwards" so that the enemy reaches your former center in the mid-game, so you'll spawn tanks and bombers there to quickly defeat his main forces, while making a "pincer" attack, capturing cities along the flank, which will spawn tanks eventually.

I also wonder, especially early game, if you can pull your "center" to the forefront by dropping on the other side of the map and capture some cities there.

I really like this game concept, and I was wondering if you guys were willing to deepen it, or at least make it more visual and easier to deal with.

For example a map overlay which shows you the area of your control, like a weather map, which shows you the center point and how the flow is to the outer regions.
Also a overview with the production queue of the cities would be really nice to help you plan more of how and where to attack.
I understand these features might be in conflict with the ease and fast pace of the game, besides they don't do much but to help the inexperienced player, but I would appreciate it a much.
In general a greater zoom ability or detailed map overview would be great, as I find it hard now to overview the whole map and see what opportunities there are and how things will work out in the long term, considering different drop options from me and my enemy.

Last note, since knowing the deposition of your enemy and acting upon this can be so detrimental to your victory I would like to see some more "gameplay" out of the drop placements. I like the idea you both can spawn anywhere, making it completely fair, but it does mostly make you consider what will be the optimal drop zones for me and how could I best expand. It's hard to plan this in correlation with your enemy, cause you have such limited knowledge of where he is.
If you had more knowledge of his placements it would become much more strategical as you would try to imbalance him, right now, with the limited satellite coverage, and dropping at the same time makes this much harder, if not impossible.
Perhaps what I'm really trying to say, more information on your enemy would be nice, as this will really allow you to attack his weak spots, or move in a strategic way considering his gravitational center, that will eventually mean his downfall.

[SephiRok]

[...] Then the cycle starts again?

Correct.

I really like this game concept, and I was wondering if you guys were willing to deepen it, or at least make it more visual and easier to deal with.

What we've talked about in the past has been adding a representation (like a partially transparent icon or bar) besides the cities showing the production % a city has, emphasizing where your core is. This could be expanded with queues for each unit types (bars or unit icons partially transparent), but I think it gets too much (both in space on the screen, perceived complexity and the fact that expert players could gain an advantage with knowing this). Also, I'm not sure how useful it would be as usually (in a competitive) match your core changes frequently.

What I would push for, rather than a having a zoom-out option, would be a better minimap which shows mountains and lake territories. Lorenz has already tried implementing this but he had major problems making it look good.

Perhaps what I'm really trying to say, more information on your enemy would be nice, as this will really allow you to attack his weak spots, or move in a strategic way considering his gravitational center, that will eventually mean his downfall.

Any concrete suggestions on how you would do this? I feel that at the moment it's alright as there usually aren't that many awesome drop spots so one can predict drops with okay certainty (players even draw pods often).

[Szeral]

Yea, let me try to be more concrete about what I mean.
Btw, about knowing the production values, I thought of this as something you could toggle off and on, this way it doesn't come in the way of clarity and you can just few it at sometimes when you feel it's important. But yea, it would give an advantage to expert players.

About the information though, I feel that right now I'm too much playing in the dark, I can approximately guess what's out there, but really it comes more too little tactical battles, tactical battles in the sense that you can really only look 1 hex into the future, so it's all about flanking, guessing where your opponent will move next turn, and getting reinforcements as quickly as possible to the fight.
Instead of choosing points where you wanna concentrate or disperse your forces to an area in order to meet the enemy. This means for me, and probably largely because I'm not good enough yet, that there isn't much thought involved in moving my forces, I usually just order my forces from the back lines to the nearest enemy front. I have no greater picture of the map and where my enemy forces are weak and strong.
To com back to Sun-Tzu, since you quote them on your features list, I don't really have, nor can I get, sufficient information on my enemy. so half of the time my forces are in danger of getting lost.
Satellites help me identify where the enemy has expanded too, if I do not choose to use them as drop-pod protectors, but I find it very hard to get a clear picture of where his main forces are concentrated, where his center is, and when I can expect his heavy units to hit the front.
In another extreme, if I had full knowledge of my enemy, I could play a more strategical game with my reinforcements, choosing to move my center to a spot where it'll be easier for me too attack his weak underdeveloped site, knowing which areas to reinforce, pull back, or attack with.
It's a good thing you don't have full information on your enemy, cause now you have to guess and approximate, but I feel there are too little tools to do so significantly.

Suggestions:

Empowering the satellites is an obvious one perhaps, but I don't know how fine the line is between maintaining a good game balance with them and totally ruin it.
Perhaps have them stay for 2 turns, or have them move each turn in a straight line (which would indeed complicate things), give them slightly broader vision, give more of them.
Perhaps have an power-up which will show you the whole battlefield at one point in the game, or permanently show his center city.
Perhaps a radar tower in cities that is produced after the bomber, which will reveal enemy units in a certain radius, but not the exact unit type.

I can see how you can be opposed to all this, and I really would understand, since I like simplicity too, and I don't think my solutions are optimal. But nevertheless I would argue that more visibility or knowledge over your enemy could deepen the gameplay overall.

[SephiRok]

We could try giving 2 more satellites in the beginning, but I don't think increasing the gain rate is the way to go.

I usually can predict my opponent's core very well, spotting the first bomber that comes and nuking it (just ask Binary). I still often miss having more, but this way you at least have to make a decision and use them for what you think is best (and you can use them for a lot of things).

What you can also use as a sense of where your opponent is, is his control % (city is 3% and mega 6% iirc on small-sized map).

I dunno exactly what Lorenz's thought is about this, but last I checked he thought it's quite optimal.

[void]

That's a very interesting point, Szeral.

What do you think about showing on the mini map which cities each player controls (no matter if you have sight on it or not)?

[Szeral]

That are some good tips Rok, thanks. Normally after how many turns does a bomber come up?
void, I would really like that it would certainly help me to move my troops better, and coordinate "flank" attacks with 2 different front lines, get a picture of which areas I can get under control etc.
I think it would really, at least for me, bring more strategic thought to the game.
The question is, I think, what's the balance between needing good game sense and skill and making it to hard/impossible for someone.
I think your idea is great in that you would still need game sense and skill of course, but you on one hand expand this into strategic thought, and on the other hand into specifics, since you could quite accurately ( I think) calculate which units your opponents has and where they spawned and where they will spawn.
Which brings the dilemma, do you aid the player in these calculations or not?

A downside to the idea might be that you don't have to guess anymore where your opponent is at, a little mystery and tenseness gets lost by this. But certainly its worth it imo cause of what you'll get back, I think.

[void]

Alright, I'll ask a couple more people, and if no objections come up I'll implement it for evaluation (should be done by tonight).

[Szeral]

That would be nice, hopefully it brings something extra to the game, instead of taking too much away

[void]

Talked to some other hardcore players, and they are not very fond of the idea. At this point, good players can already easily predict the enemy's center and his main troop concentrations, demonstrated by the first-bomber-nukes shown in high level play. However, I put it on my TODO list for things to try out; maybe this weekend.

[Szeral]

I guess I've to agree with them, I tried to use the percentage tip Todd gave me, and it works ok, plus using satellites a bit more. But I still think there might be a little more to give some extra info on your enemy.

Especially in first round or so, it mostly a guessing game how you counter your enemy, where you place your center and then it's just about dealing with that the best you can.
Maybe if you could see the first pod dropped by your enemy, then it would give at least a vague indication of what he's up too.
Like a pre-round where both players drop a pod and then they both see where they dropped and then the game continues as normal.

[Bianary]

Generally, I drop my initial pods, satellite places it would be dangerous for me if the enemy was, and then figure out where they must be (If they're going to be any kind of threat) if I can't see them. It works pretty well for at least telling what's going on, even if I don't always make ideal decisions about initial drop patterns.