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Fast (but interesting) ancient battle

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Ota
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Joined: 12/31/1969

I like „Civilization“ game, but lot of them are too long for occasional playing. So I would like to design game, which would be possible to finish within 2-3 hours. I will start to design game in near future. I am trying to collect interesting ideas now, which can be helpful for me.

The game will be situated to ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, because I like this age. Each player will play with one nation (Babylonians, Assyrians, Elam, Egypt). Game will end by approach of Persians (outside power). Each player will have his own board (something like Age of Mythology)

Basics of game is quite clear in my head, but I am trying to solve situation regarding combat now. Yes, combat will play some role in this game, but not so important. Something like spice in meal. Each player is able to create soldiers from part of his population. For example: Value of Babylonian population is 8 (Babylonian player has 8 small figures now, which he can send to do different activities). Babylonian player decides to create army. He takes one population figure and make army from it. He has army now, but his income from workers will be smaller. It seems, that it will be normal to have only one army, sometimes two, no more then three (yes, population will be increased in the course of time, but it will be very difficult to have three armies and go ahead in other aspects).
So question is: How to make combat interesting, if each side has only one army? How to make combat predictable (if I have two armies and opponent only one, I can calculate with victory with let’s say 80% probability), but variable (not only one throw for each side).

Factors, which could be calculate during battle according my opinion:
- size of armies (most important)
- personality of current nation ruler (talent for war)
- level of army training
- technology advances of each nation (bronze weapons, iron weapons etc.)
- walls around cities (give bonus to defender)
- any other?

I think about deck of battle cards for each nation. These cards would contain some typical action in battle (straight strong attack, attack by slings, outflanking manoeuvre atc.). Before battle, each nation would take determinate amount of random cards from this deck (for example: I have two armies, I can take 8 cards, opponent has only one army, so he can take only 4 cards). Players will play their cards during the battle and according to these cards battle will be solved (of course, good ruler is able to attack more powerful then weak ruler etc.). Result of battle should be mostly following: One side run out from battle. Only if superiority was too big, some army can be removed totally. Winner can take some resources, maybe take some slaves from defeating nation etc.
Idea about deck of battle cards is only proposal. Maybe, that it is too complicate way, how to solve combat, because as I said above, I would like to have combat only as something like variegation. Any idea will be welcome. More brains = more ideas.

Thank you (sorry for my English)
Ota

TheReluctantGeneral
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Fast (but interesting) ancient battle

Hi Ota.

Did you have a look at these recent threads in the game design forum?

Single Combat
Working Towards a Combat Mechanic
Yet Another Combat System Post
Help with a battle/combat System
Using 6 sided dice in combat

If you have not already done so I strongly suggest you look through them. If you find any ideas you like, then perhaps tell us which ones fit best and what's wrong with them for your game, so we can avoid treading over the same ground, and get to the best solution for you as quick as we can.

There are also many older posts addressing your question...

Jebbou
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Joined: 07/29/2008
Fast (but interesting) ancient battle

Hello Ota,

My first comment would be that, since there are many factors that will influence combat, it could take some time to sum up everything each time there is a combat, and that might slow down the pace of the game. This is important if you want combat to be a supporting mechanic only.

Although using dice is certainly the most common way of resolving combat quickly, there are a few game that elegantly handle combat using cards (games I know using this kind of mechanic: "A Game of Thrones" and "Samurai & Katana"). Using cards instead of dice adds to the game theme, whereas standard dice can be somehow dull. Players also have more control with cards, than they would have with dice. Keep in mind this can also slow things down.

You could also use custom dice (such as in hero quest). Depending on your level of metal working, you could use different dice (If your civ is still using Bronze, you would roll "Bronze" dice, which would have fewer "Swords" drawed on their side than the "Iron" dice). This would support theme well and would allow quick combat resolution.

Finally, you might want to browse www.boardgamegeek.com to find games with mechanics similar to what you are looking for (look for that in the advanced search).

Regards,

Jeb

Jpwoo
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Joined: 03/26/2009
Fast (but interesting) ancient battle

The way you have described the game so far let me see if this is correct.

Armies are represented by a single figure that represents a societies dedication to going to war.

Is there a central map? Where players found civilizations and build cities? Or is there only the play boards for each civ?

I'm seeing the game having a raiding mechanic like Age of mythology. Where basically you declare an attack and do some damage to the other persons society. Destroy Population, steal money, take cities.

I think this should be fairly difficult to do, and even a society without an army should get a chance to fight back.

I like the idea of different dice for different tech advancements.

You also might consider just adding dice for each army and keeping the best result. Possibly with tech advancements changing the quality of the dice. The base quality die is a D4. advances like militarism, or iron working bump that die up to d6, d8 etc.

So lets say I'm attacking my neighbor trying to take a grain producing city from them. I have militarism upgrading my attack die from a d4 to a d6. My opponent hasn't developed militarism yet, but he has an army. Since I am attacking him he also has native resistance, home field advantage, which takes the form of another die.

So I roll a d6 for my army. My opponent rolls 1d4 for his army and another d4 for his home field advantage. I have to take my d6 result, the defender gets to pick his. So I roll a 3, and the defender rolls a 1, and a 4, sending my army away.

I don't know how you would want to handle looses. Perhaps if you double your opponent, they take a loss.

This is probably too random for your purposes.

Venga2
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Fast (but interesting) ancient battle

So you want a quick civilization variant? I realy hope that you will get there. Here is my take on the combat system, hope you find it usefull.

Since there are only a limited number of units involved, perhaps a "diplomacy" style resolution could be possible. 1 against 1 is a draw, a majority (2vs 1, 3 vs 1) means a win, as does perhaps a higher level of technology, if the numbers are equal. In certain cases, with a high mayority and technical supiriority, the losing army could be destroyed.

This makes combat
- very predictable
- very quick
- probably infrequent
- possibly quite boring

Oh well, maybe not such a good idea afterall, but it will be fast.

ciao

Ota
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Fast (but interesting) ancient battle

Thanks to all for suggestions and comments.,
I tried to think about it and my first proposal for quite fast battle is following:

Prerequisites:- only one type of unit
- soldiers are people, which are not able to cultivate corn, but need food, so amount of units in battle will be limited by nature (let’s say 1-4 on each side)
- each empire has his own board, where are cards of cities and another important things

Progress of battle:
- Attacker has to say, which city he will try to conquer.
- Attacker attacks with specific amount of units (let’s say “X”).
- Defender defends own city with specific amount of units (let’s say “Y”).
- Each town has its own Defence Number (DN). It depends on distance between this city and capital. If city has fortification, its DN is bigger (let’s say, that average DN of city is 8, average DN of fortified city is 12)
- Amount of 6-sided dices, which attacker will use during the combat = 2+X-Y
- Attacker throwns by specific amount of dices and calculate result of this throw. It is his Attacking Power (AP)

Difference between AP and DN (AP-DN)
-7 and less --> Attacker 1D
-6 / -5 / -4 --> Attacker 1E + 1H / Defender 1H
-3 / -2 / -1 --> Attacker 1E or 1H / Defender 1H
0 --> Attacker 1H / Defender 1H
+1 / +2 / +3 --> Attacker 1 H / Defender 1E or 1H
+4 / +5 / +6 --> Attacker 1 H / Defender 1E + 1H
+7 and more --> Attacker 1H / Defender 1D

Notes:
1 D = one unit was destroyed (it can have influence on amount of dices in next round of battle)
1 E = one unit escaped from battle (it can have influence on amount of dices in next round of battle)
1 H = one unit was harmed (harmed unit which is harmed again is destroyed)
1E + 1H = one unit is harmed and this unit escaped from the battle (if harm causes death of unit, escape is not valid for another units)
1E or 1H = player has to choose, if one of his unit escaped or was harmed

Harmed units fights as normal unit (simple harm has not influence on amount of dices in next round of battle)

Modifiers:
LEADERSHIP OF CURRENT RULER (values between 2-4):
- this number determines maximal amount of units, which ruler can use for attack (of course, empire can have more units, but for single attack can use only this limited amount)

TECHNOLOGY “ADVANCED METAL WORKING”
- if attacker has this technology, all his dices with number 1 are taken as dices with number 3.
- if defender has this technology, all dices with number 6 are taken as dices with number 4.
- if both sided have this technology, no modification with dices are allowed.

TRAINING OF ARMIES
- for each level of training can attacker add +1 to his total AP.
- for each level of training can defender take -1 away from total AP.

Results of battle:- If one side has no unit, opponent is winner.
- After each evaluation of throw each side can deside to go away from the battle.
- If defender is winner, no changes come
- If attacker is winner, he can take opponent’s town (it has another interesting consequences, but I don’t want to write here all rules)

Do you think, that this rules can work? It seems, that for conquering of city without fortification is necessary to have advantage of one unit and for conquering of city with fortification is necessary to have advantage of two units. It sounds quite reasonable from my point of view.

Jpwoo
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Joined: 03/26/2009
Fast (but interesting) ancient battle

Without having tried your system it feels too complicated for "Short game" that you are looking for.

Quote:
- Each town has its own Defence Number (DN). It depends on distance between this city and capital. If city has fortification, its DN is bigger (let’s say, that average DN of city is 8, average DN of fortified city is 12)

You could mark the base defense numbers on the civ board. But this sounds complicated. I would just pare it down to every town having a flat defense number modified for tech. fortification etc...

Quote:
- Amount of 6-sided dices, which attacker will use during the combat = 2+X-Y

It is nice that you resolve the whole thing with only 1 die roll, but I find that people like to roll dice against each other. People like to roll dice!

Quote:
TECHNOLOGY “ADVANCED METAL WORKING”
- if attacker has this technology, all his dices with number 1 are taken as dices with number 3.
- if defender has this technology, all dices with number 6 are taken as dices with number 4.
- if both sided have this technology, no modification with dices are allowed.

TRAINING OF ARMIES
- for each level of training can attacker add +1 to his total AP.
- for each level of training can defender take -1 away from total AP.

You have two combat modifiers that modify the outcome of the battle in two different ways. I think this adds complication to your system that you don't need. I would just change metal working to +1 attacker, -1 defender for simplicities sake.

Quote:
- If attacker is winner, he can take opponent’s town (it has another interesting consequences, but I don’t want to write here all rules)

I think this works well.

Quote:
Difference between AP and DN (AP-DN)
-7 and less --> Attacker 1D
-6 / -5 / -4 --> Attacker 1E + 1H / Defender 1H
-3 / -2 / -1 --> Attacker 1E or 1H / Defender 1H
0 --> Attacker 1H / Defender 1H
+1 / +2 / +3 --> Attacker 1 H / Defender 1E or 1H
+4 / +5 / +6 --> Attacker 1 H / Defender 1E + 1H
+7 and more --> Attacker 1H / Defender 1D

The only thing that i don't like about this is that most of the results have both sides taking damage. This Fogs the results as to who who 'won' a particular round.

You may be doing this to keep the battles short. But after testing my own game CRT (Combat resolution table) Which is similar to yours, I find that if you give Both sides the option of retreat after every round, an attacker won't push an attack that he is loosing. A defender will withdraw rather than loose his whole army.

It looks like you have them fighting to the death with no option of retreat.

Hope this helps!

Keep in mind that if you are going to compress a 4 player civ game down to 90 min to 2 hours you are probably going to have to keep any combat engagement at around 2-3 minutest to resolve. I think that is a good time to shoot for.

NetWolf
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Fast (but interesting) ancient battle

I agree. You definately need to maintain simplicity. With technology, the simplest way would be to have cards that players can purchase in order to upgrade their facilities. Assuming all the players start with "Stone Age" technology they would be able to buy the following:

Bronze Weapons
Bronze Armor
Iron Weapons
Iron Armor

depending on the combat resolution system you use you can do the tech bonuses in one of several ways:

Bronze Weaponry: d6 combat die

or

Bronze Weaponry: +1d6 combat die (Choose the highest)

or

Bronze Weaponry: +1 to combat rolls

then the Iron Weaponry upgrade would change the bonuses to d8 combat, +2d6 combat, or +2 combat depending on which system you use.

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