It's for circular board war game. The combat system is pretty simple. Each area have units and heroes with a strength. When a territory attacks another territory, the hero on each side roll a number of dice equal to their strength. Each roll of 4+ kills and ennemy unit. At the end of the round, the side with the most units wins the control of the territory and the opposing army is forces to retreat to an outer ring.
It's a very interesting mechanic that gives 2 facet to the combat resolution ( you need good heroes and a good amount of troops). Now the problem is that retreat could be blocked if there is no friendly or empty territory left. So how can it be resolve. Here is a couple ideas I had so far with their pro and cons:
Reroll until death: Make another round of battle until 1 side is eliminated. The results are devastating on both sides because much more casualties get generated this way and the strength of the hero now has much more impact on the combat resolution. It also takes more time to resolve since there is more dice roll involved. But a similar solution could be used in case of ties. So that make senses that this is the mechanic to chose for cohesion with other mechanics. Unless ties simply stop the battle.
Ratio Kill: Each side lose 1 unit until a side is eliminated. If a hero is stronger than another, he kills 2 unit for 1 he loses. This is even deadlier and weakens dramatically armies on the board.
Nothing Happens: In this case, the defender is not forced to retreat. That makes the defender in a very good position since there is only 1 round of battle, he could hold his position for a long time if he has a lot of troops. It would stall the game too much.
Retreat to reserve: Making the player retreat to the reserve makes actually no sense. I found it interesting to block retreat, I thinks I want to keep that concept.
Instant capture: Capturing instantly the enemy could be an alternate solution. Very deadly, but the attacker suffer less casualties to succeed which does not weaken his position afterward compared to the roll until death.
What do you Think?
Any other suggestions?
Prototype Picture
http://bgd.lariennalibrary.com/uploads/Mainsite/GameIdea/GameIdea-DarkTower/picture_lariennaDT_prototype01.jpg
