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Universal Army Buffs

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Thu, 10/20/2016 - 18:43
Ghillieguy52
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One of the things I've enjoyed most is list building for wargames and I wanted to expand on that design by adding a second layer to the units.

The Idea is every unit would have four meters that can be filled for buffs. for example Fire, Water, Earth, And Air. The meters are increased based on what unit you include in the army ex: an archer unit adds air, swords men add earth etc.

The each unit then gains special abilities and stat buffs depending on which element meter has been filled, ex: knights get +1 speed if your army has +3 to air.

Theoretically, you may make choices based not only how the unit performs, but by the elemental buff it contributes to and what benefits it receives from your other units.

I'm curious if this has been tried before and how it worked out
(my search fu is weak). My concerns are it's potential complexity may be greater than intended and would be difficult for players to keep track of. Also if it seems more fitting for larger games or skirmishes since the stacking buffs may limit the battles scale that players can choose.

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Fri, 10/21/2016 - 04:52
#1
X3M
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Welcome to the forum!

I like your idea of buffing your army by filling meters.
But as you have stated, a large scale battle will make the meters obsolete after a relatively short time.

A more of an individual bonus would be better.

Something similar has been done before, for example in Axis 'n Allies. An infantry unit goes from 1 attack to 2 attack points. For every artillery that supports them.

And while being a card game. MtG can be all about cards that buff each other. I had an enchantment/forest deck around this chick:
https://www.magicmadhouse.co.uk/images/yavimaya-enchantress-foil-p11435-...

Just watch out for snowball effects when using buffs.

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Fri, 10/21/2016 - 05:06
#2
ElKobold
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Sounds very nice.I would say

Sounds very nice.

I would say you'll need an army cap rule along the lines of Game of thrones support mechanism for it to work though.

I would also suggest to make it so that units which fill in the element meter have weaker abilities, while units which have more powerful abilities, populate the meter less.

Or, to simplify, you can make it mutually exclusive. So if the unit has the ability, it grants no elemental buff. That way it would be easier to track.

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Fri, 10/21/2016 - 07:47
#3
DarkDream
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Unit Cohesion and Combined Arms

Interesting.

It seems you are adding another bonus layer which deals with the different composition of units working together.

Basically, you are adding bonuses for a combined arms approach where the use of certain units compliment each other and thus as a *whole* become more effective.

The idea could also be used to give bonuses for a particular unit cohesion which can only be held if certain units are part of the larger unit.

It seems to me that you can use this concept at different organizational military levels.

For example, at the lowest level (using modern military units), you can have a security element (rifleman scout and squad leader), coupled with a suppression fire element (automatic riflemen), with lastly the maneuver element of five riflemen. Each of those elements would contribute to the bonuses.

You could go up the scale to a level where you can have air force units, mechanized army units, ground force units and so on.

I don't necessarily think it would be too difficult to keep track of as long as it is fairly simple and has maybe some symbols or icons on the units as well or some visual aid to help to remember the bonuses.

--DarkDream

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Sat, 10/22/2016 - 11:42
#4
czarcastic
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Separate army and elemental pools

I like the idea of units gaining varying buffs depending on what elements are powered.

However, it would seem that tying the powered elements to the army composition would lead to a handful of optimal unit selections, reducing viable player choices.
This could be mitigated by either having a large number of unit types (which further complicates the logistical issue of clearly displaying the buffs) or by having support units whose primary purpose is to supply elemental power (which makes them primary targets).
Also, if unit loss causes a loss in elemental power, that can snowball into one army being significantly underpowered after losing just a couple units.

I'd suggest separating the base concepts of unit selection and elemental selection. The units could still modify this, but keeping this contribution minor would reduce the issues listed above. Also, having elemental power separate would allow for the shifting of that power to change the buffs in effect during the course of play.

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Sat, 10/22/2016 - 19:34
#5
Ghillieguy52
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I like the idea of using this

I like the idea of using this to promote a combined arms approach,I hadn't considered that. skewing and spamming is definitely a common issue in games.

I also like some of the suggestions to make certain units focus on buffing while others are fighters, it would open up some options.

Losing units would definitely be a problem for someone on the back-foot. I'll probably have the elements permanently tied to the general and then make his loss a losing condition. Those two things would give a losing player a chance and end the game quicker either way.

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Sat, 10/22/2016 - 23:39
#6
kos
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Relative ratings vs Pools

To avoid the problem of maxing out all the elements in large armies, can you use relative ratings, as follows:

During army creation, count up the number of each element produced. The highest rating is the "affinity" of the general (on a tie, you choose one of the elements), and this activates the corresponding bonus on all units which have that affinity.

Take your example earlier where Archers add Air which gives bonus move to Knights. This is good because Archers don't get a bonus from Air. From a game balance perspective, you probably don't want a unit to produce an element and have a bonus from the *same* element.

---------------------------
A totally different approach could be to make the elements be pools which the General can spend during the battle, rather than being special abilities tied to individual units.

For example, the General can spend 1 Air to give any unit +1 move. Then there is no problem with scaling for large battles, it is just that you have a larger pool to spend.

Using these rules, you could still have weak units which produce elements and strong units that produce none, so it's a trade-off during army creation.

Regards,
kos

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