Going for the kills or the damage?

For my example, I'll use "Hearthstone" (HS). In HS most battles come out to constantly wiping clear the board of all threats. Because if you DON'T do this, at some point in time, you will have five or six creatures that attack your Hero and cause serious damage ... which could result in a loss in maybe two rounds or so.

But HS takes this "threat" level to another issue. The creatures that MUST be killed FIRST... So you may have one strong creature which acts like a "blocker" to all the other creatures. So instead of just five creatures, you have four and ONE (1) that you need to remove FAST, otherwise you get into the situation mentioned above.

I THINK (not sure?!) most games go to "killing" a creature over weakening a group because of like in HS, a creature with LESS health can FULLY attack an opposing Hero...

Which brings me to something INTERESTING...!

The ONLY way that "doing damage to multiple units" is SMARTER is IF and ONLY IF ... Your units lose "Attack" strength as they get weaker. Not ONLY Health like in MOST games.

What do I mean... If it's more like RL where you take an "injury" to the leg and that pain makes it harder to move or the pain makes it harder to remain focused, then MAYBE spreading out your wounds may be a better tactic.

However in MOST games this is NOT the case. You only lose HEALTH, not your capacity to DEAL DAMAGE (as some form of impairment).

So to conclude, in MOST games (almost all) it's better to go for a kill.

But this doesn't mean you can design a SMARTER game with live wounds and a factor which affects your Attacking Power. If you did this, A> It would be more realistic and B> It would be probably something maybe only seen in traditional war games.

TBH I don't think many games have a "live wounds" system which impairs a damaged creature to have a WEAKER attack. But I could be wrong... I guess I haven't played ENOUGH games to see something akin to this.

Completely depends on the game.

Some games (eg Dungeon Twister or Memoir 44) only allow a player to take a fixed number of actions, no matter how many units they have. In this situation unless knocking out a specific unit gives some other tactical advantage (eg denying a position or special ability) then it can be better to go for max damage.

However in a lot of games (most wargames and miniatures games seem to do this) the amount you can do is dependent on how many units you have. In this situation, kills often matter more. There are going to be variations (eg a unit which can take a lot of damage but is very powerful, you probably wont get as many kills if you focus on it but the benefit when you kill it is worth the reduction in overall kills).

There's a ton of variations of course. But playing a new game with this sort of conflict the thing I look for first to start making play decisions is: "flat action rate" or "actions per unit"

Each unit has a "Firepower" and that's the ONLY stat. When you are attacked you LOSE "Firepower" thus affecting your capabilities to retaliate or have a smaller sized squadron (as a result of an attack) and therefore doing less damage.

When you Attack, you "somehow" use the total "Attack" Firepower and deal damage to your opponent.

Note #1: I have NOT solved the problem about HOW to use this one (1) stat system. I'm just suggesting looking into it and seeing if you can build a combat system with only the one stat...

Note #2: When dealing damage you apply it DIRECTLY against the Firepower of the squadron. So IF I deal 4 Damage and previously had 12 Firepower, I would land up with 8 Firepower for future attacks.

Note #3: Again this is only a partial solution. It still doesn't explain how to address dice rolling. Or if there is even any need for dice rolling. Could it be purely deterministic??? I think you need some chance otherwise it's going to be boring as all hell.

I don't seem to be quite clear about this. 10 Health Max, get 4 Damage ... Now you roll WHY? And why does it need to be higher than 4?? Could you clarify your thoughts???

This scenario comes up frequently in multiplayer MtG. I know there are a few on here that aren't big MtG, but oh well. What I would do depends greatly on the situation. Generally speaking:
-If killing one player would put me at risk of being in kill range (typically 3 or less life), I'd probably spread the damage around. -If I can kill a player with minimal risk to being killed, then take out a player. It's usually beneficial to minimize the number of threats coming your way.

There are things that can sway this choice further:
-If I have a deck at a disadvantage to the surviving opponent's deck or can't deal with a card on the table, I would keep the other alive to help weaken the stronger player or to hopefully destroy the card.
-If I have a deck that favors more players being in the game.
-If the would be surviving player is using a burn deck, it's good to keep more targets around.

I think this is essential in combat strategy type games. Not really important in other game types.

In Magic, the choice is usually obvious. But there are circumstances that muddy up the decision. I really like that aspect of the game. Not too much analysis paralysis, but it does occur from time to time.

Sorry, posted to the wrong thread and don't know how to delete this post. Anyone know how to delete this?

1. Like the above example, the most simplified (early editions) Tunnels and Trolls monsters have one number, a Monster Rating(MR) which is both health and the basis of attack strength (calculated according to current, not original). So, getting those initial hits is critical.

2. From the videogame world: I finally started playing Darkest Dungeon, where the bodies of dead opponents still form obstructions, affecting range (and maybe more: I'm just wallowing in early levels). In a tactical game, there are all sorts of opportunities here for complications.