Gobwin Bump Version 2.1

[bowdagger]

crap I made three army's and now I have to make a new one (if this is the new rules).

[LTDave]

OK.

Well, great. I'll need some time to process all that. Keep the ideas coming.

[The Black Hand]

Azgrut, by my estimation, the Gametank costs a "mere" 146. It's still ludicrously inefficient though.

First off, I'm not Azgrut, and ENCOM is my v2 side

Second, I calculated the Gametank's stats as per the following equation (which was version 2.2 of the cost-calculation method):

(Move * Hits) + (Hits * Defence) + (Attack * Range) * Special = Unit Cost

Filling in the equation with the Gametank's stats, I get this to start with:

(3 x 16) + (16 x 5) + (6 x 3) * 3 = X (where X is the final cost - note, it has three specials: it's a Heavy unit, a Ranged unit, AND a Siege unit)

Which leads to (48) + (80) + (18) * 3 = X

This then leads to either 146 * 3 = X or 48 + 80 + 54 = X, depending on how you calculate it (if you're simply following the order of operations from left to right, it's the first; however, if you're going "by the book", as it were, you'd do the multiplication before the addition - which is the second)

Which results in a final cost of either 438 for the first sequence (and it seems I made a mistake on my initial calculations ), or 182 if you follow the second one. Either way, a ludicrous cost - it's weaker than a v1.0 Diwigible, and yet it costs anywhere from twice to four times as much under v2.2 rules.

*The Black Hand goes off to recalculate the cost of the ENCOM units under the proposed v2.3 rules . . .

[The Black Hand]

Okay, here's version 2 of the ENCOM forces. The main changes are:

Both the Lightcycle and the Gametank are now Mount-type units.
The Gametank is no longer a Heavy unit.

I may rejigger the stats for greater efficiency at a later date, though.

Basic Infantry: Gridbug

Hits: 4
Attack: 2
Defense: 2
Move: 2
Range: Melee (not sure if that would be 0 or 1; assuming 1)
Cost (under v2.3): 10

Gridbugs are the main offensive infantry unit of ENCOM, and they look like four-legged mechanical spiders. Cheap and quick to produce, they are usually released in swarms to overwhelm the enemy.

Scout: Lightcycle

Hits: 8
Attack: 4
Defense: 2
Move: 4
Range: 2
Cost (v2.3): 24

Special Abilities: Scout, Mount

Lightcycles are ENCOM's basic scout units. Light and fast, they are capable of covering quite a lot of territory, and are usually the advance elements of any ENCOM military force.

Gametank

Hits: 16
Attack: 6
Defense: 5
Move: 3
Range: 3
Cost (v2.3): 49

Specials: Mount, Ranged, Siege

Gametanks are ENCOM's heavy assault units. Capable of shelling enemy forces from a great distance and carrying the heaviest armor of any ENCOM unit, Gametanks can be a terrifying sight upon the battlefield.

Virus

Hits: 4
Attack: 4
Defense: 4
Move: 2
Range: Melee (assuming 1)
Cost (v2.3): 16

Abilities: Rider, Toxic

Viruses are ENCOM's knights. Capable of infecting enemy units and slowly corrupting them, they are fearsome by themselves - but mounted upon ENCOM's Lightcycles, they can form a deadly fast-attack group.

Also, as I forgot his stats in version 1 of the force listing . . . here he is, Commander Sark himself!

Sark
Hits: 10
Attack: 5
Defense: 5
Move: 2
Range: Melee (assuming 1)
Cost (v2.3): 25

Specials: Commander, Rider

Sark is the Master Control Program's most trusted soldier (so to speak), and normally the controller of Mainframe 511. However, he has been dispatched from Mainframe 511 to assist with the assault on Gobwin Bump.

[BLANDCorporatio]

I do think that we need a percentage cap under the 100%. Else the kill rate would go up to much I guess .

Yeah, my concern was that in all previous rules, the kill-rate was too low. Adjustments as needed, why not. I'm not too committed to the random number being 50%-100% (but should be close, come on), or the Attack and Defense caps (we may revert to them capped by Hits if you like).

I AM committed to the Hit-Run rule and the ATTDIFF though, as in I'll argue for their central place in that system, if we choose to use it.

what about mounts? what do you think should be the rules for them (and their riders).

Good point. I'm thinking of keeping the rules as they are here with one modification. When selecting which units from a stack are among the top-8, the mounts get priority. Example, you have 9 mounted Dwagons, then 8 of them must be the top-8 units; if you had only 7 mounted Dwagons, but no other mount in the stack, than the 8th top unit can be whatever else you have.

So, what about mutliple stack combat? I think of it like this:

Enemy has a single stack of Twolls defending two stacks of gobwin archers.

I attack with 4 stacks of Axe Dwawves. {What happens}

In my version, to decide what happens I need to know who attacks who. If a stack of Axes attacks the Twolls, they duke it out with simultaneous casualties, while the archers just chill on the sides. If the Axes attack the Archers, first the Archers strike (and probably kill a few Axes), then the remaining Axes do damage to the Archer stack. While the Twolls play cards or something.

I'm tempted to give multi-stack combat, as described by you, an ignore, and here's three reasons.

1) (minor reason) Simplicity. I get what you're saying, that things don't need to be too simple. But I don't like rules that are too complex. Further, complicated rules are vulnerable to exploits too, as the numerous rule updates/patches for stuff like Magic The Gathering and Starcraft can show. On the other end of the spectrum, Rock-Paper-Scissors is perfectly balanced.

2) (minor reason) Tropes. The Knight charges in towards the Ogre, and passes right next to the gobwin- who does nothing. The Dwagon swoops in and noms the Pikemen while the Archers watch in awe. It's how plenty of TBS-s work, and we plan accordingly. And plan we will need to do, because

3) (major reason) BALANCE. Now, I may be too attached to the system I stumbled into, but it probably has some virtues, chiefly the balance between 3 troop archetypes. Let's look at that balance from the most sensitive component, the Flier side.

Fliers will be paper planes, because it will be difficult for them to rack up a high Defense sum on the top-8 units. Meaning, if Fliers can be attacked by any Infantry or Archery stack, they will be toast. This is intentional.

It is the Hit-Run (in combination with ATTDIF and Cost rules) that makes Fliers useful. You call in "air support" on that tough Infantry stack to soften its top-8 Defense sum before charging in with your own Infantry. You can use Fliers to harass the enemy reinforcement lines. However, to do this you need to keep the Fliers close enough to be useful, but not too close that they can be attacked. All the while making sure the enemy cannot do the same to you!

There will be planning aplenty required, good old fashioned strategic planning of reinforcement routes, territory denial, maneuvering, troop compositions and optimal resource allocation between Infantry/Flier/Archery.

Of course, if you can make a system yourself then we'll discuss that one, and I suggest you do. You know better than anyone else exactly what you want from a game, and that's a crucial information when fiddling with math.

crap I made three army's and now I have to make a new one (if this is the new rules).

We're drafting rules right now, don't get too committed to any one troop composition.

[turbler]

but the mount rules we currently have are inconsistent with the comic, since only 1 rider per mount is allowed. I was thinking we find some way so that more than one unit can ride another, but within certain limits?

[Azgrut]

I like the new system. But maybe that is just because I like the hit and run possibilities .

About mounts. We should add something that makes units only able to ride monsters when they have specific hits. Else there would be no reason why not to make a high move flying unit to transport all those 2 hit 3 attack monsters to the field with only 1 move.

Maybe only human like units may ride? Or only units with the Rider special, costing 1 or 2 points? Same could go for mounts, but I think in Erf, any large mornster can be ridden.

[Crovius]

On mounts: Maybe a unit has to have at least twice the number of hits for another unit to ride it? Also we should make a standard for the size of units. A unit with 3 Hits is maybe Gobwin sized, and human-shaped units having 5 or 6. Horse size creatures should have at least 10 (so they can be mounts) and something as large as a dwagon shouldn't have more than 20 really.

How's that sound?

[The Black Hand]

On mounts: Maybe a unit has to have at least twice the number of hits for another unit to ride it? Also we should make a standard for the size of units. A unit with 3 Hits is maybe Gobwin sized, and human-shaped units having 5 or 6. Horse size creatures should have at least 10 (so they can be mounts) and something as large as a dwagon shouldn't have more than 20 really.

How's that sound?

Minor tweak to that: a Mount unit can carry any unit that has X% of its hit points or less (I'm thinking 60-65%, 70% at the very most), and it can carry up to 3 units so long as the total Hits of those units is X% of the Mount's HP or less.

Example: a 100-HP Dwagon would, under this rule, be able to carry up to 3 units, so long as the riders' Hits were less than 60-70.

Reasoning: We've seen Dwagons carry multiple riders in the comic (though I think never more than two or three).

[Crovius]

When a unit's mount is cwoaked, and the mount was flying, I think the fall should do something to the Rider. We know falling from the tower space down to the garrison was enough to cwoak Ansom after he was already pretty beaten up, but not enouhg to cwoak Bogroll.

Also, we see normal troops gaining levels, that's how a brand new pikemen can eventually be promoted to warlord, then become an ehir designate and then the leader of a side. He had gained combat experiance before becoming a Warlord. Also, this encoruages us to try and treat units besides just by cost. Even a chepa unit that's survived several battles should be worth a bit more. Cause up until now we've been treating our regular units like Stanley treated his before he made a run for Faq. A unit is as valuable as its ability in combat and how expensive it will be to replace. Hell, I was tempted to name some of my units in the last game, but knowing that they're static at their abilities their is no point doing so cause they're disposable.

Just my opinion.

[Azgrut]

I say leveling units is making the game very complex. But if people would want it, it could be made like another modifier in the combat sheet. A average level of all units in the stack (tus giving something like a commander bonus but then it is level). That is far more easy then increacing their statts and keeping track of all that all the time.

Units could level like commanders do now. Since most units stay in the same stack as they were in the start of the game, it could work.

Yet, I do think it might be a small detail with only a little profit in it.

[Crovius]

Yeah, but if you had that one group of badass soldiers who've bene with your Commander for several turns and suffered through many battles, wouldn't you expect them to fight better than the average soldier? and wouldn't you want to name them and give them some fluff to make them even more awesome?

[Azgrut]

Yes I would .

[LTDave]

Ok, so version 2.3 is up. Go to: http://sites.google.com/site/erfworldempires/home/gobwin-bump-two

I've taken some suggestions from lots of places. I think this has a simpler cost strucure, and will hopefully create a lot of human sized units, with room for bigger and littler things.

Gone is the stack bonus, instead only 8 units in each stack are counted for attack and defence. We should end up with a multi-stack combat engine.

I even have an idea to upgrade units as per Crovius suggestion, but that'll take some more thought yet.

We are not yet down with drafting.

Thoughts, comments, fears...

[LTDave]

Just change one thing - Attacks should not be more than 1.5 Hits.

[Sihoiba]

Doesn't the change to scout obsolete high move units? Seeing as you can never actually scout more than 1 square ahead of your army without risking having your scouts being ambushed?

Also how does only the first 8 units in a stack count rule combine with the commanders can pick who they hit rule. Say the stack was 8 units with 5 hits and 5 defence and a 9th unit with 1 hit and 1 defence, would they have to deal 43 points of damage to cwoak that 9th unit?

[BLANDCorporatio]

I like the new system, mostly*. Maybe High-Move is a bit expensive (factoring both hits and attack by half-move) but that's just me; it doesn't seem obviously bad, so we should try it.

Now, to address Crovius' idea of level-ups, I even had something planned. I was even drafting a rule-set when I saw this

Here's my idea, and I think it answers Sihoiba's concern too (I'll explain later).

A unit has X cost. Therefore, croaking it bestows X experience points to the croaking stack (regardless of which stack dealt more damage). Experience points are distributed in stacking order: first point goes to first unit, second to the second and so on until either we run out of points, or we go back to the first unit and give one more XP etc.

To level, a unit of cost X needs to receive X XP. When it does, it levels, which changes its stats slightly: if a unit is level L, multiply its level 1 Attack and Defense by 1 + (L-1)/10. So a level 2 unit gets 1.1*(Attack, Defense), a level 10 would get 1.9*(Attack, Defense).

Notice that stats changed, and so did the unit's cost- when calculating its cost (and therefore XPs needed to level once more, or XPs given when croaked), use the new Attack and Defense values.

However, again, when a unit levels the factor is applied to the base stats that it had at level 1.

Stats round down when improved by levelling. If a unit's attack is 5, level 2 won't bring a benefit; it's only at level 3 that its Attack becomes 6.

Cost rounds up.

Now for the scout thing. Scouts will die. A lot. You'll need to know what the battlefield looks like, you'll need to risk a few expendable units to find out. However, Scouts won't give too many XPs (particularly to large fast stacks), so you can afford to have them chew a few of your scouts and not level (unlike v1, where Wogew could go to level 3 simply by croaking three Imps).

*: issues:

Random number generator is whack. 30%?! Really?! Come on, at least 50%-80%, especially since you substract enemy defense too afterwards. This is war not a slapfest!

[turbler]

hmmm, Special=Attack for ranged? Whazzat mean?

[BLANDCorporatio]

SPECIAL = Attack, is what I understand. So a ranged unit would cost (HITS + ATTACK + DEFENSE)*MOVE*0.5 + ATTACK.

[turbler]

I see. I'd like to see Dave's new side, too.