You play chess? Sounds like it.Rudankort wrote:I'm not a big fan of the entire undo concept either, but, as I said, as long as its needed to see combat predictions, it will remain unchanged. If you can offer better way to see predictions vs. other units, including hand-to-hand combats, ranged attacks and bombing, then please by all means share them with me.
Correct me if I'm wrong on any particular point.
Location of the attacker has no effect on the outcome or performance of a battle, with the exception of river tiles.
So what's wrong with being able to see predictions before you do anything, including movement?
Wesnoth is an amazing game, as per an amazing game, I think they have a great combat system (A little RNG though). It's a little different though, because unit sight in that game is directly tied to movement, which is not the case in PG so there will have to be some adaptions.
Normal map view. Illustration 1.
Possible unit action, including movement and attack. Illustration 2.
Combat prediction window. Illustration 3.
As a side note, I prefer their system of movement range highly over the current PzC scheme of white-washing the board, even with the more transparent white of the latest version. You select a unit and the range of movement is clear, the range of illegal movement is darkened, but the fog is still visible as well. If you add this scheme to PzC, with the addition of an additional shading level to show the difference between normal and the transition to transport movement, it would be awesome.
Back to the topic at hand.
Pay special attention to image 2. You can see the game has drawn my exact travel path(PzC still needs to do this, for all units and especially trains BTW), as well as the direction of my attack and the target of my attack(going to need this for the rare river battle that affects the attackers combat effectiveness), without ever having actually moved my unit. Picture 3 is their version of battle prediction. I'm not saying it's better or worse, although I would like PzC units to have several types of attacks, and the ability to choose between them, that's not what this discussion is about.
Go back to image 2. Imagine, instead of that little red attack arrow, you have what PzC will use for combat prediction(PzC version of image 3). Now you have a system that allows the player to see their possible moves and battle predictions without ever having moved their unit, circumventing the problem with needing undo to see combat predictions, seeing you don't like them, and then undoing.
As you changed all units to attack range of 1, ranged combat isn't an issue for normal units anymore.
With regards to hand-to-hand: If the game is drawing a player's predicted path, and basing combat on that assumed location, should it not then be able to detect if combat will be hand-to-hand close quarter combat?
With regards to the only ranged units in PzC:
Artillery(especially SPGs) will be tricky because they don't have to be adjacent to a target to fire, and you may not always want to fire from maximum range. So how would artillery work? Well, your only solution is you need a hot key. Call it FIRE TOGGLE, or FIRE MODE, or ANCHOR. What this does is it changes an artillery unit, during this prediction mode, from a mobile piece to one that will 'fire' from wherever your mouse is hovering over. Think of it like an anchor button. It anchors movement, allowing mouse movement to switch to ranged target finding. Press the button against to disable. All of that is done without the unit having ever actually moved or done anything yet.
The order of operation would look like this:
1. Select artillery unit.
2. Select (place mouse cursor on top of) hex to potentially move to.
3. Press hot key.
4. Select (place mouse cursor on top of) hex to bombard. Now you can see your combat predictions.
5. Right click to confirm move and ranged attack, OR press hot key to go back to step 2.
With regards to air units:
I don't see how this is too different from normal unit behavior. Adjacent to an enemy air unit works the same as adjacent to a enemy ground unit. If you drag your mouse over an enemy unit, predictor mode will detect a valid target unit your air unit and predictor window will pop up. Going to need a little bit of caution, for example if you want to park above an enemy unit, but engage an adjacent enemy unit. I would say the player would just have to be extra careful. That means if you have your mouse cursor over a ground unit, if you go there, you will attack the ground unit. If you place your mouse over a ground unit, but then drag it from that hex to an adjacent enemy fighter, the predictor cross hair will move to that air unit, and if you accept your move, you will engage the air unit that you left your mouse hovering over.
Did I miss any possible issues? I tired to make the argument concise.
A few additional points:
Undo will still remain, but the only purpose of undo would be to undo movement commands.
If you move a ground unit under an air unit instead of selecting an air unit(wrong mouse click) you can undo that, as long as it follows the rule that you did not reveal an enemy unit.
If you move a ground unit into fog, but clicked the wrong hex, and did not reveal enemy units, you can undo that.
If you move a ground unit into fog, but clicked the wrong hex, and DID reveal an enemy unit. Tough luck, just like it currently is.
