Sounds excellent. Seems like it has a Games of Thrones feel with all the grievances etc.
As for the combat I'd love you to check out my idea on formation\shape combat I have in mind for a fantasy game. It may spark something of as it's pretty unique but makes sense. I've copied and pasted from a thread I started over at Matrix to try and get over my combat idea. Probably still doesn't make sense though.
"I have a really great idea on how the combat will play out. Think top down view. Troops will be in blocks, colour will depend on unit type, shape will change depending on formation, size will also change depending on how many troops are in the unit. Also each will have a coat of arms next to it of it's commander. If you set a formation for the whole army (that you've already learnt and practiced in)then the blocks will arrange themselves into that formation (think those old Napoleonic wooden block games or drawings of sketched out by commanders on maps. Now your fromation will be as effective as the amount of training your troops have ha din it and also commander stats will come into play aswell both for the whole army (Top commander stats) down to each unit (say pikemen commander stats). Obviously there will be army formations and if you want you can set individual unit formations (handy in smaller battles or say if a unit gets isolated etc. You then set all the orders you want to your its as I mentioned further up. Then you let the battle play out (I think Histwar les Grignards does something similar). What you will see is the blcoks moving following your overall initial orders and also taking into account how good the commander is and how much experience the untis have etc etc. During the battle you will have three chances to issue new commands. Again the whole thing will play out and the results will all be down to the battlefield terrian\your formations\your training\your commanders\moral and your overall attack plans. or you can auto resolve."
- shape combat.jpg (136.5 KiB) Viewed 4345 times
" The image above is a rough idea of how the battle would look, i.e blocks for units, however it would all animate and flow dynamically, formations will change during combat. Something dynamic that could happen is if you commander has great initiative and the formation has the relevant training, he may as he moves into melee range but comes under fire from arrows change his formation into the Roman turtle to protect his men from arrows, then fan back out to his previous formation when he gets towards melee range. A poor commander may not do this though, disciplined troops will change formation faster than low disciplined, also how well your trained in the new formation is how effective it ill b . If you read my post you will see you have no actual direct control of units as such. Similar to Dom 3. However you do set orders and formations and SOP's at the start of the battle to your unit commanders and overall plan to your Amry commander. You could also I suppose say have the chance lets say three times to give out urgent orders during the battle. The battle boils down to training\experience\moral\unit type\commander stats\initial orders and SOP's\pre battle intel even i.e if you know the land your fighting on or lets say your main army commander fought the enemy commander a few times before and beat him you could get a combat modifier which works both ways so it makes you think alot about your army commander and their abilities. Lets say you've been training this particular army in certain formations your effectiveness in percentage would go up with each unit to show that they are improving in that particular formation, new formations and tactics will come available over time through tech advancements and even captured enemy intel. Another coo, idea is that you may be able to make up your own formations and then train in them and then the time will come to see if your ideas work on the battelfield and if all the training was worth it, this would add alot of interest to the combat and give endless different combat styles and battlefield tactics.What your doing in sense is not rely on how good you are at a real time combat game but how good your kingdom is doing and how good your commanders are and tech and training etc all of which depend on how well your doing on the grand strategy part.
Each block will be colour coded to say what type they are. Also each unit will have a caot of arms which will distinguish the commander and race. Or even each block could have written on it the race and type of unit, or tooltips and pop ups could be used to give you more info i.e state of moral\troops remainig\effectievness etc. Also different races will be better at different types of combat. The combat will be sort of based on ancient to middle ages warfare. Some races may field lots of soldiers in one formation but not be disciplined whereas others may prefer fighting in smaller formations but be highly disciplined and more effective fighters. Lots to think about and endless possibilities all to make the combat exciting\interesting and very strategy\tactical based even though during the actual combat you have little actual hands on input as it gets underway. "
" Feed the combat stats (i.e weapon type,armour type,training,race,commander stats) into a shape taking the greater the surface area the stronger or more effective the power of the unit will be on that side. So a rectangle will be strong at front but very weak at the sides. As you manipulate the shape I envisage the stats changing as the shape changes. Also certain shapes will be great a certain things, i.e a wedge shape can split a unit formation into therefore making that to weak shapes. When you look at a pmap of ancient warfare it's all drawn in shapes, well I will have those animated, the size of the unti shape will decrease as it takes casualties, or say will form a circle if it looks like it's surrounded so it's "combat power" is spread all around, it will stay like that waiting to be rescued if it is surrounded, or maybe it has a superb commander who will expand the circle and eventually break out.
I'd design a shape for all known formations from warfare from ancient times to middle ages. Then the player will also have a possibiltiy to create new formation unit shapes and train his troops in them. Also certain shapes next to each other will complement. For expample your typical rectangle formation will benifit from having it's flanks protected, so for instance you could have three rectangle formations in the front row and on either end have a square formation protecting it's flanks (obviously the square has decent all round protection but not as hard hitting from the front as a rectangle. Training will be a percentage, so say you've trained your troops to 80% in a particular formation than all sides will equal 80% power of the weapons, though you will have race stats and certain weapons will have bonus for certain formations then you have the commander stats adding to it aswell, so in effect you could go over 100% effective power. This seems like it would work for fantasy and ancient warfare because it's mainly melee. Then you have to work out something for range weapons which will be less about formation and more about commander and training.
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