Battle Cards

[Wodin]

WOW, well for me it suits me fine, as the combat plays out in away that is all deterimed in how well your doing in the game, rather than how good an RTS player you are.

Still different strokes etc, though your words are very harsh. It is seen as a classic so you are in a minority.

You don know you can set orders and arrange formations. To get a real grasp on it playing for a couple of hours is nowhere near enough. Your opinion to me anyway tells me you've not got a grasp on the game, as it's very indepth and takes a good while to understand, thats why you need to stick with it and learn the game.

Still it's your opinion, mine differs greatly. Your comments are those somone would say about a game thats a total failure, yet many fantasty strat heads really enjoy it because of it's depth.

I'd never take the time out or the effort to recommend you a game again.

Also Slitherine did a hands off combat in the Legion series. Maybe they died on a fishing boat aswell.

Anyway enjoy Sov. I expect it will cater for your needs.

[Xerkis]

Wodlin, I understand and respect that Dom 3 is “your game of choice” – but you need to remember my intent was to not get a grasp of the game Dom 3 (or any other game) – never was – but as I said before, to do research in to other games’ way of handling combat resolution. And after doing several battles you can get the feel of that fairly well. Maybe not all the nuances, but certainly the general concept on how the game does combat resolution – and that was the only purpose of me playing either of these games.

Other games (like Total War and Forge Of Freedom) have the same concept as far as developing and building your army, researching, weapons, leaders, etc. Then when you get to the field of battle, they all have the deployment of your troops, unit formation, etc. but Dom 3 stops at that point where as Total War and Forge Of Freedom let you run the battle not just watch a movie after it is over. That is the part that I hope Sovereignty finishes for Dom 3.

Have all that other fantastic – depth – that is there with the pre-combat, but the combat resolution take to the next level and allow the player to “play” the game and not just “watch” it.

[TheGrayMouser]

I'd never take the time out or the effort to recommend you a game again.

Also Slitherine did a hands off combat in the Legion series. Maybe they died on a fishing boat aswell.

Anyway enjoy Sov. I expect it will cater for your needs.

Geesh Wodin, thats a little extreme, no ? You appear to be writing off Soverignty ( that isnt even likly to be ready for over another year) simply because a few posters have differing opinions on DOM3 ?

[Breca]

Just a short update on the battle cards and battle systems.

We have a very large and meaningful campaign map, with unique provinces and terrain features to lust after, and a history in which realms have personalities of their own, with all the ambition, complex relationships, resentment, high hopes, corruption and glory that make for a rich and satisfying world. There are histories of ancient struggles and bad blood. And realms react to each other in ways that bring those histories to life. You can negotiate trade routes, research spell trees and gather heroes to lead mighty armies.

Because the campaign game is pretty big, players will have a few battle options. Some players will want to focus solely on the campaign map and simply auto-resolve battles. Others will want complete turn-based tactical control on a battlefield. We give you a number of options to let you play the way you want. "Battle cards" refers more to stats for your Unit, displayed in a nice "collectable card" style format. But that's more of an aesthetic. The actual battlefield control is more tactical, allowing your to move units to your objective: infantry with 2 move points, cavalry with 5 move, archers attacking at range, harpies and dragons swooping overhead, siege weapons and giants hitting fortress, cover and ambush in forests, that sort of thing.

For the Battle System, we have one more "card" up our sleeve that we can't wait to show you on the battle system. But we need to get that showable first.

NikS

[Xerkis]

Ok – I must formally ask that Lordz and Gothic Labs buy me a new laptop. Because of your first paragraph there – I think I short-circuit my laptop’s keyboard from me drooling because of my excitement.


As to the second paragraph – a bit more of the same.

I could imagine that you would want to bounce back and forth between the options. I know I do that all the time with other games that give you both options - sometimes auto complete sometimes going in to the tactical battle - all depends on what is going on at the moment ad how much actual time I have to play the game, lots of thing. And given players options to basically come to the same end result is always a good thing – it opens up to a wider group of people.

Also to be honest – can’t say I “totally” understand all that you said. . . . . but that is part of this stage of the development. I might just have to wait and “see” what you mean there with the “battle cards”. But it is sounding very interesting.

[dave74]

I have been lurking on this forum for a week or so since I first heard of this game - I was really interested apart from the 'card' system, but was willing to follow to see how it progressed.

After NikS explination of the game - I cannot wait, I have wanted a game like this for years (Fantasy Campaign with Tactical Battles) the only other thing I would hope for is an economic system with population etc and most of all realistic unit sizes (I hate playing Grand strategy games with armies of 10 units where each unit is just one soldier, I want my armies to be in the hundreds or thousands of soldiers!!)

Good luck with progressing the game - Any more info you can give us would be appreciated..

[TheGrayMouser]

Awsome , thanks for the info NikS! Cant wait to see some visuals when the time comes, cheers!

[generalgonzo]

Just a short update on the battle cards and battle systems.

We have a very large and meaningful campaign map, with unique provinces and terrain features to lust after, and a history in which realms have personalities of their own, with all the ambition, complex relationships, resentment, high hopes, corruption and glory that make for a rich and satisfying world. There are histories of ancient struggles and bad blood. And realms react to each other in ways that bring those histories to life. You can negotiate trade routes, research spell trees and gather heroes to lead mighty armies.

Because the campaign game is pretty big, players will have a few battle options. Some players will want to focus solely on the campaign map and simply auto-resolve battles. Others will want complete turn-based tactical control on a battlefield. We give you a number of options to let you play the way you want. "Battle cards" refers more to stats for your Unit, displayed in a nice "collectable card" style format. But that's more of an aesthetic. The actual battlefield control is more tactical, allowing your to move units to your objective: infantry with 2 move points, cavalry with 5 move, archers attacking at range, harpies and dragons swooping overhead, siege weapons and giants hitting fortress, cover and ambush in forests, that sort of thing.

For the Battle System, we have one more "card" up our sleeve that we can't wait to show you on the battle system. But we need to get that showable first.

NikS

Thanks, sounds better than first expected. Can´t wait to see first Screenshots....

[Terrement]

I for one am not looking to fly individual dragons against dwarven forces in 3D, but also don't want combat to be so far removed from the game that it becomes little more than an abstraction. I know the collective whinging about what "we" think it should or should not have included is premature and not necessarily either in conceret with your vision of the game nor necessarily helpful.

Also know that you'll get a continuous stream of "help" from all of us posters until we have the game.

JJ

[jamespcrowley]

A useful blueprint for this type of game would, IMO, be the following:

http://www.myabandonware.com/game/sword-of-aragon-s5

The rules manual is also available to DL.

As you might expect for a 23 year old game, the graphics are minimal but the game had huge depth, a very decent AI and a surprisingly easy to use UI. Supply, command radius, morale, training, maintainance costs etc, etc; it had it all. A superb fantasy wargame that remains unsurpassed even by the likes of Fantasy General and is streets ahead of the glitzy, graphics- dominated, lite fare that is pumped out today.

If the designers of Sovereignty can get something close to this, with a modern graphics set, they will have a winner.

[Samhain]

If I want to play a strategy game, then I want lots and lots of units on a big map to spend hours and hours planning and moving them around.

Keep in mind the main focus and design of this game is the grand strategy aspect where you will have hundreds of battles over provinces, where economy, research, magic, diplomacy, trade routes, heroes, navies and armies play their role. So battles are important, but only a part of the game.

It is not a pure tactical focused battle game with flying animated dragons fighting against dwarfs on 3D battle maps.

The cards won't work like Yu-Gi-Oh! then? Meh, people constantly ignored the rules whether in the show or the real life game. Anyway with that possibility out I suspect the battle cards will be like the cards in The History Of The World or Rise Of Nations (I can't recommend either game for being too luck based and too easy respectively). Both have a card called Betryal/Treachery which gives you an enemy province for free and both have a limit of 8 cards. Maybe there'll be "this card boosts this resource's production by 5% for this turn" or something. Just write what you know they say so I could be a mile off but speculate is all we can do right now.

[mbpopolano24]

Great description about the battle system. I am still not 100% sure of how that will work out, of course, but I am less worried about the 'battle cards'. Hopefully we will see soon some more details (screenshots, videos) and maybe some reports from beta testers. I'd be happy to be one...