Page: History.Page2 - Last Modified : Fri, 27 Sep 13 - 1310 Visits

The combat system is the elements that almost never changed thought the game. At the beginning, I wanted to have a very quick combat resolution system. So I thought of something really simple.

At that time I did not know Vinci and I did not thought that it could be possible to make a faster mechanic using a deterministic resolution. Still, when it's for war, I prefer rolling dices.

Basics of battle

The basic mechanic behind combat is really simple: You roll 2 die, each die of 4+ will kill an enemy unit. You will always roll 2 dice what ever is the amount of units in the battle. This was indeed pretty simple, no need to count units, easier to predict odds, etc. Still there has been some variations with the evolution of the game

Extra dice

Through the design there has been many variation of the combat system. First, developed cities allowed the defender to roll 3 dices. This was rapidly removed because it promoted defense rather than attack. Then there was the capital city which had 3 dice to defend. Later in the game, there was special buildings that also gave a 3 dice defense bonus.

For the attacker, there were heroes which would roll 3 dice to attack. Else, the first invasion system allowed the attacker to roll 3 dice every round and they kept this advantage the first turn they came into play.

Bonus on die value

There has been many things in the game that modified the target number required to hit. Heroes also had bonus to attack. There was some elite units that you could hire, these units game you a +1 if there was at least 1 unit in the battle. That unit had to die if it was the before last unit. Special cards could also modify this value. Even in the final rules, some knowledge modifies the combat rolls

Initiative

At the beginning, both player rolled at the same time and removed casualties on both sides. Then I realized that if I give the attacker priority, it would promote attack since it can create situations where a player can think he can attack and win without receiving casualties. So this is why I decided to make each player roll one at a time.

Rampage

Rampage was added way later in the development. I had this situation where it was really hard to capture a player. The only time it occurred is in the old rule set where capturing the capital made the whole kingdom fall. So I wanted a way for players to expand quickly and this is where the rampage idea came it.

At the beginning, you could do a complete battle when rampaging. But then I had this problem of rampaging cities already being rampaged or rampaging from multiple cities. The order of the battle resolution was now more complicated to determine. So I decide that rampage should only have 1 roll and if you empty the city, you can send troop. This way, it did not matter if another city was going to rampage later. It also made more sense thematically that you could not do 2 full scale attack with the same units on the same turn.

Intimidation

The intimidation system has traveled from very far. One of the designer I play with said that my game needed something else. I first thought of making the influence grid (see dead mechanics) but it ended up being a side game. Then I had the idea of being able to capture a city in other ways that attacking it. So my first idea is that you could use your influence to capture an enemy city.

Now there are many mechanics that I have tried to use to resolve influence. There are so many that I do not remember them all. The most famous ones is when I used real playing cards to resolve a challenge. Again the way the cards has been resolved has changed a lot through time.

But the basic idea is that you had number cards and figure cards. The figure cards had special powers, there is one example of special powers is the picture to the right. There has been many more power configurations, this is just an example.

Players acquired cards thought the game. It was possible to accumulate production points to draw additional cards. When a player wanted to capture another player's city, he placed a certain number of cards face down (I remember placing 2 cards per challenge) and so did his opponent. Player revealed cards and resolved the attack. The winning player captured the city and the defender needed to retreat.

I thought I even allowed other players to be able to help one side or the other of the battle. The main problem is that there was too much thinking for the reward you would get. All this lead to capturing 1 city. It's OK, but it's not going to change the game. So I placed to much focus on something which is not so meaningful. I also found it was annoying to always have to keep track of the cards I had. It really felt like it was a side game.

Later, one of my designer friend told me that it should rather be called intimidation rather than influence and that the game would fit better with a viking theme. From that day, influence became intimidation.

Second revision modifications

The combat system finally changed in the second revision. Not that the first system was not good, it's just by changing the system, everything now seem more simple and fit together. The first suggestion was from another group of player that said that there were too much randomness. Personnaly, I would have ignored the comments, but after analysing the possibility to roll once like the invasion system, I was much more convinced. Because the invasion and the regular combat system would now use the same rules, making it much more standard and easier to remember.

But it also solve other problems. Intimidation had to be changed, since there were few dice rolls, triggering it randomly was out of the questions. So I made it a one time use effect. It also removed teh need of special dice to keep track of intimidation triggering. Indirectly, the new system makes it possible for players to estimate the risk of his attack and know what is the minimum number of troops he needs to win. While testing the new system, I had the idea of making each path used trigger a different battle. Now it was much more interest to surround your enemy because that would generate seperate battles where each would trigger a different roll, so more casualties from the dice. This is why the strategy level is much higher than the previous version.

Battle exhaust were removed since they were now obsolete. The new combat system procedure fixed some confusing situations like "does people intimidate on rampage?" and prevented the need to require exceptions. Now intimidation is not triggered by the dice, since it happens in a specific step there is no such confusion possible anymore.

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