Good strat's to aim for holding a line at forests/chokepoints, with one line of infantry and two lines of cannons behind them
Have a two small cooridoors near the edges of your line to funnel infantry on the front line
Whenever one infanatry gets killed, shuffle the rest of your infantry to fill the gap, then use bring a reinforcement up from the cooridor to patch up the final gap
Because the cannons and supporting infantry boost the probability in your favor, the time it takes for the opponent to kill one of your units is is much higher than your ability to build and send reinforcements, especially against the AI because they don't coordinate attacks at all
Just slow push, snipe cannons when possible, and push the opposing line to where they can't reinforce their cities as you siege them
It's really annoying how I have zero idea of how the tactical side of the battle works, it just seems completely luck based if you told me it was just picking a random outcome regardless of the combat situation and how many supports, what units on what terrain didn't matter I would believe you. I don't think that's the case but in liue of any evidence as far as I know it's completely possible, if it is some kind of dice toss just show it Im fine with getting unlucky if I know what the variables and odds are.
An undo button would be nice. I'm prone to misclicking and it's always very frustrating when that leaves my guys in the wrong place with no way to put it right.
I have such a spectate mode for myself for development purposes, but I am reluctant to make it public. First, one can easily cheat this way oneself. Second, due to incomplete knowledge the AI appears more deliberate/sinister as it actually is. Actually it combines only a handful of local rules with a very coarse strategic planning layer. This simplicity would become much more obvious if one could watch its behavior in total, so I fear it could do more harm than good for the overall game experience...
Very nice piece of coding! I like this project, especially for the simplicity of the game. I managed to play it without the tutorial, so i guess it is pretty much self explaining.
The only thing that is not very intuitive are the icons used for the units. Maybe you could use less abstract icons.
I agree with the comments that criticize the final stage of a match. At the beginning movement is quick and the AI can surprise you by sneaking in and conquering a city. At the end there are so many units that the game becomes very static. And when I control a certain number of cities the AI has no chance to win the match anymore. It is just a question of time for a player to line up units and conquer the last cities. Maybe you could add an optional short game, where the match is won with the control of less cities. Or make the cities produce less units towards the end of the game.
Does the AI use any artillery? In the matches I have played so far, the AI has never produced artillery. That is a big disadvantage: when I line up my units (1st row cavalry, 2nd row infantry and 3rd row artillery) the AI has no way to break through, as the artillery will always increase my chances to win and simply makes the difference.
Another suggestion: you could consider adding more terrain types: mountains, rivers, swamp and especially roads. The game reminds me of The Perfect General (early 1990s). In that game moving units on roads would increase their speed significantly. That could also solve the reinforcement problems, that were mentioned here (having to move units from remote cities to the front line).
When there are 3 or more players there could be an option to make allies. To keep the game simple you could simply train the AI to stop attacking a player when that player has not attacked the AI for a certain period time. Alliances could bring new tactical options to the game. ... And the AI could sometimes be nasty and attack the player anyway.
Thank you very much for your constructive comments. Some of them (more intuitive unit symbols, better artillery usage by A.I.) were addressed in today's update release!
Do factions get specific bonuses? One AI cavalry can take a city from one defending player cavalry or infantry supported by one infantry. But one player cavalry supported by two infantry and two artillery, failed two assaults and was destroyed on a third, against a city held by one AI cavalry supported by one infantry. On the other hand AI infantry seems to be somewhat easier to dislodge than player infantry.
TLDR: AI cavalry is OP and player troops are half as good as theirs, with infantry being the only exception.
P.S. This occurred back to back, once when I was blue and once as red.
Looking forward to game updates. However, I can't understand how the battle odds work? Is there some formula? Is it like a dice roll, with every attack point giving 1 extra 6 head dice?
A single infantry attack on a settlement, directly guarded by one infantry, surrounded by 2x supporting infantry tiles + 2 artillery in support range seems to lose way too often than expected.
Let me take your example to explain the probability calculations. The settlement (factor x2) is defended by an infantry (defense value 4), resulting in a total defense value of 8. The attacking infantry (value 3) is supported by two artillery units (2 times +3), yielding a total attack value of 9. Taken together, in 9 of 17 (=8+9) cases, the attacker should win, whereas in 8 of 17 cases the defender should be successful. The defending city may get additional support by adjacent infantry or near artillery units of the same party, even if they are currently invisible to the attacker. So in this example the attacker should have a small advantage of 9 vs. 8, but only if really no additional opponent units interfere. While the random algorithm is really unbiased towards any party, seemingly unfair overall results are not so improbable...
The debriefing statistics provides a few insights into your relative good or bad luck: If the length of the battles one bar exceeds the length of the odds bar, you were favored by luck in this match, otherwise the opposite holds true. The absolute odds score corresponds to your tactical skill. If it is greater than 0.5, then you had a tendency to fight in favorable situations, irrespective of the actual outcomes.
Thanks for the explanation. By "A single infantry attack on a settlement, directly guarded by one infantry, surrounded by 2x supporting infantry tiles + 2 artillery in support range" I mean that that on my side (defender), there is one infantry in a settlement + two adjacent infantries and then the two artilleries are also on my side. The enemy (attacker) has only 1 infantry engaged. This puts the ods 16 vs 3 (8 + 1 + 1 + 3 + 3 vs 3), so with the game logic, I should win 16 out of 19 cases? If so, this explains the way the game works, and thank you.
As a long-time strategy fan, this game is a minimalistic boil down of a big strategy title, that contains the essence of a 4X strategy game without the clutter. No need to forcefully learn predetermined developer decisions on game progression - intuitive and thoughtful.
I would respectfully disagree since the battles are based on RNG and RNGod has a special place in hell for me... one involving me being beaten 99 times in a hundred when the odds are in my favour 99 to 100.
Three battles in one turn: one enemy infantry with one infantry support and maybe an artillary support attacks and kills my one infantary with four infantary support and one artillary support, another enemy infantry attacks with one infantry support and kills my one infatary that has two infantary support and two artillary support, finally an enemy calavry with no support attacks one of my cavalry that is supported by two calvary and two artillary and destroys it. (I should note that all of these play out in open ground). My own attacks on one enemy infantry with no support by an infantryman with four infantry support and one artillary support (yes, the enemy was surrounded) died, not retreat but died (as with all the rest) and my calvary attack with the support of three infantry and two artillary against an enemy infantry (who had no support) led to my demise.
Really games need to admit up front that the stats are no worth anything because it is up to the RNSatan - to call this game tatical is to call Risk tactical... it's not, there is only strategy and if you, like me, suffer terrible RNG then forget it.
Call me superstitious if you like but my boardgame friends always pick a dice game at some point so that I can lose for once... weirdly card games are generally don't cause the same thing but that's probably because most include good strategies and tactics for most hands and RNSatan can't be too obvious...
So... good strategic game for the average player, but tactical is pushing it given at the start most battles are going to be a coin toss and later tactics have little to do with murdering thousands on the battlefield.
I note someone more recently said that they have cavalry infront of infantry infront of artillary... this might be good for defense as far as the numbers go but it doesn't work for attack unless you're flanking. And in reality, it was an attack formation and infantry was used for defense... so I feel like that kinda breaks the "intuitiveness" of the whole thing... but who needs realism in games, especially when RNG is a bigger factor than another else in the game!
I'm sorry about the above, I just got very frustrated not understanding why I was being battled to a standstill by so few units when I should have had overwhelming advantage, even scouting with calvary I didn't find almost any artilary (which I then tried to kill and died) and I just didn't understand how the numbers were working at all (the icons are also deceptive as they seem to refer to a time period when the balance between units was not the one that the game has).
Overall I had a bad experience and that was more down to expectations and lack of understanding than the game itself... it's a pity that I had been given those expectations by the game but there we go... game dev is what people are learning on itch so I should expect this sort of thing as standard.
Of course prototypes with additional unit types exist, but the main challenge is to make the AI opponents smart enough to adequately use them. Both the tactical and strategical choices grow exponentially with each additional type. At least ships (both transport and gunships) are certainly on the roadmap. Air units are less probable.
Took me twice for blue vs all rest. Will try with only yellow and magenta later. This play was really interesting though - I was able to surround a city, while also infiltrating behind enemy lines and capturing their unguarded city. Cavalary is great for pushing a little bit past the objective to flank their guard, help infantry surround the city and finally, if lucky, could even capture an unguarded city, especially if forests are nearby for concealment.
Thank you for your kind words! We still have clear plans to develop this game further, but our schedule has been severely delayed due to another unfinished project... at least we were able to fix a few minor bugs today and release new game packages, for the first time also on Linux.
0.6 odds are clearly beyond random and average, particularly after 61 battles. So I would clearly attribute your victory to your good tactical decisions.
By replay feature you mean that you can watch all your and your opponent's moves after a game is over? Indeed this would be sometimes great and rewarding!
We actually have such a feature in a rough/unpolished state for debugging purposes. I will put this on the backlog and as soon as our upcoming title is released (actually soon!), we will take a closer look...
Hi! First of all, thanks for making this wonderful, yet simple game.
Though I believe that some newer elements could improve the game even more. For example, at some point, when it is the middle-end game of a large battle—there's simply too many redundant units. Instead, I was wondering if there was a way to leverage that. Like building a unit that takes longer turns, but doesn't attack and defend. And if it wasn't destroyed, then it could transform into a stationary tower-defense, or something.
Oh, right. I think that while it is nice to have a end-game summary chart that absolutely doesn't tell me something—like: what-the-heck is the 'odds'—I think simply being able to look at the rest of the foggy map would be nice, and would let us understand better. (Knowing that I built 67 Soldiers is absolutely not as significant, then knowing what would've happened if I did not win at that turn.
The game assume too much that we should know about concepts, such as: support? range support?
And the second point, that I could simply not grasp. Is that there were some games were I had an Artillery surrounded by Soldiers. And yet a random enemy unit had managed to break through. Theoretically speaking: my Soldier was a defensive unit, and he was surrounded by not only 2 other soldiers, but also covered by an Artillery right besides. The funny thing is, the enemy was only a single Soldier with a Cavalry unit.
So, you see—that... I just absolutely don't get it. The only thing that comes to my mind is either there's a bug somewhere, or there's something unclear that I haven't understood about the support and range-support thing.
My poor-understanding of the support and range-support (that I assumed by myself), is that support boost the defense of an unit right besides the artillery, by 3. And range-support boost the attack of the defense of the unit, within the coverage by 2. Please, correct me if I am misunderstanding. Thanks.
I tried to look further into the details, but I just couldn't find any. There's no Faq or Guide, and the tutorial never explain about the 'support' thing. I did not lose the game... but the fact that I won without mastering the thing remove the strategic significance of this victory.
I hope that either someone could enlighten me, or guide me toward the 'right' answer.
Thanks for creating this game. I look forward to a more 'complete' version.
Ps: This is an edit. I just played again just to be sure that I don't talk craps. And then, yeah—I just don't get it. I had this Soldier on the base, surrounded by another 2 Soldiers. An Enemy Soldier just managed to conquer my base with a single unit, while he's not even specialized in Offense. So, I was wondering—because I truly have no clues of what's going on. These kinds of little things mess up my masterplans. Is that some kind of Dices system... where dices was nowhere to be mentioned? Like—when you wrote that an unit's attack is 4—what you really mean, in fact, is that it is 4 dices? I truly wish that somebody could enlighten me on this point. Thanks. That's like a little nebulous part of my day.
I had a lot of fun playing this game, I have won every campaign I've played. Maybe because I'm good or just luck but I still enjoyed.
If you wanted any feedback then the only one from me is adding borders. I would look cool as it will be expanding and retreating. I have enjoyed it, I wish you well.
Wow, thank you very much, I am really happy you enjoyed it!! Regarding borders, they actually already exist, but only as invisible helper structures for the AI so far. So it would be fairly easy to try out how they look on the map. I have created a respective backlog item!
(Sorry for writing here. Didn't know where to write.)
Hi! First of all, thanks for making this wonderful, yet simple game.
Though I believe that some newer elements could improve the game even more. For example, at some point, when it is the middle-end game of a large battle—there's simply too many redundant units. Instead, I was wondering if there was a way to leverage that. Like building a unit that takes longer turns, but doesn't attack and defend. And if it wasn't destroyed, then it could transform into a stationary tower-defense, or something.
Oh, right. I think that while it is nice to have a end-game summary chart that absolutely doesn't tell me something—like: what-the-heck is the 'odds'—I think simply being able to look at the rest of the foggy map would be nice, and would let us understand better. (Knowing that I built 67 Soldiers is absolutely not as significant, then knowing what would've happened if I did not win at that turn.
The game assume too much that we should know about concepts, such as: support? range support?
And the second point, that I could simply not grasp. Is that there were some games were I had an Artillery surrounded by Soldiers. And yet a random enemy unit had managed to break through. Theoretically speaking: my Soldier was a defensive unit, and he was surrounded by not only 2 other soldiers, but also covered by an Artillery right besides. The funny thing is, the enemy was only a single Soldier with a Cavalry unit.
So, you see—that... I just absolutely don't get it. The only thing that comes to my mind is either there's a bug somewhere, or there's something unclear that I haven't understood about the support and range-support thing.
My poor-understanding of the support and range-support (that I assumed by myself), is that support boost the defense of an unit right besides the artillery, by 3. And range-support boost the attack of the defense of the unit, within the coverage by 2. Please, correct me if I am misunderstanding. Thanks.
I tried to look further into the details, but I just couldn't find any. There's no Faq or Guide, and the tutorial never explain about the 'support' thing. I did not lose the game... but the fact that I won without mastering the thing remove the strategic significance of this victory.
I hope that either someone could enlighten me, or guide me toward the 'right' answer.
Thanks for creating this game. I look forward to a more 'complete' version.
I like the in-depth strategy in this game. I have played the map Aborigina several times by now and I quite like it. Some places are more disadvantaged than others but that's for my part of the charm.
For example, the position of red was far more than the other two starting positions. The settlements 25,6 and 16,11 were easy to grab, where settlement 22,13 was somewhat contested by blue in the first 7 rounds. But blues intentions quickly drew towards green. And as for 13,12 it depended on green and you, how fast you want to capture it. But you still have to assemble a large enough force to repel them because of the RNG or even play on the defensively for a while. This leaves you at the beginning of the game in the 15-25 rounds with 4-5 settlements. But you still far from being unbeatable if you decide to go on the offensive in the early game.
Blue was quite the opposite, with only 24,24 as an easy grab. You had to rely on speed to capture the settlements 19,24; 19,17 and 22,13 let alone holding it. To put it in the perspective of the viewer: After the capture of the three settlements. I was constantly on the defensive and was only able to strike at their weakest moment. There were many times the lines cracked under the pressure, many times I had to give up a settlement.
I only had won 1 time as bleu, maybe because of the RNG. I wasn't able to re-create that situation ever since. But damn that was fun. I had slightly fewer battles than the two A.I's combined.
The pre-release play-testers also often debated whether a particular victory or defeat was just because of good/bad luck. Due to that the game debriefing statistics provides the two key figures "battles won" and "odds". If the length of the bar below battles won exceeds the length of the bar below odds, then luck was on your side. If your average odds value exceeds 0.5, then you decided wisely when and where to fight, independent of the eventual outcome...
One time when I assaulted an enemy settlement, wiped out its defences and had it separated from incoming reinforcements leaving only one infantry unit in the settlement then and I surrounded it at all 4 sides and I attacked the settlement but despite all the supporting units supporting the unit I used to attack the settlement the red unit in the settlement still managed to make my attacking unit to retreat and that gave enough time for more reinforcements to flood the site. Is this bad luck or is it because of my foolish choice/s like not to use my reserves?
I would consider outcome not improbable. Let's say you have a settlement surrounded by 4 infantries and the settlement is defended by a single infantry. If now one of your infantries attack, the odds on your side are attack 3 + 3*1 support = 6 against 4 defense *2 terrain = 8 . So your success probability is only 43%! If different unit types or counts are involved, the individual numbers need to be adjusted, but generally infantries within settlements make formidable strong points. Unless you manage to provide some artilleries to support your assault from behind...
What's going on here - twice I tried to pay 2.50$ and now ended up with a blank page both times - now I don't know whether I've actually purchased it or not - and not only that, where's the 70MB zip file. All I've ended up with is a 'Play in Browser' 751 kib file? so again I ask what's going on here?
Finely got there - and got the 70MB zip file.
Now I can say - this is a good, yet simple enough game to get into and enjoy. I really do like it. Yes, it could do with so more stuff doing to it (like maybe a really easy mode choice, for the likes of someone like me who enjoys the success of winning straight off), but it's really worth having and enjoying it - do continue to develop it further. A good little game, keep up the good work.
Thanks a lot for your encouraging feedback and your monetary support!
The payment processing and provisioning of the download files is done by itch.io, we have no direct influence here at all. Thank you for sharing that things went wrong, if this happens again, we will approach itch.io to take a look.
Glad to read that you finally got the stand-alone version :)
Good game. I love its simplicity. The only thing I'm bothered with is how the battles work. Could you tell me exactly how it works so that I can plan my strategies better? Thanks.
I like how it's much more strategic that tactical in depth. It's not so much about how you command in combat, but how you prepare for battles that decides about it.
A bit too heavy on RNG at times and some battles can go against all odds, but not yet at the point of being annoying.
Are you considering further development?
Things like naval transport, more map assets, like roads, forts and swamps, unit abilities (infantry gains +1 def if not moving, cavalry gains bonus attack if flanking, etc.) are first things that come to mind, that may be added to enrich the game experience.
Thanks a lot to both of you for your encouraging feedback! Indeed I have currently taken a break from Pelagium and I am currently exploring a different game genre. But development will certainly continue once the current (comparatively small) game is published and I will certainly listen to your suggestions.
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me legit tweaking when my entire south army group gets erased by 3 blue soldiers
maybe the three enemies benefited from supporting each other? But, of course, (bad) luck is an important factor.
Yeah, Its mostly poor planning and awareness of my troop's quality on my behalf.
add multiplayer, man!!
can you post the source code and engine used ?
Somehow managed to reinvent trench warfare Lol
Good strat's to aim for holding a line at forests/chokepoints, with one line of infantry and two lines of cannons behind them
Have a two small cooridoors near the edges of your line to funnel infantry on the front line
Whenever one infanatry gets killed, shuffle the rest of your infantry to fill the gap, then use bring a reinforcement up from the cooridor to patch up the final gap
Because the cannons and supporting infantry boost the probability in your favor, the time it takes for the opponent to kill one of your units is is much higher than your ability to build and send reinforcements, especially against the AI because they don't coordinate attacks at all
Just slow push, snipe cannons when possible, and push the opposing line to where they can't reinforce their cities as you siege them
gud game
Amazing game wish I knew how the combat worked.
It's really annoying how I have zero idea of how the tactical side of the battle works, it just seems completely luck based if you told me it was just picking a random outcome regardless of the combat situation and how many supports, what units on what terrain didn't matter I would believe you. I don't think that's the case but in liue of any evidence as far as I know it's completely possible, if it is some kind of dice toss just show it Im fine with getting unlucky if I know what the variables and odds are.
When I hit "Download now" and go to the downloads page, there is nothing available for download.
Edit: Ouh you have to pay for the download version. Tragic, but understandable
An undo button would be nice. I'm prone to misclicking and it's always very frustrating when that leaves my guys in the wrong place with no way to put it right.
Can you add spectate mode it seems like it will be fun seeing the ai fight
I have such a spectate mode for myself for development purposes, but I am reluctant to make it public. First, one can easily cheat this way oneself. Second, due to incomplete knowledge the AI appears more deliberate/sinister as it actually is. Actually it combines only a handful of local rules with a very coarse strategic planning layer. This simplicity would become much more obvious if one could watch its behavior in total, so I fear it could do more harm than good for the overall game experience...
Understandable, i'll play the new update and give my thoughts.
Very nice piece of coding! I like this project, especially for the simplicity of the game. I managed to play it without the tutorial, so i guess it is pretty much self explaining.
The only thing that is not very intuitive are the icons used for the units. Maybe you could use less abstract icons.
I agree with the comments that criticize the final stage of a match. At the beginning movement is quick and the AI can surprise you by sneaking in and conquering a city. At the end there are so many units that the game becomes very static. And when I control a certain number of cities the AI has no chance to win the match anymore. It is just a question of time for a player to line up units and conquer the last cities. Maybe you could add an optional short game, where the match is won with the control of less cities. Or make the cities produce less units towards the end of the game.
Does the AI use any artillery? In the matches I have played so far, the AI has never produced artillery. That is a big disadvantage: when I line up my units (1st row cavalry, 2nd row infantry and 3rd row artillery) the AI has no way to break through, as the artillery will always increase my chances to win and simply makes the difference.
Another suggestion: you could consider adding more terrain types: mountains, rivers, swamp and especially roads. The game reminds me of The Perfect General (early 1990s). In that game moving units on roads would increase their speed significantly. That could also solve the reinforcement problems, that were mentioned here (having to move units from remote cities to the front line).
When there are 3 or more players there could be an option to make allies. To keep the game simple you could simply train the AI to stop attacking a player when that player has not attacked the AI for a certain period time. Alliances could bring new tactical options to the game. ... And the AI could sometimes be nasty and attack the player anyway.
Thank you very much for your constructive comments. Some of them (more intuitive unit symbols, better artillery usage by A.I.) were addressed in today's update release!
Do factions get specific bonuses? One AI cavalry can take a city from one defending player cavalry or infantry supported by one infantry. But one player cavalry supported by two infantry and two artillery, failed two assaults and was destroyed on a third, against a city held by one AI cavalry supported by one infantry. On the other hand AI infantry seems to be somewhat easier to dislodge than player infantry.
TLDR: AI cavalry is OP and player troops are half as good as theirs, with infantry being the only exception.
P.S. This occurred back to back, once when I was blue and once as red.
There are no faction-specific differences, apart from the starting position.
Looking forward to game updates. However, I can't understand how the battle odds work? Is there some formula? Is it like a dice roll, with every attack point giving 1 extra 6 head dice?
A single infantry attack on a settlement, directly guarded by one infantry, surrounded by 2x supporting infantry tiles + 2 artillery in support range seems to lose way too often than expected.
Let me take your example to explain the probability calculations. The settlement (factor x2) is defended by an infantry (defense value 4), resulting in a total defense value of 8. The attacking infantry (value 3) is supported by two artillery units (2 times +3), yielding a total attack value of 9. Taken together, in 9 of 17 (=8+9) cases, the attacker should win, whereas in 8 of 17 cases the defender should be successful. The defending city may get additional support by adjacent infantry or near artillery units of the same party, even if they are currently invisible to the attacker. So in this example the attacker should have a small advantage of 9 vs. 8, but only if really no additional opponent units interfere. While the random algorithm is really unbiased towards any party, seemingly unfair overall results are not so improbable...
The debriefing statistics provides a few insights into your relative good or bad luck: If the length of the battles one bar exceeds the length of the odds bar, you were favored by luck in this match, otherwise the opposite holds true. The absolute odds score corresponds to your tactical skill. If it is greater than 0.5, then you had a tendency to fight in favorable situations, irrespective of the actual outcomes.
Thanks for the explanation. By "A single infantry attack on a settlement, directly guarded by one infantry, surrounded by 2x supporting infantry tiles + 2 artillery in support range" I mean that that on my side (defender), there is one infantry in a settlement + two adjacent infantries and then the two artilleries are also on my side. The enemy (attacker) has only 1 infantry engaged. This puts the ods 16 vs 3 (8 + 1 + 1 + 3 + 3 vs 3), so with the game logic, I should win 16 out of 19 cases? If so, this explains the way the game works, and thank you.
As a long-time strategy fan, this game is a minimalistic boil down of a big strategy title, that contains the essence of a 4X strategy game without the clutter. No need to forcefully learn predetermined developer decisions on game progression - intuitive and thoughtful.
Thanks a lot, appreciated!
I would respectfully disagree since the battles are based on RNG and RNGod has a special place in hell for me... one involving me being beaten 99 times in a hundred when the odds are in my favour 99 to 100.
Three battles in one turn: one enemy infantry with one infantry support and maybe an artillary support attacks and kills my one infantary with four infantary support and one artillary support, another enemy infantry attacks with one infantry support and kills my one infatary that has two infantary support and two artillary support, finally an enemy calavry with no support attacks one of my cavalry that is supported by two calvary and two artillary and destroys it. (I should note that all of these play out in open ground). My own attacks on one enemy infantry with no support by an infantryman with four infantry support and one artillary support (yes, the enemy was surrounded) died, not retreat but died (as with all the rest) and my calvary attack with the support of three infantry and two artillary against an enemy infantry (who had no support) led to my demise.
Really games need to admit up front that the stats are no worth anything because it is up to the RNSatan - to call this game tatical is to call Risk tactical... it's not, there is only strategy and if you, like me, suffer terrible RNG then forget it.
Call me superstitious if you like but my boardgame friends always pick a dice game at some point so that I can lose for once... weirdly card games are generally don't cause the same thing but that's probably because most include good strategies and tactics for most hands and RNSatan can't be too obvious...
So... good strategic game for the average player, but tactical is pushing it given at the start most battles are going to be a coin toss and later tactics have little to do with murdering thousands on the battlefield.
I note someone more recently said that they have cavalry infront of infantry infront of artillary... this might be good for defense as far as the numbers go but it doesn't work for attack unless you're flanking. And in reality, it was an attack formation and infantry was used for defense... so I feel like that kinda breaks the "intuitiveness" of the whole thing... but who needs realism in games, especially when RNG is a bigger factor than another else in the game!
I'm sorry about the above, I just got very frustrated not understanding why I was being battled to a standstill by so few units when I should have had overwhelming advantage, even scouting with calvary I didn't find almost any artilary (which I then tried to kill and died) and I just didn't understand how the numbers were working at all (the icons are also deceptive as they seem to refer to a time period when the balance between units was not the one that the game has).
Overall I had a bad experience and that was more down to expectations and lack of understanding than the game itself... it's a pity that I had been given those expectations by the game but there we go... game dev is what people are learning on itch so I should expect this sort of thing as standard.
psst add ship and planes (bombers not fighters mosty bombers)
Of course prototypes with additional unit types exist, but the main challenge is to make the AI opponents smart enough to adequately use them. Both the tactical and strategical choices grow exponentially with each additional type. At least ships (both transport and gunships) are certainly on the roadmap. Air units are less probable.
THanks for the reply, I can see how that would be a challenge to code and fix hope you best of luck
this was my second try this time as green becuase blue sucksCongratulations! Also from my experiences I'd say that green is the easiest and least tedious to keep the supply running...
Very nice classic war game.
Hardest game is, I think, Smaloe map with player playing blue, and AI playing yellow and magenta.
I'd like a harder map, but I think I'm just a glutton for punishment.
It would be nice to have a map editor, though.
Took me twice for blue vs all rest. Will try with only yellow and magenta later. This play was really interesting though - I was able to surround a city, while also infiltrating behind enemy lines and capturing their unguarded city. Cavalary is great for pushing a little bit past the objective to flank their guard, help infantry surround the city and finally, if lucky, could even capture an unguarded city, especially if forests are nearby for concealment.
Today's update release includes 3 new maps, which should provide some tough challenges...
I just want to say that this game is great. Simple but deep and engaging.
Thanks, mission accomplished :-)
just to say, I'm still supporting. Hope your doing fine.
Also I would like to know if I'm just lucky or I'm making good decisions. Does 0.6 odds and 61 battles won good? I did win.
Thank you for your kind words! We still have clear plans to develop this game further, but our schedule has been severely delayed due to another unfinished project... at least we were able to fix a few minor bugs today and release new game packages, for the first time also on Linux.
0.6 odds are clearly beyond random and average, particularly after 61 battles. So I would clearly attribute your victory to your good tactical decisions.
I had a great time playing with this game. I've achieved victory in every map with green factions I just hope battles can be soon recorded ingame
This is my lattest game so far
Thank you for Creating this game
Congratulations to your victories!
By replay feature you mean that you can watch all your and your opponent's moves after a game is over? Indeed this would be sometimes great and rewarding!
We actually have such a feature in a rough/unpolished state for debugging purposes. I will put this on the backlog and as soon as our upcoming title is released (actually soon!), we will take a closer look...
Soon?? 👀
Soon is relative, as always. Pelagium took 4 years, here it is more a matter of weeks...
Hi! First of all, thanks for making this wonderful, yet simple game.
Though I believe that some newer elements could improve the game even more. For example, at some point, when it is the middle-end game of a large battle—there's simply too many redundant units. Instead, I was wondering if there was a way to leverage that. Like building a unit that takes longer turns, but doesn't attack and defend. And if it wasn't destroyed, then it could transform into a stationary tower-defense, or something.
Oh, right. I think that while it is nice to have a end-game summary chart that absolutely doesn't tell me something—like: what-the-heck is the 'odds'—I think simply being able to look at the rest of the foggy map would be nice, and would let us understand better. (Knowing that I built 67 Soldiers is absolutely not as significant, then knowing what would've happened if I did not win at that turn.
The game assume too much that we should know about concepts, such as: support? range support?
And the second point, that I could simply not grasp. Is that there were some games were I had an Artillery surrounded by Soldiers. And yet a random enemy unit had managed to break through. Theoretically speaking: my Soldier was a defensive unit, and he was surrounded by not only 2 other soldiers, but also covered by an Artillery right besides. The funny thing is, the enemy was only a single Soldier with a Cavalry unit.
So, you see—that... I just absolutely don't get it. The only thing that comes to my mind is either there's a bug somewhere, or there's something unclear that I haven't understood about the support and range-support thing.
My poor-understanding of the support and range-support (that I assumed by myself), is that support boost the defense of an unit right besides the artillery, by 3. And range-support boost the attack of the defense of the unit, within the coverage by 2. Please, correct me if I am misunderstanding. Thanks.
I tried to look further into the details, but I just couldn't find any. There's no Faq or Guide, and the tutorial never explain about the 'support' thing. I did not lose the game... but the fact that I won without mastering the thing remove the strategic significance of this victory.
I hope that either someone could enlighten me, or guide me toward the 'right' answer.
Thanks for creating this game. I look forward to a more 'complete' version.
Ps: This is an edit. I just played again just to be sure that I don't talk craps. And then, yeah—I just don't get it. I had this Soldier on the base, surrounded by another 2 Soldiers. An Enemy Soldier just managed to conquer my base with a single unit, while he's not even specialized in Offense. So, I was wondering—because I truly have no clues of what's going on. These kinds of little things mess up my masterplans. Is that some kind of Dices system... where dices was nowhere to be mentioned? Like—when you wrote that an unit's attack is 4—what you really mean, in fact, is that it is 4 dices? I truly wish that somebody could enlighten me on this point. Thanks. That's like a little nebulous part of my day.
I had a lot of fun playing this game, I have won every campaign I've played. Maybe because I'm good or just luck but I still enjoyed.
If you wanted any feedback then the only one from me is adding borders. I would look cool as it will be expanding and retreating. I have enjoyed it, I wish you well.
Wow, thank you very much, I am really happy you enjoyed it!! Regarding borders, they actually already exist, but only as invisible helper structures for the AI so far. So it would be fairly easy to try out how they look on the map. I have created a respective backlog item!
No problem, I'm only here too help. I hope the best for you.
(Sorry for writing here. Didn't know where to write.)
Hi! First of all, thanks for making this wonderful, yet simple game.
Though I believe that some newer elements could improve the game even more. For example, at some point, when it is the middle-end game of a large battle—there's simply too many redundant units. Instead, I was wondering if there was a way to leverage that. Like building a unit that takes longer turns, but doesn't attack and defend. And if it wasn't destroyed, then it could transform into a stationary tower-defense, or something.
Oh, right. I think that while it is nice to have a end-game summary chart that absolutely doesn't tell me something—like: what-the-heck is the 'odds'—I think simply being able to look at the rest of the foggy map would be nice, and would let us understand better. (Knowing that I built 67 Soldiers is absolutely not as significant, then knowing what would've happened if I did not win at that turn.
The game assume too much that we should know about concepts, such as: support? range support?
And the second point, that I could simply not grasp. Is that there were some games were I had an Artillery surrounded by Soldiers. And yet a random enemy unit had managed to break through. Theoretically speaking: my Soldier was a defensive unit, and he was surrounded by not only 2 other soldiers, but also covered by an Artillery right besides. The funny thing is, the enemy was only a single Soldier with a Cavalry unit.
So, you see—that... I just absolutely don't get it. The only thing that comes to my mind is either there's a bug somewhere, or there's something unclear that I haven't understood about the support and range-support thing.
My poor-understanding of the support and range-support (that I assumed by myself), is that support boost the defense of an unit right besides the artillery, by 3. And range-support boost the attack of the defense of the unit, within the coverage by 2. Please, correct me if I am misunderstanding. Thanks.
I tried to look further into the details, but I just couldn't find any. There's no Faq or Guide, and the tutorial never explain about the 'support' thing. I did not lose the game... but the fact that I won without mastering the thing remove the strategic significance of this victory.
I hope that either someone could enlighten me, or guide me toward the 'right' answer. Thanks for creating this game. I look forward to a more 'complete' version.
I like the in-depth strategy in this game. I have played the map Aborigina several times by now and I quite like it. Some places are more disadvantaged than others but that's for my part of the charm.
For example, the position of red was far more than the other two starting positions. The settlements 25,6 and 16,11 were easy to grab, where settlement 22,13 was somewhat contested by blue in the first 7 rounds. But blues intentions quickly drew towards green. And as for 13,12 it depended on green and you, how fast you want to capture it. But you still have to assemble a large enough force to repel them because of the RNG or even play on the defensively for a while. This leaves you at the beginning of the game in the 15-25 rounds with 4-5 settlements. But you still far from being unbeatable if you decide to go on the offensive in the early game.
Blue was quite the opposite, with only 24,24 as an easy grab. You had to rely on speed to capture the settlements 19,24; 19,17 and 22,13 let alone holding it. To put it in the perspective of the viewer: After the capture of the three settlements. I was constantly on the defensive and was only able to strike at their weakest moment. There were many times the lines cracked under the pressure, many times I had to give up a settlement.
I only had won 1 time as bleu, maybe because of the RNG. I wasn't able to re-create that situation ever since. But damn that was fun. I had slightly fewer battles than the two A.I's combined.
The pre-release play-testers also often debated whether a particular victory or defeat was just because of good/bad luck. Due to that the game debriefing statistics provides the two key figures "battles won" and "odds". If the length of the bar below battles won exceeds the length of the bar below odds, then luck was on your side. If your average odds value exceeds 0.5, then you decided wisely when and where to fight, independent of the eventual outcome...
One time when I assaulted an enemy settlement, wiped out its defences and had it separated from incoming reinforcements leaving only one infantry unit in the settlement then and I surrounded it at all 4 sides and I attacked the settlement but despite all the supporting units supporting the unit I used to attack the settlement the red unit in the settlement still managed to make my attacking unit to retreat and that gave enough time for more reinforcements to flood the site. Is this bad luck or is it because of my foolish choice/s like not to use my reserves?
I would consider outcome not improbable. Let's say you have a settlement surrounded by 4 infantries and the settlement is defended by a single infantry. If now one of your infantries attack, the odds on your side are attack 3 + 3*1 support = 6 against 4 defense *2 terrain = 8 . So your success probability is only 43%! If different unit types or counts are involved, the individual numbers need to be adjusted, but generally infantries within settlements make formidable strong points. Unless you manage to provide some artilleries to support your assault from behind...
What's going on here - twice I tried to pay 2.50$ and now ended up with a blank page both times - now I don't know whether I've actually purchased it or not - and not only that, where's the 70MB zip file. All I've ended up with is a 'Play in Browser' 751 kib file? so again I ask what's going on here?
Finely got there - and got the 70MB zip file.
Now I can say - this is a good, yet simple enough game to get into and enjoy. I really do like it. Yes, it could do with so more stuff doing to it (like maybe a really easy mode choice, for the likes of someone like me who enjoys the success of winning straight off), but it's really worth having and enjoying it - do continue to develop it further. A good little game, keep up the good work.
Thanks a lot for your encouraging feedback and your monetary support!
The payment processing and provisioning of the download files is done by itch.io, we have no direct influence here at all. Thank you for sharing that things went wrong, if this happens again, we will approach itch.io to take a look.
Glad to read that you finally got the stand-alone version :)
Can't download the game because there are no files to download.
Thanks for your interest, the download is only available when spending at least 1$.
Good game. I love its simplicity. The only thing I'm bothered with is how the battles work. Could you tell me exactly how it works so that I can plan my strategies better? Thanks.
Good game.
I like how it's much more strategic that tactical in depth.
It's not so much about how you command in combat, but how you prepare for battles that decides about it.
A bit too heavy on RNG at times and some battles can go against all odds, but not yet at the point of being annoying.
Are you considering further development?
Things like naval transport, more map assets, like roads, forts and swamps, unit abilities (infantry gains +1 def if not moving, cavalry gains bonus attack if flanking, etc.) are first things that come to mind, that may be added to enrich the game experience.
That's some good feedback that I agree with wholeheartedly! This is a great game that I hope gets continued developmentally.
Thanks a lot to both of you for your encouraging feedback! Indeed I have currently taken a break from Pelagium and I am currently exploring a different game genre. But development will certainly continue once the current (comparatively small) game is published and I will certainly listen to your suggestions.
Awesome Game!
Glad you enjoy it :)