Large scale battle -> platoons!

[Wussel]

There are so many "large scale battle" in UMC campaigns. For me they are usally tedious and boring.

I came up with the idea of platoons. Multiply the damage, the cost and the hitpoints as well as ad swarm and remove traits. Use graphic. Platoon is ready!

EDIT: Multiply damage AND strikes by rows and colums of the formation. For start only 3x3 and 2x2 formations!

Here are the wesometric platoons for elves and humans. Stacking is 8/12 down/side for human and 10/15 for elves in pixel. 12/18 is possible, but than there will be no gaps between platoons on the field.

platoons-human.png (41.81 KiB) Viewed 6890 times

platoons-elves.png (55.27 KiB) Viewed 6890 times

There are tons of ideas to connect that with heroes as leaders of platoons. But for now keep it simple.

[Nikitaw99]

Great idea!

I would love to see platoons in the game (or atleast in UMC)!

It would also be great if we could combine multiple units into platoons.

Like, 4 footmen would combine into a small platoon, or something like that.

[Wussel]

Yep 4 people platoons for riders, trolls, merman and everybody else who can not go in tight formation.

platoons-cavalry.png (35.38 KiB) Viewed 6787 times

I would like the 3x3 platoons to get passiv backstab. There would be a stacking inspire bonus nice too (to emphasize on formation)

Instead of multiplying damage by 9 I would multiply by 3 for damage and strikes. The small platoons would only multiply by 2, but do not suffer passive backstab. So cavalary and light units would best go to the sides of the formation.

[Lord-Knightmare]

You might be on to something here!
Most of the UMC campaigns, I have played (even my own) features "mega-sized map" battles. There are around 60+ units per size and the lag/ drop in frame rate is often enough to make me rage-quit. I shall test out your idea in my campaign.
So, what will be the key feature points?

1. has the ability swarm for both melee and ranged
2. attacks are ATK DMG of main unit multiplied by the maximum possible number of strikes
3. Movement points are fixed. Example: Royal Guard has 6 MP and so, it's platoon also has 6 MP
4. XP requirement is substantially large or AMLA (since the units will be used in just one scenario)
5. Not sure about Traits though. Should they be added or not?
6. Should marksman be used? It will make the Elven Marksmen and Sharpshooter platoons have instal-kill attacks
   
   Example:
   base damage is 9
   attack number is 4x9 = 36
   So, total damage is 36x9 = 324
   With the weapon special, this attack can kill almost anything...even a Yeti
   A similar argument can be said for magical and the Grand Knight's charge.

[tr0ll]

Unless the platoons are elite units or have been together a long time, movement should have a small penalty, that could be reduced with AMLAs. Penalty would be higher in difficult or non-native terrain, because they wouldnt have trained on it.
Of course platoons would overwhelm single units, that is the purpose!
However, their asymmetric nemesis could be another innovation in warfare: sapper units with attacks like shrapnel or caltrops. Also, would a single healer affect a whole platoon or would you need a platoon of them?

[Tad_Carlucci]

It occurs to me that, while this would require a change in the engine, it might be nice to actually NOT recruit these massed units.

Instead, recruit the individual units and, if they can be massed, provide some way to "stack" them into groups of 2-to-N (6? 9?) and provide some means to un-stack them.

The idea is to create a 'stacked unit' on-the-fly. An attack would, internally, be a series of the member's attack. Defense would choose the best of the group. Looses would simply remove the defender.

Might be interesting to put a stack of Berserkers up against another and watch the stacks dwindle ... muhahahah .. might need a single-unit bloody and battered variation for the lone survivor!

[iceiceice]

I think if you wanted to do this, it might be worth it to try to add a new concept to the attack system of wesnoth.

Besides damage and strikes, have a concept of "volleys". A volley is some number of strikes. When one unit attacks another, instead of taking turns making strikes, they take turns making volleys, which are several consecutive strikes.

So, you would say an elf archer previously 5-4, has 4 volleys of one strike, 5 damage each.
When you want to pretend you have a "stack" of archers, they get more strikes, but same number of volleys.
You could also have individual units that get a different breakdown of volleys and strikes.

[Wussel]

Please keep in mind I would multiply platoon HP as well.

Somebody coming with the example 5x4. The 3x3 platoon would get 15x12 with swarm. They would get firststrike, marksman or whatever. If the thingy is to strong they get only loose formation 2x2 platoons (i.e. berserks).

I would give no traits to platoons. I would give no amla either. Maybe, if we get crazy about this, we could give traits as amla? (later is early enough)

I would not let platoons attack single units. I would not use single units and platoon at the same map to start with. Maybe we add that later, but it would need special care.

I would give passiv backstab to any 3x3 platoon. Meaning any platoon can backstab them. I would not give that to any loose formation 2x2 platoon.

I would give a stacking inspire to any platoon to encourage nice battle formations. Meaning each adjacent own platoon gives you plus 5% or 10% to damage!

Obviously we could add a leader (adds damage bonus) or a healer (regenertes platoon) to a platoon. But maybe we only use the remaining 8 soldiers for platoon HP calculation? Again that would need extra care. So I suggest: not for starter.

So again since there are programmers interested: I would like "passive backstab" and "stacking inspired" to be created first. All the rest are just new units, which even I could handle easily.

Please keep in mind, that I would like to keep this as simple as possible for practical reasons. I would suggest you support that if you like.

[tr0ll]

what is a passive backstab?
how would it work if the other side doesnt let anyone through the front line?

[Wussel]

Thanks for asking Tr0ll.

By passiv backstab I mean that any other platoon can backstab them. However this explanation might not be sufficient. It means: If a platoon is catched between 2 enemy platoons it should suffer double damage from both enemy platoons. This means: The fight will be over quick. Think of it like the platoon beeing routed. I just use the word backstab, as most people here might have an idea what it means.

So this will be the mayor drawback of the tight 3x3 formation. Therefore need for light 2x2 formation arises.

The result is that you would need proper battle formation. A long line across the battlefield with light 2x2 platoons at the sides of the formation.

Yep, and of course it only works if you can break or circle the line somehow. If the line holds, it does not work, as you are not on both sides of the enemy.

There has been ideas about reducing platoon movement. I would try not do do that. It might be borring. Maybe 9 trained fellows can run in formation?

UPDARE:
Some more files faceing nort east:

platoons-saurians.png (33.44 KiB) Viewed 6598 times

Maybe skirmisher should only have 2x2 formation? Would make more sense for me.

platoon-horseman-ne.png (6.23 KiB) Viewed 6598 times

platoon-spearman-ne.png (4.8 KiB) Viewed 6598 times

For starter I would not recruit this units, but place them on the map to begin with. If you need costs: they should have the costs multiplied by the regular base unit.

[Bedna337]

This would be great for a final mission. I've come up with a modification that I might use in my own campaign.
At the start of every scenario, you can choose a number of platoons (Maybe depending on difficulty?), and you start with all the units in these platoons as individuals.
At the end, all xp gained would be stored and used in determining the level of the platoon(for a 9 unit platoon, I imagine something like advancing the whole unit's level a small amount for every three advancements).
This way, you can train your platoons, and in a large-scale battle, you would have the platoons as units.
If some individuals die, they would be replaced by fresh recruits (for a cost, of course), and if you think your veterans are trained enough and you need more platoons, you could just recruit a new one, for a large price (100 for a platoon of 9 lvl0 units, 250 for a platoon of 9 lvl1 units, 750 for a platoon of 9 lvl2 units).
It would be relatively easy to implement leaders/healers in these platoons, although making the pictures would probably be difficult.

[tr0ll]

Platoons without leaders doesnt make much sense unless the species is telepathic or magically controlled or machines like in IftU. So absence of leader should decrease movement and attacks.

[Can-ned_Food]

To be honest, when I first tried Wesnoth a year ago I thought that everybody was a simplified platoon.

You could easily script a Merge action in WML or Lua. You'd need to define unit_types for every iteration up to the max.

[shevegen]

I like the basic idea behind this.

I am not sure if I agree with the artwork implementation, the first looks like a stack of turtles put on top of one another.

BUT I like the images with e. g. the 4 elven riders which seems more reasonable to me, so I sorta agree with the
whole idea and don't want to discourage it. Of course it ought to be somewhat balanced; I have no idea if this
will be balanced; removed traits was suggested. I am not sure if this alone is enough but I don't want to discourage
the idea.

Obviously it could get complicated such as "if there are 4 riders, and 2 horses die, what happens to the unit
type? But again, I don't want to discourage the idea because I think it's a cool idea, so I hope it can be implemented
somehow. Last but not least though, perhaps it should not be excessive or game-dominating, more like an
additional flavour. 50 riders from Mordor!!! (Hah had to bring this in sorry)

> I would like the 3x3 platoons to get passiv backstab.

Well, I guess if they get all the fancy traits on top of more hps etc... then they become superstrong, everyone
will focus on them and the rest will be forgotten. And they probably would already have more than enough
advantages with more hps alone!

> Platoons without leaders doesnt make much sense unless the species is telepathic or magically controlled
> or machines like in IftU. So absence of leader should decrease movement and attacks.

Well you focus on the name. Let's give it another name, for the riders:

Elite Scouts

Let's focus on 3 riders there. The first guy is the leader. The other two support him.

But to be honest, I think all these are details. We all agree that the basic idea behind
it is cool right? Because if so, I guess the details can be refined at a later time anyway,
as long as we all find it great. \o/

> Please keep in mind, that I would like to keep this as simple as possible for practical reasons.

Yep, I agree. Simple is good - it's how wesnoth sort of started, at the least after the first
rewrite; I think Dave wrote something about it long ago. But anyway, agreed.

> I would suggest you support that if you like.

Agreed! I am a big fan! Granted, I am not really overly active, largely due to reallife
time and such but I remember that I used to play wesnoth a long time ago and the
gameplay was cool. The coolness of the gameplay should be kept - I think that the
proposal in itself here, is good too. The details and refinements are not soooo
important to me, I am sure it'll be realized with sufficient support. So upvote this
folks!

[Can-ned_Food]

Someone could write a Yertle–stacking MP campaign for Wesnoth. Like a hybrid of Jenga and those mecha warrior toys from the '90s — the ones with the pressure pads that made their limbs fall off.

On a more serious note, you could simply bypass the problem by preferring to add an emblem in one of the corners of your sprites. It could be a numeral overlaid show the quantity or multiplicity of that platoon.