double attack (special attack)

[idanwin]

I'm not sure the idea has already been posted, but I couldn't find it.

A special ability that makes a unit attack twice in one attack-turn.
(Unit attacks 2x, enemy attacks once, unit attacks 2x, enemy attacks,...)

[AI]

Should be possible in a roundabout way.

-Temporarily set enemy's attacks to 1 before the attack happens
-Temporarily give him berserk on that attack with the original number of attacks as it's value (value being the max number of rounds)
-have the unit have 2 attacks

Side effect would be that the unit has exactly 2 times the number of strikes as it's opponent.

So, it should be possible for UMC, but I very much doubt it'll get into mainline.

[Kens_Mom]

Wouldn't it be less complex to simply give the unit twice as many strikes rather than making it into a special ability? Unless this ability only works when you're attacking, and not defending (which is what I'm interpreting with this).

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Wouldn't it be less complex to simply give the unit twice as many strikes rather than making it into a special ability? Unless this ability only works when you're attacking, and not defending (which is what I'm interpreting with this).

Not quite, because it's meant to let the unit get in two hits before the enemy gets one hit, which lets you get a potential KO without damage.

Actually, it kinda reminds me of charge.

[AI]

Another, simpler option is double damage. You could even adapt the attack animation to make it look like it struck twice.

[Nebiros]

But double damage interacts differently with the RNG.

A double-attack unit attacking a 1 hp (non-first-strike) target on 40% def would have a 84% chance of killing it before it could strike back - something not possible with charge, or berserk, or any other existing ability/special.

Of course, if neither unit is at risk of dying and neither unit has slow, then an ability that only changes the timing of attacks would ultimately have no effect on the total damage taken by each side, but that's true of first strike too and didn't stop that from being implemented (and occasionally having an effect).

If you're going to implement it, though, you may as well make it multiple strike:N (every time you have a turn to attack you make N swings instead of 1). It won't be much harder to do that way than to hardcode N=2*, and it'll be more flexible for the future if someone wants to make a super-cuttlefish that gets 10 attacks all at once.

(*Assuming you can parametrize a weapon special. I think there's UMC with berserk:3 in place of the default berserk:30, which would suggest that you can, unless they coded it from scratch.)

It would probably be better to have the animation play only once, and then for units where two animations is the Right Thing, just code a longer animation that looks like you swing twice. That way, you have the flexibility to have one animation that shows all the attacks happening at once (paired weapon users, the above mentioned super-cuttlefish, even a weapon with a shotgun-like effect) without having it replay N times.

[Aethaeryn]

As for the name, Doublestrike probably works since there's already a Firststrike.

[Rad3k]

So, the difference between this ability and double damage's effects would be noticeable only when one unit had a chance of defeating the other. I've got an idea to slightly alter it, so that it's more interesting. The description:

In each attack turn, a unit will make two tries to hit the enemy. If it misses with the first attack, then it tries again. But if it hits, the second attack is omitted.

Actually, this is quite similar to some other ability listed here: Abilities that have potential--- - Bluff:

When a unit misses its first attack in a particular engagement, its next strike will automatically hit

As for me, this is even better, because Bluff only grants that one of the first two attacks hits the enemy - this removes a significant portion of randomness, because with it you could have a 100% chances of defeating an enemy.
This one, in turn, does not grant you anything - it just raises the probability of hitting the enemy within each fight turn. I even think that it fits the "bluff" name better.
And I think it would fit some units that have a finesse in their fighting style, like e.g. fencer very well.

What do you think about it? Is it worth starting a new thread for this idea?

edit: typo

[F50]

I think it should.

[idanwin]

In each attack turn, a unit will make two tries to hit the enemy. If it misses with the first attack, then it tries again. But if it hits, the second attack is omitted.

Actually I thought more about something like this:

In each attack turn, a unit will try to make two fast hits instead of one.