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In the text, AE will refer to the active battleentity, EE to an enemy battleentity, and FE to a friendly. When there is more than one involved, they will be marked AE#, EE# and FE# respectively. I use these to make it totally clear in statements what effects applies to what battleentity.

Battlefield Design

It's primary goal is to control battles ranging from three to about a hundred units or so.

If using generalisation of large groups, it should also be somewhat capable of handling battles numbering in thousands or more.

There might be need for another system for battle between two single entities, since this involves another kind of detail where positions does not matter as much.

Engagement

• Each AE is either engaged or unengaged
  • Being engaged means being in the direct vicinity (meleerange) of an EE
  • Being unengaged means partaking in the combat through ranged means or to tend other business within the battlefield
• Engaging means getting AE within meleerange of one EE
• AE can protect FE from engagement from EEs
• Engage
  • AE can engage one EE at a time (?)
    • I'd say a AE can choose to engage only 1 EE at a time and either disengaging or engaging an alternative EE could result in failure to do so or the EE getting free/advantageous attacks. The variation I see occurs when multiple EE engage a single AE. The AE should be able to switch engagement between any engaged EE without penalty. -- FantoM
  • AE is engaged when
    • AE successfully engages EE or EE protector
    • AE is engaged by one or more EE
  • AE will risk free hits from EE if performing some actions
  • AE will risk failing actions that requires unengagement
• Unengage
  • AE is unengaged when
    • AE is not engaging EE
    • No EE has successfully engaged AE
    • AE has successfully unengaged all EE
  • Unengaging EE interested in engaging AE is difficult
  • AE can help FE to unengage EE

Interactions

AE interactions can be divided in the following basic groups.

• engage -
  • attack -
  • focus - while AE focuses on EE1, AE will be more vulnerable to attacks from other EEs than EE1
  • charge - AE can only charge against an EE they are not already engaged
  • flank -
  • grapple -
  • break - vs formations only
• guard -
  • hold - unleash weapon when it has maximum effect
  • cover - unleash weapon if EE moves
• defence -
  • parry -
  • dodge -
  • block -
• stand back -
  • fire/throw -
  • cast -
  • neutral actions -
• withdraw
  • in order -
  • retreat -
  • flee -

• protect - friend / formation
  • active -
  • guarding -
  • drive back -
• form in formation -

• Do you really need to be in a party to guard someone/something? FreD

Events

Engaging

• Two units willing to engage eachother, will succeed if not both are engaged elsewhere
• AE engaging EE1 can fail if AE is engaged by another EE than EE1 (this counts as unengaging the other EE)

Protecting

• AE can protect one or more FE, the coverage depends on their relative sizes
• When AE successfully protects FE when EE engages FE, EE will be engaging AE instead of FE
• An FE protected by FE and engaged by EE, will get help from FE to unengage from EE
• Two battleentities cannot protect eachother at the same time
• A battleentity can only be protected if it is not engaging

Unengaging

• Unengaging will occur if too many
• AE unenngaging while EE are still engaging AE

Withdrawing

Flanking

• Flanking is most likely to succeed for AE when EE is busy engaging other FEs

Guarding

Polearms

Standing back

Formations

• Formations can be in loose or dense formations, some formations requires
• Formations breaks if AE runs, charges, falls or withdraws without holding order
• Back against wall -
  • AE positioning with backs against a wall (when available) will protect AE from flanking from EE
  • AE will be less able to withdraw while engaged
• Shield wall -
  • Efficiency is limited if not all have same shield-size
  • vs missiles
    • gives a percentage protection based on shield size
  • vs melee
    • increases shield effectiveness
    • decreases effectiveness of large non-polearm weapons
• Spear hedge -
  • Can only be formed with polearms
  • Can be several ranks deep based on polearm-size, max three
  • Can be combined with shield wall
• Square -
  • Protects against flank attacks
  • 2 units - two fronts (back to back), 3-7 - three fronts (triangle), 8+ - 4 fronts (square) [allow choosing lesser amount of flanks?] [circle?]
  • If EE engaged with AE is less than double of one AE-front in size, only one flank of the units in AE will be engaged with EE if EE is not surrounding
  • If 6 or more units in AE, can combine formation with shield wall and/or spear hedge
• [formations forming in formations?]

Definitions:

• entity - any one unit or formation participating in the battlefield (can include remote combatants such as catapults)
• combat - an event where two or more entities engage in open aggressive actions
• combatant - any entity in close proximity to a combat
• formation - a number of combatants cooperating
• battleentity - a combatant or a formation
• aggressive actions - some better name please?
  • offensive actions, assailing actions
• party - two or more combatants arranged in a combatgroup
• combatgroup - ???
• add words you dont understand...

-- PumaN - 21 Jan 2003

= Now I didn't read all of the above, but i was thinking just now about how a grid battle could work:

Wtf? Why didn't it save my drawing? Took me f'ing 20 minutes to make the damn grid, and i can't even view it now. I'll set it up in text before i forget.

               | Snp |
MF left flank  |  M  |  MF right flank
P/S left       | A/S |  P/S right
R/S left       | RSP |  R/S right

LEGEND:

• Snp = Sneaking Position
• MF = mob flank position
• M = mob default position
• P/S = Parry/Strafe
• A/S = Aggro/Starting player position
• R/S = Ranged Strafe position
• RSP = Ranged Starting Position

Grid is 3 by 3 + 1 Snp

• This system does not have a grid or relative positions, two entities are either engaged (melee-distance) or not engaged (any distance outside melee) -- PumaN - 07 Oct 2004

-- LuCid - 06 Oct 2004

Questions regarding messages

I can't do it. To tie all messages down to a single line and take all combatants, their actions, their items, the hits effect, the effects effect, the current weapon, its effect, the outcome, a correct timeline, right grammar and currect timeline in one single block of text, is out of my legue right now. I'm blasting away straight into the code and it doesn't work this time. Not even for a simple draft as this is. I need HELP.

If you want to see combat done soon, help me with this -- FreD - 11 Dec 2004

Just a quick though. When printing out the messages, if they were fully customizable to show/hide information should I concider giving one message in several lines? Instead of one long sentence there are multiple, shorter ones that are more readable (what they contain is another question). Its all rather complex because those messages are supposed to represent the heat of the battle and handle all kinds of situations.

Messages must:

• be intressting enough to read a hundred of times without getting bored
• handle all kinds of situations
• display proper grammar
• fully customizable (detailed filtering)
• leave much room for own imagination without killing variation
• be informative
• brief enough to be glanced at a billion of times