Von_Lipwig's Blog
Forum Turn-Based Strategy Game - Part 7: Faction balance and feel
by
, 09-11-2011 at 02:08 PM (17188 Views)
As for balancing and overall feel for each faction, I think I want it to be a bit like this:
Nobles: Strength in numbers. Poor units. Can draft lots of poor units quickly. High tier units are MUCH more expensive and also a lot better. Playstyle: rushing, massing units.
Veterans: Stealth and mobility are key. Units are generally more expensive (or have fewer men?) so they need to count more. Playstyle: careful, fast and sneaky.
Monks: Morale is the most important factor. Using combinations of scaring enemies and empowering friendlies will decide the outcome. Units are rather weak so optimal use of morale is key. Playstyle: calculating, aggressive.
Guilds: Can use its money to mass units, but combat-wise is not very strong. Ranged combat makes the Guilds a good defensive player. Playstyle: turtle, massing units.
Guilds and Nobles are basically eachother's counterparts, where one is more defensive and the other is more aggressive. They should be fairly straight-forward in terms of gameplay, as they are the most traditional factions. Veterans and Monks will likely be a bit harder to play but all the more satisfying if successful.
I am now contemplating the possibility of having units of varying numbers of men (ie, not just 100 but also stronger units of 50 or something). At first I didn't want to consider this but it might be worth pondering the possibility.
I am also thinking of a possible way to give ambush bonnuses to units, which would really make the Veteran faction come into its own. Morale is also going to be a very important part of combat, which needs to be balanced well. The monks should be rather interesting to play because you need to think about how to implement your policies and use your units in the best way to take advantage of their superior morale (and the way they affect the enemies' morale).
I also need to look into how to make ranged units work. I want to make them potentially strong, but weak when engaged directly.
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Triple A
Greatlordd found a boardgame simulator/strategy game with available source code online called Triple A. It might be worth looking into this to see if it's possible to alter the source code to carry this game. After all, if it is in any way possible for me to offload the hard work onto a computer program, I won't hesitate to do so.
http://www.moddb.com/games/triplea
I'm not sure what I will cover in the next part. I've been rather busy so I haven't been able to put much thought in many things. I may look into Triple A and come back to you to report on the possibilities with this source code.