Mass Battles in RPG (tactical and otherwise)

[Galdred]

As I am working on the strategic layer for my own game(tactical RPG with a strategic layer), I was wondering how RPG handled mass battles.
- NWN2: OC and Dragon Age (Awakening and origin) have them as a serie of quests (I think in DA:Awakening, what you do before the battle itself does impact the outcome of the battle), but what I am looking for is a "battle subsystem".
- Several tactical games have mass battles with heroes, but no "party RPG" (Ogre Battles, Langrisser, Dragon Force, Age of Wonders, Sword of Aragon, Kohan, HOMM, Eisenwald ...)
- Birthright and Kingdom Under Fire use a completely different system for battles and adventuring(which makes them feel like 2 separate games)
- Disciple of Steel also has a separate battle subsystem, but I have not tested it.
- Mount and Blade uses the same system for large battles and small skirmishes, but it might not translate too well to a turn based RPG. That said, I think it is the one that works the best as it makes your actions really matter, but only as part of the larger picture, as troop quality and number play a very important role (you can even make a playthrough as a tactician who stays in his tent and autoresolves everything).
- Spellforce also uses the same system for both party battles and mass battles, but I don't really think the classical RTS part works too well in this context.
Some older games had text based mass battles that integrated well with character centric actions (King of the Dragon Pass, Lords of Midnight).

Which one did I miss, and which system do you think works best to make the player feels like his actions matter, without making the whole battle about the player actions?

 

[Circuit the Short]

Just make it Birthright-like realtime grid-based popamole

 

[Galdred]

Just make it Birthright-like realtime grid-based popamole

Birthright managed to make the Battle part work better than the Adventuring part!

Actually, what I wanted to do at first was some sort of "battle progression" slider, where armies would infllict "damage" to each other every turn(it is a bit similar to the tabletop RPG Legend of the 5 Rings for those who know it), and mission/adventure opportunities would be generated (find 20 good men to burn their supplies, assassinate the lead enemy spellcaster, secure the hill while you cast a ritual of meteor storm, ...), but having the army actions summed up with a simple slider feels a bit too abstract.
That said, once fireballs and telepathy are frequent enough, I suppose fantasy tactics would be closer to WW2 than medieval times, with small "kampfgruppe" of casters, cavalry, archers and infantry, spaced out over a large area (mostly to prevent the opponent to strike your own casters), so a set of small skirmishes over several weeks could make more sense than a single pitched battle(something like the latter Close Combat games, with a map of the sectors, from which you would chose where to send your parties).

 

[Ninjerk]

The Five Rings PnP I think used an event table like red/blue book D&D where you'd have a bunch of different scenarios (including getting a chance to fight whomever was leading the battle and gain a shit ton of glory, which was an important character resource).

 

[RaptorRex888]

The way you're describing it sounds like more of an entire war scenario rather than a single battle one.

 

[Galdred]

The way you're describing it sounds like more of an entire war scenario rather than a single battle one.

Actually, I want to represent a campaign between two armies in a single territory (ie, what happens when two armies meet in a Total War territory), so that would be a bit in between.

A single battle could work, but:
1) in the medieval times, skirmishes were usually preferred over large pitched battles because these large battles would be really risky.
2) Sieges usually work more like a succession of small battles than a large one.
3) Magic could make pitched battles even worse for the side with less spellcasters (which should probably try to use guerilla tactics to ambush a few spellcasters to even the odds).

The L5R method (or any "text-based" one) can work for both.

 

[RaptorRex888]

The beginning of Tyranny had an interesting mechanic that represented the concept of being part of an army conquering a new area. It was full of decisions that influenced various outcomes (ultimately with your side winning of course, and entirely via text) but I found it engaging.

 

[toro]

As I am working on the strategic layer for my own game(tactical RPG with a strategic layer), I was wondering how RPG handled mass battles.
- NWN2: OC and Dragon Age (Awakening and origin) have them as a serie of quests (I think in DA:Awakening, what you do before the battle itself does impact the outcome of the battle), but what I am looking for is a "battle subsystem".
- Several tactical games have mass battles with heroes, but no "party RPG" (Ogre Battles, Langrisser, Dragon Force, Age of Wonders, Sword of Aragon, Kohan, HOMM, Eisenwald ...)
- Birthright and Kingdom Under Fire use a completely different system for battles and adventuring(which makes them feel like 2 separate games)
- Disciple of Steel also has a separate battle subsystem, but I have not tested it.
- Mount and Blade uses the same system for large battles and small skirmishes, but it might not translate too well to a turn based RPG. That said, I think it is the one that works the best as it makes your actions really matter, but only as part of the larger picture, as troop quality and number play a very important role (you can even make a playthrough as a tactician who stays in his tent and autoresolves everything).
- Spellforce also uses the same system for both party battles and mass battles, but I don't really think the classical RTS part works too well in this context.
Some older games had text based mass battles that integrated well with character centric actions (King of the Dragon Pass, Lords of Midnight).

Which one did I miss, and which system do you think works best to make the player feels like his actions matter, without making the whole battle about the player actions?

Battle Brothers

 

[CryptRat]

In Disciples of Steel you can fight against 200 enemies during normal battles, some battles in SSI's RPGs are quite large, no reason to use a different layer as far as I'm concerned. What's important for these large battles to work is that the UI allows the player to control fighters fast by bumping into enemies using arrow keys, that when the player presses "attack" with a character holding a bow then the game automatically selects a default target and the player can just validate, that the remaining scattered enemies flee or surrender after many of them were defeated (I think it's a very important feature), that magicians deal real 3 tile radius fireballs and that units start in grouped packs. These features also make smaller scale battles better and are also some of the reason while SSI's games and their clones are the best.

In Krynn games a knight rolls for commandement in beginning of a battle involving an army to check what part of the soldiers are controlled by the player, I'm sure in practice it can mean the player has low control over one "small battle" taking place in a corner of the map. Ally soldiers you don't control, as well as soldiers you control I guess, may quickly flee if they are outnumbered. Ultimately the player does not have full control over what happens.

 

[Galdred]

As I am working on the strategic layer for my own game(tactical RPG with a strategic layer), I was wondering how RPG handled mass battles.
- NWN2: OC and Dragon Age (Awakening and origin) have them as a serie of quests (I think in DA:Awakening, what you do before the battle itself does impact the outcome of the battle), but what I am looking for is a "battle subsystem".
- Several tactical games have mass battles with heroes, but no "party RPG" (Ogre Battles, Langrisser, Dragon Force, Age of Wonders, Sword of Aragon, Kohan, HOMM, Eisenwald ...)
- Birthright and Kingdom Under Fire use a completely different system for battles and adventuring(which makes them feel like 2 separate games)
- Disciple of Steel also has a separate battle subsystem, but I have not tested it.
- Mount and Blade uses the same system for large battles and small skirmishes, but it might not translate too well to a turn based RPG. That said, I think it is the one that works the best as it makes your actions really matter, but only as part of the larger picture, as troop quality and number play a very important role (you can even make a playthrough as a tactician who stays in his tent and autoresolves everything).
- Spellforce also uses the same system for both party battles and mass battles, but I don't really think the classical RTS part works too well in this context.
Some older games had text based mass battles that integrated well with character centric actions (King of the Dragon Pass, Lords of Midnight).

Which one did I miss, and which system do you think works best to make the player feels like his actions matter, without making the whole battle about the player actions?

Battle Brothers

BB's battles are rather smallish in size, no? But I played during the EA, before the endgame crisis. Do they play like a larger campaign/battle?

In Disciples of Steel you can fight against 200 enemies during normal battles, some battles in SSI's RPGs are quite large, no reason to use a different layer as far as I'm concerned. What's important for these large battles to work is that the UI allows the player to control fighters fast by bumping into enemies using arrow keys, that when the player presses "attack" with a character holding a bow then the game automatically selects a default target and the player can just validate, that the remaining scattered enemies flee or surrender after many of them were defeated (I think it's a very important feature), that magicians deal real 3 tile radius fireballs and that units start in grouped packs. These features also make smaller scale battles better and are also some of the reason while SSI's games and their clones are the best.

In Krynn games a knight rolls for commandement in beginning of a battle involving an army to check what part of the soldiers are controlled by the player, I'm sure in practice it can mean the player has low control over one "small battle" taking place in a corner of the map. Ally soldiers you don't control, as well as soldiers you control I guess, may quickly flee if they are outnumbered. Ultimately the player does not have full control over what happens.

Actually, I was thinking about arranging soldiers by 3(per hexagon) in larger fights. I guess that couldmake it work a bit like Disciples of Steel/SSI.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Falksi]

Pretty much everything about Dragon Age:Origins was awesome, so I'd say copy that as much as you can.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Can you tell more about that strategic layer that you're planning Galdred?

 

[Catacombs]

Have you looked at Dominion 4 and 5?

 

[Galdred]

Have you looked at Dominion 4 and 5?

I played Dominion 3 a lot back in the days. I haven't played 4 and 5 much, but I doubt they differ much. Actually, the Dominion games would fall in the category: mass battles only, but I don't think it would interact well with party based adventures.
But actually, I am trying to make the "strategic part" a bit similar to a simplified Dominions.

Can you tell more about that strategic layer that you're planning Galdred?

The player would control his Stronghold, and losing it would be the defeat condition.
The game would have 3 phases:
1st phase (skippable tutorial, 5%): the player starts with very few henchmen, recruit a few more along the way, and get control of his stronghold.
2nd phase (10%): The player retake control over the neighbouring provinces (that are mostly neutral).
3rd phase (remaining 85%): The player race against the AI to get control over new provinces, either through diplomacy or conquest, and directly confront the main opposing faction (probably the Chinese Zodiac guys).

So strategic layer is:
The map is split into region. Each region belongs to either major faction, or is independent.
Each region can have a "castle", but only the player stronghold can hold the main "XCOM" infrastructures(magic forge, laboratory, champion's hall). The minor castles are only there for defense and teleportation services.
Regions can also host dungeons (that can provide one time raiding adventures), and a point of interest (that give ongoing bonus once controlled).

The player controls a few champions(1-13, depending on the area controled), and henchmen. Only champions have access to customization (henchmen will just have basic stats, and one background trait, and are supposed to die en mass. Veteran henchmen can be empowered as champions when one champion slot is fred or acquired). The total roster should be around 30 characters at a given time(ie between X-COM and Jagged Alliance), but that will probably change.

Characters (champions and henchmen) can perform one campaign action each turn (like in Jagged Alliance, or Dead State):
- at stronghold:

1. Training armies or other characters
2. Studying old books/Casting a ritual spell
3. Blacksmithing/Enchantment
4. Recovering from wounds

- on the field(all field activities may trigger a mission, except for province management):

1. Spying
2. Diplomacy
3. Leading armies
4. Managing a province (doesn't require the character to be physically in the province, like in King Arthur: The Roleplaying Wargame).

Each turn is split in the following sequences:

1. Refresh phase (income, crafting results, army recruitment and training, random events)
2. Character planning phase (most should keep the same task as the turn before, as many actions will take several turns)
3. Mission Phase (dungeon raiding, and large battles take place)
4. End Phase (campaign results: armies take damage, provinces and castles change hand)

I want to give management roles to the character because I like having some missions featuring non combat characters (like protecting a diplomat from assassination, or escorting the blacksmith to the forge of the stars), and it gives an economic downside to character wounds (if a character is wounded he has to choose between recovery and doing something useful for the turn), but I want to keep the character allocation phase relatively short, so I will iterate until you don't have incentive to reallocate too many characters each turn.

 

[Smoker]

Suikoden 1, 2 & 3 all had different systems for the big army battles. Characters being leveled up more probably had the most effect in 3.

 

[toro]

BB's battles are rather smallish in size, no? But I played during the EA, before the endgame crisis. Do they play like a larger campaign/battle?

12 vs 24 seems pretty big to me

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

There's very old game called Bandit Kings of Ancient China that had some combination of hero driven missions combined with province management.

If I remember correctly it offered option of dealing with big battles both on strategic map (quick option which was basically attacker roll vs defense roll) and tactical skirmish.
Been very long time since I messed with that game.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

1) in the medieval times, skirmishes were usually preferred over large pitched battles because these large battles would be really risky.

I think this is a fallacy of fantasy games to assume battles would play out similarly to medieval ones if you just added a dab of magic.
Fireballs are basically artillery, it would quickly become trench warfare which is the result of firepower outpacing mobility. Skirmishes would be nonexistent because nobody wants to be the guy standing out in the open waiting to be hit with artillery. Unless you're wearing magical pants of fireball blocking you're going to be in a trench.

 

[Galdred]

BB's battles are rather smallish in size, no? But I played during the EA, before the endgame crisis. Do they play like a larger campaign/battle?

12 vs 24 seems pretty big to me

Actually, the regular missions will feature between 4 and 12 guys for the player to control, against a larger number of enemies (over a large map. Think X-COM or Jagged Alliance), so 12 vs 24 would be a large regular fight.

1) in the medieval times, skirmishes were usually preferred over large pitched battles because these large battles would be really risky.

I think this is a fallacy of fantasy games to assume battles would play out similarly to medieval ones if you just added a dab of magic.
Fireballs are basically artillery, it would quickly become trench warfare which is the result of firepower outpacing mobility. Skirmishes would be nonexistent because nobody wants to be the guy standing out in the open waiting to be hit with artillery. Unless you're wearing magical pants of fireball blocking you're going to be in a trench.

Actually, spellcasters would have a mobility closer to WW2 slef propelled artillery (as they can ride a horse, and wouldn't need the setup time of an artillery battery), while airborne mounted units(griffins, dragons, or teleportation) could emulate paratrooper.
The main difference with WW1/WW2 would be the even lower concentration of fire of unsupported infantry (most of the infantry kills were done by machineguns, but if we assume that spellcaster availability is lower than machine gunner, it leaves standard medieval troops in an akward position).
Maybe the proper analogy would be the colonial wars (English vs Indian or Zulus) if one side has no magic access, or the Boxer rebellion if both side have casters, but one is much superior in this department, while the other has a lot of infantry.

Giving "quick" (ie spells that don't require several turns of concentration) spells less range than your typical crossbow or longbow really help make standard medieval units less obsolete (as you still want your caster to hide behind a row of shields, and "snipers" remain a deadly threat, which you can dispose of with regular unit, so your medieval units serve the same role as infantry in combined warfare: spot AT weapons for the tanks, and bullet sponges that prevent the opponent from getting to your artillery or supply base too easily).

An important consideration is the number of soldiers per caster. WW2 had roughly 500 soldiers per gun, and 1500 soldiers per tank (at the time of the Battle of France) and 4500 soldiers per aircraft.

Many book fantasy settings have spellcasters scarcier than WW2 aircraft (Lords of the Ring has only a handful of wizards, that don't throw that many fireballs, for tens of thousands of troops. Many RPG have more casters, but usually no more than 1 per 1000 regular soldiers).

A possible abstract way to represent high magic density fantasy warfare would be to have individual casters/heroes attached to units, and have each unit select a stance (scout, ambush, spread out attack, entrenched defense, massed attack, massed defense, reserve).

Then a "scouting/terrain" test would be made for each unit to determine the units it can attack/support, and the way it can engage combat against these units (ranged distance, magic distance, or melee distance).
Units that were engaged (decided to attack another unit) would be much easier to detect/engage on the following round.

This is based on the World in Flames naval warfare, as I think magic can also be abstracted the same way as carriers in naval battles:
naval Air battle, naval battles, and submarine battles
Carrier fleet are a fantasitc opponent, and always force a carrier battle unless the opponent manages to get an awesome surprise roll, or the wheather prevents carrier planes from being used.
Submarine fleets can usually sit the battle out if they wish, or force a submarine battle (against enemy transport) if they manage to get a very high surprise roll.

 

[Galdred]

1) in the medieval times, skirmishes were usually preferred over large pitched battles because these large battles would be really risky.

I think this is a fallacy of fantasy games to assume battles would play out similarly to medieval ones if you just added a dab of magic.
Fireballs are basically artillery, it would quickly become trench warfare which is the result of firepower outpacing mobility. Skirmishes would be nonexistent because nobody wants to be the guy standing out in the open waiting to be hit with artillery. Unless you're wearing magical pants of fireball blocking you're going to be in a trench.

I have been thinking about that a bit more, and there is another key difference compared to WW1 trench warfare:
Medieval armies are much smaller compared of the terrain controlled(, so establishing a continuous line of trenches, or even effectively controlling terrain is not possible (the hundred year wars had armies of roughly 45k soldiers, which is pretty low compared to any other time in the history of warfare).
In a way, it makes it interesting, because it would be even more about getting the drop on the opponent, to strike without exposing your own valuable assets.
I guess the Boshin War (Tokugawa vs Emperor) could give a close feeling, with both sides using artillery, ironclads, gatling guns, and katana(but mostly when out of rifle ammunition), or maybe American soldiers vs Indians.

 

[deuxhero]

Taka-Haradin puolipeikko
There's also Destiny of an Emperor, which is pretty typical jRPG combat BUT every character is actually a commander of hundreds if not thousands of men. The final boss is a force of 143,957 men.

 

[laclongquan]

Icewind Dale 2

The Siege of Targos. You have three small-mediumish force appear in three places. IWD2 doesnt set it, but if you do it in your game, set a battle objective/quest reward of how many on your side alive afterward.

Also IWD2, several battles of medium size, with enemies mass and attack, or spawn behind to ambush. Orc Fortress, the Outer Yard (where you appear from the stair lead to the outer yard). The Ice Marsh barbarian fight (barbs protect the east, trolls the west). Or the Underdark ambush after you destroy Viciscamera heart, with enemies spawn downward and upward (big drider forms)...

If you want mass battle, IWD2 provide several samples.

(define "medium battle": the semi-open terrain with few if any choke point in view. Hostile forces can appear in at least two directions within 2-3 rounds of battle time discounting movement time)