So, is Dragon Age 2 more tactical than DnD then? According to your logic, spellcasters = tactics and since in DA2 every character has mage-like abilities, the possibilities must be endless.
Dragon Age 2
is more tactical than playing Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale with only fighters and thieves. Dragon Age 2 is also more tactical than playing the Gold Box games with only fighters and thieves, even though you can guard and sweep. However, Dragon Age 2 is far
less tactical than playing Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale or the Gold Box games with even a single spell caster, because a single spell caster in AD&D has far more options that matter than any single character in Dragon Age II (you don't have to actively control more than one to win).
You're probably right, but that's an artificial difficulty mode that doesn't represent the overall difficulty and tactical tools at your disposal (or lack thereof). Spellcasters are meant to be protected (at least until you hit high levels and acquire proper protection spells. Thus, playing without tank's protection is where the challenge comes from, not from the game itself.
Sorry, which is an artificial difficulty mode? Zero spell casters or four spell casters? I don't think any sane individual would play with zero spell casters, but four spell casters? That seems perfectly legitimate to me in a well rounded party with some multi-classed characters (and perhaps a dual classed protagonist). I mean, even if you were to have a plain old mage, cleric and bard then that's three decent spell casters. You could have a pure thief, but a multi-classed or dual classed one with a spell casting class is very common. Then a paladin plus fighter for the final two places. Of course you could go for just two spell casters (a cleric and a mage, for example), but having four isn't unusual at all. It's also a hell of a lot more fun because one disadvantage of having a low number of spell casters is that it takes too many rounds to unleash the spells you want in a fight, where as with a group of casters you can lay down most of them in the first round. You could say it makes the game easier, but in my opinion it's ranged attacks (bows, crossbows) that are king in Baldur's Gate 1 and so losing that source of damage (and spell interruption) tends to balance things out. Of course, having four spell casters in Baldur's Gate 2 does indeed make the game far easier due to the increased number of actual damaging spells at higher level (Abi Dalzim's horrid wilting etc).
You raised an interesting point though - BG with 0 spell casters. Is it doable? I'd say it has to be. So, if this is the case, then how can the game's combat be considered tactical and good, if 6 melee/rangers that have no tactical options can simply slaughter their way through the game "hell no" style?
It's doable I'd say, but with a lot of planning, preparation and perhaps even avoidance. It's the same with Baldur's Gate 2 in fact, but it's probably easier in that game due to the amount of items that effectively grant you magic spells as well as the reduced number of tough plot critical fights (most of the hard encounters are optional, including most of the dragons, the liches, kangaxx). There was a time when I killed improved Sarevok in Baldur's Gate 1 with only a single fighter though, but this involved a lot of preparation by casting a load of protection spells, drinking a load of potions and then using some decoy to take the dispel magic that his mage bodyguard casts at the start of the battle. A fighter with strength potions, haste and lots of protection spells can cut him down in seconds. It may seem pretty lame, but thinking back through all the other cRPGs I've played in my life I can think of ways to do similar things in those too.
That's pretty tactical, eh? Now please explain why. For example, why it's less tactical than all three Realms of Arkania combined?
Well, first of all it's probably best for me to say that I think the Realms of Arkania series is the best cRPG series so far. Nothing tops it in my mind, and it's the series I tend to use as an example to others. The series takes all the Infinity Engine games and wipes its arse with them. The series, especially the first two games, is so much better than the likes of Baldur's Gate (and especially Planescape: Torment) that it's embarrassing to even compare them. I feel a similar way about Darklands too (as you mentioned that game earlier), but to a far lesser extent.
But basically I like the Realms of Arkania combat in 2 and 3. The first game was pretty clunky, especially with the lack of diagonal ranged attacks, but by the second game the majority of those obvious flaws had been ironed out. Combat is also similar to AD&D in terms of the usage and usefulness of spells compared to physical attacks, though it has the added advantage of having multiple attack modes (aggressive, careful). Guard works similarly to the Gold Box games but is something else the Infinity Engine games don't have, probably due to the unfortunate switch to real-time combat (though I can think of ways to implement a guard command in a round-based real-time combat system).
The problem is the piss poor and repetitive encounter designs. I actually prefer the combat in the third game to the second because it has slightly better, more interesting and more varied encounters, even though the combat systems themselves are virtually the same. But compared to Baldur's Gate or even Icewind Dale, and also compared to probably every single Gold Box game (with only perhaps a couple of exceptions) the encounters rarely lead to a change in tactics. I know you get your fair share of throw away trash encounters in Baldur's Gate and especially Icewind Dale, but when you hit a good encounter you just know it, and you'll remember it for years. You'll actually be scanning through your spell book page by page figuring out the best spells to use in the fight. You'll probably have to reload a couple of times after discovering what spells the enemy casters can cast (yes, this is probably a bad thing to have to do from a design perspective) to find ways to counter them effectively. And it's actually the spell caster battles in Baldur's Gate and the rest of the Infinity Engine games that are the stand out ones. Without them there's no question that the Realms of Arkania games have more tactical combat.
You probably remember Baldur's Gate 2 better than Baldur's Gate 1 from the sound of it, so just imagine that game without any of the good mage combat encounters. You'll be left with mindflayers and beholders posing the challenge, and you tend to come across those two monsters in areas packed with them so that the boredom and repetition sets in, meaning that things like protection spells and other results of tactics can carry across multiple battles turning the game dumb. At that point you could probably compare the Realms of Arkania combat favourably with it, as the benefits of turn-based, attack types and guarding beat it out for sheer tactical advantages.
Come to think of it, the Realms of Arkania games would be good examples of cRPGs in which you can literally swarm most encounters you come across and win, as long as you've built the party correctly. If you fail to win that way you can cast a spell or two at the start of combat to alleviate your pain and to tip your subsequent swarming over the edge to victory. Brilliant games, a brilliant series, but unfortunately combat wasn't its strong point due to the lack of high quality stand out encounters. And you know what makes this worse? The combat
system is good, especially when compared to other cRPGs. This means that the combat
could have been brilliant.
I barely remember the first few Wizardries as I played them more than twenty years ago and haven't touched them since, but I don't recall them being overly tactical. For BG, top 5% is being incredibly generous, I'd say.
It's an interesting topic - rating cRPGs based on their tactical aspect, so maybe you should make a new thread.
I'm thinking this too. Perhaps it'll get more people involved in trying to figure out how to measure "tactics". I'm just hoping that the thread won't bring in a lots of mentions of SRPGs, because most of those have similar core gameplay and probably rank higher than the vast majority of cRPGs due to mainly being tactics games at the expense of everything else.
