tactics skill affecting generated terrain

[the-trav]

This is possibly a time consuming feature, but here goes.

Allow the player to see a minimap of the battle they're about to enter, something with simple topography. Allow them to try to pick a better battle field (regenerate field) a number of times based on their tactics skill until they find one that is better.

With a high tactics (and possibly spot/pathfinding) skill perhaps also show enemy and allied start positions.


This would allow players to look for rivers, or flats or mountains to suit their army. You can currently do this to a limited extend by retreating at the start of each battle, but that usually results in casualties.

 

[Sir Prince]

Good, well, TSART, I think it should be as such: Your tactics skill gives you a few percentage of starting on a hill (maybe) or of flatter ground or more defensiable ground, not sure about how that's gonig to work, but your idea is too time consuming IMO. Gah, but then it depends on if your an archer and want atleest one nice platuex or a lancer nd want small flat hills and flat area.

 

[the-trav]

Your tactics skill gives you a few percentage of starting on a hill (maybe) or of flatter ground or more defensiable ground

I would have thought the chance of certain landscape features would be determined by the map screen (ie, being near the mountains affects the chance of getting hills) tactics would just allow for a few tactical retreats, so if you're on the plains instead of getting a 1 in 10 chance of hill you get 3 chances (each 1 in 10).

your idea is too time consuming IMO.

Too time consuming for the player? How long does it take to generate a battle map? On my machine it's almost instant, if you weren't interested in spending time checking the terrain you could just click "battle" same as you currently do.
Implementing it this way is probably easier to program as the generation program can probably be re-used, it'd just be a matter of putting together the map in a little bitmap before the battle, and much less tweaking and debugging than messing with percentage chances.

 

[Sir Prince]

True. I tihnk slelecting where you start, dangit, what game did I see that in again? Oh well, but I can see how it works now. But maybe, as areas around mountains will be VERY hilly etc maybe tactics could give a few perecent more flatness per level or something. And maybe with a flat grass plain you could have a few more small hills sort of thing. There, that's a good basis for combining both our ideas.

 

[the-trav]

maybe tactics could give a few perecent more flatness per level or something. And maybe with a flat grass plain you could have a few more small hills sort of thing.

I can see where you're going with that, the only problem with it is that the game isn't going to be able to figure out what your ideal terrain is (at least not without a whole lot of hard ai programming).
If you're thinking of just having it generate an offset from the local terrain factors then you're not really linking the tactics skill to an advantage in battle. I wouldn't want to get a majority of flat lands in hills just because I have a large tactics skill, chances are I would have moved into the hilly areas specifically for the hills.

plateaus do occur, so there would be a (reasonably low) chance of getting flat lands in a hilly area, and if you get to go through 5 generated maps then you've already got a better chance of getting a flat area, the only difference is that if you've got the player cycling, then they are the ones who can make the decision, wheras if the computer decides (by increasing the percentage chance of flats in each generation) then you'll invariably frustrate the player when it makes the wrong choice.

I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm trashing your idea, I don't mean to do that, I just don't see how it can be implemented to give the player an advantage.

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