Tilting at Windmills

Cracked open some source files last night to start work on the combat engine. It’s a bit messier than usual because I have to make sure I can merge it back with the travel engine later without a lot of headache.

One thing I’ll end up doing is cutting out a lot of the work I’d already done for statistic screens. My statistics have completely changed, for one thing. I also want to remove extraneous data screens that consume too much valuable memory to render.

My initial goal is to have the combat engine start up, set up player units, and let me assign actions and watch them perform. The interface for the player is very important to get right. I’m going to bypass battlemap loading, monsters, etc. until this is done.

I had some thoughts on combat recently…

My original plan was something like Tunnels of Doom. You move each character in your party, with a set number of potential actions, like move, shoot a ranged weapon, cast a spell, use an item, etc. After all player actions are done, the monsters move.

But I got to thinking… what about making it so that instead of resolving actions immediately, you simply designate what actions you want to do, and then ALL actions, monsters and players, are resolved in one phase? I’ve seen this done in other games, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in a CRPG.

There’s still an order of actions, of course. When each unit, player or monster, acts in a combat round is determined randomly, with some potential bonuses.

I’d originally planned to keep things simple, with actions like “move” or “melee attack” being a single action, and a player having a pool of action points to spend. Extra attacks, though, of any type can very quickly unbalance combat, so I want to be careful about that.

I like the idea of “the more you do the less you do it well” paradigm. For example, a player who chooses to attack once then end his turn attacks with a bonus, because he spent extra time landing a sure blow, rather than recklessly attempting to attack twice.

I’ll need to think about it some more… one thing I’d also want to consider is having monster actions determined on an interrupt while the player decides things. This was a trick used in Eastern Front 1941; all unit decisions were being made while the player made his. A clever idea, but with a maximum of eight monster units it may not be necessary.

Also, the A.I. for this could really be nasty to program… A lot more complicated when the unit a monster wants to attack may not be where it thought it was when it arrives.

Still, it would definitely make combat unique, something to make the game stand out.