Poll about favorite fighting mechanics in RTS games

[Krom]

I was curious the other day, how many of KaM players are fans of KaM fighting mechanics?
I'm polling specifically about units bashing each other, without taking troop control into account.

KaM fighting key points:
- hitpoints are invisible to the player
- damage is highly random (Militia has a chance to kill a Knight)
- few hitpoints (units have 1-4 hp)
- health regeneration
- unit stats are ambiguous (UI does not show attack/defense/hp values)
- attack is highly dependent on angle (hits from behind are x4 powerful)

Classic fighting key points:
- hitpoints bars
- variable damage (each hit guarantees to inflict some damage)
- more hitpoints (units have 50-70hp)
- no health regeneration
- unit stats are known
- attacks are mostly uniform (hits from behind are same or a bit more powerful)

Which one do you like better?

[thunder]

KaM fighting key points:
- hitpoints are invisible to the player
- damage is highly random (Militia has a chance to kill a Knight)
- few hitpoints (units have 1-4 hp)
- health regeneration
- unit stats are ambiguous (UI does not show attack/defense/hp values)
- attack is highly dependent on angle (hits from behind are x4 powerful)

Classic fighting key points:
- hitpoints bars
- variable damage (each hit guarantees to inflict some damage)
- more hitpoints (units have 50-70hp)
- no health regeneration
- unit stats are known
- attacks are mostly uniform (hits from behind are same or a bit more powerful)

I could imagine some kind of mixed way.
KAM+:
+visible health points (as i know well the health points and the hungry levels arent the same), enough if i know my troops level, and i can watch the enemy troop's level in the replay only.(not under the game)
+recharge or healtregeneration only with feeding
-damage is highly random (milities have chance to kill knights //i remember my 60 milites when attacked 10 knights...0kills______okey once i heard a milite killed a knight with 3 hits, or 60pikes can beat 40 swords // Speciel i dont like to not know how chance my troops. will the first bow kill my soilder? or after the first hit i just lose him?:S as mistic in KAM.
+attack is highly dependent on angle //yes i ve seen 146 arrows could kill one swords man. (MEGA tank, and that tank was a stand point- I have a replay somewhere.)

Now for me KAM seems enough randoms where everythings can happen. And the rock paper scissors aren't enough exact rule.
i voted a third line which is a speciel mixed style of this two.

[dicsoupcan]

Well tihs is a hard one, kam fighting is pretty good imo, although the randomness mightbe slightly less random. But the classic fighting system is more fair and reliable in term of predicting outcomes of a battle. The critical hit (angle attacks) factor is one of the major plus points of the kam fighting system though, it rewards the player for flanking instead of just straight up going to the enemy. i will vote for the kam fighting system, but a few tweaks into reliability might improve it.

[pawel95]

I agree with dicso abouz less randomness, except for that, everything is perfect.

Examples I had in remake:

1 bowmen killed 1 warriors with ! One shot! On pirate bond

The classical example: 2nd weakest unit wins vs 2nd strongest unit, milita vs Knight XD

[Tiank]

KaM fighting.

I'm not a fan of this kind of fighting mechanic, but I got used to it and I really like it now. It makes you focus on tactic, maneuveres - how to manage your troops knowing their main ability (ranged, melee, cavalry, anti-cavalry). Battles in KaM are more interesting, because you can't be so sure about results, even with the same set of troops. You gain more certainty that you'll win, if you flank the enemy or attack him from behind.

About that examples: it's kind of realistic, that bowman can kill with first, perfect shot. It could happen, though it's rare. And a swift, well trained unit with axe is able to take down slow, heavy-armoured unit .

[Lewin]

1 bowmen killed 1 warriors with ! One shot! On pirate bond

I split this discussion about units killed with a single shot to here:
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=1963

Now back to the topic:

I find KaM's fighting system much more interesting than "classic" fighting systems. In classic systems you can usually tell who will win just by looking at the armies. Each army deals a certain amount of damage per second (DPS) and has a certain number of hitpoints and so it doesn't matter where you place your troops, as long as they are all attacking something. It can get a little more complicated than that in some games but usually it's still very predictable and there's mostly no reason to care about positioning your units.

In KaM it is highly dependant on how you use your troops, where you position them, flanking, etc. You can make interesting manoeuvres like sacrificing some soldiers to delay the enemy troops or distract them. You can flank and kill archers. You can try to put your pikes/lances against the enemy mounted units. The battles are very diverse and complicated.

Compare this to games like Warcraft or Age of Empires where what you do during the battle is quite unimportant, as long as all your units are attacking then you are dealing your maximum DPS so positioning and flanking makes no difference at all. I find classic fighting systems incredibly boring compared to KaM. I've had great fun playing battle only maps in multiplayer like Battle in the Ruined City. Can you imagine playing a multiplayer battle only map in Age of Empires? There's hardly any battle tactics for you to use, just get all your units attacking at once then wait for the end...

[Nissarin]

@Lewin
This depends on the game, your statement might be true for some older/simpler games but units in modern RTS have different types, sizes, armour and as such are affected differently by various damage types so it's not that simple at all.

But back to KaM - what I really don't like about it at the moment is that it's too random in my opinion. Perhaps bonus damage from "direction" of attack is just too big and it's not about flanking or attacking from behind - if you put two equal groups of soldier and let them fight you can end up in situation where one group gets obliterated and second one have almost no loses.

[WhiteWolf]

I voted for 'other' because i agree with Thunders comment

One thing i'd like to see is the unit stats and health.

[Esthlos]

I by far prefer KaM's fighting mechanics over those of other games.

The randomness also shouldn't actually be a nuisance: on big numbers, randomness becomes linear, thus randomnessshould only really matter during little skirmishes.

(Though, I would like to be able to read about the details and the exact unit stats somewhere... is it possible?)

[Duke Valennius]

Well, i voted for KaM style. I don't mind about randomness or seeing hitpoints. What really annoys me is the fact that there is no way to retreat melee units from battle. Especially when one of your mounted units meets pikemen and all his mates go help him, committing suicide in the process. (this happens to me a lot) Another thing is that archers can actually help fighting melee units (I would think that they would hit their allies in their backs). Anyway, it is still far better than "guided bullets" (like in C&C Generals, or Sins of a Solar Empire, where you can see how bullets steer into their targets and always hit). So yeah, KaM fighting wins by a wide margin, despite two silly flaws.

[Lewin]

(Though, I would like to be able to read about the details and the exact unit stats somewhere... is it possible?)

Humbelum described the fighting system years ago here:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=493

[Esthlos]

(Though, I would like to be able to read about the details and the exact unit stats somewhere... is it possible?)

Humbelum described the fighting system years ago here:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=493

[The Dark Lord]

I was curious the other day, how many of KaM players are fans of KaM fighting mechanics?
I'm polling specifically about units bashing each other, without taking troop control into account.

KaM fighting key points:
- hitpoints are invisible to the player
- damage is highly random (Militia has a chance to kill a Knight)
- few hitpoints (units have 1-4 hp)
- health regeneration
- unit stats are ambiguous (UI does not show attack/defense/hp values)
- attack is highly dependent on angle (hits from behind are x4 powerful)

Classic fighting key points:
- hitpoints bars
- variable damage (each hit guarantees to inflict some damage)
- more hitpoints (units have 50-70hp)
- no health regeneration[/color]
- unit stats are known
- attacks are mostly uniform (hits from behind are same or a bit more powerful)

Which one do you like better?

I just coloured the quoted text to show what I like/don't like/don't really care about. It's obvious that a mixed system would have my preference. About the unit stats not showing in the UI: I can understand that it would make it too cluttered; so what about a special page on kamremake.com with detailed unit/fighting information?

[pawel95]

I think that the biggest point that nearly all players hate is really that you can kill with the cheapest unit, the most expensive one Xd i never noticed that in original kam but propably because i mostly played sp missions where the enemy never scouted with a single unit or so

The important thing is that those randoming only work with a 1vs1 situation. That's the reason why i only scout with at least 2 knights. Thats strange a bit. When a milita is fighting vs one knight, sometimes they fight like for 1 minute and the knigh dies
In a 2vs2 never sth like that happen.
Same with killing bowmen with horses. Sometimes you kill 15 bowmen without a break with one hit per single bowmen. Sometimes a horse needs like 20 sec to kill one single bowman, then i really feel trolled a bit.

However that is normaly never happening when you have 2 knights. They mostly finish ALL bowmen with 1 (2 knightsx1 =2) hits per bowman. Thats what i don't get and like that a bowmen can survive so long Xd

[cmowla]

Without hesitation, I voted KaM fighting.

The fact that KaM's fighting style of fighting is random makes it more unpredictable--that is, more realistic. If KaM was changed at all, we would lose this realistic world which makes KaM different than any other game I have played or seen others play. We can just think of the soldiers who die instantly or a knight who dies by the hand of a militia as "not concentrating", "caught off guard", "exhausted", "overconfident", etc. In real life, obviously these things happen, and even to show the HP bar is pointless, IMO, because the game alternates front-line soldiers in the same group whenever it can (so I don't see how we could save that many soldiers by knowing if they could take just 1 more hit or 10 more hits).

I have always wondered, however, if the reason why soldiers fight to the death once they come close to one another is because, if you were given the ability to stop your soldiers from fighting and pull them away, that the enemy soldiers could technically kill your fleeing soldiers with one hit to the back? In short, is it a defense mechanism?