Starting next Monday, we begin work internally on the Elemental combat system.  It won’t see the light of day for months (tactical combat part anyway).  But this is the place to discuss how you would like it to work.

Right now, a unit has Attack, Defense, Hitpoints, and speed.  It’s very straight forward. When in battle, other factors come into play too (range of attack, height, and cover).

But obviously there are a lot of other factors that could be looked at.  Blunt weapons vs. Cutting weapons for instance.  My personal inclination is to stay away from damage types because they add a lot of complexity without really giving back a lot of fun (in my opinion).  I’m sure there are those who will disagree but we’ll have to agree to disagree there and perhaps damage types can be made something available to modders later.

I would like to see experience be used more than as simply a modifier to attack and defense and HP.  I don’t mean when you train your units (which gives them more HP) but I mean real combat experience causing them to simply be better at combat but we have not yet come up with a way to convey this well in the game.

I would also like to see Mobility be taken into effect somehow in combat.  The Mongols conquered much of the known world because they were strictly a mobile army that could easily outflank their infantry-heavy opponents. How to convey this to players is again, a challenge that would have to be dealt with.

What would you guys like to see?