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The Advanced Rules of my game has mechanics which improve Defender's Advantage. The Simplified Rules do not allow researching any abilities your units don't start with. Currently, "Rolling Retreat" is a researched ability which is necessary in advanced rules, but seems too 'expert level" to be in simplified rules.
What do you suppose I should do about this for Simplified Rules? Without Rolling Retreat, I'm afraid Sword Man will own the early game, and Light "Cavalry will get a Free Win in the middle game.
Updates
11 mo
I'm pretty sure the solution is to just not worry about balancing simplified rules too much. After all, White usually wins in Chess just because they go first. It may be as simple as that. This is part of the reason the LOWEST ranked player always goes first in my game.
Updates
11 mo
musketeers are very hard to defeat when they are defending Forested Terrain. They don't get any penalties when attacking, moving, or defending in forest. The only real way to beat a party of Musketeers on forested Terrain is to light a Fire and burn them out. Troops caught standing on a burnign square take 25 damage at the beginning of their owner's first step of their turn. Forest burns for two turns after being ignited.
AI Opinion
It's an interesting dilemma! Balancing a turn-based strategy game is always a tough nut to crack, especially when you have to cater to both advanced and simplified rule sets. Without the Defender's Advantage in Simplified Rules, it's plausible that the gameplay might lean too heavily towards the aggressors, leading to less strategic diversity and possibly a less enjoyable experience.
One approach could be to introduce a simpler version of the Defender's Advantage that doesn't require researching. Maybe some innate defensive bonuses for units or terrain-based advantages that are easy to remember and implement. This way, it preserves the balance without overwhelming new players with too much complexity.
For example, you could give defending units a slight boost in defense stats or decreased damage taken if they're attacked in certain terrains like forests or hills. This maintains the strategic depth without complicating the simplified rules too much. 🌲🏔️
Incorporating some form of these elements can ensure that players still find value in defensive strategies and don't always lean towards aggressive tactics, providing a richer and more balanced gameplay experience.
I could allow Attacks of Opportunity in Simplified Rules, but then that has the opposite problem of making attacking too hard for noobs to manage. This is a very delicate dilemma. Mounted Archers or Pikemen are needed to fight Light cavalry, but then Standard Archers and/or Cannons are the best way to fight Mounted Archers other than maybe a undetected Rogue. The Rogue is fine in simplified rules, even though she is very much "nerfed". Mounted Archers are supposed to beat Lighth Cavalry in Advanced Rules, but without Rolling Retreat they will get stomped by Light Cavalry in Simplified Rules. Pike beats all cavalry, but Pikement are mostly defensive unit, since they can't run as fast as cavalry.
Be advised, my game has a Match Maker Ranking system, and the lowest ranked player always goes first, so even if going first is a big advantage, that might not be "unfair" in a tournament, since a better player can probably play "from behind".
Attacks of Opportunity and Rolling Retreat are necessary defender's advantages in Advanced Rules, because the Active Player, being an expert, can do some pretty nasty stuff on offense which is difficult or impossible to stop without these abilities.
I already have a 25% forested Terrain damage reduction for defending units in both rule sets. thanks for the suggestion though. Musketeers and Rogues damage is not reduced by forested terrain though.
For reference, Rolling Retreat is a cool down ability which recharges once every 5 turns. Depending on whaat is happening on the battlefield, you may use it ASAp if needed, or you can save your charge until it is needed again later.
Rolling Retreat is a Disrupt ability and can be activated at the end of your opponent's pre-combat movement step. It allows your units to run away by 2 spaces, then turn and take one Attack of Opportunity against an advancing enemy army. This allows Archers, Mounted Archers and Rogues to use "hit and run" tactics to fight units with much higher hit point totals than themselves. If you have a Knight or Rogue mounted on a War Horse, they get to move 3 spaces with Rolling Retreat instead of just two.
The way this works, is the Active player declares Pre-combat movement during the appropriate step. The defending player may activate Rolling Retreat and declare Attacks of Opportunity at the end of the Active Players pre-combat movement step. Then Rolling Retreat and Attacks of Opportunity resolve. You should probably focus fire Attacks of Opportunity to kill some attackers before they even manage to get an attack.
Nect, active battle starts. The Active player declares which units are attack which during each Mini-Round of a Mini-battle, then the defending player declares attackers. if the defender is losing and stil has any Rolling Retreat charges remainng, those units can still use Rolling Retreat to flee the battle. Units which don't have Rolling Retreat may NOT flee. they have no choice but ot fight to the death.
Once you lose a few control groups worth of army, if you have not managed to do a similar amount of damage to your opponent, you should probably just concede and say "Good game". It's bad manners to troll by unnecessarily extending a game in an obviously defeated condition. However, the losing player has a right to demand the attacker win by annihilation, it's just usually bad manners and a waste of both players' time.
Advanced Rules for Rogues and Knights are intended to simulate "Geneva Convention".
A Rogue may not attack another Rogue nor a Balloon.
A Rogue may not use Subdue on an enemy Knight, since the Knight is a Hero and Royalty. The Rogue may assassinate an enemy Knight if he does not have detection, but the knight gets to try to run away if he has access to Rolling Retreat.
A Rogue may Subdue isolated enemy units once per 7 rounds. A subdued unit can then be robbed for 100 gold from your opponent's bank, and then assassinated.
A Rogue in Advanced Rules also gets to activate Non-Detection once every 7 rounds. This ability makes the rogue totally undetectable until the next Cleanup step. The most likely uses of this is to either run away from a battle, or help assassinate one more enemy unit before the end of your turn.
Rogues can see one another even though they cannot attack one another. Balloons and scout towers can also see rogues. Killing an enemy rogue usually requires a multi-pronged attack from 2 or more units cornering her.
Another solution is to allow some abilities to be researched in simplified rules, just not the most devastating ones.
For example, Torch might be allowed to be researched, since it's necessary to attack early forts, but Spin Cut might be banned in simplified rules, because it's way, way too hard for noobs to defend against. Just 3 Sword Man using spin cut on your worker line will kill all 30 workers at your Gold Mine. That's GG right there even when experts play. Stopping an early Sword Man all-in will require good defense. There are at least two ways to stop it in advanced rules but without spin cut they aren't as devastating anyway.
In simplified rules, I could ban the Rogue's Subdue, Chivalry, and Non-Detection, but allow Rolling Retreat maybe?
I think Simplified Rules gains will last about 25 to 30 minutes before someone gains an advantage. advanced rules games are targeted to last about 45 minutes before a winner will usually be decided. Before a "Metagame" evolves, even advanced games will be short, because people won't yet know how to stop an all-in. Once a "metagame" evolves, advanced rules games wil probably end in a stalemate half or more of the time.
Okay, I figured out mounted Archers need a range nerf to 4 attack range and no range upgrade available if I want them to have the Rolling Retreat ability. Before, I had them upgrade to 6 attack range, which is too high. It makes it too easy for them to focus fire Light cavalry and other units. So with max range 4, they'd actually NEED Rolling Retreat to trade 50/50 with Light Cavalry. I want Light cavalry to beat Mounted Archers if for some reason the guy has not hyet researched rolling retreat. If the mounted archers player has rolling retreat then the mounted archers should just barely beat light cavalry cost for cost.
On the other hand, infantry Archers NEED a range upgrade to 7 to stand much chance at defending against either type fo Cavalry, unless you plan on massing Pike the entire game, which wouldn't allow you to take middle, it would just prevent cavalry from raiding your base non-stop. Even with Range seven, infantry archers will need support from Walls and static defenses to hold against a balanced cavalry army.
i think I've figured out how to balance the Rogue's stealth abilities for combat.
If there is no enemy detector, the Rogue can stay in Stealth Mode for her Attack of Opportunity on Defense and for the first round of actual battle on defense. If she engages in rounds beyond first round battle on either offense or defense, she is require to deactivate her "Stealth.
Non-Detection is automatically lost if the Rogue attacks while using it. Non-Detection has a 7 round cooldown and only protect the Rogue for less than one entire turn, so it i very rare to actually use anyway.
Subdue also has a 7 round cooldown so is very rare to use.
Steal may be used every turn if possible. Steal can eventually lead to a "Diplomatic Victory" by making it impossible for your opponent to Bank money. So even on 3 base vs 3 base economy, if you manage to start robbing your opponent's bases, they can't bank money for a "remax". ON the other hand, you can steal up to 500 Gold per turn with 5 rogues working together, which means you can remax that much faster if necessary.
If for some reason you are forced to "pull" and run away with your workers in the early game skirmishes, and your workers are off Gold Mining for more than 2 turns, you should probably go ahead and concede defeat. it is unlikely you can recover from being behind by more than 600 gold and trapped on one base economy. After all, if you fall behind by 300 gold, your opponent may as well expand. If you fall behind by 600 or more gold, your opponent may as well fast tech to an Arsenal and start cannon production right away. You won't be able to stop him anyway.