Wargame Balancing.

[twztdwndpipe]

Me and a friend have decided to take wargaming (personal wargaming) to a different level.

Each race would have basic units. Right now, I'm just asking about infantry. From there, they would be able to upgrade each unit accordingly. You'd "Build" your unit differently. Different Armor, Different Weapons, Different Tech all that. They'd have different slots along with different bonuses. Now, on to what I'm actually asking.

Cost
Health
Attack (dmg)
Armor
Evasion
Hit
Movement
Range

Those are our stats for each unit. Every unit will use that exact set up.

This war game is not one where you assemble a team of units that equal a set amount of points. You can have a huge team vs one or two units in a battle. Theres more to it than this, I'm just asking about Balance.

Heres our formula for how battle works.

Attack - (enemy) Armor = Damage to health

Roll (%Die) + Hit - (enemy) Evasion = Hit or Miss

Our humans are our Basic, Most Balanced and Average team. Their Hit and Evasion is 50/50.

Now what I ask you, since the only rolls are percentage rolls, How could we make a fight between two humans equal.
How could I level the Health, Attack, and Armor.
Also, keep in mind that later Equipment will change their stats. I don't want one hit kills, since there won't really be that many units on the field. I also wouldn't want a 20 min battle between two units. Any proposals?

-Will

[zmobie]

play other wargames rulesets. Play some Warmachine, some 40k, figure out how those games do it. You can't reinvent the wheel without knowing what the wheel is. I wish you luck!

[Vulpinoid]

I'd also throw the wargame Confrontation (the early versions) into the mix. That had a great system to it.

As well as things like Necromunda/Mordheim, which took the Games Workshop/Warhammer idiom and made it something quite different.

On the whole though, Zmobie's got the right idea.

Look at what's out there and what you think your game can do better.

Once you can come up with a point of difference (a good point of difference rather than a bad one), you're on your way to something cool...

V

[twztdwndpipe]

I was really hoping to stay away from other mechanics. I just wanted the war aspect to be decently easy and quick. One roll fights without constant modifiers. Nothing to suggest. I guess I'll need to just figure out a good balance.

[Vulpinoid]

OK.

Question 1: What benefit do you see in using percentile dice versus just using a d20...or even a d6?

Question 2: What benefit do you see in breaking up the attack into a hit roll and a damage roll?

Are you just doing these because "that's the way it's done"...or is there something more to it?

Second things to consider (here's the bit where I give some answers rather than just asking more questions)...skirmish level miniatures games usually have a few character each with hit points that have to be removed before the figure gets eliminated, but as a character takes more damage it's combat abilities diminish...unit level miniatures games usually have heaps of characters assembled into units/squads/platoons. In unit level games, squad lose figures in much the same way that characters lose hit points in the smaller games, as the squads get smaller, their combat abilities diminish.

It looks like you're aiming toward a skirmish level game with the intentions you've stated.

You can run some quick statistical analysis using the pattern you've already suggested, running through a couple of simulations for simply bludgeoning an opponent to death through numerous small wounds, versus killing them outright with lethal strikes.

From this point though, tell us a bit more about the direction you'd like to take your wargame.

How do you want to "take it to a different level"?

V

[twztdwndpipe]

Okay, This is how I had it. I was trying to keep it under wraps for a moment.

Risk meets WarGaming.
If you've ever played the Dawn of War video game, its basically the campaign idea. Each player gets resources from their controlled areas. From there they buy units, from there, they attack other players for desired territory. That is my difference. Other than that, depending on controlled areas, you'd be able to use Global abilities, which effect the global map, (risk style map) and Battlefield abilities, which effect, of course, the battle field.


When a unit attacks another unit, there would only be one roll. Hit or miss. The amount of damage is a simple calculation. No rolling involved.

Using a percentile die seems like it would be easier. Instead of constant calculations, either you reach the mark or you don't, the marks being 10, 20, etc. Instead of 1,2,3,etc.

I want the game to be fairly simple to play. I'd rather stay away from a ton of mechanics, so the actual battle and tactics take their effect. Were going to be using a program to play so we can even have fog of war. Making the battles more tactical than just "I've got more units."

[Vulpinoid]

I only ask because I'm playing with something similar here.

I've been wrapping my head around simple mechanics that will allow 20 or more players to interact wargame style on a single board (while tying this into a roleplaying game).

Specific heroes lead troops across a citywide map, picking up new toys/allies/powers along the way. They literally have to travel across the board to pick up new troops because the city has limited resources. But they need to secure locations as well. It's a tough mix.

It interesting to see how someone else is developing their ideas.

V

[Simons]

First off, a board game equivalent of a real-time strategy game sounds like it has the potential to be a lot of fun.  Especially if done right.  

If you are going for Risk meets Wargames, three other titles I'd throw out there are Axis & Allies (more the Risk side), Mighty Empires (sort of in the middle), and Epic (more the wargame, but on a massive scale).  

From you're description I'm not quite sure if it's going to be a larger scale wargame, or if it will only involve a handful of units (though I think the former).  If that's the case, here are one or two pieces of advice:

-First, in most wargames, I've found that unless the unit is a big deal, often it only has 1 hit point.  Some games, every character is a big deal, which is fine for small enough games.  However, if every little goblin will need 3 hits from a sword to be killed, and you have of 40 of them (in addition to all of your other monsters), keeping track of it all can be a bit overwhelming.  

-Second, there is probably no one-size-fits-all best way of rolling dice, but if you plan on rolling a lot of them, any roll which requires two dice is perhaps not the best of ideas.  My reasoning: you can only roll one at a time.  Again, if you have 20 goblins, it is much easier to throw 20d6 (or even 20d20) across the table all at once, instead of make individual d100 rolls (or 2d6 added together, etc).  

Of course, both of these are assuming it is a board game.  When you say, "Were going to be using a program to play so we can even have fog of war," do you mean this will be a computer game?  If so, feel free to ignore both of these pieces of advice.  But if that's the case, why are you worried about mechanics being complicated?  Couldn't all that be done by the processor in an instant?

Also, there are ways of putting fog of war into a board game.  If you're interested, http://www.bgdf.com/node/1058.  

Simon

[chance.thirteen]

For literal balance I would do the following:

Figure your costs for Attack. Defense costs the same as Attack.

Whatever your base % to succeed in an attack, +Hit multiplies cost of Attack by the ratio of increased chance to hit.
Example: if you hit 50% of the time, and they get +10% hit, Attack costs +20%, because +10% hit is 20% of the base 50% chance.

Whatever your % to MISS an attack (100% - the base chance to hit) additional Evasion alters the cost of Armor in a ratio to the increase chance to be missed.
Example: If you have the above base 50% chance to hit, you also have a base 50% chance to miss. So +15% evasion would be 15/50 to +30% cost to Armor.

Consideration: if most of your attacks do some common range, like say 3 damage, you may want to base the cost of Evasion on the value of the typical Attack avoided, instead of their own armor value. Or take the higher cost of the two.
Exxample: In a design where most troops do 3 Attack, and 3 costs for example 30 build balance points, going from 50% chance to miss to 70% chance to miss is a 20/50 gain in Evasion, or +40%, so the value would either be +40% of the average attack, or +12 build points, or +40% of the Armor cost, if the Armor was 4 or higher.

Health is essentially ablative armor. I would relate the cost of health to a ffraction of the cost of Armor, with an eye on how many rounds of damage you expect them to survive.

Range cost I would base on how many turns of free attacks the person could expect to get before being engaged, compared to how many rounds of damage a unit can typically take.

Likewise, you could base Movement on a set amount, then charge for differences, again with an eye on how much faster they are than a standard unit.


The whole idea there is bascially the same budget units on average will kill one another, so it falls out to the dice rolls, tactics, and superior units.