[Gameplay Suggestion] Add Terrain Combat Modifiers to the Game

  • Terrain has played crucial roles in nearly every conflict in human history, with the Great War showcasing this in a variety of ways since it encompassed many theaters, and thus many different areas with differing terrain. Fighting on the Italian Front was very different than that of the Eastern Front, or the Western Front, or in the Middle East. Terrain was key in shaping tactics in these areas. It would be a great improvement if Supremacy 1914 included this feature in the game.


    Although visual terrain features on the map could be added, I will mainly focus on the gameplay implications of this feature.


    Each province tile could have an assigned terrain value, such as dense forests, open plains, hills, mountains, etc. Each terrain type would have different effects on combat. For example, open plains would give a positive combat modifier for cavalry, armored cars, and tanks, while mountainous terrain would give a negative modifier to those units. Terrain could also give a general positive or negative modifier to attack or defense; it's easier to defend in the mountains than it is to attack into them.


    In terms of game strategy, terrain would make players consider the value of certain provinces. For example, one might face the decision of having to reinforce a sparsely-manned mountain province to create a chokepoint against the enemy, or fall back to regroup while allowing the enemy to occupy it.


    Likewise, it would also play a role in army composition. Playing as Germany, do you decide to invest in artillery and infantry to fight in the forested western regions, or dedicate your industry to tank and armored car production for use in the open east?


    This could be extended onto the sea regions of the map as well, although it'd have to be handled much differently.

    "My center is giving way, my right is in retreat; situation excellent. I shall attack." - French Marshal Ferdinand Foch

  • I have heard this idea before. I do like it but fear it might make the game also very complex for starters to join. But you are right terrain has been a key factor in the war. I lived near Ypres the hill lands to the south of it and those few hills were the difference between being able to target the city or not. As those few meters higher made your artillery bullet also fly a few meters higher + you could observe the enemy from there.

    Anyway could you think out which terrain types you'd add, and how you'd make your army work, can you then assign an army additional training in a terrain type? like you always have normal units but when stationed in a city with a barrack you can train them to be mountain units, forest units, ...? Or how would it work?



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    NarmerTheLion
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  • Quote

    Anyway could you think out which terrain types you'd add, and how you'd make your army work, can you then assign an army additional training in a terrain type? like you always have normal units but when stationed in a city with a barrack you can train them to be mountain units, forest units, ...? Or how would it work?




    Well you could easily take the example from different Bytro Labs (your CEO) game - Call Of War.

    That game has a terrain modifiers. For ground you have 4 different types of terrain - Mountains, Plains, Hills, Urban (for cities, but it won't work in Supremacy as in this game here are no cities). If we watch this from Logic perspective, then obviously armored units would be better in flat surface (plains or hills) than in Mountain or Urban territories, so if that is a possibility, then armored units would have +25% strength bonus for flat surface (plains) and -25 or -50% for Mountains.


    I made an example of the Interface who shows what kind of terrain is in the region. For this example - Plains.

    3aDLCvy.png


  • Anyway could you think out which terrain types you'd add, and how you'd make your army work, can you then assign an army additional training in a terrain type? like you always have normal units but when stationed in a city with a barrack you can train them to be mountain units, forest units, ...? Or how would it work?

    I think five terrain types would be a good start: forest, hills, plains, desert, and mountains.


    Units could maybe adapt to terrain the more the fight in it, which would be tracked per regiment. So if you have infantry repeatedly fighting in the Alps, their adaptation value for that terrain would increase, and they could become crack mountaineer troops who are experts in that terrain (combat bonus) while still remaining an infantry unit. Otherwise I think you would need to add specialist units in addition to the base infantry, like mountaineers, which I personally think would be too inflexible for the game.


    Keeping in mind new players, I personally like the adaptation method better, since it doesn't require you to micromanage individual types of specialist units and the issues that go along with it (oh, I've captured the mountains and am now fighting in the forests, guess my mountaineers are on retirement).

    "My center is giving way, my right is in retreat; situation excellent. I shall attack." - French Marshal Ferdinand Foch

  • I think five terrain types would be a good start: forest, hills, plains, desert, and mountains.


    Units could maybe adapt to terrain the more the fight in it, which would be tracked per regiment. So if you have infantry repeatedly fighting in the Alps, their adaptation value for that terrain would increase, and they could become crack mountaineer troops who are experts in that terrain (combat bonus) while still remaining an infantry unit. Otherwise I think you would need to add specialist units in addition to the base infantry, like mountaineers, which I personally think would be too inflexible for the game.


    Keeping in mind new players, I personally like the adaptation method better, since it doesn't require you to micromanage individual types of specialist units and the issues that go along with it (oh, I've captured the mountains and am now fighting in the forests, guess my mountaineers are on retirement).

    Could also be connected tot he province they originate in. That way e.g. the swiss army is always better in the mountains because at home they trained in it. And by default the units are best trained to defend their province.


    CoW indeed has terrain I would however like to stress I'm a volunteer and am not connected to the CEO of bytro. I do however also like to make the discussion on how it would work in supremacy which is set to another timezone. We work on the same core system as CoW which means the CoW system would rather easily be able to be implemented for Supremacy1914. Yet I always like the games to, even though inspired by the others, be unique in their own ways

    NarmerTheLion
    ex - EN Senior Moderator


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  • Could also be connected tot he province they originate in. That way e.g. the swiss army is always better in the mountains because at home they trained in it. And by default the units are best trained to defend their province.

    this could be really nice tho

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HA8kSdsf_M


    Soldiers! don't give yourselves to brutes

    men who despise you, enslave you

    who regiment your lives, tell you what to do

    what to think and what to feel!

    Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle,

    use you as cannon fodder.

    Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men

    machine men with machine minds and machine hearts!

  • I think that, to not making too complex and for a start, the terrain should be related with troop's speed and fog of war features and reduce the options to forest, plains and mountains. In that sense, artilleries and tanks would have its speed halved in mountains, so the infantry and Armored Cars in forests (Cavalry would be esentially inmune to those terrains). Besides, troops in mountains will have their sight doubled but halved in forest.

    Demonaire
    ES. EN & PT Game Operator

    Bytro Labs | Supremacy 1914


    b78//+

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  • I think that, to not making too complex and for a start, the terrain should be related with troop's speed and fog of war features and reduce the options to forest, plains and mountains. In that sense, artilleries and tanks would have its speed halved in mountains, so the infantry and Armored Cars in forests (Cavalry would be esentially inmune to those terrains). Besides, troops in mountains will have their sight doubled but halved in forest.

    I like the idea of making it effect other stuff then strength that has minimal effects on the game balance

    NarmerTheLion
    ex - EN Senior Moderator


    Questions about the game? Have a look at the manual and the FAQ's.

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    Have an idea for the game? Check the BigList.