Collecting possible and usefull battlemodes...

[Magyar Khan]

Im trying to collect possible and usefull battlemodes to enlarge our online game experience.... in the past we had things like king of the hill and some others but altho fun for a while they werent well programmed to have a bigger lifespan....

i think my favourite is the home and away battles for ranked battles.... where a hosted map is played 2 times as defender and attacker and the outcome of both in (kill+routed units) and worth value of them is compared.... and decide who wins the duel....

pros and cons on this.... and lets collect some more

eventually i may do a poll ....

[Major Robert Dump]

I think a built-in engine where you could make typical adjustments/limitations that applied, instead of the old method where you had to state the rules and hoped all abided. I am talking about rules such as certain unit type max; certain unit types only, certain unit types banned etc. You can already choose the amount of koku, this would just be an extension of that. So if I, for some weird reason, wanted to make an Archers only game, I could set it so no one had the choice to even select cav or infantry. I always got a kick out of doing musket or archer only games, then your opponent brings an army full of cav and monks.

[Major Robert Dump]

- I don't know what it would be called a a 2-game battle mode where after the first match the two players auto-swapped armies would be fun.

- I would also like to see a 2v2 or higher where the additional players came in as reinforcements at either a random location or location determined in advance by the individual players. Random locations would prevent players from backing up and spawn-camping their own reinforcement point. Chosen spawns would make for some interesting mobile armies, tug of war battles and creative use of terrain features.

[UglyElmo2]

- I don't know what it would be called a a 2-game battle mode where after the first match the two players auto-swapped armies would be fun.

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Maybe call that a "Mirror Image" game. You are playing the 2nd game as a mirror image of your first, but you are the image of your opponent this time around. :)

ELMO: aka Namer Of All Things Total War


1. I would like to see something similar to a "Zone of Control" game. Similar to the old Company of Heroes games, with several VP points on the map, which give bonuses to your army while you are holding them. I would love to possibly see a mode where you gained points for holding VP zones, which you could use to bring in reinforcement units to replace those already routed earlier. Or maybe have a "Heroe" mode, where you could spend those VP points earned on some bonus such as increased defense or offensive bonuses for those units attached to the "Heroe" unit. I admit the "Arcade-ness" of this type of mode would turn off a portion of the hard-core historical gang, but it still could be a fun alternative for many others. Would appeal to the "console" crowd, and might be the game mode which moves them into the more complex historic mode.

2. Maybe a Coop "Endless Wave" mode, where 2 to 4 players could team up against an endless wave of AI enemy units. Could have a ladder mode which keeps track of how long a team lasts or how many enemy Ai they kill.

3. I might even enjoy playing a "Realtime" MP campaign mode, which played more like an RTS than the regular TW game. You would start out on the big campaign map, owning a faction's normal provinces. You would then purchase buildings which allowed you to build certain units, or increase your koku output, or add to your units' stats. Once these units were produced, you could move into neighboring provinces, and take over more territory, just like the regular SP campaign game, but the campaign map is in realtime. When you move into an adjacent area, you would take it over, but if there was an enemy unit in the province, the game would then immediately bring up the regular battle engine and the battle would be fought. After the battle any remaining partial units would be put in the nearest province and the players could pay to bring them back up to full strength. The won province would now be added to winning team's provinces (with an increase in koku, and any other special benefits the region offers (maybe a +1 to monk units' honor).
The interesting thing about a game like this is it could be done on a grand scale: You could have teams set up to where players could be assigned provinces to control (They would be responsible in governing all aspects of that province). Another player could be the Commander, moving armies across the campaign map. Other players could be assigned individual armies to fight with and that would be their sole responsibility.

This could also be done on a much grander scale and be set up as an MMO-type of MP mode, where the campaign could be ongoing, something similar to the WoW Alliance vs. ???? (Sorry, I don't know much about World Of WarCraft online). :)

I will see if I can use my old STW map and maybe "mock-up" a few examples of what I am speaking of. The "Realtime" mode would definitely interest the console crowd, and if done right, would also be fun for the historic crowd and TW vets.

If CA set something up like this, and did it right, I could see myself finally paying out a monthly fee to play an online game.

[drone]

Maybe a bidding type of tourney, where one player (X) will choose a map and an army value (Y koku), and a number of other players will bid koku anonymously to beat him, bidding based on the Y value and the perceived skill of player X. Lowest bid gets to play first, the winner of the bid-war is either the first player to beat X with his bid, or player X if he beats all bidders. Player X can change his army for each match, but would always be limited to Y koku.

To make it continuous, have the bid-war winner become player X for the next round of bids.

Edit-> To make it more interesting, you could also substitute "player X" for "clan X" in 2v2, 3v3, or 4v4. Bragging rights galore.

Edit 2-> The more I think about it, the more this is better suited to a sponsored tourney, rather than a battlemode per se. Take in a certain number of player entries, set a number of rounds to play, randomly select an entry to be player X first, and the entry with the most wins after all the rounds are played wins the tourney.

[Gregoshi]

How about a "blind" match? You cannot identify your opponent's units until they engage in combat. The enemy units appear as some kind of generic block figure or all the units in your army appear as a particular type of unit of your choosing until their actual unit types are revealed via combat. Missile units would have to fire before being revealed and melee units would have to engage in h2h combat. You would have to carefully observe your opponent's army to guess the type of units they are using while you would have to try to not give away clues about your units as you move/position your army.

Another idea: a set of 2 or more games with a designated koku value to spend for the whole set. Units that survive first game are available for the second game - but only with the number of warriors the unit had at the end of the game. However, these units would get an increase in honour due to their veteran status. Remaining koku not spent in the previous games of the set can be used to purchase replacement units for the next game. Routed units could either be discarded or return for the next battle with a decrease in honour to reflect that they fled the previous battle. Like in the SP campaign, partial units could be combined to create full units or koku could be spent to fill up the ranks with replacements. In addition to the skill of fighting the battle, you would have to consider how much koku to ration for the later battles. I'm not sure what would be a fair way to determine the winner of these "mini" campaigns though.

[drone]

Another idea: a set of 2 or more games with a designated koku value to spend for the whole set. Units that survive first game are available for the second game - but only with the number of warriors the unit had at the end of the game. However, these units would get an increase in honour due to their veteran status. Remaining koku not spent in the previous games of the set can be used to purchase replacement units for the next game. Routed units could either be discarded or return for the next battle with a decrease in honour to reflect that they fled the previous battle. Like in the SP campaign, partial units could be combined to create full units or koku could be spent to fill up the ranks with replacements. In addition to the skill of fighting the battle, you would have to consider how much koku to ration for the later battles. I'm not sure what would be a fair way to determine the winner of these "mini" campaigns though.

Another good one, I like the mind games involved. "How much will the other guy spend for the first match?", "Can I skimp, and sell a lesser army dearly for a later advantage?". The only problem I see is with players spending max on the first round, you might end up with a steamroller effect with already upgraded units plowing through a lesser army and then valouring up. The decrease in total value (dead bodies) to the loser plus the "free" valour of the winner might be too much to overcome.

TW variants of liar's poker or blind man's bluff should be awesome.

[Gregoshi]

The only problem I see is with players spending max on the first round, you might end up with a steamroller effect with already upgraded units plowing through a lesser army and then valouring up.

If a player blows the whole wad for a mega-army on the first game, his whole hand is revealed. And, as it is a series of games, the mega-army player has no koku to replace lost units. The other player can purchase units to more effectively counter that army and also play a game of attrition to whittle down the mega-army over the series of games in the set. I guess the method of determining the final victor might affect how this type of game is played. Another thought would be to set a limit as to how much of your koku you can spend on any one game.

[Magyar Khan]

i read some good and some terrible ideas :o) lets hope CA dont use the terrible ones and state they have listenend to us :o)

another idea used in fun chess games is that u get the units u annilated as reinforcmenst at your own site....

so make a map with some victorypoints, start early in the morning (gameclock), battle with your army vs opponent and every unit u slaughter from him side is immediatly appearing as reinforcements on your side..... and lets say 1 hour gameclock = 5-10 minutes in the game.... every gamehour Vpoinst are accumulated and after about 8 hours (40-80) minutes the player with highest VP points has won..... altho in real the victor will be earlier decided i think.....

what u think about this?

[Magyar Khan]

since i see much debate about usefull mpas in teh forum i think a battlemode with home and away ( both sides play as defender and attacker and server calculates overall winner) gives much more maps a meaning./.....

[UglyElmo2]

I would like to see a free-for-all mode where up to 8 players could fight against each other. My main reason for wanting this is it could make for an interesting player-run campaign mode. Let me explain using the old map I had for the MP STW campaign I had way back when:



Sorry about the pic size, can any of the mods/admins show me how to resize the pic to make it easier on people who want to read this post? Thanks


I believe a campaign might be feasible, where every player (or clan) is assigned one or two provinces on the map. Each player gets 10,000 koku (or whatever is the most popular amount for the community) per province, so the more provinces you own, the larger and better quality armies you can field on the campaign map per turn. A free-for-all mode would allow for multiple players to attack the same province in a single turn. These multiple players could agree to team-up with each other, (and thus divide the koku amongst themselves after the battle) or one player/team could bribe another with koku before/after the match, or give the province to the other, for the province koku (10,000 lets say) for a specific number of turns. Lots of negotiations could go on, before, after and during a match. Of course, everyone could backstab each other and not divide the koku (in the case of bribes), or a team/player could instead of trying to gain new territory each turn, instead bide his time and save up koku to make a push later on in the game. Well enough of that since I haven't worked out the details. I wanted to use this as an explanation why I think a free-for-all mode would be good.

PS: I also made another MTW map, but never played out a campaign with it, due to the battle maps not being representative of the provinces on the campaign map, but only generic names like HillyInland2 etc . . .: Which is another reason I would like to see the return of one battle map named for each province, or Magy's idea of a pick your area of the campaign map and use it for MP battles. Either would work well.

Here is the other MP map I made for MTW:

[Magyar Khan]

such could be simpler

use this....

every player that wants to attack a province state this and decides what maprates goes with the certain map (lets say totomi = 95%)

the defender decides if he wants to attack with 10000 koku (if thats the value thats considered best fitting the gameplay) or defend witrh 9500

and for example: if u attack 2 vs 1 than u play 2*5000 vs 9500 in the theory that being able to mix between quantity and quality and played with more players is an advantage....

and if u own certain provinces u get access to certain units, example if u have 3 temples u can field three monk units and so on....

simple and effective....


used in a later online campaign we hosted... i remember eliteOFgazoz supporting the maprate solution a lot in which i think it solves many problems with maps..... castles and bridges were even fun with mapratings along 50%
mapratings also allow u to base it on experience or by lot of training.....

[UglyElmo2]

Sounds like a good idea Magy. Though it might be problematic to come up with the proper rating for each map. Though as long as it was the same rating for everyone who played that map, then it wouldn't matter much in the long run.

[Swoosh So]

Nice maps elmo, nice to see the shogun provinces all listed again, btw nip onto ntw some night so me and amp can (beat you up) erm play some 3v3s with u.

[Magyar Khan]

elmo its either experience or some training to get a maprating which each attacker should deliver to teh defender...... u wanna attack?.... OK then give me a maprating for that map.....

dont we have access to some programmer who can make this webbased?

[Magyar Khan]

elmo i read that u dont get the point :o) just attacker decides about maprating if its in turn 1 too low than adjust it for next turn... and defender decide if he plays defender or attacker

[UglyElmo2]

I see now Magy. So the map-rating will fluctuate (move up and down) until enough games have been played on it and we can see an average. :)

Swoosh: I have never played NTW MP, or even the SP campaign. I won't know what to do, which means I won't have picked up all my bad playing habits, which means I might just accidentally beat you both. I'm just thinking of your mental well-being. hehe

PS: If I am on this weekend I will let you guys show me the ropes.

[AMP]

As for battlemodes I'd like to see somewhat hilly/wooded maps played on with playing attacker and defender each once and the winner is decided by kill/loss worth. A lot of people are playing flat map in NTW... like saying other maps are to unbalanced when defending or something, but when they do defend on them I've seem them still lose cause they don't know what to do with the terrain. :D

We really don't need any other battle modes because what we have right now still needs to be tweaked before we do something else.

We have a MP campaign right now, but it's only 1v1 and you start with so much stuff or high ranked units etc... I would like a STW2 MP campaign to be atleast 4players free for all or 2v2 and work myself up from almost nothing (1 or 2 lands and unranked units ).

[Swoosh So]

Elmo just run your army into people and die! your the master at it :) amp and me will mop up the rest.

[UglyElmo2]

Elmo just run your army into people and die! your the master at it :) amp and me will mop up the rest.

Yup. Everyone learned to fear my mad, suicidal rushes into their front lines. :) Nobody could get their army routed faster than myself. I also became the Master of keeping the last, sole-surviving unit alive until the end as well. I had lots of practice at it. hehe

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Oh come on Elmo, your death armies would be no match for Warman's Death Field on RTW and ETW! I gotta get a new one for NTW.