Age of Strategy Forums

Since I started playing I've been bothered by a few things about how ranged weapons works

Ranged weapons can freely hit across walls and mountains making some walls useless if not dangerous without the chance to pass through (If I am human and I build walls my melee units inside are targets for every enemy archer and ranged units from the outside are free to hit my units and are protected by my own walls from my melee units' attacks).

The other thing that bothered me is the fact that elves should be the best at archery but not in the way they should. We have put in techs to increase elven minimum damage and that will probably finally make them the best archers but the real thing that should is one: accuracy.

If anyone has aver used a bow in its life will know that using a bow needs 2 main things: Accuracy and Strength

We have been taught by many games that bows rely on dexterity alone but that is false. To tend a bow you need a lot of strength and a bow that is hard to tend (and thus requires more strength) can hit farther targets.

What should then make elves the best at hitting, provided the fact that they are definitely not as physically string as an orc or a dwarf?

The answer is accuracy. You can shoot as far as you want but to hit a very far target you need to be extremely accurate.

So my proposal is to give all ranged a progressive loss in precision with range that might be increased by the presence of walls in the way.

Units like elven archers would be less affected by that effect and might be 100% accurate in attack range -1 while other units might have a more sensible drop in accuracy from attack range -2 or -3 (e.g. uruk archers are strong and can shot very far and hard but might have a more drastical loss of precision than elven archers)

Throwers, on the other hand, reach shorter ranges and might be less affected byt the range but still would have a bigger loss if trying to hit across a wall (try sending a javellin or an axe over a wall).

This way we might differentiate even more units one from the other and give a more realistic approach to walls and ranged weapons.

In technical words I would add some new specifications:

"minimumRangeGuaranteedHit" (a straight number that is the range where a unit doesn't loose precision)
"accuracyLossWithRange" (how much accuracy you loose for every tile over the "minimumRangeGuaranteedHit)
"accuracyLoosOverWalls" (how much accuracy you loose for every wall tiles between you and your target)

Tell me what you think

Me like.
Great potential in more realistic game play with obstacles and distances and opens new ranged strategies.

I completely agree with the range related accuracy part. Elves have full accuracy at range -1, humans at range -2, and orcs at range -3 I'd say.

Walls must assume the path with the fewest obstacles is chosen, however.

The path should be straight (as it is the path of projectiles on long distances).

I think that there are equations to calculate the range.

It would be nice a layout with the % of hitting a target tough

More to the point with walls. Assuming two calculations for range have equal distance (for example, range 2 at a diagonal) where one way has a wall and the other does not, assume the direction with no or fewer walls.

Also, id suggest a standard 20% penalty per tile over the perfect accuracy distance. This is enough to hurt elf accuracy noticeably at max, but small enough to still allow orcs a chance to hit at max range. Another 20% penalty per wall should be appropriate.

About the path maybe I'm just loosing some details but Once I check decide the target isn't there only a straight path to hit him? Arrows don't curve horizzontally

aside the wall part the idea is good in general.
but for the game it would be too complex, i suggested to "compress" all of these values into the power value.
so an inaccurate unit have smaller power, a weaker unit have smaller power and so on.

wall: i think an archer can shoot over walls as good as without walls, like in AOK there is no penalty over walls. That is another thing that we can have walls being able to be "entered" by units if we want to simulate wall-protected unit, but that is a different topic somewhere

Stratego (dev) wrote: ↑Tue Sep 04, 2018 3:35 pm aside the wall part the idea is good in general.
but for the game it would be too complex, i suggested to "compress" all of these values into the power value.
so an inaccurate unit have smaller power, a weaker unit have smaller power and so on.

wall: i think an archer can shoot over walls as good as without walls, like in AOK there is no penalty over walls. That is another thing that we can have walls being able to be "entered" by units if we want to simulate wall-protected unit, but that is a different topic somewhere

I believe it is. We were talking about allowing every unit the ability to go into walls but through the gate or alternate route e.g. Ladder. The gate would have been garissonable so you could get units with move 1 through.

What are you talking about Dev, you can't be as accurate if you can't really see your target behind a wall, a penalty is needed along with objects.
Example: you can't shoot through a fortress to hit a target behind it and you can't curve you arrow.
Realistically speaking you should have 0% chance to hit your target behind really tall objects/buildings( excluding walls )

Walls should have higher penalty imo

I like this and will look how this will be changed in the end.

Tankhead wrote: ↑Tue Sep 04, 2018 4:57 pm What are you talking about Dev, you can't be as accurate if you can't really see your target behind a wall, a penalty is needed along with objects.
Example: you can't shoot through a fortress to hit a target behind it and you can't curve you arrow.
Realistically speaking you should have 0% chance to hit your target behind really tall objects/buildings( excluding walls )

Walls should have higher penalty imo

I totally agree.

The wall part is the most important imho

Only archers standing ON top of walls can b targeted in a real war scenario, also high walls affect the range and power of attacker archers, weakening them

godOfKings wrote: ↑Tue Sep 04, 2018 7:33 pm Only archers standing ON top of walls can b targeted in a real war scenario, also high walls affect the range and power of attacker archers, weakening them

Exactly

Alright, since the word of the dev has spoken, let us assume that because this is a fantasy setting, it is a relatively simple spell to scry a nearby area, allowing you to look even past a wall with some kind of scrying mirror as a bow sight and see where your arrow will land at any firing arc. Might be difficult to get used to, but in the end you'd have accuracy like a modern gun with a scope.

So technically speaking you want to drop all logic on how walls work for the sake of a game mechanic......

It is unfortunate, but if Daniel says it won't happen with a valid reason we either give an option to fix the problem he has with it or work with his statement. Since I see no way around the statement that the idea is too complex for the game (which still is rather simple and easy to understand despite the many units and abilities) then I'm merely suggesting options on how the current setup could be phrased to make sense.

Sunrise Samurai wrote: ↑Wed Sep 05, 2018 2:39 am It is unfortunate, but if Daniel says it won't happen with a valid reason we either give an option to fix the problem he has with it or work with his statement. Since I see no way around the statement that the idea is too complex for the game (which still is rather simple and easy to understand despite the many units and abilities) then I'm merely suggesting options on how the current setup could be phrased to make sense.

I understand, kinda sucks we gotta put limits on things tho

Actually archers should be able to hit units past walls. They do it anyway in real life. The accuracy part makes sense though plus I know what you mean about how bows really work. I say we just allow units access to walls via gates of ladders/stairs. That way you can do what orc players can already do except be able to move through the walls.

Outdated.