Turn-based tactical squadgame: Timeunits or actions per turn?

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10 comments, last by ferrous 8 years, 3 months ago

If I were to do a spin on time units, I'd change it to where every unit has a bar, each action takes a certain % from it but if you compound certain actions, they essentially become free, IE if you run and gun, run and reload, shoot and reload immediately after, et cetera, with the player's basically setting up their units in rounds, IE you have unit A go here and plan for him to shoot Target 1, while unit B applies suppressive fire on Target 1; in turn, your opponent anticipates your moves and orders their unit's actions with the players sharing the same planning phase, after which when both sides lock in the actions of their units who mind you, get their own AP bars, the round plays out based on the AI priorities you write and pathing you commanded, all playing out in real time because each round that plays out is 1 minute of actual, real time combat with the % bar being the amount of time the actual units have to execute commands.

You might want to try frozen synapse. It can require some slow paced thinking to make sure things go your way, but it allows you to combine walking with shooting, and plays out in real time when you end your turn. In frozen synapse, you take your time planning the next 5 seconds of a battle, telling your characters how to move and where to look, and attempt to predict where your enemies will be at any given time so you can take them out. At the end of the turn, you watch 5 seconds of the battle play out, and plan your next 5 seconds. http://www.frozensynapse.com/

Radiant Verge is a Turn-Based Tactical RPG where your movement determines which abilities you can use.

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I think the 3 actions per turn should be fine. You'll have to be careful to balance someone running by, shooting, and then running out of sight. Either by having decent overwatch / reactionary fire options, or possibly by making the 1AP shot not that accurate, or even disallowing moving after firing. (or vice versa) The main thing with any system of very few action points is also ensuring that anything that costs an action is meaningfully worth taking.

I believe the game Halfway has 3 ap on units, it's been a while, and I can't recall if they start with 3 AP or not.

http://robotality.com/blog/announcing-halfway/

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