Elevation mechanics

Watching the recent End-of-Kickstarter livestream, I got really excited when ideas for building physics were discussed. The chance to build complicated structures is made even more awesome by the chance to knock out a pillar and see the correct part of the wall fall down.

When @Tom said that building taller structures would be purely aesthetic, I thought a chance was missed for a fun mechanic. I think it would be cool if elevation increased vision. They’ve said that fog of war will be included in the game. Having a unit at higher elevation could allow that unit to see further in the fog, but he is easier to hit (to balance things out). So if I put my sentry on my top of my two story tower, he gets +1 to vision and enemies attacking him get +1 to hit. This would give some gameplay incentive for building taller structures.

This could also work for natural elevation, though that might make things more complicated to program. Units will have a radius of vision, but the radius could grow going down in elevation and shrink going up in elevation. As an example: if a unit were standing in foothills between mountains and plains, his “circle” of vision would not be a circle but would extend further into the plains and not as far into the mountains.

For melee units, who wouldn’t benefit from the extra sight once in combat, units could receive +1 damage (or +1 to critical) if attacking from a higher elevation to balance enemies getting +1 to hit against that unit.

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as far as raw stats are concerned, fighting from an elevated position, relative to your opponent is almost always advantageous… i can definitely see where this would be fun to add… i suppose i would want to know more about the combat system in general though, as we have really only heard the basics of what radiant envisions…

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I personally think that the pluses you mentioned (+1 sight and +1 damage) are cool, but I dont think the enemies should get ponuses to balace it out. When building towers, the extra resources and time required to build it should be the balance. when fighting in melee, the units with high ground should get a bonus and the units at lower ground get nothing: this is how war works. if the enemy doesnt like this, he shouldnt allow his opponent to get to the high ground.

Blockquote[quote=“Richard_Rahl, post:3, topic:1318, full:true”]
I personally think that the pluses you mentioned (+1 sight and +1 damage) are cool, but I dont think the enemies should get ponuses to balace it out. When building towers, the extra resources and time required to build it should be the balance. when fighting in melee, the units with high ground should get a bonus and the units at lower ground get nothing: this is how war works. if the enemy doesnt like this, he shouldnt allow his opponent to get to the high ground.
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I agree planning ahead of time can turn the tide of battle.

Sun Tzu - One who takes position first at the battleground and awaits the enemy is at ease. One who takes position later at the battleground and hastens to do battle is at labor. Thus one skilled at battle summons others and is not summoned by them.

“People shouldn’t look down on me just because I’m shorter than them. After all, I can see up their nose.” ~Punky Brewster :wink:

It may not be the majority opinion, but I think including drawbacks to higher elevation both makes sense–me, hiding in my bush down here can see you up on that wall just fine–and encourages more strategic play since it would then not always be the smartest option to move to the higher ground. Depending on the situation you might choose to sacrifice vision for the extra crit chance.

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@xophnog Great idea man.

Archers in towers should also have increased range.

And if you want disadvantages… An guy in a tall tower can see really far, but is also more easily seen.
Also, maybe the taller a structure gets, the easier it is to fall over. So like if it was blasted with siege weapons or was caught in some sort of natural disaster it would topple easier than a structure half its size and built with the same material.

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