RE: Drug Wars - Battles, Unit Strategies, And More
Agreed that the battle system needs an overhaul. I know the devs are working on this, because right now there's no reason you should be able to game the system the way you can right now. Kudos to them for releasing the source code and putting up the Battle Simulator though! :)
I think the big mistake comes in the grouping system. I don't know if you're familiar with Magic: The Gathering, but in Magic terms, 50 Rowdies should represent 50 2/2 creatures, not a single 100/100 creature. It's the nightmare of 'Banding' all over again. :D
What would really help the battles, I think, is some sort of randomized element so it's not possible to instantly ascertain whether or not you'll win. I've no idea how this would work, but keeping unit priority for defense (to ensure low-ranking defenders get wiped out first) and randomizing it for the attacker would be one way of preventing the gaming of the system. A time limit on multiple attacks could also be instituted, whereby after an attack that failed to steal any resources, another attack against that player was unavailable for an hour or so. This would make it less attractive for a single attacker to use the Weenie Mob strategy to whittle down a powerful player's defenses by requiring a significant time investment on top of the time commitment already in place to actually make the attack. :)
I like the Magic comparison xD
I hope they really change the system and get rid of this grouping BS.
An attack limit could also be good yep.
But we will see what they are planning for it.
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Something else I think would help would be (keeping with the Magic rules reference) to give Ranged units a similar ability to 'First Strike', where in a Ranged vs. Melee situation, the Ranged units get one round of free attacks before the Melee characters get into close range.
Or, if that's too broken, give that power to one Ranged unit (Sniper) only and leave everything else as it is. There's no way a group of melee-only attackers carrying knives, lead pipes, and baseball bats should be able to get anywhere close to my base without my ranged guys picking off some of them. :)
That's something I assumed they used as a battle mechanic when I started with drug wars and I was surprised that my snipers and bazooka guys died before my melees died xD
They also had different ranges for the ranged units, gunman was a short range unit for example and then they changed it with the battle upgrade.
But a range mechanic would make more sense, like you wrote: no melee should reach your base when there are too many snipers.
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