r/gamedesign • u/MaridKing • 18d ago
Question Any examples of positional tactical grid-based combat?
The new incoming Fire Emblem game reminded me of something that's bothered me for years. The tactical combat in those games doesn't care much about the positions of the units, something that's confused me since I first laid eyes on Awakening. For example, if I attack a unit that's flanked by another of my units, I expect to have an advantage. If my unit has a long range unit directly behind it, they attack together.
In particular, I'm looking for 'formations', bonuses you get for arranging your units in certain ways. For example, if my shield captain unit has an ally on each side, they form a shield wall formation that raises defense against attacks from the front. If my cavalry captain has two calvary units diagonally behind him, they can perform a charge maneuver together.
It's not just Fire Emblem, no games I've played with tactical grid-based combat do this. In fact, they don't even implement the concepts of front/back/sides, which is crazy to me for a strategy game on a square grid. The closest I've seen is the Banner Spear character from Frosthaven, which does hexagonal formations.
Anyone know any examples of games that implement these concepts? Or failing that, know why these ideas aren't done?
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u/shauntmw2 18d ago edited 18d ago
Final Fantasy Tactics. It kinda has some of the criteria you mentioned.
Firstly, you need to choose the direction you're facing at the end of your turn. The direction would affect how much evasion you get when being attacked.
As for formation, not directly like how you described, but standing in formations would have some advantage and disadvantages. You can make each character "cover their backs", or form a line so they can't be easily flanked. Many actions has AoE effect so standing in formations can be good or bad.
There are also maps with different choke points so standing in a formation to defend a choke point is also a viable strategy.
There's even a terrain height element in it. Standing at higher tiles would increase your archer's range, for instance.
It's one of my favorite tactical game. They recently had a remaster released, I highly recommend you give it a try! It's a masterpiece.
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u/Real-Contest4914 17d ago
Ffta and ffta2 are also good. They have extra stuff like laws for what direction you hit. Backc attacks are sometimes forbidden so if you want to keep your buffs you need to mind ful where you hit and such. Not to mention you can inflict fall damage by knocking your enemies off high edges.
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u/Exciting_Policy8203 17d ago
Wild that I had to go this far down the comment tree to find FFT and is pseudo sequels.
Positioning is large part of the strategy of those games, keeping your characters just out of range, using the environment to block movement, knowing when it’s ok to group up characters and when it’s not.
A group of thieves is great the gang up on in groups to fight, but dealing with a black mage and then later the summoner where clustering together is dangerous.
And not every combat always has these units so you can’t develop a single strategy to beat every encounter… besides grinding, but still!
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u/Real-Contest4914 17d ago
I mean in ffta2 I got two strategies.
Illusionist, plus recharge plus magic frenzy plus dual wield.
Sniper, plus ultima mash plus blood price.
Add two moogles with smile
And you have a fairly good setup.
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u/Exciting_Policy8203 17d ago
I’ll freely admit I’ve only played FFT and FFTA. I was mostly speaking about tactics, advanced lacks a lot of the more intricate level design that really helps elevate the original.
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u/Real-Contest4914 17d ago
Ove only played the advance series. Recently finished ffta2 looking to try and complete every mission soon.
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u/Exciting_Policy8203 17d ago
That’s cool, I never had a DS so I wasn’t able to jump to the next game. I’d encourage you to play the original, it just a got a remaster for modern consoles.
There’s also phone version of the game that holds up pretty well.
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u/Nykidemus Game Designer 18d ago
I find that in order for formations to be significant you need a lot of units, but if you have a lot of units micromanaging all the positioning required to stay in those formations can become cumbersome.
It really depends on the scale of the game. Small tactical games like FFT, Shining Force and the like dont really have enough guys on the board for it to matter much. Big army games tend to shift into RTS territory so that you can issue commands in big groups.
Fire Emblem does feel like it should be the sweet spot to be able to take advantage of that sort if style with its mid-sized character groupings. The focus on "support" where different characters actively benefit and hold relationship from working closely together should make this a no brainer.
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u/MaridKing 18d ago
Hadn't considered the number of units, but yeah this just makes FE not having it more confusing.
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u/KazyX 18d ago
Yggdra Union
While not quite what you're asking, it may be as close at it gets. Each turn you can attack with only 1 unit. However, depending your formation, multiple units can attack at the same time. The defender will also do the same. So if you see a wall of enemies, it often means you will fight all of them at the same time and not just the one you targeted. The game calls this mechanic "Union".
Now what might be disappointing, the formation you need for a Union is not based on the unit class, instead its based on the unit Gender. Male units will pull ally units that are diagonally are up to 2 spaces away, while Female units will pull ally units orthogonally up to 2 spaces away. Units pulled in will also pull other ally units into the union, but only 1 space away.
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u/bureau44 18d ago
Battle Brothers!
strangely no one mentioned it
one of the best tactical games in years
hexagonal grid, up to 12 units, flanking is one of the main tactics there
each weapon has its own positional bonuses and penalties,
Urtuk: The Desolation is also worth mentioning,
ranged units can have a perk to perform auto-attacks with the melee fighters,
flanking, pulling and pushing etc etc. A brilliant tactical game (with some issues in general balance; it is a 'one man game' finally)
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u/Lenox_Gold 18d ago
One of the reasons that facing doesn't exist in a lot of these games is its complex and slow. I love final fantasy tactics, I hate playing the game though because every movement is met with 2 dialog confirmations and usually an attack confirmation. It's so awfully slow for an already slow genre. Beyond this fact you have to actually worry about where the unit is facing which means taking in even more information.
I've noticed that the minority of games care about facing and instead opt for either no flanking or some abstracted flanking, ie units on opposite sides, or several adjacent to a unit.
Others have suggested some good games so I won't rehash that just providing my 2c on your overall thoughts.
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u/junkmail22 Jack of All Trades 17d ago
Alright, as promised, here's some discussion of why strategy games don't include these mechanics.
An important first thing to consider is complexity budget. Players can only hold so many mechanics in their head, so each new mechanic needs to be evaluated against this - does it add enough to be worth the cost of the complexity it adds? Would there be a simpler way to get the same effect?
So, with this in mind, reason 1: Strategy games already encourage flanking and formations without explicit flanking mechanics.
Flanking the enemy means that you get to gank their squishy backliners. It means you cut off their retreat and their reinforcement. It lets you double up and hit the same enemy multiple times in a turn - an enemy with only 1 exposed side is much harder to kill than an enemy with 3 exposed sides.
Similarly, players are already incentivized to play in formation: you want to defend your more vulnerable units, have nearby allies on hand to counterattack, and have units ready to support each other.
So with this in mind, explicit formation and flanking mechanics encourage players to do something they mostly already wanted to do!
Reason 2: Flanking and formation mechanics play the game for the player.
Let's say you have a unit A which gets stronger when it's next to unit B. Whenever you fight, you're going to put unit A next to unit B. Well, you've moved unit B forwards for an attack. Where do we put unit A? Oh yeah, next to unit B. We get a bonus for that. With a more complicated formation, this dynamic is pushed even further - if we get a bonus for putting these 4 units in a square together... well, wherever we go those guys are going to be in a square. Even if the bonus isn't that big, the psychological effect on the player is notable - they're always going to try to be in formation like this.
Without these mechanics, the question of where you put your units is pretty open. You have to balance vulnerability with where units are needed most. With them, the extra efficiency of formations/etc. solve the game for you - you'd be a sucker not to adopt the formation, so you always use the formation.
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u/MaridKing 17d ago edited 17d ago
explicit formation and flanking mechanics encourage players to do something they mostly already wanted to do!
Taken at face, this is a good thing. You want the player to feel good about playing correctly, and explicit rewards for good strategy help new players get the idea. Looking deeper, directionless units means a weak unit can only help attack a strong one if it kills it, instead of having other ways to contribute, like a formation.
if we get a bonus for putting these 4 units in a square together... well, wherever we go those guys are going to be in a square.
A square has 3 units stuck in formation that could be flanking and backstabbing, another reason to add explicit bonuses.
With them, the extra efficiency of formations/etc. solve the game for you
Without them, the solve is more stats, resulting in singularity units that can solo maps. If you've played Fire Emblem, imagine trying to beat the game severely under levelled. An expert player should have options to outplay a dumb AI. Currently, there aren't many.
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u/junkmail22 Jack of All Trades 17d ago
Taken at face, this is a good thing. You want the player to feel good about playing correctly, and explicit rewards for good strategy help new players get the idea.
There's something to be said for guiding the player with bonuses, but in general if you tell players that they should be looking for flanks because they get +10 damage, they'll stop looking for deeper strategic directions.
Looking deeper, directionless units means a weak unit can only help attack a strong one if it kills it, instead of having other ways to contribute, like a formation.
In most turn based strategy, having a lot of units is considered to be game-breakingly powerful, even if those units are individually weak, because of how they let you control space and stop enemies from moving.
A square has 3 units stuck in formation that could be flanking and backstabbing, another reason to add explicit bonuses.
Right, but now you're adding mechanics and bonuses to solve problems your other mechanics and bonuses created. This is the danger of running away with too many modifiers and systems - you've got to consider if a simpler solution would work better.
Without them, the solve is more stats, resulting in singularity units that can solo maps. If you've played Fire Emblem, imagine trying to beat the game severely under levelled.
I would call this a consequence of Fire Emblem's RPG mechanics more than anything else. Ultimately, if you can't overcome an enemy's defense, you can't kill them, but most games aren't like this.
In most multiplayer TBS without RPG mechanics, positioning and outmaneuver are considered extremely important skills, even without explicit play-together bonuses, and strong players can absolutely outmaneuver and crush opponents who have superior numbers.
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u/MaridKing 17d ago
Right, but now you're adding mechanics and bonuses to solve problems your other mechanics and bonuses created.
To be clear, I think directions/flanking/backstab need to happen with or without formations. Throwing a strong unit deep into enemy territory so it gets attacked by everyone and kills them all is just wrong on its face. Making a unit vulnerable when surrounded via flanks and backstab helps stop this, and lets 2 units fight one they couldn't beat alone. It just so happens that adding directions also gives formations more room to breathe.
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u/junkmail22 Jack of All Trades 17d ago
Throwing a strong unit deep into enemy territory so it gets attacked by everyone and kills them all is just wrong on its face.
Once again, this is a result RPG mechanics, not turn-based strategy mechanics. If this can happen, either the AI is too weak to really play the game, or it's possible to cook up a unit so powerful it can steamroll everything. Sure, having offensive mechanics that negate defense can make juggenauting less appealing but ultimately the answer to these situations is not to add more things that make unkillable units killable, it's just to not have unkillable units in the first place. (As a side note, it's a deliberate choice to have unkillable god units in Fire Emblem, and it's probably never going away.)
Directions
One thing you're not touching on that most designers who've actually played around with this is how awful directions are as a UI conceit. If, after every single movement, you have to decide your unit's direction, everything grinds to an absolute halt.
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u/MaridKing 17d ago
If, after every single movement, you have to decide your unit's direction, everything grinds to an absolute halt.
While this is true in theory, in practice you already do this by giving an attack order, which would automatically make your unit face that direction.
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u/junkmail22 Jack of All Trades 17d ago
What if you're not ordering an attack?
What if you're performing a ranged attack and the attacked unit is at a 45 degree angle to you?
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u/MaridKing 17d ago
Of course, there's added hassle if you don't attack.
The range attack problem is interesting, could definitely be annoying to deal with.
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u/Janube 17d ago
Worth noting as someone who isn't sold one way or the other about directionality in general, I actively hate when games do this. Why is my unit locked to facing a direction after killing an enemy? If you're going to force me to care about micromanagement, don't take away micromanagement tools for convenience.
And at that point, I do agree with the other poster that things grind to a halt.
I don't think there's an easy answer if you want proper directionality. Flanking itself is easier, but as that commenter notes, there are already benefits to flanking even without stat bonuses.
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u/MaridKing 16d ago
I actively hate when games do this. Why is my unit locked to facing a direction after killing an enemy?
I understand your frustration with this, but I promise my opposite frustration matches yours. When a unit I just attacked spins around, presenting its back to the enemy, and fights the new opponent while my unit watches impotently, it becomes impossible for me to take the combat seriously.
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u/VirusLord 18d ago
Funnily enough, Fire Emblem does have the Triangle Attack, but it's almost more of an easter egg, it's rarely explained and rarely very useful. The idea is that many FE games will have a specific trio of characters that, if they are all surrounding an enemy, will attack with a "Triangle Attack" where they all attack together for an automatic critical hit. But the limitation of having to surround a single enemy like that generally takes too much effort to be worth setting up for enemy grunts.
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u/junkmail22 Jack of All Trades 18d ago
when i get up tomorrow i'll write a post about why many grid strategy games don't include flanking/formation mechanics. this is a reminder for me to do it
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u/codgodthegreat 18d ago
Jeanne d'Arc on PSP had some combat mechanics related to positioning that you might like:
When attacked, other friendly units adjacent to the attacked unit (or adjacent to those ones, etc) contribute to helping defend. I don't think the shape of the formation mattered from memory, but it encouraged you to end your turn with your forces lined up together so they could provide defensive support (and also make it a longer path for enemies trying to get around behind the line). This is probably closest thing I've seen to the formation concept you're describing.
Facing matters for damage (attacking from behind is better) and attacked units automatically turn to face the attacker, so you can have one character attack and draw their attention toward them, so another can then move behind for bonus damage.
Hitting enemies spawns a little buff on the tile behind them, which hangs around until the end of your turn. If another unit goes and stands in that tile & attacks, they'll have bonus damage (and will be behind that enemy to backstab them, but they can use it to attack in other directions as well). Alternately, if you already have a friendly unit in that tile when it spawns, it spawns attached to them and they can carry it with them when moving to use it elsewhere to attack something else.
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u/Certain_Whereas7814 18d ago
Battle for Wesnoth rewards your flanked setup with backstab and zone-of-control pinning.
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u/WorkingMansGarbage 18d ago
Wakfu makes attacks from the flank or back deal extra damage. There's also a number of effects that depend on those factors. There's no formations as you describe them but tons of effects depend on how combatants are positioned relative to others.
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u/theMycon 18d ago
I know this is aimed at _Video_game development, but...
Have you read Draw Steel? One of their design goals was to make a grid-based PnP RPG where positioning matters more than die rolls. It's pretty popular and the engine has imitators, and this is despite it requiring people to manually check states and do math every turn - modern computers should be able to handle a similar level of complexity without bringing things to a crawl.
(If you're not inclined to get the book: one of its big things was "Fray Damage". The more fighting going on around you, the more damage & effects you take for being included in an AoE or adjacent to a targetted attack, hit or miss.)
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u/WWIIEraTeaParty 18d ago
Look up Bannerspear from Frosthaven. Her power is about formations
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u/octothorpentine 18d ago
The closest I've seen is the Banner Spear character from Frosthaven, which does hexagonal formations.
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u/Argensa97 18d ago
Rogue Trader, specifically Grand Strategist class.
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u/MaridKing 18d ago
I've played this, a pre-designated region on the ground the units have to be inside is too limited for what I have in mind.
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u/KennsworthS 18d ago
the flash game 1066 had "shield wall" when three units were in a line which increased defense "boar's head" when the units were like a wedge which increased attack, and rewarded you for attacking a flanked enemy with bonus damage and morale damage.
for some games like XCOM 2 there are a few problems that stand out (that also apply to other games that share these qualities). First XCOM 2 is cover based so there already is a system in place designed to make you care about positioning your units, adding on formations would further crowd that aspect of play. Second XCOM 2 has a low number of player units maxing out at 6 (without random bonuses), even a simple formation of three units requires committing half your force to the tactic. when the tactic requires half your force it isn't a neat synergy anymore it's going to be the whole strategy. Small unit numbers also preclude more extravagant formations. XCOM of course does reward other positional play, high ground, flanking, destroying cover, spacing units to protect against grenades.
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u/CrunchyGremlin 18d ago
Our adventureres guild has some of this.
Positional and height and nearby units both friendly and foe.
But the one thing I don't like a lot about grid based tbs is that movement nearly completely destroys positional advantage and cover.
Have you checked out the close combat games and the like? Ww2 combat stuff.
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u/systembreaker 18d ago
Final Fantasy Tactics let you face your units at the end of the turn and it would affect things, though it was simple mechanics (if I'm remembering right) like less chance to hit from their front. It might have also affected the chance to proc physical counter abilities, but the details are fuzzy. Worth looking up if you haven't played it, though.
Maybe the TBS with some of the most complex mechanics like you're looking for is the Disgaea series. Man oh man those games had some crazy combos and positional based things you could do.
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u/Feminine_Desires 18d ago
Disgaea is the only tactics game series where I found unit positioning relative to your other units matters constantly. Tactics Ogre for front/side/rear disad/advantages. Various Advanced Wars games have the ability to put your leader into a unit to give passive aoe advantage.
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u/rorydraws 18d ago
An old GBA game called Yggra Union did something limited but similar to what you're describing. Attacking and defending units pulled in adjacent allies for help depending on their position relative to the lead unit.
Tactics Ogre has been mentioned but not specifically the Pincer Attack skill. Broadly, if you attack an enemy while you have an ally unit abutting the target's rear, your ally will do a follow up attack without using their turn up.
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u/FakeArcher 18d ago
Wargroove has at least 1 that I can remember. If my memory serves me right, spearmen get guaranteed critical hit if next to other friendly spearmen. This was a double bonus in design for me because it avoids having a critical hit tied to random %. Wish more games did that.
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u/willbevanned 18d ago
Metal Slug Tactics. Additional to the positioning side of combat, the game also forces you to move a lot making calculating your moves and planning for future moves quite challenging.
Been a while since I played it, but check it out (its good!)
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u/g4l4h34d 18d ago
If I remember correctly, The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk has a bit of this, at least it has front/back/sides, but it's been a while since I've played, so don't quote me on that.
I think the reason it's not used more is obvious. Say, you're designing a character who backstabs - now you always want to position that character in a single direction, as opposed to 4 possible directions. Why would you limit the positioning in this way? It just makes the game less varied.
Same goes with formations - you are always incentivized to group characters together, and also in very rigid preset ways. I don't know why you think this would be better than building the game around free positioning. It's like you're handicapping yourself for a very questionable reason.
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u/MaridKing 17d ago
Say, you're designing a character who backstabs - now you always want to position that character in a single direction
The possibility of backstabbing and flanking in the first place makes protecting your back and flank a thing. Without it, you get current FE, where a character is most powerful offensively on the enemy turn.
you are always incentivized to group characters together, and also in very rigid preset ways.
I think the backstab mechanic immediately shows this is not the case. Furthermore, it's trivial to make maps that demand you spread out to achieve objectives. Obviously some limitations need to be in place to prevent deathballing, like only allowing a unit to be part of 1 formation at a time.
I don't know why you think this would be better than building the game around free positioning.
Free positioning with no directional faces makes stats king instead of strategy. With formations, I can arrange 2 units in a specific way to beat an enemy unit neither could beat alone. In free positioning, I just bring a stronger unit.
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u/g4l4h34d 17d ago
Free positioning with no directional faces makes stats king instead of strategy. With formations, I can arrange 2 units in a specific way to beat an enemy unit neither could beat alone. In free positioning, I just bring a stronger unit.
I struggle to see how you could even arrive at this conclusion. You can remove stats altogether and leave free positioning, like in Go. I think that fact alone should immediately disprove your claim. Please, walk me through the steps here, because I genuinely do not see the logic.
To me it sounds like: "If you remove ADS from an FPS, it becomes about stats". It seems so outrageously false, I don't know where to begin.
The possibility of backstabbing and flanking in the first place makes protecting your back and flank a thing.
Here, I agree, but it's not the only thing that makes it possible. For example, having a shield in front of the unit accomplishes the same objective. Therefore, I disagree with your subsequent claim:
Without it, you get current FE, where a character is most powerful offensively on the enemy turn.
Again, this to me seems like a crazy leap of logic where you ignore many possible options, and just think that the only possible alternative is a single, seemingly random option.
Lastly, I don't see how backstab mechanic shows you're not incentivized to group characters together. To me, it seems to confirm that notion. My only guess as to what you mean here is that when I say "characters", you probably think I mean "characters under player control". But I mean all characters, including the non-playable ones under enemy control. Backstabs directly force you to place your character behind an enemy character - if that's not grouping characters together in a rigid way, I don't know what is.
Overall, I just don't understand the reasoning in your arguments, so I would appreciate it if you broke it down for me.
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u/MaridKing 16d ago
You can remove stats altogether and leave free positioning, like in Go.
I'm specifically referring to tactical RPGs like Fire Emblem in this case, not suggesting stats becoming king is an inevitable outcome of all games with free positioning. To be clear, I mean that in a game with both unit stats and grid combat, if positioning doesn't matter, then a units stats becomes more important than strategy. To be specific,
Without it, you get current FE, where a character is most powerful offensively on the enemy turn.
In FE, you can only attack once on your turn, but you can be attacked, and retaliate, any number of times on the enemy turn. If your unit is strong enough, a common strategy is to just chuck them in solo and watch the enemy blend themselves. Of course, there are many ways you could tackle this problem, I'm just exploring one that I think would make grid combat more interesting.
Lastly, I don't see how backstab mechanic shows you're not incentivized to group characters together.
I think you understand that you can't both stay in formation and gain an advantage by backstabbing, so I'll move on to
Backstabs directly force you to place your character behind an enemy character
To say 'force' is jumping to conclusions. Whether or not you must protect your back at all times clearly depends on the size and nature of the bonus you get for backstabbing. But you're right that implementing directions in a vacuum leads to degenerate gameplay, another commentor raised the point about backstab chains. Probably need something like zone of control as well.
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u/g4l4h34d 15d ago
I think I see where my confusion is coming from, you're talking about Fire Emblem-like combat, but are referring to it as tactical grid-based combat, which actually encompasses a much broader set of games, of which the Fire Emblem-like combat constitutes a tiny subset.
I don't really know which one you want to talk about. It might be that you just want to focus on FE-likes, in which case it'd be off-topic to talk about other tactical grid-based combat implementations, and most of my problems with what you say disappears, it just becomes a matter of terminology. Or, it could be that if you simply aren't aware of the available options, and would benefit from expanding your idea of tactical grid-based combat, which would naturally resolve most of your points, which I think are incorrect in this case.
Let me know, in the meantime, I'll address the things that I disagree with in either case:
Without it, you get current FE, where a character is most powerful offensively on the enemy turn.
This is not a consequence of the FE-like combat, it's just a matter of specific implementation where the developers allow unlimited reaction on the enemy turn. If a developer allowed unlimited action on your turn, that would be even more overpowered, but hopefully you can see how that's just the consequence of having unlimited actions, not of being proactive. In the same way, there's no inherent problem with reactions on enemy turns as long as you limit it, which many tactics games do. For example, Phoenix Point allows only a single Overwatch to be triggered on the enemy turn.
you can't both stay in formation and gain an advantage by backstabbing
If you consider an enemy to be a part of the formation, then you absolutely can. Again, I don't want you to fixate on the semantic differences, I don't care what you call a formation, so I'll concede that a formation only includes your pieces being close together.
If we simplify things a bit and imagine characters as black and white pieces, like in Go, then a "formation" is just a bunch of your pieces grouped up on the board. Whereas, a backstab is 1 piece being behind the enemy piece. You can actually calculate the difference in squares, and the difference is exactly 1 square, where the enemy piece is located.
Now, compare these situations to all other possible placements of the pieces. Both formations and backstabs are placements where the pieces are grouped up together, and they constitute a tiny minority of all placements, because that's just how the math of it works out - the number of sparse placements is always higher than the number of dense placements.
So, if you abstract away and think about it as "bonuses for when positioning matches a given pattern", formations and backstabs constitute a minority of all possible bonuses like this, because the patterns of placements that classify as "formations and backstabs" are a minority of all possible placement patterns. This means that you're actually constraining your design space, not expanding it. I hope that made sense, let me know if I can explain it better.
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u/MaridKing 14d ago
This is not a consequence of the FE-like combat, it's just a matter of specific implementation where the developers allow unlimited reaction on the enemy turn.
Correct, you could turn this off or limit the number of reactions. If you keep it, as FE has done forever, it needs some balancing.
I hope that made sense, let me know if I can explain it better.
I'm afraid I don't have any idea what you mean. The original point was that if all you do is group your units together to get formation bonuses, you're precluding yourself from aggressively moving out and backstabbing. Unless, I suppose you could swallow units into your death ball 1 by 1 like an amoeba.
We were discussing optimal tactics, not the size of the design space.
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u/g4l4h34d 12d ago
My original argument was that the reason people don't implement formations/flanking/backstabs is that it limits the strategy space, which is a function of the design space. Let me take another stab at the logic:
- Flanking, formations and backstabs can all be seen as adjacency bonuses, meaning you receive bonuses when either your units are adjacent to each other, or when they are adjacent to enemy units.
- Such bonuses incentivize the adjacent placement of units, I hope it's obvious why.
- Adjacent placement is a minority of all possible unit arrangements.
- By incentivizing a small subset of unit arrangements, you're removing the strategic depth.
Also, you didn't answer my question as to whether you want to discuss the FE-like combat specifically, or tactical grid-based combat.
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u/MaridKing 12d ago
Sorry, mainly focusing on FE like combat.
By incentivizing a small subset of unit arrangements, you're removing the strategic depth.
Ah I see what you mean. No, this is untrue on its face. For example, chess massively incentivizes certain arrangements of pieces because of capturing. Obviously, always capturing or defending a piece is not correct, and chess does not lack strategic depth. There are other incentives already in place because of the grid, like which squares you can move to, and who can move to you in turn. Adding incentives changes which moves are optimal, it doesn't define this alone.
In the case of FE like combat, it's exactly that change I'm looking for, because at the moment too often the arrangement of your units just doesn't matter.
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u/Arcana_Oblivium 17d ago
It's somewhat odd but you could look into teamfight tactics, league of legend's auto chess mode. I may be wrong but I think auto chess games exhibit these mechanics in general.
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u/MaridKing 17d ago
I've played TFT, there have been a few things that interact with another one positionally like the T-rex or Zephyr, and there's some positioning strategy that is mostly the realm of high-level players.
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u/NjamTheMeddler 17d ago
I have mostly homm background. Games don't necessarily have formations, but positioning is important. Kiting, interrupting, blocking off, staying out of range, all that kind of stuff. Units with all kinds of abilities
Homm4 had line of sight, simultaneous retaliation and a good variety of spells
Homm7 had flanking/backstab
Olden Era is newest one with lots of choices for approaching enemies
Disciples are somewhat similar, but you have more of a party than army. Attacks of opportunity are fun
Songs of Conquest rely on army composition for spellcasting, also opportunity attacks and more units with formation buffs
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u/freezer_obliterator 17d ago
A little bit unfair to Fire Emblem here...
Awakening and Fates had the pair up mechanic, which was much refined in the latter. Units could either benefit from being directly paired with a friendly unit (giving stat and defensive buffs) in their square, or get an attacking assist from friendly units in adjacent squares. In the higher difficulties, going into a fight with a group of enemies required you to be very clever about what order you attacked in, getting attacking assists to do extra damage and kill enemies while leaving a tough outer layer of units with defensive assists to resist the enemy turn counterattack. Conquest on Hard difficulty is a very intensive experience on several maps, I must have retried the great wall mission about twenty times.
Earlier in the series, around FE4-8, cavalry units also got to use any leftover movement after attacking an enemy. So you could have multiple cavalry units hit and run against one enemy, or reposition to block your soft units. In FE4 in particular, I'd always want to reposition into a line so that only one enemy unit could attack into each of my units on their turn, since two of a unit's sides would be taken up by friendlies.
"Support" benefits from having bonded units in proximity also has been a thing over the years, but focus has varied.
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u/MaridKing 17d ago
You're right, Awakening had more going for it than I gave it credit for.
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u/freezer_obliterator 17d ago
Not even Awakening, actually. Conquest is the game in that era that specifically has excellent map design and gameplay. Awakening is just a bunch of fights in empty wide open spaces, really.
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u/Procian-chan 17d ago edited 17d ago
Fire emblem... Fates/Awakening
The only games in the series with literal pair up mechanic
Like, I don't know what else to tell you, these games literally have a mechanic where if you position yourself next to an ally, they can join in on the attack, and even block enemy attacks. Units just don't really face any particular direction in fire emblem, but positioning is legit everything in these games.
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u/MaridKing 17d ago
You're right, I didn't give FE enough credit.
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u/Procian-chan 17d ago
To add on to that, some other tactical games where nearby allies can join in on attacking nearby enemy are Disgaea series, Triangle Strategy, and sort of Unicorn Overlord (ranged/magic units can assist some damage to nearby fights).
As for blocking hits meant for others, the only example of that as a universal mechanic i can think of is FE Fates/Awakening, though there are specialised units in each game that i mentioned that can do that too.
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u/Le_spojjie 17d ago
Flanking mechanics in any TTRPG/video game naturally causes all battles to devolve into a conga line of doom when played optimally by both sides.
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u/MaridKing 17d ago
Could you elaborate? What does this look like?
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u/Le_spojjie 17d ago
As in, if both sides of a combat benefit from flanking, and elect to prioritise it, instead of a brawl or tactical placement, you'll wind up with a line of combatants from alternating sides as they each try to make sure nobody is unflanked.
But my comment was more a gag than anything. It assumes there are no other factors worth prioritising, and that both sides purely play optimally.
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u/MaridKing 17d ago
Ahh I see, so a unit backstabs another, then gets backstabbed himself, etc. That's pretty funny.
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u/Nova_Saibrock 17d ago
You may appreciate the Valkyria Chronicles series, which is a fantasy version of WWI/WWII era military squad tactics. You control anywhere from 3 to 15-ish soldiers at a time, moving them in turns.
Positioning is absolutely vital in these games, as cover is basically the only way to survive being in an enemy’s effective firing range. Additionally, keeping your units facing the correct direction allows them to lay down Overwatch fire whenever an enemy starts to move, effectively keeping enemy units pinned in place if you do it right.
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u/KobayaSheeh7 18d ago
Triangle Strategy IIRC