I love the idea of battles that span more then one game turn. . . but i'm not sure how feasible it is, or what advantage it brings.  (with the exception of sieges)

Given that it's X-Com esk does a battle only last n turns,  then you return the next day?  Do your troops retreat, or just stay put till you get back to them? If they are staying put, does that mean the battle raged for 24 hours straight?? if they semi-retreat is it not easire to declair the battle a statemate and have the next turn be a new battle, what do you 'gain'  from forcing the next day's engadgement.

What if you're just about to win, finnally got into a good possition and the day ends? tough?, can you 'envigger troops' to squeese some extra battle time out for a winning possition (if you do, do you fight with an advantage over un-enviggered troops?)

It's a LOT of questions, and not too many answers. I'd love to see it, if done well,  But i'd shutter to be the one trying to plan it all out so that it would work well.

just my thoughts, take care

If battles have tarrain and landscape and tacktical advantages, do you hunker down where you are, what if your spread out?


and what about semi-nocternal magical animals? or night hunters Cat, owl?

still want it to work, but can't see it. yet at least

Best wishes

Unless skies are clear and the moon(s)light is strong. Here in North Florida, we regularly have full moons bright enough to read newspaper headlines by (you could read articles too, but your eye doctor wouldn't like you making a habit of it).

Still, even though night battles are possible if uncommon, it might be way to much to ask of the art team to be able to make usable, good-looking night battle art that would only be used once-in-the-right-moon.

I can't say anything to the feasability question, but NTJedi mentioned assassinations and possible flexibility for spell casting. I think just the idea of starting a battle with a 'do you want to continue' question is interesting. Plus I really hope to see Elemental outgrow GC2's tendency to make all battles complete slaughters for the loser. Historically, that's the exception and not the rule, and in game terms it really undermines the role-playing aspect of being Evil. If the good guys take no prisoners 'by design,' how can you seriously expect to be feared because you take no prisoners?

Try reading the newspaper on the ground, in deep grass, brush, anything that casts lots of small shadows.  Being able to see something in direct light a foot from your face, and being able to see the army in the tree line are two different things, night time combat was very risky before the invention of night vision goggles, still is even with them.

And the moon. Let's not forget that. Although, does the world of Elemental even have a moon? All the screenies we've seen are in the daytime.... And also, a simple "flare" spell like the one in Kitkun's screenshot could enable night combat for all units.

I have never played a game with that feature, so I wouldn't know how it plays out, but I admit it could be interesting.

If the battle system is set up in such a way that larger armies lead to longer battles, then a set # of turns can represent a day of battle. This way, you can reinforce your forces in battle between turns. And if a battle is split between day and night, some creatures, like the undead, can gain advantages during those turns during the night.

It is probably too complicated, or away from established conventions, but I'm just tossing leaves in the air in case others like it.

What worries me is that we don't know how long a turn is (Do we?).  I remember Shogun: Total War, where a battle that wasn't resolved in a day wasn't resolved in a season.  I mean, I'm sure the turn-rate isn't nearly that fast, but even week-long turns as seen in GalCiv (And Elemental's turns do need to be long enough for family trees) make any multiple-turn battle short of sieges kind of ridiculous.  Reinforcements are important, but it seems better to implement them in a one-turn timeframe than extending battles so unnaturally.  It seems to me the really important factor in stopping "slaughter" battles would be viable retreat mechanisms.

Recipe for disaster. Weak flying unit against strong ground units with no anti-air attack. No incentive for the flying unit to attack, no way for the ground units to attack.

Actually, this example is culled from Master of Magic and Age of Wonders. For example, defending with Nightblades, which were invisible, or Golden Dragons, which were flying and magic immune, are popular strategies in those games. Without turn limits, battles could turn into an endurance race, or a game of chicken.

Battles should and probably will have a retreat option. As for indecisive or multi-turn battles, well, do 4x games need to be any longer than they already are? Mop up is already the most boring part of the process.

^- yes, yes and YES!!! one time in Rome-total War, entire armies had exhausted themselves until there were only a couple hundred men on each side, and my commander had no-one to help him defend against the enemy commander's attack. Basically, there were maybe 3 bodyguards left attached to the enemy general?

Then, as I was ordering the rest of my army to route and destroy the rest of his army, the two generals, alone now, were battling it out (must of both had heroic scars trait) for a solid 5 minutes!!! on normal speed. Thats an epic example in a game where people normally die within 5-30 seconds of direct combat. (exceptions abound of course)

I really like the idea of battles being resolved in more days. It opens up for new strategic elements like:

- reinforcements

- morale and fatigue (optionally)

- supplies (optionally)

- sieges

- anti-reload-trick

The first 4 points are self-explanatory.

The last point is quite interesting: How many times happens in strategy games to begin a battle being unsure about the result, but with the confidence on the option to reload the game and retry the battle many times experimenting different moves to suit the conditions and eventually winning.

This scenario (that, in my opinion, breaks the fun) could be just a bad dream with the more-than-one-day-battles.

It makes me remember some elements of Patrician III, where you had to take decisions (like sending a fleet exporing America), but you had to wait months (game) to see the result of your actions, highly discouraging the reload trick and making the game more enjoyable.