Collision handling in Continuously turn based Tactical combat

If I understand it correctly, continuous turns does not mean everything happening at once.  What it means, is that the turns will occur on their own, unless you pause the action, or set it so that the game auto-pauses for you when certain things occur.  If a continuous turn system is done right, you should be able to control it on a turn by turn basis if you wanted to.

So in the end the collisions you are talking about wouldn't occur, at least not in the manner that you're envisioning it.  I could be wrong though, since none but the elemental developers know how the tactical battles are setup currently.

Whats the difference between continuous turn based and RTS?  Becaouse it does sound very RTS for me and I really hate RTS games.

It depends heavily how they implement continuous turn based in the game, since they are different ways to do it (and interprete it).

If it is simillar to how the Baldurs Gate series did it, it will work that way:

Each action needs a certain amount of time, similar how everything needs time in real life. The difference is this, in continous turn based system the smallest time unit is not the planck time (or the clock speed of your cpu) but a discrete unit of time, like for example a round.

Small example:

RTS

Seconds / Actions

0.0s Battle start

0.1s Archer sees Mage

0.7s Mage sees Archer

1.2s Archer prepares his shot

2.2s Mage starts to cast a spell

2.4s Archer shoots at Mage, misses

4.5s Mages finishes casting

etc. etc.

Continuous turn battle

Turns / seconds / Actions

1 / 0s / Battle starts, Archer sees Mage, Mage sees Archer

2 / 6s / Archer prepares his shot, Mage begins to cast spell

3 / 12s / Archer shoots

4 / 18s / Archer prepares his shot, Mage finishes casting

5 / 24s / Archer shoots, Mage begins to cast a spell

etc. etc.

As you can see, in continuous turn battles you still have turns. The difference to a normal turn based game is though, that each turn goes on for a certain amount of time, for example 6 seconds per turn (that would be very slow of course). This gives you time to think and react, but also has the same benefits and oddities of a normal simultanious turn based system.

Well, this is one example, there are lots of different ways how to implement such a system and I've no clue how Stardock will do it. (Not sure if Stardock knows it either. )

If EWOM's AI's smart enough, the Fire Mage should retreat first.   But when will it cast its' fireball?   Will the dev change its mind to fireball the Orc warrior instead of the Ice Troll far away, or try later when the Orc warrior walks away?   Should the Orc warrior drop whatever it is intend to do, and start chasing the fire mage instead?   In these cases, I wonder how AI can be smart enough to satisfy us; or does not frustrate us.

In most RTS games, the dev will say that it is gamer's skill/responsibility/whatever to move that Fire Mage away when the Orc warrior is closing in.   IMHO, this kind of constant path-fine-tuning it is just NO fun.    Unfortunely, in continuously turn based TC, I expect similar issue will happen.   I just want to see if something smart can be done to make this fun/non-tedious/more strategic/less chaotic.

Here's the flip side of your argument:

I see my enemy has a fire mage and expect that he will try to get in range to fireball my ice troll.  I have my swordsmen move forward so they can intercept.  Suddenly it's not my turn.  Your fire mage walks up right around my swordsmen and fireballs my ice troll.  It melts and I am sad.  My swordsmen had plenty of move left and could have easily blocked your puny fire mage and sliced him into mage-steaks.

Traditional turn based combat fails this approach in numerous ways.  Some systems try to make up for this with counterattacks of some kind or Attacks of Opportunity (probably the most confusing mechanic in DnD 3.x), but these are limited in effectiveness.

I quite frankly see traditional turn-based combat as a limitation of the hardware and programming knowledge.  We couldn't adequately handle multiple units doing something at the same time very well, so we didn't try.  I understand some of the nostalgic allure of traditional turns, but I don't want it anymore.  I would personally be happy if Elemental were nearly identical to MoM in all ways except this.  We can do better.

I do want things to move slow enough to control my units well and not have battles be a twitch fest.  I'd be reasonably happy with something the pace of Sins of a Solar Empire, but even that got hectic when you got huge fleets fighting each other.  As long as it's a strategy game and battles aren't decided by reflexes I'm happy.  I want my enemies actions interfering with mine, and I want to interfere with theirs too!

You might think it's your fire mage's responsibility to retreat when a threat is approaching, the problem is you can't assume he see's everything.  Maybe the warrior was behind rocks or the mage was just too busy.  The ability to see where everything is and what is a threat is your ability as the channeler (player).  A little intellingence might be nice, but if you let the AI make decisions I guarantee it will frequently make entirely justified decisions that you disagree with.  Maybe you intended to sacrifice that unit, or maybe you know that the enemy isn't as strong as it looks or are intending to help out with spells of your own.  Maybe you want to hold off on the stronger spells for now, maybe you don't.

oh, id certainly be all for more intelligent pathfinding. I think all units should be great at navigating/pathfinding within their own limits, however some are just better (their commander has a higher leadership score, ect) for instance, most units have to avoid rocks, ridges, and thick trees, while units with a high-leadership commander (or a recon pack?) can simply walk over and through these obstacles.

Alternatively, the "AI" of the unit's actions could be proportionate to the leadership level of the army's commander, however I would prefer bonuses rather than crappy AI. If however, having max leadership made combat much more efficient than if you were controlling everything ... then it would be worth-it and believable to have an equal -> slightly less compitent AI for low leadership scores and armies without a leader.

The mage shouldn't reverse unless I tell him to reverse. If I am managing the units, I am in charge, if you want the AI in charge, autoplay battles. But having the AI take those "decisions" is a mess, because even if the AI is really clever, he can't guess what I'm thinking, and there's nothing more frustrating than ordering something and the computer doing something else.

Well, no matter how astute of a player you are, you will lose track of certain units from time to time, and in some cases, you are always going to want certain units to dodge a cavalry charge--- like the fire mage.  Perhaps you can set "temperments" for your important units.  For instance, you could tell your fire mage to be either evasive, moderate, or bold.  If he is evasive, he flees in the face of any enemy and, while bold, he pretty much never runs from anything.

If you set a value/behavior then ok. But you have to be the one saying it.

Have to disagree with you on this. I love the traditional turn based system and would like Elemental to go this route. Now the Attacks of Opportunity in D7D 3.x is a great mechanic (not sure why you think it is confusing) but something like this in Turn based games would correct the problem you just described (the Fire mage the Troll and the Fighter.) 

I take it that D&D 4.0 does not have Attacks of Opportunity? If so then that is yet another reason not to play it IMO.

DnD 4e has attacks of opportunity, but the rules are much better (clarified and easier to use).

In what way are they easier?

The conditionts to determine if an opportunity attack can be performed are easier.

You're right... time to turn in my chessboard.