War games

I'm probably the least experienced person around, but I'll give what ideas I can.

For unit types, if you only want two they need to be significantly different. I have two thoughts. First, vary by range: one unit attacks adjacent squares, the other attacks up to two squares away. Second, attacker/defender: One type counts as two when attacking, the other counts as two when defending.

For movement, the larger the army the slower it should move. If you have a maximum armies allowed in a square, you could make teh movement max-armies+1. So, if the max is 5 and there are 4 armies in the square, they can move 2 squares. If there are 2 armies, they can move 4 squares. This gives a tactical choice; do I have too few armies get to their destination, or do I have enough armies arrive too late?

For combat, I can see the one-for-one, but the odds bonus should count for everyone and odds losses should be removed before one-for-one losses. For example, Red has three units, Blue has 2. Since Red has one unit more, blue immediately loses one army. Then the one-for-one happens. Blue loses the remaining army and red loses one. Two red units remain. Add in Attack and Defense specialized units and it could get interesting. Maybe. If you test it out let me know how it turns out.

http://www.bgdf.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=3346

I posted a question about different combat styles just like what you are asking here. My system is a little different because I am trying to add a card system for leaders, but ideas for luckless (or at least reduced luck) combat are also what I'm looking for. Hopefully some helpful ideas should be mentioned there.

I have a boardgame protype where there ais no randomness in the combats (infact no randomness in the game at all). However in the game I have 3 units. The first unit is the Capital Ship (it's a space colonisation game), the second is the Bomber and the last is the Fighter.

The system that I use is that:
1) Fighter's beat Bombers (they are faster and more manouverable).
2) Bombers beat Capital Ships (the bombers can attack from a range outside the capital ship's range).
3) Capital Ships beat Fighters (The capital ships are so massivly armored that fighters just don't do enough damage to them).

Yes, this is Scissor/Paper/Rock (in space!). :)

So the attribute I use are: Fighters can move more spaces than the bombers range. Bombers can fire further than capital ships or fighters, and Capital ships have more armor and can fire the same distance as the fighters.

Because of this cyclic relationship between ther units, the gameplay is still indeterminate dispite the game having no randomness in it.

For your game you could use 3 units to achieve the same effect. You just have to give each unit a mechanic that allows it to beat the other (I find this more elegant than just a table that states A beats B beats C beats A - and easier to remember especially if tied to the theme).

If your game has a medieval setting then a simple unit setup could be:
Archer: Can shoot a long distance (actually it's the same as my bomber).
Cavalry: Can move fast enough to reach the archers without letting the archers get an attack in (the same as my fighters).
Pikemen: Can damage Cavalry before the cavalry get to attack but move slower than Archers(similar to my capital ships).

With this setup the cavalry can beat the archers as they can mov in quickly. The Archers can beat the Pikemen as they can shoot at range (and not get attacked back by them). And the Pikemen can beat the Cavalry because they get first strike against them.

You must have the cavalry move further than the archers can shoot, and the cavalry move faster than the archers can move. If the units can make a move and attack then archers and pikemen can have the same movement speed, otherwise if you can only move or shoot then you will need to have the archers move further than the pikemen.

This also lends itself to combining the units (actualy it's a simplfied combaind arms theory) to get the best effect (eg: I have archers and pikemen and you have cavalry, then I will position my pikemen between your cavalry and my archers. But you could also then bring up archers of your own and take out my pikemen. And so on).

To theem them as Modern units you could have:
1) Motorized Infantry: Fast movement (equal to the cavalry).
2) Artillery: Ranged (equal to the archer).
3) Tanks: Tough (equal to the pikemen).