I have a tendency to give loads of background information, but this time I'll just cut to the chase.
My battle mechanic is currently as follows. When a battle is initiated in my game, the attacker counts up his attack total and the defender totals up his defense total. If the attack total is less than or equal to the defense total, nothing happens. If the attack total is greater than the defense total, the defender must remove x units from his hex (where x = attack value - defense value). To determine the attack and defense total, each player counts the number of his attacker/defenders and can blindly bid energy (the in game currency) from his hand to add to the attack/defense value. In addition, if the defender loses units, the attacker gains energy equal to the number of defenders killed.
The problem I foresee with this system is that a player can potentially place all of his units onto one hex, and a player that has fewer resources may not be able to amass a large enough army to even deal damage to it. I want to prevent this, but the only solution that comes to mind is limiting the amount of units that can be placed on a hex. I think I need to figure out another way that damage can be dealt by defenders. I can think of ways that this can be fixed with dice, but I really like how this battle mechanic is diceless, and I really like the blind bidding mechanic. Any ideas are appreciated.
attacker power - defender power = defender's damage
attacker power = army size + energy bid
defender power = army size + energy bid
You are right on target. This is how the system works.
1) Does the energy gained come from the defender or from general supply?
2) Does the Attacker knows what exactly he is attacking--what kinds of enemy units there are?
Actually, I introduced the energy gain mechanic to encourage players to initiate combat. I originally planned the game to revolve around military battles, but it has been slowly turning into a civilization building game (which is fine, but combat started becoming less crucial and actually resource intensive). I needed to come up with a way to make military conquests worth it, and I chose to let players gain energy from successful combat (kind of like pillaging).
In a sense, the energy gained does come from the defender (but not in the way you are probably thinking). I will clarify down below when I talk about the theme.
Yes, the attacker knows what units are defending. There is no fog of war.
It might become a perpetual system of bidding high when attacking, gaining more energy to bid higher. I also don't understand how it works thematically. If it was morale i might understand, but i would limit the max bid.
Part of the problem is you have not explained how energy is gained other than winning battles. If there is no other way to gain energy, the bidding system has little to no point. If there are other ways to gain energy, it becomes infinitely abusable.
Actually, I don’t think the system will lead to a perpetual system of high bidding. Usually, I go overboard in explaining all of the nitty gritty details of my game idea when it is not essential. This time, I went to the opposite extreme and didn’t explain enough. Anyway, here is a rundown of the theme and why I don’t think that the bidding system will lead to infinite abuse.
The game is called Creature Clash – War of the Elements. The game takes place on an island with terrain completely made out of the five classical elements (fire, water, air, earth, and aether) and their combinations. The goal of the game is to earn a certain amount of victory points and players do this by building and developing kingdoms and by conquering other kingdoms.
As I stated before, the currency of the game is energy, but it comes in many different types. There is element energy (fire, water, air, etc.), and there is combination energy (ice, lava, plant, steam, etc.). Players use energy to build units and structures. Units include workers, attackers and defenders. Structures include, mines, settlements, cities, and city walls. Energy is normally acquired by using workers on a terrain hex or by using a mine; however, energy can be gained in combat as well. When energy is gathered or mined, the player gains energy of the same type as the hex it is on. For example, if the hex is an air hex, the player will gain air energy (which can only be spent to create air units or air structures, although this energy can be converted to a different type). When energy is gained through combat, the type of energy is determined by the units that are killed. For example, if the attacker kills five water units, these units will be converted into water energy and the attacker will add this energy to his or her supply (which is how the energy comes from the defender, MarkD1733).
The other thing that I did not make clear is that attack/defense values can only be boosted by spending energy of the same type as the attackers/defenders. For example, if a player is attacking with fire units and only has water energy available, he or she will not be able to boost his or her attack power. This is the reason I don’t think that my combat system will turn into a perpetual high bid issue. The only way for the bidding to escalate is if both the defender and the attacker fight with the same type of units (e.g. fire vs fire, or water vs water).
Another thing is that I allow the defender to choose which units he or she wants to remove, not the attacker. So, if the attacker is trying to escalate his or her bid by gaining fire energy and the defender has both earth and fire units on his or her hex, the defender can choose to have earth units killed instead. So, the defender has an opportunity to prevent bid escalation by including other types of units on the hex if he or she knows he or she is going to be attacked by the same element type.
By the way, thank you guys for your constructive criticism.