In a lot of RTS games, you see that stacked units are much stronger than spread out units. Simply due to the fact that stacked units can fire at the same time.
In Starcraft you see this with air vs ground battle's. Prior to the splash vs air with the Broodwar addon. Air had a big advantage in army density.
The overall effect was that the flying units would be the square root of the size of the ground army...stronger. On average that is.
So, if both sides had 36 units, the ground army would have on average, only 6 shooting at the air units.
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Long story short again.
I figured out how this balancing of army density works for my board game.
Now I need to figure out how it could work for my card game.
I did something with the armor, damage and a threshold effect.
Something similar should be happening for when placing a card.
I am thinking of having the player get the option to still have chips representing number of cards.
This way, you can get squads per card again.
But each chip that represents an unit, will be having a die for itself. Not sure how to balance yet, but here is my first thought, somewhat copying my board game:
1 unit costs 1 unit.
2 units costs 3 units.
3 units costs 6 units.
4 units costs 10 units.
etc.
The card will represent more units. There will be no restock. So, once the squad is gone, its gone.
Defeated cards go to the graveyard. They are not returned to the deck.
I went for the cumulative costs. Since this costs more than the square root. But also for more options.
The army declines once placed on the board. Thus there is a cumulative effect as well.
There is health tracking, no internal cover system. Thus things go downhill with the least handling.
But my main objective has been reached.
1 rifleman will not exceed 1 kill. Even if more damage is done. Simply due to the fact that 1 projectile can hit only 1 target.
Now for the new combat mechanic...
Long story short again.
I tested all 3 games for a 1 on 1 situation with 1 rifleman shooting another rifleman.
Conclusion:
Here it was clear that the 3d8 or 4d8 or 5d8 or (whatever)d8. Is the reason that 1 unit can do multiple hits.
The mechanics allows overkill on 1 unit.
My prototype game has even the possiblity to allow 4 damage, while the opponent has 1 health. The remaining 3 damage are lost, simply due to how the mechanics work. And yes, a shotgunner can do 24 damage with a chance of (1/6)^12. Only 5 damage is needed there. And for that the unit has a 9% chance. Killing 2 soldiers with the same shot has a chance of 0.4%
My card game doesn't for overkill on 1 unit. When it comes to the number of hitting projectiles.
1 projectile can become multiple hits.
With the accuracy of 50%. This means it could double.
Due to the durability die, it was made clear that the accuracy roll is the reason there is a <1 H/D ratio chance.
I am starting to think to cut in my game. This time the chips. So that the number of units are reduced greatly.
Followed by having 1 die per projectile.
Then add the chips again, in order to track health.
Sure, the bucket of dice returns, but limited. But instead of having this for hundreds of units. It will be only 1 table.
It will also reduce the weird rules. Like being able to increase the number of units, once a card is on the table.
Another limit would be a limit on the cards on the table. Which would automatically limit the dice. Unless wacky cards are played for fun ;)
This way, formations could be made as well.
There is only one thing that I need to take care of...
Army density.