Note: For those who does not know what W1815 is, it's a war game without movement, everything is embedded in the combat resolution table. Each turn, players chose 1 unit, roll a die and resolve the CRT.
I would like to use the W1815 system as a close up combat resolution mechanism. Think a bit of it like in "Titan" when instead of opening up a tactical battle field, you have an engagement like in W1815.
Now the problem is that the W1815 is designed by knowing in advance which units are going to be available on each side. But in a game like "Titan", you will not know which unit will be on each side.
I intend to use an hex map as a world map with multiple armies on the board ( 1 army per hex). Each army will be composed of 2-3 units.
There seems to be 4 aspects in the W1815 system to consider:
1- There is different flanks where units are isolated from each other.
For the flanking, that will be easy. Each unit on the "World map" will be a flank and units will be isolated from other flanks. In W1815, each village is a separate flank. The only exception is the unit "Guard" that can target 2 different flanks.
2- Combat results, what are the casualties.
For the combat results, I could have find something where you fusion 2 combat resolution table together in opposite direction. For example, my unit can have the following outcome:
1- no damage
2- no damage
3- weak damage
4- weak damage
5- strong damage
6- Strong damage
Then the opposing unit will have the same chart, but the positionning is inverted, so that the opponent's 6 is put in my position 1.
1- no damage - enemy strong damage
2- no damage - enemy strong damage
3- weak damage - enemy weak damage
4- weak damage - enemy weak damage
5- strong damage - enemy no damage
6- Strong damage - enemy no damage
The problem is that there is now 1 chart for both units. An alternative would be to have an offensive and defensive chart. When I attack, my offensive chart get matched with the defending unit's defensive chart.
3- The targetting, who will target who, who will counter attack who.
This is the most complex portion as I don't know the composition of each side. I was thinking maybe using unit catagories like infantry, cavalry, artillery. Infantry target infantry, cavalry can counter attack other units. Else I could use front row and back row, the position of the unit change it behavior.
4- Selecting units to act
In W1815, you can select 1 unit per turn, which can be of any flank. Since each world map unit will be an army on a separate flank, If each army can act once per turn, that means multiple units will be activated each turn.
A solution that I though is that each army can activate once, but only 1 of the unit within the army is activated. So if an army have INF and CAV, then either the INF or the CAV within the unit can be activated. Else I could put all armies in a pot and resolve them as a single battle.
In W1815, the CRT efficiency is not relative to the number of regiments on the battle field, that means that players will not always select the unit with the most regiments. Allowing more choice.
I just re-tougth about it and it's way to complex to play, even as a video game. Sometimes I just think too much. Almost feel sorry for my post.
To self-criticise myself, It seems that it barely solve the objective of making location be defended by more than 1 unit, have battles with lese units on the board and having semi automated battle without tactical movement. There is still tactical movement to reach the target location to attack, so that just puts the problem elsewhere. Implementing unit stacking would be much easier to understand.
Now I am thinking more about going 180 degrees, implementing tactical map, but removing world map movement. All your units teleports to destination when you choose to attack. The tactical map is spawned, but it's simply a portion of the world map. One of the objective is to remove micromanagement and fifflyness of moving units every turn while also managing civilization and other task. In this case, instead of removing movement during battle, I will remove movement before battle.
Like in Titan, you warp from battle field to another instead of connecting battlefield and moving between them. Also, when you are in a tactical battle you feel you are in a battle, and resolve it until it's over. It avoid the player to do multitasking by seperating concerns. It avoid situations like: "OK, I build a castle in that city, accept a trade traeaty with player X, spend gold on that new reward program and by the way, the crossbow man hidden in that forest attack's your archer."