Dogs of War Online

tl;dr
Make disengagements harder and more punishing, and provide more control over attacks of opportunity or cancel a units movement if they enter hostile control zones.


Right now I feel that disengaging from a melee with any unit whatsoever is way too easy. I usually play Ram and just started a Lion comp to get a look into other races, and I always seem to have a very hard time with mobile or elusive units from other races, due to the fact that I simply cannot win any important disciplin test. (And, boy, don't get me started on the current Dis-mechanic... but I won't discuss this right now). So please bear in mind that the following text is mainly influenced by the current Ram gameplay.

In the old days of the Confrontation TT, disengagment was much, much harder and more punishing if it failed. First of, any committed troops weren't able to move around their opponents but rather stayed in place until one of them was dead (or skirmishes were separated). If you failed a disengagment roll, you had to stay in place and also place all your units dice into defensive. If you could disengage, well, then you could go on as ever, but with restricted movement.

In the current game, it is hard to come by human archers, lions, pixies or wolfen xbows, since even if you did manage to engage them, they would simply withdraw and shoot right into the fray (or do whatever else they like). It is almost necessary to field lot's of skeletons, even in lower AP brackets, since a few elite units can't compete with a) most zerg comps and b) ranged combat in form of human or wolven archers.

And I also think, that units shouldn't be able to dance around their melee opponents when engaged. I see fast units round almost full circles around my blockading units just to get to my archers or mages, without my units making any AoO, since the enemy isn't leaving my frontline units combat range. This resulted in several occasions where units with high DAM and MOV (like the lion) was able to catch several vulnerable units, while my paladin on guarding duty watched merrily as his companions got eaten, although he stood next to the lion, who wandered around.

In my opionion, attacks of opportunity should be triggered as soon a unit enters an enemys attack range and moves just one hex further. Or he looses all remaining movement points when he enters a hostile sphere of influence (just like in Battle for Wesnoth, where unit movement is heavily restricted by enemies).

In return, there are already traits for specialized units such as the lion or the garg to avoid any AoOs if they move around enemy melee fighters. These traits should distinguish such highly mobile "assassins" from units like regular wolfen or pixies, who just happen to have higher MOV, but don't fill in the dedicated assassin-role.


Anyways, I would like to hear other opinions on that matter (maybe I'm having a wrong impression on the subject)

i like the idea of causing attacks of opportunity when circling around as it would prevent the ruthless charge effect when your units are already engaged (i mean it is really supposed to work like that ruthless ?) or actually make you "pay" for it. Other than that, i guess making it like the original game might be too time consuming programming wise.

I only have three major problems with the game as it stands, mechanically (balance is not really an issue right now). This is one of them.

Canny placement of units can obviate some of these problems, but even so, the punishment for disengaging is minimal.

I imagine disengaging works the way it does so that small units have a harder time locking down big units (it is much harder to run through small enemies in this game, where everyone has 40 hp and takes 10ish damage from attacks, than in CONF), which makes sense. But it gets silly sometimes, as we see in Wolfen sprinting away to run out the last few turns of a match.

I'd tweak the mechanics such that a failed roll means your MOV immediately drops to 0, but activation does not end. Engaged models always risk an attack of opportunity if they move (even if they don't move out of melee range). Charged models cannot attempt disengagement.

(Knock-Out Strike would need changing, but one does not design base mechanics around special abilities; that is exactly backwards.)

Serdak wrote:I'd tweak the mechanics such that a failed roll means your MOV immediately drops to 0, but activation does not end. Engaged models always risk an attack of opportunity if they move (even if they don't move out of melee range). Charged models cannot attempt disengagement.

Exactly this is my point. If the rules were such as stated by Serdak, the game would become more "reliable" vs. any kind of army setup.

Disengaging is too easy at the moment. I'm ok with units having the elusive ability being able to do it...but when a lonewolf can do that easily....there is something wrong.

Serdak wrote:I'd tweak the mechanics such that a failed roll means your MOV immediately drops to 0, but activation does not end. Engaged models always risk an attack of opportunity if they move (even if they don't move out of melee range). Charged models cannot attempt disengagement.

This.

Will also stop the frankly outrageous Seal of Dellar'n, where you cast it on a Sparkling, move it at the end of your turn into contact with as much as possible, then run out pretty much no matter the accuracy of your attackers next turn for a quick patch-up by your group of BS healing Sparklings.