A critique of the Rizia Battle system

[Howard Roark]

I know people have discussed the battle system in the DLC before, and I'd like to add my two cents. I apologize in advance for the huge walls of text.

I really like the idea, I thought the military aspect was a bit lackluster in the base game, and I welcome more gameplay options.

Unfortunately, I think the execution was less than ideal. I'd go so far as to say I dislike the system as it's implemented in the game. My first job was actually as a wargame developer, so I'd like to think I have some idea what makes a good wargame.

While there are several issues, the basic idea is decent. Once you wrap your head around it, it's not that complex but there is enough depth to keep you interested.

In fact, most of the problems don't have that much to do with the units or combat, it's the systems supporting it. I'd go so far as to say the single biggest problem actually has nothing to do with the war system itself. It's how it fits into the game.

You aren't introduced to the war system until you go to war, so a long way into the game, and after you have made dozens of decisions and sunk hours into the game. It's only then that you learn how warfare works and how best to make your army.

After you've already made those decisions.

In order for decisions to be meaningful you have to have a solid sense of what that decision is. The problem then is that you only learn what the decisions do when it's too late to do anything about it.

For example, I had no idea what actions points were, and given that Pales is a coastal nation and reliant on trade, I figured I should focus on the navy. It was only when I got to the first battle that I discovered that the navy was next to useless (less so in the second) and actions points were the most important thing. Had I known, I would have put less emphasis on the navy and more on getting actions points.

Fortunately, I think this one is a relatively easy fix. Expand the war tutorial a bit (mostly make it so the AI behaves like it does in actual combat and you are under an action point and turn crunch) and move it early in the game. Maybe a councilor suggests you participate in a war-exercise. Maybe you go to military academy in the prologue and can play it then. Maybe there is a small rebellion you have to put down. There are plenty of ways to integrate it into the game.

By learning the systems and mechanics early, before you have gotten far into the game, you're able to make better informed choices about your long term strategy. You may still screw it up, or find war comes quicker than expected, but those are then your fault not the games.

Along the same lines, the integration into the main story is a bit odd. It takes time for the story to catch up to what happens on the battlefield. This is most noticeable when you conquer Pales in battle. The game doesn't recognize that for quite a while. It was surreal having the President of Lespia tell me he's going to support Pales fully after I have already conquered it. I get that the operation is supposed to take time and these story beats are supposed to have been during that time period, but it feels wrong.

My solution would probably be to have the story decisions take place before you fight the battle, so you go straight into the story results of the battle once it's over rather than waiting who knows how long for the story to catch up.

Now, as for combat itself, I find myself agreeing with the common complaints. In particular, the lack of action points and tight turn timer.

Honestly, these two combined make the gameplay just not fun. You have neither the actions nor the time to try alternative strategies, you have to min-max the hell out of the war to have any chance.

You feel super constrained by the action points. Even with every option to increase them you just don't have enough. So in the first battle, the navy is absolutely useless, as it attacking along the coastal road (even though that is presented as an option). You have to beeline towards the cities to have any hope of achieving victory in the allotted time.

It feels odd that moving requires action points, it makes it virtually impossible to try to make lines, you'll usually only move about 10 units over the course of the game. This makes having a big army pretty much useless. General Kruger would be most displeased, trying his strategy is completely impossible. Investing in infantry is pointless, just invest in tanks and support units if you want any chance of winning. The dearth of AP makes it impossible to experiment with different strategies and tactics.

Plus, it feels unfair. When you attack, adjacent enemy units automatically support the defense; when they attack you have to spend your limited action points to support the defense. On top of that, the enemy gets more action points than you do. At one point I counted 8 enemy moves/attacks in a turn. That's double the base number you get, and close to triple if you count the auto-defense support. I get that this is probably necessary for the AI to be competitive, but it feels unfair, like they are playing by different rules.

Then there is the turn timer. Even with more action points the turn timer makes it exceedingly difficult to win. After many hours of failed attempts, I tried boosting my AP to 8 and still couldn't take the objectives in the allotted time. Yes, my military wasn't optimized for the war and I did get close, but I still couldn't do it. 8 is more action points than you can get even if you do all the relevant projects. I'm not saying it is impossible to win with 4 or with 8, but that it is so difficult as to be not fun. I'd agree that if you made poor investments it should be difficult to win, but I feel the turn limit makes it so that even with good investments the battle is difficult to win.

If the turn timer was 2-6 turns longer I feel it would be more doable. But it's a fine balance to not make it too easy.

My suggestion with the turn timer is to take a leaf out of Panzer General's book. Make different levels of victory based upon how long it takes you, if you beat it in 8 turns you win a major victory, 12 is a moderate, 14 is minor. Or something like that. You can make the levels of victory change the difficulty of the next battle, or the amount of international opposition/support you/Pales receives (no one wants to support a loser), or how popular the war is at home.

And if I may go on a tangent, it was really weird seeing dialogue after a victory in the first battle about how unpopular the war was even when I had high war enthusiasm after the speech. Really, the people were enthused about the war, we've achieved a big victory with minimal casualties and people are unhappy? Maybe that's because of other factors that the game isn't explaining, but it struck me as odd and not the most realistic.

As for the action points, the simplest solution is to either increase them, or make certain actions not cost an AP. For example, moving into territory you control shouldn't count an AP, and I'd say airstrikes shouldn't cost an AP. If the AI can support for free, maybe you should be able to too. And make the AI play by similar rules. Maybe they get more AP, but have to spend some on defensive support instead of getting it automatically.

You could also fix it by remaking a lot of the combat system. Do something like make AP dependent upon unit type, so tanks and mechanized units can do more in a turn then the poor bloody infantry. Maybe infantry costs less AP than tanks to activate so you can activate multiple infantry for every tank. Maybe AP determines how many actions units can take before taking a turn for R&R. Maybe every unit gets 1 action per turn and your AP is extra actions (amphibious assault, refreshing a unit for a second action, using an airstrike, etc.). While things like these are options, I imagine it's too dramatic a change in how combat works.

In other game play issues, the lack of an undo option is a killer. There is no reason you shouldn't be able to undo up until the point you hit end turn. I've had situations where I misclicked, or accidentally shuffled units around when I wanted to select them (navy is particularly bad in this regard), or accidentally dug in, or discovered that the attack is less favorable then I anticipated. In that case the only option is to go back to the start of the battle or accept the mistake and probably lose because of the tightness of action points/turns.

On a similar note, it would be nice if there were saves in the battle phase. Much like in the story, a save after ever turn of the battle phase would be helpful. I get that save scumming is frowned upon, but if you already give that option in the story (albeit with limits) there isn't any reason not to have a similar system in the war game. This would also solve a lot of the problems of making misclicks and mistakes, as well as make it easier to try new strategies.

Those are my main complaints about the actual combat system. As you can see, there actually aren't too many about how combat works, I think the base is decent, but the systems that support it are the problem.

Now this is more about the lore than the combat system, but there seems to be a distinct mismatch between what we're told and what we see. We're told Pales has a powerful airforce, a force which was instrumental in winning the first war, and that they'll enjoy a similar advantage this war. And yet air power isn't particularly influential to the battle. You can pretty much ignore it and still win.

On a similar note, why does the enemy get AA installations but not us? I feel it should be an option to build them, especially when we're told we are outgunned in the air. The USSR went heavy on air defense in response to NATO's focus on air power. We should be able to do the same. It might also be cool if there were AA units that you could use to protect the units around them, a different kind of support unit. However, to be useful the action point system would need to be changed.

I'd also like to see more terrain, or at least rivers. The story mentions in the first battle that the northern line is anchored by a river and will be hard to break, but there are no penalties to attacking over a river. It feels a bit odd that the story mentioned it, as well as unrealistic. River lines can be very difficult to break if the enemy is prepared. Something like a defensive bonus if the attack is over a river, and movement stops when crossing a river if it's not over a road. Other terrain might be cool, marsh, forests, etc. But I think the big offender is the river, as it is explicitly mentioned in game.

It's also weird that a nation as small as Pales is able to field a force that large. Rizia is many time the size of Pales, and struggles to expand it's army to moderate size. Yet tiny Pales is able to field an army much larger than ours, and a much higher-maintenance one at that. If this was Rumburg I could understand but Pales? I know they are getting help from Lespia, but there are limits. What should be like fighting Denmark feels like fighting France. They feel way to strong for their size. Where are they even getting the men to equip all these units?

It would make sense for Pales to have a smaller army, but a better equipped and trained one than Rizia. As it stands Pales can field an army larger than Rizia. Now Pales is a country with a GDP massively smaller than Rizia's (14th vs 27th largest) who's entire population is almost 2 million less than just Rizia's capital. This makes no sense.

If Pales army was much smaller but much better that would feel right. Once again it could open up strategic options. Do you go with a Kruger styled mass assault and try to overwhelm their superior training and equipment with superior numbers, or do you go for a Iosef style highly skilled smaller force? You could get choices when doing things like building arms factories as to what kind of equipment you want the factory to build; higher quality and more expensive/less built per turn or lower quality but cheaper/more built per turn. What do you want your military academies to teach, human wave, blitzkrieg, etc.

Finally the most minor issue of them all. Pales doesn't get any unique units. We're even told they have superior Lespian tanks, yet their tanks are identical to ours. Doing something like giving them fewer tanks, but having their tanks be more powerful would help sell the immersion. This could open up new choices too, maybe you can import improved tanks from Rumburg to get some good tanks of your own, maybe you can capture some of their equipment and use that for your own army.

Honestly, while I like the inclusion of a battle system, I feel like the game makes going to war just too punishing. The battle's themselves are hard to win and the story punishes you for being a warmonger. Sanctions, more sanctions, outrage, big hits to the economy, energy sanctions, protests, unpopularity, and more. I get that war is frowned upon by others, but it feels like it's so one sided against going to war here. It also feels a bit odd, Rumburg went to war multiple times without any of these problems, Sordland went to war with no international outrage, but we're dogpiled. I know that in future playthroughs I will do my best to try and avoid it, as it's just so expensive for so little payoff.

This is too long as it is, but I wanted to share my thoughts. I know it's too late to see any major changes to the Rizia DLC, but I am hopeful you'll take everyone's thoughts and ideas into account for your next DLC. One of the things I like about Torpor Games is that you clearly listen to feedback and try to improve. I think most of the new additions in the Rizia DLC are great, and I look forward to seeing what you have in store down the road!

[DEMON RAGEUR]

Only good ideas, yes I completely agree on the lack of action points to win a battle, I find the idea that unit movements no longer cost any AP! Also a very good idea is the creation of anti-aircraft units (AA) but we must consequently make military aviation more important and useful on the battlefield! And also very intelligent the idea of ​​the military exercise in peacetime proposed by the Minister of the Armed Forces here it will serve as a tutorial for the game's war mode!

I would add that it remains a choice to do this exercise or not, if we do it then our units will be better trained and will have 1 or 2 AP (to be determined) when the first battle comes in return it will cost us budgetary expenses! Conversely if we do not do the exercise, we avoid expenses in the budget but as our units are not trained enough then no more AP to gain when the first battle to manage arrives!

One last thing, we should make the navy more useful with the creation of aircraft carriers and landing craft! A big thank you to the developers for their passion and all the work already done and future on Suzerain !

[ardea1611]

Being an expert in strategic games i really dislike the warfare part of the game.
Warfare isn/t working right in this game.
Neither as Sordland nor as Rizia.
You can only win if you take the course the developers think is optimal in an optimal setting.
Alternative decisions which are strategically sound or better than the developers path loose consistently.
So i avoid war in this game.

By the way i really like this game and the Rizia DLC.
It's a very good political game.

[the matunster]

100% agree, had the same experience as you and it was really frustrating. I don't feel like playing the game anymore because the war experience just feels painful