Re: Turn based combat vs simultaneous
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DavidByron
There's almost no doubt in my mind that the combat is turn based and not simultaneous. This is not because of the illustrations but because of the difference it makes to the combat results and because of what we are told by the characters in the story.
We are told that "archery gets their hitsies" which implies that the archers are not simultaneous with other combat. There is no chance that an attacker for example can kill an archer before the archer has a chance to shoot.
It appears that beyond archers shooting first, the attacker shoots / hits before the defender. This makes a huge difference to the outcome of combat. For example in the fight against the 3 dwagons the dwagons are clearly capable of doing a lot of damage in one round -- killing about two infantry each. The archers shoot first (both because they are archers and because they are attackers) but because they do no damage the dwagons get to attack at full strength killing six archers.
When Ansom attacks with his full strength the 3 dwagons do no damage at all. Not even one archer is killed. Why? Because they are all dead before their turn to attack. Advocates of simultaneous combat would have to explain why the dwagons suddenly can't kill even one archer.
Some people have asked how it is that there is such a big difference between Ansom attacking the 19 wounded A dragons and 3 warlords first, then being attacked by the B dwagons on the next turn vs being attacked by all dwagons at once. The main difference (equal with the fact that the A dwagons would be wounded if he attacks quickly) is that the attacker gets a huge advantage. With the archers striking first it's possible that all 19 dwagons would be killed before any of them get to attack at all. All dead for no damage to Ansom.
In fact if the A dwagons are NOT so badly wounded that they could be killed by a single volley of archer fire then Parson could have safely used them in another round of attack against siege units.
But if the wounded A dwagons attack simultaneously then it would be a very different story. Even just four dwagons took out Jillian on a gwiffon with a magic sword. She's probably the toughest unit in the game so far.
So if combat is not "attacker shoots then defender shoots" (or to be more precise ("attacker archers shoot, defender archers shoot, attacker non-archers shoot etc") then it is much harder to see how Ansom could have expected to survive an attack by the B dwagons after defeating the A dwagons.
Interesting. However, when the dragons attacked, it was defense attacks, then offense attacks. It seemed the same way when the dragons poppped out of the trees to take the elves. If this is the case, Ansom shouldn't have been able to attack before the dragons attacked him.