/ga/ - Games

>>12152
>games in the strategy genre implement unit promotion in some form or another
Fighters gain skill during combat and get better at it in the real world too, so why wouldn't video games also reflect that ?

>However, in pretty much all instances it has the effect of discouraging sacrificial play as a tactic, in effect reducing the overall depth of a given game.
loosing is not a tactic
loosing is not depth of strategy
In battle you win when your guys stay alive and the guys on the opposing side don't. Everything else is just BS excuses made up by shitty generals, not wanting to admit they suck at their job.

>I'm starting to think this may have been the genre's Original Sin
No, the almost universally lacking game mechanic is troop-moral and supply-lines. If either moral or supplies get too low troops surrender. If you can add this element to a game with it becoming tedious micromanagement it would enable more interesting strategies.

OP, if you have a pathology where you derive enjoyment from sacrificing people, you have my sympathy dark impulses suck, however please don't try to make it a virtue. It's not a skill it's a curse that makes you ill suited for command. When officers tried to engage in "sacrificial play" they ended up with a fragmentation grenade in their tent. That's where the word "fragging" originally comes from.

>>12153
I don't know if i just suck at freeciv, but my superior units are usually swamped by a lot of inferior enemy units. Promotion only came into play as a unit production buff.
>in pretty much all instances it has the effect of discouraging sacrificial play as a tactic
I think it only discourages sacrificial play, when troops can be healed without being overrun by the enemy. In this case promotion would be a reward for committing spare troops to hold the front.

>>12153
Anon… you know games aren't real life right? Those little characters aren't real people. It's okay to sacrifice a pawn in a game of chess; why shouldn't it be a valid tactic in a video game?

>>12154
Promotion in Freeciv / other early Civ games is mostly important from a defensive perspective, because unit defenses are calculated multiplicatively. For example, an unpromoted Phalanx on a hill tile that is fortified, under the civ2civ3 ruleset, will get 2 defense base * (1.5 for the hill) * (1.5 for fortifying) = 4.5 defense. That same unit with one promotion will instead get 2 defense base * (1.5 for the hill) * (1.5 for fortifying) * (1.5 for Veteran promotion) = 6.75 defense. I think promotions also apply a multiplier to attack but it's not nearly as impactful as defense since most units don't have any additional sources of attack bonuses.

>>12155
>real people.
mostly fake.