| Overview |
This help file was last updated in November, 2016.
Topics include the mechanics and relationships between height, movement rate, reach, combat space, and combat movement.
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| Height |
Every creature in Mythic Warfare has a height. This will be equal to the base height for your race, modified randomly by a normal distribution to give a realistic
range of heights. Females will be about 8% shorter, on average, than males of the same species.
Height affects many things, several of which are mentioned below. Additionally, your initial strength score may be modified by height for unusually tall or short individuals.
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| Movement Rate |
Your movement rate is the number of squares per turn that you can move if you are sprinting all-out. Since a turn is 10 seconds, and a square is 10 meters, this score
can be read as "meters per second."
The derivation of movement rate is complex. The base number is largely determined by your race, height, and physical attributes, with a small bit of randomness sprinkled in
for variety. The final value, however, is extremely dependent on the ratio between your strength2 and the total weight of your equipment. You will find that it
doesn't take much weight at all to start reducing your movement rate, and it will drop quickly as you go above this bottom threshold. But the more weight you add, the less
impactful each little bit becomes. It is easy to reduce your rate from 8 to 4, for example, but from 4 to 2 takes a lot more weight. And getting below 1 requires extreme
encumberance.
Your movement rate will be affected by many things, such as magical spells or items you are wearing, or by fatigue or terrain or any number of other factors.
Does it matter what your movement rate is? Not much. There are almost no cases where you will want to move more than one square per turn. Running and sprinting generate
extreme fatique and should be avoided in all but the most dangerous combat situations. You do want to try to keep it over 1 though. Below this will be problematic.
When adventuring, if you move one square per turn you only suffer one fatigue check per turn (none if you have a movement rate of 6 or higher!). If your movement rate
is 8 or more, you can move further with just a single fatigue check (1/4 your total move rate, rounded down). You can move up to half your rate by running, which
requires 3 fatigue checks. You can move up to your full move rate by sprinting, which generates 10 fatigue checks.
Your movement rate also factors into other calculations, as explained below.
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| Reach |
Reach is a measure of how far you can strike at an enemy. This is a simple calculation based on your height, the reach of your weapon, your movement rate, and your skills.
Reach is very important for two reasons.
Most importantly, the combatant with the longer reach has a huge advantage over his shorter opponent. The person with the shorter reach will have a hard time closing
to strike the longer-reached enemy. This manifests in the form of lost attacks. Virtually every combat round you will see many messages mixed into the battle log about
lost attacks due to inferior reach. One quick and skillful man with a polearm might keep a dozen large spiders at bay with ease, never being threatened by an actual attack.
The only real danger in a case like that is fatigue, since it is hard work keeping them all at arms length.
The second reason reach is important is for combat space, described below.
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| Combat space |
Combat space is the room required for you to fight optimally, and it is a very big deal. It is measured in square meters, keeping in mind that each square is 10m on a side
or 100 m2 in total area.
The calculation for combat space is complex, but driven largely by just a few factors. First is your size and your weapon length. The bigger you are and the longer your weapon,
the more room you need to swing about fighting if you are to remain unimpeded. Movement rate also plays a role, since over the 10 seconds of a turn, you will actually move
around a fair bit within your square. Faster people simply need more space to operate at peak efficiency. Your skills also play a very big role in determining combat space.
As you gain levels and skills in relevant areas, your combat space requirements will shrink.
If too many people are fighting together in a single group, their combat space needs will rather quickly exceed the 100 space available. At that point, two things will happen.
They suffer penalties to attack, defense, and speed scores because they lack the space to move optimally. They will also look for a way to move out into an adjacent square, so long
as they can still hit their enemy. These moves are described in more detail below.
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| Combat Movement |
Unless your groups are all under 100 total combat space, every time you fight your characters (and the enemies) will begin moving about. This is very realistic. Even if 20
soldiers start crammed into a 10 meter square and face off against a similar 20 foes in an adjacent square, after a minute or two they'll be spread over an area perhaps
ten times as large as each person attempts to optimize their attacking chances and minimize the angles their enemies have to strike them.
Combat moves are different from the ungroup action. Ungroup will force a character to move into the specified square no matter what. They will comply and move safely,
but doing so requires giving up any chance to hit the enemy that turn. Combat moves, however, are reactionary and completely without consequence. There are no missed actions
nor fatigue checks for combat moves, since they represent the most opportunistic and natural movements of the character.
Keep an eye on how far your people spread out. As enemies are killed you might find that certain people no longer have anyone to attack in their present location. Moving groups
back toward the action is important -- as is moving vulnerable groups away from it!
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| Strategies |
You've just learned all sorts of useful information. Great! Now what do you do with it? Is it better to have a long reach or a small combat space? Heavier armor or higher
movement rate? Here are a few basic thoughts, keeping in mind there isn't anything even close to a one-size-fits-all strategy. Be flexible and creative.
The most obvious tactic is to try to focus your power. The more people you can pack into a single square, the stronger they are. Sure, they'll suffer penalties
from inadequate combat space, but that is well worth the extra attackers and larger hp pool. So one idea is to try to minimize the combat space of each character so
that they will fight well in larger groups.
Reach is a double-edged sword here. A very long reach will cause almost all enemies who attack you to lose their actions. This slows down combat and takes enemies out of the
game in a sense, and lets a single warrior defeat large numbers of short-reach foes. But maximizing reach means long weapons and high movement rates, both of which
require more combat space. So you'll wind up with more effective fighters, but more thinly distributed around the battlefield. The right choice is beyond the scope of this
help file as there are simply too many variables to consider.
Movement rate is similar. A low movement rates is really nice in that it is a "free" way to hold down your combat space without suffering any ill effects. However a low
movement rate does shrink your reach making you less able to strike long-armed foes. It also can lead to more fatigue if you end up moving multiple squares per turn
at any point.
The best advice is to pay attention. Watch how your guys perform in combat and address weaknesses. Each opponent will act differently, depending on their particular
advantages and disadvantages. Would you be better off fighting 30 demon dogs by stacking a bunch of dwarves with short axes and low movement into a single square, or
by spreading out with long speedy spearmen fighting them in groups of one or two? How about if the enemies are ogres with giant polearms? Since Mythic Warfare is an
evolving game, the answers to these and other questions will have to be found experimentally. Keep an eye on your fatigue, try to keep your injured and your non-combat characters
far enough back that they won't get sucked into the fray, and don't hesitate to run away and regroup elsewhere.
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