Chris Crawford on Game Design

The Combat System

Combat was no big deal; having worked with combat systems for board games, I knew most of what I needed to do. Terrain considerations were the least of my concerns: I'd just double defensive strength in dense terrain and behind rivers. Facing considerations were important: Units being attacked from the flanks or, worse, from the rear, would suffer a loss of effective defensive strength. What I really wanted to focus on was the disruption element. When units fought, they would suffer both casualties and disruption. The casualties were never replaced, but the units would slowly recover from their disruption. This meant that there were two forms of combat strength: muster strength and combat strength. The former was the full strength ...