Military options poll

In a game, the number of units determines how many choices a player has to make for combat.
Are there too many units in ikariam, too few, or just right?
Note that the "more options," refers to units with different base stats (more powerful units) "more strategy," refers to units with more special abilities or varied stats (high attack, low defense, or high attack and defense, but abysmal speed, or high stamina, low defense...)
Also, feel free to put in comments your opinion about:
How you feel about the transparency of the battle system (knowing the rules, what to expect in a battle)
How you feel about the way battles are fought (sum all troop stats and compare the sums, vice a system where individual troops battle)
Number of special abilities and usefulness of those abilities.

I like it just how you have it on your forum

I think that there should be more. The game would be more complicated and more confusing. It's like a rock-paper-scissors thing.

An option I touched on, wanted to find out if anyone thinks it is good.
Giving units initiative or speed values, they wouldn't do much, but here is how it would work.
(for those unfamiliar with the proposed combat system, copying it in brief here: side with fewer units gets one "group," for each unit, side with more units has their units assigned to matching groups, with some effort made to match the weaker attackers with the weaker defenders, and stronger matched to stronger. Each group fights, and damage is allocated to units. Dead units are removed, and groups are re-balanced for another round of combat).
In combat, the faster unit would calculate it's attack first, then damage would be applied, then the slower unit would calculate it's attack. This would only matter if the faster unit killed a slower unit before it could help it's side, but it would make speed or initiative mean something in combat. It would be possible for a fast unit that did 2 hits of damage to kill the opponent before taking damage every round and never take damage, but would be very unlikely.
Is this worthwhile?
I think I mentioned the idea of "rear zone," units, archers, catapults, flyers, etc. The idea for them is that if they are in a group with other units, they take hits last. This is a mixed blessing, if you pair an archer with a heavy defensive unit with high hp, your archer won't get taken out randomly (or replace archer with catapult for anyone who has lost their entire seige train in the first three rounds of an ikariam attack). However, if you have two similar defense units, the team of spearman and archer will lose the spearman once it has taken 2 hits, the team of two spearmen will only lose one spearman at 2 hits 50% of the time. I think I will leave it up to the players, but does this add strategy?
3. rebalancing vs flank rolling? I had thought the combat should re-balance the teams after every round, but what do you think of "rolling the flank." This would mean that when one side loses everyone in a group, the other side's group does not get split up and re-distributed, but instead gets added to one group "nearby." Obviously, the reinforcements will probably make the other side's group overmatched, and lead to group after group falling. This is similar to "real life," combat, so I kinda like it, it is worth it?
4. Should I replace the "one vs one, one vs many," combat with "small group," combat? Might be nicer to have 7 slots you can fill with groups and have each group fight so you can use a bit more strategy. Maybe an 8th group of "reserve," which is automatically thrown in the first time a group is wiped out to prevent flank rolling?
Comments appreciated.

Side track- What about military tactics such as testudo, flanking, spearhead etc.

Howard wrote:Side track- What about military tactics such as testudo, flanking, spearhead etc.

Well, flanking would be accomplished by having a group win a fight, and fall on the next group in line. That said, maybe I should give a one round bonus to the folks in a group that flank, and a morale penalty to the group flanked.
spearhead likewise would just involve sending a massive force in one group, and hoping that group could quickly overcome their foes and move to other groups.
Testudo is more of a unit tactic than a battle tactic (only useful for spearmen with large shields), but you bring up an interesting point. If a general could direct a group to "charge," or "hold the line," I might allow 20% of attack points to be turned into defence points, or vs versa.
Might also allow "berserk charge," or something similar which would double damage delt and taken, making the combat in that group particularly rapid.
This would allow a general to put a smaller force on his right flank and have them hold the line, while putting massive force on his left flank with a bersurk charge order, hoping to roll that flank quickly and then get a flanking bonus to attack the center of his foe.

Exactly! This would make the game more complex and real. Same could go for ships as well

Howard wrote:Exactly! This would make the game more complex and real. Same could go for ships as well

Initially...
I will probably just use the same system for naval attacks as land attacks to start, but,
Naval tactics are very different from land tactics, I would like to bring that online eventually. Among the ideas I would like to look at:
Land units with naval units, or marines, and the boarding plank.
Flying units with naval units (it is a fantasy game after all)
Crossing the T (the goal of cannon using ships for hundreds of years)
Formations (flying V, H Line, V line, Dimond), also, attempting to encircle the foe
standoff battles vs sailing through (see Francis Drake vs Spanish Armada)
All of the above is "pie in the sky by and by," for now, so I don't even have ideas on how to implement, but I want to keep it in mind.
I am also thinking of trying to program this into facebook, but that looks a lot harder than building access tables, a web interface, and throwing it online...