[Java] Project Card Tactics (1v1 Single/Multiplayer)

[puggsoy]

Ah, I see. So the general is also a unit who can attack, but shouldn't be killed, similar to the king in chess?

If the game starts with a general, then what you could do is say that the first tower can be built within the range of the general (which can maybe be larger than regular units). However, you say one of the win conditions is if you destroy all of the enemies' towers. It's not a bad idea, but I see a couple of problems with it.

Problems

1) If the game starts with no towers, both sides have effectively already lost. Obviously, it's possible to work around this code-wise, but it just seems illogical that a player loses if they have no towers, since they didn't start with any in the first place.

2) This means that building towers will also be a way of increasing your "health". People might see them more as a way to stay alive, rather than a way to build an army. This could effectively cause a player to spend their time focusing on building towers, rather than on deploying units and attacking the opponent. The more towers you have, the harder it is for the opponent to beat you, right?

3) Most people will focus on destroying towers, since they're just stationary objects and don't directly damage units. So destroying towers seems like a safer and simpler plan of action than going for the general. Chances are also that towers will be spread out somewhat and not really defended much, as opposed to the general who will probably be surrounded by units in a corner of the map.
This kind of makes killing the general a rare plan of action, while it seems like it should be the only one. Again relating to chess, even if you kill all the other pieces, you still need to get the king in checkmate.

Of course, this is just thinking out loud, and the way the game plays could make all of those points invalid. Halfway through writing that I also realised that it's actually similar to Advance Wars in the sense that, you win by either capturing the enemy HQ or destroying all enemy units. So I guess that if the game mechanics fix the above problems, then you can ignore them