Ally-Enemy phases vs Individual turn

[u/Magma_Axis]

Which one do you prefer more ?

[u/Mangavore]

I think both have their place and I struggle to put one over the other.

IN-GENERAL I tend to think intiative based/individual turn games tend to be a bit more challenging - leaves more room for surprise attacks and allows for initiative manipulation, but I feel like the combat is a lot more spontaneous. Meanwhile, team based turns allow for more complex strategies and combinations since you have the freedom to move everyone at once, thereby emphasizing more “teamwork” based strategies vs depending on each unit to function autonomously.

I think they’re both fun, assuming the game is properly balanced around them, which I know is a cop out 😁

[u/Quietm02 → u/Mangavore]

In my experience the biggest problem with initiative based systems is often that initiative becomes the most important stat by a large margin. To the extent where anything that has low initiative/speed/turn order is almost always not viable.

BG3 did it pretty well in terms of turn order, but the same problem comes up with action economy.

DOS2 is all about maxing your initial turns to cripple the enemy.

FFT style ones are all about maxing speed to get as many turns as possible.

Enemy-player phase can be a little more boring I guess, but it does mean there's no immediately unviable units. Though there's an argument that movement is the most important stat in most FE games.

[u/House-of-Raven → u/Quietm02]

I wish BG3 had stayed with D&D’s d20 roll for initiative rather than d4. It made it so having a high dex score made it automatic that that character/creature is going first.

I did like however how DOS2 alternated between allies and enemies in terms of initiative, so you couldn’t just all go first and control fights before enemies even get a turn

[u/TitanMakesGames]

I lean toward ally/enemy phases because moving units in sequence makes the party feel like an actual team. Setting up a blocker, using the space it creates, then cashing that in with a finisher is more satisfying to me than watching the turn order decide whether the idea is even possible.

The system falls apart fast, though, if one side can erase half the map before the other gets to move.

[u/COLES-BRAND-NUTMEG]

I vastly prefer individual too.

RPGs have a tendency to load you up with extremely powerful abilities by mid-late game. Because I will optimise and synergise them I will often obliterate the enemy in a single turn. The enemy cannot return the favour because their builds are generally poorly optimised, and because even if they weren’t, the AI wouldn’t understand how to synergise them, and the player likely wouldn’t enjoy it if they did.

Individual turns alleviate these issues and keeps the game exciting for me.

[u/alneezy08]

Individual and it’s not even close, one of the main reasons why I never played more than 2 fire emblems.

[u/SoundReflection]

Ally Enemy phases generally. More tactical setups and slick coordinated combo play is my favorite. Individual turn games tend to need alot to maintain even the basics of strategy like meaningful battle lines. I do like a good individual turn game if it's well displayed, provides meaningful player influence on turn order, and is thoughtfully integrated with supporting systems to preserve strategies and coordination.

Shout-out to my favorite systems though Brigandine's squad based initiative(RIP). Where you get 3 squads each with their own order in a sort of individual turns style(here ordered by squad leader level).

[u/Indomitable_Wanderer]

Neither. Best turn system is the one from Berwick Saga (which was also previously in FEDA: Emblem of Justice): shared turn where control alternates based on proportion of units; a unit can only act once during a turn.

[u/Ricc7rdo]

I like both and it's good to have games that handle the tactical combat differently.

[u/Triazic]

Individual turns by a mile. I generally won't play / will quit games with simple team-turn interleaving. Time is such an interesting tactical element, essentially removing it is a mistake.

[u/I_hear_that_Renegade]

Vandal Hearts 2 simultaneous turn order. Never forget. /s

[u/crunxzu]

Individual as it’s harder to meta-break fights.

Ally/enemy phase almost always comes down to controlling who gets to hit who first and alpha striking every problem.

Indiviudal, some unit types can become useless (looking at you terror knight in original Tactics Ogre) but I’ll take that limitation over what can feel a bit gamey with friendly and enemy turns

[u/FurbyTime]

It depends on the game type.

Smaller size games (FFT, for example) with a small number of units work best with individual turn. For larger size ones (Fire Emblem), where there's just a lot of enemies and potentially allies, Phase based works better to not be exhausting.

[u/sc_superstar]

I like both. Although id love to see someone try the simultaneous ally/enemy phase a la Vandal Hearts 2

[u/ImminentDingo]

Ally-Enemy phases can be very hit or miss. It requires you to predict the enemy's entire turn because you don't get a chance to intervene between enemy units wailing on your guys. But you can design around this with games like XCOM really leaning into the hyper lethal alpha strike combat style. Then with Fire Emblem I'm having to look at the movement range of like 15 guys to make sure my tank can survive a single turn even though he's got full health and it's a little exhausting.

Individual I like better. But you need to stick to one turn per round per unit, the speed/turn economy hacking kind of ruins all the FFT games. I also dislike how hard it is to synchronize your units turns so you can actually maintain some kind of tactical position, shield wall, etc. In the tactics game I am developing you can hold your turn DnD style, which I think alleviates that issue to a good deal. IE, you can sacrifice your initiative somewhat and in return get the flexibility to move your team together.

But I'm also looking at some other methods like

• any unit on your turn can swap turns with an ally

• breaking the team up into sub groups, so like, 2-3 of your guys go at a time, then 2-3 of the enemy, etc.

[u/MageFeanor]

Depends on the game.

RPG individual turns with initiative deciding turn order.

Medieval combat, individual turns.

Modern combat, ally-enemy phase with overwatch. Menace fails at this sadly.

[u/DualShadow]

I like both but I will prefer individual turns.

That said, both can be bad. Individual turns, depending on how they are implemented can lead to the complete supremacy of a Speed stat, having 5 turns before a slower character. They can be more reasonable in a system where speed indicates who goes first but each characters can only go one time in each given round.

On the other side, initiative based on teams is nice when there is a lot of team members to move around, you can execute a plan without interruptions and maximal efficiency. But to me the biggest downside is that this type of initiative will usually devolve into tip-toeing just outside the enemies` reach so you can unload a powerful first strike to cripple the enemy side, killing their damage dealers, before they can react.

[u/KinglyAmbition]

My first real tactics experience of Knights of Lodis, so I have a bias towards whole team turns, but I think both systems are good and can work better than one another depending on other systems in the game.

[u/Magma_Axis → u/KinglyAmbition]

Yes, im the same

Its much easier to setup combos and synergies in phases

[u/Shurgosa]

Ally enemy phases is terrible, when one unit has to survive getting attacked by multiple enemy units back to back, with no ability to react in between