Balancing Gameplay and Going Fully Mobile

This update touches two foundational areas of the game: combat scaling and the economy structure.

Both have been reworked to better support the core idea of merging dice into stronger units without breaking balance or creating “broken” strategies.

Multi-Slot Attacks (Fixing Scaling)

One issue that became increasingly obvious was how poorly higher-tier units scaled.

Because units are created through merging:

2× Tier 1 → Tier 2
2× Tier 2 → Tier 3
etc.

…the damage output didn’t keep up with the cost.

For example:

Two D4 dice → ~5 average damage per roll
One D6 die → ~3.5 average damage per roll

So merging units actually made them worse in terms of raw efficiency.

The Solution: Attack Slots

As a solution, I introduced multi-slot attacks.

Higher-tier units can now hit multiple enemies in a single cluster-combat exchange, scaling their impact with their tier:

Tier 1 (D4) → 1 attack slot
Tier 2 (D6) → 2 attack slots
Tier 3 (D8) → 4 attack slots
Tier 4 (D12) → 8 attack slots
Tier 5 (D20) → 16 attack slots

In practice, this means a high-tier unit becomes a true cluster-clearing force.

For example: A D20 can deal up to 20 × 16 damage in a single roll, assuming enough enemies are present in the cluster.

This keeps the player motivated to go for “elite” units: fewer numbers, but dramatically more impact.

Mobile Bases

Another major change is replacing static buildings with a mobile base unit.

Instead of traditional RTS structures, the “base” is now:

a large and slow unit
fully controllable
critical to the economy

This aligns with the overall design goal: no buildings, only units.

Stationary Bonus & Movement Tradeoff

To prevent constant repositioning from becoming optimal, the base now has a clear tradeoff:

When stationary → it gains a visual glow and operates at full efficiency
When moving → you sacrifice that efficiency

This creates a simple but meaningful decision:
mobility vs. economic output

Anti-Exploit: Resource Repulsion

One immediate issue with a mobile base was… obvious in hindsight.

You could just park it directly on top of resource nodes and reduce worker travel time to zero.

To prevent this, I added:

a repelling force around resource nodes
supported by a lightning VFX for clarity

This keeps positioning important without allowing degenerate strategies.

Enemy AI – Mobile Bases & Economy

The AI has been updated to support all of this:

Enemy factions now use mobile bases.
Added behavior for base positioning and movement.
So far limited to a single base.
Fixed a major issue with redundant worker assignments that previously caused economic chaos.

The economy is now significantly more stable and predictable on the AI side.

General Improvements

A couple of smaller (but noticeable) changes:

Faster dice settling → combat feels more responsive and less sluggish
Various adjustments and fixes across cluster combat and AI systems

This marks the final update focused on core gameplay systems.

With the tech tree, economy, combat, base mechanics, and special units all in place, the foundational pieces of the game are now complete. From here on, development becomes much more flexible - I can start expanding the game with new units, upgrades, and tech without constantly reworking the underlying systems.

It’s a relatively small milestone on paper, but a meaningful turning point in practice.

Next, I’ll be shifting focus toward music, UI, and visual polish giving the game the presentation it needs to match the systems now working under the hood.