Capturing the essence of turn based combat

I know a lot of people gag at turn based combat, that's fine, the RPG I'm making won't be for them. I'm just at the beginning stages of coding the combat system. I have a bunch of spreadsheets with how it should work but I still need to polish the numbers again.

One of my goals is to create a combat system that relies on smarter decisions by the player, not just simply put guy in square X and fire at guy in square Y until combat is over. I can't help but be inspired by a childhood memory of playing Pool Of Radiance on the C64. I remember early in the game I discovered this island that had a castle full of kobolds. As soon as I went into the courtyard my party got attacked by a few dozen of them. I instantly fanned my party out thinking I can easily handle all of these low level creatures.

I quickly realized I was wrong. Each of my characters quickly got surrounded and overwhelmed. I tried again and again and kept losing, sometimes coming close to winning but the outcome was clear. Also a nice fireball spell, I think I only had one of them from my magic user, was only able to take out 2 or 3 kobolds. Not good.

But then I realized something. On the map there were these stone columns. Aha! I formed a defensive line with my party using the columns as anchors. Sure enough when my party got charged by the large wave of kobolds they had to stack up 2, 3 or even 4 deep waiting for a space to open up to attack. Now my party members were only getting one or two attack swings aimed at them instead of 4 or 5. After a few rounds I fired off a fireball right into the middle of the kobold pack. I remember killing 8 or 9 of them. Another round or two and they retreated and felt really good that I figured it out.

Ok granted, I'm not 12 years old anymore but I hope to capture that seem feeling of having to think things out and a bunch of little things have to be done right to add up to a win. I realize this is difficult and I'll probably never got it right but I'm going to try. I'm not ging to post my combat system because it's not even coded yet and I'm sure it will go through changes because there is a big difference between seeing it in a spreadsheet as opposed to playing it.

That is the advantage of a turn based combat system. You have to use resources and spaces carefully and think about your next move instead of just rushing and let the mathematics take care of the rest. It provides a chance for an overwhelped player party to win against superior numbers or firepower by using strategy.

It's probably going to take me a month to get the combat system into code, I hope to do it sooner. I hope it will come close to recreating soem of those fond memories I have.