Thanks for the extra information, things are making sense now.
I deffinately approve your ideas of starting small and working up from there, and a turn based combat system is certainly something which can be as minimally complex as a dice gamebook, and as hugely detailed as a full on rpg game or set of D&D rules, ----- pluss with the medium of text first, then add sounds, you can just go on adding and adding and adding.
Well, lets see, ----- Suggestions.
Firstly, I suggest adding more than 4 squares, sinse it adds much more potential for interesting combat, ----- especially with missile weapons, Eg direction and accuracy of missile shots.
How about a basic 10x10 grid? Easy to remember and write code for in coordinates specifying numeracal rows, but potentially interesting in terms of weapon effects.
Then, rather than making a specific cutoff point betwene physical vs missile combat, how about simply having weapons decreasing in range and/or damage as they increase in accuracy.
thus, you could have weapons like scattershopt, which maybe affect a number of squares and allow you to flush out a targit at a distance, going down to lasers which affect only several squares in a line, going right down the scale to vibro blades or other basic melee weapons which only affect things in the next square, but could be majorly damaging.
A square system would also let you add factors such as cover, or specific weapon resistances. It wouldn't be necessary to actually add objects on the various grid squares, simply have a set of environmental flags which affect a number of factors, ----- eg, in the forest, damage from wide spectrum weapons decreases due to undergrowth and tree cover.
Other factors you could imploy are flags or calculations for stealth. These could be programmed as basic sets of bulians, or percentages, ----- eg, if the flag "enemy possesses woodcraft" and "Environment = woods" are both active, ----- pluss fourty percent chance of missing with distance weapons, pluss 20 percent chance of not detecting enemy position.
I could go on with the suggestions, ---- gbut I think your beginning to see my thoughts here, make the game a one on one grid based fight, then just expand with more features at need.
Of course, this is your game not mine, and this is afterall, just in the matter of being a suggestion.
With your sensable atitude to this project Maloc, I'll be interested to see what comes of it.
With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)