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Heavy Infantry, Light Infantry, and Mundane AP Weapons
There seems to be a consensus, amongst most players, that light infantry and militia are fairly worthless. And specifically, that they are worthless because everything light infantry and militia do, heavy infantry does better. Plus, HI Lasts much longer.
Note: LI=Light Infantry MI=Medium Infantry HI=Heavy Infantry LC=Light Cavalry HC=Heavy Cavalry AP=Armor Piercing, not Action Points Suggestions to rebalance light and heavy troops include: 1) Allow variable unit upkeep (not always 1/15 of cost); 2) Include resource cost in unit upkeep; 3) Allow light units to disband; 4) Decrease the gold cost of light units; 5) Increase the gold cost of heavy units; 6) Give additional tactical commands to light units (e.g. "skirmish" - avoid melee); 7) Change the tac AI to allow effective skirmishing; 8) Add additional formations (like "wide" and "loose"); 9) Give light units free supplies, or making them consume less; 10) Make HI consume more supplies; 11) Rescale supply points by a factor of 10, to reduce granularity (average consumption => size*5); 12) Increase light unit defense stats; 13) Let blows that do not penetrate armor still do some minor HP damage (say, .25 average); 14) Make blows that do not penetrate armor do some minor fatigue damage (say, 1d6/size); 15) Add mundane armor piercing weapons (like making pikes AP); 16) Give bonuses/penalties to light/heavy units in various terrains; 17) Add "Critical Strike" which deals 2x or AP damage for very high attack rolls; 18) Make heavy armor reduce attack rating; 19) Allow LI/LC to attack non-adjacent enemy territories (move across a friendly province and attack); 20) Add strategic "Raid" orders for LI/LC (skirmish and retreat); 21) Add "Move-Pillage" orders for LI/LC (e.g. Mongols, Vikings, German barbarians); 22) Increase armor encumbrance in deserts (dehydration), swamps (footing), and mountains (elevation); 23) Introduce variable armor-piercing levels: X% AP, or 50% AP for the first X protection; 24) Give both LI and HI 2 strategic moves, but allow LI to move through rough terrain at a cost of 1 move point. So, if you have more suggestions, or want to praise or slam an extant one, comment here. I've been thinking that one of the big problems with heavy armor is that it lacks mundane counters - you either have to react with your own HI, or with crossbows. Why not give some mundane weapons AP ability? Many weapons were designed just for that - pikes, the spikes on halberds, the spike on some warhammers, and heavy 2H weapons like battleaxes. If there existed mundane melee units that could actually hurt HI, their total dominance on the mundane battlefield might dissipate somewhat. Adding AP to an existing weapon would also require that its stats be altered, of course. This is not suggested as a complete solution - just a complement to, say, #4,5,9,10,11. -Cherry [ November 01, 2003, 16:15: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ] |
Re: Heavy Infantry, Light Infantry, and Mundane AP Weapons
The mod tools will solve your problem dude. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif
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[ October 31, 2003, 23:03: Message edited by: Nerfix ] |
Re: Heavy Infantry, Light Infantry, and Mundane AP Weapons
Pretty nice sumation there Saber. You might also add changing encumbrance for HIs, or upping defense for LIs. I still think that some economic reason to chose LIs will make them seen. And to accomplish that you have to fiddle with their upkeep and supply, both must be less than for MI or HI otherwise you'll still hit the value bottleneck and find LI useless.
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Cavalry (especially light cavalry, which has the same problems as light infantry and is more expensive) would benefit even more from this change. After all, one of the main benefits of mobility is to be able to hit them where they are weak, then move somewhere else before they can effectively respond. Light armies should be able to effectively damage the enemy while avoiding battle. (If you're actively trying to use a Fabian strategy, you could give your troops a far-back deployment and retreat or fire-and-flee orders, so they would retreat quickly if engaged. Which reminds me - any squad that retreats due to orders shouldn't take the -4 def for routing, and all such squads and commanders should go to the same province. There's a huge difference between a retreat and a rout.) In the same vein, I'd also like to see "Move and Pillage". Pillaging shouldn't require that an army stand still for a month - it really doesn't take that long. Move and Pillage could be really nasty for Vanheim (which is entirely appropriate, it's how viking should (and did) work). Combined with the above suggestion, Light Inf (or Light Cav) raiding forces could be a real pain in the *** for someone who is depending on a concentrated force of Hvy Inf with their limited mobility. Orderly retreat, move and attack, and move and pillage would all tie together into a new strategic way of using light forces that isn't possible in the current model, that would allow them to actually outmaneuver heavier, less mobile enemies (unless stopped by terrain, fortifications or other mobile forces). Stealthy light forces would be even more dangerous, because they can switch unpredictably between sneaking (at their full strategic movement, of course), move-and-pillage, etc. If that still isn't enough, implement the skirmish (fire but stay out of melee) order too. Needless to say, if these suggestions are implemented, the AI (which loves to build armies of light units) should use them ruthlessly and, if possible, unpredictably. |
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I'd rather see them get new abilities that make them useful in a way that is different from HI; then even though they may have equal cost, both types of infantry would still be useful. The same issue applies to light vs. heavy cavalry, too. BTW, thanks to Saber for starting this thread. Some of the same issues were being discussed on another thread, but on this type of forum you can't change the thread title to indicate topic drift. |
Re: Heavy Infantry, Light Infantry, and Mundane AP Weapons
I was just wondering if you are taking the base value of protection type spells into account here. I haven't played this game much, but I think that these spells combined with their strategic map movement advantage and the fact that you can hire swarms of them can make light troops quite useful. If thats not enough, maybe increase the base value of these spells a bit if that doesn't unbalance nations with earth or nature magic.
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Re: Heavy Infantry, Light Infantry, and Mundane AP Weapons
>allow strategic moves that end in enemy territory
This would be a good way to model light troops. Light troops do poorly in straight up battle with heavily armored troops. The reason they are great is their strategic mobility. Outstanding suggestion Mr. Byler. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif |
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</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">HI try to avoid travel in their heavy armor. If they always wore it and traveled by foot, yes, they'd need much more food, water, and whatever else soldiers need. Otherwise, they could wear their equipment and use supply-hungry horses for transportation. And over time, the supply line would need to supply heavy troops with more replacement parts than light troops (though this is better abstracted through upkeep than supply, IMO). HI in armor would be unable to scavenge/hunt/live off the land effectively like LI. But I'm assuming Dominions HI don't wear their gear except in battle, and as such, need other people / carts / horses / wagons to transport their heavy battle gear, while LI are essentially self-sufficient in terms of transportation and gear repair (simple gear, simple repairs, thus no traveling blacksmith support contingent). This support/supply train is much larger per HI unit than LI, and is not modeled at all in Dominions (which assumes the only people eating are the ones that fight). It would be easy to abstract, though, by making supply usage for a given being (like a human) proportional to encumbrance, or perhaps proportional to resource cost... or ideally... proportional to equipment mass, a new and useful equipment statistic. Quote:
-Cherry |
Re: Heavy Infantry, Light Infantry, and Mundane AP Weapons
But they need negate first strike too...then pikemen would claim their rightful place!
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The best arguments made in favor of moddability is to add more content. The basic, unchanged game should be (or become) a valid standard for those interested in MP. |
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The best arguments made in favor of moddability is to add more content. The basic, unchanged game should be (or become) a valid standard for those interested in MP. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes yes, you are sorta right. But as I said take a look at Space Empires IV. the user made mods are lot better than the vanilla game. oh I don't really care about MP, I dunn have time for TCP games and Pbem sucks. Trust me if the mod tools will be good enough these things won't be problematic. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif [ November 01, 2003, 07:41: Message edited by: DominionsFAN ] |
Re: Heavy Infantry, Light Infantry, and Mundane AP Weapons
Mods are irrelevant. First, the thread is about improving Dominions II and addressing gameplay problems. Second, almost none of the suggestions could be added through mods. Third, there needs to be a thread to discuss the suggestions and decide which ones, in what degree, will balance the game. This is true regardless of whether Illwinter or a fan does the actual work.
But I think point number 2, that most of these changes require code-level change rather than data-level change, negates any relevance modding has to this thread. -Cherry |
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I second (or I third rather, as Apoger already exprimed his support for this) the suggestion about "strategic moves that end in enemy territory". It would give LI and Light Cavalry abilities other than what can do their heavier counterparts, and make them a worthwhile unit if you are planning to use such strategies. (Or if you are facing an opponent who refuses to engage your heavy-elite-impossible-to-defeat army. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ) |
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And didn't LI(Spearmen) have some kind of a tactic(other than poking them with the spears) to slow down/hurt/kill cavalry with their spears? I don't remember the specifics, but i remember that in CoE Cavalry units attacking Spearmen take damage. [ November 01, 2003, 09:25: Message edited by: Nerfix ] |
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I second (or I third rather, as Apoger already exprimed his support for this) the suggestion about "strategic moves that end in enemy territory". It would give LI and Light Cavalry abilities other than what can do their heavier counterparts, and make them a worthwhile unit if you are planning to use such strategies. (Or if you are facing an opponent who refuses to engage your heavy-elite-impossible-to-defeat army. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ) </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, don't tell me that we won't be able to add special abilities for the units with the mod tools. IE. wasteland survival, fire resistant etc. etc. I think that adjusting stats/equipment/abilities will be enough, however these additions, what Saber had mentioned would be very good of course. BUT don't forget, the devs are already flooded with work, and this is not that important IMHO. |
Re: Heavy Infantry, Light Infantry, and Mundane AP Weapons
One of the things which struck me as odd in my first game was how the strategic movement worked - HI and LI move 1 in the rough and HI move one in the open while LI move two. So this means HI move the same speed as LI in the rough but LI move faster in the open - seems a bit odd really.
I would suggest returning to all infantry moving 2 stategically but HI pay 2 for a rough province while LI pay 1 so that LI move faster than HI in the rough and the same in the open. This would encourage you to use lighter armed troops in mountainous area's whereas at present LI are more suited to open terrain. Cheers Keir |
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Light Infanty and Militia would be more valuable if they could move faster plus have less fatique.
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I agree with your other points, though. |
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Anyway, I would expect a pike to be used to counter cavalry - not to counter a bunch of guys strolling about in chain mail or whatever. There is nothing about a pike that suggests that it should excel versus heavy armour - it certainly should not be more efficient at it than, say, your standard spear. Instead, its main advantage is reach (which is taken into account in Dom2) and defensive capabilities vs - in particular but not excluded to - a cavalry charge. In all cases, you would want to horde pikemen in order to allow them to be efficient - a lone pikeman would probably be rather useless. Bonuses versus cavalry is oddly enough not included in Dom 2 - this might be another sensible ability to add to some mundane weapons. [Edit: Typos..] [ November 01, 2003, 15:42: Message edited by: Calanor ] |
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I agree with your other points, though. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ok, it would be nice to see a balanced vanilla game. Very true. Especially this would be the best for MP. As for SP... I agree about the mods. IF we can do certain things, IE modifying stats, weapons & armors, adding / removing special abilities, we can make perfect mods. That will help a lot. However, just like someone has said, the SEIV. balance mods are awesome, the ppl love to use those in MP, instead of the vanilla game. Just think about that. |
Re: Heavy Infantry, Light Infantry, and Mundane AP Weapons
By the way, I thought of a way to make Saber Cherry's pikes more special http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Add a new ability that increases the efficiency of repel attempts if there are more than one unit wielding the same type of weapon in that same square (and when pikes are concerned, perhaps even adjacent squares). However, a lone unit might get a penalty to his repel attempts. "Efficiency" here means a modifier similar to what you see when Awe and Fear is concerned. So, three jolly pikemen holding the line together are more efficient than one poor fellow fightning on his own.
You could also make things so that the pikeman would have to use a close-combat weapon if the repel fails (say, a shortsword) - but that might require some changes to the current combat system, so it might not be worth the effort. [Edit: Clarifications etc] [ November 01, 2003, 15:58: Message edited by: Calanor ] |
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</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm not kidding at all here - you need to play it. MoM and Xcom1 continue to be 2 of the best strategic games of all time. It's worth all the trouble of getting them to run in XP. Well, MoM is, anyway; Xcom is much harder to run correctly. Quote:
-Cherry |
Re: Heavy Infantry, Light Infantry, and Mundane AP Weapons
Running MoM in windows XP is quite easy...all you have to do is allocate the memory it wants to it manually and run it in comp. mode.
(Good luck if you want sound though) You can also get it easily at http://www.the-underdogs.org/ |
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Re: Heavy Infantry, Light Infantry, and Mundane AP Weapons
But back to the topic=)
(repost) There seems to be a consensus, amongst most players, that light infantry and militia are fairly worthless. And specifically, that they are worthless because everything light infantry and militia do, heavy infantry does better. Plus, HI Lasts much longer. Note: LI=Light Infantry MI=Medium Infantry HI=Heavy Infantry LC=Light Cavalry HC=Heavy Cavalry AP=Armor Piercing, not Action Points Suggestions to rebalance light and heavy troops include: 1) Allow variable unit upkeep (not always 1/15 of cost); 2) Include resource cost in unit upkeep; 3) Allow light units to disband; 4) Decrease the gold cost of light units; 5) Increase the gold cost of heavy units; 6) Give additional tactical commands to light units (e.g. "skirmish" - avoid melee); 7) Change the tac AI to allow effective skirmishing; 8) Add additional formations (like "wide" and "loose"); 9) Give light units free supplies, or making them consume less; 10) Make HI consume more supplies; 11) Rescale supply points by a factor of 10, to reduce granularity (average consumption => size*5); 12) Increase light unit defense stats; 13) Let blows that do not penetrate armor still do some minor HP damage (say, .25 average); 14) Make blows that do not penetrate armor do some minor fatigue damage (say, 1d6/size); 15) Add mundane armor piercing weapons (like making pikes AP); 16) Give bonuses/penalties to light/heavy units in various terrains; 17) Add "Critical Strike" which deals 2x or AP damage for very high attack rolls; 18) Make heavy armor reduce attack rating; 19) Allow LI/LC to attack non-adjacent enemy territories (move across a friendly province and attack); 20) Add strategic "Raid" orders for LI/LC (skirmish and retreat); 21) Add "Move-Pillage" orders for LI/LC (e.g. Mongols, Vikings, German barbarians); 22) Increase armor encumbrance in deserts (dehydration), swamps (footing), and mountains (elevation); 23) Introduce variable armor-piercing levels: X% AP, or 50% AP for the first X protection; 24) Give both LI and HI 2 strategic moves, but allow LI to move through rough terrain at a cost of 1 move point. So, if you have more suggestions, or want to praise or slam an extant one, comment here. -Cherry [ November 01, 2003, 16:26: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ] |
Re: Heavy Infantry, Light Infantry, and Mundane AP Weapons
I got MoM to run with DOSBOX. But about pikes vs. cavalry, it just occured to me that lances get one attack. If that lance attack is repelled and doesnt go through is that its one use for the battle? Then pikemen with repel could soften the initial charge from knights (which is really deadly).
So they might already be a good choice against cavalry with lances. |
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Not that this has much to do with Heavy Infantry and the like, but anyway.. |
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I've also been playing MoM again recently and its works fine on win2000.
re pikes. As an avid ancients gamer I would have to question the idea that pikes are armour piercing. I have owned and researched Macedonian and Successor armies and the idea that pikes are armour piercing didn't came up. While a spear obviously focuses a lot of impact on one point so does a sword thrust. A spear is really the basic weapon against which most others are judged - thus maces, and other bludgeoning weapons, are armour piercing compared to spears and swords. A pike differs from a spear in length but not necessarily in its ability to penetrate armour. Pike is often seen as an anti-mounted weapon as mounted have effectively no chance at all frontally against a well trained infantry phalanx with pike and secure flanks - the same was true for a Hopilite phalanx. Long spear and pike should counter the effect of lances but both hopilite and pike phalanxes were actually extremely sophisticated anti-infantry formations. The Hopilite evolved in an era of foot warfare as the pre-eminient infantry - most Greeks wars were against other Greeks. Greater reach, better armour and shields for close fighting, and the training to put it all together - read Steven Pressfields novel on Thermopylae for excellent details. Pike was the counter to Hopilites with its extra reach canceling one of the advantages of the Hopilites spear. It also worked well against most other things deployed in the center of a battlefield so it became extremely popular until the rise of Rome. Just to throw some more confusion I should bring up the battle of Benevento (might be the one before or after in the Sicilian Vespers - fantastic book on it by Runciman - first name Nigel? My copies on loan). At this C13th battle the French knights found themselves overmatched by the German sergeants who wore "coats of plate" and formed up in a dense wedge. The Frenchmens swords provided largely ineffective. Unprepared to accept defeat at the hands of such lesser foes the knights pulled out daggers and wrestled a horse driving the points of the daggers into the vunerable armpits and other nooks and crannies. So daggers should be penertrating? Cheers Keir |
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