The Illogic of Flight
 

I understand a lot of the logic behind the game regarding flying units. In order to attack melee, a flying unit must come within range of its enemy... thus, "flying" really is just a way to "blink" to an enemy's proximity.

But what about flying mages and ranged-weapon units? Why should a flying mage ever be in range of a melee / infantry unit? It just doesn't seem to fit any sense of battle-logic to me, and I'd be interested to hear what the the game's designers' thoughts were about this.

It would seem more sense to have flying ranged/magic units actually be placed vertically above the battlefield, and attackable only by other magic/ranged units. I can see how this would add a level of complexity to programming, however.

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

I reckon they can't fire bows/do magic when they're flying. Too much flapping around going on. So they have to land to do anything.

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

Flying units who really fly are hard to balance, as Master of Magic shows us. Especially in a game where you don't have direct control over your units.

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

You could represent the defensive properties of flight by giving ranged fliers a bonus to their defense, or a shield armor called 'wing buffet' or something.

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

Yeah its not about whats "realistic" (if that term can even be applied to dominions), its about what plays well. Having flying units the way they are maintains balance.

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Also, the flying mechanic was added in the game when it was still dom1 where there was no way of zooming around and inspecting things from different angles. It would have been rather difficult to see where and what flyers were doing. The mechanic has stayed as they are, even though I have played with the idea of hoovering units. I guess JK who would have to program it would be less interested as the current system works ok in most situations.

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

Fliers would then also have to have a mechanic for getting hit in the wing and then falling to their deaths...

Really, there is a point where additional complexity and "realism" just makes things more complicated but not better.

I'm much happier with the idea that fliers have to land to do anything rather than mess with the realities of flight.

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

I'm gonna have to agree with K on this one myself.

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

If we had map commands for terrains that only allow certain travel it might be interesting. That way a map could have a passage that is only open to flyers, and combat would only occur between flyers. Same for deep water, or maybe a magma tunnel.

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

My only issue with flight, is that i think they should be immune to trample. I raised this in an earlier thread.

Natural flying units that use claws or beaks to attack have to be very skilled flying fighters, and i am sure they would likely attack from behind. To imagine a bird getting trampled by an animal is hard for me. I just do not see an elephant having the requisite skill with its trunk to grab a bird in midair and throw it underfoot to trample.

Scenarios are theoretically possible(ie the trunk hits the bird and knocks it to the ground), but i would think this to be the exception rahter than the rule.

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

Kind of a tangent, but supposedly flying causes "extra" fatigue loss. I haven't spotted the pattern yet, myself; sometimes flying units pick up oodles of fatigue very quickly and other times it seems modest. Does "blinking" count as an extra melee attack for fatigue purposes?

-Max

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

Like, flyers should totally be able to pass over underwater provinces as if they had sailing. Yes, they should. Don't disagree with me.

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

I imagine that all the flyers in the game have low stamina/get hungry easily. So they have to keep landing for breaks, and going over a sea would be too much for them.

Anyway for balance reasons, I think it's great that flyers can't go over water.

Not that I'm disagreeing with you lch http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

Now that the game has a difference between "sea" and "deep sea" I think that allowing flyers over coastal waters and stopping them from going over the deep waters would make sense.

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

Why, Gandalf?

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Most birds cant handle deep ocean flights. Provinces are 1 month travel? Maybe 2 if its your environment? So if people want to argue that flight should be able to go over water, and a compromise is desired, then allowing coastal waters but not deep waters might be logical.

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

Obviously adding a "hover" option to battlefield mechanics adds a level of complexity which is probably not worth it, but perhaps the current system wouldn't hurt a few tweaks such as the suggested coastline flying (so long as flying units don't end their movement on a water province) or trample-protection (not all tramplers even HAVE trunks!).

Some of the same could apply to underwater "flyers" if any still exist.

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

Yeah I can see that fliers should be trample immue, so thumbsup for that change if at all possible.

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

Earthquake immune would make sense too. But that could make earth quake too unbalancing, if you have flying earth mages and an army of fliers.

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

Flying archers would certainly be illogical (how would they aim the bow and stay airborne at the same time?). As for flying mages, perhaps the effort to stay airborne affects their concentration for spells, or perhaps they're simply unwilling to risk tiring themselves out with spells while being a few hundred feet off the ground.
Alternatively, perhaps flying units are simply unwilling to place themselves in a position which puts them in line of sight (and possibly attack range) of every archer, mage and priest in the opposing army?

Not sure about immunity to trample. Presumably the trampling unit would simply wait until they land. On the other hand, a flying unit would have an easier time avoiding the unit, but then any sufficiently agile unit should be able to 'dodge' a trample in some manner (elephants for example, are not known for being nimble).

The problem with coastal movement is handling combat (should any occur) between underwater and airborne forces. Unless of course it's treat in a similar manner to sailing (i.e. the unit effectively skips the water province).

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

well,

a skilled natural flyer would never "land" during combat, so the trampler would be picked to pieces while he waited.

Creatures that are skilled in flying, and attack with claws or beak, are going to attack the head, neck, eyes. they are not going to land and claw at the elephant's feet.

I think a demon with wings may likely "land" on the elephant's spinal cord where the elephant could not reach it and attack it from there, if it landed at all.

In short, i see a big difference in units that can fly, but have to aim bows or cast spells, and units that are "natural" air units that attack with their nature-given weapons, teeth claws etc.

The latter i do not see getting trampled. Agile units on the ground do get a bonus to avoid being trampled. But obviously if there are 10 elephants, which one are you going to dodge?

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

Hmm, remind me sometime to try out Robe of Shadows + Umbrals + Earthquake x3 some time as Agartha. (Since Earthquake is mundane damage.)

-Max

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

At the moment the game does its thinking, especially combat, in X and Y directions. Changing it all to X Y Z would be a big lunge. At the moment some of the games take over half an hour to process a turn. Not to mention the array expansions and the memory load for it

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

To make certain units immune to trample would not require a "z" direction to program i do not think. Units that are immune to fire spells, sleep spell, etc do not require it.

I am guessing some sort of command could be given that even if a flying unit is displaced by the trample, its damage from that effect would be zero.

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

I think the units fatigue should factor into their trampling immunity if they do in fact get it. A unit that's to tied wouldn't be able to fly away fast enough(I see dead flat grackles in the road often enough to support that).

Tired Flyers should also drop like rocks if they try and move, or take damage on landing like the choppers from sid meier's alpha centauri(they run low on fuel and land outside a base or air field they take damage)

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

What about...flying tramplers???

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

DUNH DUNH DUUUUUUUUUUUNH

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

A unit that is flying would not have to move to avoid being trampled! that is the whole point. He is already above the elephant's feet.

you do not trample with your head.

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

I love casting fly on buffed mammoths...... good times.......

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

What about the trunk?

Couldn't the elephant swat a flyer with its trunk? Isn't this kind of a trample attack. After all most flyers are fragile, lightly built and a trunk is huge, also surprisingly agile, they eat ickle peanuts with them.

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

Eating peanuts is a bit different than hitting a flying target, and also, as someone else already mentioned, not all tramplers have a trunk. I was just using the elephant as an example.

And no, the trunk is a separate attack, it is not like trample.

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

At the basic level though, if the flyer is close enough for a melee attack, it's close enough to be attacked back. Who's to say the flier didn't collide with the trampler (imagine the effect of a crow flying into a charging elephant...) and KO itself, or the trampler simply swatting the flier out of the air and proceeding to jump up and down on them?

You don't really need to model a mechanism to take this kind of thing into account to be honest. A dodge chance for fliers (assuming they're agile enough. Not all natural fliers are necessarily good fliers)would be sufficient.

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

But that is what i am saying, if the flyer is in melee range, then let the trampler have its normal attack versus the flier rather than a trample. I am not implying that the trampler cannot attack the flier, but i think the appropriate attack is the trunk(in the case of the elephant) not a trample.

Makes more sense, and is easy to do. And not all flyers are small birds. Take the gorgon for instance. She is not going to be swatted anywhere by a trunk attack, assuming she and other skilled fliers are clumsy enough to get hit by a trunk.

I think those charcoal demons would fly and come in from behind to attack. They just do not look dumb enough to fly straight in and smack into the elephant like a bug on a car windshield.

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

Still following Xietor's logic on this one. Most tramplers have relatively effective melee attacks anyway, so it wouldn't be like fliers were their bane,... although one could use fliers to distract tramplers by forcing them to use their melee attacks rather than crushing whole squads of heavy infantry. The dragonfly swarm spell, for instance, would be quite useful against elephants. To me, that makes sense, since elephants would be rather distracted by large flying creatures biting/slashing/stabbing at them and might not manage to trample the main enemy force of infantry when thus harassed.

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

That might be interesting... if flyers could be given that partial benefit against tramplers, it would be useful then to have an attack order of "Attack Tramplers"!

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

I'd oppose that for the same reason I'd oppose "Attack Mages": Units shouldn't be able to identify whether something is a trampler from looking at it. "Attack Large Monsters" does pretty much the same job and is something units could reasonably be ordered to do.

-Max

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

You know, when you think about that, it makes no sense. Surely it would be somewhat easy to spot a trampler - it's the big guy running straight at you http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

Not all big guys running straight at you have trample. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

Yeah, Elephants would be obvious, but what about Minotaurs?
Attack Large Monsters is likely to get the same results.

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

Ok, here is the way trampling works:

When a unit gets trampled, they make a defense check. If they fail, they take 8 + 2xSize AP damage (I assume the trampling units size). If they succeed, they only take 1 damage point. Either way, there is a minimum of 1 damage point.

Fliers could simply not take the minimum damage on a successful check.

The assumption is that the advantage of flight is already accounted for in the defense (their ability to realize "Elephant! Fly up now!"). A flier which avoids has flown completely out of the way (vertically or otherwise), and so doesn't take the minimum 1 damage.

I believe that isn't too complicated, and gives credence to this issue?

Re: The Illogic of Flight
 

It's the difference in size of trampler and victim.