A Cunning Plan: Trample
 

Let's see...

I was looking at my notes, and wondered if there was a reason why Trample couldn't be handled like Repel.

Hypothetically, of course.

Namely, compare unit sizes and if the difference crosses a threshold, then Trample is available as an attack.

For example, instead of specifically saying that a unit does or does not have trample, could we not simply say that a unit can trample any unit with Unit Size 2 less or more? So, a Size 6 Titan could auto-trample units of Size 4 or less. Or Size 4 Heavy Cavalry could auto-trample Size 2 Infantry.

I like this concept because it seems simpler to apply. I could be missing something though. Does Trample only apply to particularly bulky units for a given Unit Size? Or something else?

I realize that this is just an intellectual excercise, but I'm curious what the community thinks of this. If such a change would make Trample overpowered, how could it be re-balanced?

Re: A Cunning Plan: Trample
 

Not that such a change will make Trample overpowered, but mostly it will make big units USELESS. There are so many ways to stop trample and you'll definitely hope your tarts/elemental royals DO something other than trying to trample your enemy's army.

Re: A Cunning Plan: Trample
 

Also, heavy cav are size 3.

Re: A Cunning Plan: Trample
 

I don't think it makes sense. Elephants trample not only because they are large, but because they can't fight - they just stomp along crushing things. Minotaurs can fight, but are bullish enough to squish people under their hooves and so on.

Trample is used by units which use their bulk to simply crush enemies.

As for repel and trample, well I think repel should work vs trample by checking length against size. So pikes could stop elephants trample if they passed a repel test and the elephants would then use their trunk that turn. Spears could stop minotaurs (unless they were berserk) and force them to use their axes, but spears are length 4, too short to stop elephants trampling (size 6).

Re: A Cunning Plan: Trample
 

My suggestion would also allow tramplers to make more use of their weapons, which in my opinion is a good thing. Long spears on elephant back would actually be worth it, minotaurs would get to swing their axes, trampling SCs wouldn't be using two shields as much. Cuts down on generally retarded stuff a bit.

Re: A Cunning Plan: Trample
 

caelum is size 3, but very skinny right... so size isnt a great indication of trampling ability.

Re: A Cunning Plan: Trample
 

Interesting reponses so far...

So perhaps Trample would be for units unusually bulky for their Unit Size?

And in real life, most trample-capable animals were trained to overcome their natural reluctance to step on squirming bodies - maybe add a Morale Check to enable?

And, if we treat Trample like a four-legged body slam, that would require the Trampling unit to stop, or at least move at a slower speed.

There is a certain intuitive sense behind this though...a bunch of Size 2 Monkeys shouldn't hold up a Size 4 Chariot, should they?

Re: A Cunning Plan: Trample
 

You're not the first one to ask if the Trample Mechanic could be changed. Though, such questions deal with how to find an appropriate counters to mass generic tramplers, i.e. Caelum cranking out 4 or 5 mammoths a turn and having an unstoppable "critical mass" of tramplers. A Pretender or other SC with said ability is much less worrisome. It can ultimately be countered with Horror Mark and the fact that there is only one trampler. My own proposal made a morale check against the total length of weapons in the square it was trampling, with amounts over 10 being doubled like Preciscion. If the check failed the unit attacked with whatever weapon it has. The math was fairly pleasing in outcomes.

Re: A Cunning Plan: Trample
 

Hi, I'm new to all this, so apologies if my comments are off the mark.

It seems to me that trampling effectiveness should rely primarily on the SPEED of the attacker.

Carthage's war-elephants were tough (thick hide + immense strength + 10-foot tusk + terrifying appearance), but could be overwhelmed at a standstill. However,a single elephant at full steam could annihilate the most disciplined phalanx. Didn't matter if the phalanx had spears, or pikes, or bazookas; at 30mph, it was simple bowling-ball kinetics.

On the other hand, imagine a chariot pulled by a donkey (war-donkey?). The overall size of the chariot hasn't changed, but you ain't trampling nothing. Horse = speed = effectiveness.

Re: A Cunning Plan: Trample
 

Actually, staring at my own post, what's really most important is KINETIC ENERGY...~Mass * Velocity ^2

Let trampler_ke = (trampler_size)*(trampler_actionpoints)^2

If trampler_ke > some critical value, and trampler_size > tramplee_size, squish.

Re: A Cunning Plan: Trample
 

Speed is figured in, faster tramplers can trample more times. Not quite as you suggest, since it doesn't affect the individual trample, but it has a similar effect on the battle.

Re: A Cunning Plan: Trample
 

I am not really intrested too much of units stats and all details, but on a broad perpective from what I can see is most trample units having immense problems at other fronts.

C'tis monster toads, elephants, trogdolytes and such all are not all that good at really attacking enough to be noteworthy at all. They all are rather pathetic on protection and attack skills if I recall right or not.

So on a gamebalancing side of it, if tramplers as troops would be easily counterable with something as simple as with spearunits via reach they would become totally useless.

Even now only problem people have to deal with tramplers are suggestions to avoid rushing to melee with them, use magic. Use ranged weapon options or simple smash them up with a big strong and singular supercombatant. I personally DO enjoy the trouble warelephants bring to my C'tis armies and send my monster toads to cripple them, even if they die.

Re: A Cunning Plan: Trample
 

I agree with your analysis cleveland, except i think you need to be able to get on top of something to trample it. A bullet has a lot of momentum, but doesnt trample. A chariot only tramples things it knocks down, right? So a chariot with a cowcatcher. I always put cowcatchers on everything.

war-donkeys with cowcatchers FTW!

Re: A Cunning Plan: Trample
 

Lyzra : You are essentially correct.

While Trample was not usually a dangerous weapon in and of itself, it was a powerful tactical weapon, a potent "crowd control" device that made disrupted formations easy pickings for the follow up troops.

That is to say that it worked in large numbers and with supporting troops for mopup duties.

In some ways, I feel Trample is the opposite of Repel in that the unit can actively force the enemy to miss their action, while Repel does that when the enemy tries to close.

Unfortunately, the current Dom3 rules make Trample far more lethal than Repel, and this is usually balanced by restricting the number of units that can trample.

But why complicate matters with a seperate mechanic (Trample), when you could pretty much use the same mechanic for both (Reach/Repel and Size/Trample forcing Morale Checks or lose action)?

Verrrry interesting...

Re: A Cunning Plan: Trample
 

This is a fun thread to read. I like the real-world analysis. There are two Dominions vs real-world problems I have noticed, however.

@Autochthon. Any unit being able to trample is interesting, though it raises many balance issues. First, units that have trample use it automatically, which is annoying if they had a better attack/spell available.
In terms of logic, size doesn't necessarily mean trample ability. Caelum has size 3 units, but they don't look heavy enough to trample Hoburgs. There are more examples, such as Niefelheim's size 4 mage. Should they be able to trample ulm's infantry?


@Cleveland. You have some very valid points. Unfortunately, I don't think they can be easily transposed to Dominions, because there is no calculation for velocity (AP's are the closest). If there were a good velocity calculation (like an adaptation of the charge mechanic), I would support the addition of velocity to trample damage.

Re: A Cunning Plan: Trample
 

One more idea...

We could simply use the mechanic listed above and have a base Unit Size threshold (say =>3), and simply add Trample for unusually bulky units that can reduce the Unit Size threshold.

So, for example, a Unit Size 6 Titan can auto-trample up to Size 3 enemies and thus cause them great confusion, while a Size 6 Elephant w/Trample (+1) can auto-trample up to Size 4 enemies.

As for flying units, I think it's safe to say that they can't Trample at all, or that they have a penalty to auto-trample (Trample (-2)?). Same goes w/Ethereal and other units that have an innately low mass.

What do you think? Remember, it's important to think of Trample less as a weapon and more along the lines of Repel. Otherwise, it'd just be too "imba".

Re: A Cunning Plan: Trample
 

also, in reality the point of a heavy cavalry charge was that it would trample the troops before it. The mechanics for cavalry are not very good in dom3 for this reason. The main power of cavalry is speed and kinetic energy. Speed is the obvious ability to avoid combat, but the kinetic energy is their charge. The lance would kill one man and then the horse would do the rest. Its movement would bowl over troops and crush those that fall beneath it while the rider used his forward motion and his height advantage to make crushing blows upon the infantry below him, preferably with a hammer or mace. The disadvantages of being mounted would then appear as soon as the horse stopped, whearas they are still effective in dom3 battles. I wonder if anyone here realizes how simple it is to kill a fully armored man on a horse. If you have a polearm, like a billhook or halberd, you can grab the knight and pull him off, onto the ground, where you will proceed to crush his skull with butt of your weapon. If you do not have such a weapon, merely move up close to the horses head, where the rider can't hit you. Then grab the bridle and proceed to punch the horse in the face. As it shies away grab the riders leg and pull him down. Another alternative is to hit one of the horses legs with your weapon and then bash it in the side. The whole horse will fall over, at which point the rider is really skrewed. Once it stops moving a horse is nothing more than a liability in combat. All in all, the mechanics for cavalry are not the strongest point in dominions 3.

Re: A Cunning Plan: Trample
 

BigandScary:

Arrrgh!
Wall of Text crits Autocthon in the face for 1452 points of damage.
Autocthon is now blind.

Anyhow, you are correct - due to the lack of charge mechanics and skirmish orders, it's common to have light cavalry sit back and shoot arrows until the enemy closes, at which time they simply switch to lances. It's unrealistic, but it'd be foolish to do otherwise until the above mechanics are introduced.

It's even worse for skirmishing troops, which all to often run up in front of the enemy to skirmish, then stand there and get run down by the main body of the enemy army. If there is no Skirmish Order, I'd like to see a Hold and Fire order in a future patch.

Another interesting point you bring up is the need for charging/trampling units to build up sufficient momentum, which means that they need sufficient distance to use such attacks. The Dom3 battlefield mechnics are not sufficient in modelling this, but I don't know of any sufficiently simple mechanic that will do this in real time, either http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Hmmm... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: A Cunning Plan: Trample
 

sorry about the block of text, most of it is taken from my thesis on medieval infantry tactics. The whole point is the the greatest strength of cavalry is all based on movement, and, as you say, the battlefield mechanics are simply not up to that level of advanced combat.

Re: A Cunning Plan: Trample
 

Yeah, and my pike wall is so much crappy, and it's principle ar so ovious for logical people I won't consider explaining why I find it so painfull to play as arcos mid or late.
An infantry well trained and prepared can wistand a cavalry charge without too many loose : Sikhs (india) have played a bad trick to english cavalry, without any polearms.
I think that if you increase their impact, you have to reduce their melee defence, for the reasons BrigandScary explained. ( a horse is almost never a 'dog of war')

Re: A Cunning Plan: Trample
 

An infantry well-trained and prepared may be able to confound a cavalry charge: assuming they have the liberty in battlefield conditions, which is far from sure. Plenty of infantry formations have been ridden down by cavalry up until the 19th century.

Re: A Cunning Plan: Trample
 

Cavalry have not been efficient as a shock force before stirrup. It was mainly use as a mean to outmaneuver the ennemy, and give a support afterward in melee. The only people using horses as a main shock force were europeans, and I cant remember any great battle won by a brutal cavalry charge.
I'm not talking here of the mounted archers, who have a different use and are very deadly to all types of infantry.

Re: A Cunning Plan: Trample
 

That is not completely true, before the 14th century most conflicts(mainly in europe) were won by the army with the most heavy cavalry. The military innovations that ended this trend were, mainly, the crossbow, gunpowder, and proffesional soldiers. The tool that allowed England to defeat the french knights at Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt was the longbow, but training in a longbow took almost as long as the training of a knight, making this yet one more obsolete technology. The true killer on the medieval and rennesaince battlefield was the proffesional soldier. These men, using polearms and crossbows, and eventually firearms, could kill vast numbers of warriors that had trained their whole life for war. The only problem with these innovations is that they have slowly crippled the fighting spirit of soldiers. But, back to my origional point, while there will always be casualties when fighting heavy cavalry with a force of infantry, a man on a horse is only viable, militarily, when he is moving. The notion that cavalry can stop, as they do in dom3, and still defeat infantry, is somewhat ludicrous.

Re: A Cunning Plan: Trample
 

Humatky's got a point, but before the use of the stirrup, cavalry were pretty much a skirmishing force, which brings us back to the fact that Dom3 lacks skirmishing orders.

It might be a good idea to have dual-mode units that mount on the go and then dismount to fight, like dragoons. The horses are easier to come by that way. I believe the Vikings used this method quite a bit, and there was a midieval infantryman that did this too (a "hobbelar" I think.)

Another interesting point BigandScary makes is the fact that maneuvering on ancient battlefields depended a great deal in subtle undulations in the ground. These "minor" features will totally screw with Phalanx formations and Chariot charges.

The dressing of a Phalanx ranks gets messed up if they move too fast, and the chariots can't get up to speed due to their bouncing around.

Unfortunately, there isn't a feature in Dom3 where Province attributes affect battlefield terrain, which in turn modifies combat.

Re: A Cunning Plan: Trample
 

Cavalry could be used as shock troops prior to the stirrup, just not against decent heavy infantry. In a battlefield situation, calvary generally would not slog it out with infantry, they'd use their manoeuverability to withdraw and charge again. That's getting way beyond the scope of Dom3.

Secondly, it's not really the professional soldier that doomed the era of knights, it's just the firepower. There's no point training and equipping a knight who can be downed easily by a poorly-trained peasant with a powerful projectile weapon, who you can't get at because another load of peasants are holding long pointy sticks. Professionalism hasn't that much to do with it - professionals existed all throughout the medieval era to varying degree in varying nations. Byzantium, for instance, maintained a standing army just as the Romans had before them.

Re: A Cunning Plan: Trample
 

One thing appears ater this discussion :
Never as a weapon been supreme, there have always been efficient maneuvers to counter each tactic.
True military efficacity relies on how you employ what you've got, at a precise momentum... Sun Tzu as explained it all far better than I could do.
What gives a unit its 'elite' status relies maybe more in the way you use it, than on it's intrisic qualities.
ie: an average cavalry force, charging at the right time can turn the odds in the favor of their army, even if they cannot win the battle alone.

Re: A Cunning Plan: Trample
 

First of all, I don't mean that there were no professional soldiers during the middle ages, but the rising trend in professionalism was the thing that defeated chivalry and the knight. If a band of twenty knights was to flank one of those giant pike block the peasantry would run like frightened rabbits. Thats why many of the soldiers used in those formations, and many of the other elements of battle at the time, were professional mercenaries. The best example of this are the Landsknechts, German mercenaries that fought in almost every pre 17th century conflict. These companies, sometimes as large as 25,000 men, dominated the battlefields, easily defeating the peasant armies of Bavaria and many other countries. Also, the most devestating soldiers on any pike driven battlefield were the doppelsoldners, elite professionals who were payed double the wages of other soldiers because they would wade into enemy pike formations and break them up, letting their own forces push through.

Also, while the stirrup was a major innovation, its main strength in the cavalry charge was to allow the effective use of a lance, and to allow greater reach in combat. The early cavalry forces could still charge with some effectiveness, but cavalry vs. cavalry combat was mighty strange.

Re: A Cunning Plan: Trample
 

If knights still had a useful function on a battlefield in a professional army era we should expect to have seen large bands of mercenaries taking over that role.

I think we're maybe confusing two issues: the social role of a feudal knight; and the battlefield function of a knight, which is to say heavily-armoured cavalry.

The rise of mercenaries and professional armies was largely about the social limitations (and therefore eventual decline) of the feudal/chivalric system. That's mostly an off-battlefield issue, and hence the decline of the *knight*. On the battlefield itself and occuring roughly coincidentally were the technological advances that made *heavily-armoured cavalrymen* obsolete.

Re: A Cunning Plan: Trample
 

It does seem that we are confusing the issue, as well as the meaning of professional. I have been mostly refering to them as the career mercenaries of that time, but it also applys to the very system of large standing armies of paid troops. The technalogical advances of gunpowder weapons did allow inferior warriors to kill knights, but it also allowed a govornment to raise larger armies, armies made of peasant levies and career troops, that could never be acheived by knights. A heavy-cavalryman could don thick enough armor to stop a bullet and still outmaneuver a pike block, but it would still end up with ten thousand knights against one hundred thousand infantry, and the knights would lose. So, while I still think that you underestimate the tactical impact of professional soldiers, it is a valid point that technology led to the end of battlefield knights.

Re: A Cunning Plan: Trample
 

Yes, I think you're right that there's an economic factor that the professional infantry era also made knights cost-ineffective: knights could smash huge armies of peasants, but not professionals.