[licker]

Originally posted by Jasper:

quote:

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Originally posted by licker:
So lower the supply usage for LI, lower their upkeep, and bang, now they can be competative again. People will still gravitate toward the better units, but there will be a bigger place for LI in the game.

I disagree here as well. If you merely lower their costs they will still be inferior to HI and be underused -- up to the point where they are more efficient, and then HI will be rarely seen.

It is far more intersting to model the real world reasons that people used such forces, than speculative economics. It especially makes sense when you're trying to get results similar to history, e.g. a variety of viable unit types.

I agree that gameplay is the most important thing, but IMHO in this case history has much more interesting "gameplay" than Dominions, and serves as a very good model.

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First of all I didn't say to lower their costs, just the cost to maintain them. If they are still inferior to HI they still won't be used in mass, but there will be a sweet point where a certain amount of LI and HI will be more effective than just all of one or the other. Obviously we are on the all HI side of this curve right now.

In order to accurately portray the value of LI in Domintions you would have to make many changes to the combat system. In fact we had this arguement before when Saber suggested the addition of different damage catagories. Anyway, it comes down to the same thing, adding more complexity to an already complex game. What does it gain you to better modle the effects of terrain, or formations, or what have you, *just to make LI more viable*? Well that question answered itself right? My point is that adding this complexity is unneeded, and from the results of the Last thread, also unwanted (not by all, but by many).

The simple fix is usually the best anyway, once you have a more balanced system you can continue to improve upon it, but to go for broke from the get go often has unintended consequences.

History may have more "interesting gameplay", but that in and of itself doesn't mean that it makes a good model for a game. More often than not the games that try to model their gameplay off of history wind up so complex, and with so many niggling omisions that the grand effect intended is completly lost. No I'd rather have Dominions write its own history rather than try to force feed concepts of our history into it. Granted many units are borrowed directly from ancient cultures, but if you want a game trying to model Roman or Greek battles pick up the Great Battles series, don't try to make Dominions something that it isn't.