[Chris Byler]

Originally posted by Jasper:

quote:

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Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
I don't mean to imply that cost was the only advantage, as there were many examples of light, mobile units slaughtering sluggish armored ones (the Crusades come to mind). But I think it was a huge factor, and that if the cost had been equal (like in Doms II), heavy units would have made up the bulk of historic armies, rather than light units.

I don't see that being so clear cut. For an easy example, take the Mongols. Probably the best pre-gunpowder army, and mostly comprised of Light Cavalry.

Even the Romans, quite fond of heavy infantry, still kept some lighter troops around for tactical flexibility -- even though they could have fielded armies of purely of heavy infantry.

What it really came down to is that a certain amount of light troops will increased the effectiveness of heavy troops.

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Mainly this because historically armor, while useful, wasn't nearly as useful as it is in Dom I/II. To anyone who disputes this, I offer the following test: put on a suit of full plate armor, helm and shield, then ask a friend to hit you with half a dozen sling bullets and shoot you three or four times with a shortbow. See if you are seriously injured or not (in Dom II, you probably wouldn't be - and that's with nonmagical, non-Black Plate of Ulm armors).

In Dom II it's common for a heavy unit to be hit three or four times without taking any damage, and then when he is hit it's only a scratch. Meanwhile the light units are getting killed or maimed with every second attack (or so). Which usually causes them to break around the time the heavy units are reaching 20 or so fatigue (-1 attack, -2 defense they don't use anyway, and a few percent chance of an armor piercing hit).

This is primarily because losing your defense roll by 1 point can kill you instantly, while losing your protection roll by 1 point will only cause 1 point of damage. There is far greater likelihood of quickly killing a high-defense, low-protection unit with a lucky hit than of quickly killing a low-defense, high-protection unit - and that's not even taking into account missile fire, where defense is completely worthless. (There's at least as much magic that ignores defense as there is magic that ignores protection, too.)

I'd like to see a critical hit rule: for each 5 points the attacker beats the defender's defense by, he gets 1 extra d6 for the damage vs. protection roll. (Open-ended, of course: the entire point of critical hits is that they hurt.) This still wouldn't make it too easy to kill an invulnerable Great Mother (for example), but heavy infantry would run a risk of being hurt even by humans with spears (although still not as much of a risk as unarmored troops). And it would make high attack skill more useful: currently it doesn't do all that much unless you're going against something with a high defense skill.