Provinces with terrain should place obstacles on the battlefield. Bogs, underbrush, rocks, etc. (Farmland isn't much of an obstruction unless it's rice fields - or maybe in late summer/early autumn.) Any unit that moves through an obstacle suffers fatigue equal to its base fatigue (possibly limited to once per turn if it moves through several obstacles) and may cost extra movement points too. Any unit that fights while standing in an obstacle suffers 50% more fatigue. Appropriate survival abilities eliminate these penalties.
Jasper, if I have an army of C'tissian light infantry against your Ulmish heavy infantry, the battlefield damned well *will* be entirely swampy if I have anything to do with it. If we are fighting in a swamp province it shouldn't be that hard to arrange. Realistically, the more mobile units will get to pick the battleground.
Battles being fought on fields with rough terrain were rare in medieval European history because both sides were led by heavy cavalry. Nobody wanted to fight in a swamp. But the Gallic wars were another matter - skirmishes in the woods were common and the Gauls did well in them despite their lighter equipment. This is partly semantic - such engagements weren't *called* "battles", but men killed in them were just as dead.
An example from _De Bello Gallico_ (trans. McDevitte and Bohn):
Quote:
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Ambiorix, when he observed this, orders the command to be issued that they throw their weapons from a distance and do not approach too near, and in whatever direction the Romans should make an attack, there give way (from the lightness of their appointments and from their daily practice no damage could be done them); [but] pursue them when betaking themselves to their standards again. Which command having been most carefully obeyed, when any cohort had quitted the circle and made a charge, the enemy fled very precipitately. In the mean time, that part of the Roman army, of necessity, was left unprotected, and the weapons received on their open flank. Again, when they had begun to return to that place from which they had advanced, they were surrounded both by those who had retreated and by those who stood next them; but if, on the other hand, they wish to keep their place, neither was an opportunity left for valor, nor could they, being crowded together, escape the weapons cast by so large a body of men.
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Wouldn't it be good if Dom2 light infantry could fight like that? (Of course, the Romans generally routed the Gauls in open field engagements, and Dom2 reflects that fine. But there's more to a war than open field engagements.)
And if light infantry had 1-2 points more defense, average heavy infantry might start to tire before they had already killed 3 times their own numbers and routed the rest (elite or experienced heavy infantry would still do well against average LI, but elites are expensive and experience takes time to acquire).