Quote:
Kel said:
On useless national troops:
Technically there are few that are utterly, in all situations, useless...but let's be honest, there are *many* that serve the same function and, if they had never been introduced to the game, noone would care. Yes, there are situations where I might recruit a halberdier instead of a pikeneer but if I didn't have one or the other, it would not make any significant difference in the long run. So yes, a lot of units are kind of 'filler' units (which are still nice for flavor and all).
However, that said, there is only so much you can do with them and still maintain the nation's strengths and weaknesses. If you take a nation that has 3 kinds of medium infantry and make one a little lighter and one a little heavier, to make them 'useful', you just expanded that nations' power by giving it flexible infantry. Now you have to balance that...and somehow maintain the nation next door who was known for his heavy infantry and is now competing with your HI, MI and LI. So what now, give him some MI maybe to keep up ? Now everyone starts to look the same...
Summary: Yes, there are some units that are redundant in the roles they play...but expanding their roles would bite into the balance or individuality of nations. So, to me, you either have some extra units that are somewhat redundant or you don't have them at all. Having the choice doesn't hurt.
- Kel
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I would agree with idea there are too many troop types particuarly for eg ulm with 4 types of identikit infantry. They are however subltly differentiated in the way you describe due to differing weapons. However the subtleties are too subtle for it to make an interesting choices between them. I dispute the fact that the variety of troops adds character in fact I think it reduces it. Ulm for example could be famous for its armies of Knights backed up by pikeneers & crossbows rather than its hodge-podge of miscellaneous heavy infantry. Warhammer the miniatures game did this in its latest edition - by reducing the choices you increase the character of the armies. Same with abysia - every abysian could have a weapon with a spikey ball on a chain for example.
This is of course a different issue from troops being too weak and is a massive none-priority (more the Dom3 wish list - rather than making up 1000 units we could have 500 and a better messaging system)
There are lots of understrength units too of course but picking them out is harder. (Salamanders go on my list BTW as they die just too much for 70 gp & I cannot find a way to pad them should be maybe 50 gp or tougher - double HP.)
Pickles