The Illogic of Flight

[Psientist]

I understand a lot of the logic behind the game regarding flying units. In order to attack melee, a flying unit must come within range of its enemy... thus, "flying" really is just a way to "blink" to an enemy's proximity.

But what about flying mages and ranged-weapon units? Why should a flying mage ever be in range of a melee / infantry unit? It just doesn't seem to fit any sense of battle-logic to me, and I'd be interested to hear what the the game's designers' thoughts were about this.

It would seem more sense to have flying ranged/magic units actually be placed vertically above the battlefield, and attackable only by other magic/ranged units. I can see how this would add a level of complexity to programming, however.

[llamabeast]

I reckon they can't fire bows/do magic when they're flying. Too much flapping around going on. So they have to land to do anything.

[B0rsuk]

Flying units who really fly are hard to balance, as Master of Magic shows us. Especially in a game where you don't have direct control over your units.

[Sombre]

You could represent the defensive properties of flight by giving ranged fliers a bonus to their defense, or a shield armor called 'wing buffet' or something.

[Ironhawk]

Yeah its not about whats "realistic" (if that term can even be applied to dominions), its about what plays well. Having flying units the way they are maintains balance.

[Kristoffer O]

Also, the flying mechanic was added in the game when it was still dom1 where there was no way of zooming around and inspecting things from different angles. It would have been rather difficult to see where and what flyers were doing. The mechanic has stayed as they are, even though I have played with the idea of hoovering units. I guess JK who would have to program it would be less interested as the current system works ok in most situations.