Suggestion: How to beef up light inf

[Arralen]

Originally posted by Elmo:
.. LI should be unencumbered. By that I mean light weapons only and no armor. There would be two advantages.

We're not talking about generic troops here. There are lots of nation-specific troops which are quite different from each other. Some have a spear only, some have spear, javelin, shield, helmet and armor, yet all "qualifiy" as light infantry.

And encumbrance does not influence movement speed, at least unless the (fixed) unit stats reflect this. There wouldn't be any change to the speed if you change a units encumbrance on the battlefield, but it does get more fatigue.

First, speed. They should be the poor mans cavalry with excellent flanking ability.

Light infantry does have higher strategic and battle speed, so when retreating it most times can run away from heavier troops successfully.

Second, defense. They should be harder to hit than their more heavily armored (read slower) bretheren.

Most LI does have 1 or 2 points more defences, but I'm not shure if it really makes a difference.

A.

[HJ]

Originally posted by Arralen:
And encumbrance does not influence movement speed, at least unless the (fixed) unit stats reflect this. There wouldn't be any change to the speed if you change a units encumbrance on the battlefield, but it does get more fatigue.

Encumbrance itself might not, but having armor or not does in fact affect the battle movement speed. Try casting Armor of Achilles on Ulmish units and see who's going to get to the end of the map first.

As for defense points, they are deduced as part of the armor stats. So yes, having more protection for armor usually means more chance to be hit in melee as well. Defense doesn't work with missiles though, and this is where high protection values (and shields) come much handier.

[Arralen]

Originally posted by HJ:
... Defense doesn't work with missiles though, and this is where high protection values (and shields) come much handier.

Does anybody know how shields do exactly work?
Is it a %-tage to block incoming missiles or what?
If it is, does it stack with "air shield" (spell, items, bless) ?

A.

[HJ]

Originally posted by Arralen:
Does anybody know how shields do exactly work?
Is it a %-tage to block incoming missiles or what?
If it is, does it stack with "air shield" (spell, items, bless) ?

A.

No. We don't know what the formula that is used to calculate a hit with a missile weapon is either.

The old Dom1 manual says that distance, precision, attack skill, maximum range of the weapon, size of the unit, number of units in the square, and shields all factor in the chance of hitting a square first, and then hitting the unit in the square. But nothing else than that.

[Kristoffer O]

If the missile hits a square there is a chance that a unit will get hit. This is more or less an attack roll vs shield defense (prec or def of the units does not count). Few units in the square reduces chances. Not sure how.

Hmm, I should not speak if I don't know the answer, but maybe someone understood something.

[Elmo]

Originally posted by Arralen:
...

And encumbrance does not influence movement speed, at least unless the (fixed) unit stats reflect this. There wouldn't be any change to the speed if you change a units encumbrance on the battlefield, but it does get more fatigue...

A.

That's odd. I'd sure move slower in full plate than in a loincloth.

If I was in a loincloth I wouldn't be moving as fast as possible to the enemy. I'd let that full plate guy get up in there long before I ever saw the pointy end of a sword.

Go go Dominions psychology.

[PvK]

Armor does slow down units in Doms I and II (e.g., Ulm plate infantry advances in battle more slowly than their chainmail infantry, etc), and make less armored fighters get tired less quickly and less likely to be hit in melee combat.

There are two main problems. One, which may not be a problem depending on point of view, is that there aren't many light inf types with low enough costs to make them much more efficient to produce, in many or most situations. Tweaking up or down some resource and/or gold costs could help.

The other problem is the way the AI and the movement/combat system combine to let light inf (or worse, horse archers) enter a heavy inf meat grinder when they shouldn't. If the AI and/or movement/combat system would arrange it so that faster/weaker units with room to back away, would avoid fighting fearsome HI, then LI and horse archer types would skirmish much more effectively.

Naturally, it'd be possible to do it badly and create a system where flyers were invincible or something, but Illwinter has shown plenty of skill in avoiding problems like that. Faster stand-off archers or skirmishers should be able to retreat when threatened by slower melee units, though. A flier using a hand weapon would still have to risk getting hit if they move up to swinging range.

PvK