in which occasion will you raise taxes

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
As for LI being historically useful, that's correct. But my impression is that is less due to their mobility, and more because they were so darn cheap compared to HI. Untrained, give'em a spear and point'em at the battle milita should never cost 70% of a well trained broadsword-shield-platemail HI unit in any respect (supply needs, wages, maintenance, initial deployment cost). For similar reasons, despite having more training and being better armed than militia, an LI shouldn't cost the same amount as an HI.

I entirely disagree. Light Troops were tactically very usefull, for example in rough terrain, against elephants, or for the mobility and speed. Light Cavalry in particular were always usefull unless the terrain was just too rough for horses.

Costs were obviously an issue as well, but I don't think they were the defining issue. It certainly wasn't true that light troops were only used because one couldn't instead field more heavy troops.

[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.

There's also a possibility of assigning heavy units penalties in certain terrain types (swamp, mountain, forest).

[ October 29, 2003, 22:38: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

[Jasper]

Originally posted by st.patrik, talking about uses for light troops:
It seems to me that Hypasists (sp?) function in this way to an extent. They are cheaper than hoplites (resources at least), but they definitely have a role. On the other hand, Militia are poorly trained conscripts which I suppose were mainly used as cannon fodder in RL. [/QB]

Hypaspists were the elite heavy infantry in Alexander the Great's army. They were perhaps lighter armored and more flexible than the Hoplites, but they definitely were not light infantry.

In Dom 2 this is also the case -- they make very good heavy infantry. Their stats now seem clearly superior to hoplites.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by PhilD:
These sound like good ideas; I'd widen the area where only light troops were allowed (frontmost area as well as the flanks). But, what's going to be missing from the role of light troops is the disorganizing factor of light troop missile fire - with no formations to maintain, this will be hard to take into account...

IMHO Morale loss from damage due to missile fire is a reasonable aproximation of disorder from missile fire.

But, the real problem is the supplies. The "supplies" abstraction in Dom is only about food, but I think it should reflect more than that; it should be near impossible to raise and maintain a standing army of only heavy troops. These heavy troops should be a backbone that your army is build around - better morale and durability, but too expensive to have them make up more than a quarter of your army. I like the idea of some number of "light" troops in each Province not requiring supplies.

I disagree. In particular Roman and Greek armies were composed mostly of well armed Heavy Infantry. Focusing solely on the cost equation is IMHO not the answer, as it will invariably lead to the most cost efficient unit being best.

Also, you wouldn't mind the supply cost of light troops if they were actually effective in battle.

[licker]

"Also, you wouldn't mind the supply cost of light troops if they were actually effective in battle. "

True, that is why I suggest lowering their supply (and proably upkeep) to make them more viable than they are. All the historical evidence is fine and dandy, but it has jack all to do with Dominions and the underlying game mechanics.

What it boils down to (aside from the AIs inability to select the most effective troops) is that there is virtually no use for LI in the game. That's probably like 15-20% of the units in the game that simply will never be built becasue there is always a better alternative. Now of course there can be instances where you need a quick dose of LI, but for the most part their cost/benefit is out of whack with the higher cost units. This situation only gets worse the longer the game progresses as nations gain better economies and begin to fill their key provinces with important armies. There simply is not room for the LI since they have no combat advantage over HI once you saturate your provinces with units (i.e. the supply limit is hit).

So lower the supply usage for LI, lower their upkeep, and bang, now they can be competative again. People will still gravitate toward the better units, but there will be a bigger place for LI in the game.

An alternative is to make HI take up more command points from commanders as well, or make LI count as 1/2 or something. That doesn't get around supply and upkeep issues, but it does make swarming more viable, especially with low command rated commanders.

[Jasper]

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.

[Chris Byler]

Originally posted by st.patrik:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jasper:
What bothers me is that light troops aren't usefull in battle, while they clearly were usefull throughout history. Light troops were not "poorly equipped" troops, but troops used in a different manner -- a manner that simply doesn't exist in Dominions (or any similar computer game for that matter).

It seems to me that Hypasists (sp?) function in this way to an extent. They are cheaper than hoplites (resources at least), but they definitely have a role. On the other hand, Militia are poorly trained conscripts which I suppose were mainly used as cannon fodder in RL.

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But they are too expensive to be used as dragon fodder (no cannons in Dom II ).

The only use I've found for LI so far is their javelins - they do as much damage as longbows, and because of their shorter range, they have better accuracy. A squad of LI behind a squad of HI can be fairly effective against moderately armored troops. Against Ulm you still need crossbows or magic though.

Some people on this thread seem to be claiming that it shouldn't take any more money to maintain a company of fifty men with Full Plate of Ulm, a full helmet, tower shield and warhammer (say) than spears, leather hauberks, javelins and maybe hard leather caps. I don't see how you can support this view - if nothing else, war gear wears out or breaks and has to be replaced. That costs something.

It wouldn't be inappropriate to the way the gold/resource model works in Dom II to have heavy units' maintenance cost resources instead of gold - but it would probably be very hard to implement effectively. (It might require implementation of a second supply system - and what happens to the troops who aren't properly supplied with equipment?) Adding a gold upkeep cost for high resource units would be simple and possibly solve some of the heavy vs. light troop problems that have been around since Dom I.

Of course I worry about weakening Ulm too much; maybe they could have as one of their national abilities that they pay only half the extra upkeep cost due to resources. Or troops that are currently in a friendly productivity dominion could pay less upkeep due to resources. Both would be appropriate IMO.


On the other hand, I also think that a large part of the heavy vs. light problem stems from light troops' ineffectiveness on the battlefield, and that this is a very "deep" problem because it ties into the defense vs. protection issue and combats resolving in too few rounds for fatigue to be a major problem for nonmages.

Both problems could perhaps be solved (or at least ameliorated) by an across-the-board +1-2 to all defense skills (perhaps excepting units that already have very high defense). LI would still die faster to shortbow fire, but wouldn't necessarily die faster in melee (except perhaps compared to Ulm) because they would get hit less often and because the heavy troops would get tired before they had killed 3x their own numbers.

Another possible fix (to the over-effectiveness of protection vs. most attacks) would be to make any hit do at least 1 point of damage, regardless of the str+weapon vs. prot roll. Then units that get hit a lot but often take 0 damage would be getting hit for 1 damage, which could make quite a bit of difference to a 10 hp unit.

Finally, historically there were melee weapons specifically designed to pierce armor - pikes, for instance. Why aren't they armor piercing in Dom (I or II)? Armor negating should be reserved for magic items, beings and spells only, but I don't see why armor piercing shouldn't be allowed on ordinary melee weapons. Not all nations have access to crossbows, and missile weapons have several known counters anyway.