Repel attempt bonuses

[Chris Byler]

Originally posted by Psitticine:
The sequence goes like this:

When the defender's weapon is longer than the attacker's, there is a chance to repel.

The first thing that is checked is the attack vs. defense, as if the defender is attacking the original attacker (and, well, he is!). If this is successful, the defender has gotten his weapon in between himself and the oncoming aggressor.

In that case, the original attacker must decide if he is really willing to run right onto a spearpoint in the name of his cause. This is where the morale check occurs. If he succeeds, he proceeds with his attacks. Otherwise, the attack is aborted with nothing else occuring except the end of the attacker's turn.

If the attacker continues, there is a damage vs. protection check, just as in normal combat. If this results in penetration for the defender's repel, the attacker takes a point of damage.

1 point seemed rather low to me, until I saw a group of knights clash into a group of pikemen for the first time. Those little cuts add up pretty quickly, and the aborted attacks are extremely costly.

Speaking of knights: if their lance attack is cancelled by a repel, do they get to try again to use it next round? What if it's cancelled by failing an awe check?


Anyway, it looks from this sequence that berserking wouldn't help against repels (not immediately anyway) because the morale check is made before damage is potentially done to the attacker. But if the berserker makes his morale check once, and then takes damage from the repel, he will go berserk and automatically pass the repel morale tests in future rounds (and possibly have increased att/str this round?)

It also looks like mindless regenerators can ignore repel attempts (they automatically pass the morale check, and 1 hp won't seriously hurt a regenerator generally), and nature-9 blessed sacred troops can too.

[PvK]

Not if they are advancing against many enemies with pikes. Sounds like each one would have to overcome a repel from every defender, possibly taking one damage from each.

It'd make a lot more sense if it were changed as I mentioned below - only one damaging repel per repeller, but at full damage.

I guess it sorta comes out in the wash on average, but it doesn't make much sense on a literal level to have everyone repellable by everyone, at one damage each. Not a huge deal, but I always like things to make good sense. So, a suggestion.

PvK

[Keir Maxwell]

Although I'm a realism fan I'm cautious of attempts to understand ancient combat in a mechanistic fashion ie you do that, I do this . . . We simply don't know alot of the answers and can't be reasonably epected to.

What we can do is have a fair idea of the overall strength of troop types versus each other and the likely results of there interactions. From details provided by ancients we get clues as to the fashion in which one troop type defeated another and Dom does a reasonably good job of resolving a the combat in a way related to the details and still (hopefully) giving the right result.

The repel rules are an abstraction which represents the advantage of longer weapons. the main advantage of repel other than the morale hit is canceling the incoming attack which is huge. It is quite reasonable that the success of the repelling (or is repellant?) soldiers attack is resolved in their phase as they have just canceled their enemies attack and should they survive till their turn we will find out wether they managed to impale their opponent.

My doubts around the repel rules are wether or not weapons used in a largely irregular fashion should repel at all. Say barbarians with two handed swords vs men at arms. I find it difficult to imagine what the barbarians repelling the men at arms represents here? I tend to think repel is a function of a formed, drilled unit using weapons which utilise reach as part of their way of fighting - or even legionaries using their shields. But hey its not like I'm seriously concerned and if you changed this you would have to strengthen the weakened troop types in other ways . . . and so I think the existing abstraction is fine.

Cheers

Keir

[ November 06, 2003, 04:48: Message edited by: Keir Maxwell ]

[PvK]

Hmm. My main concern is a basic one - a significantly longer weapon should usually have the first opportunity to strike. This is generally a deterrant to closing ranks, so the repel morale check is nice.

One big weakness is if you take say units with strong attacks and high morale. In the current system, the high morale tends to let a strong attacker with a short weapon move in and attack, shrugging off a measely 1-point hit even from something like a magic giant-wielded flaming two-handed sword, and get the first real blow with the shorter weapon.

The artificial "1-point damage" and the "infinite repel attempts per repeller" seem to me like they don't model the basic situation very well, unless accidentally and abstractly in certain (perhaps many) situations.

Another thing that could help the whole combat resolution, would be to shuffle the moves of all melee units, rather than having an entire side all move at the same time. Missile units could still all fire in Groups. This would help reduce an entire mob getting to attack before their enemies, based on an accident of which entire group moved into range first.

PvK

[ November 06, 2003, 16:53: Message edited by: PvK ]

[Nagot Gick Fel]

If I had to implement the effect of longer weapons in Dominions, I'd just deduce the (negative) length difference from all weapons in the target square from the attacker's AR. Examples:

A barbarian with a length 2 greatsword attacks a square holding 3 pikemen (pike = length 5), the barbarian gets a (5-2) x 3 = 9 malus on his AR roll.

The same barbarian attacks a square holding 1 pikeneer (lg 5), 1 hallberdier (lg 3), 1 swordsman (lg 1), the malus is now (5-2) + (3-2) + 0 = 4.

If a defender has several melee weapons, only the longest one counts. If the attacker has several melee weapons, every attack suffer maluses using the above formula (may yield different maluses).

This would emphasizes the effect of tight phalanxes formations better than the current system, I think. Historically deep pike formations were able to repel knights effectively, but in Dominions a high-morale knight will just accept a light wound before slaughtering his vis-a-vis as if they were slingers.

[Kristoffer O]

Originally posted by PvK:


Another thing that could help the whole combat resolution, would be to shuffle the moves of all melee units, rather than having an entire side all move at the same time. Missile units could still all fire in Groups. This would help reduce an entire mob getting to attack before their enemies, based on an accident of which entire group moved into range first.

PvK

A long time ago we tried to implement simultaneous moves, but it introduced several problems and the battles were much more difficult to inspect and understand with mages casting spells from side to side. We decided it was not a good solution.

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by PvK:
Hmm. My main concern is a basic one - a significantly longer weapon should usually have the first opportunity to strike. This is generally a deterrant to closing ranks, so the repel morale check is nice.

While we see the whole combat played out in detail in dom to me what is key is that the unit vs unit balence is good.

In understanding how different units interacted individual weapon usage considerations should largely be put aside in favour of trying to understand how the two bodies literally physically impacted upon each other - the results of which are very counter intuitive at times. We are not modeling a man with two handed sword vs a man with a spear but a body of men with two handed swords vs a body opf men with spears.

HI with two handed weapons fought very differently to how people often imagine. Some of the best known examples (Huskarls, Varangians) fought in a dense body wielding their weapon over handed in a regular chopping motion and relying on their close support of each other, good armour and a large shield hung over their shoulders. Others such as medievil halbadiers relied on the greated length of their weapon but must have still wielded in a fairly regular fashion or they would have become a hopeless tangle. Such troops were resilient to frontal knight charges because of their high morale, high defense, and dense formation. Despite the fact that the lances of the Knights are longer the knights are described as struggling to close. Hastings and Dyrrachium were won by the Normans and the Huskarls/Varangians beaten - but not through direct frontal assault and only after repulsing the Normans many times.

Hopilties vs other foot relied physically on acting as concerted unified body which litterly drove their oponents front ranks flying off their feet and then trampled them undefoot. One of the uses of the spike on the bottom of spear was to dispatch foe trodden underfoot.

Hopilites Vs other hopilties was a pushing match -if both sides stood up to the initial terrifying charge. Brave, veteran, soldiers pissed themselves and shook in fear as they approached the enemy - but when the crunch comes they did their job. Grind out the victory and the deaths don't really come until one side breaks. At times units were pushed back over long distances due to their high morale and refusal to break and be slaughtered.

Part of what I'm trying to say is that ancients combat is not something you reason out using commen sense. You need to read as many primary and secondary sourcs as possible and focus on what the ancients consider the salient features of combat. The Spartans focused on fear - phobos - and how to deal with it.

With dom the key for me is how the overall matchups work. The details are cute but I would not change one to be more "realistic" unless it improved general balence so I think thats the sort of question we need to ask. How does a body of Knights match up to a body of Pike, of armoured Axe men, of heavy cavalry and so on.

So how should a Giant hitting a body of spearmen be represented? I think if the Giant manages to close then there is no problem in it getting the first real strike. It has brushed aside the opposing spears as the holders trembled in fear and burst into their ranks.

Cheers

Keir