Suggestion: How to beef up light inf

[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