Heavy Infantry, Light Infantry, and Mundane AP Weapons

[apoger]

>allow strategic moves that end in enemy territory

This would be a good way to model light troops.

Light troops do poorly in straight up battle with heavily armored troops. The reason they are great is their strategic mobility.

Outstanding suggestion Mr. Byler.

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Bawlfman:
I was just wondering if you are taking the base value of protection type spells into account here. I haven't played this game much, but I think that these spells combined with their strategic map movement advantage and the fact that you can hire swarms of them can make light troops quite useful. If thats not enough, maybe increase the base value of these spells a bit if that doesn't unbalance nations with earth or nature magic.

Earth mass protections are pretty weak (+3), and nature protections (barkskin) are single-unit. And both are more effective on heavy units than light units=) I may be missing some spells, though.

[Bawlfman]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bawlfman:
I was just wondering if you are taking the base value of protection type spells into account here. I haven't played this game much, but I think that these spells combined with their strategic map movement advantage and the fact that you can hire swarms of them can make light troops quite useful. If thats not enough, maybe increase the base value of these spells a bit if that doesn't unbalance nations with earth or nature magic.

Earth mass protections are pretty weak (+3), and nature protections (barkskin) are single-unit. And both are more effective on heavy units than light units=) I may be missing some spells, though.

---

The nature spells have a base protection value of 10 for units with less than 10 protection. Mass protection comes available at level 6 alteration. I guess I assumed the earth spells worked the same way. Even with just the nature one, light troops seem more useful than medium ones.

[Calanor]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
6) Give additional tactical commands to light units (e.g. "skirmish" - avoid melee);
7) Change the tac AI to allow effective skirmishing;
8) Add additional formations (like "wide" and "loose");
14) Make blows that do not penetrate armor do some minor fatigue damage;
16) Give bonuses/penalties to light/heavy units in various terrains;
17) Add "Critical Strike" which deals 2x or armor-piercing damage for very high attack rolls;
19) Allow LI/LC to attack non-adjacent enemy territories (move across a friendly province and attack);
20) Add strategic "Raid" orders for LI/LC (skirmish and retreat);
21) Add "Move-Pillage" orders for LI/LC (e.g. Mongols, Vikings, German barbarians);
22) Increase armor encumbrance in deserts (dehydration), swamps (footing), and mountains (elevation);

I like all of these suggestions.

9) Give light units free supplies, or making them consume less;
10) Make HI consume more supplies;

Why? What exactly would make a soldier in chain mail or some other heavy armour eat more than a guy with little or no armour? Except for somewhat desperate explanations, such as "they expend more energy" or something. A chain mail does not corrode into a heap of junk in one, two or even ten months, so that would not explain the supply cost - not to mention that even if this was the case, you'd use resources and not supplies to cover the repairs.

15) Add mundane armor piercing weapons (like making pikes AP);

Although I cannot understand your fascination with pikes, I do agree that more mundane armor piercing weapon would be welcome Maces, hammers, mauls and the like could be given such an ability. I am not sure whether or not morningstars are indeed more effective vs opponents using shields - the desc of a magical morningstar (forgot the name) claims that all morningstars are, but you never know.. Anyway, that might be an interesting ability to add to some mundane weapons - though I frankly have no idea why a morningstar, of all weapons, would be a shield-breaker/shield-catcher/whatever. Another ability could be armour breaking weapons, but this might be too complex to include in a patch.

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Calanor:

quote:

---

9) Give light units free supplies, or making them consume less;
10) Make HI consume more supplies;

Why? What exactly would make a soldier in chain mail or some other heavy armour eat more than a guy with little or no armour? Except for somewhat desperate explanations, such as "they expend more energy" or something. A chain mail does not corrode into a heap of junk in one, two or even ten months, so that would not explain the supply cost - not to mention that even if this was the case, you'd use resources and not supplies to cover the repairs.

---

HI try to avoid travel in their heavy armor. If they always wore it and traveled by foot, yes, they'd need much more food, water, and whatever else soldiers need. Otherwise, they could wear their equipment and use supply-hungry horses for transportation. And over time, the supply line would need to supply heavy troops with more replacement parts than light troops (though this is better abstracted through upkeep than supply, IMO). HI in armor would be unable to scavenge/hunt/live off the land effectively like LI.

But I'm assuming Dominions HI don't wear their gear except in battle, and as such, need other people / carts / horses / wagons to transport their heavy battle gear, while LI are essentially self-sufficient in terms of transportation and gear repair (simple gear, simple repairs, thus no traveling blacksmith support contingent). This support/supply train is much larger per HI unit than LI, and is not modeled at all in Dominions (which assumes the only people eating are the ones that fight). It would be easy to abstract, though, by making supply usage for a given being (like a human) proportional to encumbrance, or perhaps proportional to resource cost... or ideally... proportional to equipment mass, a new and useful equipment statistic.

quote:

---

15) Add mundane armor piercing weapons (like making pikes AP);

Although I cannot understand your fascination with pikes,

---

Looks like SOMEBODY needs to go back and play Master of Magic. Hello, do you think I just pull this stuff out of my ***?

-Cherry

[LordArioch]

But they need negate first strike too...then pikemen would claim their rightful place!

[PhilD]

Originally posted by DominionsFAN:
The mod tools will solve your problem dude.

I rather hope not. This is a balance issue, so it is in the developers' realm.

The best arguments made in favor of moddability is to add more content. The basic, unchanged game should be (or become) a valid standard for those interested in MP.