Heavy Infantry, Light Infantry, and Mundane AP Weapons

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Dekent:
Running MoM in windows XP is quite easy...all you have to do is allocate the memory it wants to it manually and run it in comp. mode.

(Good luck if you want sound though)

You can also get it easily at http://www.the-underdogs.org/

Hey, the sound is awesome! The music, anyway=) Try VDMS.

[Saber Cherry]

But back to the topic=)

(repost)

There seems to be a consensus, amongst most players, that light infantry and militia are fairly worthless. And specifically, that they are worthless because everything light infantry and militia do, heavy infantry does better. Plus, HI Lasts much longer.

Note:

LI=Light Infantry
MI=Medium Infantry
HI=Heavy Infantry
LC=Light Cavalry
HC=Heavy Cavalry
AP=Armor Piercing, not Action Points

Suggestions to rebalance light and heavy troops include:

1) Allow variable unit upkeep (not always 1/15 of cost);
2) Include resource cost in unit upkeep;
3) Allow light units to disband;
4) Decrease the gold cost of light units;
5) Increase the gold cost of heavy units;
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");
9) Give light units free supplies, or making them consume less;
10) Make HI consume more supplies;
11) Rescale supply points by a factor of 10, to reduce granularity (average consumption => size*5);
12) Increase light unit defense stats;
13) Let blows that do not penetrate armor still do some minor HP damage (say, .25 average);
14) Make blows that do not penetrate armor do some minor fatigue damage (say, 1d6/size);
15) Add mundane armor piercing weapons (like making pikes AP);
16) Give bonuses/penalties to light/heavy units in various terrains;
17) Add "Critical Strike" which deals 2x or AP damage for very high attack rolls;
18) Make heavy armor reduce attack rating;
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);
23) Introduce variable armor-piercing levels: X% AP, or 50% AP for the first X protection;
24) Give both LI and HI 2 strategic moves, but allow LI to move through rough terrain at a cost of 1 move point.

So, if you have more suggestions, or want to praise or slam an extant one, comment here.

-Cherry

[ November 01, 2003, 16:26: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

[LordArioch]

I got MoM to run with DOSBOX. But about pikes vs. cavalry, it just occured to me that lances get one attack. If that lance attack is repelled and doesnt go through is that its one use for the battle? Then pikemen with repel could soften the initial charge from knights (which is really deadly).
So they might already be a good choice against cavalry with lances.

[Calanor]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
I'm not kidding at all here - you need to play it. MoM and Xcom1 continue to be 2 of the best strategic games of all time. It's worth all the trouble of getting them to run in XP. Well, MoM is, anyway; Xcom is much harder to run correctly.

I know, I know.. I am an old X-Com 1 player, though

[Calanor]

Originally posted by LordArioch:
I got MoM to run with DOSBOX. But about pikes vs. cavalry, it just occured to me that lances get one attack. If that lance attack is repelled and doesnt go through is that its one use for the battle? Then pikemen with repel could soften the initial charge from knights (which is really deadly).
So they might already be a good choice against cavalry with lances.

I don't know if I feel that a repel attempt vs lances would turn them into a counter-cavalry unit. Besides, cavalry in general is tough, be it with or without lances and a counter-cavalry bonus would not only be useful - it would be quite sensible in a historic sense. Different cultures/nations might employ different approaches to counter cavalry, though - two-handed swords may be employed vs cavalry in some cultures, for instance, although I would assume that these would be particularily useful vs light cavalry charging in an open formation. In this case, you'd mainly use the sword to cut off the horse's legs, not to attack the horseman. Regardless, I feel that it would be a good idea if Dominions in some way or another had units that would be put on the field to counter cavalry.

Not that this has much to do with Heavy Infantry and the like, but anyway..

[Keir Maxwell]

I've also been playing MoM again recently and its works fine on win2000.

re pikes.

As an avid ancients gamer I would have to question the idea that pikes are armour piercing. I have owned and researched Macedonian and Successor armies and the idea that pikes are armour piercing didn't came up. While a spear obviously focuses a lot of impact on one point so does a sword thrust. A spear is really the basic weapon against which most others are judged - thus maces, and other bludgeoning weapons, are armour piercing compared to spears and swords. A pike differs from a spear in length but not necessarily in its ability to penetrate armour.

Pike is often seen as an anti-mounted weapon as mounted have effectively no chance at all frontally against a well trained infantry phalanx with pike and secure flanks - the same was true for a Hopilite phalanx. Long spear and pike should counter the effect of lances but both hopilite and pike phalanxes were actually extremely sophisticated anti-infantry formations.

The Hopilite evolved in an era of foot warfare as the pre-eminient infantry - most Greeks wars were against other Greeks. Greater reach, better armour and shields for close fighting, and the training to put it all together - read Steven Pressfields novel on Thermopylae for excellent details.

Pike was the counter to Hopilites with its extra reach canceling one of the advantages of the Hopilites spear. It also worked well against most other things deployed in the center of a battlefield so it became extremely popular until the rise of Rome.

Just to throw some more confusion I should bring up the battle of Benevento (might be the one before or after in the Sicilian Vespers - fantastic book on it by Runciman - first name Nigel? My copies on loan). At this C13th battle the French knights found themselves overmatched by the German sergeants who wore "coats of plate" and formed up in a dense wedge. The Frenchmens swords provided largely ineffective. Unprepared to accept defeat at the hands of such lesser foes the knights pulled out daggers and wrestled a horse driving the points of the daggers into the vunerable armpits and other nooks and crannies. So daggers should be penertrating?

Cheers

Keir

[Calanor]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
I've also been playing MoM again recently and its works fine on win2000.

re pikes.

As an avid ancients gamer I would have to question the idea that pikes are armour piercing. I have owned and researched Macedonian and Successor armies and the idea that pikes are armour piercing didn't came up. While a spear obviously focuses a lot of impact on one point so does a sword thrust. A spear is really the basic weapon against which most others are judged - thus maces, and other bludgeoning weapons, are armour piercing compared to spears and swords. A pike differs from a spear in length but not necessarily in its ability to penetrate armour.

Pike is often seen as an anti-mounted weapon as mounted have effectively no chance at all frontally against a well trained infantry phalanx with pike and secure flanks - the same was true for a Hopilite phalanx. Long spear and pike should counter the effect of lances but both hopilite and pike phalanxes were actually extremely sophisticated anti-infantry formations.

The Hopilite evolved in an era of foot warfare as the pre-eminient infantry - most Greeks wars were against other Greeks. Greater reach, better armour and shields for close fighting, and the training to put it all together - read Steven Pressfields novel on Thermopylae for excellent details.

Pike was the counter to Hopilites with its extra reach canceling one of the advantages of the Hopilites spear. It also worked well against most other things deployed in the center of a battlefield so it became extremely popular until the rise of Rome.

Just to throw some more confusion I should bring up the battle of Benevento (might be the one before or after in the Sicilian Vespers - fantastic book on it by Runciman - first name Nigel? My copies on loan). At this C13th battle the French knights found themselves overmatched by the German sergeants who wore "coats of plate" and formed up in a dense wedge. The Frenchmens swords provided largely ineffective. Unprepared to accept defeat at the hands of such lesser foes the knights pulled out daggers and wrestled a horse driving the points of the daggers into the vunerable armpits and other nooks and crannies. So daggers should be penertrating?

Cheers

Keir

Good points and an interesting read, Keir. As for pikes, I would like to add that during the late medieval period and early renaissance, one of the main roles of the two-handed sword was to counter.. pikes. It proved to be quite useful for chopping off the tips of the pikes and could allow the wielder to hack a path through enemy pike squares.