Light Infantry... what the ****

[Wendigo]

I use always a good amount of LI huskarls when playing Vanheim & Utgard Jotun.

With Vanheim I use them both for early expansion, and as a quick response force once the game advances thanks to their strategic move of 2: huskarls & mages can quickly be re-located, while the slower HI follow up at a slower pace.
Default Vanheim can also easily pull many trooper buffs that allow the humble huskarls to stand up on equal terms vs much heavier troops.

Same issue with Utgard-Jotun: the huskarls help compensate for the giant infantry troop density issues (one extra body+ one extra attack per square), and unlike HI they can keep up with the giant's movement rate.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Thilock_Dominus:
I would not say light Infantry sux. Ex. C'tis light Infantry armed with spear, javalin and shield can be quiet useful. An unit with 30 or more with light infantry can block off a heavy cavalry when its charging.
The light infantry can take out the heavy infantry if it gets its chance to hurling the javalins, the same goes against archers.
That's my experience with C'tis light infantry plus they are cheap

Javelins are quite nice, if you can manage to micromanage them so that your Javeliners can repeatedly target opposing HI while a small band of your HI pins opposing HI and distracts archers.

This strategy is very easy to disrupt however, and only really works against independents. Still, this alone saves Pangaea from completely sucking.

[Jondifool]

Well as the statements as I read them are that light inf isn't totally useless, but neither any particular good, it raises some other questions ( at least for me)

first
Is light infantery to expensive? In gold cost? should they be cheaper or recive a upkeep discount, to be more used/usefull or are the avarage 10 gp a fair price for a fooder unit?

Second. I am not experienced enough to know if there low encumbrance/fatique adds up something significant usefull in more than rare conditions. Does it and is this just situational or can you actual base a strategy around it?
I have found it difficult enough to force the AI to cast spells like curse of stones, just to learn more about fatique

so can you base a strategy around Light Infantery( besides flagellants) and if so how ?

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Wendigo:
I use always a good amount of LI huskarls when playing Vanheim & Utgard Jotun.

With Vanheim I use them both for early expansion, and as a quick response force once the game advances thanks to their strategic move of 2: huskarls & mages can quickly be re-located, while the slower HI follow up at a slower pace.
Default Vanheim can also easily pull many trooper buffs that allow the humble huskarls to stand up on equal terms vs much heavier troops.

Same issue with Utgard-Jotun: the huskarls help compensate for the giant infantry troop density issues (one extra body+ one extra attack per square), and unlike HI they can keep up with the giant's movement rate.

Good point about the strategic move; many of my thoughts are holdovers from Dom 1, and noticbly the HI that I have been using is strategic move 2.

I'd assumed that Huskarls were move-1 for some reason. They're as well equipped as LI comes, especially considering that Hirdman are IMHO subpar HI.

Do you find the (strat-2) skinshifters usefull? They look weak to me, but I haven't tried them.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Jondifool:
Well as the statements as I read them are that light inf isn't totally useless, but neither any particular good, it raises some other questions ( at least for me)

first
Is light infantery to expensive? In gold cost? should they be cheaper or recive a upkeep discount, to be more used/usefull or are the avarage 10 gp a fair price for a fooder unit?

As near as I can tell unit cost is based entirely on a unit's stats, and Illwinter seems very reluctant to change this.

IMHO, rather than reducing their cost and making them better fodder, they should instead be improved in a manner similar to how they were used Historically.

For example, what if they were dispersed and so took fewer missile/spell casualties? What if they could fallback before contract, or fire for 2 rounds then backup? What if a victor's fleeing units didn't leave the province? etc.

Then they might be usefull in small numbers, which IMHO is about right.

[tinkthank]

Originally posted by Jasper:

The crux of the LI problem is that they cost almost as much as good HI, and die much faster, which makes using them as a shield pointless.

They generally cost much less resources, which mean they can be levied quickly.
I generally choose LI over HI because of the map movement of 2 on LI vs 1 from HI. In general, they are quicker on the battlefield as well. Some of them also are able to throw (generally useless, but better than nothing) javelins.
Some LI with longer weapons can also be useful in repelling.

I think the general Beavis-n-Butthead statement of the form "XXX sucks" where XXX stands for a particular unit generally do not stand up well in the context of DomII, since it will depend on the situation.
For example, LI might be a better choice than HI if you are in a hurry, or if your nation generally has some other form of "tank" units (knights, summons, whatever), or in later game situations where money is less of a problem than resources and you may just simply want lots of cannon fodder to absorb magic damage -- situations where even a HI will be useless, so why not take a LI?
I have learned to love LI for what it is. I think there is a saying in English: You get what you pay for. And for what you pay, LI can be quite a bargain.

[Wendigo]

I'd assumed that Huskarls were move-1 for some reason. They're as well equipped as LI comes, especially considering that Hirdman are IMHO subpar HI.

I actually like the hirdmen for default Vanheim. They are my 'center of the line' troop of choice when facing Ermorian hordes for example, and they specifically shine for default Van when combined with the supberb Dwarf support mages.

With dwarf backup, a hirdman becomes a pretty respectable force with Legions of steel + Strength of giants (18 prot, 14? st+ broadsword damage)...perfectly capable of standing vs any other HI, and being MI esentially the hirdman has the bonus of decent defense & encumbrance.
If you cast also Destruction on the enemy line, your cheap & humble hirdmen will easily chew up even elite Emerald guards.

This doesn't mean I do not use the supberb einheres however, but rather field them as shock troops...in fact, Vanheim is the nation with the most flexible troop choice IMO, at least for my playing style.

Do you find the (strat-2) skinshifters usefull? They look weak to me, but I haven't tried them.

The weakest of the lot IMO for Van, and the only one I hardly field.
I can only find 2 circunstances where I would field them:
-With strong magical support (marble warriors and/or fog warriors), so that they suffer little damage that their regen could make up for.

-If my offensive armies are being nuked by MW/FFS, shapeshifting would likely allow them to survive when the other Van inf would just die.

Still, these are pretty specialized uses for an overpriced troop type.

[Wauthan]

Light Infantery would be more useful if the battleground itself varied a bit more. On a dry flat ground it's pretty obvious that a man with heavy plate armour will have an advantage over a man in a leather cuirass. But if there was a penalty to encumberance in muddy, uneven, snowy, elevated or vegetation covered battlefields then the light infantery would have the upper hand.

There is no greater proof for this than the fairly wellknown Battle of Agincourt(sp?). The british troops were both heavily outnumbered and "outgunned" by the french.

The battlefield formed a wedge, which consentrated the heavily armoured knights and completely broke down their formation, and the ground was covered in sticky mud, the bane of platearmour which any liveaction roleplayer can tell you (it sticks to metal like peanutbutter sticks to cloth and weighs you down quite a lot).

This meant that while the english archers were pretty ineffective using their bows they caused massive casualites amongst the knights by routing the cavalery into the footknights, attacking in melee with their long daggers and simply exhausting the mudcovered knights until most of them drowned in the mud or were trampled to death in the complete chaos.

If the men in the back of the french force would have pulled back instead of pushing into the wedgeshaped field then its propable that most of the knights would have lived, even if the battle would have been lost. Apparently it was greed that pushed most of them onwards since there was quite a competition to take the king of england hostage and hold him for ransom.

Then again a lot can be said about the french noblemen that choose to override the commander-in-charge and engage the british forces without a real battleplan. It's still pretty ironical no? Had it not rained then history would have taken a different turn indeed.

Being able to choose your battleground if you have the faster army would be a nice addition to Dominions III.

[ April 14, 2004, 10:42: Message edited by: Wauthan ]

[Firebreath]

Thanks for spoiling everything Jasper

But I knew that I'd missed something vital...

Light infantry are supposed to excel vs heavy infantry in 'difficult' terrain, such as mountains, swamps, (underwater?), forests, etc. They're also better at ambushes, hit and run tactics, skirmishing, night fighting, etc. While some units get a no-starve bonus in specific terrain (does anyone EVER take that into account when making strategic unit building decisions?), they don't get a fighting bonus, which is a damn shame as then you would be able to do some really interesting things like getting some lizzards to actually fight well (if only in swamps)...

Is there a place to suggest improvements to the appropriate people somewhere in this forum? Something like heavy inf. get a heavy encumberance penalty (+100%) when fighting in mountains, 50% in forests, etc. A 'attack and swarm enemy flank, then run away before the center has time to react' command might be interesting for fast LI.

[Jasper]

[quote]Originally posted by tinkthank:
They generally cost much less resources, which mean they can be levied quickly.

This is rarely an issue.

I generally choose LI over HI because of the map movement of 2 on LI vs 1 from HI. In general, they are quicker on the battlefield as well.

This is their only saving grace. Even so, in most cases it isn't enough, as often terrain or enemy borders reduce your move to 1 anyway.

Some of them also are able to throw (generally useless, but better than nothing) javelins.
Some LI with longer weapons can also be useful in repelling.

Good HI tends to have good morale, making repelling not so important. I have also found javelins to be quite effective, and nowhere near useless.

I think the general Beavis-n-Butthead statement of the form "XXX sucks" where XXX stands for a particular unit generally do not stand up well in the context of DomII, since it will depend on the situation.

Point Taken. I've debated LI several times on these forums already, and was a bit quick to cut to the chase. ;-)


For example, LI might be a better choice than HI if you are in a hurry, or if your nation generally has some other form of "tank" units (knights, summons, whatever), or in later game situations where money is less of a problem than resources and you may just simply want lots of cannon fodder to absorb magic damage -- situations where even a HI will be useless, so why not take a LI?

Because HI costs about the same, and easily defeats LI in combat? I also disagree that in a later game situation gold is less of a problem than resources, especially as you can easily convert gold into more resources by building forts.


I have learned to love LI for what it is. I think there is a saying in English: You get what you pay for. And for what you pay, LI can be quite a bargain.

I have yet to see LI be such a bargain, although in a couple of cases it is grudgingly usefull (e.g. Huskarls). Which LI are you thinking of?