Light Infantry... what the ****

[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?

[Jasper]

Originally posted by 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.

[snip]

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

Very true! Unfortunately Dominions 2 isn't really setup to handle this.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Wendigo:
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.

Yah, it's good to look at the full picture. Easy access to buffing spells helps vanheim immensely; it'd also help other factions, but they often don't have such easy access. I'm still not so fond of the Hirdmen though, as these things can also be done for other factions (e.g. Ulm, Machaka, Arcoscephale), if not as easily.

Vanheim has one of my favorite troop selections as well, in sharp contrast to many factions which have a wide swath of marginal troops. Both the Van and Valkyrie are a nice option (especially with blessing + Strength of Giants), and the Einheres really pack a bite once berserk.

[ April 14, 2004, 11:04: Message edited by: Jasper ]

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Firebreath:
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.

The place for suggestions is pretty much here. The developers skim through, and sometimes pick up things without commenting.

My first thought was that a general battle effect from a province's terrain doesn't make any sense, as the battle will be fought in some open area. But your suggest could represent the effect of carrying heavy equipment through rough terrain and showing up to a battle tired, which is quite reasonable!

Perhaps heavily encumbered troops could start with some fatigue in "heavy" terrain provinces?

[Wendigo]

Perhaps heavily encumbered troops could start with some fatigue in "heavy" terrain provinces?

This is a pretty interesting idea, and the type of flavour thing IW favours adopting.

Maybe also easy to implement, same as we have extreme cold/heat penalties to encumbrance depending on province weather scales, we could have some penalties depending on province terrain.

Just should be careful not to make 0-encumbrance troops too powerful from such change.

[Jasper]

Indeed. Plausible, simple to implement, and doesn't require extending the user interface.

I have my doubts on how it might affect 0-encumberance troops as well, and no trick comes to mind to alleviate them. Perhaps it's not so bad if such troops get a bonus in rough terrain? It's certainly thematic.

Not applying this penalty to commanders might help, so as not to penalize mages which often an effective counter to 0-enc units.