Light Infantry... what the ****

[Pocus]

in the same trend, perhaps heavy terrains can give added fatigues to troops, each round. This added fatigue is moreover not given linearly, but is derivated from the encumberance, so that light troops get only +1 penalty in the heaviest terrains, while HI get an added +2 to +4:

unit encumberance; added fatigue:
1-3 : +1 in swamp or mountain
4-5 : +1 in forest, +2 swamp or mountain
6-7: +2 in forest, +3 swamp or mountain ...

modify this by -1 if terrain survival ability is presents.

[Jasper]

Faster fatigue during the battle gives me mental dissonance, as there is no terrain on the battlefield. If the field _were_ uniformly covered in rough terrain, then units like HI, cavalry, and archers should be useless.

Partially covering terrain would be ok, but is just too complex for the dominions battle engine to handle (and is perhaps better handled in another game...).

[Wauthan]

Good idea Pocus. It's all about whom chooses the field of battle. Surely an C'Tis general would try to corner his oppponents in a murky swamp since his units got the edge. Then again undead would be even more scary since they would be immune to any fatigue increase. A further possibility for LI is to increase the size of the unit one step, to reflect an open formation. It's a bit of work but plausible enough for a mod. Might be a tad bit hard to figure out just what a "light" unit is considering the fantasy element though.

[ April 14, 2004, 11:35: Message edited by: Wauthan ]

[Firebreath]

I should add, that I have rarely seen a game with such an active and positive post release developer involvement.

Keep it up, whoever you are

[Arralen]

Originally posted by Jasper:
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?

Suggested this some times ago (insert link to old thread here):
LI shouldn't move into a square where another unit from the same squad is present. Thus LI will show up with 1/3 the normal density to cover a bigger front line, which will let more units escape area spells and missile fire.
Best of all - it could use the same code that prevents units from running into poisioned/burning/whatever squares.
Oh, wait, that code still doesn't exist. Maybe that's why the dev's liked this suggestion, but we don't have it put into practice with 2.11

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.

"Fire and flee" will do exactly that. The first part, that is ...
Wasn't there some talk about units orderd to retreat shouldn't spread out over neighbouring provinces any more but should stay with your army if you actually win the fight?

Another thing which hasn't materialized with the latest patch ...

[ April 15, 2004, 02:39: Message edited by: Arralen ]

[Vicious Love]

I definitely agree with the skirmishing suggestion. Makes LI much better at their designated role without changing the gold=stats resources=equipment rule.
I'm also inclined to support the terrain+encumbrance=initial fatigue at start of battle suggestion, though I'm more than a little worried about this giving AE Ermor and its 0 encumbrance troops an unfair advantage.
Then again, it sure is thematic.
Setting game balance concerns aside and tackling this strictly from a simulation arc, the defenders in difficult terrain should either get only half the fatigue similarly encumbered attackers would get, or none at all. Swamp/Mountain/etc. survival units should also gain either half or none of the standard fatigue.

Edit: Accidental BBCode. Hate when that happens.

[ April 14, 2004, 22:02: Message edited by: Vicious Love ]

[MStavros]

The main problem is that the AI loves to use these useless units as well. This is a part of the 'weak AI' problem.