Mod: Conceptual Balance 1.21

[DrPraetorious]

Is there any interest in a pikemen + animalawe mod?

It would require 2 components:
1) Cavalry would need to be quite a bit cheaper, to the point that they were pretty well the preferred melle units.
2) All Cavalry are "animals", and units armed with spears, pikes, etc. get some degree of animal awe.

This would kinda screw over the various monkey nations, since I don't think their special rules could be restored (reincarnation, for example) if you stripped off animal.

The effect would (ideally) be:
swordsmen beat pikemen beat cavalry beat swordsmen

Which is not quite the desired:
Light cavalry beat heavy infantry beat heavy cavalry beat light infantry beat light cavalry

But would come close.

[quantum_mechani]

That has been discussed since dom2, there are number of issues like (like the monkey one), still, it could be worth testing.

[Amos]

This would kinda screw over the various monkey nations, since I don't think their special rules could be restored (reincarnation, for example) if you stripped off animal.

Why do you need to strip the animal from monkeys? Link animal to mounted instead.

[Endoperez]

Monkeys such as all of Bandar Log's troops. Vanara, Bandar etc have animal tag, which would really limit the usefulness of their troops against anyone with pikes.

[Amos]

I see what you mean. With their low moral they won't be able to hit anything. But I dont see it as such a problem. The pikes will still be vulnerable to missiles. Giving them animalawe will create a niche for them, one they dont have now.

[Endoperez]

Ulmish pikeneers have a bit better morale. I've used them because of that, but I'm not sure if it's worth it at just 11 mor vs 10.

[Amos]

Sorry, I meant the low moral of the monkeys will not allow them to hit pikemen with animalawe.

[Endoperez]

Amos said:
Sorry, I meant the low moral of the monkeys will not allow them to hit pikemen with animalawe.

I meant that pikeneers could have a niche besides animalawe. Sorry about that.

[cleveland]

DrPraetorious said:

The effect would (ideally) be:
swordsmen beat pikemen beat cavalry beat swordsmen

This is a really neat idea, but probably not workable via animalawe.

I propose an alternate solution: give heavy cavalry trample, and pikemen size 3.

Since trample only works against smaller units, sz-2 cavalry can smush sz-2 swordsmen, but not sz-3 pikemen, whose repelling long weapons will make them a cost effective counter against trampling heavy cav.

Thoughts?

[DrPraetorious]

So the phalanx becomes resistant to cavalry because of its loose formation ?

That's worth trying (remember to make the pikemen resource size 2 and to lower their food consumption by 1 unit) but has a lot of other clumsy effects.

The ideal solution would be to give pikes and some other weapons an anti-cavalry identifier with the following game mechanics:
* Ignores the defense bonus for mounted units.
* Repel attacks against mounted units inflict full damage, *and* gain a charge bonus to damage based on the attacking mounted unit's AP.

That'd give the heavy cavalry serious second thoughts about charging a pike square, and would also encourage tight formations of pike squares (for more attacks.)