Light Infantry... what the ****

[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.

[HotNifeThruButr]

This isn't really about LI, but I'd like it a lot if the timed orders like Hold and Attack and Fire and Flee gave you an option for timing. Like 1 turn of firing if your troops are javelineers, so the HI can't catch up to you before you run or 3-4 turns if you're using archers and you don't want them to fire when your infantry lines clash.

Also, if the battlefield were longer on both ends, so that both sides would have to run farther in routs, lighter units would be able to run down retreating heavies if you have no national cavalry and you actually managed to beat them.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by 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.

I agree. Improving the use of LI in battle won't by itself address this single player issue, as you still wouldn't want as many LI as the AI builds.

The AI should avoid building (most) LI unless desperate. Instead, higher priority should be given to buying mages or castles. Giving the AI players a prediliction for high admin castles and a good production scale would likely help as well.

[Daynarr]

Originally posted by Jasper:
I agree. Improving the use of LI in battle won't by itself address this single player issue, as you still wouldn't want as many LI as the AI builds.

The AI should avoid building (most) LI unless desperate. Instead, higher priority should be given to buying mages or castles. Giving the AI players a prediliction for high admin castles and a good production scale would likely help as well.

I agree that both should be fixed, but fixing one wont fix another. The thing I've learned about AI in SP is that he will build his troops in castle as much as he has gold or resources, but remaining gold will be spent on building units in non-castle provinces - usually militia and LI. If AI could build forts this issue would be much reduces and if LI gets fixed (improved) the problem with AI building masses of weak units will be solved.

The problem with castles was already discussed and the main problem seems to be that its hard to make rules on how would AI decide to build his castles. I would suggest discussing this in another thread since its pretty large topic and it wouldn't be good if this one loses focus on current issue.

[Pocus]

Originally posted by 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...).

Accruing fatigue from terrain throughout the battle seems to be more realistic compared to receiving an allocation of fatigue at start of battle. Moreover a relief spell cast at start would render the rule even less plausible, whereas the added fatigue rule would not be as easily circumvented.
Thats all IMHO anyway.

[JaydedOne]

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?

Boy, if that's something that could be implemented without moving mountains, I'd be all for it. That would considerably change my strategy involving those units -- to where I might actually, say, use them.

[Chris Byler]

Provinces with terrain should place obstacles on the battlefield. Bogs, underbrush, rocks, etc. (Farmland isn't much of an obstruction unless it's rice fields - or maybe in late summer/early autumn.) Any unit that moves through an obstacle suffers fatigue equal to its base fatigue (possibly limited to once per turn if it moves through several obstacles) and may cost extra movement points too. Any unit that fights while standing in an obstacle suffers 50% more fatigue. Appropriate survival abilities eliminate these penalties.

Jasper, if I have an army of C'tissian light infantry against your Ulmish heavy infantry, the battlefield damned well *will* be entirely swampy if I have anything to do with it. If we are fighting in a swamp province it shouldn't be that hard to arrange. Realistically, the more mobile units will get to pick the battleground.

Battles being fought on fields with rough terrain were rare in medieval European history because both sides were led by heavy cavalry. Nobody wanted to fight in a swamp. But the Gallic wars were another matter - skirmishes in the woods were common and the Gauls did well in them despite their lighter equipment. This is partly semantic - such engagements weren't *called* "battles", but men killed in them were just as dead.

An example from _De Bello Gallico_ (trans. McDevitte and Bohn):

Ambiorix, when he observed this, orders the command to be issued that they throw their weapons from a distance and do not approach too near, and in whatever direction the Romans should make an attack, there give way (from the lightness of their appointments and from their daily practice no damage could be done them); [but] pursue them when betaking themselves to their standards again. Which command having been most carefully obeyed, when any cohort had quitted the circle and made a charge, the enemy fled very precipitately. In the mean time, that part of the Roman army, of necessity, was left unprotected, and the weapons received on their open flank. Again, when they had begun to return to that place from which they had advanced, they were surrounded both by those who had retreated and by those who stood next them; but if, on the other hand, they wish to keep their place, neither was an opportunity left for valor, nor could they, being crowded together, escape the weapons cast by so large a body of men.

Wouldn't it be good if Dom2 light infantry could fight like that? (Of course, the Romans generally routed the Gauls in open field engagements, and Dom2 reflects that fine. But there's more to a war than open field engagements.)

And if light infantry had 1-2 points more defense, average heavy infantry might start to tire before they had already killed 3 times their own numbers and routed the rest (elite or experienced heavy infantry would still do well against average LI, but elites are expensive and experience takes time to acquire).

[PhilD]

Originally posted by 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.

This looks like a good idea at first, and easily implemented (you have to catch all "light" units in the game and mod each one, but you can start small and see how it goes), but in fact it has a problem, because size is used for many things in the game.

One of them is supply usage. If you make LI Size 4 (which will in itself ensure that they deploy one per size 6 square) instead of Size 2 (the normal Human size, which results in tight formations of 3 per square), they will start eating 3 supplies each, which means, 3 times as much as they do now. If anything, HI should "eat" more, not less, than LI (to reflect additional supply usage, as well as the increased need for food for heavily armed/armored men and their abstract supply bearers).

Also, I believe size has an effect on arrow fire - as in, the battle engine decides which square an arrow hits, then which "sixth of a square" actually gets the arrow (this may be wrong, though). If this is the case, a single Size 4 unit would have as much probability of getting hit as 2 Size 2 units in the same square, effectively making a loose formation of LI an arrow magnet (they'd cover 3 times as much ground, with a 66% filling rate, which would mean stray arrows would hit more I believe).

In fact, this Last point might be avoidable by increasing the size to 4, but giving them a 50% Air Shield (if I understand the effect of Air Shield correctly, as in, it means 50% of missiles are lost on the unit). Is that possible? And can one change supply usage? [I just had a look at the "modding.pdf" document, and didn't find commands to give an air shield to a unit, or to change its supply usage]

[Kristoffer O]

Ugh! That took some time reading.

I find it strange that there is less focus on LC than LI. Perhaps everyone has given up entirely on LC. I have . Perhaps there was another thread regarding LC a long time ago.

There are several ideas on how to improve LI and LC. Most of what is said in this thread has been considered before, but some new ideas do pop up. Many of the ideas are good, they just havn't been implemented. Keep the discussion open.