Heavy Infantry, Light Infantry, and Mundane AP Weapons
There seems to be a consensus, amongst most players, that light infantry and militia are fairly worthless. And specifically, that they are worthless because everything light infantry and militia do, heavy infantry does better. Plus, HI Lasts much longer.
Note:
LI=Light Infantry
MI=Medium Infantry
HI=Heavy Infantry
LC=Light Cavalry
HC=Heavy Cavalry
AP=Armor Piercing, not Action Points
Suggestions to rebalance light and heavy troops include:
1) Allow variable unit upkeep (not always 1/15 of cost);
2) Include resource cost in unit upkeep;
3) Allow light units to disband;
4) Decrease the gold cost of light units;
5) Increase the gold cost of heavy units;
6) Give additional tactical commands to light units (e.g. "skirmish" - avoid melee);
7) Change the tac AI to allow effective skirmishing;
8) Add additional formations (like "wide" and "loose");
9) Give light units free supplies, or making them consume less;
10) Make HI consume more supplies;
11) Rescale supply points by a factor of 10, to reduce granularity (average consumption => size*5);
12) Increase light unit defense stats;
13) Let blows that do not penetrate armor still do some minor HP damage (say, .25 average);
14) Make blows that do not penetrate armor do some minor fatigue damage (say, 1d6/size);
15) Add mundane armor piercing weapons (like making pikes AP);
16) Give bonuses/penalties to light/heavy units in various terrains;
17) Add "Critical Strike" which deals 2x or AP damage for very high attack rolls;
18) Make heavy armor reduce attack rating;
19) Allow LI/LC to attack non-adjacent enemy territories (move across a friendly province and attack);
20) Add strategic "Raid" orders for LI/LC (skirmish and retreat);
21) Add "Move-Pillage" orders for LI/LC (e.g. Mongols, Vikings, German barbarians);
22) Increase armor encumbrance in deserts (dehydration), swamps (footing), and mountains (elevation);
23) Introduce variable armor-piercing levels: X% AP, or 50% AP for the first X protection;
24) Give both LI and HI 2 strategic moves, but allow LI to move through rough terrain at a cost of 1 move point.
So, if you have more suggestions, or want to praise or slam an extant one, comment here.
I've been thinking that one of the big problems with heavy armor is that it lacks mundane counters - you either have to react with your own HI, or with crossbows. Why not give some mundane weapons AP ability? Many weapons were designed just for that - pikes, the spikes on halberds, the spike on some warhammers, and heavy 2H weapons like battleaxes. If there existed mundane melee units that could actually hurt HI, their total dominance on the mundane battlefield might dissipate somewhat. Adding AP to an existing weapon would also require that its stats be altered, of course. This is not suggested as a complete solution - just a complement to, say, #4,5,9,10,11.
-Cherry
[ November 01, 2003, 16:15: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]
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