in which occasion will you raise taxes [Archive]

Saber Cherry

October 29th, 2003, 06:51 PM

It makes sense for light troops to have supply advantages, since they would be able to carry more stuff. Hmmm.

But I think a large part of the problem is that light troops are too expensive. Militia costs 7? While well-trained, expensively equipped Marginon greatswordsmen cost 10? That makes little sense to me. Were I to mod the game, I'd drop all light infantries under 10gp (maybe 8gp), militias to around 5gp, keep medium infantry at 10gp, move heavy infantries to 12gp, and push elite heavy infantry (currently 12-15) up 2 or 3gp.

So:

Militia: 5-6gp
LI: 7-8gp (8 if they have javelins)
MI: 9-11gp
HI: 12-13gp
Elite HI: 14-17gp
Super-elites: are pretty unique, so change as needed.

This change, plus giving light infantries a supply bonus, or having them use less supplies... or making HI eat more, since they use more energy... would probably rebalance the system. I don't think resources need to be factored into the upkeep system explicitly - that would be a bit confusing. Factoring it into cost, instead, and just using cost for upkeep, seems simpler. However, factoring encumbrance into supply usage might be a worthwhile prospect. Supply might have to change, though - say, an increase by a factor of 10 in supply and consumption, to reduce granularity.

By the way... an army eats more when moving and fighting. But that might be a little too much added complexity http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

-Cherry

P.S. I hope these cost changes make it into the official game. But if not, you can look forward to them in "Cherry Mod 0.1" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif The Japanese theme (not for Tien Chi, because I want a China/Japan conflict) will probably be in 0.2 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[ October 29, 2003, 18:40: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

st.patrik

October 29th, 2003, 08:30 PM

I'm not so bothered by the 'less useful light infantry' thing as I think the rest of you are. It makes sense to me that you're really only going to make poorly equipped troops if you don't have the resources to make well-equipped troops. This seems realistic to me. I guess it's possible that in general there are too many resources available... do people have this opinion?

Saber Cherry

October 29th, 2003, 08:31 PM

Light infantry are cheaper to deploy, maintain, and support than HI. But this is not reflected in Dominions I or II, making LI mostly useless.

licker

October 29th, 2003, 08:36 PM

Originally posted by st.patrik:
I'm not so bothered by the 'less useful light infantry' thing as I think the rest of you are. It makes sense to me that you're really only going to make poorly equipped troops if you don't have the resources to make well-equipped troops. This seems realistic to me. I guess it's possible that in general there are too many resources available... do people have this opinion? IT doesn't bother me that much either, but there are two places where it is an issue.

#1 the AI... The AI doesn't understand the worthlessness of LI apparently, so it is disadvantaged against humans, disadvantaged in a fixable way though.

#2 Astetics... Well why have 10+ units per nation if 5 of them are used less than 1% of the time? Call it balance, call it what you will, the fact is that LI are not cheap enough to use over other units. The problem is two fold, supply and upkeep, there is simply no advantage to ever having LI (strategic movement, but if they suck so much the extra speed isn't worth that much since they just die anyway).

It doesn't bother me greatly for MP, but for SP I'd like to see the AI less handicapped.

PvK

October 29th, 2003, 08:50 PM

I can see heavy mercenaries being more expensive than light, and they generally are in the game.

With a fantasy/god-mage medieval economy, though, I don't quite see why better equipped men would necessarily be more expensive to maintain. I suppose you might tend to need a little more "amorer time" to do occasional maintenance. Maybe you'd need more beasts of burden to carry their gear around when on the march. Better trained men might cost more (or take more time...) to produce.

I find it interesting (in a good way) playing Ulm and having extremely heavy infantry available for the same gold cost as other infantry, but a high resource cost. The high resource cost means that it takes a long time to build up a large army of them, during which you need to avoid casualties. In my long stalemated game against the AI, I built up a lot of good men, and then something with a gas attack (or soul vortex, etc) would come along and severely deplete my ranks, and I would be overrun if I didn't have a province with super-low-resource tribal militia to recruit quickly.

I think my suggestion would be perhaps to tweak down the resource costs of some militia, and to add (if not already in Doms II) a "disband" command. This would mean that large armies of militia could be even more easily raised (like you can with tribal militia in Doms I), but also gotten rid of later without sending them on suicide missions. That would be rather more like real ancient/medieval warfare, too; usually there were only a few trained and well-equipped men in a standing army, and then mobs of peasants would be pressed into service to fight major battles, and released afterwards.

I assume too (haven't tried to test) that there are already other factors too such as:

* Raising troops should reduce the province population
* The more men on patrol in a province, the greater the chance of catching spies and scouts

It would be interesting if when men were disbanded, the program remembered some of them, and gave them a chance to show up as part of an independant army, mercenary band, or independant uprising in the future. Or, they might even be available for re-hire later by the same player.

PvK

[ October 29, 2003, 18:52: Message edited by: PvK ]

st.patrik

October 29th, 2003, 09:28 PM

Originally posted by licker:
IT doesn't bother me that much either, but there are two places where it is an issue.

#1 the AI... The AI doesn't understand the worthlessness of LI apparently, so it is disadvantaged against humans, disadvantaged in a fixable way though.

#2 Astetics... Well why have 10+ units per nation if 5 of them are used less than 1% of the time? Call it balance, call it what you will, the fact is that LI are not cheap enough to use over other units. The problem is two fold, supply and upkeep, there is simply no advantage to ever having LI (strategic movement, but if they suck so much the extra speed isn't worth that much since they just die anyway).

It doesn't bother me greatly for MP, but for SP I'd like to see the AI less handicapped. I completely agree that those considerations are good.

1. The AI thing should be fixed so that the AI recruits the highest resource troops it can, while exhausting its gold supply for the turn. [maybe this isn't clear - what I mean is that if you on a certain turn have (after buying a commander) 200 gold and 200 resources, the AI should buy troops with that ratio of gold to resources, etc. - try to exhaust both gold and resources]

2. While I'm ok with LI being used less, I agree with you that they shouldn't be in there if they're not going to be used at all, ever, as you say, for aesthetic reasons. So for example for Man I can't imagine ever wanting to buy slingers when I can buy longbows. Similarly for most all militia I think.

Pocus

October 29th, 2003, 09:57 PM

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
I don't think resources need to be factored into the upkeep system explicitly - that would be a bit confusing. Factoring it into cost, instead, and just using cost for upkeep, seems simpler. the interest of changing the upkeep formula to take the average of gold+res value, is that you achieve the result of giving added value to LI, without having to browse one thousand units and reevaluate their cost.

PVK:

I don't quite see why better equipped men would necessarily be more expensive to maintain.
I strongly disagree with you. Think of two extremes, a foot knight and a peasant. In dominions it can translate to a Ulmish infantry (say 10-34 gold/res) compared to a milicia (7-2).
Now to think that you need only 30% more gold to maintain a foot knight compared to a milicia is ridiculous (no offence intended against you, I just feel I need to use a strong adjective).

A drafted slinger would get a food ration, and some copper coins each month. A foot knight will ask for at least 2 men to service him (keeping an armor and quality steel weapons fit for battle ask for much time and effort), and I'm not even speaking of his wage.

This would translate in dominions by taking into account the resource cost into the maintenance one. Believe me, it would be a boon to the lighter units, which are very often discarded.

In the pbems I saw (multiplayer environment being the epitome of optimisation), I never saw a single velite, peltast, light infantry, etc. used in war. I think this is quite the proof that something must be done.

Your concern about your Ulmish infantry is right on the other hand. We should not level all units to the same ground. But even if the upkeep would rise, you would still pay the upfront cost of 10 gp, same as a light infantry. But in the long run, you would pay more to maintain them. Seem quite balanced when you compare their armaments.

Jasper

October 29th, 2003, 10:31 PM

Originally posted by st.patrik:
I'm not so bothered by the 'less useful light infantry' thing as I think the rest of you are. It makes sense to me that you're really only going to make poorly equipped troops if you don't have the resources to make well-equipped troops. This seems realistic to me. I guess it's possible that in general there are too many resources available... do people have this opinion? What bothers me is that light troops aren't usefull in battle, while they clearly were usefull throughout history. Light troops were not "poorly equipped" troops, but troops used in a different manner -- a manner that simply doesn't exist in Dominions (or any similar computer game for that matter).

One simple way to address this would be to have a battle deployment area that was broader than deep, but with the flank areas marked so that only light/fast troops could be deployed there.

Another would be to allow lighter troops to deploy one man per "square" rather than 3, so that they would be an effective missile screen. Combine this with a slight increase in the accuracy and damage of missiles, and you'd have very good reason to screen with light troops.

Both of these would help allow light troops to be usefull for their traditional roles. I suspect you'd still need to tweak their gold cost down a point or two to make them viable however.

These changes are perhaps too dramatic to actually have a chance at implementation, but IMHO they would greatly improve the variety of viable troops, and the number of interesting battle tactics.

Saber Cherry

October 29th, 2003, 10:34 PM

Traditionally, heavy troops, with their expensive armor and weapons, were also better trained. I mean, a lot better. So, in general, light units were cheaply levied, poorly paid, poorly trained, and used as cannon fodder. In Dominions II they are as expensive as HI...

I kind of think that milita should also have -1 HP and -1 strength, and maybe even drop to a price of 4gp, to reflect the fact that they're not really soldier-types, just unfit peasants forced into the army.

PvK - as it stands now, why would you ever buy slingers or militias? Even if they cost zero resources, I wouldn't buy them. I was playing Machaka, and realized that their primary infantry units are a waste of money... so I only bought archers and hoplites. And even with the archers, I would prefer to have an indy province with actual armored archers. There's just no use for 10gp light infantry, and their low resource cost does not make them viable, as gold is so limited in Dom II.

Saber Cherry

October 29th, 2003, 10:41 PM

Originally posted by Jasper:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by st.patrik:
I'm not so bothered by the 'less useful light infantry' thing as I think the rest of you are. It makes sense to me that you're really only going to make poorly equipped troops if you don't have the resources to make well-equipped troops. This seems realistic to me. I guess it's possible that in general there are too many resources available... do people have this opinion? What bothers me is that light troops aren't usefull in battle, while they clearly were usefull throughout history. Light troops were not "poorly equipped" troops, but troops used in a different manner -- a manner that simply doesn't exist in Dominions (or any similar computer game for that matter).

One simple way to address this would be to have a battle deployment area that was broader than deep, but with the flank areas marked so that only light/fast troops could be deployed there.

Another would be to allow lighter troops to deploy one man per "square" rather than 3, so that they would be an effective missile screen. Combine this with a slight increase in the accuracy and damage of missiles, and you'd have very good reason to screen with light troops.

Both of these would help allow light troops to be usefull for their traditional roles. I suspect you'd still need to tweak their gold cost down a point or two to make them viable however.

These changes are perhaps too dramatic to actually have a chance at implementation, but IMHO they would greatly improve the variety of viable troops, and the number of interesting battle tactics. <hr /></blockquote>Yeah, I suggested the "loose" and "wide" formation toggles a while back, but I'm keeping mum now because it will be lost in the clutter, what with all the demo-polishing I hope is going on=)

As for LI being historically useful, that's correct. But my impression is that is less due to their mobility, and more because they were so darn cheap compared to HI. Untrained, give'em a spear and point'em at the battle milita should never cost 70% of a well trained broadsword-shield-platemail HI unit in any respect (supply needs, wages, maintenance, initial deployment cost). For similar reasons, despite having more training and being better armed than militia, an LI shouldn't cost the same amount as an HI.

PvK

October 29th, 2003, 10:51 PM

I just meant that having better equipment doesn't necessarily mean a unit should cost more gold to maintain.

Your "foot knight" example makes sense for knights versus peasants, but those seem like mainly social causes rather than physical causes. In Doms, there are knights as well, and they are more expensive than regular infantry.

It seems to me that an Ulm heavy infantry in plate armor isn't a knight demanding servants, he's just a very well-equipped infantryman. He might need more wagon space to transport his gear when on the march, but isn't necessarily signifigantly more expensive to maintain that a soldier in leather armor. I do think though that it would make sense if they cost more to raise (because if the armorers aren't making fancy equipment for them, they could be doing something useful for trade), though I wouldn't have them cost more to maintain (because once you have the equipment, it doesn't require much to maintain it).

For the knight example, staying with Ulm, they do have knights, commanders, and Guardians, who all have higher training than the common infantry, and higher social status, and therefore they cost more to raise and to maintain in Ulmish society, which follows you example and does make sense.

My point in the line you quoted was simply that some societies could maintain very well-equipped regular troops without more maintenance cost than lesser-equipped troops. The equipment doesn't determine the maintenance and wages of each type of troop - the culture does. In some cultures, the best paid men also have the best equipment, but not in all cultures.

So, if you hard-coded an increase in gold expense based on resource cost, I think you'd end up with a less interesting set of possible trade-offs, which wouldn't necessarily make any sense. Instead of reducing the variety in unit costs by linking maintenance to resource cost, I'd rather see more variety by allowing maintenance and purchase cost to be independent. That is, I'd increase the cost to raise heavy Ulm infantry (representing reduced trade goods) but keep their maintenance cost the same.

And again, I think light infantry could be made much more attractive if they simply had an even lower resource cost, and it were possible to release units (or maybe make that a special ability of militia and light infantry). If they could be raised very quickly and dismissed when not needed, that would also greatly reduce their total cost, because of the savings on maintenance.

PvK

st.patrik

October 29th, 2003, 10:57 PM

PvK

October 29th, 2003, 11:01 PM

I have used tribal militia to very good effect because of their low cost and very low resource cost. I could buy a half-dozen HI, or dozens of militia. So I bought them when I needed to quickly raise a large force, and provide cannon fodder for attacking castles and Users of deadly non-physical weapons like poison gas and Soul Vortex, where armor is useless. Having some in the front ranks also keeps the better men alive longer.

I've had some good results from slingers in a few cases too, in areas where I had little else I could raise, and when the enemies had little or no armor.

If units, especially militia, could be disbanded, this would mean you could raise them quickly and disband them when not needed, lowering their cost to use.

I agree though that some of the costs could be tweaked anyway, making some of the lighter units cheaper, and especially reducing their maintenance cost so you could make many appear quickly.

PvK

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
...
PvK - as it stands now, why would you ever buy slingers or militias? Even if they cost zero resources, I wouldn't buy them. I was playing Machaka, and realized that their primary infantry units are a waste of money... so I only bought archers and hoplites. And even with the archers, I would prefer to have an indy province with actual armored archers. There's just no use for 10gp light infantry, and their low resource cost does not make them viable, as gold is so limited in Dom II.

licker

October 29th, 2003, 11:06 PM

Hehe, stop trying to bring reality into this argument http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

We have a concern, that LI are underpowered, and *overused* by the AI. In order to fix this you can either play with the costs/stats of the LI (won't fix it really) or change some mechanics to make LI more useful in general.

The problem with tweeking LI values, is that since the controling factor at some point is going to be supply you will never want alot of LI consuming the supply for your better troops. Ok you can raise supply with artifacts and nature mages, but that's an artifical solution and one that not every nation can easilly attain. Upkeep is seemingly secondary, but it is also a problem, especailly when you combine it with supply.

If LI and HI have the same supply and upkeep needs its obvious that unless HI is soooo grossly overpriced that you can't afford them you will eventually not use LI at all. As it stands now from what I can tell, there isn't even an early period where LI are useful, you go for HI (or MI) right off the bat, you never use LI.

Now if LI got some boost (free upkeep and supply for 10 LI for every province you control) then you'd be a fool not to use that free amount. Getting back to reality for a sec... this is what usually happened anyway! The LI were cheap to raise, and cheap to maintain, remember that the concept of supply in Dom is abstracted (or can be) to account for a variety of supplies, not just food. Any army with a significant amount of armor or better weapons required craftsmen to maintain and repair those weapons, the supply use in dom then could be higher for the HI to account for these craftsmen (or lower for the LI since they don't need them).

This should be first and foremost an issue of game balance and whats the best game mechanic though, not one of what's more realistic, how much food does a guy with plate mail need compared to a naked farmer...

Saber Cherry

October 29th, 2003, 11:30 PM

Originally by PvK:
I'd rather see more variety by allowing maintenance and purchase cost to be independent.I've wanted this for a while. In fact, I wanted it in AOW / AOW2 / AOW2SM but it never got put in... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

-Cherry

P.S.

This should be first and foremost an issue of game balance and whats the best game mechanic though, not one of what's more realistic, how much food does a guy with plate mail need compared to a naked farmer... Naw, realism is most important, not gameplay! =) But you forget, I think, that naked farmes can burn quite a lot of calories...

[ October 29, 2003, 21:34: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

licker

October 29th, 2003, 11:37 PM

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally by PvK:
I'd rather see more variety by allowing maintenance and purchase cost to be independent.I've wanted this for a while. In fact, I wanted it in AOW / AOW2 / AOW2SM but it never got put in... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

-Cherry

P.S.

This should be first and foremost an issue of game balance and whats the best game mechanic though, not one of what's more realistic, how much food does a guy with plate mail need compared to a naked farmer... Naw, realism is most important, not gameplay! =) But you forget, I think, that naked farmes can burn quite a lot of calories... <hr /></blockquote>http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif Bah you were one of the anti-surrender people weren't you? Come on admit it! I know you were http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

You probably joined that rediculose anti teleporter society too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Death to Realism!!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Taqwus

October 29th, 2003, 11:45 PM

Non-uniform training time might well have a big impact, and seems reasonable -- untrained, generally lightly-equipped irregulars could be recruited and mobilized much faster than those who need to be trained to fight in armor and in close formation, and it'll take even longer if horsemanship or archery plays a part. Even if you have plentiful material resources, training will still take time unless your society's so militarized that your recruiting pool is already trained as a part of their upbringing.
And yeah, demobilizing makes sense. They may be irregular conscripts rather than professional soldiers, and once the threat's over they'd rather go home. Conversely, if there's a nearby threat loyal citizens might even volunteer to protect their homes (e.g. higher chance of militia event).
Combining the above with high maintenance cost for maintaining a standing army would increase the incentive to keep a smaller army followed by rapid raising of militia.

Edited: Incoherent and dropping words today.

[ October 29, 2003, 21:54: Message edited by: Taqwus ]

PhilD

October 30th, 2003, 12:08 AM

Originally posted by Jasper:
What bothers me is that light troops aren't usefull in battle, while they clearly were usefull throughout history. Light troops were not "poorly equipped" troops, but troops used in a different manner -- a manner that simply doesn't exist in Dominions (or any similar computer game for that matter).

One simple way to address this would be to have a battle deployment area that was broader than deep, but with the flank areas marked so that only light/fast troops could be deployed there.

Another would be to allow lighter troops to deploy one man per "square" rather than 3, so that they would be an effective missile screen. Combine this with a slight increase in the accuracy and damage of missiles, and you'd have very good reason to screen with light troops.These sound like good ideas; I'd widen the area where only light troops were allowed (frontmost area as well as the flanks). But, what's going to be missing from the role of light troops is the disorganizing factor of light troop missile fire - with no formations to maintain, this will be hard to take into account...

But, the real problem is the supplies. The "supplies" abstraction in Dom is only about food, but I think it should reflect more than that; it should be near impossible to raise and maintain a standing army of only heavy troops. These heavy troops should be a backbone that your army is build around - better morale and durability, but too expensive to have them make up more than a quarter of your army. I like the idea of some number of "light" troops in each Province not requiring supplies.

Jasper

October 30th, 2003, 12:32 AM

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
As for LI being historically useful, that's correct. But my impression is that is less due to their mobility, and more because they were so darn cheap compared to HI. Untrained, give'em a spear and point'em at the battle milita should never cost 70% of a well trained broadsword-shield-platemail HI unit in any respect (supply needs, wages, maintenance, initial deployment cost). For similar reasons, despite having more training and being better armed than militia, an LI shouldn't cost the same amount as an HI. I entirely disagree. Light Troops were tactically very usefull, for example in rough terrain, against elephants, or for the mobility and speed. Light Cavalry in particular were always usefull unless the terrain was just too rough for horses.

Costs were obviously an issue as well, but I don't think they were the defining issue. It certainly wasn't true that light troops were only used because one couldn't instead field more heavy troops.

Saber Cherry

October 30th, 2003, 12:37 AM

I don't mean to imply that cost was the only advantage, as there were many examples of light, mobile units slaughtering sluggish armored ones (the Crusades come to mind). But I think it was a huge factor, and that if the cost had been equal (like in Doms II), heavy units would have made up the bulk of historic armies, rather than light units.

There's also a possibility of assigning heavy units penalties in certain terrain types (swamp, mountain, forest).

[ October 29, 2003, 22:38: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

Jasper

October 30th, 2003, 12:38 AM

Originally posted by st.patrik, talking about uses for light troops:
It seems to me that Hypasists (sp?) function in this way to an extent. They are cheaper than hoplites (resources at least), but they definitely have a role. On the other hand, Militia are poorly trained conscripts which I suppose were mainly used as cannon fodder in RL. [/QB]Hypaspists were the elite heavy infantry in Alexander the Great's army. They were perhaps lighter armored and more flexible than the Hoplites, but they definitely were not light infantry.

In Dom 2 this is also the case -- they make very good heavy infantry. Their stats now seem clearly superior to hoplites.

Jasper

October 30th, 2003, 12:45 AM

Originally posted by PhilD:
These sound like good ideas; I'd widen the area where only light troops were allowed (frontmost area as well as the flanks). But, what's going to be missing from the role of light troops is the disorganizing factor of light troop missile fire - with no formations to maintain, this will be hard to take into account...IMHO Morale loss from damage due to missile fire is a reasonable aproximation of disorder from missile fire.

But, the real problem is the supplies. The "supplies" abstraction in Dom is only about food, but I think it should reflect more than that; it should be near impossible to raise and maintain a standing army of only heavy troops. These heavy troops should be a backbone that your army is build around - better morale and durability, but too expensive to have them make up more than a quarter of your army. I like the idea of some number of "light" troops in each Province not requiring supplies. I disagree. In particular Roman and Greek armies were composed mostly of well armed Heavy Infantry. Focusing solely on the cost equation is IMHO not the answer, as it will invariably lead to the most cost efficient unit being best.

Also, you wouldn't mind the supply cost of light troops if they were actually effective in battle.

licker

October 30th, 2003, 12:56 AM

"Also, you wouldn't mind the supply cost of light troops if they were actually effective in battle. "

True, that is why I suggest lowering their supply (and proably upkeep) to make them more viable than they are. All the historical evidence is fine and dandy, but it has jack all to do with Dominions and the underlying game mechanics.

What it boils down to (aside from the AIs inability to select the most effective troops) is that there is virtually no use for LI in the game. That's probably like 15-20% of the units in the game that simply will never be built becasue there is always a better alternative. Now of course there can be instances where you need a quick dose of LI, but for the most part their cost/benefit is out of whack with the higher cost units. This situation only gets worse the longer the game progresses as nations gain better economies and begin to fill their key provinces with important armies. There simply is not room for the LI since they have no combat advantage over HI once you saturate your provinces with units (i.e. the supply limit is hit).

So lower the supply usage for LI, lower their upkeep, and bang, now they can be competative again. People will still gravitate toward the better units, but there will be a bigger place for LI in the game.

An alternative is to make HI take up more command points from commanders as well, or make LI count as 1/2 or something. That doesn't get around supply and upkeep issues, but it does make swarming more viable, especially with low command rated commanders.

Jasper

October 30th, 2003, 12:56 AM

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
I don't mean to imply that cost was the only advantage, as there were many examples of light, mobile units slaughtering sluggish armored ones (the Crusades come to mind). But I think it was a huge factor, and that if the cost had been equal (like in Doms II), heavy units would have made up the bulk of historic armies, rather than light units.I don't see that being so clear cut. For an easy example, take the Mongols. Probably the best pre-gunpowder army, and mostly comprised of Light Cavalry.

Even the Romans, quite fond of heavy infantry, still kept some lighter troops around for tactical flexibility -- even though they could have fielded armies of purely of heavy infantry.

What it really came down to is that a certain amount of light troops will increased the effectiveness of heavy troops.

Chris Byler

October 30th, 2003, 12:57 AM

Originally posted by st.patrik:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Jasper:
What bothers me is that light troops aren't usefull in battle, while they clearly were usefull throughout history. Light troops were not "poorly equipped" troops, but troops used in a different manner -- a manner that simply doesn't exist in Dominions (or any similar computer game for that matter).It seems to me that Hypasists (sp?) function in this way to an extent. They are cheaper than hoplites (resources at least), but they definitely have a role. On the other hand, Militia are poorly trained conscripts which I suppose were mainly used as cannon fodder in RL. <hr /></blockquote>But they are too expensive to be used as dragon fodder (no cannons in Dom II http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ).

The only use I've found for LI so far is their javelins - they do as much damage as longbows, and because of their shorter range, they have better accuracy. A squad of LI behind a squad of HI can be fairly effective against moderately armored troops. Against Ulm you still need crossbows or magic though.

Some people on this thread seem to be claiming that it shouldn't take any more money to maintain a company of fifty men with Full Plate of Ulm, a full helmet, tower shield and warhammer (say) than spears, leather hauberks, javelins and maybe hard leather caps. I don't see how you can support this view - if nothing else, war gear wears out or breaks and has to be replaced. That costs something.

It wouldn't be inappropriate to the way the gold/resource model works in Dom II to have heavy units' maintenance cost resources instead of gold - but it would probably be very hard to implement effectively. (It might require implementation of a second supply system - and what happens to the troops who aren't properly supplied with equipment?) Adding a gold upkeep cost for high resource units would be simple and possibly solve some of the heavy vs. light troop problems that have been around since Dom I.

Of course I worry about weakening Ulm too much; maybe they could have as one of their national abilities that they pay only half the extra upkeep cost due to resources. Or troops that are currently in a friendly productivity dominion could pay less upkeep due to resources. Both would be appropriate IMO.

On the other hand, I also think that a large part of the heavy vs. light problem stems from light troops' ineffectiveness on the battlefield, and that this is a very "deep" problem because it ties into the defense vs. protection issue and combats resolving in too few rounds for fatigue to be a major problem for nonmages.

Both problems could perhaps be solved (or at least ameliorated) by an across-the-board +1-2 to all defense skills (perhaps excepting units that already have very high defense). LI would still die faster to shortbow fire, but wouldn't necessarily die faster in melee (except perhaps compared to Ulm) because they would get hit less often and because the heavy troops would get tired before they had killed 3x their own numbers.

Another possible fix (to the over-effectiveness of protection vs. most attacks) would be to make any hit do at least 1 point of damage, regardless of the str+weapon vs. prot roll. Then units that get hit a lot but often take 0 damage would be getting hit for 1 damage, which could make quite a bit of difference to a 10 hp unit.

Finally, historically there were melee weapons specifically designed to pierce armor - pikes, for instance. Why aren't they armor piercing in Dom (I or II)? Armor negating should be reserved for magic items, beings and spells only, but I don't see why armor piercing shouldn't be allowed on ordinary melee weapons. Not all nations have access to crossbows, and missile weapons have several known counters anyway.

Sammual

October 30th, 2003, 01:02 AM

I'm jumping in to express my opinion on the LI vs HI discusion.
I think there needs to be a reason for LI, there isn't one right now.
I like the 'Each provence can support 10 LI for free' idea.
I also like the wider spacing for LI to lower missile losses.

Sammual

Jasper

October 30th, 2003, 01:04 AM

Originally posted by licker:
So lower the supply usage for LI, lower their upkeep, and bang, now they can be competative again. People will still gravitate toward the better units, but there will be a bigger place for LI in the game.I disagree here as well. If you merely lower their costs they will still be inferior to HI and be underused -- up to the point where they are more efficient, and then HI will be rarely seen.

It is far more intersting to model the real world reasons that people used such forces, than speculative economics. It especially makes sense when you're trying to get results similar to history, e.g. a variety of viable unit types.

I agree that gameplay is the most important thing, but IMHO in this case history has much more interesting "gameplay" than Dominions, and serves as a very good model.

Saber Cherry

October 30th, 2003, 01:07 AM

by Chris Byler:
Another possible fix (to the over-effectiveness of protection vs. most attacks) would be to make any hit do at least 1 point of damage, regardless of the str+weapon vs. prot roll. Then units that get hit a lot but often take 0 damage would be getting hit for 1 damage, which could make quite a bit of difference to a 10 hp unit.
I like this! Too powerful, though, IMO. Instead, I think non-penetrating attacks could cause 1 damage 20% of the time, or (fatigue/2)% of the time, or perhaps they could cause no damage, but do 4 points of fatigue damage.

Even with this change, though, I think LI should become cheaper, HI costlier, and Ulm be semi-exempt from this. By cheaper/costlier I mean both gold and "support".

-Cherry

[ October 29, 2003, 23:08: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

licker

October 30th, 2003, 01:14 AM

Originally posted by Jasper:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by licker:
So lower the supply usage for LI, lower their upkeep, and bang, now they can be competative again. People will still gravitate toward the better units, but there will be a bigger place for LI in the game.I disagree here as well. If you merely lower their costs they will still be inferior to HI and be underused -- up to the point where they are more efficient, and then HI will be rarely seen.

It is far more intersting to model the real world reasons that people used such forces, than speculative economics. It especially makes sense when you're trying to get results similar to history, e.g. a variety of viable unit types.

I agree that gameplay is the most important thing, but IMHO in this case history has much more interesting "gameplay" than Dominions, and serves as a very good model. <hr /></blockquote>First of all I didn't say to lower their costs, just the cost to maintain them. If they are still inferior to HI they still won't be used in mass, but there will be a sweet point where a certain amount of LI and HI will be more effective than just all of one or the other. Obviously we are on the all HI side of this curve right now.

In order to accurately portray the value of LI in Domintions you would have to make many changes to the combat system. In fact we had this arguement before when Saber suggested the addition of different damage catagories. Anyway, it comes down to the same thing, adding more complexity to an already complex game. What does it gain you to better modle the effects of terrain, or formations, or what have you, *just to make LI more viable*? Well that question answered itself right? My point is that adding this complexity is unneeded, and from the results of the Last thread, also unwanted (not by all, but by many).

The simple fix is usually the best anyway, once you have a more balanced system you can continue to improve upon it, but to go for broke from the get go often has unintended consequences.

History may have more "interesting gameplay", but that in and of itself doesn't mean that it makes a good model for a game. More often than not the games that try to model their gameplay off of history wind up so complex, and with so many niggling omisions that the grand effect intended is completly lost. No I'd rather have Dominions write its own history rather than try to force feed concepts of our history into it. Granted many units are borrowed directly from ancient cultures, but if you want a game trying to model Roman or Greek battles pick up the Great Battles series, don't try to make Dominions something that it isn't.

Chris Byler

October 30th, 2003, 01:14 AM

Originally posted by Jasper:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
I don't mean to imply that cost was the only advantage, as there were many examples of light, mobile units slaughtering sluggish armored ones (the Crusades come to mind). But I think it was a huge factor, and that if the cost had been equal (like in Doms II), heavy units would have made up the bulk of historic armies, rather than light units.I don't see that being so clear cut. For an easy example, take the Mongols. Probably the best pre-gunpowder army, and mostly comprised of Light Cavalry.

Even the Romans, quite fond of heavy infantry, still kept some lighter troops around for tactical flexibility -- even though they could have fielded armies of purely of heavy infantry.

What it really came down to is that a certain amount of light troops will increased the effectiveness of heavy troops. <hr /></blockquote>Mainly this because historically armor, while useful, wasn't nearly as useful as it is in Dom I/II. To anyone who disputes this, I offer the following test: put on a suit of full plate armor, helm and shield, then ask a friend to hit you with half a dozen sling bullets and shoot you three or four times with a shortbow. See if you are seriously injured or not (in Dom II, you probably wouldn't be - and that's with nonmagical, non-Black Plate of Ulm armors).

In Dom II it's common for a heavy unit to be hit three or four times without taking any damage, and then when he is hit it's only a scratch. Meanwhile the light units are getting killed or maimed with every second attack (or so). Which usually causes them to break around the time the heavy units are reaching 20 or so fatigue (-1 attack, -2 defense they don't use anyway, and a few percent chance of an armor piercing hit).

This is primarily because losing your defense roll by 1 point can kill you instantly, while losing your protection roll by 1 point will only cause 1 point of damage. There is far greater likelihood of quickly killing a high-defense, low-protection unit with a lucky hit than of quickly killing a low-defense, high-protection unit - and that's not even taking into account missile fire, where defense is completely worthless. (There's at least as much magic that ignores defense as there is magic that ignores protection, too.)

I'd like to see a critical hit rule: for each 5 points the attacker beats the defender's defense by, he gets 1 extra d6 for the damage vs. protection roll. (Open-ended, of course: the entire point of critical hits is that they hurt.) This still wouldn't make it too easy to kill an invulnerable Great Mother (for example), but heavy infantry would run a risk of being hurt even by humans with spears (although still not as much of a risk as unarmored troops). And it would make high attack skill more useful: currently it doesn't do all that much unless you're going against something with a high defense skill.

Jasper

October 30th, 2003, 01:19 AM

Originally posted by Chris Byler:
The only use I've found for LI so far is their javelins - they do as much damage as longbows, and because of their shorter range, they have better accuracy. A squad of LI behind a squad of HI can be fairly effective against moderately armored troops. Against Ulm you still need crossbows or magic though.I got alot of mileage out of my starting 25 LI with Machaka by using similar tactics, although not enough I built any more.

Some people on this thread seem to be claiming that it shouldn't take any more money to maintain a company of fifty men with Full Plate of Ulm, a full helmet, tower shield and warhammer (say) than spears, leather hauberks, javelins and maybe hard leather caps. I don't see how you can support this view - if nothing else, war gear wears out or breaks and has to be replaced. That costs something.[Further stuff suggest gold maintenance cost for high resource troops snipped]

My main arguement here is simply game complexity. I would only support giving them more maintenance in a uniform manner, e.g. by increasing their cost, or by calculating resources in the gold maintenance cost.

On the other hand, I also think that a large part of the heavy vs. light problem stems from light troops' ineffectiveness on the battlefield, and that this is a very "deep" problem because it ties into the defense vs. protection issue and combats resolving in too few rounds for fatigue to be a major problem for nonmages.

Both problems could perhaps be solved (or at least ameliorated) by an across-the-board +1-2 to all defense skills (perhaps excepting units that already have very high defense). LI would still die faster to shortbow fire, but wouldn't necessarily die faster in melee (except perhaps compared to Ulm) because they would get hit less often and because the heavy troops would get tired before they had killed 3x their own numbers.

Another possible fix (to the over-effectiveness of protection vs. most attacks) would be to make any hit do at least 1 point of damage, regardless of the str+weapon vs. prot roll. Then units that get hit a lot but often take 0 damage would be getting hit for 1 damage, which could make quite a bit of difference to a 10 hp unit.Historically Light troops got demolished by heavy troops in frontal melee. Furthermore, massed heavy infantry had more staying power, despite what one might guess from heavy armor.

Making Light Troops more powerfull in Melee is not a good solution, IMHO. They _should_ get demolished in melee.

Finally, historically there were melee weapons specifically designed to pierce armor - pikes, for instance. Why aren't they armor piercing in Dom (I or II)?[snip]I see no basis for this in history at all. Pikes were used because they were long, that's it.

PvK

October 30th, 2003, 01:21 AM

Originally posted by Chris Byler:
...
Some people on this thread seem to be claiming that it shouldn't take any more money to maintain a company of fifty men with Full Plate of Ulm, a full helmet, tower shield and warhammer (say) than spears, leather hauberks, javelins and maybe hard leather caps. I don't see how you can support this view - if nothing else, war gear wears out or breaks and has to be replaced. That costs something.
... Because a turn is a month, not a decade or even a year. A metal weapon or suit of armor does not wear out at all on a monthly scale. It does wear out in battle, but then, battles also usually produce lots of weapons and armor as loot (something else that would be fun to model beyond the current magic item scrounging).

I still think that all you really need to address the light infantry weakness is to make them require fewer resources (and probably less gold to raise). The idea of allowing disbandment would also help.

Other things that would help, without adding nonsensical mechanics, would be tactical AI tweaks such as adding a "skirmish" tactic which would have the unit engage from range but not in unfavorable melee - this would allow light troops, as well as light cavalry, to use their speed and range to stay away from mobs of slower heavy infantry, and perhaps attack less armored enemies such as rear troops.

PvK

Jasper

October 30th, 2003, 01:38 AM

Originally posted by licker:
First of all I didn't say to lower their costs, just the cost to maintain them. If they are still inferior to HI they still won't be used in mass, but there will be a sweet point where a certain amount of LI and HI will be more effective than just all of one or the other. Obviously we are on the all HI side of this curve right now.I understood what you meant, and I still disagree.

In order to accurately portray the value of LI in Domintions you would have to make many changes to the combat system. In fact we had this arguement before when Saber suggested the addition of different damage catagories. Anyway, it comes down to the same thing, adding more complexity to an already complex game. What does it gain you to better modle the effects of terrain, or formations, or what have you, *just to make LI more viable*? Well that question answered itself right? My point is that adding this complexity is unneeded, and from the results of the Last thread, also unwanted (not by all, but by many).Perhaps, but I don't think this is a good analogy. Adding the weapon types was simply a bad idea, which increased micromanagement, IMHO didn't add anything interesting, and had only a dubious connection to "realism". It would also have been alot of work, both to implement, and to play with.

On the other hand, you get get along way towards making LI viable with simple changes, that really do increase variety, have a basis in history, aren't a pain to play with, and require a ton of memorization.

1st: Allow light troops to deploy on the flanks.

2nd: Make light troops less susceptiple to missile hits, and increase missile accuracy and damage. One way is to make spread out so 2/3rds of all missiles miss them.

3rd: Allow an order for light troops to retire before being contacted by heavy troops.

4th: decrease the cost of light troops uniformly by 1 or 2 gold.

It would also be nice if troops got some sort of advantage flanking, but the dominions battle engine really doesn't allow this.

The simple fix is usually the best anyway, once you have a more balanced system you can continue to improve upon it, but to go for broke from the get go often has unintended consequences.True. IMHO however a simple cost change is not a fix at all.

History may have more "interesting gameplay", but that in and of itself doesn't mean that it makes a good model for a game. More often than not the games that try to model their gameplay off of history wind up so complex, and with so many niggling omisions that the grand effect intended is completly lost. No I'd rather have Dominions write its own history rather than try to force feed concepts of our history into it. Granted many units are borrowed directly from ancient cultures, but if you want a game trying to model Roman or Greek battles pick up the Great Battles series, don't try to make Dominions something that it isn't.The fact that some games do a bad job of emulating history doesn't prevent there being games that do a good job.

To put it bluntly, the dominions battle system is over complex, but not very interesting. There are systems that do a decent job of emulating reality, have less complexity, and more viable variety, take less micromanagement, and are just more fun. I would far rather see something emulate history, than emulate D&D.

PvK

October 30th, 2003, 01:58 AM

Hmm, I'm looking at my Doms II Arco home province, and noticing I have a choice to build either:

3 Hoplites for 33 gold
4 Hypaspists for 60 gold
14 Cardaces for 140 gold

At the moment, I have over 400 gold stored, so it's definitely going to be 14 Cardaces - they'll probably do much better capturing neutral provinces than 3 or 4 better troops. If they didn't cost quite as much gold to build and maintain, I'd say they were a reasonable choice on other occasions besides quickly raising many men.

PvK

Saber Cherry

October 30th, 2003, 02:01 AM

Originally posted by Jasper:
To put it bluntly, the dominions battle system is over complex, but not very interesting. There are systems that do a decent job of emulating reality, have less complexity, and more viable variety, take less micromanagement, and are just more fun. I would far rather see something emulate history, than emulate D&D. Would you mind pointing out, specifically, the overly complex portion, and specifically provide a simpler replacement? There are some changes I'd like, but I don't think they make the game simpler. So I'm quite curious as to the nature of your complaint(s), and your suggestion(s)... I like simple, deep things.

If I'm overlooking something obvious in one of your Posts, please point me to it.

-Cherry

Jasper

October 30th, 2003, 02:13 AM

Possibly at the start of the game, during a moment of desperation, or when I know I can't hold a province. It might also be usefull for those nations that need corpses.

I find this much improved over the constant 200%
taxation in Dom 1.

apoger

October 30th, 2003, 02:26 AM

>4 Hypaspists for 60 gold
>14 Cardaces for 140 gold

The resource costs of Hypaspists have doubled!
This now makes the Cardaces much more attractive and the Hypaspists near worthless.

apoger

October 30th, 2003, 02:36 AM

1- I am experimenting with 200% "burn out" strategies. I suspect that we will see some of this in multiplayer. Possibly more than some.

2- Other than the burn out, the only time I would change taxes is either to devalue my assets when an enemy is beating me or to devalue enemy territory while I'm raiding.

Frankly I'm not happy with the economics of Dom II. The issues above combined with Ermor type dominion and a suspected player base that will be using much death scale, leads me to think that population shrinkage is going to be staggering in multiplay. This (and many other things) is going to lead to hardcore super combatants. I don't see this as a balanced nor preferable outcome.

I continue my tests, and hope that there is some mitigating factor that I haven't gleened yet.

PvK

October 30th, 2003, 02:38 AM

The Hypaspists are still the most skilled of the three melee infantry types, so when gold is low, or when you're trying to get the best strength per supply use, they make sense to use.

PvK

[ October 30, 2003, 00:39: Message edited by: PvK ]

Zerger

October 30th, 2003, 02:57 AM

Originally posted by apoger:

Frankly I'm not happy with the economics of Dom II. The issues above combined with Ermor type dominion and a suspected player base that will be using much death scale, leads me to think that population shrinkage is going to be staggering in multiplay. This (and many other things) is going to lead to hardcore super combatants. I don't see this as a balanced nor preferable outcome.
I agree with you.

[I am not a multiplayer, but since the singleplayer AI is annoyed me -it is too weak-, maybe I will play some mp games, if I will have time. I mean TCP games, I don't like Pbem]

Chris Byler

October 30th, 2003, 03:00 AM

Originally posted by Jasper:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Chris Byler:
The only use I've found for LI so far is their javelins - they do as much damage as longbows, and because of their shorter range, they have better accuracy. A squad of LI behind a squad of HI can be fairly effective against moderately armored troops. Against Ulm you still need crossbows or magic though.I got alot of mileage out of my starting 25 LI with Machaka by using similar tactics, although not enough I built any more.

<hr /></blockquote>Yes - but if there were a heavy infantry with javelins, wouldn't they be even better at it? Come to think of it, Pythium legionnaires do have javelins. Aren't they better at this sort of thing than LI?

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Some people on this thread seem to be claiming that it shouldn't take any more money to maintain a company of fifty men with Full Plate of Ulm, a full helmet, tower shield and warhammer (say) than spears, leather hauberks, javelins and maybe hard leather caps. I don't see how you can support this view - if nothing else, war gear wears out or breaks and has to be replaced. That costs something.[Further stuff suggest gold maintenance cost for high resource troops snipped]

My main arguement here is simply game complexity. I would only support giving them more maintenance in a uniform manner, e.g. by increasing their cost, or by calculating resources in the gold maintenance cost.

<hr /></blockquote>Ok, I agree. And I also think that if their ineffectiveness on the battlefield could be solved, it might not be necessary to make them cheaper - but as it is, they definitely need an advantage of some sort, and being quick to raise isn't enough when they are also so much quicker to die.

<blockquote>quote:<hr />On the other hand, I also think that a large part of the heavy vs. light problem stems from light troops' ineffectiveness on the battlefield (snip)Historically Light troops got demolished by heavy troops in frontal melee. Furthermore, massed heavy infantry had more staying power, despite what one might guess from heavy armor.

Making Light Troops more powerfull in Melee is not a good solution, IMHO. They _should_ get demolished in melee.

<hr /></blockquote>Then what do you suggest? Hit and run isn't very effective if you can only hit once a month. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif Their strategic movement is often blocked by terrain, and even when it isn't, raiding in the enemy's rear doesn't produce enough effect to justify the risk of defeat in detail, even for a quick-to-raise force. (At least in my experience - has anyone tried a serious campaign of pillaging all over the place (possibly with a bunch of Implementor Axes) faster than the enemy's army can pin you down? It seems likely they'd just respond by sieging - but then, heavy troops are no better than light at breaching walls, Ulmish Sappers excepted.)

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Finally, historically there were melee weapons specifically designed to pierce armor - pikes, for instance. Why aren't they armor piercing in Dom (I or II)?[snip]I see no basis for this in history at all. Pikes were used because they were long, that's it. <hr /></blockquote>Hmm, maybe I am misremembering. In any case, there are counters to armor in Dom I/II, but they usually cost more than the HI. Furthermore most counters to HI require a way to stop the HI from killing the fragile units that can effectively damage them (i.e. crossbowmen or mages) - which often means more HI, although summons can also be used.

st.patrik

October 30th, 2003, 03:05 AM

I think a distinction has to be made here between Light Infantry and conscripted crappy infantry. That's the point I was trying to make with the hypaspists - they (in Dom I, which is what was my frame of reference) are a light infantry, but still very useful. Whereas on the other hand militia aren't very useful, and I think that's appropriate.

So there are 3 classes of troops (very roughly):

� Heavy Infantry [well-trained, thick armour, poor defense, slow-moving]
� Light Infantry [well-trained, light armour, high defense, fast-moving]
� Conscripts [poorly trained, light armour, low defense, average movement]

You would expect quality LI to have lesser PROT than HI, but greater DEF and AP, and that's exactly the difference between Hypaspists and Hoplites in Dom I [Hypaspists' stats are quite a bit different in Dom II]. It's easy to see the advantages of both, under this paradigm: when fighting slow but strong troops you'd want LI, because their higher DEF score should avoid the attacks altogether. In the same situation HI would do alot worse, because they wouldn't dodge any of the attacks, and therefore get damaged a lot.

Militia would be pathetic in this (and pretty much every other) situation.

In other words: I'm just fine with militia-like troops not being used much - conscripted troops with little training have always been best as cannon (or dragon) fodder, and not much good at anything else. On the other hand, well-trained light infantry should be useful, and if this means a DEF boost, so be it.

johan osterman

October 30th, 2003, 03:11 AM

Originally posted by apoger:
>4 Hypaspists for 60 gold
>14 Cardaces for 140 gold

The resource costs of Hypaspists have doubled!
This now makes the Cardaces much more attractive and the Hypaspists near worthless. The hypaspists near worthless? If you compare them with cardaces gold10 res6: they have morale +4 attack +1 defense, +1 prot +7. If you compare them with hoplites: gold11 res 28, they have prot -4, morale +2, def +4, strat move +1. I think they fill a niche between the hoplites and the cardaces, especially in the early game where you have a limited number of castles.

[ October 30, 2003, 01:58: Message edited by: Kristoffer O ]

st.patrik

October 30th, 2003, 03:14 AM

Originally posted by PvK:
The Hypaspists are still the most skilled of the three melee infantry types, so when gold is low, or when you're trying to get the best strength per supply use, they make sense to use.

PvK Hypaspists cost more in gold than hoplites or cardaces. And their basic stats are much the same as the hoplites, barring PROT, DEF, ENC, and AP - all these you would expect to be different, given different armour. The only other difference is MRL, which they of course are superior in.

And apoger, they more than doubled since Dom I: 8 -> 18

PvK

October 30th, 2003, 03:29 AM

Hypaspists have one higher basic defense, even before armor. The other difference is that (again, due to armor) they move faster - twice as fast when marching through friendly provinces.

PvK

[ October 30, 2003, 01:30: Message edited by: PvK ]

Jasper

October 30th, 2003, 03:49 AM

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
Would you mind pointing out, specifically, the overly complex portion, and specifically provide a simpler replacement? There are some changes I'd like, but I don't think they make the game simpler. So I'm quite curious as to the nature of your complaint(s), and your suggestion(s)... I like simple, deep things.

If I'm overlooking something obvious in one of your Posts, please point me to it.

-Cherry [/QB]Something like the miniatures game Armati. There are other popular miniatures games too, although I'd shy away from the Warhammer stuff.

I highly recommend taking a look at Armati 2, which is due out around the end of this year.

-Jasper

apoger

October 30th, 2003, 03:52 AM

Perhaps I need to qualify what I said.
Hypaspists aren't "bad", however in the early game players will want bulk, that means Cardaces. Later when they want quality, they will go right to Hoplites. The other units available are what make hypaspists obsolete.

IMHO the resource increase was too heavy handed (much like many of the game changes).

Jasper

October 30th, 2003, 03:54 AM

Originally posted by apoger:
>4 Hypaspists for 60 gold
>14 Cardaces for 140 gold

The resource costs of Hypaspists have doubled!
This now makes the Cardaces much more attractive and the Hypaspists near worthless. Well, you can't use them for the same fast early
start effect as you could in Dom 1, and for that you're right, Cardaces are better. Overall I think they're definitely better, and I suspect would beat Hoplites cost for cost in melee.

Plus HI with a strategic move of 2 is pretty nice.

Pocus

October 30th, 2003, 08:50 AM

Didnt saw the 'tweaking' of hypaspysts too. They gain 4 prot, but increasing from 8 to 18 resources is definitively too much. I now find them in excess in the Arco roster, as I will either use Cardaces early, then revert to Hoplites when time permit. I only recruited some to goes with my elephants, but this is very secondary.

as for the LI usage, perhaps you can restrict the attack rear order to units which cost 15 resources or less. That would be a quick and dirty trick for giving them a flanking role in battle.

Calanor

October 30th, 2003, 09:17 AM

Originally posted by Jasper:
[..snipped..]
2nd: Make light troops less susceptiple to missile hits, and increase missile accuracy and damage. One way is to make spread out so 2/3rds of all missiles miss them.
[..snipped..]
Generally speaking, I'd expect light infantry to get massacred by enemy archers. What do you base your suggestion on? I hardly expect that light infantry would literally dodge arrows, so by all accounts heavy infantry should be better equipped to face enemy archers (e.g. Roman legionaries and the turtle formation would be a good historical example). As Dominions handle things right now, this is the case - the high Protection of HI allows them to counter missiles, while the maneouverability of LI allows them to maintain a high Defense (which is irrelevant vs missiles). However, it might well be worth countering crossbows and the like with LI - such missile attacks will give HI some problems and in such situations, fast LI might be preferable.

That is not to say that LI might need to get some extra advantages - but I don't know if I agree that increased defense vs missiles should be one of those.

Jasper

October 30th, 2003, 01:29 PM

Originally posted by Calanor:
Generally speaking, I'd expect light infantry to get massacred by enemy archers. What do you base your suggestion on?[/QB]I base it on the simple fact that every pre gunpowder army I can think of used skirmishers to screen their heavy units from missile fire, so that their heavy units could enter melee fresh.

The mechanics of this were quite simple -- individual soldiers simply spread out, presenting a much more difficult target than shoulder to shoulder heavy infantry. And in fact this mechanism is already in Dom 2, it's just that blocks of skirmishers are just as densely packed as a phalanx of pike.

Tight formation Light infantry was also used, which were vulnerable to missiles, but the tactics that would make them usefull don't work in Dominions, and so I've been implicitly ignoring them -- sorry for the confusion.

Nerfix

October 30th, 2003, 01:33 PM

Jasper

October 30th, 2003, 01:38 PM

Originally posted by Pocus:
Didnt saw the 'tweaking' of hypaspysts too. They gain 4 prot, but increasing from 8 to 18 resources is definitively too much. I now find them in excess in the Arco roster, as I will either use Cardaces early, then revert to Hoplites when time permit. I only recruited some to goes with my elephants, but this is very secondary.Their defense is 4 better, their morale 2 more, and the encumberance 2 less. Their good defense and ok protection against a hoplites spear makes me suspect they'd Last long enough to take advantage of hoplites quick fatigue.

Plus, having a strategic move of 2 is a big advantage.

as for the LI usage, perhaps you can restrict the attack rear order to units which cost 15 resources or less. That would be a quick and dirty trick for giving them a flanking role in battle. That's a decent idea. My only fear is that a few heavy infantry all the way out on the flanks will simply destroy this tactic.

Nerfix

October 30th, 2003, 03:29 PM

Originally posted by PDF:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Nerfix:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Pocus:
Didnt saw the 'tweaking' of hypaspysts too. They gain 4 prot, but increasing from 8 to 18 resources is definitively too much. I now find them in excess in the Arco roster, as I will either use Cardaces early, then revert to Hoplites when time permit. I only recruited some to goes with my elephants, but this is very secondary.I didn't play Arco very much in Dom I because i found it a very boring nation, but i have started to play with Arco in Dom II. IMO the Hypastists are good enough. <hr /></blockquote>Arco boring ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif !!
You surely prefer those wonderfully varied Ulm infantry or Pythium Legionnaries ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif <hr /></blockquote>Ulm was boring, but Ulm had troops with something else than spears of diffrent length. In fact, i think that Ulm had the most diverse infnatry in the game, excluding LI. Ulm is no longer so boring because they have Siege Engineers and Sappers. I also thougth that Pythium is not only boring but yber with their ungodly starting gem income. And Pythium is still both boring and yber.

[ October 30, 2003, 13:31: Message edited by: Nerfix ]

Daynarr

October 30th, 2003, 04:20 PM

Pythum is not boring to me, but Y(?)ber it may be. I do find them powerfull.

BTW. isn't it Uber, not Yber?

Nerfix

October 30th, 2003, 04:29 PM

U with dots is pronounced as Y.

Ok, i admit there is people who get kicks from these legionairy-thingies, but i'm not one of those. Also, i find gem income of 8 rigth from the start bit too much.

Pocus

October 30th, 2003, 04:51 PM

Originally posted by Jasper:
Their defense is 4 better, their morale 2 more, and the encumberance 2 less. Their good defense and ok protection against a hoplites spear makes me suspect they'd Last long enough to take advantage of hoplites quick fatigue.

Plus, having a strategic move of 2 is a big advantage.
their morale is the same. I suggest you compare uninstanciated troops, and not some which can be in home province and friendly dominion http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
The encumbrance is 1 less, right.
I forgot the strat move, I will have to get used with the stat, which is important.

<blockquote>quote:<hr />as for the LI usage, perhaps you can restrict the attack rear order to units which cost 15 resources or less. That would be a quick and dirty trick for giving them a flanking role in battle. That's a decent idea. My only fear is that a few heavy infantry all the way out on the flanks will simply destroy this tactic. [/QB]<hr /></blockquote>thats why I said this was a quick trick, something which can be (normally) coded in one hour or so. Many time the better is the enemy of good, and I would prefer to have this implemented in the first patch, and not a perfect system 4 patches away.

You can refine the proposal by having the flank zones interdicted to heavier troops.

johan osterman

October 30th, 2003, 05:34 PM

Originally posted by Pocus:
their morale is the same. I suggest you compare uninstanciated troops, and not some which can be in home province and friendly dominion http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
The encumbrance is 1 less, right.
I forgot the strat move, I will have to get used with the stat, which is important.
Their morale is not the same, a hoplite has 12 a hypaspist 14. Encumbrance is 2 less.

[ October 30, 2003, 15:37: Message edited by: johan osterman ]

Pocus

October 30th, 2003, 06:14 PM

Originally posted by johan osterman:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Pocus:
their morale is the same. I suggest you compare uninstanciated troops, and not some which can be in home province and friendly dominion http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
The encumbrance is 1 less, right.
I forgot the strat move, I will have to get used with the stat, which is important.
Their morale is not the same, a hoplite has 12 a hypaspist 14. Encumbrance is 2 less. <hr /></blockquote>ah, I see. You think I was comparing hoplites versus Hypaspysts? I'm comparing doms I hyps verus doms II hyps. See my first post on the subject.

PvK

October 30th, 2003, 06:30 PM

You were quoting Jasper, who was talking about Hoplites vs. Hyps, as the rest of us were, further down the thread.

As for Arco or Ulm being boring in either game... I've had lots of fun with both and don't find them boring. Arco has five types of melee infantry, three types of cavalry, plus fun chariots and elephants, very nice priestesses and magicians and astrologers... Ulm is really fun for trying to squash magic with heavy metal, and for trying to keep an elite corps alive in the face of huge resource costs to raise troops.

I think it's really a matter of personal preference, which is why it's good there are so many varied choices for nations.

PvK

[ October 30, 2003, 16:35: Message edited by: PvK ]

MythicalMino

October 30th, 2003, 06:33 PM

hey, i had an idea....not sure if it was already brought up or not...and, it may not even be a good one...but here goes:

This is concerning the Light Infantry usage from earlier in the post btw....

What if, Scouts could command a group of say 10-20 Light Infantry? That would give them some usage....and, Scouts would be able to take over some low defense territories possibly....

That I think would give them some definite use....but, what do you all think about this?

Pocus

October 30th, 2003, 08:16 PM

Originally posted by PvK:
You were quoting Jasper, who was talking about Hoplites vs. Hyps, as the rest of us were, further down the thread.

As for Arco or Ulm being boring in either game... I've had lots of fun with both and don't find them boring. Arco has five types of melee infantry, three types of cavalry, plus fun chariots and elephants, very nice priestesses and magicians and astrologers... Ulm is really fun for trying to squash magic with heavy metal, and for trying to keep an elite corps alive in the face of huge resource costs to raise troops.

I think it's really a matter of personal preference, which is why it's good there are so many varied choices for nations.

PvK Sorry to nickpick, but I didnt quote Jasper in first instance. He initially quoted a post of mine were I spoke of doms I Hysps versus doms II hysps. The post of Jasper I'm refering too is the one posted at 13:38.

So back to the point of my initial post :
I was dealing with the fact the Hysps in dom I were at 8 resources, compared to hysps of doms II at 18 resources. The difference being only 4 in defence between the two (and here too I'm speaking of doms I hysps at 11 def versus doms II hysps at 15 def).

Hope it clarifies.

[ October 30, 2003, 18:23: Message edited by: Pocus ]

johan osterman

October 30th, 2003, 08:41 PM

Originally posted by Pocus:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by PvK:
You were quoting Jasper, who was talking about Hoplites vs. Hyps, as the rest of us were, further down the thread.

As for Arco or Ulm being boring in either game... I've had lots of fun with both and don't find them boring. Arco has five types of melee infantry, three types of cavalry, plus fun chariots and elephants, very nice priestesses and magicians and astrologers... Ulm is really fun for trying to squash magic with heavy metal, and for trying to keep an elite corps alive in the face of huge resource costs to raise troops.

I think it's really a matter of personal preference, which is why it's good there are so many varied choices for nations.

PvK Sorry to nickpick, but I didnt quote Jasper in first instance. He initially quoted a post of mine were I spoke of doms I Hysps versus doms II hysps. The post of Jasper I'm refering too is the one posted at 13:38.

So back to the point of my initial post :
I was dealing with the fact the Hysps in dom I were at 8 resources, compared to hysps of doms II at 18 resources. The difference being only 4 in defence between the two (and here too I'm speaking of doms I hysps at 11 def versus doms II hysps at 15 def).

Hope it clarifies. <hr /></blockquote>In the Jasper post you qouted, in the post I quoted, the different values Jasper gives are the differences between hypaspists and hoplites, wether or not you originally discussed dom 1 versus dom 2 hypaspists Jasper tried to point out that hypaspists were useful and based his assesment on the stat differences between hoplites and hypaspits in dom 2, these stat differences are the values given in Jaspers post. Also the resource increase in the hypaspists are consistent with all other unit in the game. The resource difference between dom 1 and dom 2 hypaspists is based on a resource value cost assigned to the different armours and armaments. All units have their resource costs calculated in this way, ie add up resource cost for helmet to res. cost for plate hauberk to res. cost for long spear to ... ... To arbitrarily change the cost of hypaspists away from this forumla to make them useful, allthough I allready think they are, is a step one should take with some caution, I think.

[ October 30, 2003, 18:42: Message edited by: johan osterman ]

Pocus

October 30th, 2003, 08:52 PM

ok, if a formula is used for resource, fair enough.

Has someone reported by the way that some Abysian infantries have a 2 handed weapon with a shield? I dont recall if its in the normal theme or in blood of human, but it is rather strange anyway (and convenient when you play Abysia).

johan osterman

October 30th, 2003, 09:24 PM

Originally posted by Pocus:
ok, if a formula is used for resource, fair enough.

Has someone reported by the way that some Abysian infantries have a 2 handed weapon with a shield? I dont recall if its in the normal theme or in blood of human, but it is rather strange anyway (and convenient when you play Abysia). Yes, there is bug with this.

PDF

October 31st, 2003, 02:55 AM

Originally posted by Nerfix:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Pocus:
Didnt saw the 'tweaking' of hypaspysts too. They gain 4 prot, but increasing from 8 to 18 resources is definitively too much. I now find them in excess in the Arco roster, as I will either use Cardaces early, then revert to Hoplites when time permit. I only recruited some to goes with my elephants, but this is very secondary.I didn't play Arco very much in Dom I because i found it a very boring nation, but i have started to play with Arco in Dom II. IMO the Hypastists are good enough. <hr /></blockquote>Arco boring ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif !!
You surely prefer those wonderfully varied Ulm infantry or Pythium Legionnaries ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Frankly Arco was in Dom1 a very interesting nation, powerful and flexible http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
Well about the new "Heavy" Hypaspists, they are surely more balanced than in Dom1 (where they made in fact the core of an early-mid game Arco army), and made Cardaces totally useless...
Perhaps they are now just too close to Hoplites, so won't find their "slot"...
But I think that in Dom2 they are to be considered as they were used historically : small contingents of elite troops that boosted their friends'morale ...

And about LI slaughtered by archers : no, it wasn't the case, because the LI fought in very loose formation, and archers shooted "en masse" towards a unit, didn't target individuals.
The real danger was for medium light-armored troops that fought close (eg barbarians, Medium Inf..)

LordArioch

November 1st, 2003, 06:25 AM

It seems to me that hypaspists beat hoplites.
Consider a attack 10 unit with a spear (13 dam total) attacking one of each.
Against the hyps he has -3 attack-defense and -2 str+dam - prot. Considering this you find he has ~ a 30% chance to hit and ~30% chance to deal any damage. So he has about a 10% chance overall to hit and deal damage.
Consider the hoplite. The spearman has a +1 to hit and -6 to damage. This gives a 60% hit chance and 16% chance to damage. Now if I'm correct this gives about an equal chance of getting hurt to either unit.

The odds of more damage decrease more rapidly with the hyps, so it's less likely to suffer higher amount of damage and takes less damage overall. Increases in enemy str/weapon damage and decreases in attack will favor the hoplite, but considering that the hyps have 1 more strategic move and 2 more morale I'd favor them. I also didn't take the hoplite increased weapon length repel into effect, so against sufficiently low morale troops they might be better.

Still, I think the resource cost difference makes the hyps superior.