Question to the devs: HPs of mounted troops ?

[Arralen]

I wonder how HPs of mounted troops are calculated?

The good ol' knights do not get any HP bonus from their mount (and the mount is lost if the rider dies).

Machaka's Spider Riders do not get a HP bonus, but surely pay for the mount. Strangely, they are size 6 - 2 more than a Jotun. Still they have only 10-14 HPs, and regen is negligible because it works from that HPs.

Moose Riders on the other hand have 38HP, while 2 vaetti would only account for 16HP. Obviously, the moose is figured in. Makes sense, as it fights as well.

But the Machaka Spiders fight along with their riders (fangs, web spit), so shouldn't their HP be figured in as well, resulting in about 20 for the small and 28 for the big ones ?

And wouldn't it be a nice boost for the light cav if it gets some HP bonus?

[Oversway]

I think the difference is you get a hunter spider when the rider dies, but nothing when the moose rider combo dies?

That doesn't really explain (horse) knights, though...

[magnate]

A riderless horse (or moose) is not intelligent enough to be a troop unit on its own; a riderless spider is. Ditto for Pythium's serpent cataphract.

I agree about the hp though - consistency would be nice.

CC

[NTJedi]

Arralen said:
But the Machaka Spiders fight along with their riders (fangs, web spit), so shouldn't their HP be figured in as well, resulting in about 20 for the small and 28 for the big ones ?





Machaka needs all the help it can get... since it has such terrible province defense.
It's province defense is virtually worthless.

[Boron]

NTJedi said:
Machaka needs all the help it can get... since it has such terrible province defense.
It's province defense is virtually worthless.


Yeah with one exeption:
If you can afford the Global Haunted Forest. Then the Machaka PD is very useful because of a mage commander and the high Numbers of living fodder which become Manikins.

[PvK]

Imperial Tien Chi cavalry have only 10 HP... which seems slightly unfair.

Machaka PD can also become useful if you can give it some magical improvements such as protection and berserking...

PvK

[Turin]

Arralen said:
I wonder how HPs of mounted troops are calculated?


Moose Riders on the other hand have 38HP, while 2 vaetti would only account for 16HP. Obviously, the moose is figured in. Makes sense, as it fights as well.




I think moose riders are an oversight, they have exactly the same stats as the moose animal, except for two added shortbows. I changed them in my nation mod to be in line with the other cavalry.
As for horses, I created them in my mod and they will appear after the rider gets slain. However it looks pretty silly with archer cavalry, because lone horses will charge into enemy ranks.

[Endoperez]

Turin said:
As for horses, I created them in my mod and they will appear after the rider gets slain. However it looks pretty silly with archer cavalry, because lone horses will charge into enemy ranks.



If an archer's horse was left on the battlefield without a rider, I doubt it would attack... I would rather you had the mounts of Knights and similar units to continue trashing the enemy after their rider dies, as they have been trained to fight. IIRC, most horse archers don't even have Hoof attack...

[Arralen]

After some thinking about it, here's my suggestion how to handle the HP bonus for riders:

HPbonus = ([SizeOfMountedUnit]-[SizeOfUnmounted])* 5 HP

Thus a knight would get +5 HP, a Machakan Hunter would get +25 HP.

Anyone to comment on this, or better to do a mod and try it out ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[PvK]

If the mount will fight after the rider is killed (e.g. Gryphon riders, Machakan spiders), then the existing system can give those hitpoints to the surviving unit.

It is true that sometimes a regular mount might be killed before killing the rider, and adding hitpoints to the rider seems to be the current system for representing that.

That's ok, though for the most accuracy, I'd say mounted troops should get the Defense bonus (representing the added difficulty of hitting someone on a horse, since they are high up and may be moving) but not have higher hitpoints.

Ideally, I'd like to see mounts be more like equipment, and so we could have dismounted cavalry, horses recovered after a battle, and re-combining mounts and riders afterwards (rather than currently where you can never re-mount riderless mount units).

PvK