Light Infantry... what the ****

[Firebreath]

Camp followers?

Camp hoes you mean

I'm sure they'd give a nice morale boost before any battle.

[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.

[HotNifeThruButr]

I'm sure more tactical options like "Fire for X turns and flee", and "Fire For X turns then stay behind troops" would make them good at softening up the opposition for your core forces to take on. "Advance and Fire" would possibly make Light Cavalry something more than just weak,expensive archers. They would advance and fire until they fight melee.

Edit: I don't think having the fastest army choose terrain would be a good idea. I mean, where could you find a marsh in the desert of "You're screwed, there's no supplies here [203]"?

[ April 15, 2004, 20:40: Message edited by: HotNifeThruButr ]

[Wauthan]

I think Pocus meant that the fastest army gets the choose an battlefield appropriate to the province, not any possible terrain. If that was the case I would stock up on Triton Leaders with amulets of the fish and continually choose "Underwater Plateu" for all landbound conflicts.

I had one idea to make subdivisions of the battlefield were each square held a bonus or a penalty. Would allowed for terrain altering spells and abilities. But I figure that medieval battles were hardly that spontaneous. Perhaps a "Prefered Battlefield" setting could be worked into a battle with the speed of the army, experience of the commanders, stealthiness and random luck worked into getting your choice. A number of Satyrs ambushing a force of heavy cavalery as they travel along a forestroad means that the ordinarily outclassed Satyrs get a huge edge since cavalery can not move into "Dense Vegetation" squares.

Dominions V material perhaps but Fantasy General style battlesquares would be a real thrill. But it makes for a very different game I guess. Still would be neat to be able to draw up a quick battleplan, on a topdown representation of the battlefield, before the battle starts (or just press "Use preselected formation" and hope for the best). Since you don't know your opponents battleplan until the battle actually starts you can get quite a suprise. No unit can be deployed more than one full move from starting position. Flying ability is not considered in deployment.

Perhaps the simplest way to get more usage of light infantery and cavalery is to simply make the battlefield, and deployment screen, larger than it is now. Since we can speed up battles now it's more of an option. Bigger field means higher AP has a real impact since you can outmanouver your enemy.