Light Infantry... what the ****

[Vicious Love]

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.

I've actually been meaning to suggest a "fire while keeping distance" option for LC/LI for quite some time now. I realize that's not the point you were getting at, but methinks it still stands.

In regards to which side gets to choose the venue for a battle, I've got a needlessly complex, nigh-impossible to implement, but sorta realistic solution: Add three new orders: "Remain in terrain X", as an alternative to "Defend", "Attack", and "Move and attack"(Hotkeyed to ctrl-left click).
The first order is self explanatory-The defenders will remain in the terrain type in question(If present in the province, obviously), and any assaults on them will take place in said terrain. "Attack" and "Move and attack" signify the attackers' will to indulge the defenders, and getting medieval ensues. Province defense functions normally, that is, like an army set on "defend".
Things get needlessly tricky when the attackers choose to occupy a province without stamping out the guerilla lizards holed up in the swamp. The province is now under joint ownership, an awkward condition for any occupied populace, with the following results:
1) Income, production and supplies are split between the occupying forces, and crudely, at that. If a region contains three terrain types(Say, swamp, mountain, and plains), each terrain is assumed to comprise 1/3rd of the province. Terrain modifiers(+food for plains, +resources for mountains, etc) are applied to each side's part of the province. This makes survival skills much, much more useful, as only a very small force could possibly hide out in a swamp for long without starving.
2) Unrest rises, and steeply at that. Maybe at a flat rate, maybe at a rate proportionate to the size of both armies, combined(Modified further by fear-causing units), maybe at a rate proportionate to the size of the army that controls the smaller part of the province.
3) Both sides can recruit units locally, though PD is still unavailable.
4) Either side can pillage with impunity, but do not pillage the portion of a province occupied by a hostile army. Naturally, if both sides pillage, combat ensues, on randomly selected terrain.
5) Castles... Well, they make this whole proposition even more complex. Not to mention preaching, "friendly province only" spells, and more.

Still with me so far? If you are, you've realized this goes far, far beyond the scope of a patch or mod, and doesn't really pay off that well. Still, I've never been one to let an idea go to waste just because it's manifestly unfeasible.
If we want to complicate things even further, we could always position each magic site in a province in one particular terrain type, and allow whichever God controls that part of that province to profit from it(Or suffer double the negative effects. Hiding armies near Inkblot End=bad). But this is all the very spirit of wishful thinking made flesh and gooey bits.
On the bright side, I suspect there's some small detail in that spiel that might still be useful outside the context of grandiose, game-reshaping suggestions. I'll get back to you when I have some idea of what it might be.

On a more modest note, I definitely agree with that "move and pillage" suggestion, it's fun AND educational!

Edit: Ack! Typo!
Edited edit: Double ack! Misedit! It's OK, folks, everything's under control!

[ April 16, 2004, 13:47: Message edited by: Vicious Love ]

[Chris Byler]

Originally posted by Jasper:

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Originally posted by 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.)

IMHO this just doesn't work with Dominions style of plotted orders, as you can't see how the terrain is laid out when making your orders. Short of a major restructuring of the turn order I don't see anyway to handle this.

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Just place the obstacles and let the armies deal with them as they may. If you don't like the results, don't send heavily armored men into a swamp.

Yes, this amounts to saying that in a swamp province, even the "worthwhile" parts of the province are swampy. This may be somewhat unrealistic but I think it would make terrain more important and make some units better depending on terrain, which is a goal I value above realism if it comes right down to it.

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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.

I disagree. It's difficult to force someone to fight in bad terrain, asland worth holding is on good terrain. Even for historical kingdoms that benefited from dense terrain battles in general still had more open than rough terrain.

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If you consider some provinces not worth holding, you are of course free not to hold them. I won't try to stop you. Certainly plains and farmland provinces provide more income and supply and are useful for a variety of purposes, and a nation needs some armies that can fight well in the open. But not every province is open, and if you *want* to make an army that specializes in rough terrain and keep them in rough terrain provinces, you should be allowed to, IMO.

The Alps weren't worth holding, but Hannibal marched across them anyway. If he had been attacked there, I don't think the battlefield would have been level and open. Attacking an enemy army while it is passing through rough terrain - even if they have no intention of occupying it for any great length of time - is perfectly legitimate. And of course if you want to occupy mountains or swamps - even though they have low relative worth - you have to be prepared to deal with the consequences.

I can see C'tis being able to work _some_ swamp into a battle on it's home terrain. Of course, were it possible to make good tactical use of terrain, even a small amount would be enough to gain a substantial advantage. Unfortunately dominions just doesn't handle this.

Although it would be nice to be able to tailor your deployment to a particular battlefield, the current state of Dom II makes this difficult.

Possibly the battlefield could be generated based on a deterministic algorithm from data about the province, current scales and the season, and then players could inspect the battlefield of any province they can see before planning their deployments (and they might get a surprise if Wolven Winter is cast there before the battle). I don't know how much additional code this would take, but I suspect it would be considerable. This terrain idea is just one of several ideas for LI/LC, and I suspect it's one of the less practical, as much as I would like it.

Terrain that can't be seen in advance, where you have only a general idea based on the province's terrain type(s), would be much simpler to implement and I think you could make at least some educated guesses about what tactics work better in forests or swamps, and what units are better suited to carry them out. It's not like there won't be any battles in plains - plains are valuable and people will still want to fight over them. But not every province is plains, and it borders on the ridiculous to have two armies meet in the depths of the Black Forest or the Alps and there miraculously happens to be a huge open clearing, and that's where they fight.

Oh, and we're also leaving out rivers - I hope I don't have to tell you how common battles near (or in!) rivers were, and how the river could play a part in them. So why are battles in Dom2 always far away from the river, even if there is one in the province? Some units could fight even while standing in the river itself (water elementals, amphibious units), others could enter the shallows and be somewhat impeded. And there is often marshy or sandy ground near the riverbank that is poor footing for a man in full armor - and worse for a horse in full armor carrying a man in full armor. And you *certainly* can't say that the land along the river isn't worthwhile.

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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).

Giving LI in general more defense makes no sense to me. IMHO attempts to give LI an edge in melee against HI are just wrong (well, outside of rough terrain).

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Well, maybe HI should get the defense bonus too - they just won't benefit from it as much.

In my experience, it's rare for a Dom2 melee to Last more than three rounds unless at least one side is mindless (or you have HUGE squads fighting on very little frontage, which only happens during a storm attempt). Even with Fanaticism on both sides, casualties are just too high. This makes fatigue for combat units almost entirely meaningless - even a high fatigue unit that's in the front line for the entire battle will hardly be winded by the time someone breaks and runs.

You'd like to see LI get crushed if they stand and fight in the open - I don't necessarily disagree. But currently they don't have any other option *besides* standing and fighting, and *every* place is the open (even deep forests and high mountains), and that's what makes them worthless. So I suggested something (slowing down the death rate in melees) that might help them take advantage of one of their few strengths - low encumbrance. (Fatigue for moving on the battlefield would do the same thing - HI would be at least a little fatigued by the time they reach enemy lines, if they can't make the enemy come to them.)

[HotNifeThruButr]

I think that light infantry are supposed to get an edge with their volley of projectile weapons before they engage the enemy and their mobility advantage in and out of battles against heavy infantry. What if there was a command that tells your units to stay away from hand to hand combat, but pepper the enemy with missiles? Since LI can outpace heavy infantry, they would fire, retreat, fire again, retreat, fire a final time (javelins only have 3 ammo) and then fight hand to hand. That way Ulm Zweihanders will make mincemeat out of Machaka warriors, but only when they manage to catch 'em.

On a side note, LI need to be better skilled than HI (which is often not the case or the difference is unnoticeable). This goes with the Zweihander and warrior scenario.

[Norfleet]

Light Infantry are superior late-game to Heavy infantry because of their far lesser resource cost. They cost no gems that you otherwise need for summoning serious stuff. They're completely expendable and use a resource you no longer have as much need of.

By late game, heavy infantry will be butchered en-masse just as easily as lights. Both have the same gold cost, but generally, you need a mob of men on short notice to serve as siege fodder and expendable meatshields. Gold is probably not what you are most concerned about. Heavy infantry, therefore, fail to serve the job: I need lots of crappy troops, and I need them yesterday! The production costs of HI are such that provinces cannot produce them by the dozens every turn: Since they will all likely die a gruesome death at the hands of a Bane Lord or the Ghost Riders, actual strength is irrelevant: They just need to live long enough to bash down the gates.

[ April 25, 2004, 07:23: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

[Cohen]

SCs kills a little the game ...

Productivity scale is worthless so on ... and armies are too ...
LI or HI have little influence ...

I believe LI and HI are well balanced, but Armies usefulness should be preverved for all the duration of a game. Not only against Indies.

[FarAway Pretender]

(Dusting off an old thread here)

I like the idea of adding a Fatigue penalty for adverse terrain, but I'm not sure how that would play out, especially for spell-casting heroes (is casting fireballs while standing in mud any harder than standing on grass?).

I think that plopping "rough terrain" patches down in the middle of the field would get a bit unwieldy, especially in terms of the way the AI would have to deal with pathfinding algorithms, etc. I don't mind losing battles due to bad terrain, but I'd hate to lose battles because my commander took a different path around some rough terrain than his units!

While I'm a big fan of realism, I think we all acknowledge that combat in Dominions is a little abstracted anyway. I mean, they're individual soldiers, not units of soldiers, that we plunk out on the map in the first place. Who would really go to war with a party of 15 or 20 guys to dominate an entire province of 20,000 people.

If we really only have 15 or 20 guys fighting somewhere, why would they pick a huge field?

I think the most elegant way to include terrain in Dom 3 battles would be to abstractualize (is that a word?) the impact of terrain and borrow something from the Warlords handbook. Just have a simple grid of "Terrain Effects", where LI, HI, LC, and HC get different penalties (to Encumb, Movement, etc.) in different terrain. It makes sense to me that Heavy Cavalary is more effective in Open Plains than in the Mountains.

[Wauthan]

With Dominions 3 looming at a distant horizon I can't help but wonder if terrain dependant battlefields have been implemented? Since Illwinter are well aware of the power difference between light and heavy cavalry/infantry I'm sure they taken a few stabs at helping the underdogs.