If Giants existed in BC times...
 

Then the world will be ruled by a race of giants. So I can understand the thematically of how giant nations obliterate nations with spears and slings. But theme is something that should be separate from balance. There are some nations that are just completely butt hurt from theme (Jomon for example with their no shield LA policy) and some nations that just completely OP it (Niefel & Hinnom). It's hard to enjoy the theme of a game if turn 12 I'm crowding behind my walls hoping for my Dragon to get back in time to hopefully fend off big guys with swords looking to kick my ***. Heck that's almost like being back in junior high.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

Well, I'm of the opinion that LA Jomon, and related Nations, should get an "air shield" bonus with their O-yori: a 40% air shield for their heaviest "samurai" armour, and a 20% for the regular samurai variety.

Also, Jomon could conceivably have a capital-only nagamaki-wielding unit, that would get a x2 bonus to larger creatures, if you wanted to mod one in. That doesn't sound like it would be too balance-destroying, and it's reasonable, for a Nation that had a history of fighting and winning against giant demons, and big ogrish goblins.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

I can't see the sense in that.

You can argue their armour is better than other armour against certain kinds of missiles, but translating that into dominions as an air shield is just silly.

I like Jomon not having shields. I agree they're a bit crippled by it.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

Sombre:

I don't see why that would be silly, given the confines of the game. Just because this is represented by an effect that can *also* be produced through magic, doesn't necessarily mean that it's always a supernatural effect. The "Air Shield" supernatural effect represents (atleast in my imagination), the deflection of arrows and the obfuscation of the shape of the target's body, through a "heatwave" type distortion effect. Maybe I'm somehow wrong in that interpretation, but I consider it reasonable and viable.

And that's exactly what samurai armour was designed to do, to deflect blows and arrows, and to obfuscate the shape of the samurai's body.

I would ofcourse want to see the Prot value of Samurai armour to be lowered, accordingly, to balance against the suggested "airshield" effect, but samurai armour (especially the heavy version) is so bad, as it stands, that the Prot is about all it's got going for it.

There was a big difference in the relative sharpness of medieval European swords (which were commonly pretty blunt, when used in larger battles), and pre-colonial Japanese swords, and the way each was used, and the differing armour styles reflect those differences.

European swords were meant to be used over and over, to hammer the target into submission, with the side-effect of the possibility to ransom the still-living loser. Japanese swords, ideally, were intended to be used once, fatally.

So, European armour was designed to resist blows and distribute damage, whereas, if you got hit by a well made katana, by a samurai who was skilled in kendo, you'd be lucky if a blow just crippled you.

Impact was still a consideration, in Japanese armours, just like deflection was considered in European armours, but it's a matter of degree of emphasis.

Both styles had their advantages and disadvantages, but the way samurai armour is currently simulated in the game is quite a bit off. It could be bulky, but not nearly as bulky as it's portrayed in the game, and it was designed to allow a lot of flexibility and freedom of movement.

Another consideration is the respective size of horses, and the way mounted combat tended to be handled. Horses tended to be smaller in the East than in the West, being bred from rugged Mongolian ponies in the East, and bred for toughness, compared to the horses in the West, which were bred for size. That means that armour in the East were more likely to be lighter, designed for mounted use with bows and light lances, compared to heavy Western armours, that would actually lend their weight to the impact of a heavy lance-charge. Both used swords in mounted combat, and both developed weapons to combat mounted enemies, including the aforementioned 'Nagamaki'.

Keep in mind that what the game represents as samurai armour, and the katana, were both developed relatively late in Japan's military history, after the Mongols had already made their abortive invasion attempt, while European types of armour, as represented in the game, are considerably less specifically defined. Armour in an "Early Era" of Japan, would certainly not have involved the No-Dashi/katana, or the O-yori "great armour" of the Samurai. Both items, realistically, would have been confined to the Late Age, only.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

You want samurai armour to have a 20-40% chance of magically deflecting huge boulders, nether darts, seeking arrows, misc AN projectiles etc. Why not just ask for it to have higher prot againt missiles? That would make far more sense and is just as unlikely to get in the game.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

European swords weren't as sharp as katanas, but I'm not sure what you mean by "relative sharpness". Even western blades could cut through flesh and bone with relative ease, severe hands and achieve similar feats of "shrapness". Even so, you could grab a western sword by the blade without hurting yourself. (The videos probably have nothing to do with each other, so it's not the same sword.)

I've read a good article about the difference between a sharp edge and a beveled edge and how both will cut and why a beveled edge keeps it's cutting ability even when it hits metal, but unfortunately I can't find it right now.
I did find an old ARMA essay on a theoretical fight between a knight and a samurai:
http://www.thearma.org/essays/knightvs.htm

According to that, European armor succeeded in nullifying the cutting ability of swords. A sword, even a katana, can't cut through plate. Japanese armors were never as good, so katana could be used to cut through a samurai's armor and cripple him just like you said.

I agree with this. From the above article:
"Generally speaking, European plate armor was designed primarily as a defense against sword points and other bladed weapons, whereas, Japanese armor was primarily designed more as a defense against arrows and spears. Significantly, it frequently had open feet and hands and a design that permitted archery. The knight's encased armor by contrast was idealized more for mounted charge with lance and or for dismounted close-combat. Japanese heavy armor contemporary with the period of the High Middle Ages knight was not considerably lighter than European plate."

The first bolded part implies that some kind of air shield or arrow parry ability wouldn't be out of the line.
The second bolded part implies that heavy samurai armor should have (at most!) as high encumberance as other heavy armors.

Besides, if the EA Oni already had samurai armor, surely it would be further improved. Since Jomon is getting an overhaul any way, it would be nice to have the armors finetuned. The encumberance could be lowered by 1 for all ages, or perhaps LA Jomon could get new type of armor with similar protection but lower encumberance and defense penalty.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

Hinnom, Ashdod, Niefel, et al are indeed very powerful, and most nations could never beat them 1-on-1. Or even 2-on-1.

But therein lies the balance. "Superpower" themed nations MUST be dogpiled early & often. Non-superpowers must immediately ally & embargo against them, and kill anyone who won't. In that sense, the nations are quite balanced; it's player passivity & stupidity that creates the imbalance.

I suspect it's a rather brilliant effort to abolish the "NAP-3 with everything in sight, turtle until turn 90, then wish/SC my way to victory" approach that's so popular, and soooooo boring these days. Kudos KO. :)

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

And of course if the nations had existed in real life, sans megalomaniacal pretenders, the human nations would have had plenty of incentive to gang up on the insane cannibalistic giants.

-Max

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

You guys are still missing the point. To suggest that the fix for a nation is to "gang up on them because they are too powerful" is already acknowledging their imbalance. If a nation can destroy you one on one then you're not going to be having a whole lot of fun being that one they attacked. So what if he's not going to win the game? You won't either.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

Oh, are we talking about the game? I thought we were having fun speculating about alternate histories where Dom3 was real. As far as the game goes, I wouldn't mind seeing other nations buffed a bit. I have a slowly-ongoing project to improve all nations to the point where I wouldn't mind playing them by e.g. changing built-in weapons and removing cap-only restrictions on mages. Currently it seems like many nations are optimized for small maps or are otherwise unfun for my playstyle.

-Max

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

Balanced opponents.

Sure they're imbalanced. Sure you're dead if they attack and you can't get any help. But who says it won't be a whole lot of fun? ;)

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

I don't think this game is intended to be totally balanced.. I think KO even said so. While personally think all nations should be somewhat balanced (more so than they are now) I think the idea cleveland has is right.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

Dominions isn't designed for one-on-one battles. Thus, nation balance isn't that necessary as it is in those dueling games such as Starcraft. Successful diplomacy can and will cripple even the mightiest nations in this game.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

I always thought Ashdod was more powerful than HInnom, even before the Hinnom nerf. But the complaints were more focused on H at the time. Ashdod will probably receive some kind of nerf, but I haven't given it too much thoughts lately. Suggestions are welcome. Many H-nerf suggestions were much in line with what I was thinking, and some gave me new input and new ideas.

So don't be afraid to suggest possible changes.

I will try to think a bit about SP people as well, since they have expressed concerns that their most interesting adversaries being nerfed. Hmm, perhaps a start army bonus on diff-lvl would help, since start army is one thing that was nerfed with Hinnom, andf it is an easy way of giving a powerful nation a slower start. I hope it would not be too hard for JK to add.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

I have to say, claiming they're balanced because everyone can gang up on them pisses me off a bit. You're greatly limiting the variety in the game if every single time ______ is forced to fight an alliance of people, the first person ______ attacks gets crushed without being able to do **** about it (but that's ok because his allies will avenge him) etc

You're limiting the strategic options there and toning the variety in the game down, not increasing it.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

Was there actually any consensus that the giant nations are challenging to SP players? I play SP and I've never seen Hinnom (pre nerf) or Ashdod have any more success than the average AI nation. In fact they have done worse in basically every single game.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

That would be awesome! Especially because then you could also crank up the indy difficulty level, slowing down the human player's expansion without much hurting the AI.

-Max

P.S. Nerf Ashdod all you want, except *please* don't make Zamzummites cap-only. It radically changes the feel of a nation when its best recruitable-anywhere mages suddenly become cap-only.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

Its challenging too since new players don't always realize what a threat a particular nation is, not to mention, having to organize an alliance against Ashdod every game becomes painful after a while. Games with Ashdod tend to feel like team games (when you can even rally the support) since you need to organize, coordinate, etc.

And while I am not a StarCraft player, I always thought that the balanced but unique nations is what made it such a success. I certainly don't think Dominions needs to be so finely tuned, but Ashdod at the moment feels extreme - like Shaquille O'Neal playing hoops on a European kindergarten court :)

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

I'd have to second Sombre. Ashdod shouldn't win by default when one of their neighbors decides to act in their short term self interest rather than making sacrifices for the good of all the other nations.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

Either weaken Niefel/Hinnom/Ashdod's early game /significantly/ (probably using Yomi has a measurement) or weaken their late game. As it stands, they have the best early game with troops that pretty much just don't die if you use them right to the best late game with recruit able SC chassis'. The pop kill doesn't even compare to the fact that Ashdod has one of the best battle mage chassis in the form of Zaz's. And does Hinnom really need healers???

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

I still think one good, thematic nerf to Ashdod would be to change their PD from Gileadites, Edomites, and Gileadite Archers (over PD 20) to Human Slaves and Edomites (maybe keep the Gileadite Archers over PD 20? Or just put back the regular Gileadites). Rephaites are rare, right? In Hinnom times they didn't even have any females and were reliant on Qedesot to make more Rephaites.

That's not the only thing you'd probably do to them--gcost raises to mages in order to further hurt their research wouldn't necessarily hurt the flavor, and you could even eliminate the cap-only gem income entirely (which would hurt the early Constr-4 forging, as well as being a totally unique penalty). In fact raising gcosts might even intensify the theme of the nation (quality over quantity, now with less quantity). Or, what if Rephaites had some kind of unique vulnerability deriving from their demonic heritage, like an across-the-board cold vulnerability? I don't know if that one makes sense given the mythology though.

Unlike Hinnom, though, Ashdod's non-sacred troops don't need any nerfing at all because the best of them are already sub-par (about as good as Iron Crows IMHO). Not bad, and certainly usable, but nothing like Dawn Guards.

-Max

Edit: One more possibility. Cannibalistic giants and their descendants are inbred and tend towards megalomania--what if all Rephaites had Insanity (5)? Man, that would be a huge pain.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

I think Dom3 players are generally not in favour of nerfs based on increasing micromanagement.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

Sombre, 20/40% might have been a little on the extreme side, but maybe 10/20?. It's just guesswork, afterall, and it's not even my idea, originally, but I like it. And yes, with a chance to deflect everything. It's a fantasy game that doesn't attempt to model everything perfectly, and 10/20 wouldn't be an enormous advantage, considering the severe drawbacks samurai armour already has.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

Indeed, you are correct Sombre.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

Endoperez: You're talking about a modern repro blade that has been sharpened. Most likely, it's made from a modern type of steel that didn't exist in the middle ages.

It comes from, and exists, in an entirely different world from Medieval Europe, so while it does answer the question of what's possible, it doesn't bear that much on what actually happened.

The best quality blades coming out of Europe at the time most likely came from Toledo, which was for a long time a Moorish colony.

Certainly, good-quality blades existed in medieval Europe, but they weren't, generally, consistent in their quality until the Moors started showing up. Aside from that, a sharp piece of metal can cleave through a deer carcass-and a sharp wedge of copper could probably have done the same exact thing, and certainly an Aztec obsidian sword could have-but that's a much different thing from slicing through a moving, fighting human being, with just clothing on, let alone armour, and doing it again, and again, and again.

The Vikings probably had better than average steel, because they were exposed to so many cultures, and had slaves (with their skills) from all over, not to mention owning Jarnberaland, which I understand has lots of high quality iron deposits, thus the name.

Other good steel probably came out of Byzantium, as well as the satellites of the old Western empire, such as Venice, but, aside from the questionable ability of Europe to mass-produce blades that would take an edge, outside of Toledo, there were broad differences in how those blades were utilized.

Like you touched upon, having a sharp blade does little, if it won't penetrate your opponent's armour. Points of swords were made to do that, and the medieval knight was trained to use their points to pierce armour. Sharp or not, and not was more likely even for the high end blades, a sword in Europe was basically just a big iron club with a dagger on the end of it. It was designed to hold a straight, piercing point, and not to break. The blade was a secondary consideration. Some perfectly good swords were never even sharpened. Weapons and armour evolved side by side, in Europe, as mirrors of each other, until the invention of gunpowder.

I think the main thematic difference between a medieval knight and a feudal samurai was that a samurai was trained to kill instantly, and if necessary to die at a moment's notice, while a knight was trained to beat the enemy by whatever means and level of force necessary, and to survive anything that got thrown at him. Their equipment reflects those differences, at it's most basic, even in the quality of their armour, since it wouldn't have been so very difficult for a fully armoured samurai to commit seppuku right there on the battlefield, while a knight-aside from suicide being a mortal sin-might have found it almost as difficult to kill himself, as a peasant with a pitchfork would have found it to kill a knight.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

Do you have any sources? I don't see why cloth alone would make such a huge difference in the cutting power of an edge. Furthermore, the ability to deliver a good hit to a moving target, while difficult, comes from the skill of the fighter and not from quality of the edge.

I agree with many of your points: many European swords probably sucked, the quality varied wildly, and good swords were rare. I was talking about the good swords, because I was thinking of knights and presumed they'd have the best swords they could buy, along with the best armor and horse and whatever else they needed to stay alive.

When you mention unsharpened clubs, you might be thinking of the estoc, which had (at least sometimes? really out of my comfort zone here) octagonal or hexagonal cross-sections that indeed had no blade whatsoever, and were meant to focus enough power to the (possibly unsharpened) point that it could benetrate armor. They were specialized weapons and not just normal, unsharpened swords.


My understanding (mainly from the ARMA site) is that swords weren't used against knights, but against people who couldn't afford to wear good armor in battle or for self-defense outside of battles. There were other weapons more suited for hurting people in armor, like maces and "hammers" and estocs, and halberds against mounted knights, and lots of other weapons I don't know proper names for. Since there were better weapons for harming other knights, I don't see why a knight would take a poor sword into a mace-fight.

I'm running out of time here, but here's a nice article about how swords were used for different purposes. I didn't have time to see if it goes into detail about western swords' qualities versus Japanese swords, but it looks like it might.
http://www.thehaca.com/essays/nobest.htm



For KO:
Ashdod could be made to only have access to expensive castles, and could perhaps have more expensive labs and/or temples.
Also, Ashdod's random-only mages should NOT be recruitable without a lab! They might not be their best battlemages, but it's still not right. A general "you need a lab before you can recruit this unit" ability would probably have uses in modding as well, if Johan decided to add it.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

One way to make the random-only mages require labs would be to give them some fixed paths, but negative magicboost (just like dragons or Chayot) those paths back down. E.g. Rephaite Sages are S1+100%(F2/E2/S2) with #magicboost -1 in astral. I believe that would force them to be recruited in labs. It would also make them more difficult to empower, but nobody cares about that.

An undesirable side effect, though, would be that you could take an E2 Rephaite Sage and give him a booster (Starshine Skullcap) and he would become E2S1.

-Max

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

Cloth might not make an enormous difference, but it does make *a* difference, several infact, depending on the type of cloth, and the weave, and the circumstances around which it is struck. Pretty much anything can make a difference, in the middle of a battle. Armour was often *made* from cloth, typically layers of silk, or quilted linen, which should answer the question right there.

Swords were relatively rare, anyway, as were knights compared to the total population, and knights with swords were happy to have them. Even a very cheap sword was still a lot of metal dedicated to *just* fighting, and the skills to make a really good sword were rare, and sought after. Metal that could be used to grow food and build shelter was instead dedicated to supporting the Noble class, and their wars. All this made swords, of any kind, expensive.

One thing you should understand, Endoperez, is that I've been studying weapons and armour for my entire life. I was taught by my dad who studied and assessed swords professionally, for a living, for years. I was around swords, I read about them since I've been able to read, I've studied fencing and fighting with a wide variety of midieval weapons, both Western and Eastern, I've studied Eastern and Western forging techniques, and I've made a particular study of armour.

I'm not saying that I know everything, there's an enormous amount of material to digest-maybe too much for anyone to understand in a single lifetime-but I am saying that I'm talking from an educated and experienced position, and if there's something I don't know about midieval weapons and armour, I can probably atleast research it, find out about it, and make an educated guess about it.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

I got the feeling you knew what you were speaking about, but it seemed to contradict what I had read before. That's why I dug up sources and didn't just go from memory: I wanted to see if my sources were wrong.

It also seems that we are either thinking of different ages or I'm totally off with my image of a knight: I was thinking of a knight armored head-to-toes in expensive armor fit to his body, riding a specially-bred war-charger. Both the horse and the armor would cost ridiculous amounts of money, so the cost of a good sword shouldn't be an obstacle.

EDIT: I knew about cloth armor, but you mentioned that clothing could make a difference, and that didn't seem right. I can't see a shirt stopping a sword, or even a knife. You probably meant something like heavy cloaks or something along those lines.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

Without having read anything in this thread except for this last reply of Endo, I'd expect that what <s>Max</s> HB had in mind was similar to a Gambeson.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

Clothing hampering blades seems right to me. When it comes to blades, especially impaling weapons (vs. cutting weapons), your skin is the thing protecting you. Once a knife penetrates your skin it can be amazingly deep with only a little extra force. It's very plausible to me that clothing could make a difference.

http://www.classicalfencing.com/articles/bloody.php

"Even today, prosecutors trying homicide cases involving death by stabbing will sometimes attempt to convince juries that a deeply penetrating stab wound serves as an indicator of murderous intent by virtue of the great force required to inflict such wounds. It is generally accepted today among experts of forensic medicine, however, that the force requisite to inflict even a deeply penetrating stab wound is minimal.8 This opinion would seem to be supported by the experience of a stage actor who inadvertently stabbed a colleague to death during a stage performance of Shakespeare's play, Romeo and Juliet. The unlucky young man delivered a thrust at the very moment his vision was inadvertently obscured by a member of the cast. Although he claimed to have felt no resistance, a post mortem examination revealed that he had penetrated the chest of the victim to a depth of eighteen centimeters.9"

"Except for bone or cartilage which has become ossified, it is the skin that offers the greatest resistance to the point of a blade. In fact, once the skin is penetrated, a blade may pass, even through costal cartilage, with disquieting ease.10 Generally, of the factors governing the ease of entry, the two most important are the sharpness of the tip of the blade and the velocity with which it contacts the skin. While the mass of the weapon is a factor in penetration, the velocity of the blade at the moment of contact is of greater importance, since the force at impact is directly proportional to the square of the velocity of the thrust.11"

8 B. Knight, Forensic Pathology (New York: 1991) 146-147.
9 Thimm (Supra n. 6), 463.
10 C. Polson, D. Gee and B. Knight, The Essentials of Forensic Medicine (Oxford: 1985)125.
11 Knight (Supra n. 8), 147.


-Max

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

Interesting. I knew that knives could easily cause really bad wounds without much force, but my (faulty) conclusion was that since skin/body tissue doesn't offer much resistance, extra layers of cloth wouldn't help either. Thanks for the clarification.


P.S. Speaking of Jomon, this means that their armors could be made of cloth that wouldn't be encumbering but would still offer great protection.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

Jomon sucks.

Edit: Makes me want to make a guide for them a la my Patala guide tradition. Need to play a few games with them in MP though. =(

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

I think a new guide on the Jomon would be awesome. Although I hope they really don't suck all that much. They have interesting summons.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

You probably want to wait a bit with a Jomon guide, since they are my ongoing project. I've not been working much on them the last month, but I believe I will have some time before school starts again.

They will get some new summons and some other stuff. They will still be unshielded :)

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

Thinking of cloth armour... IIRC Mongol cavalry tended to wear loose shirts of raw silk. The cloth tended not to be cut by arrows, which a: protected the archer and b: made removing barbed arrowheads an awful lot easier, because the cloth around the arrowhead made pulling it out much safer.


On the swords/armour bit, I'm with Endo on maces/hammers etc. being used a lot. The Royal Armouries in Leeds (UK) have a few experts who do demonstrations of swordfighting, jousting etc., and I chatted a bit while visiting. I think they were talking about late medieval/early renaissance equipment (full harness and so on), and apparently swords would start a battle literally razor sharp but got blunted pretty quickly due to hitting hard objects with a great deal of force. Hitting plate armour with a newly sharpened blade could do pretty horrible things to it, but you weren't going to keep an edge on the blade very long. A can opener on a stick of some sort was much more reliable against armour, and still killed unarmoured men pretty well into the bargain.

Oh yes - since the later armours were quite highly engineered to allow mobility with high levels of protection, just denting armour could have a serious impact on the wearer's mobility.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

The unshielded parts would be ok if each samurai had a high enough morale to not get fazed by the arrows.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

Considering Samurai beliefs about death and honour, another solution might be to give all samurai units an automatic "sermon of courage", so that, as other units died around them, their morale would actually go up.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

I don't understand. How is SoC different from just giving them a high base morale, and why would that make their morale go up? (I suppose it might affect the "average" morale of their squad, but losing units makes your bonus for "intactness" go down.)

Sermon of Courage is simply +2 to Morale, end of story.

-Max

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

Considering samurai beliefs about death and honor, you would probably lose your best commander every time you lost a major battle as he ritually killed himself. I'm not sure that sounds like a good idea to me.... Samurai do have decent morale, but perhaps it should be a bit higher thematically speaking. Their defense should almost be a little higher as well. The samurai do make excellent shock infantry as is, it would just be nice if they worked a little harder at surviving.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

Actually, Japanese fencing was more offense-oriented relative to both European and Chinese ones. So, it looks like their defense is quite OK. Regarding arrows, I think lack of shields is partly compensated by their own bows - which, of course, leaves you with more resource-intensive troops, but you can use them for both missile combat and shock attacks. Historically, Japanese army suffered greatly in missile combat both during Khubilai-khan's invasion and in their own invasion of Korea in 16th century...

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

Thematically (perhaps not accurately)

When I think of samurai - I think light amour, made of laminated wood. High moral. Charges (on foot). Ki screams. Experienced, and fast on initiative.

I think my take on Jomon would be:

1. Make the units take fewer resources. Wood and cloth are a lot easier to shape into armor than steel
2. Perhaps give them a paralyze special attack (Ki yell) - good once per combat.

Finally, it would be cool, if on the death of their leader they routed from combat (or commited sepuku). Aka, they route if the leader they serve on dies or routes.

Finally, since they were a professional combat force, perhaps make it easier for them to gain experience, or some of them with experience. Or, let a Jomon fort GIVE experience to any units garrisoned there.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

Hmmm, I'd say just simulate the particularly intensive martial training, by boosting both Att and Def by +1.

Small resource drop (maybe reduction of 3 or 4?) to all infantry would make it easier to field armies of useful size (and greatly help with initial expansion).

Also, while you may come up with convincing arguments why samurai armors should be AS encumbering as metal plate, I'm hard pressed to understand why they should be moreso.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

Here's some comparisons between Samurai armors and others (prot, def, enc, res):

Samurai Armor: 14; -2; 3; 10
Full Scale Mail: 14; -3; 3; 12

Heavy Samurai Armor: 17; -3; 4; 14
Plate Hauberk: 17; -3; 4; 20

Kabuto (Helmet): 16; 0; 0; 6
Half Helmet: 17; 0; 0; 3

The helmet takes way too many resources, but
the basic Samurai armor is actually resource-cheap, and Samurai Armor allows mapmove 2 (unlike Full Scale).

Just lower Kabuto cost to 3, and Samurai Archers are 23, Samurai without bows 18 and 20 resources, Samurai in heavy armor 23.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

Kabuto are significantly more ornate, which I guess is where the res cost comes from.

They could still be 4 or 5 though, rather than 6.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

I just did a little test on one of my existing mods-under-construction, and I'd like to say that the following changes make for Samurai with very different feel from other heavy infantries:

Kabuto: rcost 3, def 1
Samurai Armor: def 0
Heavy Samurai Armor: def -1

Samurai with naginata (18 res): prot 14 def 12
Samurai with katana (21): prot 14 def 14
In heavy samurai armor (25): prot 16 def 14
Aka-oni (red devil) (21): prot 14 def 16

Opinions on if this would actually help them, or just make them different without really affecting the balance?

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

Wikipedia claims that they were done by riveting lots of small metal plates together. Then during a spesific period of civil war (had to make lots of helmets quickly, I guess) they simplified the design so that they were made from just few plates. At that point, the helmet-makers started adding paper-and-wood ornaments (:eek:) on top of them.
That shouldn't matter though, because samurai in Dominions need a boost, and having to pay for a tower shield (3 res) without getting the benefit doesn't help.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

Edit: removed

Sorry, I forgot to go to the end of the file, bit redundant.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

It would definitely help them. As they are samurai have only mediocre defense and prot, though admittedly higher defense than most heavy infantry. But they have no good way of avoiding damage. At least with 14 defense they're avoiding more hits, which would definitely increase their survivability.

Re: If Giants existed in BC times...
 

How would you explain something not restricting movement much (hence low or no def penalty) but still encumbering considerably?