in which occasion will you raise taxes

[Chris Byler]

Originally posted by st.patrik:

quote:

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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.

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But they are too expensive to be used as dragon fodder (no cannons in Dom II ).

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.