Heavy Infantry, Light Infantry, and Mundane AP Weapons

[Calanor]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
6) Give additional tactical commands to light units (e.g. "skirmish" - avoid melee);
7) Change the tac AI to allow effective skirmishing;
8) Add additional formations (like "wide" and "loose");
14) Make blows that do not penetrate armor do some minor fatigue damage;
16) Give bonuses/penalties to light/heavy units in various terrains;
17) Add "Critical Strike" which deals 2x or armor-piercing damage for very high attack rolls;
19) Allow LI/LC to attack non-adjacent enemy territories (move across a friendly province and attack);
20) Add strategic "Raid" orders for LI/LC (skirmish and retreat);
21) Add "Move-Pillage" orders for LI/LC (e.g. Mongols, Vikings, German barbarians);
22) Increase armor encumbrance in deserts (dehydration), swamps (footing), and mountains (elevation);

I like all of these suggestions.

9) Give light units free supplies, or making them consume less;
10) Make HI consume more supplies;

Why? What exactly would make a soldier in chain mail or some other heavy armour eat more than a guy with little or no armour? Except for somewhat desperate explanations, such as "they expend more energy" or something. A chain mail does not corrode into a heap of junk in one, two or even ten months, so that would not explain the supply cost - not to mention that even if this was the case, you'd use resources and not supplies to cover the repairs.

15) Add mundane armor piercing weapons (like making pikes AP);

Although I cannot understand your fascination with pikes, I do agree that more mundane armor piercing weapon would be welcome Maces, hammers, mauls and the like could be given such an ability. I am not sure whether or not morningstars are indeed more effective vs opponents using shields - the desc of a magical morningstar (forgot the name) claims that all morningstars are, but you never know.. Anyway, that might be an interesting ability to add to some mundane weapons - though I frankly have no idea why a morningstar, of all weapons, would be a shield-breaker/shield-catcher/whatever. Another ability could be armour breaking weapons, but this might be too complex to include in a patch.

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Calanor:

quote:

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9) Give light units free supplies, or making them consume less;
10) Make HI consume more supplies;

Why? What exactly would make a soldier in chain mail or some other heavy armour eat more than a guy with little or no armour? Except for somewhat desperate explanations, such as "they expend more energy" or something. A chain mail does not corrode into a heap of junk in one, two or even ten months, so that would not explain the supply cost - not to mention that even if this was the case, you'd use resources and not supplies to cover the repairs.

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HI try to avoid travel in their heavy armor. If they always wore it and traveled by foot, yes, they'd need much more food, water, and whatever else soldiers need. Otherwise, they could wear their equipment and use supply-hungry horses for transportation. And over time, the supply line would need to supply heavy troops with more replacement parts than light troops (though this is better abstracted through upkeep than supply, IMO). HI in armor would be unable to scavenge/hunt/live off the land effectively like LI.

But I'm assuming Dominions HI don't wear their gear except in battle, and as such, need other people / carts / horses / wagons to transport their heavy battle gear, while LI are essentially self-sufficient in terms of transportation and gear repair (simple gear, simple repairs, thus no traveling blacksmith support contingent). This support/supply train is much larger per HI unit than LI, and is not modeled at all in Dominions (which assumes the only people eating are the ones that fight). It would be easy to abstract, though, by making supply usage for a given being (like a human) proportional to encumbrance, or perhaps proportional to resource cost... or ideally... proportional to equipment mass, a new and useful equipment statistic.

quote:

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15) Add mundane armor piercing weapons (like making pikes AP);

Although I cannot understand your fascination with pikes,

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Looks like SOMEBODY needs to go back and play Master of Magic. Hello, do you think I just pull this stuff out of my ***?

-Cherry

[LordArioch]

But they need negate first strike too...then pikemen would claim their rightful place!

[PhilD]

Originally posted by DominionsFAN:
The mod tools will solve your problem dude.

I rather hope not. This is a balance issue, so it is in the developers' realm.

The best arguments made in favor of moddability is to add more content. The basic, unchanged game should be (or become) a valid standard for those interested in MP.

[DominionsFan]

Originally posted by PhilD:

quote:

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Originally posted by DominionsFAN:
The mod tools will solve your problem dude.

I rather hope not. This is a balance issue, so it is in the developers' realm.

The best arguments made in favor of moddability is to add more content. The basic, unchanged game should be (or become) a valid standard for those interested in MP.

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Yes yes, you are sorta right.
But as I said take a look at Space Empires IV. the user made mods are lot better than the vanilla game.
oh I don't really care about MP, I dunn have time for TCP games and Pbem sucks.

Trust me if the mod tools will be good enough these things won't be problematic.

[ November 01, 2003, 07:41: Message edited by: DominionsFAN ]

[Saber Cherry]

Mods are irrelevant. First, the thread is about improving Dominions II and addressing gameplay problems. Second, almost none of the suggestions could be added through mods. Third, there needs to be a thread to discuss the suggestions and decide which ones, in what degree, will balance the game. This is true regardless of whether Illwinter or a fan does the actual work.

But I think point number 2, that most of these changes require code-level change rather than data-level change, negates any relevance modding has to this thread.

-Cherry

[DominionsFan]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
Mods are irrelevant. First, the thread is about improving Dominions II and addressing gameplay problems. Second, almost none of the suggestions could be added through mods. Third, there needs to be a thread to discuss the suggestions and decide which ones, in what degree, will balance the game. This is true regardless of whether Illwinter or a fan does the actual work.

But I think point number 2, that most of these changes require code-level change rather than data-level change, negates any relevance modding has to this thread.

-Cherry

Ummmmmm, if you will be able to change the stats & abilities & equipment of the units, you can balance them. IMHO.

[Alneyan]

Originally posted by DominionsFAN:
Ummmmmm, if you will be able to change the stats & abilities & equipment of the units, you can balance them. IMHO.

Not quite. You will only be able to either reduce the price of LI to make it cost-effective, or you could make LI almost HI by increasing its hitpoints, protection and so on. Most of the other suggestions aims at giving LI different abilities than HL, and that needs to change the code I believe.

I second (or I third rather, as Apoger already exprimed his support for this) the suggestion about "strategic moves that end in enemy territory". It would give LI and Light Cavalry abilities other than what can do their heavier counterparts, and make them a worthwhile unit if you are planning to use such strategies. (Or if you are facing an opponent who refuses to engage your heavy-elite-impossible-to-defeat army. )

[Nerfix]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:

19) Allow LI/LC to attack non-adjacent enemy territories (move across a friendly province and attack);
20) Add strategic "Raid" orders for LI/LC (skirmish and retreat);
21) Add "Move-Pillage" orders for LI/LC (e.g. Mongols, Vikings, German barbarians);
22) Increase armor encumbrance in deserts (dehydration), swamps (footing), and mountains (elevation)

-Cherry

I would like to see these. Fixing the ordered retreat-issue (units scatter even when ordered to retreat) could also be good solution, but Raid/Skirmish/whatever would be good also. Move-Pillage would make enemy province pillaging much easier(since you could just move out of the province when you have conquered & pillaged it instead of figthing with the enemy quick response forces).

And didn't LI(Spearmen) have some kind of a tactic(other than poking them with the spears) to slow down/hurt/kill cavalry with their spears? I don't remember the specifics, but i remember that in CoE Cavalry units attacking Spearmen take damage.

[ November 01, 2003, 09:25: Message edited by: Nerfix ]

[DominionsFan]

Originally posted by Alneyan:

quote:

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Originally posted by DominionsFAN:
Ummmmmm, if you will be able to change the stats & abilities & equipment of the units, you can balance them. IMHO.

Not quite. You will only be able to either reduce the price of LI to make it cost-effective, or you could make LI almost HI by increasing its hitpoints, protection and so on. Most of the other suggestions aims at giving LI different abilities than HL, and that needs to change the code I believe.

I second (or I third rather, as Apoger already exprimed his support for this) the suggestion about "strategic moves that end in enemy territory". It would give LI and Light Cavalry abilities other than what can do their heavier counterparts, and make them a worthwhile unit if you are planning to use such strategies. (Or if you are facing an opponent who refuses to engage your heavy-elite-impossible-to-defeat army. )

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Well, don't tell me that we won't be able to add special abilities for the units with the mod tools. IE. wasteland survival, fire resistant etc. etc.

I think that adjusting stats/equipment/abilities will be enough, however these additions, what Saber had mentioned would be very good of course.
BUT don't forget, the devs are already flooded with work, and this is not that important IMHO.