in which occasion will you raise taxes

[Saber Cherry]

Originally by PvK:
I'd rather see more variety by allowing maintenance and purchase cost to be independent.

I've wanted this for a while. In fact, I wanted it in AOW / AOW2 / AOW2SM but it never got put in...

-Cherry

P.S.

This should be first and foremost an issue of game balance and whats the best game mechanic though, not one of what's more realistic, how much food does a guy with plate mail need compared to a naked farmer...

Naw, realism is most important, not gameplay! =) But you forget, I think, that naked farmes can burn quite a lot of calories...

[ October 29, 2003, 21:34: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

[licker]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:

quote:

---

Originally by PvK:
I'd rather see more variety by allowing maintenance and purchase cost to be independent.

I've wanted this for a while. In fact, I wanted it in AOW / AOW2 / AOW2SM but it never got put in...

-Cherry

P.S.

This should be first and foremost an issue of game balance and whats the best game mechanic though, not one of what's more realistic, how much food does a guy with plate mail need compared to a naked farmer...

Naw, realism is most important, not gameplay! =) But you forget, I think, that naked farmes can burn quite a lot of calories...

---

Bah you were one of the anti-surrender people weren't you? Come on admit it! I know you were

You probably joined that rediculose anti teleporter society too

Death to Realism!!!!

[Taqwus]

Non-uniform training time might well have a big impact, and seems reasonable -- untrained, generally lightly-equipped irregulars could be recruited and mobilized much faster than those who need to be trained to fight in armor and in close formation, and it'll take even longer if horsemanship or archery plays a part. Even if you have plentiful material resources, training will still take time unless your society's so militarized that your recruiting pool is already trained as a part of their upbringing.
And yeah, demobilizing makes sense. They may be irregular conscripts rather than professional soldiers, and once the threat's over they'd rather go home. Conversely, if there's a nearby threat loyal citizens might even volunteer to protect their homes (e.g. higher chance of militia event).
Combining the above with high maintenance cost for maintaining a standing army would increase the incentive to keep a smaller army followed by rapid raising of militia.

Edited: Incoherent and dropping words today.

[ October 29, 2003, 21:54: Message edited by: Taqwus ]

[PhilD]

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).

One simple way to address this would be to have a battle deployment area that was broader than deep, but with the flank areas marked so that only light/fast troops could be deployed there.

Another would be to allow lighter troops to deploy one man per "square" rather than 3, so that they would be an effective missile screen. Combine this with a slight increase in the accuracy and damage of missiles, and you'd have very good reason to screen with light troops.

These sound like good ideas; I'd widen the area where only light troops were allowed (frontmost area as well as the flanks). But, what's going to be missing from the role of light troops is the disorganizing factor of light troop missile fire - with no formations to maintain, this will be hard to take into account...

But, the real problem is the supplies. The "supplies" abstraction in Dom is only about food, but I think it should reflect more than that; it should be near impossible to raise and maintain a standing army of only heavy troops. These heavy troops should be a backbone that your army is build around - better morale and durability, but too expensive to have them make up more than a quarter of your army. I like the idea of some number of "light" troops in each Province not requiring supplies.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
As for LI being historically useful, that's correct. But my impression is that is less due to their mobility, and more because they were so darn cheap compared to HI. Untrained, give'em a spear and point'em at the battle milita should never cost 70% of a well trained broadsword-shield-platemail HI unit in any respect (supply needs, wages, maintenance, initial deployment cost). For similar reasons, despite having more training and being better armed than militia, an LI shouldn't cost the same amount as an HI.

I entirely disagree. Light Troops were tactically very usefull, for example in rough terrain, against elephants, or for the mobility and speed. Light Cavalry in particular were always usefull unless the terrain was just too rough for horses.

Costs were obviously an issue as well, but I don't think they were the defining issue. It certainly wasn't true that light troops were only used because one couldn't instead field more heavy troops.

[Saber Cherry]

I don't mean to imply that cost was the only advantage, as there were many examples of light, mobile units slaughtering sluggish armored ones (the Crusades come to mind). But I think it was a huge factor, and that if the cost had been equal (like in Doms II), heavy units would have made up the bulk of historic armies, rather than light units.

There's also a possibility of assigning heavy units penalties in certain terrain types (swamp, mountain, forest).

[ October 29, 2003, 22:38: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

[Jasper]

Originally posted by st.patrik, talking about uses for light troops:
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. [/QB]

Hypaspists were the elite heavy infantry in Alexander the Great's army. They were perhaps lighter armored and more flexible than the Hoplites, but they definitely were not light infantry.

In Dom 2 this is also the case -- they make very good heavy infantry. Their stats now seem clearly superior to hoplites.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by PhilD:
These sound like good ideas; I'd widen the area where only light troops were allowed (frontmost area as well as the flanks). But, what's going to be missing from the role of light troops is the disorganizing factor of light troop missile fire - with no formations to maintain, this will be hard to take into account...

IMHO Morale loss from damage due to missile fire is a reasonable aproximation of disorder from missile fire.

But, the real problem is the supplies. The "supplies" abstraction in Dom is only about food, but I think it should reflect more than that; it should be near impossible to raise and maintain a standing army of only heavy troops. These heavy troops should be a backbone that your army is build around - better morale and durability, but too expensive to have them make up more than a quarter of your army. I like the idea of some number of "light" troops in each Province not requiring supplies.

I disagree. In particular Roman and Greek armies were composed mostly of well armed Heavy Infantry. Focusing solely on the cost equation is IMHO not the answer, as it will invariably lead to the most cost efficient unit being best.

Also, you wouldn't mind the supply cost of light troops if they were actually effective in battle.

[licker]

"Also, you wouldn't mind the supply cost of light troops if they were actually effective in battle. "

True, that is why I suggest lowering their supply (and proably upkeep) to make them more viable than they are. All the historical evidence is fine and dandy, but it has jack all to do with Dominions and the underlying game mechanics.

What it boils down to (aside from the AIs inability to select the most effective troops) is that there is virtually no use for LI in the game. That's probably like 15-20% of the units in the game that simply will never be built becasue there is always a better alternative. Now of course there can be instances where you need a quick dose of LI, but for the most part their cost/benefit is out of whack with the higher cost units. This situation only gets worse the longer the game progresses as nations gain better economies and begin to fill their key provinces with important armies. There simply is not room for the LI since they have no combat advantage over HI once you saturate your provinces with units (i.e. the supply limit is hit).

So lower the supply usage for LI, lower their upkeep, and bang, now they can be competative again. People will still gravitate toward the better units, but there will be a bigger place for LI in the game.

An alternative is to make HI take up more command points from commanders as well, or make LI count as 1/2 or something. That doesn't get around supply and upkeep issues, but it does make swarming more viable, especially with low command rated commanders.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
I don't mean to imply that cost was the only advantage, as there were many examples of light, mobile units slaughtering sluggish armored ones (the Crusades come to mind). But I think it was a huge factor, and that if the cost had been equal (like in Doms II), heavy units would have made up the bulk of historic armies, rather than light units.

I don't see that being so clear cut. For an easy example, take the Mongols. Probably the best pre-gunpowder army, and mostly comprised of Light Cavalry.

Even the Romans, quite fond of heavy infantry, still kept some lighter troops around for tactical flexibility -- even though they could have fielded armies of purely of heavy infantry.

What it really came down to is that a certain amount of light troops will increased the effectiveness of heavy troops.