My current game is my first non-skirmish in MONTHS. So of course in skirmish gamse I use few, large stacks. I'll have to adapt to a game with max-damage.

well, i dont think there is much difference between normal & skirmish games. the principle is the same.

if in normal games, everyone uses mostly 1000-damage sized armies (or larger), then it shows an imbalance.

I am assuming that most everyone, like me, uses as large stacks as I can get away with, usually at least up to 1000 dmg. One simple reason: The maps are *really* crowded. There are no real plains, no real open terrain (except around castles, which doesn't really count as 'open'). There is only a maze of obstacles. Obviously, this makes the most effective strategy to have a few heavy melee units and back them up with lots of missile.

I would really like to see a good field battle.
Ah, to actually be able to flank someone!

Arnof the (Nostalgically) Vile

I have found that defensively I can agree with you "Arnof" concerning the maze map;
but offensively I moved about 9 units into a north-west passage of the maze map in about 3 or 4 turns and gave my opponent a few turns to prepare for my attack because he had just defeated an opponent a few turns before our NAP was due to end.

The result was that upon scouting his defensive progress, he had successfully neutralized my planned location of attack so that I would only have succeeded to suffer severe losses and accomplished nothing.
So in order to salvage something of my effort I sealed as far as I could reach into the north-west corner of his territory with walls and spent the next several turns relocating my units back to a west to east location where there at least exists a possibility to penetrate some units south and behind my opponents nearest castle in hopes of destroying some of his infrastructure.

In order to save time I even risked moving some of the faster units directly across in range under fire from his ballista armies from the NW corner to the SW corner and even attempted a west to east assault on the way but taking heavy losses.
The final result was that my attack was not quite comparable to "Dunkirk"
because I succeeded to seal his NW corner with walls and I suceeded to make my east border with him impenetrable without siege units while he has several units now under fire from my ballista units;
and I also did manage to get my largest scout army almost clear to the rear of his nearest castle but not without heavy losses also.
I think he used much of his resources building defences that will probably keep him from getting siege offence very soon also.

Anyway the large army on offence in the maze map IMO is really only good if you make an early surprise attack with little or no warning because once defences are in place you will need the siege units and in order to get siege units you cannot spend large amounts of your gold and wood building vast scout and ballista armies (i.e. you can allow them to accumulate but you can't buy them if you want the siege units available).

PS:
In any event I think there has been acknowledgement here that there may be a "balance problem" associated with use of large or small armies;
and So IMO the discussion remains open.

TR

Well to put it easy, if you use small/med size stacks and attack a big one, let's say that your able to inflict 1000 of damage, but the retail attack is 3000. Poof! there goes that stack, now your next stack might inflict damage without retail, but next time you strike, same story.

I think more and more the game is moving towards big stacks unregardless of max_damage limitations.

This suggestion I belive is nice, but I will not punish beyond 40% a stack.

I would suggest the following:
[1,5)......+30%MP (so Scouts will get 12 * 1.3 = 15)
[5,15).....+20%MP
[15,30)....+10%MP
[30,50)....0%MP
[50,75)....-10%MP
[75,105)...-20%MP
[105,140)..-30%MP
[140,...)..-40%MP(so scouts will get 12 * .6 = 7, Mace = 6)

This will add a reason why to go for smaller stack besides lacking resources or for ZOC blocking.

And I do not think is complicated.

"Guer"
I like the bonuses for the small armies and I understand your motivation for the heavy penalty on the larger armies with folks of the opinion that there is not enough of a difference;
but honestly even I wouldn't want to slow the game and larger armies that much.

Also I think the army size increments can be reduced so that:

(5-15)......+30%MP
(15-45).....+20%MP
(45-75).....+10%MP
(75-150)......0%MP

Armies (150 and over) would still have full movement capability but possibly would always take at least 1 to 3 MP's to get started moving (i.e. e.g.):

(150 to 200)....<1MP>(2MP>>toMax)
(200 to 300)....<2MP>(3MP>>toMax)
(300 to ...)....<3MP>(4MP>>toMax)

legend:
<> = stationary
>> = proceed

TR

Yes TR, the numbers might not be final but the idea is.

The bigger the troop the bigger the effort to have it move.

how about something simple...

each time you move your army, it takes an extra X movement points as a "mobilisation" cost.

eg...
0-25, no cost.
26-50, -1 MP
51-100, -2 MP
101-200, -3 MP
200-400, -4 MP
401+ -5 MP

This means, if 103 scouts have 12 movement, and i want to move it will take away 3 MP before i even move. This occurs every time i try to move this army.

So if I move 1 space, then move 2 spaces, the TOTAL MP cost would be 1+2+3+3 = 9 MP.

So it would have been better to move the 3 spaces all at once... 3+3 = 6 MP.

But the mobilisation of 103 troops means each new command takes 3 MP away.

Well that would sure discourage us from making "evasive moves" but the "no-cost" I think should be extended to a stack of 50.

TR

First I am not for penalizing units movement anyways. It is hard enough to get my troops where I want them. If you implement this, then you also need to implement a better path selector. One that will choose the path that will allow the unit to get there. I have several times ran into the problem of the game moving my unit to an area that I didn't want it to go. Then having to take extra MP and BP to get where I wanted.

The initialization cost should only be for the first move, if at all. Before I move my troops I know the path I want them to take but the game doesn't let them take it unless I break it into smaller movements

yeah, please don't impliment this, I don't want to have to move 10 different stacks of scouts and then spend two or three turns squishing them together just because I found that that would save me time in the long run at x distance from my goal... thats a bit too complicated. plus, it'll be just one more reason to avoid basic troops.
And I'd have to build way too many training guilds for extra stacks... its just too much hassle.

I do not get your message ^ector.

The concept behind this sugestion: is the bigger the stack the harder it is to get it "organized" to innitiate movement, therefore the little penalty.

Now this is not a detriment for anyone to have big stacks, just need to organize the movement and support...kind of like ballis ... they always lagging behind.

Well again I really would have preferred that "MP penalties" only be an amount of "delayed movement" (i.e. it would take as much as 3 MP's to get ready to move a large army with no movement until once movement is allowed the unit could still move the maximum of 12 spaces if it has the MP's).

In other words I am aware that folks don't want to slow the game and the action so even though it may not be realistic, I am in favor of not actually losing the MP's from the maximum distance the unit could move;
but however, the "delay penalty" could occur each time the MP's go to 0.

I think "Req's" idea would be fine if we view it as applying to all troops and then either:
a) add about 5 MP's to the maximum movement of all units
or
b) increase game speeds so that turns occur sooner

PS:
I would prefer "b" but then we might go back to the problem for those who can't get online as often as others.
In any event I am understanding of any change that is decided is best because my experience has shown that although many individuals choose the "mounted hordes" as their strategy with stacks in excess of 300 scouts;
IMO that strategy is having a dominating effect on game play.

Early castle take overs occur too easily and frequently resulting in huge advantages to players with two castles over players who may not have been able even to engage in war because of proximity to a qualified oppponent (i.e. an opponent not already at war).
My personal experience is that the large stack strategy has caused me to change my agressive but defensive strategy to compensate because it seems I am constantly being an early target and often double-teamed.

The result is that I am not getting tech that I always did get first and players who gain a second castle before turn 30 are then able to open wide gaps especially in tech research.
All of that would be fine except that there were certain disadvatages to the "huge mounted hordes" like:

a) they had to go around walls usually
b) they were big targets and vulnerable to ranged attack
and
c) they were slow to get started moving for various reasons

TR

Sorry TR I didn't get that from your original post, the isea of a unit having to have so much MP before it can move based off of it's size is totally acceptable to me.

here is the problem I see with this idea of mobility, in req's incarnation. if you do put a 5 mp penalty on a really big unit, you can move (lets say its a scout with the most possible mp ever, 13) at the maximum, 8 hex. lets say your smart and have little scouts ahead, so you NEVER have to move except for that one 8 hex move (not gonna happen all the time btw). Ok, so people are going to want to move there large stacks, so they will always want to wait until the stacks are full of mp... problem is, they might not be able to log in that much. with a built in % penalty, I think mobility would be less annoying than this penalty for each individual move.

more reasons... well, you can always have a bunch of small troops and then squish them together, but you can never split an army in two... not good if we are gonna penalize large armies.

look, I can't think of anything myself... but I've not seen any ideas here so far that would improve gameplay. This system is built for large stacks, something else has to be changed to make them less useful. Else, we are just going to be making games go a lot slower. The point would be to open up new strategies with more, smaller stacks as equally useful to that of few, large stacks, right? this won't do that. This will just slow down the combat for everyone... because everyone will still use large stacks.

think about it: this will actually PUSH people to HAVE to use master troops more... to avoid as much mobility penalty as possible and still have large stacks. I'd choose 2 stacks of 49 HC for my entire offencive power, and only get 1 mp penalty, yet how would this be considered a small stack? how can you say this is equivilient to 49 spears as far as attack power? besides in skirmishes, I don't believe I've often seen larger stacks of HC than that.

Last Edited : Thursday, 14 October 2004 - 13:49

TR isn't saying penalize a units movement, just have a minmum requirement before that unit can move at all.

That unit would still get its full mobility but the larger the unit the longer it has to wait to move.

I was responding to req's above idea. TR's I could accept and use... it doesn't seem to do much at all against movement. like I said however, none of the ideas really contribute to or help the game by making many small stacks as useful as a few large ones.

our current system would need huge changes (of which I currently have no ideas for) to accomplish this goal, because right now larger stacks are better, and nothing so far in this thread does anything to change that.

TR's idea delays movement, but does not slow it... Req's idea slows it considerably, but like I said, that would just push people to use master troops and never basic... and take a small penalty which would just slow down game play. No one would change their strategies over this change.

EDIT:
note that with req's formula, we couldn't ever get balista's into towers if they were larger than 401 (I think) because that would incure the 5 mp per move penalty, and even if you had your full 8 mp, standing right next to the tower you could never get a 401+ stack in, since it takes 4 mp to get into a tower... 4 + 5 = 9.... balista's don't save up that many mp.

Last Edited : Thursday, 14 October 2004 - 14:23

@^ector: Well nobody said the numbers were final, nor correct, they were a sugestion for the sake of the example.

If sucha a system were to be implemented with the correct numbers (I will refer from posting example sugestions to not confuse the concept with implementation), I truly do not see why all people will still use large stacks. Why do I say this? ... you are explaining it in your text, mobility, speed, easier to get from A to B.

If this were to be placed (and balanced and stuff). I need to think what I want to achieve, and maybe I need med/small stacks for flanking or fast penetration, and maybe med/big stacks for punch, who knows.

If I only have big stacks comming at me, I could make small ones, rush past you, get to your castle, join my stacks into med/big ones, and whack the hell out whatever is b beign produced, while my second wave catches up to your returning big stacks and engages them slowing them with the help of the ZOC ... it's just a story, but well that is one of ideas.

I do agree with you that if such system is implemented there also must be a better way to split stacks, that it is balanced and fair to the game play.

I don't see how this will affect speed of the game, the turns still go at the same rate, strategy has a new twist, you go big, your take 1, 2 or maybe even 3 turns more to get where you want, plan for it. If you go small, you get there fast, but with less punch ...

even if you could convince me that mobility penalties helped game play by increasing small stack strategies (which I don't agree with) you cannot deny that the use of these penalties will make basic, advanced, and expert troops even less useful when compared to master. I thought we were trying to get away from that.

now, if splitting troops is alowed, then you could split your big stack in your story, double back and sandwich those pesky small stack flankers with your new medium stacks from the big ones, and whatever stacks you out put from your castle... so that would be a bad strategy for the small stack guy... he just wouldnt do it unless he had an alley, or knew that he was unseen... those two things being things that good players usually don't let slip by them, good players will still use large stacks most of the time for exp defence. you won't want your 50 scout stacks to go against a 100 stack pike, even if it is a tad slower, would you? you know why... larger stacks kill small ones fast, gaining more exp for less. I think that we'd still see 5 pop scouts though, they would be used as they are now. slower... I predict the games would just be slower.

oh, and if this were implimented, I think people might start lining there flanks with 5 pop spears, as flank ZoC stoppers... that way, there lines couldnt be penatrated, and this "rush to the enemies castle" around the large stacks would be quickly halted. the game would still be decided on whoever had the largest stacks at the time, and manuvered them right. it would just end up taking longer to do it.