Terrain type training

[fodder]

your unit had that stat. everyone died apart from 1 man and you recruit another 49 new men.

so... why would those 49 men know anything about terrain training, aside from what they inherently know to start with? ie.. why would adding a bunch of city boys to that dead meat woodsman unit make them woodsman?

thus for it to make sense, every rc will have to have its own set of stats for each respectively terrain. thus it's essentially splitting training into a bundle of terrain flavoured training... mixing units averaging out the stats in the usual way.

[Fairfax]

I like this idea as well, I'm not certain it is worth the effort, but I think it could be quite interesting and add a lot to the game. Terrain training could also affect travel times in those regions (not sure whether this is a good idea, but tossing it out there), and equipment damage when stationed in the area they are specialized in.

I think the gain from this implementation, is that it gives TLs something to do in peace, and also could possibly create less blob-like war strategies. Troop leaders would have less of a desire to run their troops into a territory that they are disadvantaged in, which would hopefully lend itself to more strategic gameplay and the possibility for more politics at the lower levels.

[Perth]

Seems like it may be better to just to give units an inherent terrain bonus based on the region they come out of.

The recruitment center from that Stronghold? +25% Siege bonus
The recruitment center from the woodland region? +15% in woodlands

etc.

[Perth]

Also, this could be one of those things that helps smaller armies be able to pull off the upset against the larger army.

That smaller, extremely specialized army that is good in mountain warfare could maybe hold out against that larger army that is all used to fighting out in open fields, etc.

[Zakilevo]

I'm still not too sure what all this gains us, except making unit stats even more complicated.

I know it looks too small but once a lot of units come together, it will actually come to effect quite nicely. Also, do people even train their units anymore? This may encourage people to actually use the option more often. Even during war times.

[Indirik]

Yes, if your unit gets wiped, recruiting fresh troops would dilute the bonus. So what? Cohesion drop when you new men, and no one complains about it being useless. And so does training if you add poor trained men to your veteran unit.

I view this as a bonus for keeping your unit around for a long time, just like having a highly trained captain. It also adds a bit of strategy and depth to troops and recruiting centers.

To keep from diluting the bonus too much, troops could get a small bonus according the region type from which they come.

[Indirik]

@zakilevo: does anybody *not* train their unit? I do it all the time. I recruit high EQ, low training unjts, then train them up over time. A good way to spread out the cost of that high training value.

[Foundation]

I don't train my units, like, at all.  I buy high EQ and high training only, hire lots of healers, and wait for their training to go up from battles. ;)

[Duvaille]

How about this:

- Terrain specialization is something you either have or do not have
- You can only have one type of terrain specialization for your unit at a time
- initial terrain bonus is based on the region type of the RC
- when training, in addition to the regular training options, you may also choose to train for terrain type specialization
- the chances for attaining it are based on your unit training value and your leadership skill

[Fairfax]

I don't see what basing it off the RC's location does, besides make it really annoying to mix up your recruiting, and making some RCs even more vitally important. I agree that you should only be able to specialize in one thing, but I don't think that is the right way to limit it. Maybe it should be possible to change specializations, but that would require first untraining your men (reminding them what they have forgotten) and then retraining them for another terrain.

[Zakilevo]

Like Tom said, if we base terrain bonuses based on where RCs are located, people won't mix units anymore. Maybe where you train your men should decide which bonus you get?

[Tom]

I think the gain from this implementation, is that it gives TLs something to do in peace, and also could possibly create less blob-like war strategies. Troop leaders would have less of a desire to run their troops into a territory that they are disadvantaged in,

Unlikely. They don't flinch right now, even though there are unit slants, etc. already that might disadvantage them.

I know it looks too small but once a lot of units come together, it will actually come to effect quite nicely.

Much more likely is that it'll average out.


I still fail to see what this whole excercise will gain us. In numbers, it's ridiculous - with equipment, morale, cohesion and training you have four values there, so splitting up training affects 1/4th of the CS, and adding a terrain bonus 1/5th. That means in the best case, you need a 40% terrain effect difference for a 10% CS difference. So in most of the cases, it wouldn't even matter.

[Zakilevo]

I still fail to see what this whole excercise will gain us. In numbers, it's ridiculous - with equipment, morale, cohesion and training you have four values there, so splitting up training affects 1/4th of the CS, and adding a terrain bonus 1/5th. That means in the best case, you need a 40% terrain effect difference for a 10% CS difference. So in most of the cases, it wouldn't even matter.

That is why I wanted to make it more like efficiency. Make the total efficiency (at 50% efficiency, your CS in a particular region type will be reduced to 50%) to be 300%. When you first recruit new units, your units will have 100% efficiency for three categories (rural+badland, siege, mountain+woodland). But once you start training your men for higher rural+badland efficiency, the other two categories will go down and will become something like:

rural: 150%
siege: 75%
mountain: 75%

What this will do is when you have an army coming for your city trained for 'siege' type, you can smash them by actually leaving your fortification and fighting them outside of your city in a region where your army can gain higher efficiency.

Edit: Now that I think about it agian, I think it is better to let different unit types start off at different efficiency with different cap for different types.

For example,

Infantry - 75% for all types. Max at 150% (Total eff. 225%, if rural is at 150%, other two types will be at 37.5%)
Cav - 125% for rural, 75% for woodland, 50% for siege. rural caps at 175~200%, woodland caps out at 150%, siege caps out at 100%.
Arc - 100% for rural, 75% for wood, 100% for siege. rural caps at 175%, woodland caps 150%, siege caps at 175%
MI - 85% for all types. Max at 175%
SF - 100% for all types. Max at 200%

[Tom]

Again, do take into consideration averaging effects across armies. You will never actually have a 50% army facing off against a 300% army. The most that will realistically happen is maybe 75% vs. 150%.

[Anaris]

I still fail to see what this whole excercise will gain us. In numbers, it's ridiculous - with equipment, morale, cohesion and training you have four values there, so splitting up training affects 1/4th of the CS, and adding a terrain bonus 1/5th. That means in the best case, you need a 40% terrain effect difference for a 10% CS difference. So in most of the cases, it wouldn't even matter.

We desperately need more force multipliers in the game, and something along this line actually makes a great deal of sense for the milieu. Certainly a lot moreso than something like dance-fighting.

Frankly, while it's somewhat less realistic, I think it might even be worthwhile considering giving bonuses that go much higher, much more easily. Perhaps something along the lines of: Your bonus in a given terrain is not continuous, but discrete. You can have +50%, +100%, +200%, +300%, etc, on up in increments of 100%. However, you have to train through the intervals as if they were continuous. So you can have a training in a terrain of +75%, but you'll only get the +50% bonus.

Since I know it's an aspect you would worry about that could be a dealbreaker, I think I could come up with some clear ways of displaying this to the players. ;D Something along the lines of:

Mountain bonus: +50%
[++++----] to 100%

(But with an actual progress bar there.)