[.86] [Feedback] Trained armies *still* feel like Glass Cannons.
Elemental Forums
Now that the game is starting to emphasize training armies again, as I use them I find that the "glass cannon effect" is still pronounced. If I recall, this was a big issue in WoM.
Now, it's not *as* bad as WoM. There are more mitigating factors in play. The Ai can now occasionally one up you on initiative, and destroy the combat effectiveness of one of your stacks. It is generally more intelligent than before, though there's a ways to go. In most combats, however, I'm finding that I dont actually want my armies to get into combat, saving them for either overwhelming first strikes, or coups de grace.
I definitely think there should be units fulfilling a high attack/low defense "striker" role. And there is inherent tactical strategy involved in that, keeping your armies back out of harms way until the last possible second while anticipating the AI advancement. But right now it's generally not something the AI can hope to cope with, it is pretty effortlessly outmaneuvered. Moreover, it doesn't feel right, conceptually. It would be different if most units had to go toe to toe for a while, rather than first strike wins.
Army stacks rack up ridiculous attack values with greater numbers, and even armored units are either wiped out with one good hit, or their combat effectiveness gutted because attack value decreases so profoundly with lost members. The system somewhat counter-intuitively favors strong solo units with high defense for actual tanking, because their attack value does not diminish, over a literal *army* of guys with shields. It makes me question why you'd increase the cost of your units by adding defense at all. (Conversely "Call to Arms" spell makes me wonder why you wouldn't max out every possible aspect of your units, or bother building military production improvements, but that is another thread).
Now, I cant remember off the top of my head how other tactical games with more conventional stack systems approach this, and I'm not willing to reinstall AOW, Kings Bounty, HOMM, etc to check. If I recall there may have been degradation in combat ability with lost numbers. But in those games you were generally dealing with much higher stack sizes, in the dozens and hundreds, as opposed to the 3, 4, 5 progressions, so the degradation was much more gradual.
An army is not necessarily the sum of its parts. Having a hundred thousand men does not allow you to strike with the force of a nuclear weapon. A hundred guys with clubs can't do anything against a single tank. But what they are is much more survivable, and able to win most conflicts of attrition against roughly equivalent but smaller forces.
I think stack size should contribute primarily to survivability in terms of hit points, and the number of hits it takes to remove the squad from the battle. Offensive Potency should come primarily from superior tech/training/experience. I think there's room to model that kind of degradation of effectiveness, but not in such a pronounced fashion. Attack rating shouldn't stack one on top of the other, but rather something more like a +1 for each additional squad member, not +10+20+30, until even low tech units are one-shotting entire planets. Otherwise it de-emphasizes the importance of the stack's basic equipment/tech level.
Alternatively, you may also want to institute a more conventional, open stack system, where each visible figure represents 10 troops, so losing individual troops results in more granular changes. Honestly, you may want to do this in any event. Creating an army at a set size, and never being able to add more troops to it, or merge it with other units is counter-intuitive, and defies thirty years of strategy game convention, without a compelling reason for doing so. But again, that is another thread.
Just my opinion, and if anyone actually read this, I appreciate you taking the time to do so.
Just cast it on the last turn. Gilden's leader starts with it too.