First off, I think the terrain modifiers should be increased.  I personally don't believe heavy cavalry should be able to kill a unit like archers on a large mountain with the effectiveness that they currently have, let alone spearmen.  Instead of penalties and bonuses of 30%, maybe changing to 50% or more on the more extreme terrain (large mountain, heavy forest, buildings) and leaving the 30% for the minor versions (small mountain, light forest, large hills).  As for cavalry on plains, I actually think they are fairly balanced at current numbers.

Not that I don't like heavy cavalry, it is just a shame that most players build nothing but T2 cavalry and archers.  It would be nice to see a little more diversity, such as elves actually needing to invest into some infantry, or dwarves needing some spears to supplement their swords.

As for spearmen, I think the base training time on them needs some adjustment.  When deciding whether to train spears or archers, the archers usually win because of the superior defense rating and that they train at the same speed.  I know that a town can support more T2 spears than T2 archers based on gold per hour upkeep, but they can't produce an equivalent number in the same amount of time.  I think a base training time of 7.2ph on the T2 spears, and 9ph on the T1 spears along with spears getting better terrain bonuses vs cavalry and such would actually make it a worthwhile decision.

There is a fair bit of situational readiness needed in Illy combat, but all to often the player with umpteen million T2 cav wins the day regardless of strategy.

I mean, not one I've tried, but it's a strategy.

That would be like changing the rules in the middle of a football game.  Leave it as is, if you change it you will just get the people who liked it how it was complaining about why it was changed.

And as for changing things, that is something that constantly happens in Illy.  The game isn't the same since I joined, and I doubt it will be the same once the new magic update is implemented.  

Would be harder to break siege camps with cav.  On the other hand, it would be harder to use cav to clear the city of troops, either to prevent sally forth or in preparation for storm to raze or capture.

Obviously it could change the outcome assuming the participants already had armies that favoured one or another type of troops, but given that people would account for this in planning their armies, I'm interested in hearing more about how this would specifically favor prosecuting sieges as opposed to defending against them.  Keep in mind that I have limited experience with prosecuting sieges of active players or actively defending against siege, so I imagine there are many factors of which I am not aware.

It seems like this change would possibly change the relative weight of the importance of defending troops in a city vs. defending through attacking a siege camp.  Right now it seems like by the time a city is stormed it is all but lost, and I guess questions raised by this thread include 1) what would it take to make this not be so? and 2) would that outcome be desirable in terms of game balance and overall fun factor?

I think it would only be harder to break siege camps with cav on certain terrain, as it honestly should be.  You would see swords and possibly archers being used more as attacking armies under the right circumstances as well.  I have no problem with cavalry getting a much higher defensive bonus on plains as well.  After all, they should rule on plains and rightly so.

I also think Rill is in the right on this second point.  As it stands, the best option to defend against a siege is to attack the siege camp and NOT reinforce the town.  With a much better bonus behind the walls like Anjire made mention, it would change the strategy of sieges but they would make much more sense.  I also do not believe 8k cavalry should be able to clear a town behind a lvl 20 wall of 20k archers like they can currently.  

And I agree that the current game mechanic makes cavalry the all around best unit on any terrain when attacking.  But thats already set, if you add something to the game it should be along the lines of new terrain or perhaps units can build moats/spikes in the ground to boost defense against cav.  But not something as simple as just changing the numbers so that cav are less effective.  That would be unfair to the people who already built huge cav armies.  

What is odd to me however (from an RP standpoint - which in truth is one reason most pick the character they do) is that none of the races excel on a given terrain, but in fact excel at what would be, technically, the opposite terrain.. lol.

Ok.. here is my LONG standing rant.........

Examples:

Dwarven Stalwarts (best infantry in the game) excel in the forests and not in the mountains or hills. (offensive)

Elven Longbowmen (best bowmen in the game) excel in the mountains, not the forest (defensive).

Don't get me wrong here either, in a practical sense, both should be good in either terrain, but since they born to and live in a particular natural environment, they would be 'better' due this fact, especially defending it. Even the game 'births', you so to speak, on certain tiles based on your race. But I mean heck, you wouldn't dare want to use a Stalwart in the mountains defending unless it was all you got left.. 

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I also agree that it is silly to have Cav as powerful as it is on EVERY terrain. Cav being as good as they currently are on mountain terrain is to my mind, silly. There should be some more logical bonuses and negatives regarding terrain. 

I think they aught to introduce RACE Bonuses and more specifically toward the natural terrain. This could possibly help with some of the discontent and give a more natural balance.. somewhat :)

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But again, It is my LONG STANDING rant in the game.. you can go back to ignoring me again :)

Agreed, also T2 orcish spearmen cost more in T2 equips than T2 elfish archers. So the choice betwen an Elf and an Orc is quicly done. 

I saw speamen (mostly for Orcs) as weak but largely outnumbering soliers. Keeping their higher weapons costs (in the case of Orcs) but decreasing their production times would have more sense, and would create more balance Cav/spears, and give more disadvantage to CAv on forests or Mountains. 

So +1

Side effect would be to motivate people to build more infantry to counter siege and such and to be more territorial as Inf is slower than cav, which would be a bit less used. Archers would be less produced as they fear more Inf than Cav on mountains. All Balanced http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E2%84%A2" rel="nofollow - ™  

As for changing things on the fly, get used to it because things change in Illy all the time.  Magic is going to force people to completely change some of their established cities and no one will complain.

Leaving a siege in place and just reducing a town to 0 is an option, but what if a raze or capture attempt took all reinforcing troops along with it just like Sally Forth does?  That to me would make perfect sense, and would be another good reason to have infantry as a viable troop type outside of dwarves.

Non-sense. Infantry wont be more produced to attack cities, mostly with your "all attack in final assault" idea, as cities are made on plain: almost the only terrain to get 7 food tiles. (having 7 food mountains... is that an other idea for more balance?)

Cities could be buildings... that would give infantry some good use and would limit cavalry use for direct attacks greatly. Actually I imagine city as a group of buildings not plains that buildings are built on...

You can have the standard wall, and then you can build a T2 wall that is strong against a certain type of unit.  This would support anjire's idea indirectly of just having a better wall.  But then you still have the unit triangle of what wall you should build.  Most likely everyone will build cav walls making infantry more effective.  

Not exactly.  You need to apply the strength to cost (most people use upkeep) ratio in order to truly judge a unit.  Cavalry has the best attack to cost ratio of any unit by far.  Even in unfavorable terrain, they are still superior (with the exception of buildings).  Bows have the best defense to cost ratio, except for vs cavalry.  The problem being is that the cavalry power ratio is so much that you can still attack any terrain (except buildings) and have the advantage.  Attacking a town with a lvl 20 wall on plains with just 7k T2 cavalry will completely wipe 20k T2 archers.  This should not be allowed to happen no matter what.  That is a major disparity of power vs upkeep, with the 7k T2 cav costing 28kgph and the 20k T2 archers costing 60kgph.

My entire point is that there is absolutely no call to build swords if you are not a dwarf, and that while spears are still useful, their training time vs power ratio is not equivalent to bows so spears are not a viable choice as well.  Yes spears are useful vs cavalry, but why train them when you can get more bang in the same amount of time with archers.  We don't need massive changes, just tweeks to terrain and training times.

Many dwarven players build swords, but they are at a disadvantage compared to cavalry in almost all respects.  I have participated in tournament and have seen all troop types and battle reports in this war.  I have used cavalry to their advantage and use troops in the best way the game allows.  All I am saying, and it seems that most but you agree, that there are some slight imbalances with some of the units with certain terrain types and with cities in particular.  When the best city defense strategy is to keep your troops out of the town and simply attack the siege camp when it comes there is something wrong with the mechanics.  There should actually be a reason to use different troop types more often, and city walls should actually mean something.  There should be a real reason for allies to reinforce the town itself.

Um you care to elaborate?  At the current moment 'zone of control' is just that you didn't explain at all if it would do anything to benefit either side in any way.  Other than just saying these troops control that zone, woopdie do. 

Also the multi-wall thing would also allow the T1 siege engines to be more effective in combat.  Which atm they normally tear down the wall of a city with no troops in it to begin with and then just sit there.  

Terrain modifier adjustment seems pretty reasonable.  Yes, on plains cavalry should be 2-3 times more effective than other troop types.  However, given that their base attack is 60-65 and infantry cav defense is only 17-20, odds are that a cavalry attack on infantry entrenched in a forest is still going to inflict 2:1 losses and that is preposterous. 

Ideally, each troop type should be specialized for terrain.  Let cavalry be absolutely dominating on plains and small hills for example, but conversely almost useless in mountains, forests and buildings.  Let Infantry be the master of large hills and forests but helpless in open ground or mountains.  Let archers rule the mountains and buildings, but weak in plains and forests.  Let spearmen be the default, reasonably good everywhere but always weaker than a specialist troop on its preferred ground.  Every unit type should be significantly stronger than the others in choice terrain and significantly weaker in unfavorable terrain.  As it stands now the terrain modifiers are worth taking into account (you might need to send an extra 15-25% troops) but some units are so strong as to be the default choice and some so weak as to be pointless.

Cavalry has always been the primary culprit here.  Yes, cavalry has always been the king of the battlefield -- field being the operative word.  On uneven ground they never have been terribly effective.  The Saxons on Senlac Hill at Hastings turned back countless Norman cavalry charges, and we all know how archers at Agincourt obliterated the French cavalry who charged them across a sea of mud.  The whole point of the pike squares ubiquitous in 17th century warfare was their immunity to cavalry charge.  You don't see much cavalry action in the mountains, and I have never heard of a cavalry army successfully storming a walled city either... horses are lousy climbers.

Cities should also be their own terrain, preferably something like buildings.  Do the defenders all just line up on main street and wait for cavalry to ride them down after opening the gates for them?  A cavalry attack on a walled plains city defended by T2 spearmen is still going to give a better than 1:1 kill ratio and that is totally absurd.  Even the Huns and Mongols had to dismount to fight inside a city.  Historically the only effective way to capture a city was to force a surrender through starvation or to break down the walls with siege engines and then storm with infantry in a house-to-house bloodbath.  In Illyriad it basically boils down to whoever has the most cavalry wins.

 If you are human there is almost no reason to build anything but cavalry: you get a 10% bonus to cav's already bloated attack numbers and you produce them more cheaply than any other race.  Even dwarves, with the worst cavalry and best infantry in the game, are better off building cavalry as often as not.  Unless an opponent is considerate enough to build his siege camp in a forest and protect it with pikemen, I'm better off siccing the mules on them.  For defense almost everyone is better off building archers because they have good all around scores and you can attack with them as well, particularly if you are an elf.  Spearmen are cheaper, but they are lousy on the attack and only good against cavalry, which is so overpowered that it will still wipe out your spear army easily.

As I see it, the heart of the problem is that military effectiveness of many troop types is grossly unrealistic, as is having a walled city carry no special terrain modifier.

I don't think you need to weaken cavalry themselves, just change the terrain modifiers.  I am even in favor for upping the plains defense modifier for cavalry on plains.  They should be the best offensively AND defensively on the plains (and better on small hills).  

The actual troop numbers are fine, there just needs to be more of an incentive via terrain modifiers to make other troops useful.  Make cities always be classified as buildings, not just during the capture/raze attempt.  Increase the terrain modifiers from 30 to 50% in the extreme cases (both on offense and defense).  Increase the wall bonus from 115% to 215% or higher.  Increase the T1 and T2 spearmen training speed to match their upkeep.

Elmindra wrote: I don't think you need to weaken cavalry themselves, just change the terrain modifiers.  I am even in favor for upping the plains defense modifier for cavalry on plains.  They should be the best offensively AND defensively on the plains (and better on small hills).

reducing their terrain adv for plains IS weakening cav, upping the terrain def of all other troop types is weakening cav.
How will making the same troop type best for def and attack on certain terrains going to increase strategy?  It will purely mean everyone producing the same troops to fight over particular squares and would prove extremely boring game play.

Elmindra wrote: The actual troop numbers are fine, there just needs to be more of an incentive via terrain modifiers to make other troops useful.  Make cities always be classified as buildings, not just during the capture/raze attempt.  Increase the terrain modifiers from 30 to 50% in the extreme cases (both on offense and defense).  Increase the wall bonus from 115% to 215% or higher.  Increase the T1 and T2 spearmen training speed to match their upkeep.

Your idea regarding altering spear recruitment speed is fine, I do not see why a standard wall bonus should be increased, but I do like the previous idea of adding to the wall in another way.  Although I would rather see optional upgrades rather than another tier.

Changing the terrain of all cities to buildings or some unique 'city' terrain will only remove all reason for building on any squares other than the food boosting ones and therefore limit the game even further, you started to post claiming you wanted to add strategy to this game, yet all your ideas will reduce game strategy.

I am not against ideas for making seiges slightly more defensible, even though they are much easier to defend now than before, but I do stand against ideas that merely make this game more and more mechanical.

Take for example Mal Motsha (sorry Dominion). An immediate "tweek" that favors increasing effectiveness of spearmen would be huge for the spearmen heavy Black Skull Horde. If they also tweak it so that cavalry aren't as effective at attacking cities, then that could reduce the effectiveness of the cavalry of The Colony. Now the BSH has a huge advantage over it's neighbor, the Colony, and is more likely to win any battles between the two of them. What sucks is it isn't The Colonies fault. They were just on the bad end of the nerf hammer. 

The devs attempted to balance out some of the stats by implementing crafting. The idea was that it would take everyone a long time to build enough gear for anyone to have an advantage. Not to mention the research times associated with the crafting. This all was a way to keep anyone from feeling the pains of a nerf hammer, even tho some races/units got a larger statistical advantage (Silversteel Sword vs Silversteel Spear). 

I do agree that there is room for improvement. I think everyone here agrees there is room for improvement. 

I created a seperate thread to discuss an idea I had for improvement. I do not want to derail this thread, but if anyone is interested in a different suggestion please check out  http://forum.illyriad.co.uk/strategic-divisions_topic4713.html " rel="nofollow - http://forum.illyriad.co.uk/strategic-divisions_topic4713.html 

Also here is a seperate post detailing some ideas for balancing siege mechanics. 

You also get a 12:9 gph death ratio when attacking archers on a large mountain with cavalry, but it barely gets better at 11.4:9 gph death ratio when attacking archers on a large mountain with archers.  When the cavalry can get there twice as fast, once again there is rarely a point to attack it with archers.  Those are the two most extreme cases, in small forests and mountains the favor swings even more in favor of cavalry.  So we can see that cavalry are the absolute best attacking force on plains, small hills, large hills, small forests, small mountains, large forests.  How is that not imbalanced?  Shouldn't swordsmen be best at more than just attacking buildings?  Shouldn't archers be best at attacking more than just large mountains?

(That's IF your alt will get up off her butt to make an army, which CERTAIN PEOPLE won't.)

A: Do you routinely keep a large force of overall less-effective troops on hand just in case an enemy places a siege camp in a location where it will be marginally more efficient to attack with these instead of cavalry?  The fact that these units are cheaper and faster to produce doesn't count for much if you don't have them waiting when the siege camp arrives, because you still can't produce enough of them in time to turn the tide.

B:  Having everyone produce multiple troop types and studying the map looking for the best place to set a siege camp in order to nullify an opponent's likely counterattack based on the troops you have available and what you know of their army would actually require a good bit of strategy.  Piling a mass of archers and pikemen an any adjacent square that isn't plains and waiting to see how much cav they hit you with?  Not so much.  Right now basic siege strategy is to arrange a precisely timed arrival of as many defensive troops as you can muster on a square minutes before the siege camp arrives so the enemy doesn't have time to coordinate a counter-operation to kill the first arrivals and control the site before the catapults arrive.  You pretty much know that the counterattack is going to be cav based because this is what most people build in mass and because when the victim calls for help cavalry is going to get there first.  Everyone is already producing the same troops, and that makes this more a game of massing the greatest number of those troops and finessing your sovereignty to rebuild them faster than the other guy.

C: The only optional upgrade that would make much sense would be to make the wall more powerful against attack.  You can have options to make walls more effective against one troop type or another, but since 80% of attacks are going to be cavalry the choice would be rather self-evident.

D:  I don't see how making all cities an Urban terrain type will " remove all reason for building on any squares other than the food boosting ones".  If you look around, the vast majority of effective players have all their cities on a 7-food plains tile.  The cities they don't have on 7-food plains are on those 7-food large forest tiles you have in the jungle.  Or, if they are new enough, they may have done the Exodus/Tenaril's trick and managed to manufacture a 7-food mountain somewhere.