How do tramplers and calvary work in this? Also does combat speed determine who attacks first?

[Big Dog]

I need answers to what determines a first attack. and if you can trample before the other people can attack and the such.

[Drithyl]

If I'm not mistaken, we haven't gotten any formula regarding the first strike, and it mostly seems to be random.

I don't know regarding trampling before other attacks, but in the words of Zonk, another beta tester: "It's complicated" :P

[Althaea]

Combat speed absolutely matters for getting the first strike. The difference is quite noteworthy with e.g. hasted Vanir cavalry. The exact formula isn't known, though.

[wilson.max]

And I believe Zonk was quoting JK (Illwinter's main dev), because JK used those exact same words: "it's complicated."

Tramplers are still good though. One useful tactic is to have regular troops holding a line formation while tramplers swoop in from the sides and crush their way down the whole line. It doesn't matter so much who gets the first strike in if that first strike is directed against someone who isn't the trampler. :-)

Cavalry in Dom5 are pretty good even in melee, and they are absolutely lethal when attacking rear commanders/mages, due to the fact that you can no longer have large bodyguard squads. It's possible that I've lost more battles in SP due to flanking attacks with cavalry (e.g. Machakan Black Hunters) than anything else. Cavalry definitely have a niche.

[Big Dog]

Isn't a line of fast tramplers OP now cause line doesn't slow movement speed?

Attack rear and just run through everyone. Elephant expand buff?

[Mormacil]

Originally posted by 3 Theories:

Isn't a line of fast tramplers OP now cause line doesn't slow movement speed?

Attack rear and just run through everyone. Elephant expand buff?

Not all commanders have access to line formation though.

[DasaKamov]

Originally posted by 3 Theories:

Isn't a line of fast tramplers OP now

Nope -- for one thing, Trample does less damage now than it did in Dominions 4.

Secondly, any unit set to "Attack Rear" has a chance to ignore those orders and attack another target (simulating the very real confusion of battle that occured and still occurs in real-life battles).

Thirdly, Fatigue is still an issue (although less so than in Dom 4, IIRC). After a few rounds of trampling through troops, those big monsters are going to get Fatigued and take critical hits more often.

[Muddy33]

Whats this about smaller bodyguard groups? I love the guard commander order as a method of microing field timings. E.I, if I want a group of infantry to begin advancing in turn 4 of the battle instead of 2, or as a way of ordering infantry to blob up in circles instead of fighting in lines when fighting skelespams or hordes of cheap chaff. Ends up being my go-to command for really intricate field scriptings with disturbing freqency these days. It allows you to tie the behavior of a group of troops into the much more customizable commander scripts. Kinda worried now about that being nerfed all to hell.

[Cruxador]

Microing field timings doesn't really seem necessary anymore anyway, with the switch to real time.

[DasaKamov]

Originally posted by MuddyBonkers:

Whats this about smaller bodyguard groups? I

Commanders can now only have a maximum of 10 troops assigned to them as bodyguards (although some artifacts, like the Amulet of Warning, allow the player to increase this number).

Personaly, I'm fine with the change; it nudges the player toward assigining loyal, veteran troops to the commander's personal retinue, rather than having a hundred fodder-level nobodies bumbling around the battlefield in the commander's general vicinity, getting in eveyone's way while saying "Erm, are we supposed to be doing something? Let's just follow the commander and see what he does."

[Althaea]

10 bodyguards is with the Ring of Warning (or other such effects). Otherwise the limit is 5.

[DasaKamov]

Oops, thanks for the correction.

[wilson.max]

Originally posted by MuddyBonkers:

Whats this about smaller bodyguard groups? I love the guard commander order as a method of microing field timings. E.I, if I want a group of infantry to begin advancing in turn 4 of the battle instead of 2, or as a way of ordering infantry to blob up in circles instead of fighting in lines when fighting skelespams or hordes of cheap chaff. Ends up being my go-to command for really intricate field scriptings with disturbing freqency these days. It allows you to tie the behavior of a group of troops into the much more customizable commander scripts. Kinda worried now about that being nerfed all to hell.

It's definitely a change! I used to do that too.

There are a couple other Guard Commander-related changes: bodyguards don't get a morale penalty (or bonus) from their commander's low leadership (or high leadership), which is good for mages but bad for generals; and bodyguards don't count against the number of squads you can lead.

Overall, Dom5 definitely has more of a "close with the enemy and destroy him" vibe--hanging back out of spell range longer than two turns isn't really an option except for archers and commanders. (It *is* doable though with a small army if you break them up into bodyguards on many mages; as I mentioned, Shinuyama can sort of get away with this if you want to, especially if the mages being guarded are spamming evocations the whole time. But you can't hang 80 troops on Guard Commander on a single mage any more.)