Ranting about Armor (and Protection in general)

[Red_Rob]

Something that has bugged me for a while is the dominance of heavy armor in Dominions. When looking at troops, summons, thugs and even Pretenders having heavy armor is a strict plus. In many cases it makes the difference between crap you would never recruit/summon and the gold-standard for a nation. This seems a shame given the focus on modelling ancient mythology, where fighting bare-chested or even entirely naked was often lionised and assumed to curry the favour of the Gods. Traditional Fantasy also includes a wide variety of stereotypical worn armor, ranging from loin-cloth clad barbarians and robed wizards, to lightly armored rogues right up to Paladins clad in impenetrable plate. So why in Dominions do you almost always want to go for heavy armor?

Firstly, there is the role that armor plays in the combat mechanics. Damage in Dominions is a straight calculation of Strength + Weapon Damage - Protection with the result deducted from your hp, with a DRN on both sides to add some variety. This is a perfectly serviceable mechanic, but it does place a lot of emphaisis on that Protection value. Having a flat deduction from every damaging hit you take is incredibly powerful, and can lead to a massive increase in survivability. If you take a standard human with a Broad Sword, you are looking at 16 damage per hit before DRN. An unarmored 10hp human hit by this has around an 11% chance to survive through the vagaries of the DRN roll. Now, add a low level armor like Full Leather (9 Prot) and suddenly the chance to survive a hit goes to around 75%. You do suffer a -1 defence penalty for around an ~8% greater chance to be hit, but even factoring this in your survival chance has jumped massively. Increase this to a med-heavy armor like a Chain Hauberk (15 Prot) and you have a 95% chance to survive the hit, and almost a 40% chance to suffer no damage at all. Given this astronomical increase in survivability, it's no surprise that whether a troop has armor vastly changes how it performs in combat.

But what about lightly armoured units that can dodge and avoid attacks entirely? The evade/dodge specialist is a common "build" in fantasy RPG games after all. Dominions does have the Defense stat which in theory should enable this type of unit. The issue here is that even amongst elite troops Defence never provides the kind of returns you see with Protection. Defence varies relatively little between troops, with even elite troops highlighted as using their quickness in battle (like Pythium's Battle Vestals) having Defence 13 compared to an average value of 10. This provides a whopping 20-25% reduction in the chance of being hit. When facing an opponent like the standard sword-wielder above who kills 90% of the time when it hits, this kind of reduction just doesn't cut the mustard. And that's without looking at more skilled attackers or weapons with attack bonuses. It's for this reason that, with the exception of certain superhuman units, relying on Defence rarely provides survivability anything like that granted by even a modest suit of armor.

This is all well and good for rank and file troops, but Dominions is teeming with supernatural beings and warriors that can surely circumvent this using magical skills and items? Well, here we run into the fact that almost every defensive ability and spell in the game goes with armor like the proverbial chocolate and peanut butter. You'd think beings made of stone or iron (or enchanted to have skin of such material) wouldn't need to bother wearing armor, but due to the armor stacking rule it actually pushes their protection into the stratosphere. Ditto for magical invulnerability, a Vampire or Demon with supernatural protection against harm gains a massive benefit if they are also wearing a suit of plate armor on top. Looking at effects like ethereality - it negates hits 75% of the time, but that other 25% hit your normal protection so you better suit up if you want to be an effective ghost! Mistform reduces damage to 1, but is broken depending on the damage you would have suffered - so making yourself into a living mist lasts for longer if you had plate armor on beforehand. Almost every ability in the game works like this, stacking with armor to provide a layered protection that becomes more than the sum of its parts. Even abilities like Berserk provide a fixed protection bonus that works best when combined with additional sources of protection. I guess those naked viking berserkers were just idiots for not wearing chainmail.

Now, I'm not advocating for a complete rework of the combat system or how spells work. Well, maybe for Dom6.... But it would be nice to see some tweaks to make relying on speed and agility a little more viable for troops, and less reliance on heavy armor when magic is involved. I think it would be more interesting if some protective spell effects worked independently of armor worn, such as if Invulnerability replaced your final Protection instead of just natural Protection. The fact Marverni barechested warriors covered in mystic protective tattoos would be objectively better if they put on some armor makes me sad. Ethereal and Mistform to me shouldn't really interact with armor at all, perhaps using a mechanic entirely independent of protection for avoiding damage/ the spell ending rather than the current ones. And it would be nice if defence values weren't quite so restricted, perhaps allowing higher base values for human level elites and having correspondingly larger penalties for heavy armor. This would make unarmored units less of a joke compared to troops in heavy armor, and make the unarmored barbarian/skilled evader more of a useful option.

[sunbeam]

If anyone remember Alpha Centauri, you could "prototype" units by designing them. Not that you had that many options, but theoretically your scouts could be different from anyone else's.

What I'm curious about, is if you could design units from the ground up, i.e. give them what stats and armor, at whatever cost the autocalc assigned...

What the armies you see in the field would look like. Would people want super cheap, heavily armored units with big shields? Selling out defense to pay for higher attack?

Would anyone use bows? Or would you see nothing but crossbows?

[Zonk]

ALSO, and this is one of my pet peeves, shield protection really should suffer from piercing's -20% protection vs ranged attacks. It's more about melee-ranged consistency than balance.
Notably, shield protection is also subtracted from damage instead of adding to protection in the logs, and that's wrong too.
(I acknowledge no one has complained about shields here - yet, at least)

BTW, how does the idea that protection might be too good fit with the popularity of crossbows? Especially the cheaper indie versions. Isn't facing crossbows a pretty good reason to go for the cheaper & quicker lighter troops?

[Silence]

On my part, I rather like the current prot system. You need armor to be able to survive in battle and units without armor quickly die. The fact that sometimes armor is too high for some units is a good thing, because it forces you to find ways around. And there are several ways around : spells killing without dealing damage, spells or weapons being Armor Piercing or Armor Negating, specialized thugs made to deal with high prot ennemies, ... even the critical hit system is a good thing, and sometimes just having weapons with piercing damage is enough.

However, I have to admit that some nations can struggle against high protection units, just because none their base units get beyond 15 normal damage ... that's why I often try to take some +Str in my bless, to have an easier way around these situations.

On the defence side, when I played against the AI, I often tried high defence builds with very good success. Indeed, if you manage to have 5 more def than your opponent attack skill, only 20% of ennemy attacks land, that's not much ... However, against a human player it's quite different. First, I've seen a number of builds of high damage sacreds having a +4 att bless. I've also recently seen an all normal Chud Skinchifter get up to 20 attack just by being berzerk. And there are also a number of spells that mitigate defence (entanglement spells, earth grip/meld, ...). And that's not counting on thugs that can easily get to more than 20 with the proper items. So having a high defence is good, but not as good as it could be, especially given - apart from cavalry - you get a -2 per additionnal attack (if the harassment penaly was -1 for everybody, it would make it much better overall).

[Zymeth]

"Explain? On gambesons: padded & clothing armor exists in game (although it's rarely used by 'European' nations), and one could assume units with plate armor have gambesons underneath."

Well, I found only cloth armor (6 prot, which is very little) and ashigaru (12 prot, which looks nice to me).
I should've rather said : gambeson is far less common than any other types of armor that are much more resource-demanding or simply worse.

[twan]

Personnally I find current system fine as it contribute to make eras and nations feel different to play.

That said a little more in depth system could certainly be developped for armor piercing to have a bigger range of anti-armor weapons (including more efficient ones), by making it a stat (penetration) instead of a flag. Currently a longbow has the same penetration as a spear (the 20% base protection reduction of piercing weapons) and the heaviest arbalest the same as any crossbow with AP flag, only general damage differenciate them. Turning penetration into a stat would allow to make more specialized weapons without giving insane damage against non-armored troops to the high penetration ones.

Another thing is that protection reduction work for every hit in current system, while real penetration is more a matter of hitting a spot you can pierce or not. It may be changed so each weapon hit gets a % to be armor piercing (eventually increasing the effet of armor piercing a little, say to 65%), allowing to continue to reserve 100% reduction to AN damage while having penetration stat able to be as high as 100% (say with such system an arbalest may get a 95% penetration stat meaning nearly all hits are resolved with enemy protection reduced by 65% making it far more reliable to pierce armor than a light crossbow that would have 70%, but not making it equal to an AP weapon).

[Zonk]

Another thing is that protection reduction work for every hit in current system, while real penetration is more a matter of hitting a spot you can pierce or not. It may be changed so each weapon hit gets a % to be armor piercing (eventually increasing the effet of armor piercing a little, say to 65%),

But we already have both DRN and critical hits. Isn't hitting a weak/unarmored spot represented already by getting a critical hit and/or a high damage roll vs a low prot one? Why add a third random mechanic to pierce armor when we already have these two?

I do agree having different amounts of armor piercing would be good, though. Right now we only have 'piercing' as a damage type (20%) and 'armor piercing' as a tag (50%).
(And of course armor negating, 100%).

[LDiCesare]

The only thing I have a problem with regarding protection is the side effect on mistform. It doesn't really make any sense, but it's not a big issue.
I contend with the assumption of naked heroes in mythology. Many myths are about iron wielders replacing bronze wielders, and dominions succession of ages is all about superior weaponry and lesser magic gradually replacing weaker weaponry and stronger magic. Thus it makes sense that armor would be very good in the game world.
Currently, glamour/mirror image is the only defense mechanism that somewhat resembles evasion/dodge and is unrelated to both defense and protection.
If an evolution was to be made, I'd say that any damage blocked by non-natural armor could be turned, at least partly, into fatigue damage. But then, reduce the fatigue cost of armor, or else who would play MA Ulm? That would make stacking armor on top of natural armor not as useful as you'd get a bunch of fatigue you could have avoided, depending on how you code that.

[HexNibbler]

Just met some Vanhere

Invulnerable 10 (+armor of 13 = 23)
mirror image
recuperation
berserker +5
blood bond
solar weapons

It rolls 20 + RNG against normal damage and once berserker rolls 16+ RNG even against magical weapons.
Then it spread whatever damage is left across the 7 of them present.
Then it regen some.
And of course, that is after you manage to hit them because of the mirror image.

That is an ambidextrous 20+ magical damage per attack, 3 per square and mirror images.
Attack skill of 20 after bersker triggers :o)

Had to shower them with slingers and send boar warriors (damage of 20+ with magic weapon).

When they hit, they kill.
When they get hit, they lose ~4 hp.

I thought It would illustrate what OP is talking about very well.

-------------

There are some counters, but that kind of force can destroy armies with 7-8 units that also have stealth. I don't feel like there's a problem with protection in general but there are exception.

While some units (such as the monolith) makes perfect sense to be able to ignore lots of damage, I think there should be a good chances for a minimum of 1 damage when hit for general cases.

The idea is that many effects are built around the concept of "on damage" that never occurs in those cheesy scenarios. Things like poison could become way more useful.

IMO the point is not to makes protection useless or weak or barely effective, but to avoid scenarios where a few guy with degenerated case of high protection becomes hard counters to 95% of the other units.

[Zonk]

Originally posted by Self-Destruct:

Invulnerable 10 (+armor of 13 = 23)

should be lower than that.
Total protection = natural protection + equipment protection - (product of the two protections/40).
So invulnerability 10 and 13 equipped armor should give you lower than 23 protection vs non-magical attacks.

I think there should be a good chances for a minimum of 1 damage when hit for general cases.

Critical hits and exploding dice, in theory, mean there is always a chance to deal damage. Especially vs fatigued or immobilized units.

The idea is that many effects are built around the concept of "on damage" that never occurs in those cheesy scenario
[...]
IMO the point is not to makes protection useless or weak or barely effective, but to avoid scenarios where a few guy with degenerated case of high protection becomes hard counters to 95% of the other units.

AP and AN attacks still exist, as do attacks and spell that check MR instead.

Also, you're using powerful sacred units with an expensive bless as an example of course they're going to be good at fighting - they SHOULD be, although of course bless balance is always up to discussion.

But this doesn't have much to do with their protection, and the invulnerability bless isn't that good right now, considering how cheap magic weapons are.

Originally posted by LDicesare:

I'd say that any damage blocked by non-natural armor could be turned, at least partly, into fatigue damage. But then, reduce the fatigue cost of armor, or else who would play MA Ulm? That would make stacking armor on top of natural armor not as useful as you'd get a bunch of fatigue you could have avoided, depending on how you code that.

Sounds like an unnecesary complication compared to just tweaking how fatigue & critical hits interact.
Unless you really want the armored units to suffer extra penalties (on top of harassement) every time they are attacked...

[Dast]

I like the current system fine myself. Most computer games (in my opinion) fail to significantly distinguish between infantry of different quality (AOW2). In dominions a relatively small band of warriors kitted out like knights on foot can take on a lot of spear armed tribesmen - which feels thematically right ("setting realistic") to me in a way I hadn't noticed other games weren't.

[jBrereton]

I feel like more heavily armoured soldiers should generally cost more gold. At the moment there is no real disadvantage to having heavy armour once a soldier is out, beyond their map move being a bit lower in some cases, and plenty of the factions with heavily armoured troops also have earth mages to further boost their protection with Legions of Steel, at which point light infantry factions have a pretty torrid time trying to fight them.

Also feel like Bracers should probably be deleted right out of the game for how they stack and are affected by Legions of Steel in a strange way that applies the rules of the system very unintuitively and not very positively for the game overall. The AI can't fight units with close to 40 prot, and against other human players it basically comes down to a small number of counters which magnify the differences between human sized and giant targets, and blessed and unblessed ones too.

[lord_khaine]

That bit is an issue with earth magic though. And not with any amount of armor.
Though yes of course, troops supported by magic is a lot harder to deal with.
They would be that if they had any type of level 3 mage supporting them.

[Alias]

-

Originally posted by Self-Destruct:

Just met some Vanhere

Invulnerable 10 (+armor of 13 = 23)
mirror image
recuperation
berserker +5
blood bond
solar weapons

It rolls 20 + RNG against normal damage and once berserker rolls 16+ RNG even against magical weapons.
Then it spread whatever damage is left across the 7 of them present.
Then it regen some.
And of course, that is after you manage to hit them because of the mirror image.

That is an ambidextrous 20+ magical damage per attack, 3 per square and mirror images.
Attack skill of 20 after bersker triggers :o)

Had to shower them with slingers and send boar warriors (damage of 20+ with magic weapon).

When they hit, they kill.
When they get hit, they lose ~4 hp.

I thought It would illustrate what OP is talking about very well.

1) Bleh. Berserker's +5 doesn't even stack with Stygian. Drop Stygian and Recup and get Barkskin

2) When you lose because you don't have Magic Weapons, you have noone to blame but yourself

3) 10+13 = 20 (not 23)

4) Solar Weapons waste of points

5) There are ways to boost Protection, but there are ways to boost damage too. Strength Blesses are very popular among good players nowadays, seen all the way to +10. Weapons of Sharpness is another thing utilized in advanced games, your fault if you're stuck in the old anti-Construction meta

6) Same thing with the old anti-spear meta that got transplanted into 5 without accounting to changes to protection and repel

[Red_Rob]

Originally posted by Maerlande:

So to back up to Rob's ideas, I believe it sums up to "it would be cool and interesting if lightly armoured troops had more use in the game."

Basically this.

My main point wasn't that armor needs to be nerfed or shouldn't be as effective, it was that the way the combat mechanics work makes it necessary for a unit to have any survivability. This isn't inherently bad, but in a game like Dominions that is supposed to represent a variety of ancient & mythical cultures I feel having armor be a requirement of a useful soldier can be a little restrictive.

It's something I noticed when I was going through the nations, where you would expect to see lightly or unarmored troops there is always heavy armor even when it doesn't really fit. For example, Mictlan gets "copper scale armor" even though as explained here the Aztecs never wore metal armor:

https://www.warriorsandlegends.com/aztec-warriors/aztec-warrior-armour/

Then there is Machaka, which gets Hoplites despite nothing like this level of armor technology existing in ancient Africa. Marverni got tattoos in Dom5 which are a pretty blatant cover for the fact that otherwise going into battle barechested is just a death sentence.

My point about how magic interacts with armor was just highlighting that even when magic comes into play it is always better to be armored than not. You would think that a mage making your warriors skin into rock or turning them into ghosts or mist would eliminate the disadvantage a more lightly armored army faces and maybe be a way for them to compete on an even footing, but the current protection-stacking and Ethereal/Mistform rules don't work that way.

Like I said, I'm not pushing for wide ranging mechanical changes, but I would like Illwinter to acknowledge this a little and maybe add some more ways to increase survivability when you have a low Protection stat. Partly this is for selfish reasons, as I came up against this quite hard when adding nations to Dominions Enhanced based on cultures that historically didn't wear armor due to either technological limitations or climate. But I do think it would help the game and increase variety if elite but lightly armored troops and creatures were more able to compete with heavy armor wearers.

[Zonk]

Originally posted by Red_Rob:

For example, Mictlan gets "copper scale armor" even though as explained here the Aztecs never wore metal armor:

https://www.warriorsandlegends.com/aztec-warriors/aztec-warrior-armour/

A more 'realistic' Mictlan would have cloth armor, though, instead of no armor at all. Note Nazca does (it's prot 6, 8 for the reinforced version). And of course Jaguar & Eagle Warriors have furs.

My point about how magic interacts with armor was just highlighting that even when magic comes into play it is always better to be armored than not.

I think you're dismissing the real costs of armor in resources, mapmove & defence penalties and encumbrance.

Also, if magic can make armor redundant then armor is always going to be a disadvantage when that magic is around, and it becomes harder to justify why some nations actually Ulm bother with putting so much work into it.
Unless you want to make these new ways to increase survivability with low or no armor only accessible to some nations (the way tattoos are, for example).

I do agree the way Mistform works doesn't make a lot of sense, though. Specific interactions between armor & defensive buffs could certainly be altered.

I think this whole discussion completely sidestepping the advantages of troop quantity and the fact that Production scales cost points - and aren't even especially popular.

Unarmored & light troops are easier to mass as long as you can manage your gold & have enough recpoints, and some buffs tactics & strategies work better when you have more units than your foes - notably, battlefield wide effects, trying to tire the enemy out, Will of the Fates...and of course, more bodies for siege.

EDIT: Also, it's not like nations with poor or no armor are underpowered as a rule.