My thoughts of "realistic" unit abilities.
These are one thing I miss in DeI, realistic abilities that add a level of tactics and/or strategy to the battle. Abilities like rapid advance, frenzied charge, and various formations, like shield wall and the like (also note, I am not referring to the lack of hoplite formation, I like this change as it makes hoplites more true to life and specialized). This contrasts with some of the general abilities that are still around, like second wind and battle rhythm, which frankly strike me as "magical" abilities that make little sense in a realistic setting. IMO, the only general abilities that make sense are rally and inspire but I do understand keeping the others in for gameplay reasons. What I don't get is the lack of realistic unit abilities that add depth to the gameplay without breaking immersion. Of course, the devs probably have a reasoning here, but I figured I'd give my two cents (plus if anyone knows of submods that add these back in, that'd be cool). Here's two ideas in particular:
Rapid Advance.
This is the biggie, all it does is represent your soldiers going into a sprint, nothing crazy. A reasonable increase in movement speed and small bonus to charge bonus should be the only bonuses. This ability is really fun for taking strategic points, rushing units to where they are needed, or chasing down skirmishers. This final point is very pertinent as is recalls the development of the Light Hoplite. These units came about after the weaknesses of slow, heavily armored hoplites against light skirmishers became painfully clear (read: Battle of Sphacteria). Having a nimble, light, and relatively powerful (compared to skirmishers) hoplite that, with the use of rapid advance, can actually catch skirmishers and maybe even some heavy cav, would be a really fun new unit archetype to use.
Of course, vanilla RA was god-awful since the fatigue penalty made it never worth it, so the ability should be re balanced. Trained soldiers should be able to sprint for ten seconds without being exhausted after all. Giving units rapid advance could be taken two ways. Either there could be two abilities, one given to all infantry which has a higher fatigue penalty (not as high as vanilla though), and a second for specialized units like light hoplites, royal peltasts, certain light swordsmen, etc.) that has little or no penalty, though both abilities should have a high cooldown and/or a limited number of uses to prevent spamming. Either that, or only the specialized units would get the ability. I prefer only certain units getting it, but enough should get access to give most or all factions the opportunity to play around with it.
Frenzied Charge
This ability could be given to many light and medium cavalry. It can function in two ways. One, it will give a speed boost to the cav, akin to rapid advance, but the overall ability will be much quicker, only a few seconds. The charge component will give a good boost to charge bonus, at the cost of a decent chunk of melee defense. On top of that, it could have a small AOE minor morale debuff like a mini warcry. The offensive capabilities of this ability would be to make your cav kinda like a glass cannon. Their charge will do more damage, and with the small morale hit on top of the morale malus for being attacked, could be a way to break a stubborn unit or a skirmisher quickly (this is especially true of skirmishers, so often they waver at the stat of a cav charge, then stabilize, and since cav have very little sustainability in a melee grind, you have to pull them out and cycle charge, which is always sloppy due to the engine. Heavy peltasts I get, slingers however, should not be able to hold up against even a light melee charge.) The downside of this ability will be the melee defense debuff, which shouls last even after the positive parts of the ability have worn off. This way if you make a foolish charge, you cav will get slaughtered, and even if you make a good charge in the rear or the like, you will still take extra damage since this ability represents your troopers breaking ranks and haphazardly charging. Certain melee units could get this too.
Extra formations would also be a nice addition. playing as Iceni, I was kind of bored by the infantry, as it did little to differentiate itself aside from the one guerrilla unit. Stuff like shield walls, squares, shiltrons (idk how accurate it is to add them, but they would give some flexibility to barbarian spears.). Right now, Roman troops and the Roman-style troops are the only units that have interesting formations to play around with, which is a shame, since a lot of other factions need some love and Rome already has way more features than any other.
Anyway, let me know what you think, tell me why I'm wrong, or brainstorm other realistic abilities that could work!
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Originally Posted by FlashHeart07
