Guardsman Promotion

[Neomega]

I do agree that guardsman is too hard to get as is.

I think moving it to Combat II as the prereq, would be more balanced

this to me seems the simplest and best. Then you can have four or five gaurdsmen on a stack, and defending normally. A well managed stack would have something like 20% super defenders, 20% gaurdsmen, 20% mage/artillery, 20% assassin, 20% attackers.

 

[Emptiness]

That change would do nothing to address the actual problem with Guardsman, which is that if you don't kill all the Guardsman outright (ie none of them survive wounded) then you have to kill every unit in the stack in order to get to the "weak" units.

For example, imagine a stack with a Guardsman unit, 10 units of the same type with the same promotions (except for Guardsman, which they do not have), and an Adept. A unit with Marksman cannot target the Adept because of the unit with Guardsman. If the Marksman attacks and kills the Guardsman then another Marksman can now attack the Adept. However, if the Marksman attacks and the Guardsman wins but is injured then a second Marksman cannot attack the Adept - nor can it attack the injured Guardsman! Once this happens, the other 10 units in the stack must be killed or injured (to a degree that depends on the relative strength of the unit in question as compared to the Adept) before the Adept can be attacked.

Under this particular circumstance, which is fairly common in my experience, the Guardsman promotion is effectively allowing a potentially unlimited number of other units to act as if they also had the Guardsman promotion. It doesn't matter how easy or hard it is to get Guardsman, the problem is the same: Guardsman shouldn't work like that.

 

[Mesix]

In a recent game as the Bannor I had a Champion (with guardsman) and a Longbowman guarding a city. A large stack of enemies came at the city unexpectedly. I watched as the Champion defended the Longbowman (with iron weapons and CD3 mind you so he would have been a better defender) five times losing a bit of health each combat until he was dead. After the Champion was finally dead the Longbowan decided to start defending the city.

 

[Gray-Z]

The guardsman should be able to attach itself to a unit and only defend that unit if it gets attacked. Guard can stand by a mages tent but if there are 20 other mages in the same camp he cant possibly stand guard in all of their tents.

 

[Neomega]

That change would do nothing to address the actual problem with Guardsman, which is that if you don't kill all the Guardsman outright (ie none of them survive wounded) then you have to kill every unit in the stack in order to get to the "weak" units.

For example, imagine a stack with a Guardsman unit, 10 units of the same type with the same promotions (except for Guardsman, which they do not have), and an Adept. A unit with Marksman cannot target the Adept because of the unit with Guardsman. If the Marksman attacks and kills the Guardsman then another Marksman can now attack the Adept. However, if the Marksman attacks and the Guardsman wins but is injured then a second Marksman cannot attack the Adept - nor can it attack the injured Guardsman! Once this happens, the other 10 units in the stack must be killed or injured (to a degree that depends on the relative strength of the unit in question as compared to the Adept) before the Adept can be attacked.

Under this particular circumstance, which is fairly common in my experience, the Guardsman promotion is effectively allowing a potentially unlimited number of other units to act as if they also had the Guardsman promotion. It doesn't matter how easy or hard it is to get Guardsman, the problem is the same: Guardsman shouldn't work like that.

actually, it does. the idea of dropping it down to a 2 star promotion means that the guardsman is more than likely less valuable than your "weak" units, and therefore, more expendable. The way it is now, to even have a unit attain gaurdsman means it is not so expendable by virtue of its experience accretion alone.

And I see nothing wrong with the scenario you played out. I fail to see why you object to that mechanic.

 

[Emptiness]

actually, it does. the idea of dropping it down to a 2 star promotion means that the guardsman is more than likely less valuable than your "weak" units, and therefore, more expendable. The way it is now, to even have a unit attain gaurdsman means it is not so expendable by virtue of its experience accretion alone.

I agree that your suggestion would make Guardsman easier to get, and therefore a unit with the promotion would be more expendable. If Guardsman is too hard to get then that would be an effective solution. I'm not sure that I agree that Guardsman is too hard to get, but I can accept that some people do.

In my example I left out what promotions Guardsman would require because the problem I'm describing happens whether Guardsman is easy or hard to obtain, and thus your suggestion does not solve it. In fact, by making Guardsman potentially more common, your suggestion would make the situation more likely to arise.

And I see nothing wrong with the scenario you played out. I fail to see why you object to that mechanic.

Would you consider it a bug if any unit in a stack with a wounded Commando could use enemy roads? Or if having a wounded unit with Command I in the stack gave every unit a 10% chance to convert defeated units? Right now Guardsman is behaving just like that, and the results are just as nonsensical.