Is it just me or do you wish the default defensive maneuver were a ranged attack by hearthlings who were holding up a position; say a building or any other object near the rally point flag. Even simple spears. This would help in a couple of ways.
Chasing down nearly dead monsters is tedious and frustrating. They are a pretty simple clean up once you get a couple of archers. Until then however it’s annoying.
Secondly it fits nicely with supporting the footmen. Right now I find myself often ordering my melee troops to keep running back behind the plebs just so they all engage then I send in the melee squad to charge in. Seems more intuitive and cohesive to have the hearthlings chucking things at the monsters so everyone is engaged without having to micromanage positions of the two groups.
Even if it was balanced by making it an option you could select (different civilization perk?) and having it do less damage. Just the tactical method and the better cohesion between the ranks would make up for the lower damage IMO
Anyway; thank you for listening =^.^=
1 Like
I’m in two minds about this idea. On the one hand, it would make defensive emplacements seriously powerful – to the point that I personally wouldn’t even bother with footmen until the small goblin camps start appearing. A couple of ranged attackers can’t really hold back a horde, but if your entire town is there the DPS would be ridiculous. In later attacks, a couple of knights and clerics would enable you to “tar pit” attackers while the town pelts them to death gradually; and even the mightiest enemies will be whittled down under sheer weight of fire.
On the other hand though, it makes a lot of sense to keep the basic hearthlings back from combat most of the time.
What I reckon might be a nice compromise, though, is to have an option to choose between melee and ranged militia (ideally on a per-hearthling basis, e.g. a toggle in the hearthling UI window; but have a global setting too for players who don’t want to micro-manage.) Melee attacks would do their current full damage, but ranged militia attacks would only do, say, 1/4 as much. The logic here is that they’re only throwing stones and whatever they can conveniently pick up (it would be hilarious if the missiles had random models – so some are rocks, some are rotten food, some are clay pots or mugs), they’re not going to hurt much individually but the constant bombardment will get the job done. This way, the player can assign some of the stronger/hardier hearthlings to use the more powerful melee attacks with less fear of them dying, while the squishy hearthlings stay in a safer position but can still help out. It also means that in the late game, if enemies get past the main defences, you can have a last line of defence where the strongest civilians make a heroic stand.
1 Like
I agree; it could be a bit powerful but like you’ve pointed out there are ways to dial it in.