Huh. This is a neat take on it. My “no ranged weapons” idea was also kind of meant to be in the sourit of realism (really, who the fuck would be able to effectively use a javelin more than once on the battlefield while on a horse?) but this could also work. I was thinking dismounting could also be forced at times, and give stat penalties when you do so. (FE3 does this, IIRC.)
Question: Is this separate horse a vlue unit or a green unit? IMO blue would be best, if only because making it a green unit would be absolutely cruel.
Hmm. If we are going for realism, I think forced dismounts should only be mandatory for areas with low ceilings and tight spaces, so mostly caves, cliff sides, and thick forests.
I think it would also be realistic if the stat debuffs are temporary. Maybe we could barrow those skill system from Three Houses? They already had a horse riding skill, but I think an “on-foot” skill should also be added. Units with higher skill levels should be able to recover from the debuffs faster when switching over to a movement type that they are good at.
As for the dismounted horse, I think it would be best to have it as a green unit to start, then a Tellius yellow unit. I think it should be possible for a blue cavalier to steal a red’s horse and vice versa, so it would be somewhat complicated if a blue or red horse was stolen by the opposite side.
P.S.
Also, I have no idea how throwing a javelin even works, let alone multiple from horseback. However, I would imagine that it works exactly the way the Mongols shot their bows, but with Javelins instead.
Honestly, I think we should not go for realism. Otherwise, we literally have to implement unbalanced stuff like echoesarchers since archers are the most overpowered dudes in reality if we do not count people with guns.
Yeah, no ranged weapons might be a bit harsh. My thought process was that mounted units would be forced to be more player-phase oriented (this making footsoldiers more useful for Enemy Phase. At least for GBA canto, forced single-attack is probably the better option.
Though if the game had, say, Tellius canto in it, forced 1-range might actually be favorable to forced single-attack (and might actually complement it in terms of design—your mounted units can attack and cut into the outer parts of the enemy army, and then retreat behind your less-vulerable foot units for enemy phase,) Tellius canto is ridiculously broken, but I feel like if the way mounts worked were altered, it could actually be a really interesting tool in terms of design.
I forgot in FE10 Radiant Dawn, the mounted units were quite bad for several reasons:
Mounted units lose 2mv indoors. Which is pretty much similar to dismounting. As well has having really uh, shitty max stat caps which in RD is pretty important. Arguable second most important in the series (FE12 the remake of 3 IMO is the most important stat caps in the series).
That’s the problem, it makes mounted units more useful to bring in battle then foot units and remember that if an unit has the Savior skill they can move again and don’t suffer penalties.
What we’re trying to do here is make mounted units useful in some ways compared to foot units, and foot units useful in some ways compared to mounted units instead of foot units just not being better than mounts, and what do you think about mounted units being unrescuable?
In my own project I reduced their chance of hitting by a sizable amount making them more reckless and less controlled. Worked fine for my purposes. Sure they can close the distance, double, etc but they miss far more often which is kind of a compromise to removing their ability to double.
Yes and no. In real life, the best archers can be incredibly deadly. However, many archers sucked at sniping because they were trained to fire at distant groups of enemies instead of individual targets. If this was implemented into the game, then that would mean that there would be skill-based snipers and speed based harriers.
How about javelins being thrown as a unique ranged combat art? If it hits, it automatically becomes a lootable item in the enemy’s inventory. If it misses, it is lost for good.
Edit:
Also, given the low-fantasy setting of Fire Emblem, you could probably use “the favor of the gods” and other magic stuff to justify certain physically impossible feats. In FE4, fire, electric, and wind magic are said to come directly from the fire, electric, and wind gods. Given this type of lore in past games, I don’t think it would be ridiculous to say that things like mounted doubles, swordmaster crits, and the impractical armor are all justified by the favor of the god of war.
TL;DR: use “ancient gods” or “magic” as an excuse. Previous Fire emblem games already did something similar.
I think you’re missing my point. Fire Emblem is a strategy game. You’re supposed to have versatile utility units so that you can make interesting strategies to complete maps with, not just bumble through the game by using a bunch of irritatingly0similar units. My intent is to keep the strategies that you can create with mounted units interesting, while still making them roughly equal in power ti foot units. Utility is very useful, yes: but only during the player phase. During the enemy phase, all that matters is sheer combat ability. Most FE games are built mainly around the enemy phase, and it’s where you’ll spend the the majority of your playtime. In effect, my idea is meant to create an iambic “rhythm” to combat: in player phase, mounted units are very useful due to high utility. However, they have poor combat ability compared to your foot units. Because of this, you’ll want to use your mounted units’ utility to set up for the enemy phase. On enemy phase, foot units are equally useful to player-phase mounted units because of their higher combat potential making them able to actually survive without casualties. Thus, once you’ve used your mounts to set up your units for success, you can have your footsoldiers skewer the ever-loving crap out of your enemies on enemy phase. After that, player phase begins again, and the rhythm repeats.
This is interesting, but I feel like it could be a bit frustrating. Imagine losing your only Spear or Tomahawk prematurely due to poor RNG.
1-2 range weapons could really stand to be a bit less broken in general, though. (Perhaps you could make the player unable to double at range?)
Honestly, I think the gamedesign should just make 2 range-weapons less of a requirement and maybe nerfing the strongest versions(Spears/Tomahawks).
Javelins and handaxes actually already work in a pro and con-type of way. Problem is that everyone and their son is a 2 range-user and not really durable, making these two weapons the gamewinners since they always work before endgame and are kinda cheap.
Give mounts some kind of risk factor. Most pegasus knights already do well with this, as they have low HP, low defenses, and a bow weakness that make one poor placement spell death. Even if Pegasus knights are considered very powerful by most people in this community, it’s far easier to accidentally get them killed before they start to snowball if they aren’t given proper care, and most players won’t consider them worth the risk outside of scenarios where they have no other option. To make changing things as simple a way as possible, I’d make the HP stats of mounted units significantly lower, so even if their other stats and movement are more impressive, they can be risky to rely on in a pinch.
You think mounts could have worser combat ability compared to foot units to rebalance them,
and they’ll instead focus on utility,
can you give an example or two of how your mounts would setup for the enemy phase for us? I’m interested to see how this works.
I don’t know, I think cavalry are too strong, and the mount/dismount mechanic doesn’t work for enemies which would be good for the players but bad for the enemies, I do think a forced dismount for indoor chapters might be a good idea though.
I think in the vanilla GBA games the only three things that makes mounted units better then foot units is 1. Using more then one weapon type. 2. More movement. and 3. Being able to move again after rescuing a unit (again good for the players, but bad for the enemies).
How about making the Hand Axes and Javelins extremely cheap with low durability? Later on, you would be able to get 1-2 range chain lances that can be pulled back when thrown, (like the ones generals have in the GBA games, only they’re ranged) and throwing axes that come back like a boomerang when thrown because they are enchanted with wind magic.
I honestly wish the AI was a bit more capable of actually using mechanics. Like, it would actually be amazing to see a thief try to get to a chest with a promotionitem, then getting rescuedropped to the boss by cantocavaliers and then the boss promotes. Or something like that, just creative sideobjectives where the Player has to be fast or later has a worse time that make the chapters more unique.
Alright: imagine a somewhat late-game scenario: you’ve been moving forwards through a castle when, let’s say, a group of (thankfully, they’re generic, and have relatively low defense. We’ll say that they’re similar in overall power to Generals, albeit with a pretty strong breath attack.) Manaketes (or otherwise powerful enemies) spawn to the side of your army. (You know the drill: 1-2 range breath weapon, high stats, Pillar Men theme playing in the background.) You know that the first row of enemies will most likely reach your frontline units by the Enemy Phase after this one, and that they will almost certainly go after your Dancer and Bishop if you don’t stop them. The hallway they’re coming through is 4 tiles wide. You’ve got, say, 4 Paladins (or Mage Knights, Valkyries, etc. They’ve all got pretty similar movement.) and 5 footsoldiers ready to move forward, but only 3 of said footsoldiers can actually move into position to block the newly-incoming enemy, none of them can move far enough to protect the Dancer, and none of them can quite ORKO a Manakete. So what do you do?
Well, you have a few options, but here’s what I’d do: First, use your first paladin to pick up one of your adjacent foot units, then move over to the Dancer. Have the Dancer dance for your Paladin, then immediately deposit the footsoldier into the desired space to plug the hole and move back to safety behind your own lines. With your second Paladin, you then grab the Dancer to get it out of the way of a 2-ranged attack. Your 3rd and 4th Paladins each attack one of the Manaketes, not killing it but assuring that they’re in range to killed on Enemy Phase. They then retreat as well, as they can’t take another hit from the dragons. On Enemy Phase, the dragons charge…and with nothing else to attack, their AI is forced to go for your tankier footsoldiers, who take the hits decently enough and then rapidly slaughter them throughout Enemy Phase and the first part of the next Player Phase. Your mounted units then grab as many of the already-moved footsoldiers as they can and hurry to catch up with the rest of your army to deal with the next segment of the map.
Essentially, my idea is mounted units would ideally act primarily to improve movement options for your footsoldiers and other utility units, while still having limited combat capabilities. They complement your infantry instead of forcing them onto the bench. And by combining the two unit types, your army would become more versatile and thus stronger as a whole.