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February 22
Well, in our playtests I must admit that no one ever builds huge armies of trebuchets. Maybe a half-dozen is the most you ever see at one time, and they're generally heavily guarded.
Armies of archers aren't too common either, because archers require support troops to survive. However it is perfectly possible to field an army which is 70-90% archers, or even more if either your enemy is an idiot or an ally is willing to take on the job of protecting your archers. In the last big game I won, my French knights found it hard to defeat a rabble of Chinese crossbows because they were backed up by pikes & two-handed swordsmen. I would have lost if I hadn't also had a good number of infantry & light cavalry along with my knights.
Armies of infantry do appear, usually bolstered by pikemen and/or skirmishers. I'm personally happen to see this, because I feel that infantry got a bit of a short straw in AoE. - Sandy "Sandyman" Petersen, ES Designer
Yeah, and what about those Skirmishers? MilkDud asked...
Skirmishers are footmen trained to fight independently and in open order. Typically they are armed with some kind of missile -- javelins or slings for instance, so they can be thought of as another missile troop. They can't stand up to a determined charge, but they're not supposed to. One of their main functions was to protect formations of infantry or cavalry from enemy archers. They were comparatively resistant to missile fire, because of their open order.
Certainly cavalry could be used _as_ skirmishers, too, especially light cav or horse archers, but right now in AoK the word is being used explicitly to refer to a certain kind of auxiliary footsoldier trained at the Archery Ranges. - Sandy "Sandyman" Petersen, ES Designer
More to come from Age of Kings Heaven in the following days. Stay tuned because Gamestock begins tomorrow and you don't want to miss that.
Several good ideas for roads have popped up in these forums. Suffice to say that we have a system in place that should make you guys happy. - Greg "DeathShrimp" Street, ES Designer
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