This is Part 2 of "State of the Peasantry", where we reduce the raw
data to determine which campaigns seriously constrain any discussion
of modifying the Peasant or suppluenting/replacing him with new L0
units.
First, some summary numbers. 3 of the 6 mainline campaigns have
Peasants. 37 of the 97 UMC campaigns have Peasants. That's a total
of 40 out of 103. However, of these 40, only a grand total of 5 use
Peasants in any even arguably nontrivial way. Overall, a grand total
of 7 could use a Townsman unit.
Anticipating my conclusion: there turn out to be only 3 working
campaigns out of the entire 106 in which Peasants matter seriously. These
are The South Guard, Northern Rebirth, and (to a lesser degree)
Scepter of Fire. Supporting analysis follows.
(In part 3 I'll examine Peasant usage in these campaigns, and its
implications for L0 redesign, in more detail.)
The big question we need to answer from the raw data is: where are
Peasants tactically significant?
First, we drop out all the places they're basically just extras. Tthat
is, their presence or recruitability is symbolic for the storyline and
has minimal or zero tactical effect. This is by far the most common
use of Peasants.
Then we drop the places where players can recruit both their advances
(Bowman, Spearman) directly. Under these circumstances, recruiting Peasants
is silly. If you have little enough gold to have to do it, you're
already doomed.
Then we drop the places where the storyline would actually favor a
Townsman unit. Such a unit can (and probably should) be tuned
separately from Peasant. The Townsman's function is to slow invaders
down a little in a city-defense scenario, but not to be very good at it.
(There is one exception to this rule which I'll describe later.)
This leaves us with exactly one place in mainline where the Peasant
actually matters. That is the first scenario of TSG::Born To The Banner.
There are two other places in mainline where Peasants should very clearly
be replaced by some sort of Townsman unit; TSG::Proven By The Sword
and TROW::Clearwater Port.
Next, UMC. I looked through all 95 campaigns on the server. I found
5 campaigns in which Peasants may actually matter other than as
disposable extras. To get that high a number, I was being generous --
giving the Peasants the benefit of the doubt if I was unsure.
Only one of those 'campaigns' is multiplayer. Though it isn't
uncommon for MP scenarios to use Peasants, they almost all treat them
as disposable shot-stoppers.
Those campaigns are:
Adventure of Soul Keeper
Northern Rebirth *
Scepter of Fire *
Town and Gown
Unnatural Winter (MP)
I found 5 UMC in which what's actually wanted is a Townsman unit.
Capturing Mar'Than
Descent
Frezycuss Junks
The Fall of Trent
Town & Gown
In only 3 UMC campaigns are there scenarios where you must win with
Peasants only. One of these is Northern Rebirth. The other two are
"Adventure of Soul Keeper" and "Town & Gown".
However, in "Town & Gown", the Peasants should be replaced with
Townsmen. It is the only campaign in which Townsman would get to do
something other than get swiftly kebabed by bad guys. (I will further
note that I found the Town & Gown concept rather appealing, and
think it may be worth rescuing from obscurity.)
Checking these lists against the Status of User Scenarios page, I
find that out of all of these UMC only NR and SoF are considered working.
The IRC talk has been that Northern Rebirth and The South Guard are
the only campaigns we would need to worry about at all seriously when
redesigning the Peasant or designing other L0 characters. This, it
turns out, is largely true.
My analysis adds only that we should keep one eye on Scepter Of Fire,
as well. But Peasants aren't as key in SoF because they're used by an AI
side that also recruits Spearman.
This ends Part 2. Onward to analysis of the Peasant role in these campaigns...
--
<a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/";>Eric S. Raymond</a>
Whether the authorities be invaders or merely local tyrants, the
effect of such [gun control] laws is to place the individual at the
mercy of the state, unable to resist.
-- Robert Anson Heinlein, 1949
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