[WIP] - Irregular-ization of non-european, non-line infantry

[Ahiga]

Something which frustrated me when I booted up a Safavid campaign was how units like Desert Nomads or Fellaheen musketeers behaved, standing in a rigid line and letting only the front rank fire. While I'm not certain exactly how some of the non-European and non-European drilled infantry behaved in battle, I get the impression they would not have fought with the rigidity of a European Line and instead would have fought much more as irregular individuals. There's no point to having a unit which won't advance into rank/platoon fire practice single-line volley fire unless it's from a land where that's the sole tradition.

After having found out how to enable a unit to truly behave like light infantry (Where any man in the rank can fire when he is ready, and they do not fire by rank, volley, or platoon), I'm going to enable various troops to fight as independent irregular bands where each soldier is independent in targeting and firing.

Balance will be necessary so that these units do not confer an advantage (of numerous, hard to hit light infantry) but rather give something of an disadvantage instead: They shouldn't be able to stand up to European Line Infantry in a 1 v 1 confrontation, but should perform better in broken terrain. This will probably be through a major moral penalty and minor reloading and accuracy (after all, they'd be aiming instead of just being taught to throw fire in a direction) so they'll whimper and run if face to face with Line Infantry. They'll also have the same range as line infantry (70, not light inf's 80).



Plans for 1.0:

• Irregularization of Units:
• Re-arming of Units:
  
  • Afghans - Rifles to simulate Jezails
  • Bashi-Bazouks - Muskets
  • Barbary Pirates - Pistols

Future Plans:

• Make Line Infantry rarer and more precious amongst the non-Europeans.
• New Units utilizing existing models and textures (Khevsurs, Sarbaz Infantry, Rajputs) in order to redesign the rosters of the Non-Europeans.

It'll be released on Julius Isidrus' Patch mod featuring custom-battle unlocks. Not sure when it'll release since I have schoolwork and Broken Crescent to continue work on.

Credit to LtChambers (For pointing me in the right direction and creating the Pack File Manager), Julius Isidrus (for letting me use his patch in testing), Quxiotes07 (For letting me base my mod on his excellent work), Being Earnest (for showing me how to make a unit behave like light infantry).

[jo the greek]

I think ottomans should have irregular units that act like line troops with some light infantryies
characteristics.

[Ahiga]

I think ottomans should have irregular units that act like line troops with some light infantryies
characteristics.

I've thought about arming the Bashi Bashouks with a musket and turning them into that sort of Light Infantry minus the extra range or accuracy (which would be kept for the Azzars chaps). It'll all depend on how lethal and how much I have to tone down the units I transform into these Irregular Infantrymen, as I don't want them all to have toned down unit sizes (I'd prefer something equal to or between the 160 of Line Infantry and 120, 40 more than regular light infantry with increased accuracy & range), but I also don't want them to win in a face to face confrontation with Line Infantry on even terrain.

Have some plans for the Safavids as well in the release following the first, to flesh them out and offer them as a viable playable faction.

Will begin work on this later in the week.

[Guinnessmonkey]

A mod of this type would be very useful... In my current game getting Nizam-i-cedid didn't feel that special... After all, they're not that different from the Janissary infantry or the previous line infantry. All the info boxes talk about how irregular and outdated the Ottoman infantry is, but in the game they handle just fine prior to the Nizam-i-cedid reforms... I should feel like I'm doing a major shift away from masses of men rushing into the breach and towards European line tactics. Instead I feel like I'm going from line tactics with ok troops to line tactics with slightly better ones (who can make trenches, unlike the older line infantry).

Similarly, I'd LOVE to see changes as to the way the armies of smaller Eastern states like Dagestan, Georgia, etc work. Right now they use Euro-style line infantry and even Euro-style militia. They should look a lot more like Persia than Prussia....

[Ahiga]

A mod of this type would be very useful... In my current game getting Nizam-i-cedid didn't feel that special... After all, they're not that different from the Janissary infantry or the previous line infantry. All the info boxes talk about how irregular and outdated the Ottoman infantry is, but in the game they handle just fine prior to the Nizam-i-cedid reforms... I should feel like I'm doing a major shift away from masses of men rushing into the breach and towards European line tactics. Instead I feel like I'm going from line tactics with ok troops to line tactics with slightly better ones (who can make trenches, unlike the older line infantry).

Similarly, I'd LOVE to see changes as to the way the armies of smaller Eastern states like Dagestan, Georgia, etc work. Right now they use Euro-style line infantry and even Euro-style militia. They should look a lot more like Persia than Prussia....

I've been thinking over how extreme a tweak I want to do, and it's good to hear that. I never even heard of the Isarelys before and can't find any information via searching as to who they were. I don't think I will completely remove them (Much like I should the Sikhs, which are great for Punjab but bogus for the Marathi. I'd rename them Rajputs but that complicates things), but probably limit the number you can recruit. If I do that for the Isarelys, I'll certainly turn Bashouks into an irregular generic infantrymen since I don't really appreciate the over-anachronism felt with the Ottomans abundance of high number melee infantry and low-number musketry.

I agree on the second part, though sadly that's out of my hands right now.

It seems thus far the way that recruitment works is through a two part system. The first determines what cultural groups the unit can be recruited by (Mughal_group for instance is Khiva, Afghan, Safavid, Mughal, and Mysore.) while the second is used to determine where units should be exclusive to one faction (like french line infantry). The problem is that so far I cannot add any new lines, just edit existing ones - I'll have to check which culture Georgia or Dagestan belongs to, but I am pretty sure I won't be able to do much for them as of now. This is where it's complicating my ambition for the Marathi, which was to make Sepoys their best line infantry (But I can't without effecting European Sepoys).

[Randarkmaan]

Great idea Ahiga, this has bothered me as well (if I were you I would also make sure to make the Native Americans also behave "irregularly" with this mod).

If I do that for the Isarelys, I'll certainly turn Bashouks into an irregular generic infantrymen since I don't really appreciate the over-anachronism felt with the Ottomans abundance of high number melee infantry and low-number musketry.

Never heard of Isarelys myself, and their skin looks like a 17th century cavalryman. I'd replace Isarelys with Sekban - they were named after a unit of maries from the 16th century, but had nothing in common with them except the name, this time around they were supposed to be a solution to the Ottomans' shortage of troops (and the need for more musket-armed infantry) after the de-militarisation of the Timariot feudal army. They were mostly bandits and highwaymen pressed into service, given some training and issued weapons (in theory I think, but in practise they mostly had their own) and uniforms (they wore red coats I think). They became one of the most effective infantry units in the Ottoman army of the 18th century (the Janissaries were NOT effective any more and had little actual combat skills any more, they were now more like the armed thugs of the guilds and of course proponents their own interests), they were not trained in line tactics, but many of them were excellent marksmen and even though they were former bandits they were often rather more reliable in battle than the irregulars.
Another unit that could be worked in would be tüfecki (think there's going to be a weird form of Turkish "c" with some "tail" there ) - they were also a new unit of musketeers (from the middle 17th century, I think) but they were mounted infantry, they were also uniformed (short red coats and red hats IIRC) and they were also armed with European swords. They were also noted, together with sekban and the Tatar auxiliary cavalrymen as the most effective soldiers in the Ottoman army in the 18th century.

I don't quite know how these could be modded in without making new models, but a suggestion could be to use basic reskins of the Nizam-i-jedid light infantry (for sekban) and Nizam-i-jedid rifles (for tüfecki, because of the hat), both would ofcourse have to be armed with standard muskets, without bayonets and given swords instead (Ottoman sabre for sekban and a European cutlass or sabre for tüfecki).

One thing perhaps that could also be considered about the Ottoman army before the reform is that most muskets were not of the flintlock type but of the older matchlock type. This took longer to reload but was less prone to misfires than the flintlook and worked better in dusty and sandy conditions (leading to it being used in Arabia, Syria and Egypt for quite some time even after the games end date). Ottoman muskets were also longer and somewhat heavier than European muskets giving them increased accuracy and range and better recoil-absorbtion (don't think that's a word, supposed to be a form of "absorb"). Don't necessarily need a new model and skin for it. Just mod it into the stats and mention it. Could perhaps use the model for the rifle as it is somewhat longer.

Also the reform should be far harder to reach in game (I think it only requires tier 2 military building in capital?)

Other things one could do;
Reduce the number of Janissary units to one; with the base soldier being the ceemat janissary (though obviously with a musket as primary weapon and the sword as secondary), the officer being the soldiers in the generals bodyguards (they look almost exactly like Janissary COs), the drummer could stay the same (as he is wearing a typical mehter hat and robe) and the standard bearer could use the model of the cemaat janissary grenadiers (some janissary senior and junior officers still wore the old kind of hat and not the new turban).

Introduce a new cavalry unit; Kapikulu cavalry/sipahi. If you have the book "Armies of the Ottoman Turks 1300-1774" you'll notice that the costume of the 18th century sipahi cavalryman in one of the plates looks almost exactly like that of the Hindu musketeers/Hindu swordsmen/Indian artillery crews in the game. So one could simply reskin these (ligher skin, perhaps different colors on clothing) and give them a sword and put them on a horse.
There you have an élite cavalryman!

Now the "Janissary beylik muskeeters" model and skin is unused you might have noticed. Well I've noticed that it looks somewhat like the picture of an Albanian irregular in Ottoman service that I have seen in an Osprey book (Ottoman army 1774-1820). So I suggest one could reskin this one (lighter skin) and make it a new unit "Albanian irregulars" - irregular musket and sword armed infantry, recruitable in the Balkans.

The "isarelys" skin could perhaps be used for Ottoman sipahis (more properly known as timariots or something to do with the word "timar") that are different from the Persian/Mughal version and available far earlier. I'd propose to arm them with carbines and sabres and instead make the delis a light lancer "crazy" charge cavalry.

These are just some suggestions. They only deal with the Ottoman army, but they are a relatively easily done and realistic change for the Ottomans.

EDIT: Just noticed the Ottoman realism thread... Think I'll post this there as well, see what people think
Still I put some stock in you Ahiga, because of your part in Broken Crescent

EDIT: Concerning the suggested model to be reskinned for use as tüfecki soldier (mounted musketeer) it might perhaps be better to use the Ottoman artilleryman (he's got a coat and a hat, and looks cool) and perhaps use the Ottoman officer model for the artillerymen (if I remember correctly that model looks more like what Ottoman artillerymen looked like than the model CA has made )

[jo the greek]

I think Beylik janisaries are represented in a good way i have seen them before in pics

[Randarkmaan]

I think Beylik janisaries are represented in a good way i have seen them before in pics

Perhaps, but the model could be reskinned for use as an Albanian irregular (if possible remove the cloak also). And you don't really need more than one Janissary unit I think, when Janissaries became a rather insignificant actual part of the army in this century (though on papers there were LOTS of them). Though there were different types of Janissaries at this time, because they were now stationed locally and recruited by local governors as well as by the palace for use in the Sultan's personal army.

Anyway those guys in the picture look more like the cemaat janissaries of the game than the beylik janissaries in the game.

[Ahiga]

Randarkmaan: such extensive work is certainly going to be more in the realm of the Ottoman Realism mod and those who can model and texture. My experience in that regard really is limited; back in Medieval II all I could really do is very simple 'transfer' work of taking one texture or model and shifting it to another. Because weaponry isn't linked by model but now by code, it's much easier to re-arm units and not necessary for me to edit them.

Because of the complexities of HEX editing, all I'm really capable of is anything utilizing the pack editors. Which means as of right now I don't know how to make new units, only edit existing ones.

I'm certainly going to look over your information and see what's feasible for me since I think some of it would be, but I am afraid I won't be able to give as extensive of a job as a true mod would. My aim right now is to provide a 'placeholder' of a slightly more authentic and simply more enjoyable roster where possible until more experienced folk can come along and edit it more thoroughly. But for instance once all my major projects due this week are done, I'll see if it's possible to take an officer model or an artilleryman model and make it the model of another existing unit (such as one of the unnecessary Janissaries). If that's possible to do, then it'd be an easy case of re-arming and re-stating them into another unit type, though I can't touch descriptions right now.

But right now I don't want to raise expectations. All I'm really certain of being able to do and wanting to release is to irregularize the fighting styles of various Muslim/Hindu infantry and arm the Afghans with a Jezail-simulation. Then I just want to do small unit tweaks and try to make Line Infantry more expensive/rare for the Easterners.

[jo the greek]

Randarkamaan i believe i know the pic u speak of but albanians irregulars also wore fustanella

some albanians

[Randarkmaan]

Yeah, I think we're thinking of the same picture.
Ofcourse it's not perfect, far from it. But it could still be used for the purpose as it's somewhat similar looking. No that I think of it a reskinned version of the Beylik janissaries might perhaps be better for bashi-bazouks (more of a generic unit) rather than Albanian irregulars. The bashi-bazouks in the game actually look like Barbary pirates, "Taifat al-Rusa" (the militias of the captains), if you look at the Barbary faction you might notice that the "pirates" unit seems to be copies of bashi-bazouks. Seeing as bashi-bazouks were tribal volunteers (often also religously motivated, though the motivation of loot was more widespread) perhaps the barechested savagery of the beylik janissary unit might fit more with the image

[jo the greek]

a more generic bashi basuks more like this

[MehemtAli_Pasha]

One thing perhaps that could also be considered about the Ottoman army before the reform is that most muskets were not of the flintlock type but of the older matchlock type. This took longer to reload but was less prone to misfires than the flintlook and worked better in dusty and sandy conditions (leading to it being used in Arabia, Syria and Egypt for quite some time even after the games end date). Ottoman muskets were also longer and somewhat heavier than European muskets giving them increased accuracy and range and better recoil-absorbtion (don't think that's a word, supposed to be a form of "absorb"). Don't necessarily need a new model and skin for it. Just mod it into the stats and mention it. Could perhaps use the model for the rifle as it is somewhat longer.

That's wut i said until some jerk in one of the threads sarcastically said they both were the same only the flintlocks had faster reloading times than the matchlocks. and i very much believe i read that(wut u said) in one of the Ospreys books. so yeah they both have their adv. and disadv. i remember reading that the Jannisaries used the old matchlocks which were more accurate than the flintlocks. this should be resembled in the unit status.

so matchlocks is the Ottoman irregular unit's weapon of choice.

oh and i forgot to mention..very good idea Ahiga. it is true that vanilla ETW doesn't distinguish irregulars from regulars, but that i think is for gameplay reasons, or else, it will be hard for non european faction to compete with the western armies. i'm still not sure though how u want to implement the irregular armies' tactics in the game. i would be more than happy to help though

oh and one short notice..

Fellahin recruitable by Safavids in Middle East.

I don't have the game, so i'm gonna ask this..is there really Fellahin units in the game? coz as far as i know Fellahin-or farmers in Egyptian- were not allowed to bear arms. it was considered a crime punishable by death if a Fellah was to bear arms on any of the Ottoman provinces. that, i will consider an unhistorical unit. u might want to actually remove from the mod...wut do u think?

Edit: and if u r trying to reskin some units, try to be colorful with them, like in Broken Crescent.

[Ahiga]

I think I'll need to stress that I am not capable of skinning or modeling. I'm not exasperated or anything, I appreciate the interest and I do hope we'll get modeler/texture artists to work on the Middle Eastern Factions too, but Broken Crescent's artwork was Strelac, Alpha Delta, and Yelu Dashi. I had no part in the modeling and texturing portion. I did research and writing. So I don't want people getting their hopes up for this mini mod - I can only do so much.

There are in the stats different entries in a category or two for matchlock vs flintlock. They probably have different stats and I'll try and investigate them, but I am pretty sure most of the guys who used matchlocks already have them enabled, so Kudos to CA for that accuracy.

oh and i forgot to mention..very good idea Ahiga. it is true that vanilla ETW doesn't distinguish irregulars from regulars, but that i think is for gameplay reasons, or else, it will be hard for non european faction to compete with the western armies. i'm still not sure though how u want to implement the irregular armies' tactics in the game. i would be more than happy to help though

That's my goal in the long term, is to make it so that if any non-europeans try and fight Europeans like a European, they should ideally lose. Knowing the limitations of AI and the engine, that's not going to be assured, but I want to make it weigh heavily on a player to fight in a different manner.

The crucial way to display the irregular fighting is to turn more of the Eastern infantry into "Light Infantry" - this lets them fire independent of rank and file, as well as when light infantry doctrine is researched spread out. The necessity is to make sure that by becoming light infantry, where every man can fire in the unit whenever he likes, they don't become more lethal to Line Infantry who until researching technology can only fire from the front.

I'll need to tweak accuracy, reloading skill, moral and unit size to find an equilibrium. Odds are balancing will vary for the unit's role - If I want to make a Janissary musketeer into an irregular, he'll keep good stats and just take a unit size hit. Whereas if I want a common irregular, like Bashi Bashouks or Desert Nomads, I'll keep a high unit size and diminish moral significantly (so they run away if presented with a straight fight, or hit with cavalry).

I could probably use testers unless I want to just release it and let people try it, but if I go for testing first I'll hit you up Mehmet.

Also yes, Fellahin are in the game. Safavids stat with 2 (for some reason...) but code wise they belong to the Barbary States & Moroccans but are recruitable only in Egypt. My plan is to rename the Musketeers "Sarbaz", and have them represent the Safavid Infantry trained by Europeans.

[Keyser]

Iirc the cairo's garrison had a corps of janissary of a better quality than the other beylik.

Their skins would look a lot like the barbary pirates/bashi bouzouk skins we get right now.

I agree with randaarmarkman that we don't need that much different janissaries units, but a difference between the sultan's ones (and maybe cairo) and the provincial ones might be a good ideas (even though they weren't really the more effectives units in the XVIIIth).

[jo the greek]

I think units of infantry from mountainous areas should have the spread tactic that light infantry has in late era .

[Ahiga]

I think units of infantry from mountainous areas should have the spread tactic that light infantry has in late era .

The only way for them to get that is via the light infantry doctrine research, however I can enable it so units do get that when it's researched. If I can make it so they already start out a bit spread out, I'll be sure to do it.

My schedule is starting to open up (and sadly is going to probably be even more open, my good buddies got suspended/expelled from college. ), so I'll begin work this weekend. I did a brief playtest which was a lot of fun: 3 Desert Tribesmen (Bedouin types), 1 Afghan Jezail and an Ahadi Heavy Cavalry as Afghans vs British Line Infantry, Coldstream Guard, and Black Watch. To make a long story short when the enemy has Rank fire, it really achieves what felt like the realistic sense of "line infantry rape irregulars in frontal engagements", the Line Infantry would kill maybe 15-20 men in a single volley so the first Desert Tribesmen unit dropped from 120 to 80 very quickly. The only way I won was by drawing the Brits to let my Jezails from atop a cliffside snipe at them and have the Ahadi charge while the tribesmen harassed and essentially skirmished.

With the ability to make new units possible now, after I release a beta of irregularization I'll be more capable of making new units (but only based on existing models with re-arming/mounting/dismounting/ect.). It might even be possible for me to do my very rudimentary "Georgia placeholder" idea, but I don't want to get ahead of myself.

The question I have is if anyone has played one of the recently released extensive gameplay changes to accuracy and battle. If one of them is vastly superior, I'd be up for asking if I can base this mini mod on their battlefield system. I am really interested if they do a good job with Moral (Making Irregulars flee if suffering much less than 80% casualties is important) and projectiles, since I heard some of them make it you can begin firing at a much greater distance but only when you're up close does it really hit hard.

[jo the greek]

It would nice to see a thing like that
But about irregulars
I think there should be to kind of irregulars
the bulk of the army that cannot fire in order but have great number and a logic melee and low morale .
And more like light infantry with the same characteristics as most europeans maybe lower morale and maybe bigger numbers .

For example infantry from balkans that Used from Austrians and Ottomans
were like this
Low morale in open battle and agaist cavalry
Great stamina
Cheap
good reloading
Good range and accurancy
Medium to Low melee

[Ahiga]

Nothing Stellar in an update, but I wanted to show that I am still working on this. As an update, it will be based on Quixote07's Mod (1.8), and while you will be able to use it with other mods the stats are designed around his wonderful work.



First release is still going to be very basic, so that people can get their hands on it and help shape balancing irregularization, along with some of my other features (Highland Clansmen Recruitable by Britain, probably Highlander Infantry by England/France/Others).

Again, no reskins/retextures unless someone else does them, I simply don't have the skill to.

[Jaguar6]

Looks good, do you mind if I eventually use it for my mod New Age Total War?

By the way, Highlanders shouldn't be staggered, since they were highly trained, just as much as line infantry.