Long time player of SS - Seems that the 500 unit max has a LOT of work arounds. Enough to free up potentially 50 or more slots, using the following concepts. This involves TWO things: 1.the better use of armor upgrades. 2. integrated use of attachment sets, faction specific
Imagine: each faction could up-armour/upgrade AOR units (presumably of another ethnicity) into faction/culture specific attachments.
No reason why in the game, for example, the Croat Axemen couldn't be upgraded by Byzantines into lammelar. No reason why in the game Venetians couldn't give Croat Axemen italian chain mail.
These are attachment set variations which breathe unending dimension into the game without increasing the unit limit in EDU. EDB is limitless.
My suggestions are for example:
armor upgrades
1.) Nix the repetitive early spear and archer militia SLOTS but NOT the meshes. Indeed, its not stupid or impossible, and would be quite fun and ALSO free up a lot of slots if militia units and medium units of the same culture and faction were merged into one unit. The MESH files of the medium/professional units can be used as a 4th or 5th armor upgrade.
See how this makes sense? Because the 4th or 5th armour upgrade structure is not built until later, and because its not generally feasable to build them in each settlement, the player will continue to experience and enjoy visually and statistically different units, as they are armoured at different levels.
eg: 1. Kontaratoi to upgrade Gold into Skoutatoi mesh
2. Toxotoi upgrade Gold into Muratoi mesh
3. Akritai upgrade Bronze, Silver, Gold with Akontistai meshes
faction specific attachment sets
e.g: 1. eliminate all repetitive pavise spearmen. have only one EDU pavise spearmen. have faction and mercenary specific 'norm' and 'diff' attachment sets to give each faction a unique variation in appearance and color and shields, etc., for those pavise spearmen.
2. eliminate all repetitive slav spearmen - have only one EDU slav spearmen, have faction and mercenary specific attachment sets to give each faction its own slav spearmen variation. Using attachment sets, these variations and possibilities are virtually endless. There are no limits to the number of entries in EDB. They can look vastly different from each other, or just be colored differently with faction specific shields. All of this without adding more units to EDU. We can save many units in EDU by getting rid of EDU repetitive slav spearmen.
3. cultural specific attachment set UG's.
a.) Sicilians in the Balkans recruit AOR Skoutatoi, but half of their helmets could be Norman variations. Cool huh? This is all doable in attachment sets. This does not increase EDU and there are no 'hard coding' issues that prevent this.
b.) Romans in Sicily recruit muslim archers, but silver upgrade gives them roman helmets. Sick, eh?
corrolary - have the slav spearmen upgradable to gold, allowing the faction specific MESH attachment files to vary interestingly in that direction as well. several Rusichi units which mostly we don't get to see or unlock in most games, that don't have upgrades could be the 'final upgrade' (gold) mesh for any number of relevant 'lesser' units.
idea: western europe - have one very weak morale town militia spear units in EDU whose primary weapon is bow and arrow, very weak. This way in the western europe towns, you have One basic expendible defense units - essentially local constable, weak locals armed with spear and bow. Upgradable to gold, if you so choose, its up to you if you want to spend to overly armour your weakest lumpens. A rich king could do this is he so chose to 'mismanage'.
Introduce Serbian and Albanian dismounted unit of some kind in early game. If Croats and Bulgars exist, Serbians and Albanians definitely exist lol.
Bulgar and Croat units that are a little more colorful and yes the problem with the incomplete face texture layering should be fixed. They need a silver and gold upgrade too, which reflects a move towards, for example, Romanization if ruled by Byzantines, should have Franco-Norman elements if ruled by Sicilians, English, German or French, etc. This can all be done in attachment sets. No increase in EDU limit!
Finally, as said by many, many times before, it would be great to see mercenary spear and mercenary macemen in europe have more color and variety, reflecting the hodgepodge nature of a mercenary unit. I don't think it looks good, nor does it seem accurate that they all decide together to dress up in tan/pink.
Sicily is still vanilla Silver, which gives it a rebel faction feel. I'd suggest using more teal and yellow for norman sicily.