Increasing the Level of Unit Uniformity as a State Grows

[WhiffOfGrapeshot]

I think the most realistic option is for UG1, UG2, etc. models of units to end up with more or less equal equipment. For instance, an un-upgraded medium infantry might have everyone with a spear and shield, but helmets and grieves sparsely peppered, and little to no torso protection. After a single upgrade, everyone has a helmet, half the people have a mail shirt. After a second upgrade, all of them have grieves and helmets, almost all of them have either mail, linothorax, or some kind of breastplate.

It makes the most sense to me, because when units are upgraded to use better equipment in the game via retraining in a settlement with a higher tier armory, they reasonably should have better equipment across the board on their models, just not fully standardized.

It'd also possibly help with the problem of having one guy kitted out head to toe in scale and mail standing next to a guy with barely a scrap of cloth for modesty in the same unit, which I don't think is very realistic or logical from any tactical perspective. Certainly, both might be on the field, but one would be put into a shock or front line unit and the other made a skirmisher or reserve. Not everyone could afford mail, but not everyone could afford a horse, they weren't sent to run while clapping coconut halves along side those that could.

[Darkan]

not everyone could afford a horse, they weren't sent to run while clapping coconut halves along side those that could.

While I see your point and understand what you are trying to say, I would like to add something. I've finished reading Caesar's wars a while back and it mentioned light Numidian infantry running alongside cavalry to provide support. It did mention that those sent were among the fastest.

[WhiffOfGrapeshot]

While I see your point and understand what you are trying to say, I would like to add something. I've finished reading Caesar's wars a while back and it mentioned light Numidian infantry running alongside cavalry to provide support. It did mention that those sent were among the fastest.

Hahaha, but that'd have been, in game terms, 2 units, with infantry supporting cavalry, which is normal combined arms warfare. Not normal is a cavalry unit with a few guys on foot trying to run really fast and make charges with lances.

But my point was, if any commander had, say, 500 non-standardised hoplites, of which 120 had a linothorax and greaves, while the rest were only in tunics and dependent on their shields and helmets to protect them, they'd naturally separate the better armored ones to provide a modified role in the battle lines, just as they would if they had a kopis instead of a spear.

If the game allowed unit variants to place the more heavily armored ones in the front ranks and the less defensible ones in the rear, that'd be more logical, but as it stands, it's random, so it's pretty bizarre for some guys to have chain and others to be bare chested in the same unit just because they would have in the same battle, in the same way having a single unit carrying axes, spears, swords, clubs, improvised farming equipment, falxes, etc. would be ridiculous. Only "wild barbarian" type individual heroic combat would have had such mixed up masses of chaos, and that's pretty arguable, even.

[War lord]

In this period most Generals would only have a rough idea of how many men they had, never mind how those men were equipped, you're really over estimating the level of organisation in play. Even the more organised Romans would have serious variation in equipment within one unit. Once you're levying men in and making them provide their own equipment there's going to be some real disparity man to man.

[WhiffOfGrapeshot]

In this period most Generals would only have a rough idea of how many men they had, never mind how those men were equipped, you're really over estimating the level of organisation in play. Even the more organised Romans would have serious variation in equipment within one unit. Once you're levying men in and making them provide their own equipment there's going to be some real disparity man to man.

Even the most rudimentary military force had NCOs. In the Roman military, that'd be centurions. Of course a general wouldn't directly control every man on the field, but there was always a full chain of command.

While in a video game, you can arbitrarily decide unit roles and stats, in reality it comes down to equipment and training, so soldiers with little to no armor are light infantry, and those with a bit more are medium infantry, and those with a full panoply are heavy infantry. Grouping them by their capabilities, which depends on their equipment, is very, very basic. Any army on the field that'd have their front line backbone troops expected to hold in the worst of the fighting be equipped like skirmishers while others in their ranks have better equipment would be folly.

To be a hoplite, they had to afford to be equipped like a hoplite. Having a unit of hoplites with a few guys without shields because "some warriors didn't use sheild" would be silly. Likewise, in Rome, to even qualify to be a Principe they had to be wealthy enough. If they were too poor to afford even basic equipment, they weren't qualified to begin with, they would have automatically been Velites.

There's a difference between non-standardized variations and having a unit of cataphracts with a handful of them in only roughspun tunics with sharpened sticks. More reasonable would be different patterns of scale and chain armor, different dyes and fittings, and so on.

Even with levy spearmen, if a certain number of them could afford grieves and cuirasses, they would have naturally formed a grieve-and-cuirass-having section.

tl;dr: The quality of armor is THE defining characteristic between light, medium, and heavy troops, in exactly the same way having a bow or spear differentiates archers from spearmen. A guy could have a fancy diploma saying he graduated from Cretan archery school, but if he only has a spear, he's a spearman, and wouldn't have been put into the archery lines.

[Fabio_Scevola]

Well, you could play EB1 if the diferences of soldiers within the unit is a game breaker. EB1 is a finished game with more features, all units, etc.
As I see it ,the possibility to represent the units as close as possible (no clone armies) was one of the reasons to begin EB2.
Also you could create a submod for more standarized equipment or wait for someone to do it...

[WhiffOfGrapeshot]

You misunderstand, nobody wants clone armies. Things were never fully standardized, but the basic concept of military formations it to arrange soldiers by their equipment. The basic concept of what light, medium, and heavy infantry and cavalry are is based on their armor, in the same way the basic concept of a hoplite unit is a formation with spears and shields. You cannot, by the very definition, have 1/3 of the men unarmored and be heavy infantry, in the same way you can't have a single phalanx unit with 1/3 of them archers. If a soldier was on the field with no armor, they automatically, inherently filled a different role than one with a full set of heavy armor. To think otherwise is to think all armor was worn simply for decoration.