Early Hungarian Troop Tree [History]
Now, first thing first, I had a blast playing SS, and like a great many things about it - reasonably accurate english warbows come to mind first.
That said, early hungarian troop tree is... well, it meanders from somewhat wrong to absolutely ridiculous. The fault lies in historical sources, at least in part, as they are... less than reliable, let's say, when talking about hungary, being essentially propaganda. Good example is discussed here: http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Easter.....-a0112542658
Now, my area of expertise is from the second half of 13th century to the beginning of 15th, if the troop trees after that date are accurate or not, I don't really know, as for earlier, I have some knowledge, but not in great depth.
So, some background first:
1) Hungarian feudalism. It was rather different than the one seen in french sphere of influence. On high level, you had nobles owning cities and castles, on low level, you had low nobility, often owning just few houses in a village. The big difference is that low nobles owning houses near big magnates had no obligation towards them (well, not by default - you could still give your word - and not officially - annoying your neighbor the palatine is still a bad idea).
What ended up happening is rich nobles more or less hiring lesser ones as familiares, kind of a retinue (general's bodyguard would be composed of these guys), that they paid for, in cash, or in land given. Which bring us to next point:
2) Owning land in Hungary: there were three ways you could own land as a noble - ancestrally (goes to your descendants), as a repayment of debt (you keep it untill it generates enough income to offset the debt, then return it to original owner), or as a badge of office (you gained it when you were chosen into an office, e.g. a palatine or zupan, and had to return it when you left it). Lot of castles thus changed hands comparatively frequently, and, naturally, sometimes a powerful magnate decided not to return what he was given.
3) Cosmopolitan kingdom: There was no majority nationality in Hungary. You had magyars, slovaks, bosnians, croats, cuimans,... This means that what the troops looked like was even more dependent on local region than usual, which is saying something. To add to it, Hungary had, broadly speaking, rather welcoming policy towards nomads settling on their lands. Locals still didn't like them, but they were allowed to settle, treatment of jews in the rest of the Europe at the time is roughly comparable (not that it was different in Hungary).
4) Dynastic systems. When speaking about military organization, there were two system in place - Arpad jobbagy and Anjou banderium system. Troops in them weren't that different, but how they were organized and paid for was.
Now, on to the actual issues I have with the troop tree.
1) Slav levies. Depending on which slavs we are talking about, they could be reluctant, but they weren't this under-armed, some being quite elite - I'll get to that. Basically, I see little difference, historically speaking, between generic spearmen unit and what Hungary had.
2) Magyars and horse archery. No. Just no. Last time it was used was at Lechfeld, since then, it was being steadily abandoned, and by about 1200, it was gone - well, from the magyars. The unit description of how traditional archery wasn't left behind when magyars settled is especially funny, since that is exactly what happened (early 11th century saw magyars with western equipment usinq what were essantially nomad scorched earth tactics to repel invasions). However, you could still find horse archers in hungarian armies, they just weren't magyars, but the latest nomads - mongols, cuimans, whatever. Cuimans were the most prominent during 13th and 14th century. Thing is, magyar cavalry and hungarian nobles units make no sense.
3) Banderium knights. Nice unit, but... why the high defense? They weren't famous for being better armored than other knights of the period, especially since the whole banderium system was pretty much a copy of italian one - banderium isn't exactly a hungarian name. It comes from italian bandiere, meaning "flag".
4) No jobbagy. While the vanilla ones were stupid to the extreme, to the point of being insulting, they do belong in early hungary. There were two groups of them, the first one, royal jobagiones/jobbagy was the top nobility during arpad dynasty, and is not relevant for MTW purposes. The second one, however, was used as name for troops guarding a castle, made up of lower nobility and mercenaries - which is pretty damn relevant.
Now to actual suggestions.
1) Rename magyar cavalry to Cuman horse archers, or cuman cavalry, and possibly make them regional troops. Or remove tham and allow hungarian castles to recruit pechenegs.
2) Remove slav levies, replace with spearmen.
3) Now we come to the interesting part. Redo hungarian nobles unit into elite light cavalry, keeping the name. Hungarians did have lighter armor than the rest of europe, favoring mobility, as evidenced by a comparatively higher number of light cavalry in their armies (up to 1/3). There were many prominent nobles who fought as or favored light cavalry, for example mate Csak, a powerful magnate and often palatine, also known for employing cumans in his army. Byzantine stratiotae are a good model, IMHO, keep troop number of hungarian nobles at 30 and recruitment time and requirements as is, and it's reasonably balanced.
4) A new unit, jobagiones or jobbágy, a slightly better light infantry. There should be a unit slot left free from removing slav levies.
5) Banderium knights. Keep name the same, but lower armor rating and make them faster. Pictorial evidence from Anjou Legendarium and Chronica Picta suggests that hungarians liked their heavy cavalry less heavy - there are only very few helmets with visors in Picta, for example. Foreign sources sometimes exaggerated this to a point of saying that hungarians didn't wear helmets at all.
6) This may be just my love for weird weapons speaking, but battle pickaxes. There are records of heavy infantry in northern mining towns using modified picaxes as anti-armor weapons. This unit would function much like venetian pesante infantry, I think. I'm not sure, however, how common this was - probably not enough to warrant a unique unit. Maybe give jobagiones AP trait?
This would make Hungary into a rather unique faction, combining western and eastern approaches, being more mobile than traditional knights, but better armored than nomads, relying on their light cavalry to take out targets of opportunity quickly and then retreat. Which are exactly the tactics employed by hungary at the time.
Now, for the map inconsistencies. My only real complaint here is that there should be gold, silver or copper west of Kassa. This region had a very rich gold and silver deposits, several crown jewels in Europe are made of the gold from those mines.
Sources:
Many of them, and a lot is either in slovak or hungarian, or from talking to local historians. Books like Stopy davnej minulosti (Tracks of distant past) or Rytier a jeho kral (A Knight and his king) are excellent sources, but left untranslated.
As for pictures, that's a bit better, Chronica Picta and parts of Anjou Legendarium can be found online.
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