Unit Limits and Unit Spam

**AlexiosThe1st** · January 25, 2016, 09:32 PM

Will there be unit limits on the more expensive, elite units for the multiplayer? Perhaps limiting some factions to only one or two of their best/Tier 3 units?

Feudal knight/chivalric knight only army comps come to mind.

If this is too extreme, perhaps a steep unit price increase when more than two of a unit are bought? I'd really love to see players forced to make better use of low tier units and not just spam the best on the roster.

I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on the issue.

**Kjertesvein** · January 25, 2016, 09:49 PM

Alextheramblers last video mentioned that Empire of Nicea could only recruit 1 varangian guard per army ( custom battle).

~Wille

**AlexiosThe1st** · January 26, 2016, 07:44 AM

Yeah I saw that, which resulted in the making of this post. But does this remain consistent with the other factions? Such as only bringing one or two foot men at arms?

Only bringing one Varangian unit seems odd, seeing as Nicaea will already have a tough time in the infantry department.

**Ltd.** · January 26, 2016, 07:56 AM

You will not be able to field elite-only armies. On the contrary, elites will be low in number so that you actually prize and value once they appear. Thus you will also learn to value lower tier units and make the best of them. You can also boost your armies with professional mercenaries, though they will be very expensive to keep around for too long.

And as Kjertesvein pointed out, yes, the varangian guard will be very limited in numbers, as they were only meant to guard the emperor and only the emperor. If the emperor died, they swore allegiance to the next emperor, even if this new emperor caused the death of the first one.

**AlexiosThe1st** · January 26, 2016, 12:56 PM

That's great to hear. Will this apply to the multiplayer and custom battles? And will mercs be available for multiplayer as well?

As for the Varangians, it's true. I only raised the point since it seems that Nicaea will be at an infantry disadvantage, since I'm presuming scoutatoi units are roughly equivalent to early sergeants (correct me if I'm wrong), which are on the low end of quality for Western factions. If the Varangians and Spatharioi are then limited to one each, the Nicaeans seem to have poor infantry quality in multiplayer.

**Ltd.** · January 26, 2016, 03:22 PM

Actually scoutatoi are the backbone of any roman army. Definitely not on the low end. Neither are sergeants, for that matter. They are good troops. Spatharioi and the varangians are elites, so you are lucky if you see them once in a while.
So once you are able to recruit scoutatoi, you are on the safe side ( with the scoutatoi swordsmen even more so). They wear maille, good lamellar or both.
So yeah, no worries ☺

**Russian Nomad 12** · January 27, 2016, 08:03 PM

So will there be a unit limit or are the units just very expensive?

**AlexiosThe1st** · January 28, 2016, 07:13 AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4LhZTrM72U

This is precisely what I'm worried about. The meta devolving into 4 foot men at arms and enough cav to keep the enemy cav occupied. The foot men at arms were flanked several times and yet gobbled the Mamelukes. I'm not saying nerf the men at arms, but rather limit an army to two units perhaps?

**Ltd.** · January 28, 2016, 12:29 PM

This was basically a custom battle, and you saw all kinds of units, ranging from tier 1 up to tier 3. For the final version unit stats and availability will have to be revised over and over again, until we find it satisfactory. This is really just to get a feel of the mod, through these youtubers.
No worries.

**Causeless** · February 03, 2016, 06:53 AM

How do you plan to limit recruitment? Just via hard unit caps, or is something more subtle planned?

**zsimmortal** · February 04, 2016, 10:03 AM

Originally Posted by Ltd.

You will not be able to field elite-only armies. On the contrary, elites will be low in number so that you actually prize and value once they appear. Thus you will also learn to value lower tier units and make the best of them. You can also boost your armies with professional mercenaries, though they will be very expensive to keep around for too long.

And as Kjertesvein pointed out, yes, the varangian guard will be very limited in numbers, as they were only meant to guard the emperor and only the emperor. If the emperor died, they swore allegiance to the next emperor, even if this new emperor caused the death of the first one.

Will that change later on in the tech tree? Large retinues (so professional, standing troops) and mercenaries became much more commonplace once scutage was used predominantly, which made much more sense than pure military service and providing local and household troops to the lord considering it was flat out insufficient. Maybe a tech or techs that reduce merc maintenance and troop upkeep?

**Mageprince** · February 12, 2016, 06:12 PM

Originally Posted by Ltd.

This was basically a custom battle, and you saw all kinds of units, ranging from tier 1 up to tier 3. For the final version unit stats and availability will have to be revised over and over again, until we find it satisfactory. This is really just to get a feel of the mod, through these youtubers.
No worries.

I don't think hard caps are the way to go here but rather cap the units through pricing would be the best idea AFAIK i'm pretty sure country's like france had a crap ton of knights (mounted and not) but used no citizenary (like levy and the like) because the thought of arming the populace was a very scary thought for them. Again historical accuracy might be a bit off on my statement but not having a coded cap would be much preferred then having a set cap (because this still gives the players the ability to go crazy once in a while). Or having a combination of a price cap and a unit cap, like maybe having dismounted knights be worth like 3200 florins or w.e again this should be done through testing but i would love for the prices to reflect the historical accuracy of how expensive knights were.

**Ltd.** · February 13, 2016, 09:19 AM

That` s not a very good idea, honestly, as you as player will have tons of gold sooner or later, due to how the game works and due to the human player being able to exploit certain features. Also, sometimes the AI gets very rich, so it could field anything then and I`m pretty sure noone would like to fight against a full army of knights in plate armor. Hard caps are not ideal, but you can cap the number of any specific unit in one army and you can put a campaign cap as well (like having one, or 2, at max, of the varangian guard unit at any given time if you are playing as the empire of Nicaea )