Some possible touches to improve variety

[Zarax]

A question has been roaming in my mind for pretty long: how to show better that professional troops are a better choice and worth the price?

After some thinking I got a possible answer: Upgrades.

Very few kingdoms of the era had vast armouries from where to draw for the whole army in case of need, most armies of the era had to provide for their own gear at their own expense.

Weapons and armour in most case were supplied only to the elites and this means that the average grunt didn't really have the opportunity to upgrade his own weaponry even when better choices could be available (after all, would you shave off a year of salary for a slightly better armour or sword?) and also they were not supposed to serve all year around...

What I propose is: Let's restrict upgrades mostly to professional/elite troops (cavalry and few infantry with maybe the exception of carthage) and if possible let's also have an experience cap on militias (no more gold chevron sparabara that can repel full stacks of elites).

This way the player won't abuse some cheap tactics and instead starts shoveling real money for armies and border garrisons, limiting the strong surplus cash effect once you got over 10 territories.

What do you think?

[Cymera]

Sounds like a good idea, however, i would propose that the armor upgrades stay optional, because otherwise, who will build those armories if only 2-3 units can benefit from it? This was a huge problem with M2TW, the armories only helped a couple units, so no one built them.

The cap on militia units should be restricted as you say, perhaps to level 4? They can achieve veteran status, but if they reached elite then they would no longer be militias right?

Perhaps, make militia units weaker? they should only be able to hold the line for a little while in battle, before breaking.

[Zarax]

Well, let's say that it can be balanced per faction's needs, it would make some things more interesting nevertheless...

[Cymera]

Indeed, this could get quite historical....

[DimeBagHo]

As far as I know there is no way to limit armour upgrades on a per-unit basis. If a building can upgrade one unit type, it will upgrade all unit types.

As far as I know there is also no way to limit experience gains. We can limit the bonuses given by buildings, but again not on a per-unit basis.

We have more control over weapon upgrades. The "other" weapon type cannot be upgraded at all, and there are three other types (archery, simple, bladed) that we could use to control the upgrades available. For example, we could make all militia units "simple", with only one upgrade available, while making all professional units "bladed" with all three upgrades available.

*Edit* BTW, I'm not taking account of scripting possibilities. It might be possible to use a script to limit experience.

[Zarax]

Hmm, I thought that armour and experience would have been more flexible, I'll take a better look over that later...

[Hippias]

honestly i wouldn't miss armour or weapon upgrades if they went completely. What logic is there to an upgraded sparabara? He starts with a spear and a big wicker shield - upgrade him with a mail shirt and a wooden shield and what is he - an upgraded sparabara? no he's an eastern heavy infantryman, a totally different unit. Same for warbands etc, an upgraded gallic swordsman is daft, he just becomes a chosen swordsman.

Throughout the period the only examples i can think of are early imperial legionaries moving from a mail shirt to lorica segmentata. Makes sense as a 1 level armour upgrade, but the weapons didn't change from 200Bc to 200AD. To represent this it would be better to reintroduce the early legionary cohort as an intermediate post marius unit.

Hoplites/phalangites likewise - what armour and weapon upgrades were there? A slightly longer sarissa post Alexander? if anything the armour for Greek units got lighter (i.e. worse) over time.

Hannibal re-outfited his troops with captured roman weapons, but that sounds like a one off.

An end to armour and weapon upgrades for any unit I say. Leave experience (of battle and campaign) as the real upgrade, as it was in real life.

[Cymera]

How about the following, in M2TW RTJ mod, we made it so that armored swordsman were produced at the blacksmith as opposed to the barracks. OR, think of it as lighter, better weapons, and stronger armor, not necessarily different, just stronger. Just some ideas.

[RedFox]

Well, it would make sense if we removed Blacksmith completely (or assign a different role to it, as in: required for this level armoured infantryman etc.) and the units that are trained have their corresponding armour/weapon upgrades.
So, basically, you'd need each level of Blacksmith to forge the equipment needed for the more elite units. Though not sure if adding the upgrades along them would be practical or not, maybe just an advantage over custom battles?

[DimeBagHo]

Most weapons, and most types of armour come in better and worse quality versions. The real problem, as I see it, with the uprades is that the effects are disproportionate. Three extra attack points on a Sparabara doubles their attack, but the difference between a crappy spear and a good spear isn't that big. Three extra attack points on a chosen swordsman does not make all that big a difference, even though the difference between a crappy sword and a good sword really can be huge.

Personally I wouldn't mind ditching the upgrades entirely.

Making the armoury buildings prerequisites for more advanced units is possible, but it really just amounts to extending the time required to build more advanced barracks.

[Hippias]

Would that the upgrade buildings could retrain units to the next one up the tech tree i.e. assuming a city has the right level of barracks + a blacksmith/armourer then a swordsman could return home to upgrade to a chosen swordsman. then armies would have more variety with the elite units arriving sooner, but keeping their experience bars?

The best use of this would be post-Marius for the romans, where your veteran triarii and princeps would upgrade into early legionary cohorts and your hastatii into auxilliaries - which was probably what happened really.

[Zarax]

Well, making the blacksmith levels as requisites for higher barracks/stables would be a good thing to slow down growth on itself (after all that's what happened in reality), maybe we could also tie down the imperial palace to some other buildings in order to slow down the marian reforms a bit (would be nice to see at least 200BC instead of 240 almost every time).

[scannerfish]

Would that the upgrade buildings could retrain units to the next one up the tech tree i.e. assuming a city has the right level of barracks + a blacksmith/armourer then a swordsman could return home to upgrade to a chosen swordsman. then armies would have more variety with the elite units arriving sooner, but keeping their experience bars?

The best use of this would be post-Marius for the romans, where your veteran triarii and princeps would upgrade into early legionary cohorts and your hastatii into auxilliaries - which was probably what happened really.

ehh auxiliaries where non -roman soldiers in the legions . Hastatii where the younger roman republic citizens in the Pre-Marian army.

[RedFox]

How does the Marian reforms kick in anyways? What variables does it take into account for the calculation?

[Zarax]

Marian reforms are kicked in by a 5th level palace for romans outside Rome, there is not much that we can do to control them unfortunately...

[Hippias]

ehh auxiliaries where non -roman soldiers in the legions . Hastatii where the younger roman republic citizens in the Pre-Marian army.

agreed, but if this idea did work i wouldnt be right for hastatii to upgrade to the same unit that princepes and triarii would - just thinking in game terms that they should upgrade to a cheaper unit.

i wonder how marius really worked in practice? Every legion received a new set of equipment through the post - velites and triarii etc made a bonfire of ther old kit and all fitted themselves out as legionaries?

anyone know?

[Zarax]

The early marian cohorts were just better trained principes, equipment was identical to their predecessor and actually lorica segmentata and some other niceties were never that spread in the roman army due to high cost and difficult maintenance (mostly first cohorts and praetorians had that stuff, the rest kept the good, old and reliable chain mail)...

It's not the equipment that made the legion great but their training and tactics.
What Marius did was improving the drill and expand the potential number of available recruitable population by equipping the troops at its own expense (and starting the trend of armies loyal to their general rather than the republic in the process, later civil wars being the proof).

[RedFox]

I thought Lorica Segmentata was much easier and cheaper to manufacture than a chainmail.. Seems much easier to make a plate armour, because believe me, i've made a chainmail and it ****ing takes ages to make, very hard to connect the little rings too.

[Zarax]

Cheaper and easier to manufacture maybe (leather + plate and some rings to keep the thing together) but an hell to maintain (basically it rusted very easily and leather straps had to be changed very frequently)...
Basically outside garrison you would need an army of smiths to keep all that stuff in shape.

[Cymera]

Perhaps this could be represented by making heavily armored troops move slower, to reflect the support that needs to travel with them...