Options For Generals Unit

[Domitan]

Hi

Was wandering if possible could have various different options for generals unit. Say for example when the city reaches the correct level to recruit them have 3 different options depending on the faction and historical accuracy of course. Say for example Carthaginians Rectuitment could be:

Elephant General Unit
Horse General Unit
Foot Soldier General Unit.

Obviously this cant effect the default unit with family members and Recruitment Cost and Maintenance would be the same.

Cheers

[GraaEminense]

What would be really nice is random Bodyguards -or even better, tied to Traits (like infantry commander, cavalry commander, siege attacker, siege defender...) to make the Generals' armies play accordingly. The Bodyguard unit type has a huge impact on the play style of a faction, after all -which is why I currently love the Greeks so much.

How is the source material for the Bodyguards we're using anyway? Would it be heresy to put a few other factions' Generals on foot as well? Not sure whether elephants or chariots (both recorded, after all) are a good idea given the size these units can reach...

[Domitan]

I meant unit recruitment and maintenance wouldnt be the same...

On another note u can limit the number of units in the unit easily. (even i am capable of that!)

[Carados]

It's possible but the computer doesn't appear to recruit them.
Secondly, family members revert to being the unit type highest in the EDU with the general trait, I believe.

What we also have to take into account are whether the generals actually used them for battle or just with transportation. The Britons used chariots for transportation, however, when in battle they would get off the chariot and fight on foot. Therefore, it might be inappropriate to have some of these units as general units. Another factor you HAVE to take into account is the regeneration of the unit.

[GraaEminense]

What we also have to take into account are whether the generals actually used them for battle or just with transportation. The Britons used chariots for transportation, however, when in battle they would get off the chariot and fight on foot.

...so that means the Briton generals really should be infantry?

[Quinn Inuit]

I haven't been able to decide how to handle Celtic generals. It really seems like they should be cavalry, but there's a lot of evidence of them fighting on foot, too. But if the chiefs weren't on the horses, who was?

Multiple bodyguard units gets extremely sticky. It's nearly impossible to get the AI to do it in a useful way. Really, the best we can reliably do is to have different bodyguard units at the start of the game defined in descr_strat.txt and leave it at that.

[Juan_de_Marco]

One thing I do know is that the Gauls as one of the few celtic people had been starting to centralize government, the elite acquiring larger domains, and thus were able to make more money to keep more expensive things, like horses. Similar to the difference between the landed Peleponnesian greek elite and the Macedonian greek elite. That was one reason that Caesar was more able to 'replace' this elite with the roman government, and not so much the other areas inhabited by more federal and more tribelike nations like the Belgae and the Germans of course (as Caesar wrote that they didn't possess anything of value, they actually might have had, but if there is no way to easily control it, only a lot of effort like colonization remains. If there had been an easy way, the Roman bastards would undoubtedly have tried to take it too. ) So I would say, give the Gauls horse-generals, and the other celtic tribes infantry.

[Quinn Inuit]

Interesting you should mention that. The next version is actually going to have a difference between the less urbanized Gallic settlements and the more urbanized ones as far as what can be recruited there.

Hmmm...here's an idea. We might be able to use the upgrade bodyguard feature to change the Gauls' bodyguards from a foot guard at lower city levels to a horse guard at higher ones. How does that sound?

[GraaEminense]

That would make a certain amount of sense, but wouldn't it just lead to all Generals being built in high-level cities?

Also, I would expect cavalry to be more prevalent in less urbanized areas...

[Juan_de_Marco]

Bigger cities in this timeframe do not mean a more urbanized countryside as a whole, it is not comparable to what we now know as 'cities'.
If you can get it to work, Quinn, that would seem a fine solution.

[GraaEminense]

True, but if the region is considered 'urban', then it should follow that the local elite is 'urbanized' -hence less likely to develop high-level horseman skills.

[Irenaeus]

You could have a situation where different levels of "Palace" buildings give access to different recruitable General units. So you could have a foot-mounted Celtic general for a settlement between 2000 and 6000 population, and a Cavalry General for more than 6000 population, to indicate an increase of wealth in the settlement. Recruitment would be like the Peasants in Vanilla RTW. Providing the unit was expensive enough then the AI wouldn't create too many of them.

Edit - oops, this is exactly what Quinn is suggesting! I really need to pay more attention.

[Quinn Inuit]

Low-level cavalry might be more prevalent in less urban areas, but heavy cavalry and urban areas are often found together. Bactria ("the thousand cities of Bactria"), Etruria, and Carthage are three places that pop up off the top of my head that were both heavily populated and had heavy cavalry traditions. (Ok, so Etruscan cavalry wasn't as good as the other two. It wasn't bad, either, and they were certainly trying.)

And I know bigger cities don't directly translate to a less rural region as a whole, but that's really the only reliable proxy we can use in-game.

[Juan_de_Marco]

Hm yes, I think the accumulation of wealth thing here is the decisive factor. more people to rule = more people to tax, thus fancier weaponry.

[Quinn Inuit]

Definitely. I do still intend to do my massive cavalry post based on Warhorse: Cavalry in the Ancient World, which will lay out my cavalry plans in more detail. I'm just really busy IRL right now.