Are local too restricted for factions?

[ShadowKiller2000]

Hi all,

Do you think that locals are not available enough to the owning faction?

For example: Longbows for England. I think they should be recruitable as a core unit of the English and AOR for all other factions.

The same with Scouts for Denmark, Border horse for the Scotts, Norse Archers for the Danes/Norway,
and Mortatoi for the Romans.

I have started to edit my game to allow this, and was wondering if others felt the same way.

Some units can stay as they are, such as Viking Raiders.....would make the Danes way OP in the early era.

Any thoughts on this?

[k/t]

Why "should" Longbowmen be recruitable as a core unit? RR/RC represents each unit in a historically accurate fashion. The Local category is the one Longbowmen fit best considering their provenance, training and maintenance.

Why should the Danes be able to recruit NORSE Archers in Italy? Or in Spain? Why should the Byzantines be able to recruit Mourtatoi (of TURKISH origin) in Scandinavia?

[King Canute]

Correct if i'm wrong,(as I do no play SS6.3) but I thought that ss6.3 already came with an AOR system.

[ShadowKiller2000]

Why "should" Longbowmen be recruitable as a core unit? RR/RC represents each unit in a historically accurate fashion. The Local category is the one Longbowmen fit best considering their provenance, training and maintenance.

Why should the Danes be able to recruit NORSE Archers in Italy? Or in Spain? Why should the Byzantines be able to recruit Mourtatoi (of TURKISH origin) in Scandinavia?

Because it is more fun, and to be really historic those same recruiting restrictions could be applied to ALL units outside of your home territory.

England did not enlist French Knights in it's armies when fighting the 100 years war. I am sure there were a few nobles that switched sides (but were also not very loyal).

So if we wanted to be really historical it would be almost inpossible to raise an army away from home.

But this is a game, and so we can recruit units in newly conqured territories.

You can train high end Kings Men in the Holy land as England, but not lower class light cavalry, or longbows?

I understand the AOR system, it simply makes sense for the owning faction to be able to recruit them all over (with lower availibility).

To be really picky why not make everything outside of the Factions core territories have lower recruitment?

But then the game would not be as fun.

Just my 2 cents.

[David93]

Why "should" Longbowmen be recruitable as a core unit? RR/RC represents each unit in a historically accurate fashion. The Local category is the one Longbowmen fit best considering their provenance, training and maintenance.

Why should the Danes be able to recruit NORSE Archers in Italy? Or in Spain? Why should the Byzantines be able to recruit Mourtatoi (of TURKISH origin) in Scandinavia?

The same reason the romans could recruit legions in Britain, when you convert a population in this case via religion they forget there roots and become part of the new culture. I dont need the people holding the sword to be "roman" i just need them to have arms and training which are widely available. There are some units that should be AOR the elite of the elite or ones that require special tec or mounts. But tbh i dont want to recruit turkish archers when im playing as byzantine.
I had herd alot of good things about RR/RC but it seems to be speeding up my game and taking away the tactical sense. Instead of useing a well made and planed out army im pumping out worthless milita and killing the enemy with brute force. Also because the A.I. attacked me and forced my hand at turn 35 i own over 40 regions. So instead of slowing down my game it speed it up :/ anyone else find this?

[Paladin94610]

RollingWave's Historical Roster Revision version 1.3 did a good job of that. Try it out.

[FastHeinz]

The same reason the romans could recruit legions in Britain, when you convert a population in this case via religion they forget there roots and become part of the new culture. I dont need the people holding the sword to be "roman" i just need them to have arms and training which are widely available. There are some units that should be AOR the elite of the elite or ones that require special tec or mounts. But tbh i dont want to recruit turkish archers when im playing as byzantine.
I had herd alot of good things about RR/RC but it seems to be speeding up my game and taking away the tactical sense. Instead of useing a well made and planed out army im pumping out worthless milita and killing the enemy with brute force. Also because the A.I. attacked me and forced my hand at turn 35 i own over 40 regions. So instead of slowing down my game it speed it up :/ anyone else find this?

Exactly. AOR has killed many factions for me since its introduction back in 6.1 RR/RC. The debate is going to need more than just "certain units being historically recruited in its home country".

To me, the biggest oversight is not taking account of migrations. Once you have owned a piece of land for so long, migrations will happen due to, weather, business opportunities, demand for skilled workers and specialists, new land grants and so on. The land will eventually turn to be part your homeland in the sense that will live "your people".

Sure, you say, that's ahistorical to raise viking raiders in the holyland. Well, I say if the dane has established a kingdom there for decades and have the millitary need for them. There will damn well be some next generation danes who are raised by their viking fathers there in the holyland.

I don't know, I look at Australia and South Africa and see a bunch of non-natives living there right now. Is someone going to argue that you can't find white European decents there?

Suppose we forget all of that. I will consider the Roman unit of Mortatoi. The game claims that these are turks living in the empire. Don't you think you will find abundance of turks in the middle-east all the way to Iran? But the game says no to them being recruitible in the middle-east, but you can recruit them at Greece. Really.

From the game perspective, you would think the expansive castles and 3 levels of archery ranges will do the Roman some good. Nope, you can never retrain your units. So why spend all those money building a castle if you had to end up dealing with the locals, I might as well just hire them as mercenary with a general and convert the castles to cities.

Getting mercenaries to join you is instantaneous. No waiting 4 turns to train one unit while paying them the same wages to train. It is easier and cheaper. I myself have imposed even a straighter rule, the xenophobic rule. No mercenaries will ever join my rank. No hiring of turkish archers as romans, ever.

So yea, I agree with the posters above. And all my games are all going to be all cities mass militias games. Cause militias and seige weapons are the only dependable units in the game and I will do everything in my power to blitz out and convert those giant money sucking useless castles into cities. I have learned to fight like true Romans, mass infantry and seige.

[Ichon]

I can see some of the points here are rational such as migrations or the fact some units which are AOR only are less recruitable than other 'elite' units which are not restricted to AOR.

Personally I think in the time frame of the game you won't see many of these mass migrations or changes in culture etc. Yes in reality such changes in culture can barely be done in under 200 years and a campaign can last longer than that but it is not something easy to do. Take for example Rome- it used legions recruited from Italy only for 100s of years as legionaries were required to be citizens- then with the Empire legions were raised all over the Empire but even then auxillaries(AOR units) were usually 50% or more of most armies

If anything I wish the recruitment was even more restricted and only very few units can be recruited outside of home AOR. Since the home AOR represents culture as religion and the city types don't really suffice there in the game.

Right now it is a balance between people like me who might want things even more restricted and more difficult to expand a huge empire across the map and some people who want to build whatever they want wherever they want and basically have same units in their armies repeatedly the whole campaign.

Also I think having AOR allows to represent the cultures of the different regions. If you took your core recruitment all across the map it would get boring for me and no variation. I find it more fun adapting the local units into my military in game then making replica armies. Few armies in history have replica units- even modern armies often have different sub units or auxillaries attached depending on the area of operations.

So there might be some oversights- IE no longbows in Acre but Kingsmen allowed etc but overall the system makes sense and is a relatively good balance.
If we want replica armies then we would need to do away with technology eras and such things as well which would start to strip away much of what makes MTW2 fun aside from the battles.

Further there is variation because the different factions have to feel unique and the units need some place to come from culturally. Sure any King in history could taken longbows from England and try and train their people to use it but in many areas that doesn't make sense. English learned to use it as hunting weapon first and then as part of local culture as much as some cultures preferred other ways to hunt or were agrarian culture and simply did not have many hunters so all their warriors are trained specifically and only for war. Give English the ability to have full amount of longbows anywhere they go is simply weird unless you don't give a crap about historical issues at all. If you don't then I wonder why you are playing MTW2? English shouldn't have longbows at all- everyone gets basic 4 units, infantry, missile, cavalry, general.

[newt]

Give English the ability to have full amount of longbows anywhere they go is simply weird unless you don't give a crap about historical issues at all. If you don't then I wonder why you are playing MTW2? English shouldn't have longbows at all- everyone gets basic 4 units, infantry, missile, cavalry, general.

Because I want to play a game set in the medieval period. Loosely based in history, but not so much that it's no fun

[David93]

I can see some of the points here are rational such as migrations or the fact some units which are AOR only are less recruitable than other 'elite' units which are not restricted to AOR.

Personally I think in the time frame of the game you won't see many of these mass migrations or changes in culture etc. Yes in reality such changes in culture can barely be done in under 200 years and a campaign can last longer than that but it is not something easy to do. Take for example Rome- it used legions recruited from Italy only for 100s of years as legionaries were required to be citizens- then with the Empire legions were raised all over the Empire but even then auxillaries(AOR units) were usually 50% or more of most armies

If anything I wish the recruitment was even more restricted and only very few units can be recruited outside of home AOR. Since the home AOR represents culture as religion and the city types don't really suffice there in the game.

Right now it is a balance between people like me who might want things even more restricted and more difficult to expand a huge empire across the map and some people who want to build whatever they want wherever they want and basically have same units in their armies repeatedly the whole campaign.

Also I think having AOR allows to represent the cultures of the different regions. If you took your core recruitment all across the map it would get boring for me and no variation. I find it more fun adapting the local units into my military in game then making replica armies. Few armies in history have replica units- even modern armies often have different sub units or auxillaries attached depending on the area of operations.

So there might be some oversights- IE no longbows in Acre but Kingsmen allowed etc but overall the system makes sense and is a relatively good balance.
If we want replica armies then we would need to do away with technology eras and such things as well which would start to strip away much of what makes MTW2 fun aside from the battles.

Further there is variation because the different factions have to feel unique and the units need some place to come from culturally. Sure any King in history could taken longbows from England and try and train their people to use it but in many areas that doesn't make sense. English learned to use it as hunting weapon first and then as part of local culture as much as some cultures preferred other ways to hunt or were agrarian culture and simply did not have many hunters so all their warriors are trained specifically and only for war. Give English the ability to have full amount of longbows anywhere they go is simply weird unless you don't give a crap about historical issues at all. If you don't then I wonder why you are playing MTW2? English shouldn't have longbows at all- everyone gets basic 4 units, infantry, missile, cavalry, general.

You dont get repetitive armies because your own units keep evolving, you start with milita and move the whole way up to the super elite. constantly changing the make up of your army.

I dont understand how this makes the game harder, for me it just means pumping out huge amounts of milita and because there is no tactics needed to win with sheer numbers i just tend to auto resolve. So atm ive pretty much completed the objectives of the roman campaign and its turn 40. Its just beter when i can take my time and use my small amount of elite units to defeat other armies.

[PaleBlueDot]

I also dislike the overemphasis on historically correctness. If I wanted to learn history I'd watch Battlefield Britain on Google Video. (In fact I did just that about half an hour ago)
Personally I hate micromanaging, but I love complex and well planned tactics. In order to get a functioning strategy going, you need to have predictability. If some units are only available some places and not others, only at some point in time, then you have to plan a lot more and micromanage loads to get your perfect army. Too much logistics/micro and not enough epic battles. My 2 cents. In games like RUSE or CIV IV there is a lot less micromanaging required in order to get perfect armies. (But far from enough flexibility and options during tactial battles, where TW rocks)

I guess the keyword for me is flexibility. The more options I have, the more brilliant some of those options will turn out to be and the more replayability. I hate not being able to recruit something somewhere at some point just because "thats how it is". AOR, RC/RR, long time to wait for the next avaliable units etc... It gives more boring stuff to keep in mind and less flexibility.

I guess im pretty much the only one feeling this way as everyone else here seems to love to fiddle with logistics, building the same stuff in many dozens of towns, usually not having your favorite units available etc.

Either way, real life is in many ways a lot more flexible than this game. If some spanish king had realized the advantage of the longbow, he could have stolen a few, or kidnapped some brits, or gotten the welsh to help him, or in some other way adapt it to his own army. Researched it. Thats how a lot of technologies are transferred, also complicated ones like ship designs etc. It is only in hindsight that we can say only "brits use longbows". Of course a moorish general recruiting camels or elephants on campaign in Norway seems a bit silly, but I would love some more flexibility. What if I dont want to be a good christian? Or keep all of my cities close to my capital, or have the main bulk of my armies being peasants? I could mod all that myself if I learned how, but I don't get any feeling of authenticity when I have set something up myself.

Sorry for the rant. Im not entirely sober.

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

Hi all,

Do you think that locals are not available enough to the owning faction?

For example: Longbows for England. I think they should be recruitable as a core unit of the English and AOR for all other factions.

The same with Scouts for Denmark, Border horse for the Scotts, Norse Archers for the Danes/Norway,
and Mortatoi for the Romans.

I have started to edit my game to allow this, and was wondering if others felt the same way.

Some units can stay as they are, such as Viking Raiders.....would make the Danes way OP in the early era.

Any thoughts on this?

Well I haven't managed to play a full campaign in SS6.3 so I can't testify too much on this ... However....

For migration Campaigns, losing the ability to build base core units outside their home region really inhibits faction selection. {At least to me}.

For example, I was told The Turks core archers and Javelins would not be build able outside Asia minor. That kinda kills putting the effort into a migration campaign for me off... I wanted to go to Tunisia or maybe Ireland but without Archers and my beloved javlins..."Meh"...

[newt]

Please read what I was responding to

[Gorrrrrn]

I think we seriously need to develop a Stainless Steel Lite for people with little grasp of history who just want a map over which they can rampage with the biggest selection of units possible.

Sadly I am busy with other projects.

[stevehoos]

I think we seriously need to develop a Stainless Steel Lite for people with little grasp of history who just want a map over which they can rampage with the biggest selection of units possible.

Sadly I am busy with other projects.

[newt]

bane_tw was supposedly working on something. I don't know if he is still doing it or not.

[PaleBlueDot]

Ichon: EU lacks the battle map, which is what I love about TW series. Does any other game than TW have such brilliant, realistic battles, with the potential of overwhelming victories and losses thanks to good tactics?
I can see that culture does limit a commanders options, but think of how quickly everyone started using muskets as soon as they were available. The span of the game is hundreds of years. Every faction is able to get their hands on gunpowder at pretty much the same time, but not pikes somehow. As for for Norway, the viking longbow tradition was at least as old as the english, but somehow M2TW/SS ignores that and gives the vikings crappy retardbows. But this is besides the point, changes in culture are quick when you have centralized power and kings. Even the most important things to people, such as religion could change rather fast even in medieval times. Christianity over paganism, protestantism over catholicism etc.

I understand that some people like to have limited options that fit events as they actually played out, If they enjoy re-enactment or reality, but I myself enjoy having endless options so that each game turns out very different, and I can try out new ideas every time.

[newt]

see my sig

/thread

[k/t]

"The game is about either getting quality of units (faction specific AOR-castle units) or quantity of units (mass lower tier units)."

Only Locals are AOR. You can also get Feudals and Early and Late Professionals from castles, and their quality is usually high. Those can be retrained anywhere.

Edit: That guy who posted the bridge battle thread mistakenly thought his archers were AOR. They're not.

[FastHeinz]

"The game is about either getting quality of units (faction specific AOR-castle units) or quantity of units (mass lower tier units)."

Only Locals are AOR. You can also get Feudals and Early and Late Professionals from castles, and their quality is usually high. Those can be retrained anywhere.

Edit: That guy who posted the bridge battle thread mistakenly thought his archers were AOR. They're not.

No, they can only be retrained in castle type settlement with a varying degree of reqired buildings.

Take the romans for example, their horse archers are early professional. As you go to any historical roman settlement, as "far" as the holyland, you will find how the maximum availability of horse archers is one or if you are really close to home, two units, in a huge citadel with the highest level of stable.

Some early professionals are affected by AOR to a lesser degree is my point.

Would you consider spending all those money on the citadel and king's stable, just so you can wait 20 turns to retrain multiple units of horse archers, a sound investment or an easy task? Or you could hire a bunch of mercenery horse archers that can be retrained "anywhere", even in cities with no buildings requirement. While you could have turned all castles to cities to generate a lot more income to support almost any addiction of merceneries you wish to get. That is why the posters have taken great care of his hard to train and maintain units out of the battle, as we all do to these local AOR units away from home, to the point where the results of the battle in no longer relevant. The preservation of said units take priority.

There is no roman castles worth getting as merceneries can fill the roles of all these castle-based AOR-type and even some early professional units. The ultimate point is that these current AOR implementations have made getting castles very economically unsound and pointless.

And to newt, I have no problem following the progressions of medieval tech in relation to time. What I do have problems with the geographical availability of units as I have pointed out that population migration to newly conquered land will eventually be populated, to some degree, your "own countrymen" (aka, some of those who make up your AOR units) from your "homeland" (aka, pre-defined AOR area). The question of whether local (units) are too restricted for factions and I am giving it a resounding "Hell-Yeah".