A thought: Unit characteristics

[kosmosje1]

Hey everyone,

I just wondered if others here have ever shared the thought that it's a pity units in the game cannot get any specific characteristics like the generals. With that I mean ancillaries, special training, special traits etc.

For example (MIITW style): A unit of spear militia is recruited in London. Under leadership of a general, it assaults a few towns and sacks them. During these fights they sustain casualties and these are replaced with retraining, after which they enter Scotland.

By then, they have travelled far, undergone combat and training, etc. So they would gain traits such as:
"Wall Taker" (+1 morale when assaulting walls)
"Relishes in the sack" (gain additional experience while sacking town)
"Trained" (+1 morale due to training)
"Veteran" (+1 attack, +1 defence, +1 morale)

So by using the unit often, these men have become more suited for an offensive role, while a spear unit left in a town for a long time would become lazy. A unit called upon to regularly defend their town or position would gain better defenses.

Traits could then be gained or lost when units are retrained or merged. This way, you would gain the ability to create really powerful, unique units.

Following previous example: After completely defeating the Scots with their general, the victorious, highly experienced, rich unit returns home, gaining the trait "Home Guard of London." Despite starting as a lowly spear militia unit, their use in constant war has turned them into hardened elites that could go toe-to-toe with knights. If they are then left in London, they slowly return to being simple spear militia by losing traits.

Regardless of feasability, I think it'd be really cool

[Plant]

This is what experience does. You want powerful units? Experience. Hardened elites? Experience. In reallife, people don't forget combat skills learnt in battle. Do you really want the game to be more complicated? In the end, what will happen is that you will have entire armies of wall taking sackers. Which is what basically happens in Civ4, even though they attack one at a time.

[Mik528]

Although this sounds like a cool idea, I only like the part where you can get things like "Veteran" adding attack and defence stats as well as morale. The other things such as wall taker and sacker makes it complecated. However, it seems like if it was in a TW game more micro managing would be involved to make sure certain units don't get the negative traits, and it would be very annoying to watch a group of your Dismounted Chivies get slaughtered by a elite group of Swordsmen Militia.

My final thoughts: Great idea, but its adding too much icing on to the cake

[R1zbear]

This is what experience does. You want powerful units? Experience. Hardened elites? Experience. In reallife, people don't forget combat skills learnt in battle. Do you really want the game to be more complicated? In the end, what will happen is that you will have entire armies of wall taking sackers. Which is what basically happens in Civ4, even though they attack one at a time.

Great post! It's very nice. Thank you so much for your post.