¿Elite units or late units?

[jeanlannes]

Hello. First of all thanks to the authors of this beautiful mod and to the actual team for continue working to make BC even better.

I've got a point to throw to all of you, a thing that always annoyed me in most Total War mods. Of course its something related to my own personal taste, so please thake it like that, no offense meaning.

In BC (the only mod I care now while I wait for EB), as in many other mods I played, elite units are tied to the higher level buildings, mainly in castles, and construction of this buildings linked to developing of castles, what is severly limited by the hardness of incrising castle population. The result of this is that being able to recruit elite units takes many and many years. My point is that each faction should be able recruit its elite units, the ones that existed at the beggining of the time frame of the mod, at least in one settlement. I never liked the solution of having elite units at the begginig of the game that cannot actually be trained in any settlement. Taking Georgia as example, if monaspa where the elite units of the georgian army by the time the mod begins I'd like to be able to recruit them. I'd understand a very high cost, a very low replenish rate or both things combined, but not the fact that I have to play hundreds of turns (which means years) to get them when actually they existed at the start of the game.

I see two different solutions for this. One could be giving each faction at least one castle whith the higher level buildings. The second, the one I like most, would be making elite units recruitable at lower level buildings (with pretty low replenish rates). In this scenario, higher level buildings would work in two ways: a) increasing replenish rates and pool availability , and b) giving access to actual later units, units that didn't existed by the time the mod starts; the best example should be janissary units, in case the mod lasted til the age they were created (I know mod ends before that and they won't present in BC3).

In fact I know the real thing is that I never liked the whole city/castle dicotomy. After many years playing MTW2 I've reached the conclusion that all settlements should be cities, with all kind of units recruitable there, and using permanent stone forts to represent historical castles.

I would like to read you people thoughts in this matter (or if you don't care about what concerns me and I'm alone in this point )

Thanks for reading.

[Dago Red]

They've already gone in this direction, with a greater unit pool available at start. Taking your example as Georgia, you can recruit some elite units right away at your main fortress (Tiblisi?) Tadzreuli, etc. There needs to be some left for later. Personally I don't mind that at the very start, I cannot equip new Monaspa units, there are plenty of others to recruit. If you meet with a plague or other disaster, you will indeed wait a long time, but otherwise I don't think it needs too much tweaking, other than more buildings which actually help population increase (currently many say they do, Madrassa come to mind, but they don't actually give you the 5% pop boost they claim).

Furthermore, Georgia is a special case, you can't even recruit the basic troop -- kartlian spearmen until the 3rd barracks tier! That has to be a mistake, it should be the 2nd tier IMO, otherwise you can't field your basic troops for 30 or 40 turns.

Though I would like to see greater availability all across the board mid-game, there is too much reliance on foreign aor troops to succeed in a campaign.

[jeanlannes]

Yes, I've already seen that last version has gone in this direction, but still I think it's not enough. For me, the question is that if some type of units, like monaspa, formed tha backbone of Georgian armies by the time, the player should have the chance to train them without having to wait a hundred of more turns (you seem very optimistic regarding the speed of population growth in castles; for me, constructing all farms improvements and putting there chivalrous governors, still takes ages).

I understand that one of the main goals of playing TW games is getting the better units at some time, but taking so much is (to my view) unrealstic. It makes sense only to get units that the faction didn't have by that time. Getting elite units even with low level units shouldn't eliminate the main reason of constructing higher ones if these give you higher replenish rate an pool availabilty. In addition, another solution instead of this could be having one settlement with the higher buildings from the beggining of the game.

It's not just about Georgia (although I agree the question of the spearmen is even more strange) because it happens with every faction. There is a spearmen unit of ERE which is supposed to be some kind of imperial guard, but you can't train them so, who's guarding the emperor? . The same goes for the rest. If a type of unit existed when the game starts I think it should be recruitable. And having some of them at the beggining but being unable to retrain seems senseless to me.

And it's neither something about difficulty on succeeding in campaign. I know there plenty availability of units since the beggining. It's just about realism.

[chris7ian]

a submod could easily fix your problem, if bc3 is not as historical as you would prefer.

[cardoran gosdantin]

georgia can recruit many of its best units at the start: dismounted monaspa and monaspa foot archers are available right from the get go... though the monaspa knights are alot harder ot reach.

kartlian spearman can be trained in AOR cities... the most obvious and fastest solution being a quick blitzkrieg of that rebel city to the north of tbilisi, you can also recruit equally good spearmen in baku (slobahan molasqre)

Factions can recruit many of their best units more easily since 2.3

Koj has a weird bug that removes access to templar axemen and elite templar knights even though they can be initially recruited...

Generally if you can recruit light horse archers (as georgia can do easily via mercs and native) they are the best choice.

[DevrimJan]

georgia can recruit many of its best units at the start: dismounted monaspa and monaspa foot archers are available right from the get go... though the monaspa knights are alot harder ot reach.

kartlian spearman can be trained in AOR cities... the most obvious and fastest solution being a quick blitzkrieg of that rebel city to the north of tbilisi, you can also recruit equally good spearmen in baku (slobahan molasqre)

Factions can recruit many of their best units more easily since 2.3

Koj has a weird bug that removes access to templar axemen and elite templar knights even though they can be initially recruited...

Generally if you can recruit light horse archers (as georgia can do easily via mercs and native) they are the best choice.

Welcome to the forums!

[k/t]

"Koj has a weird bug that removes access to templar axemen and elite templar knights even though they can be initially recruited..."

Is this true and how can I fix it?

[Ichon]

I'd prefer system which all tiers of units outside of specials recruited only in Capitol or from special building only available in large cities(ERE mercenaries maybe) available from turn 1. However for some elite units the refill is .045 so it would take roughly 23 turns to refill and even longer than if retraining drains the pool before 23 turns. Additional barracks structures and sometimes other structures(shipyards might increase refill of siege equipment slightly or higher mosque or church increases ghazi and order knights for example by .02) then increase max numbers available and refill rate as higher barracks can be built with higher level walls. So after 3rd level of walls are reached for instance 3rd tier units reach their max refill and the only benefit to making higher walls and barracks besides access to better income is that the tier 4 and higher units will gain faster refill.

So if you could train 1 order knight at .045 from turn 1 then on turn 24 you would get either a 2nd or be able to retrain nearly full amount of the first. If on turn 25 you've been able to complete building 1 level higher walls and new barracks the refill rate increase to .065 so in roughly 16 turns you can get another order knight, lets say in 10 turns on turn 35 you complete higher level church for addition of .01 to make refill .075 and you get your next order knight 1 turns earlier at 15 turns now. And so on that at the final level of barracks with all churches built you might get an order knight every 9 turns. As this is a continual process and you have to fund your knights as well and retrain them it would be quite difficult to accumulate larger numbers of elites but you do get a small constant supply increased by larger cities and military facilities.

The main difficulty of course is figuring out the rates for all the units and how much more work it adds to any roster changes.

[mTk]

I've been playing as the Abbassids on VH/VH (BC 2.3) for a while now, and I cannot help but notice how late their last cavalry unit, the Faris Lancers come into play. You need a Citadel in your Home AOR to get them, the earliest citadel I got was Mawsil (Mosul) and by that time I already had conquered as far south as Mecca and Jerusalem and as far east as Bam, not to mention having enough money to buy territories from the Romans and the Ghorids (both of whom are now my allies).

Their stats, however, are disappointing, considering how late you get access to them. I do not expect them to be as heavily armoured as the Khwarezmian cataphracts or as deadly as the Templars, of course, but their stats are highly similar to the Ghulam lancers except that they have normal instead of "good" stamina. I suggest they be given at least "good" stamina level as Arabian horses tend to be depicted in the game as having good endurance (Arabian cavalry and Arabian Horsemen get very good stamina, for example), and perhaps a higher charge and attack level to differentiate them from the Ghulams. The Ghulams get AP attribute instead, to compensate (I think they already do, but I may be wrong).


(edit: Silly me. This should belong to the elite/late units thread. Mods, merge it if possible. Thanks!)


I know this is but one tiny aspect of this great mod. I'm sure many others have their own qualms about different types of units in different factions. If there is a proper thread for me to voice this out, do point me there. Thanks in advance!