Originally Posted by
Khay
I'm honestly not sure about the balance, three levels look like A LOT of improvement to me, but god they look great! The implementation of the second armor upgrade (the chainmail one with pauldrons) visual in vanilla, without expanding the upgrade tree to insane levels, would be visually pleasing, yet absolutely transparent in terms of gameplay. If i may give some criticism, however, the texture of this chainmail with bigger rings doesn't look as good as the previous one, in terms of pure visual quality, plus, i'm not sure that better chainmails were historicaly made of bigger rings (though i don't know much about historical armor crafting, tbh
)
I did some testing fighting against higher tier units of other factions with 3-upgraded militia units:
vs Eorling swordsmen, close victory
vs Dismounted royal guards (spearmen), close victory
vs Uruk-hai Infantry, defeat, 1/2 of enemies killed
vs Heavy uruk halberds, very close victory
vs Morannon guards, very close victory (about 20 man remained)
vs Mordor heavy uruks, defeat, 1/2 killed
vs OotMM heavy goblin infantry, defeat, 2/3 killed
vs Dismounted serpent guard, defeat, 2/3 killed
vs Loke-flag rim, crushing defeat, less than half killed
The general trend I observed is that the militia units have less stamina than professional troops. In the beginning of a fight they seem to be doing quite well, however they start losing rapidly after a couple of minutes of the fight. Armor upgrades do nothing to stamina. Also, they only managed to defeat spearmen and lost to most of the professional troops there is. Exception is the Rohan troops. They seem weak. In conclusion I would say it is pretty balanced, considering you need to build 4 levels of forge to get these upgrades going. Also, there is the retrainment cost. To get these upgrades one must play a long campaign and invest a lot of money into it. I would say though that since visually chainmail was removed on unupgraded militia, reducing their base armor from 4 to 3 (9 to 8 overall) can be a good balancing move.
I agree that militia units should not be overpowered. It is just that not utilizing the awesome armor upgrade feature M2TW is killing me. I believe it can be balanced out. Also, staying on 2nd upgrade can be a choice. However, considering that reaching level 4 armoury is almost never possible by the time you get professional units does add to balance. Having armoury however can help to upgrade less useful by then militia units and still make use of them, when enemy starts sending higher tier stacks at your borders.
I am too not sure about the chainmail and all that crafting stuff. I just felt having original militia look at level 2 upgrade discouraging from ugprading it. Why upgrade if same textures will appear again, so I kept it at 1st upgrade. I think I might change the original textures all together, though it takes a lot of time and holidays are running out.
Originally Posted by
salmonpetsku
I think its quite ""unrealistic" that militia units have two kind of helmets, the nasal (norman helmet) and gondorian helmet. Armour values of those two helmets are quite different. So I have a suggestion that ug 0 & 1 have norman helmet and ug2 & 3 gondorian helmet.
Originally Posted by
Yarrum
As said before, standardize the helmet models you use so that the proper Gondorian helmets don't get mixed in the the lower-quality ones.
Regarding the helmets, thats how they originally were. If all of the militia were given the gondorian helmet, they would totally look like professional units. I just liked their helmets in the movie and wanted to try it out. In this modification I only dealt with textures, not touching any model files. Not that I do not want to, I can't, at least for now. I could remove the feathers texture though.
Originally Posted by
salmonpetsku
Partial plate was far more common but most common part were pauldrons (shoulder armor) and gorget (throat armor) with chainmail and gambeson. So IMO last armor upgrade should be chainmail with shoulder plates.
But keep up the good work
I agree about the pauldrons. It seemed very unrealistic when all gondorian troops had fancy full plate armors and such while their kingdom was collapsing. I couldn't find a single scene with a basic militia to try to remake them in the TATW. However, for the sake of pleasing eyes I added frontal full plate armor for 2/3 of them. Also, the others only have frontal body chest armor and no pauldrons (cause the model is not designed for pauldrons and implementation is very hard on militia, tried to no success). I thought it was good to keep some of them less armed.
Originally Posted by
Yarrum
I would recommend that you remove the metal shield texture. It looks cool, but armor upgrades don't affect the unit's shield stat, so it seems silly to upgrade the shields but not have that reflected in the unit's stats.
You should see if you can implement the faces used for the core Gondorian troops, as those are of a much higher quality than the ones for the militia units.
I agree that it is too much for militia. I will see what I can do about the shields. May be replacing with wood will do. On a different note, considering the heavy investments it takes to reach level 4 armoury it does seem balanced. Unless someone intentionally tries to reach it ASAP skipping other economy and military buildings it is not very possible to have it before professional troops become available. Having better shields does not affect shield defense stats, however it does affect main armor stats, so it is not that bad. I also tend to pay much attention to those numbers and like to have consistency and reason in those values.
Originally Posted by
Delta_02_Cat
And think about this, militia units are used when there is a lack of professional troops but if a militia unit fights for years and become highly experienced why shouldn't they become a "regular" unit and therefore get better equipment?
Exactly what I thought! Having a speacial veteran militia unit with silver experience points who have slain hundreds of enemies in tens of battles, defended Osgiliath, sieged the Black gate, marched across the Mordor return to Minas Tirith and get shiny half-plate chest armor in recognition and respect. Also those who fell in battle are replaced and veterans can share experience with fresh recruits. This is the type of unit I was looking for.