Historical Armour Upgrades
I would just like CA to remember which armour is more effective and which is less effective for romans, and not fall into the popular trap of thinking that the Lorica Segmentata offers better protection than the Lorica Hamata because it was developed later, or thinking that because it is plate it is better than mail, that is a medieval chronology, not an ancient one.
Simplified overview:
Early Roman Armour mimicked greek armour, as did the fighting style. After the Samnite wars, the Romans switched to the Manipular system, because it was more effective against hoplite style forces, that relied solely on othismos and morale. The Romans adopted mail, called Lorica Hamata, from the gauls, due to its defensive properties. Mail is extremely effective against sword cuts, though not as effective against thrusting attacks. The Romans perfected the technique of punching things from sheet metal (at least I recall that they perfected it, at the very least the Gauls didn't have it, and the romans employed it during mail-construction), where half of the rings of a coat of mail were punched from a single sheet of metal, and the other half were made from drawn and flattened wire, and then riveted together with the whole rings. Later, faced with challenges of supplying the vast amounts of roman soldiers with equipment, the romans developed the Lorica Segmentata, the overlapping metal plates everyone knows from the movies. The Segmentata was NOT more robust than the Hamata, it was less robust. It was made from sheet metal, fastened together by leather straps. The construction is less flexible than the Hamata, perhaps heavier, though I'm not certain of that, and does not offer as much protection as the Hamata. However, it was much faster, much cheaper, and much simpler to produce than the Hamata, and so the Roman Army adopted to a large degree (though it never entirely supplanted the Hamata) the Segmentata, but later, when in a more stable financial situation, the Hamata was once again adopted in favour of the Segmentata. The armour used by Barbarians, and later by medieval armies was still mail, as a preference. The ability and technology to produce plate armour that was superior to mail armour did not exist until the mid-14th century. Fish-scale Lorica Squamata is so rare in sources and archeological finds that they barely deserve a place in the game, and would most likely also be inferior in quality to the Hamata.
With this short history lesson concluded, I hope I won't have to see people asking to have their armour upgraded from mail to plate over the course of the game.
RTR VII Beta Tester/Dev Team Member
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Originally Posted by akkakk
ing week to build just the rings and the nail them all together. Arguably it could offer you a better protection against stabs and arrows, and definitively is better for things like hammers (which a mail do nothing to stop) and to a lesser degree axes, but that's about it. The mail was excellent to stop slicing wounds that would be the most frequent ones anyway with relative lower weight (if single layered) and more flexibility. I would not say one is better that the other, they complement.
