Stainless Steel Preview: Units overhaul

[mikomess]

I just wanted to know whether it is coming out this year or next one.

[paleologos]

I just wanted to know whether it is coming out this year or next one.

If it is taking everyone else as long its' been taking me to finish what they started, then next year is the optimistic prediction.

[Andreson]

My request for this mod would be just to add additional functionality and some expansion for the Kievan Rus and Novgorod. Too much has been done for the west and too little for the East if you ask me. That's how I see it.

[paleologos]

The moment of truth for the first model has come and it is "skinner's cut".
You get quite a variety for helmets and I also did what I said I would not, I changed the mail texture.

Here are some screenshots, the first four were taken at dusk.


And you can download here:

Frankish_MAA_ug0.rar

Enjoy.

[Vissewalde rex de Gerzika]

Looks great, are those siciliean knights?

[paleologos]

Looks great, are those siciliean knights?

I made this unit with the intention to replace all western European mercenaries in my game -a personal mod if you will- so that I could make room for more unit types.
By western European mercenaries I mean mercenary knights- Frankish, German- the Byzantine's Latinkon and Alamanoi and the Almoravid Christian Guard.
You can download them now and include them in your game in any way you please.
They are not wearing the true Great Helm type of helmet as it began to be used in the early 13th century and I want them to be available early on.
Some of them are wearing early versions of the Great Helm.
Their first upgrade -which I will be finishing soon- will be clad in scale armor for the torso, true Great Helms plus the "sugarloaf" type of helmet, plate pieces for arms and forearms and plate greaves.
I would like to know what you think of them.

[b257]

Paleologos, your skills as a unit modeler have improved greatly, If your interested, I know this submod for westeros total war 0.53 is looking for a unit modeler: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...!-Easy-Install it would be great to see your units on it, especially since I love the submod but I hate the look of the vanilla units in it.

[paleologos]

Paleologos, your skills as a unit modeler have improved greatly, If your interested, I know this submod for westeros total war 0.53 is looking for a unit modeler: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...!-Easy-Install it would be great to see your units on it, especially since I love the submod but I hate the look of the vanilla units in it.

My work is mostly skinning, with only rudimentary manipulation of the mesh files in milkshape, that is to say I am a skinner, not a modeller.
Also my work is available for use with any mod, no special permissions required as I have relied too much on what other people have done before me.
I would be very much pleased to see my work being officially included in any of the mods.
If someone want me to create additional coats of arms for a skin template that I have already made, they may contact me, although I cannot make any promises.
It is unlikely that I will skin entirely on demand, though if I am intrigued I might do it.
I can say that it is quite easy to produce coats of arms out of existing templates as my WIP files were deliberately made modular.

Also coming soon...

[przemo-dodo]

Hi, I have quick question: will you change the look of polish hussars? They were really good cavalry of late era. I remember that in the lastest version they didn't looked really like those from XVI/XVII century

[paleologos]

Hi there,
it took me a while but the ug1 model is complete and it comes with a reupload of the ug0 model.
I have made improvements in the attachments (common for both models).
Specifically I was trying to find a shield model with a lower vertice count when I discovered that the model I was using featured an unusually large vertice and triangle count.
I had taken that one from one of the byzantine units and it turned out the extra vertices were just redundant, so I was able to eliminate them without losing any detail.
The new shield is enlargened by 20% and the textures of it are improved.
A marginally more sophisticated UV mapping allowed for seven more shield patterns to be included in the texture file for a total of 16.

This is what you get:



The picture below is a good example of Pareto's principle in skinning.
It took me an hour to make four variations of the squamata armour you see.
It took me three days to make that knot on the belt.


You download here:

Frankish_MAA_ug0_ug1.rar

I hope you have a great time with them and let me know what you think because I have two more ugs coming up.

[Everto]

Incredible work paleologos, absolutely perfect.

On the whole I'd just like to say that what you're doing here looks absolutely incredible, I am beyond overjoyed that someone has FINALLY taken up the mantle and decided to give this mod a well needed polish.

On the note of "polishing", I thought I'd bring up a certain faction that needs a very serious re-do...

THE KINGDOM OF POLAND

The Kingdom of Poland is represented currently as a heavily cavalry-centric faction that combines it's Westernized and Eastern traditions, which is on point. However, the early roster lacks severely in the department of aesthetic appearance, and also diversity. MadTao's units, those being the Polish Knights, Piast Nobles and Polish Retainers (along with their dismounted counterparts plus a few other units) are all unpolished and simply in-proportionate renderings of the human form. Helmets, shields and armor are all bulky, stocky and completely inaccurate, as well as the actual build of the soldier's themselves.

All I'm asking is that MadTao's units be thrown out completely, and that new models be inserted to replace the current units, or, if possible, to add on some new units that could help diversify the roster. Here are some ideas I thought I'd share that were created by Taro_M. Here is the LINK

First of, Poland is severely misrepresented in it's ranged units. What I propose is that they be given an archer unit that is specific to the Kingdom of Poland, such as "Piast Archers" or "Polish Archers". Here are a few ideas of what they should look like (with armor upgrades). Obviously I think they should be more colorful and have some sort of Polish insignia, but that can always be added on later... this is just for ideas.
Polish/Piast Archers

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Dismounted
Mounted Archer Equivalent...

The Polish only have mounted crossbowmen as their only early ranged cavalry units, which is simply inaccurate. They should have Lithuanian Horse Archers earlier, and in the later game, they should have a more armored and resilient cavalry archer, which was an integral part of Late-Polish Medieval armies. But since we are on the subject of the mounted crossbowmen, possibly some late-era armor for the Polish Mounted Crossbowmen would do nicely
Late Era Armor Upgrade for
Polish Shooters

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Polish Sergeants Solid, cost efficient heavy cavalry, also in dismounted variant, fight with axe in melee

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Dismounted

Piast Nobles
They are pretty much polish feudal knights, also in dismounted variant

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Dismounted

Piast Knights

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Dismounted

So these are just some visuals, hope that they inspire some changes to the current Polish roster!

[poisoned goat]

I was thinking of changes to the EDU, freeing up many slots for underrepresented factions and removing useless units. Warning: wall of text.

Listed in order of appearance in the EDU

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Fewer ships: We can't fight naval battles anyway, I don't think many people will mourn the merger of cogs, galleys and longboats. 20 slots can be reduced to 5-6.

Italian Men-at-Arms (mounted and dismounted): They're very similar to the normal MAAs that other factions use, except for +1 armor and slightly better availability. Could these 2 MAAs be combined, saving 2 slots? I think the increased availability of Italian MAAs can be preserved by modifying EDB entries?

Italian Cavalry Militia: Their 14 charge bonus looks good, but is absolutely useless in practice. I don't think their 14 charge bonus is realistic either; a bunch of rich folks in a militia shouldn't be able to form up for charges as devastating (as the number implies) as well-trained knights, and then be absolutely useless with a sword.

Polish Retainers: Same problem with Italian Cavalry Militia, they're good at charging but (slightly less) useless in a knife-fight. They're feudal status is also a bit weird because they're just a bunch of retainers instead of being part of the aristocracy.

Bodyguards: Can the number of bodyguards be reduced? The late bodyguards sometimes feel like a waste of space.

Mounted Sergeants: Should be available to all Catholic factions. For factions with local light cavalry units (instead of mounted sergeants), it's kinda depressing when you can't even build a single unit out of King's Stables when outside the AoR.

Chude Militia: For some reason, a “weak” militia unit has 4 armor.

Peasant Archers: Taking up 4 slots when they're virtually identical, except for armor upgrades. Same thing goes for peasants, spear militia, archer militia (England's archer militia is a bit too strong), crossbow militia (the Moorish crossbow militia has 4 armor??), peasant crossbowmen.

Longbowmen: I feel that the local longbowmen are way too strong, making England steamroll once they get access to these units. Reducing their ranged attack to 3 or 4, and their range to 170 (or less) would be better.

Yeoman Archers, Grandine Lancers, Lithuanian Regular Cavalry and other units with a 6-turn recruitment time: It's really long.....

Sherwood Archers: Fantasy unit. Interestingly, they have a shorter range than the other longbowmen.

Highland Archers: They're kinda useless, to be honest.

Pavise crossbowmen and their militia version: They're very similar, with slightly better stats on the professional version. I feel that they could be merged into 1 unit, probably militia quality. Same goes for the Genoese variants.

Free Company Longbowmen and MAAs: I would like to add "Free Company" to the unit names, to distinguish them from normal longbowmen/MAAs.

Javelinmen and their Lusitanian version: The Lusitanian version is slightly stronger, but fulfill very similar roles because they're both AoR units. At least Almughavars are unique to Aragon and available throughout the map.

Transylvanian Peasants: I feel like they're a fantasy unit with very limited availability.

Irish Kerns, Gwent Raiders, Welsh Spearmen and Longbowmen, Galloglaich: Too many special mercs in the British Isles.

Flagellants: (Relatively useless) Crusade unit with low availability, can probably remove with little effects.

Fyrd Spearmen: Very similar to spear militia (except for upkeep).

Pavise Spearmen: I'm not sure why such a generic-sounding unit is unique to Hungary.

Armored Swordsmen: Again, a very generic sounding unit that's unique to England, but also strangely a feudal unit. Almost identical to Scotland's Noble Swordsmen and the generic dismounted Chivalric Knights.

Battlefield Assassins, Hashishim (plus merc version): Fantasy units? Pretty useless too.

Turkish Horse Archers, Turkomans (x2), Turkopoles, Akinjis: Really similar, except some of them are merc units with higher upkeep (and/or reduced numbers).

Siphais (Fari Cav), Mamluk Archers: They have an absurdly long range. The same goes for Bekh Druzhina but the latter doesn't feel so absurd.

Moorish spearmen (Spear Militia, Arab Infantry, Nubian Spearmen, Lamtuna Spearmen, Heavy Spearmen): The Moors have too many pointless varieties of spearmen, and a bunch of semi-redundant swordsmen too.

Tabardariyya: Their availability, along with the Mamluks, should be reduced somewhat. Late game Fatmids just spam endless waves of these units.

Mongol archers: Mounted Khorchis are weaker then Nukeri, when the description says they’re the elite within the elite. Then, Dismounted Khorchis are weaker than the Merguen, which are the elite units within the elites of the elite? These Mongols use too many superlatives. Additionally, why doesn’t the Merguen have a mounted version?

Dismounted Turhagut: There’s 2 entries, one of which is misspelled.

Artillery units: Apart from merc siege units, there are also duplicate artillery units like NE Ballistas, ME Ballistas etc.

Halberd MAAs and Halberdiers: The Halberdier is somewhat like the late version of the Halberd MAA, and recruited as a late professional instead. They’re really similar for the most part. I think it wouldn’t be a huge concern if these units were merged.

Genoese Carroccio Standard: The voice actor actually says “Standard of Milan” instead of Genoa.

Smolensk Infantry, Desert Raiders: I don’t recall seeing these units in the game.

Light Swordsmen and MAAs: Aren’t these units the same thing?

Andalusian Infantry: Very low availability, barely seen unless fighting the Moors for a hundred turns.

Normal Serjeants: Almost identical to Spearmen Sergeants.

The incredibly bloated roster of the Crusader States: They have a ton of useless unique units in the game: Knights of Jerusalem (x2), Knights of Lazarus (x2), Constable of Jerusalem, Canons of the Holy Sepulcher, Edessan Guard, Syrian Auxiliaries, Marinae, Templar Sergeants, Squires, Heavy Spearmen, Zweihander, Guard, Crossbowmen, Longbowmen, Confrere Knights. That’s 18 unique units for a faction that’s almost always wiped out by the Fatmids. Their roster could be trimmed extensively, using other preexisting units. For example, Canons of the Holy Sepulcher can be removed, the Knights of Lazarus can be replaced with Knights Hospitaller (they’re technically from the same order), the Templar Heavy Spearmen and Zweihanders can be replaced by Templar Foot Knights, Templar Confrere Knights can be replaced by Knights Templar, Templar Crossbowmen/Longbowmen can be replaced by some generic crossbow/longbow unit, Syrian Auxillaries can be more numerous (currently they’re virtually nonexistent). Keep the Templar Guard because they’re so cool (although they’re more suitable candidates to be replaced). This will free up a ton of slots to expand the rosters of other factions.

The Lithuanian roster: Also quite bloated, but feels unique instead of pointless like the CS roster. However, a few units could be streamlined: Lettish crossbowmen (kinda generic), Lithuanian and Ruthenian archers (overlapping), Baltic and Ducal spearmen (somewhat overlapping), Ducal Cavalry (useless and expensive), Lithuanian Cavalry Militia (generic too).

With these changes, >50 slots can be opened up in the EDU, making a lot of room for other changes. I would suggest the following changes:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The Cumans really need more units. Their roster is depressingly small.
More Jihad units. The Muslim factions only have 2 rather crappy Jihad units, in contrast to the 7 Crusade units.
The non-Catholic factions should get more unique units, especially in the super late era. Currently, the Catholic factions are the only ones with the super late units (heavily armored units, pike-and-shot). Giving the Muslim/Russian/Pagan factions some of these units would make their rosters more balanced.
On the flipside, the majority of Catholic factions need a larger variety of early era units. Spear militia vs spear militia (with the occasional Mailed Knight) is really boring.

I hope that this feedback will be useful to the SS7.0 team. I would like to help out if you guys need some additional assistance.

[Jukoman]

I was thinking of changes to the EDU, freeing up many slots for underrepresented factions and removing useless units.

First you tell me - which units you want to add?

I can say - little Swiss units.

[toshiroash]

I was thinking of changes to the EDU, freeing up many slots for underrepresented factions and removing useless units. Warning: wall of text.

Listed in order of appearance in the EDU

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Fewer ships: We can't fight naval battles anyway, I don't think many people will mourn the merger of cogs, galleys and longboats. 20 slots can be reduced to 5-6.

Italian Men-at-Arms (mounted and dismounted): They're very similar to the normal MAAs that other factions use, except for +1 armor and slightly better availability. Could these 2 MAAs be combined, saving 2 slots? I think the increased availability of Italian MAAs can be preserved by modifying EDB entries?

Italian Cavalry Militia: Their 14 charge bonus looks good, but is absolutely useless in practice. I don't think their 14 charge bonus is realistic either; a bunch of rich folks in a militia shouldn't be able to form up for charges as devastating (as the number implies) as well-trained knights, and then be absolutely useless with a sword.

Polish Retainers: Same problem with Italian Cavalry Militia, they're good at charging but (slightly less) useless in a knife-fight. They're feudal status is also a bit weird because they're just a bunch of retainers instead of being part of the aristocracy.

Bodyguards: Can the number of bodyguards be reduced? The late bodyguards sometimes feel like a waste of space.

Mounted Sergeants: Should be available to all Catholic factions. For factions with local light cavalry units (instead of mounted sergeants), it's kinda depressing when you can't even build a single unit out of King's Stables when outside the AoR.

Chude Militia: For some reason, a “weak” militia unit has 4 armor.

Peasant Archers: Taking up 4 slots when they're virtually identical, except for armor upgrades. Same thing goes for peasants, spear militia, archer militia (England's archer militia is a bit too strong), crossbow militia (the Moorish crossbow militia has 4 armor??), peasant crossbowmen.

Longbowmen: I feel that the local longbowmen are way too strong, making England steamroll once they get access to these units. Reducing their ranged attack to 3 or 4, and their range to 170 (or less) would be better.

Yeoman Archers, Grandine Lancers, Lithuanian Regular Cavalry and other units with a 6-turn recruitment time: It's really long.....

Sherwood Archers: Fantasy unit. Interestingly, they have a shorter range than the other longbowmen.

Highland Archers: They're kinda useless, to be honest.

Pavise crossbowmen and their militia version: They're very similar, with slightly better stats on the professional version. I feel that they could be merged into 1 unit, probably militia quality. Same goes for the Genoese variants.

Free Company Longbowmen and MAAs: I would like to add "Free Company" to the unit names, to distinguish them from normal longbowmen/MAAs.

Javelinmen and their Lusitanian version: The Lusitanian version is slightly stronger, but fulfill very similar roles because they're both AoR units. At least Almughavars are unique to Aragon and available throughout the map.

Transylvanian Peasants: I feel like they're a fantasy unit with very limited availability.

Irish Kerns, Gwent Raiders, Welsh Spearmen and Longbowmen, Galloglaich: Too many special mercs in the British Isles.

Flagellants: (Relatively useless) Crusade unit with low availability, can probably remove with little effects.

Fyrd Spearmen: Very similar to spear militia (except for upkeep).

Pavise Spearmen: I'm not sure why such a generic-sounding unit is unique to Hungary.

Armored Swordsmen: Again, a very generic sounding unit that's unique to England, but also strangely a feudal unit. Almost identical to Scotland's Noble Swordsmen and the generic dismounted Chivalric Knights.

Battlefield Assassins, Hashishim (plus merc version): Fantasy units? Pretty useless too.

Turkish Horse Archers, Turkomans (x2), Turkopoles, Akinjis: Really similar, except some of them are merc units with higher upkeep (and/or reduced numbers).

Siphais (Fari Cav), Mamluk Archers: They have an absurdly long range. The same goes for Bekh Druzhina but the latter doesn't feel so absurd.

Moorish spearmen (Spear Militia, Arab Infantry, Nubian Spearmen, Lamtuna Spearmen, Heavy Spearmen): The Moors have too many pointless varieties of spearmen, and a bunch of semi-redundant swordsmen too.

Tabardariyya: Their availability, along with the Mamluks, should be reduced somewhat. Late game Fatmids just spam endless waves of these units.

Mongol archers: Mounted Khorchis are weaker then Nukeri, when the description says they’re the elite within the elite. Then, Dismounted Khorchis are weaker than the Merguen, which are the elite units within the elites of the elite? These Mongols use too many superlatives. Additionally, why doesn’t the Merguen have a mounted version?

Dismounted Turhagut: There’s 2 entries, one of which is misspelled.

Artillery units: Apart from merc siege units, there are also duplicate artillery units like NE Ballistas, ME Ballistas etc.

Halberd MAAs and Halberdiers: The Halberdier is somewhat like the late version of the Halberd MAA, and recruited as a late professional instead. They’re really similar for the most part. I think it wouldn’t be a huge concern if these units were merged.

Genoese Carroccio Standard: The voice actor actually says “Standard of Milan” instead of Genoa.

Smolensk Infantry, Desert Raiders: I don’t recall seeing these units in the game.

Light Swordsmen and MAAs: Aren’t these units the same thing?

Andalusian Infantry: Very low availability, barely seen unless fighting the Moors for a hundred turns.

Normal Serjeants: Almost identical to Spearmen Sergeants.

The incredibly bloated roster of the Crusader States: They have a ton of useless unique units in the game: Knights of Jerusalem (x2), Knights of Lazarus (x2), Constable of Jerusalem, Canons of the Holy Sepulcher, Edessan Guard, Syrian Auxiliaries, Marinae, Templar Sergeants, Squires, Heavy Spearmen, Zweihander, Guard, Crossbowmen, Longbowmen, Confrere Knights. That’s 18 unique units for a faction that’s almost always wiped out by the Fatmids. Their roster could be trimmed extensively, using other preexisting units. For example, Canons of the Holy Sepulcher can be removed, the Knights of Lazarus can be replaced with Knights Hospitaller (they’re technically from the same order), the Templar Heavy Spearmen and Zweihanders can be replaced by Templar Foot Knights, Templar Confrere Knights can be replaced by Knights Templar, Templar Crossbowmen/Longbowmen can be replaced by some generic crossbow/longbow unit, Syrian Auxillaries can be more numerous (currently they’re virtually nonexistent). Keep the Templar Guard because they’re so cool (although they’re more suitable candidates to be replaced). This will free up a ton of slots to expand the rosters of other factions.

The Lithuanian roster: Also quite bloated, but feels unique instead of pointless like the CS roster. However, a few units could be streamlined: Lettish crossbowmen (kinda generic), Lithuanian and Ruthenian archers (overlapping), Baltic and Ducal spearmen (somewhat overlapping), Ducal Cavalry (useless and expensive), Lithuanian Cavalry Militia (generic too).

With these changes, >50 slots can be opened up in the EDU, making a lot of room for other changes. I would suggest the following changes:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The Cumans really need more units. Their roster is depressingly small.
More Jihad units. The Muslim factions only have 2 rather crappy Jihad units, in contrast to the 7 Crusade units.
The non-Catholic factions should get more unique units, especially in the super late era. Currently, the Catholic factions are the only ones with the super late units (heavily armored units, pike-and-shot). Giving the Muslim/Russian/Pagan factions some of these units would make their rosters more balanced.
On the flipside, the majority of Catholic factions need a larger variety of early era units. Spear militia vs spear militia (with the occasional Mailed Knight) is really boring.

I hope that this feedback will be useful to the SS7.0 team. I would like to help out if you guys need some additional assistance.

Hear hear

[Kilgore Trout]

I'm so thankful to all the modders who are continuing the great SS tradition, especially now that DoTS has fallen on such, hopefully only temporary, hard times. Just curious though, if it's not too much trouble, who is on the team now?

I know there were great plans for an SS supermod a few years ago, but that fell through for some reason, and most of those modders seem to have carried on with their own projects or joined some other team. Wasn't quite sure why all that happened, but there must have been some disagreements. I had thought that that project was going to really be something. Are any of those people working with the current SS team now?

And how about Gracul, Point Blank, Germanicu5, and the others who had been working on SS 7.0 or other submods? Are any of them still active on the 7.0 team? I know PB and BYG at least must still be lurking around somewhere - PB most likely pondering a beer on a beach somewhere in Thailand, and BYG most likely pondering a way to make things still more challenging for us all.

Regardless, thanks to the new team for soldiering on.

Just curious as to exactly who the team is now so I can thank and encourage them, and what exactly has happened to their heroic fore-bearers in this continuing glory that is Stainless Steel!

[valky]

I was thinking of changes to the EDU, freeing up many slots for underrepresented factions and removing useless units. Warning: wall of text.

Listed in order of appearance in the EDU

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Fewer ships: We can't fight naval battles anyway, I don't think many people will mourn the merger of cogs, galleys and longboats. 20 slots can be reduced to 5-6.

Italian Men-at-Arms (mounted and dismounted): They're very similar to the normal MAAs that other factions use, except for +1 armor and slightly better availability. Could these 2 MAAs be combined, saving 2 slots? I think the increased availability of Italian MAAs can be preserved by modifying EDB entries?

Italian Cavalry Militia: Their 14 charge bonus looks good, but is absolutely useless in practice. I don't think their 14 charge bonus is realistic either; a bunch of rich folks in a militia shouldn't be able to form up for charges as devastating (as the number implies) as well-trained knights, and then be absolutely useless with a sword.

Polish Retainers: Same problem with Italian Cavalry Militia, they're good at charging but (slightly less) useless in a knife-fight. They're feudal status is also a bit weird because they're just a bunch of retainers instead of being part of the aristocracy.

Bodyguards: Can the number of bodyguards be reduced? The late bodyguards sometimes feel like a waste of space.

Mounted Sergeants: Should be available to all Catholic factions. For factions with local light cavalry units (instead of mounted sergeants), it's kinda depressing when you can't even build a single unit out of King's Stables when outside the AoR.

Chude Militia: For some reason, a “weak” militia unit has 4 armor.

Peasant Archers: Taking up 4 slots when they're virtually identical, except for armor upgrades. Same thing goes for peasants, spear militia, archer militia (England's archer militia is a bit too strong), crossbow militia (the Moorish crossbow militia has 4 armor??), peasant crossbowmen.

Longbowmen: I feel that the local longbowmen are way too strong, making England steamroll once they get access to these units. Reducing their ranged attack to 3 or 4, and their range to 170 (or less) would be better.

Yeoman Archers, Grandine Lancers, Lithuanian Regular Cavalry and other units with a 6-turn recruitment time: It's really long.....

Sherwood Archers: Fantasy unit. Interestingly, they have a shorter range than the other longbowmen.

Highland Archers: They're kinda useless, to be honest.

Pavise crossbowmen and their militia version: They're very similar, with slightly better stats on the professional version. I feel that they could be merged into 1 unit, probably militia quality. Same goes for the Genoese variants.

Free Company Longbowmen and MAAs: I would like to add "Free Company" to the unit names, to distinguish them from normal longbowmen/MAAs.

Javelinmen and their Lusitanian version: The Lusitanian version is slightly stronger, but fulfill very similar roles because they're both AoR units. At least Almughavars are unique to Aragon and available throughout the map.

Transylvanian Peasants: I feel like they're a fantasy unit with very limited availability.

Irish Kerns, Gwent Raiders, Welsh Spearmen and Longbowmen, Galloglaich: Too many special mercs in the British Isles.

Flagellants: (Relatively useless) Crusade unit with low availability, can probably remove with little effects.

Fyrd Spearmen: Very similar to spear militia (except for upkeep).

Pavise Spearmen: I'm not sure why such a generic-sounding unit is unique to Hungary.

Armored Swordsmen: Again, a very generic sounding unit that's unique to England, but also strangely a feudal unit. Almost identical to Scotland's Noble Swordsmen and the generic dismounted Chivalric Knights.

Battlefield Assassins, Hashishim (plus merc version): Fantasy units? Pretty useless too.

Turkish Horse Archers, Turkomans (x2), Turkopoles, Akinjis: Really similar, except some of them are merc units with higher upkeep (and/or reduced numbers).

Siphais (Fari Cav), Mamluk Archers: They have an absurdly long range. The same goes for Bekh Druzhina but the latter doesn't feel so absurd.

Moorish spearmen (Spear Militia, Arab Infantry, Nubian Spearmen, Lamtuna Spearmen, Heavy Spearmen): The Moors have too many pointless varieties of spearmen, and a bunch of semi-redundant swordsmen too.

Tabardariyya: Their availability, along with the Mamluks, should be reduced somewhat. Late game Fatmids just spam endless waves of these units.

Mongol archers: Mounted Khorchis are weaker then Nukeri, when the description says they’re the elite within the elite. Then, Dismounted Khorchis are weaker than the Merguen, which are the elite units within the elites of the elite? These Mongols use too many superlatives. Additionally, why doesn’t the Merguen have a mounted version?

Dismounted Turhagut: There’s 2 entries, one of which is misspelled.

Artillery units: Apart from merc siege units, there are also duplicate artillery units like NE Ballistas, ME Ballistas etc.

Halberd MAAs and Halberdiers: The Halberdier is somewhat like the late version of the Halberd MAA, and recruited as a late professional instead. They’re really similar for the most part. I think it wouldn’t be a huge concern if these units were merged.

Genoese Carroccio Standard: The voice actor actually says “Standard of Milan” instead of Genoa.

Smolensk Infantry, Desert Raiders: I don’t recall seeing these units in the game.

Light Swordsmen and MAAs: Aren’t these units the same thing?

Andalusian Infantry: Very low availability, barely seen unless fighting the Moors for a hundred turns.

Normal Serjeants: Almost identical to Spearmen Sergeants.

The incredibly bloated roster of the Crusader States: They have a ton of useless unique units in the game: Knights of Jerusalem (x2), Knights of Lazarus (x2), Constable of Jerusalem, Canons of the Holy Sepulcher, Edessan Guard, Syrian Auxiliaries, Marinae, Templar Sergeants, Squires, Heavy Spearmen, Zweihander, Guard, Crossbowmen, Longbowmen, Confrere Knights. That’s 18 unique units for a faction that’s almost always wiped out by the Fatmids. Their roster could be trimmed extensively, using other preexisting units. For example, Canons of the Holy Sepulcher can be removed, the Knights of Lazarus can be replaced with Knights Hospitaller (they’re technically from the same order), the Templar Heavy Spearmen and Zweihanders can be replaced by Templar Foot Knights, Templar Confrere Knights can be replaced by Knights Templar, Templar Crossbowmen/Longbowmen can be replaced by some generic crossbow/longbow unit, Syrian Auxillaries can be more numerous (currently they’re virtually nonexistent). Keep the Templar Guard because they’re so cool (although they’re more suitable candidates to be replaced). This will free up a ton of slots to expand the rosters of other factions.

The Lithuanian roster: Also quite bloated, but feels unique instead of pointless like the CS roster. However, a few units could be streamlined: Lettish crossbowmen (kinda generic), Lithuanian and Ruthenian archers (overlapping), Baltic and Ducal spearmen (somewhat overlapping), Ducal Cavalry (useless and expensive), Lithuanian Cavalry Militia (generic too).

With these changes, >50 slots can be opened up in the EDU, making a lot of room for other changes. I would suggest the following changes:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The Cumans really need more units. Their roster is depressingly small.
More Jihad units. The Muslim factions only have 2 rather crappy Jihad units, in contrast to the 7 Crusade units.
The non-Catholic factions should get more unique units, especially in the super late era. Currently, the Catholic factions are the only ones with the super late units (heavily armored units, pike-and-shot). Giving the Muslim/Russian/Pagan factions some of these units would make their rosters more balanced.
On the flipside, the majority of Catholic factions need a larger variety of early era units. Spear militia vs spear militia (with the occasional Mailed Knight) is really boring.

I hope that this feedback will be useful to the SS7.0 team. I would like to help out if you guys need some additional assistance.

Why don't we cut units from HRE/England/France as well ? They also have a lot of useless ****...
For some units for CS I agree (2?) but most of them are fine...don't need another copy&paste faction. At least some mounted knight units could be removed but NOT Lazarus ^^ (i love them with their AP attack). And why would you replace nearly everything else with Hospitaller/Templar? They have for sure easy access to them as well - but to cripple them with their bread-butter infantry is just stupid (heavy Lancers + 2handers = awesome). Further - if you ever played them - the Xbow unit is the first viable counter to the archer spam (mounted/regularly) you'll encounter down under, the basic archer is just utterly garbage. And the longbowmen - both of them - need a citadel = wow, easy to get unit ....

Just removing units from a faction you obviously don't like is no solution. And CUmans do fine..it only takes some time to 'spam' (lol!) the Bekh/Khagan-obliteration-units...you really don't need anything else. Maybe - but only MAYBE - a late-heavy cavalry unit, or give the Khagan Druzina their axt/maces, which they had at this time. (mixed with sabers) Heavier/different armament was introduced later and included more or less only the sword or a mix of several weapons while mounted.

St. John & St. Lazarus are 2 different orders - on a sidenote. They have absolutely nothing in common, given that the latter was founded by leper inflicted knights.

[Heathen Hammer]

These look like Vanilla units...

[b257]

These look like Vanilla units...

The actual team hasn't posted any new unit previews for awhile, most of the stuff seen so far has been either aspiring skinners showing off their work or those wishing for so and so factions roster to be expanded upon.

[diamutene]

I respect to your effort. I wish, will be new units. Especially muslim faction.

[BenjiTheViking]

Hey guys. Sounds really, really good that you are working on a SS 7.0, because I have been wanting to play Medieval 2 for some time now, but I wanted to see if something was coming up. In the new SS 7.0 can you PLEASE change the colour of the Danish army from yellow and blue, back to red and white. The Danish army in 6.4 is just Danes in Swedish discuise and it looks terrible. I know the royal emblem is blue and yellow when you search for it, but Denmark has always used red and white as our color. I have considered just starting to play the original game because I want to see my red and white army with the Danish flag up high in the wind, and not some ugly yellow and blue emblem. The royal emblem is probably historically correct, but can you please make the emblem on a red and white banner, and most important make the units red and white again? That would be awesome! I love playing is Denmark, but not when they are not the right color. It just looks weird. I hope you can fix it for the next SS! I would be VERY, VERY grateful!