Armour-variation within a unit: A critique

[LinusLinothorax]

I played EB2 for 42 hours now and currently i am playing a pretty fun campaign with Carthage. I also played many custom battles with every faction and almost every unit. I noticed a thing that bugs me and it has not anything to do with gameplay but design choices. I already posted it around a week ago, but i want to repost it again just for the case, that no one of the team read it:

So i want to talk about armour-variations within a unit. The first time i recognized something weird was when i choosed the Indian lancers. I was pretty excited to see this heavy, unpreviewed cavalry unit. So i selceted them, started a battle and was pretty dissapointed. The first i saw was a soldier in thin clothing and without any helmet.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

After some seconds i finally found one guy with scale armour, but in the whole unit there were maybe five guys with scalearmour and two of them weared a helmet. While i could live with some units wearing a helmet while other wearing a turban or a hair-knot, the variations between the armours are to crass. The Indian lancers are supposed to be a heavy cavarly of the highest of all Indian castres. And if a unit is supposed to be heavy, you shouldnt mix up heavy armour with thin all day clothing.

An other example are the batairoi, the Celtic combatants. Just compare these both:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Some are heavy armoured, wearing a linothorax and a bronce helmet, while other are almost naked, only wearing a pant. Of course, historical this happened that some Cetls wearing barchested while others are armoured, but in Total War you have to be able to classify a unit. Is it light, medium or heavy? While mixing so much, you are no more able to. You look at their stats, seeing 3 armour, which is to low for a heavy armoured warrior as you can see him in the left picture, but to high for the naked guy to the right.

There are many units which mix up different classes of armour, not only the two examples above. I just want to mention the "light" Illyrian cavalry. Their unit card shows a rider wearing a heavy bronce breastplate (!) and a helmet, but on the battlefield only a few wear this heavy kind of armour, while the most others are actual "light" cavalry.

Of course, there are also units which fit exclusively one category of heaviness of the armour (Light/medium/heavy). Examples are most skirmishers and eg. The Parthian cataphracts, the royal kinsmen cavalry or the Median cavalry:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

My conclusion is, that every soldier within a unit should wear an armour of the same class of heaviness like his colleagues wear. Mixing scalearmour, a linothorax and maybe a bronce breastplate (An iron one would be to much imo) as the Baktrian cavalry wear them seems plausible to me, as these armours roughly offer the same value of protection. It would be cool if a dev could write something to this.

GG

[Kull]

Every one of these units passed through historical and archaeological review. The guys with the degrees feel the mix of armor and helmets and tunics and bare skin is appropriate for an era in which there was very little standardization. Not true in all cases, of course. Which is why you'll find more similarities, among, for example, the Polybians. We are trying to display units as they were (or at least as best we can infer), not by similarity of equipment within a given unit class.

[clone]

Every one of these units passed through historical and archaeological review. The guys with the degrees feel the mix of armor and helmets and tunics and bare skin is appropriate for an era in which there was very little standardization. Not true in all cases, of course. Which is why you'll find more similarities, among, for example, the Polybians. We are trying to display units as they were (or at least as best we can infer), not by similarity of equipment within a given unit class.

you said it your self. mix of armor and helmets. when one soldier in a unit has heavy armor and the soldier next to him is naked i dont thing this is "mix" of armor

[Kull]

you said it your self. mix of armor and helmets. when one soldier in a unit has heavy armor and the soldier next to him is naked i dont thing this is "mix" of armor

If you are going to quote me, quote ALL of it:

the mix of armor and helmets and tunics and bare skin

[clone]

If you are going to quote me, quote ALL of it:

i wonder how can two soldiers who bellong to the same unit and take the same money as salary one is
armed to the teath and the other is naked with only a weapon and shield .specially when we are talking about veteran and nobility troops

[Mediolanicus]

i wonder where your guys with the degrees saw the mix of armor and helmets and tunics and bare skin
or at least i have some questions
1 how can two soldiers who bellong to the same unit and take the same money as salary one is
armed to the teath and the other is naked with only a weapon and shield .specially when we are talking about veteran and nobility troops
2 even if it is accurate ,accurate would be inside the unit
to exist variations like spear and swords or melee weapons and ranged weapons toggether in a unit

Lol... "soldier", "unit", "salary"...

And you expect a serious answer on that troll post?

[Sint]

The Indian lancers are supposed to be a heavy cavarly of the highest of all Indian castres.

After reading the unit description?No....they aren't.They are even called medium cav...

Some are heavy armoured, wearing a linothorax and a bronce helmet, while other are almost naked, only wearing a pant. Of course, historical this happened that some Cetls wearing barchested while others are armoured, but in Total War you have to be able to classify a unit. Is it light, medium or heavy? While mixing so much, you are no more able to. You look at their stats, seeing 3 armour, which is to low for a heavy armoured warrior as you can see him in the left picture, but to high for the naked guy to the right.

It is an average number using the average armor quality.It''s not perfect ....but not that hard to figure out.

you said it your self. mix of armor and helmets. when one soldier in a unit has heavy armor and the soldier next to him is naked i dont thing this is "mix" of armor

Read....his post again....Is that so hard:

the mix of armor and helmets and tunics and bare skin

[LinusLinothorax]

After reading the unit description?No....they aren't.They are even called medium cav...

And how often does this descriptions says, that they are wearing helmets and armour? It says that they are the heaviest cavalry that the Mauryans can afford. And the heaviest armour they weared was ...? Right, scalearmour and helmets, not this thin clothing like every bowmen wears.

Anyways, i expected that kind of answer from a dev. Still feels wrong then units, supposed to be heavy or medium, wear thin or no clothing at all.

[Kull]

And how often does this descriptions says, that they are wearing helmets and armour? It says that they are the heaviest cavalry that the Mauryans can afford. And the heaviest armour they weared was ...? Right, scalearmour and helmets, not this thin clothing like every bowmen wears.

Anyways, i expected that kind of answer from a dev. Still feels wrong then units, supposed to be heavy or medium, wear thin or no clothing at all.

The problem is that M2TW doesn't have categories like "some guys heavily armored and some not". The whole purpose of "heavy" or "medium" is to assist the BAI (and to some extent the human player) in using them properly in combat. But once you are IN combat, they mean nothing. We could give titanium armor at +100 to all guys in a unit, call them "light", and that would have zero impact on their effectiveness. Likewise, the game does not have the level of detail to distinguish the skin guy from the armored guy in the same unit. Each one will have defense and hit points as assigned to the unit as a whole. It's just how the game works.

Oh, and thanks for the gratuitous insult. Delivered to somebody who isn't paid to do this, but still took time out of his busy day to explain the working of the team's decision process.

[Yayattasa]

And how often does this descriptions says, that they are wearing helmets and armour? It says that they are the heaviest cavalry that the Mauryans can afford. And the heaviest armour they weared was ...? Right, scalearmour and helmets, not this thin clothing like every bowmen wears.

Anyways, i expected that kind of answer from a dev. Still feels wrong then units, supposed to be heavy or medium, wear thin or no clothing at all.

You can't see the difference between heaviest and heavy? The heaviest cavalry the Numidians could afford was a bunch of guys on top of ponies! (yet, we all know their capabilities)

[alex86]

If it is historical that these types of soldiers would have such a degree of variation -- from significant armor to little clothing even among nobility -- then I don't really see a problem with it. Though it may be weird to internalize that this shirtless dude on the battlefield has +whatever armor. What we're being asked is to 1) think tactically based on the unit's overall stats, not the visuals and 2) understand that the visuals are meant to resemble the troops, not determine their stats individually.

I am guessing for units that were more professional standing army units with standard issue equipment, you would see much less variation.

[Kull]

If it is historical that these types of soldiers would have such a degree of variation -- from significant armor to little clothing even among nobility -- then I don't really see a problem with it. Though it may be weird to internalize that this shirtless dude on the battlefield has +whatever armor. What we're being asked is to 1) think tactically based on the unit's overall stats, not the visuals and 2) understand that the visuals are meant to resemble the troops, not determine their stats individually.

I am guessing for units that were more professional standing army units with standard issue equipment, you would see much less variation.

Keep in mind, there aren't many instances where one has actual pictorials of entire ancient "units" in action. And even the descriptions of historians often don't provide the level of detail one would like. So in most cases we take specific examples of armor or clothing known to be used by a particular culture/faction in this time period and extrapolate it's use among the individual members of something we have to call a unit, because the game engine requires us to do so. We can absolutely demonstrate the archaeology or history behind the types of weapons and armor and helmets and clothing worn by the individuals in each "unit". Especially for the less documented factions it can be a struggle, but we never guess and the composition of every individual in every unit can be defended. They wouldn't have been created otherwise. Building a unit in EB2 can take YEARS, and often approaches the level of detail and proof required for a doctoral dissertation.

[Gen.jamesWolfe]

1) think tactically based on the unit's overall stats, not the visuals and 2) understand that the visuals are meant to resemble the troops, not determine their stats individually.

from a purely game play perspective, yes. it shows just how imperfect the solution really is--an unfortunate limitation of the engine, which leaves us with several options, none entirely adequate. I run into the reverse problem with my SYW mod (for Alex engine) with armies lacking standard equipment.

personally, what I wish for is the ability to assign independent armor values to individuals based on what they wear, and affected by circumstance as well (simulating looting good armor, throwing away bad armor, local customs seeping into garrison from abroad, etc). Combat would otherwise mechanically be the same/similar.

But that would be one complex engine for rendering thousands of units on a battlefield (mount and blade struggles/crashes with even a 10th of the numbers). Which is probably in part why the feature of different equipment was introduced in M2TW, without a concurrent change in the way armor and weapon stats were calculated--a sensible decision in hindsight, even if imperfect, and a bit conservative.

Grobar[/URL]
]I agree with OP. Sure its historically accurate what EB team did but if you want complete historical accuracy then you should group soldiers with different weapons into one unit because that's how they fought in real life.

assuming I understood your post here correctly to mean one unit with many weapons: engine to my knowledge won't allow that--nice as that would be: even surmounting the problems with the EDU, animations might prove a stumbling block. maybe for closely related weapons, sure--and that is already done in the game (some carrying a kopis and some a xiphos, for example), but not elsewhere. Bear in mind: even animations can affect combat balance, as you guys saw first hand with the javelin units, and not just the aesthetics.

as to the issue raised by this thread being game breaking: perhaps. But any other solution might well prove equally inadequate at least (e.g. doing as was done in Vanilla), whether to the players, or to the modding team.

[Mementomoridc]

If it is historical that these types of soldiers would have such a degree of variation -- from significant armor to little clothing even among nobility -- then I don't really see a problem with it. Though it may be weird to internalize that this shirtless dude on the battlefield has +whatever armor. What we're being asked is to 1) think tactically based on the unit's overall stats, not the visuals and 2) understand that the visuals are meant to resemble the troops, not determine their stats individually.

I am guessing for units that were more professional standing army units with standard issue equipment, you would see much less variation.

THis isn't aimed "at" you I just couldn't read this thread any more at this point and just had to comment and leave lol
Anyway just chalk it up to the guy with armor is not as good at defending himself as the guy with no armor on, I know that would be defense skill and not armor but who cares just deal with it. If you wana complain about units explain to me why german heavy infantry gets their butts handed to them by levy spear men.

[alex86]

Good response, thanks for being thorough!

[Grobar]

I agree with OP. Sure its historically accurate what EB team did but if you want complete historical accuracy then you should group soldiers with different weapons into one unit because that's how they fought in real life.
What CA did with Total war series from the beginning was to group soldiers with one type of weapon and armour into one unit to distinguish them from soldiers with different weapon and armour. Straying from this formula is not fun at least for me.

[Kull]

I agree with OP. Sure its historically accurate what EB team did but if you want complete historical accuracy then you should group soldiers with different weapons into one unit because that's how they fought in real life.
What CA did with Total war series from the beginning was to group soldiers with one type of weapon and armour into one unit to distinguish them from soldiers with different weapon and armour. Straying from this formula is not fun at least for me.

We are always ready to learn. Please provide your proof that ancient soldiers of this era fought in units comprised of individuals with similar levels and types of armor. Not pictures of Poybian Hastati or Phalangitai please. In EB2 those DO have similar types of equipment. I want to see the others - the ones where we feature variety. And you will provide evidence that they didn't - which should be easy based on the bolded part of your post. Surely you wouldn't make such a blanket statement without evidence?

[Grobar]

We are always ready to learn. Please provide your proof that ancient soldiers of this era fought in units comprised of individuals with similar levels and types of armor. Not pictures of Poybian Hastati or Phalangitai please. In EB2 those DO have similar types of equipment. I want to see the others - the ones where we feature variety. And you will provide evidence that they didn't - which should be easy based on the bolded part of your post. Surely you wouldn't make such a blanket statement without evidence?

I didn’t say that ancient soldiers of this era fought in units with similar armor. I actually agreed that your units were historically accurate. My point is that its immersion breaking when you see one soldier in one unit with plain clothes that has the same armor rating as another soldier in the same unit with much better armor. CA tackled this by creating different units according to the level of armor and weapon type although they were not historically accurate units.
If you have already given a specific unit a high armor rating why would it be a problem to make all soldiers in that unit look like they wear good armor.

[Arx]

Kull just wanna say you're one of my favorites

[Simpelicity]

On a more serious note, I noticed some of my naked fanatics wearing pants, and I don't even have the modesty patch on. I assume that's a bug? Because I don't mind variety, but I tend to think of naked anything as being "naked", as opposed to "wearing pants".