Only 1?

[Turkeys!]

Well i just played a custom battle and when I pressed the armour level button i noticed it only went up 1 color and then just..stopped.Is there only 1 armor level in custom battles?

[Lusted]

Depends on the unit. Some get 3 armour upgrades, some get none. Remember that armour upgrades now affect the appearance of a unit.

[Turkeys!]

Do you know which ones get three?

[Chuffy]

Do you know which ones get three?

Some archer, pike and bill/halberd units get three. Generally the first one being to upgrade them to padded armour, the second being chainmail, the third being something like partial plate.

Things like Gothic Knights get no armour upgrades because they are already encased in the finest armour of the time, there is nothing there to upgrade.

[Shaun]

Do you know which ones get three?

I would imagine units such as knights would get lots of Armour upgrade, yet militia would only get padded etc. Not sure.

Remember that armour upgrades now affect the appearance of a unit.

So does this mean that they use an entirely new skin? Is there a limited number of skins in the game engine?
But I am pleased about this feature, hated it in RTW when topless units would get an armour upgrade but still have no armour.

[Tom Servo]

Some low level troops get padded, then light chainmail and then heavy chainmail. Feudal knights start with heavy chainmail and can go to partial plate and full plate. Some knights are already almost top level armor thats why they only have one upgrade.
Btw anyone know what Advanced Plate is? I mean what unit has it?

[ProudNerd]

Some low level troops get padded, then light chainmail and then heavy chainmail. Feudal knights start with heavy chainmail and can go to partial plate and full plate. Some knights are already almost top level armor thats why they only have one upgrade.
Btw anyone know what Advanced Plate is? I mean what unit has it?

Gothic knights.

[k_161]

Some low level troops get padded, then light chainmail and then heavy chainmail. Feudal knights start with heavy chainmail and can go to partial plate and full plate. Some knights are already almost top level armor thats why they only have one upgrade.
Btw anyone know what Advanced Plate is? I mean what unit has it?

"Advanced Plate" i think It's the Gothic armor and this kind of armor....

[Theophilus]

I think it's a nice touch to be able to actually see the armour upgrades in the skins. But has anyone else noticed with the Venetian Heavy Infantry that they start in plate armour, but when you upgrade them (partial plate at the Advanced armoury) they appear in mail and quilt armour. Shouldn't it be the other way around?

[Ahiga]

They do often use a different skin/model. For some units it's a shared one (For instance, urban militia of the moors upgraded looks like Norman dismounted knights/Christian guard, as does the mounted version of urban militia. For other's its a distinctive one.

I'd believe that the skin/model limit has gone up, if not is absent altogether, because of the sheer variety of units this time around (it seems like a lot more than RTW)

[Chuffy]

I would imagine units such as knights would get lots of Armour upgrade, yet militia would only get padded etc. Not sure.

Completely and utterly wrong.

Armour upgrades now represent the actual process of giving your troops different and BETTER types of Armour. Knights wouldn't need better armour; they have the best.

[Ahiga]

One thing I'd like to see if there is no model limit is for this to be expanded upon with modders.

Maybe make the upgrade of cloth to leather be trivial (+1 or +2 defense), but the upgrade to mail be more dramatic (+3-+5), so that the player has a chance, if they are rich enough, to produce troops of his own style, rather than limited to what historically was used.

[Ambrosius]

dont know about anyone else, but the armor factory... at 15,000 florins, seems like a pretty pointless upgrade to me. 90% of the units i run across will take 1, maximum 2 armor upgrades. most plate-armored units that might benefit from the upgrade to advanced plate have like 22 defense. upping that to 23 for 15,000 florins and a building that takes like 6 turns to build (not to mention the one before it) seems like a pretty poor rate of investment. think of how many more units you could have built for, oh, 25,000 florins youd save on the last 2 armor buildings. not to mention the trade buildings you could have built in the what... 11-12 turns to build them?

up until armourer (upgrades to heavy mail) seems like the best rate of return to me. many of the lower end units like ranged, which NEED armor upgrades, benefit from this.
your dismounted knights that have 22 base armor are hardly going to notice 1 more defense, but upping something with base 3 defense to 5-6 nearly doubles its survivability.

[nightwar]

dont know about anyone else, but the armor factory... at 15,000 florins, seems like a pretty pointless upgrade to me. 90% of the units i run across will take 1, maximum 2 armor upgrades. most plate-armored units that might benefit from the upgrade to advanced plate have like 22 defense. upping that to 23 for 15,000 florins and a building that takes like 6 turns to build (not to mention the one before it) seems like a pretty poor rate of investment. think of how many more units you could have built for, oh, 25,000 florins youd save on the last 2 armor buildings. not to mention the trade buildings you could have built in the what... 11-12 turns to build them?

up until armourer (upgrades to heavy mail) seems like the best rate of return to me. many of the lower end units like ranged, which NEED armor upgrades, benefit from this.
your dismounted knights that have 22 base armor are hardly going to notice 1 more defense, but upping something with base 3 defense to 5-6 nearly doubles its survivability.

Love to see what modders will do with the armour upgrades. 1+ armour for 15k thats just wrong.

[Ambrosius]

yeah, it was such a waste. and not just 15k florins, look at it this way:

600 leather tanner 2 turns
1200 blacksmith 3 turns
2400 armourer 4 turns
6400 heavy armourer 5 turns
10000 master armourer 6 turns
15000 armour factory 7 turns
----------------------
35600 florins, and 27 turns. in 27 turns you could have built a LOT of other buildings.

erm.. all this to get, say, your 22 defense norman knights or dismounted knights up to 23 defense. or your 14 defense Famiglia Ducale up to 15 defense.
or, your pathetic 1 defense pike militia which die miserably either way up to a whopping 4 defense.
your armored sergeants still only from 14 to 15 defense (heavy mail). your spear militia from 13 to 15 defense.


or...
you could just stop at 'armourer'. 3rd tier, can be built in every minor city. costs, altogether, only 4200 gold and 9 turns.
it can STILL upgrade your 14 defense armored sergeants from 14 to 15 defense, and your militia spearmen from 13 to 15.
your militia pikemen? they will get 2 upgrades, so they go up to 3 defense.
you unfortunately dont get your +1 armor to your elite units or your militia pikemen... but you save 31400 florins and 18 turns.

the armor bonus numbers need to be tweaked. if advanced plate gave, say, +3 armor then it might be worth it. still, its a rediculous amount of time and money to spend.... if you spent that money just on vanilla troops you would be far better off. for +1? pfft.

please, someone, justify this building to me. hell, justify going beyond 'armourer'.

[Ahiga]

or...
you could just stop at 'armourer'. 3rd tier, can be built in every minor city. costs, altogether, only 4200 gold and 9 turns.

Well, therein lies one of the clues. Don't build them in every city. Build them in a particular hub where if you need to upgrade troops, they can travel to it.

It will be easy for the modders, and even fans, to edit this to make it more suitable. I am sure someone will take the initiative to produce a mini mod that produces a far more viable upgrade program, where instead of +1 armor each tier, a major leap (Like leather to mail, or mail to plate) would be +4 or +6.

[the_mango55]

Another way to make it valuable would be to make the best and most heavily armored units require a high tier armorer to be built, like it was in MTW.

[Ambrosius]

thats pretty much the way it is now.
but who in their right mind would pay 36000 florins and waste nearly 30 turns to get +1 armor for a unit that already has 22 armor?

[Farnan]

thats pretty much the way it is now.
but who in their right mind would pay 36000 florins and waste nearly 30 turns to get +1 armor for a unit that already has 22 armor?

I do, but I'm a fanatic about unit surivivability. Anything that can help my units survive is worth the money to me...

Also it helps in close fought battles, of which I have many.

[the_mango55]

thats pretty much the way it is now.
but who in their right mind would pay 36000 florins and waste nearly 30 turns to get +1 armor for a unit that already has 22 armor?

No, what I'm saying is that it should require that 15 thousand florin building to even be able to produce Gothic Knights for example. In the original MTW, if you were to start from nothing and get to the production of Gothic Knights you have to have a master horse breeder, master armorer, and the highest level Royal court. To be able to build all that starting from nothing takes well over 200 turns.