A New Unit for Medewi

[geala]

A rather special proposal but as I'm currently playing this faction which seemed not to be played that much, I thought I post my thoughts.

In my opinion the Medewi need a kind of peltast-like skirmisher/melee unit. The reason is that most of their units more or less suck in comparison to those of other factions. Their heaviest melees, made of the rare nobles, cannot deal with Principes f.e., let alone better elite units. Their hoplites even have problems to hold against Greek faction spear garrison troops. Their archers are worse than or at best equal to the AOR archers from the region. Their early skirmishers are ok but sooner or later too weak for what they cost (= a precious slot in a stack).

This all combined cries for the need to use pincer movements faster and more often then for factions with better units (hello Hellenes, f.e.). Doing it with the base skirmishers is however deeply lacking because the javelins are wasted quite soon and then it's over, they cannot attack in melee.

The higher importance of armor in the latest beta test pack makes the problem worse, as most Medewi units are lightly armored. That should not be changed, also their units should not be made stronger in other ways. But they should get peltasts. Many factions have "peltast" medium skirmishers who can also go into melee to a certain degree. Don't tell me there is historical information available which rules out heavier skirmishers for Meroe, I doubt it, given the scarcity of sources.

As from the start I had the feeling that the Medewi tribal warriors and light sword melee are a bit redundant, I changed the latter to peltasts (something must have changed the way packs are read by the game, as my old easy method to make new units failed, so I changed an existing one ...). I reduced the moral of the tribal warriors from 60 to 40, increased it for the new "light sword peltasts" from 40 to 50, gave them stats, javelins and so on, based on Greek peltasts, made them Warrior T2 pop class and only recruitable from tier 3 and 4 barracks, which hurts a bit. Visually I made a new unit card and variantmeshdefinition. However I let them stay at arm2 instead of the usual arm7 of peltasts, as they are mostly naked except for a skirt and helmets; as a mean balance I gave them javelin4. Maybe they could get 200 instead of 175 warriors (on huge).

[Ivan_Moscavich]

Not every faction is meant to be balanced. And we don't just add units into rosters for the sake of balance gameplay.

Historically a lot of factions did not expand that much, and sometimes the poor quality of their troop rosters reflect the real life lack of quality soldiers that Nation may have filled it.

Kam would have more information on African tribal units and sources, but I don't see us adding a peltasts just for the sake of balance to this roster.

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

Admittedly these tribes favored peltast and hybrid unit types, but I'm not sure if we can just add more to them gape-play wise.

[geala]

Qape-play wise? What does this means? Restricted unit slots?

@Ivan_Moscavich: the "no balance" argument is not the best in this context. Sometimes gameplay fun should be considered. Such a unit is at least a probability. And there is a lot in DeI not historically absolutely correct, even for the better documented nations (please show me one proof for armored Greek peltasts ...) which is good as it is, because above all it is a game. And rest assured, the faction will still not be balanced after adding such a unit, and it doesn't have to.

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

Well, I'm not entirely against it. But we're having far more serious issues to balance out atm.
PS
Game play wise means for the shake of gameplay.

[geala]

You are not urged to do anything soon or ever, it's your mod, your rules. I just wanted to give my hint. I have the unit for myself already, so ...

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

You are not urged to do anything soon or ever, it's your mod, your rules. I just wanted to give my hint. I have the unit for myself already, so ...

We surely appreciate your input and as always I took note of the suggestion

[Standard Nerd]

For what it's worth, I really like Geala's idea. I always envisioned Medewi to be a more skirmisher heavy faction, but like most of their roster, Medewi's skirmishing units are middling at best. Having a competitive multi-purpose javelin skirmisher/flank charging unit would go a long way towards making the faction more viable in the new meta of DeI, so to speak.

[PietrolEremita]

Ivan's point was exactly that not every faction needs to be viable. Some should be, for historical reasons, challenges for experienced players able to reach their objectives with an inferior roster (inferior from every angle).

[Ivan_Moscavich]

Ivan's point was exactly that not every faction needs to be viable. Some should be, for historical reasons, challenges for experienced players able to reach their objectives with an inferior roster (inferior from every angle).

Exactly.

[Cynoscephalae]

IMO the mod should only minimally stray from history (and it already is doing way more than that).

And also, as said, not all factions are made to be equal. And that is a good thing, imo.

[Livin La Vida Loca]

I definitely want Kush to get looked at again roster wise, but as for what to add I would try to go off of historical sources rather than just what seems good gameplay wise, that's how we wind up with interesting rosters like the Odrysians. So I suppose it's just a matter of whether these sources are existent and/or accessible.

[Ahiga]

I am not sure if it already exists for Kush, but Agatharchides in On the Erythaean Sea mentions Potlemy II recruiting 500 Aegean cavalry with the 100 vanguard (another source seemed to say all of them) in "Kushite style quilted armor to protect themselves and their horses". The secondary source goes on to mention the Kushites were noted for a formidable cavalry force. I can attest to this stretching back at least to the 600s-700s when the Neo-Assyrians fought Kush and it was noted for their horses/affinity for horses. https://books.google.com/books?id=dL...uilted&f=false

Thus, what I would have is the bodyguard unit and possibly the top echelon cavalry featuring quilted horse barding and quilted armor (helmets, too?) for the cavalrymen.

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

I am not sure if it already exists for Kush, but Agatharchides in On the Erythaean Sea mentions Potlemy II recruiting 500 Aegean cavalry with the 100 vanguard (another source seemed to say all of them) in "Kushite style quilted armor to protect themselves and their horses". The secondary source goes on to mention the Kushites were noted for a formidable cavalry force. I can attest to this stretching back at least to the 600s-700s when the Neo-Assyrians fought Kush and it was noted for their horses/affinity for horses. https://books.google.com/books?id=dL...uilted&f=false

Thus, what I would have is the bodyguard unit and possibly the top echelon cavalry featuring quilted horse barding and quilted armor (helmets, too?) for the cavalrymen.

Sounds good to me. So are you suggesting a possible 2 unit addition? Let's talk about it in our Devs thread though.

[KAM 2150]

It always reminds me of these guys (from completly different era and region but they still look cool )

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

It always reminds me of these guys (from completly different era and region but they still look cool )

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Let's do it

[geala]

The riders look good. If you have worn cloth armor (it is actually warmer than metal armor under most conditions) and think of the climate it was used in, you can only wonder and admire their toughness. I understand the concept of wearing loincloths in hot non-desert areas, but whole body padded cloth? If you make such units, they should have as attribute a high heatstroke rate.

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

The riders look good. If you have worn cloth armor (it is actually warmer than metal armor under most conditions) and think of the climate it was used in, you can only wonder and admire their toughness. I understand the concept of wearing loincloths in hot non-desert areas, but whole body padded cloth? If you make such units, they should have as attribute a high heatstroke rate.

The full body padded cloth looks a bit excessive indeed.

[Ahiga]

I think it may not be as impactful as we think, depending on how it is worn. I was curious years ago why you had bedouin wearing black clothing in the desert, but an old study back in 1980s conducted an experiment: https://www.theguardian.com/science/...earch-abrahams & https://www.csmonitor.com/1980/0312/031243.html

The Bedouin gained the same heat from a black or white robe, the heat absorbed by the robe lost before it reached the skin. Cooling happened via convection as the black clothing was not latex-skin tight.

I swore I read, as I am reading here on a abstract of their research ( https://www.researchgate.net/publica...in_hot_deserts ) that "White hair on cattle and white feathers on pigeons permit greater penetration of shrot-wave radiation to the skin than black."

The robes aren't as billowy as robes but they appear in "modern" (photographed) versions to be loose enough that they are not as tight as a fencer's quilted vest. As to the robes themselves I wouldn't be able to capture the collar more than likely, unless I utilized that saka model with a high popped collar and I am not sure how good it'll look. It'll be something to experiment with in the future. I'd see it just being a simple kaftan style quilted robe. But my focus is on ROTR for the forseeable future.

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

@Ahiga
Excellent sources as always. Thanks for your input