Unique unit speculation thread

[Arizal]

countries shouldn't be magically better than others, but I see no problem with specific regions/cultures/governments being better at certain things than others.

Also as @001rens001 said, not making the unique units locked to specific tags might alleviate these issues. The cossacks, for example, fought for themselves, Poles or Russians at different times, so it would make sense for multiple tags to have access to them (maybe based on some factors like cossack estate satisfaction?).

Cultural units sounds like just stepping up the problem. Instead of having TAG-Fra whatever, you have CUL-Cosmopolitan" whatever. Though I agree that if it comes with CK3 style acquirable special units, the problem is less pronounced, since then you could change your special units over time (and hopefully depending on your environment).

Agreed, it is to be expected, that people living on flat grasslands might be better horsemen or those living on the coast are apt sailors.

That's what I truly would want to see. It's not because they were mongols that they were good at horse archers, but because they were in the steppes. Put the mongols in Switzerland for a few dozens of years and they won't use horse archers anymore.

 

[Gavyco723]

This sounds like AoEII. A fine game, but I hoped EPCU5 would stray away from making “unique” things that they then have to balance against each other.

I don’t like that it gives the impression certain countries were better than others at some things for reasons.

It’s not a buzzkill, but definitely not something I enjoy.

Edit : anticipating an answer :
Either this “flavour” is inconsequential, and shouldn’t even be in the game, or has impact on gameplay and thus makes some countries magically better than others.

With all due respect, it hard to deny that some countries aren’t better than others, if I’m not mistaken the unique units are meant to represent the cultural or tag specific traditions that a specific nation invested in. There’s certainly no denying the innovation of the English longbow men, Czech wagon forts, and Hungarian Hussars.

 

[Ekyman]

Either this “flavour” is inconsequential, and shouldn’t even be in the game, or has impact on gameplay

Inconsequential flavor is still fun. I want my steppe armies to be full of horse archers even if it’s functionally basically the same as having any other unit.

 

[Azkiol]

Put the mongols in Switzerland for a few dozens of years and they won't use horse archers anymore.

If you put the Mongols in Switzerland for a few dozens of years, they would cease to be Mongols. They might share some linguistic similarities, but it'd be a similar situation between the Turkish and the Turkmen.

Really, the only way to model this would be to have a Ck3 style system with cultural hybrids/divergences and 'cultural traits,' but that'd be:
-Way too much work for such a niche case
-Lead to other, equally nonsensical culture shenanagains
-Be hard to balance
-Not make much sense with the game's focus on statehood and politics and
-Not very fun

I think fudging it by saying "Being X culture (Mongol) means being part of a specific group of X lifestyle (Nomadic pastoralists)" is pretty reasonable. In any case, things like this shouldn't be very common.

 

[Arizal]

In any case, things like this shouldn't be very common.

I hope so. This thread makes me doubt it.

 

[Ispil]

Well, we do have this "culture" expense slider and have been explicitly told that we don't know what it is (and if it were simple like assimilation than we would surely have been told what it is)... perhaps maybe that will tie into these things?

 

[endersaim]

Hopefully, they'll go pretty nuts with the special units. I wouldn't mind every distinguishable military system having its own unique infantry or cavalry in each age.

 

[8816boo]

Some possibilities. I'll try to only say ones I haven't seen in the thread yet. I know European history best, so most of these will be from Europe.

-Mamelukes (hopefully they don't throw swords like in AoE2 lol)
-Samurai for the Japanese, I imagine as a type of horse archer. possibly Ashigaru, but I feel like they could be done justice as just pike/bowmen
-Order Knights, to represent the knights Teutonic/Hospitalier
-perhaps the Landsknechts and the swiss guard as a mercenary only units, with the latter being papal exclusive
-Spanish Tercio
-Cossacks
-Hussars (perhaps for Hungary first, then spreading to Europe)
-Grand battery/old guard for Napoleonic France
-Highlanders
-Carolean Infantry

Boats
-Korean Turtle ship
-Portuguese caravel
-Spanish galleon
-Greek Fire Galley
-Dutch Fluyt

 

[Lightwell]

This sounds like AoEII. A fine game, but I hoped EPCU5 would stray away from making “unique” things that they then have to balance against each other.

I don’t like that it gives the impression certain countries were better than others at some things for reasons.

It’s not a buzzkill, but definitely not something I enjoy.

Edit : anticipating an answer :
Either this “flavour” is inconsequential, and shouldn’t even be in the game, or has impact on gameplay and thus makes some countries magically better than others.

Attach it to tech and ensure distinct regional metas develop to encourage or discourage the use of certain unit lines.

 

[Ispil]

I thought about it, and in all honestly given that this is just going to be tied to allow conditions for a building which I imagine will be fully scriptable anyway, I don't really have any qualms about going to absurd lengths with culture-specific units. I can always mod it to my own desires; scripted triggers are one of the easiest things to rewrite to whatever I want them to be.

Though I hope we're mostly only going to see a heavy amount of culture-specific units for the first age of the game. Or at least, predetermined ones (still holding out hope for that culture slider in expenses to do something interesting).

 

[Austregisel]

I would say grenadiers, but a lot of nations would have it
-Uhlans i guess, maybe different nations would have it
-Highlanders for UK
-National Guard for Rev France
-Voltigeur?
-Mounted Chasseur
-Mameluke
-Mounted Grenadier?
-Mounted Carabineer?
-Black Guard for Prussia
-Don Cossacks
-Guerrilla for Spain? to worst case situations maybe
-Mounted Krakuse for Poland maybe

 

[Lightwell]

There’s certainly no denying the innovation of the English longbow men, Czech wagon forts, and Hungarian Hussars.

No denying the pop history status, more like. The English longbow is essentially just a powerful bow. The only thing particularly noteworthy is the fact that the weapon itself enjoyed support from the state, allowing them to readily call on far more able-bodied archers than other contemporary states. Likewise, Hussars are lightly-armored horsemen with chevauchée training. I'm not even sure what distinguishes them as horsemen aside from their dress.

 

[Muhu]

There’s certainly no denying the innovation of the English longbow men, Czech wagon forts, and Hungarian Hussars.

That's funny because none of those examples come from their respective countries and as such are not really innovations. The longbow wasn't invented by the English. Wagon forts existed way earlier than the Hussite wars, and not just in Bohemia. Hungarian hussars originate from the Balkans. If history played out differently, then these weapon systems could have been easily made famous by other countries than those listed here.

 

[Ispil]

No denying the pop history status, more like. The English longbow is essentially just a powerful bow. The only thing particularly noteworthy is the fact that the weapon itself enjoyed support from the state, allowing them to readily call on far more able-bodied archers than other contemporary states. Likewise, Hussars are lightly-armored horsemen with chevauchée training. I'm not even sure what distinguishes them as horsemen aside from their dress.

Given just how many countries adopted hussars over time, it's pretty much exactly as you describe. It's just that Hungary had the idea first, modeled after the Ottomans using those very tactics against them, using Serbian light cavalry gusars to this end (since Serbia had a lot of light cavalry in their army before the Ottoman conquest and much of people with that training wound up in Hungary following the conquest, acting originally as soldiers-for-hire on the frontier between the two states).

It's my biggest gripe with cultural units, really. What seems like a surefire "this is unique to a culture" bet (hussars to Hungary) wound up adopted by damn well near every European empire regardless of their exposure to anything approaching the same conditions, same culture, or anything else. So why have it be a culturally unique thing?

 

[8816boo]

No denying the pop history status, more like. The English longbow is essentially just a powerful bow. The only thing particularly noteworthy is the fact that the weapon itself enjoyed support from the state, allowing them to readily call on far more able-bodied archers than other contemporary states. Likewise, Hussars are lightly-armored horsemen with chevauchée training. I'm not even sure what distinguishes them as horsemen aside from their dress.

I can't speak to hussars because I'm not very familiar with medieval hungarian history, but longbowmen were quite unique to the British isles in Europe.

-As you said they had state backing. Owning and training with a bow was a legal requirement for all adult men.

-Although the definition of a longbow varies, the bows carried by the English and Welsh were significantly heavier duty than their continental counterparts. The range at which they could be used, the tactics utilized, the training, etc are different. Just as an example, it's almost impossible to shoot an English longbow while mounted, but that's not true of crossbows or composite bows.

-They weren't used at all by the powers around them. The French, the HRE, the Spanish: not a longbow to be seen. in Europe, the longbow was a distinctly British thing, with the crossbow dominating on the continent. The longbow is also directly associated with England's victories in the 100 years war.

-There may have been other longbows in use, in Asia for example, but I think that for the context in which they existed the English Longbow deserve to be their own thing. It's not like the English were copying them, or vice versa. Just like there have been any number of mounted archers, but the samurai are unique enough that lumping them in the same unit type the Mongols have seems just wrong.

 

[Ispil]

I can cede the matter of the English longbow; my understanding is that proper training for how to fire one of those things started at a young age and literally deformed the skeleton of their practitioners. To me it's not much different than the horse archers of the steppe, where the military training is an adoption of a just general cultural usage of a thing that also happened to be a very powerful weapon of war (though in England's case the direct encouragement of it as a cultural practice was done because it also happened to be a very powerful weapon of war).

It does not seem unreasonable to me to argue that by 1337, the culture of England's peasantry had adopted the idea of longbow usage, with some encouragement from the state to get to that point. Other states would have a damn hard time replicating the matter, given the time and monetary investment it would take (this would have to be done over several generations, after all).

 

[Ivashanko]

Do we have any idea whether or not a country will have access to the special units of all accepted cultures within its borders?

 

[Froonk]

These unique units are often just based on media representation from last century rather than actually being based on historical usage and effectiveness. This always leads to some sort of unit being the most powerful meta thing in the game while tried and tested military equipment and tactics with widespread use being inferior simply because it is not unique. Sometimes things which are "unique" are actually worse than bog standard equivalent used by everyone. Why would there be a Japanese samurai unit that's better than generic man-at-arms from same era Europe? Let alone certain things which didn't exist at all but being the best unit in their category like shock cavalry camels in CK.