More Flavor to Medieval Armies please?

[Brent_P]

In EUIII this bugged me and it does here too. I love the additions the PDX has given to this newer version. But, I have been thinking and there is a really simple addition to make to the game that would make it a lot more fun and realistic. It is sad that all of the CIV games, which are really simplistic games in comparison, had this.

Why is it that western Medieval Europe is limited to basically two options. Knights versus Chevauche? Latin Medieval Infantry versus (whatever the other one is?)???

What makes the fighting interesting between France and England in the Hundred years war? What is the real difference in fighting power between the two when the game starts out? Not much.

Suggestions:

1. Add Archers to the unit types. There would be three instead of two unit types early on (archers, infantry and cavalry). England would have Longbowman, the French would have crossbowman, the Chinese could have the Cho-ko-nu versus regular bowman choice and all the other applicable countries would have Medieval Archers; Certain nomadic tribes would have the horse archers. Medieval armies had archers as a part of the armies. If cavalry are a separate unit, than archers should be too. The same 'out--of-ratio' penalty should be applied to the archers as to the cavalry to make the point that archers, like horses, are only really good if a part of (not the whole) army.

2. Where are the catapults and trebuchets??? It would make sense that they would be the early version of cannons. At least the trebuchet should be in there somewhere.

3. Personally, I would have preferred that the army setup be changed to mimic CK2. An army of 8,312 is more realistic than 8,000 or 9,000. It is odd that only CK2 has the realism of armies with real numbers instead of multiples of 1,000 and HOI2 and HOI3 have the "attack as you march" versus "attack once you reach the province" concept. There are some good concepts in the other games that could be implemented in all of these games.

4. Why not add more flavor to the Western (or maybe all) choices of unit types? Maybe allow more types and for a player to build more than one type at a time.

Just some thoughts. What do you all think about this idea? I would love some input.

 

[Rencini]

I don't have much time, so I'll reply briefly to what I believe is most important.

3. Personally, I would have preferred that the army setup be changed to mimic CK2. An army of 8,312 is more realistic than 8,000 or 9,000. It is odd that only CK2 has the realism of armies with real numbers instead of multiples of 1,000 and HOI2 and HOI3 have the "attack as you march" versus "attack once you reach the province" concept. There are some good concepts in the other games that could be implemented in all of these games.

The game already looks at the soldiers you have, so the only abstracted thing is the regiments, which I believe gives the system less stress... Warfare changes drastically from the early 19th century to the early 18th century, so I don't think it would be accurate to say "attack as you march" for EUIV or CK2 (though I have never played any of the HoI series yet)....

I do like the archers idea, though am unsure about medieval siege weapons.

 

[Hipster_on_Ice]

1. Add Archers to the unit types. There would be three instead of two unit types early on (archers, infantry and cavalry). England would have Longbowman, the French would have crossbowman, the Chinese could have the Cho-ko-nu versus regular bowman choice and all the other applicable countries would have Medieval Archers; Certain nomadic tribes would have the horse archers. Medieval armies had archers as a part of the armies. If cavalry are a separate unit, than archers should be too. The same 'out--of-ratio' penalty should be applied to the archers as to the cavalry to make the point that archers, like horses, are only really good if a part of (not the whole) army.

2. Where are the catapults and trebuchets??? It would make sense that they would be the early version of cannons. At least the trebuchet should be in there somewhere.

4. Why not add more flavor to the Western (or maybe all) choices of unit types? Maybe allow more types and for a player to build more than one type at a time.

1. Longbowmen are in the unit types, when you unlock men at arms, you get longbowmen and galloglaigh as an option too.

2. The cannons in EU4 are supposed to represent something more along the lines of field guns. The presence of siege weaponry seems to be already implied. Such large and complex weaponry isn't very effective against a moving target, so walls tend to be the primary use for them. With that, it tends to be that siege weaponry in a siege is implied, rather than being explicitly necessary to add on.

4. You can build more than one unit type at a time if a neighbor's cores are on some of your provinces. If you have any neighbors that are a mil-tech unlock ahead, you can build some of their units as to not lose out on the better pips that those units get. It wouldn't make sense to complicate everything unnecessarily, that could put a greater strain on the engine, and (from what I've seen here and on reddit) some people already have a problem running the game well.

 

[Crusaderking28]

1. Longbowmen are in the unit types, when you unlock men at arms, you get longbowmen and galloglaigh as an option too.

He means split it off. Currently we have infantry, cavalry and artillery. He wants infantry, archers, cavalry and artillery.

 

[Hipster_on_Ice]

He means split it off. Currently we have infantry, cavalry and artillery. He wants infantry, archers, cavalry and artillery.

That wouldn't make sense, as infantry tends to be largely gunpowder at the later points. I suppose you could separate it into fire and shock infantry, like with arquebusiers and pikemen, and on to line and grenadiers for later points, but that adds a lot of additional complexity to combat mechanics and army composition (not to mention unnecessary distinctions, as pikemen and gunpowder units fought together in the tercio, and grenadiers were more or less line infantry despite being used as largely as shock or assault troops in the later period).

 

[Fugu]

Infantry regiments include all sorts of foot soldiers in my imagination. Archers, crossbows, swords, pikes, light and heavy armor... It's all there. Likewise, cavalry included light and heavy cav plus horse archers, scouts and so on. And I doubt that single artillery regiment represents thousand CANNONS, it's thousand men moving, loading, firing and protecting a much smaller amount of cannons.

Siege equipment, like said, was rarely mobile in medieval times. Catapults and rams were mostly constructed when needed, on location. Including more units to the game would probably be too complex when compared to the little gain it gives.

Edit: the unit types in game represent in my opinion the dominant STRATEGY of your armies. I.e. favoring hevier shock cavalry or lighter verdion, relying on archery support and so on.

 

[Brent_P]

1. Longbowmen are in the unit types, when you unlock men at arms, you get longbowmen and galloglaigh as an option too.

I knew this would be said somewhere. So, now my main fighting infantry are just Longbowmen? No army was made up that way and that just supports the need to separate infantry and archers or just get rid of those archer unit names altogether since they are "abstracted" anyways and stick with main infantry names. If the archer is a part of the Latin Medieval Infantry than why bother creating a whole unit for the Longbowman. Just my thinking.

2. The cannons in EU4 are supposed to represent something more along the lines of field guns. The presence of siege weaponry seems to be already implied. Such large and complex weaponry isn't very effective against a moving target, so walls tend to be the primary use for them. With that, it tends to be that siege weaponry in a siege is implied, rather than being explicitly necessary to add on.

I can see that. It still might be fun to have a predecessor to the cannon as the trebuchet that is only good against sieges, but you are probably right that this isn't needed as a change and would be or could be complicated. Still, sieges seem like this "wait-for-it" feel and more options related to breaking that siege (i.e. a way to build expensive siege weapons/decisions related to the siege on the siege view screen might be cool).

4. You can build more than one unit type at a time if a neighbor's cores are on some of your provinces. If you have any neighbors that are a mil-tech unlock ahead, you can build some of their units as to not lose out on the better pips that those units get. It wouldn't make sense to complicate everything unnecessarily, that could put a greater strain on the engine, and (from what I've seen here and on reddit) some people already have a problem running the game well.

Yes, I can still use it to build armies made up of different fighting styles to represent my country's growth/diversity. So what? That has nothing to do with what I said, which was no longer abstracting archers as a part of infantry (the Longbowmen unit destroys that perception). Building both Halberd and Latin Medieval Infantry at the same time is not what I was saying! Building Longbowmen and Latin Medieval Infantry at the same time is what I was saying.

Very simple idea. Pull out archers in the early game so that they can be a part of the army creation strategy. Make them the predecessor to the gunpowder units that come later. Phase out the archer unit in favor of the gunpowder unit. The end. Not that hard. Maybe a stupid idea. I don't know. But not that hard to understand.

 

[Brent_P]

He means split it off. Currently we have infantry, cavalry and artillery. He wants infantry, archers, cavalry and artillery.

Yes. Exactly. Although, I think I am beginning to realize as I write that PDX probably had the idea that the names of the infantry units would be whatever the latest/best infantry technology is present (i.e. latest gunpowder weapon, etc.). Artillery was probably added because it couldn't be abstracted anywhere and that went for cavalry as well. On that basis, maybe I am advocating for something more dynamic and PDX just wanted to keep it simple enough to keep the game engine running fast enough and still make the game fun.

New idea: Why not change the names of the infantry to be more generic throughout the periods and add the ability to create regiments to the infantry. For example, a Latin Medieval Infantry (maybe 500 or 1000 men) would have open slots. The player as England could build a Longbowman regiment of 250 or 500 men to fill a slot and add certain stats to combat. Cannons would be changed to regiments as well. Only Cavalry would remain separate. Gunpowder units would also be regiments. That would be a game revision, though.

This allow more of a balance of the Archer units in size versus having 1000 Longbowmen and 1000 Latin Medieval Infantry to make 2 units.

 

[Brent_P]

That wouldn't make sense, as infantry tends to be largely gunpowder at the later points. I suppose you could separate it into fire and shock infantry, like with arquebusiers and pikemen, and on to line and grenadiers for later points, but that adds a lot of additional complexity to combat mechanics and army composition (not to mention unnecessary distinctions, as pikemen and gunpowder units fought together in the tercio, and grenadiers were more or less line infantry despite being used as largely as shock or assault troops in the later period).

Hardly a problem. Archers disappear as Gunpowder units appear. Also, you bring up the good point of why Pikemen should be their own unit name and Tercio their own unit and yet somehow pikemen are in the Tercio unit, but abstracted. Still wish the abstraction was less with the armies. I love the other aspects of this game.

 

[Crusaderking28]

I like the idea of splitting armies into Fire, Shock, Cavalry and Artillery. That way, fire-group archers evolve into gunpowder units, but some overlap should exist so you can continue to use archers even in the gun era. Shock-group would be the troops that charge across a battlefield with shorter ranged weaponry. Can't think of anything specific for that group, but it should be possible.

 

[Brent_P]

Infantry regiments include all sorts of foot soldiers in my imagination. Archers, crossbows, swords, pikes, light and heavy armor... It's all there. Likewise, cavalry included light and heavy cav plus horse archers, scouts and so on. And I doubt that single artillery regiment represents thousand CANNONS, it's thousand men moving, loading, firing and protecting a much smaller amount of cannons.

Siege equipment, like said, was rarely mobile in medieval times. Catapults and rams were mostly constructed when needed, on location. Including more units to the game would probably be too complex when compared to the little gain it gives.

Edit: the unit types in game represent in my opinion the dominant STRATEGY of your armies. I.e. favoring hevier shock cavalry or lighter verdion, relying on archery support and so on.

Totally agree with the logic. Problem is that all of a sudden units show up that obviously can't be the only unit in the group (will use the Longbowman again as an example). Are they the only unit? Do they include themselves, foot soldiers, pikes, etc...? Also, Cannons were a part of armies not the whole thing, which supports my idea that the EUIV armies should be infantry units (more generic, but tech and time-sensitive names) plus regiment add-ons that include some of the units PDX includes in the names, such as Artillery (when available), archers, maybe pikemen, special units, etc...

I purposefully never mentioned rams because that is obviously included in the abstract.

Anyways, it is all academic. I know that PDX will continue to make this game better and better and I there will doubtless be slight additions/revisions that make this better one day.

 

[Toaster_Dust]

I'd prefer that infantry and cavalry were split into light and heavy. Possibly artillery too. It'd be more generic and allow for the shifting roles of light and heavy units from ranged versus melee in the medieval era to scout versus line units by the end of the gunpowder era.