Advice needed on historical army comp

[WesW]

One of the new concepts we are developing for the full version of the Medmod IV for VI is that of historically-based unit lists for all the factions. It occurred to me that this may be the part of the mod that elicits the most controversy, and that will take the most time to decide upon, so I want to start an open debate here on what they should be, for the existing factions only. (I will make one for new factions later.)

What I want to do is find out what the various factions specialized in, and what kinds of troops they carried into battle. I have found some sites and descriptions that cover a few of the factions to various degrees, but I would like to get info from you guys, so we could pool our info on this topic.

I ask that you mark which faction you are referring to in bold at the start of your comments on that faction, so I can scan the thread later and pool the comments. I ask that you do this even if you are rebutting or adding to something said in the post immediately before yours.

After discussing this with A_B, who has been helping me put the mod together, what I am going to do is designate certain, historically-based unit types for bonuses to factions that used them as key parts of their armies. What type of bonus is given is one thing that I hope your comments can shed light upon. And, if you comment on the bonus, please back it up with historical references, and don't just say that you like one type of bonus or whatever.

Once I get a good idea of what the factions were good at, I am going to impose penalties on other types of units for that faction. Again, if you have comments on this, I would be very happy to hear them, but please shed a little light on your comment.

All of this means that you *can* produce well-balanced armies, but it is going to cost you extra in most cases.

All this is going to fit into other concepts I am going to introduce in the mod, such as ethnic homelands and major-minor factions, but I want to restrict questions about that to other threads.

[Hakonarson]

If you have accessss to any decent warganing rule army lists than it's probably easy enough to base something on those.

I'll dig out the DBM ones later tonight & put fingers to keyboard from their point of view.

[Hakonarson]

Byzantine first.

the Komnenan era, from 1071-1204

Army until 1150 is based around 3 mercenary units:

Varangians - elite heavy armoured foot axemen who ride horses rather than march (ie mounted infantry), recruited from a mixture of Anglo-Saxons and Rus. Available only in relatively small-moderate numbers.

Skythikion - Pechneg mercenary horse archers, increasingly supplemented by Cumans. Available in large numbers.

Latinikon - "Latin" or "Frankidh" knights available in small-moderate numbers.

"Native" units are:

Kavalarioi - relatively poor quality lancers - medium-heavy cavalry available in small-moderate numbers.

Archers - operating as light infantry skirmishers or massed archers, a small proportion apparently better equipped than most with swords and shields. available in large numbers.

Tourkopouli - Christianised Turkish horse archers considered better than the Skythians but available only in low-moderate numbers.

Kontaratoi - poor quality trained spearmen in low-moderate numbers

After 1150 add the Vardariots - a new Guard mercenary unit first attested in 1160 they are horse archers recruited from Magyar residents from the Vardar valley. Available in small-moderate numbers only.

Availability of the Latinikon increases at this time to moderate numbers.

After 1204 the Byzantine empire of course disintigrates into small "empires" using pretty much "Standard" Turkish horse archers in the East, and Latin troops types and poor quality "native" spearmen and cavalry in the West. Both make as much yse as they can of local foot archers - those in the east being better quality than the western ones.

[Hakonarson]

English.

starting with "Anglo-Norman" 1072-1181:

The basis of the army remains the Fyrd, supplmented by foot sergeants, town militia and mercenaries. DBM grades all these the same - poor quality spearmen availabe in large numbers (but not htat "poor quality spearmen" are a lot better than peasants The current spearmen in MTW are probably a good model)

Anglo-Norman and Mercenary knights and mounted sergenats are also available in moderate numbers - again all graded together in DBM.

Archers are available in small-moderate numbers, can operate as skirmishers or massed, and frequently supported the spear wall from behind it.

Very small numbers of crossbowmen, welsh Marcher cavalry and foot, and relatively well trained mercenary Flemish foot and Brabancon knights are also available.


From 1182 the list is termed "Feudal English".

Large numbers of feudal and mercenary knights and sergeants are available.

The infantry spearmen are now very poor quality (peasants) but many more archers are available - these are often South Welsh mercenaries armed with the longbow but not with the armour and hand-weapons of later English longbowmen.

Some WElsh and better quality English spearmen are avaialble from the more warlike border areas, but they're the same quality as the previous fyrd.

There are small numbers of trained city militia spearmen, Flemish mercenary spearmen, Irish and WElsh javlin armed skirmishers and Welsh cavalry.

The Welsh marches produce "Muntatores" - Javelin armed half armoured cavalry used for scouting and springing ambushes. These are later replaced (after 1300) by Hobilars - Anglo-Irish scouting cavalry imported from Ireland for the Scots wars (William Wallace vs Edward II) who sometimes fought dismounted.

English knights did not regularly dismount to fight at this time.

From 1322 the list becomes "Hundred Years Wars English"

The English are furtehr subdivided into 3 sections.

All armies get:
small numbers of:
Gascon or Brabanter men-at-arms - ill disciplined knights
Irish foot - some archers mostly javelin armed light infantry skirmishers
Gascon crossbowmen and javelinmen
Small guns

Firstly 1322-1350:
Small numbers of Hobilars
Small-mediaum numbers of English men-at-arms who were more useful on foot than mounted
Moderate numbers of well armed and drilled MOUNTED English longbowmen (ie mounted infantry)
Small-medium numbers of relatively well armed & drilled English longbowmen on foot
Small-mediaum numbvers of not-so-well-armed-or-drilled Welsh longbowmen
Small numbers of WElsh "knifemen"

From 1350-1415
Slightly fewer men-at-arms
Moderate to large numbers of well armed and drilled MOUNTED English longbowmen (ie mounted infantry)
A few Welsh archers, "False French" men at arms (ie French fighting for hte English) and Gascon or False French town militia as drilled by low quality archers.

After 1415
Very small numbers of Irish horse - light javelin armed skirmishers
Small numbers of English men-at-arms
Large numbersof mounted English longbowmen
small-moderate numbers of English billmen
Same numbers of Welsh & False-French, but the town militia become pole-armed instead of archers - still poor quality.
Flase-French militia can be mounted infantry
Bombards appear

[Hakonarson]

French from 1072

Lots of knights and mounted sergeants - DBM assumes that most sergeants are fighting in the rear ranks of hte cavalry, with hte knights in the front, so usually does not seperate the two.

Lots of Spearmen.

Must have small numbers of foot crossbowmen operating as skirmishers

Can have small numbers of massed archers of no great note.

Can have moderate ammounts of drilled spearmen - Communal militia

Can have moderate ammounts of archers operating as skirmishers or massed. Small numbers can be mounted infantry.

Can have a lot of peasant levies and "Ribauds" - who are graded the same as peasants.

Can have small amounts of infantry with seords, axes, guisarmes, voulges, fauchards, etc - all graded the same as poor quality "swordsmen".

Also small amounts of mercenary Brabancon knights, Breton or "Bidet" javelin armed infantry skirmishers, and bolt shooters (artillery).

After 1150
Add a small Royal Guard of trained relatively well equipped crossbowmen.

Can operate small numbers of sergeants seperately from the knights as mediaum cavalry

Foot crossbowmen can be uparmoured ot a better grade

Spearmen are replaced by "Brigans" - ligher spearmen often lacking shields but operating in looser formation than the traditional shieldwall.

Can add small numbers o Genoese crossbowmen and Low Countries pikemen.

After 1331 is termed "Medieval French"

Basis is still lots of knights and Brigans as above

Crossbowmen are now in moderate numbers in all armies, ance can be skirmishers, or massed, some are drilled to a limited extent.

Can have small numbers of Genoese crossbowmen of good quality.

Can still have lots of peasant levy.

From 1350 to 1400:
Can have small numbers of "Pavisier" - armoured spearmen with unusually largge shields to protect them from archery - such troops broke through and drove off English longbowmen at Nogent-sur-Seine ins 1359. they can be mounted infantry, and are good drilled troops.

Can have small numbers of Bidet or Breton javelin armed infantry skirmishers.

After 1385:
Can have small numbers of hand gunners and light cannon.

After 1400:
Can deploy "Gros Varlets" as mediaum cavalry seperate from knights.

"Pavisiers" replaced by "Voulgiers" - infantry that discarded the pavise, but wore armour little less than dismounted men-at-arms, and fought with short staff weaposn such as voulge, lance a pusser or langue de boeuf - good disciplined troops. Could be mounted infantry.

After 1418:
King's body guard could be elite Scots archers - very heavily armed and armoured mounted infantry longbowmen.

Gets bombards.

From 1445 is termed "French Ordonnance", after the "Ordoinnance" specifying the nature of military service, equipment, etc., of that date.

Must have Ordonnance Gendarmes - fewer in number, but disciplined elite knights and equivalents. Must have small numbers, form all bodyguards unless King has his Scots Archers.

Must have Ordonnance archers - elite mounted heavily armed and armoured archers equivalent to English Longbowmen in small numbers.

Must have moderate-large numbers of Francs Archers - poor quality "common" archers - an attempt to recerat the English system of "village" archery. They use longbows, but are not highly regarded - contemporaries claimed they were only good for killing chickens. they practiced archery, but did not train collectively.

Can have the following - any can be town militia (drilled slightly, not that flash tho', or feudal or undisciplined mercenaries who might be better motivated but not trained):

Partisanmen - small numbers - foot armed with staff weapons such as partisan, in small numbers
Crossbowmen - in moderate numbers. Some could be well disciplined mercenaries.

Small numbers of javelin armed foot skirmishers, hand gunners, Gascon crossbowmen or slingers operating as skirmishers, organ guns

Could have quite a lot of bombards.

Before 1465 could have small numbers of:

Feudal mena at arms - less disciplined knights
Savoyard Men at arms - Italian knights - disciplined but not considered as good as French
Spearmen

From 1465:
Ordonnance archers start fighting from horseback as medium cavalry (NOT as horse archers) - can still dismount as foot archers.

After 1479:
Ordonnance archers MUST fight mounted as mediaum cavalry and can still dismount as archers.

Partisan men replaced by poor quality pikemen.
Swiss Mercenary pikemen can be employed under their own general in moderate numbers.

[Shahed]

I will try find some info on Muslim armies, for you. I assume they are also going to be affected by these changes ? or will they stay the same ?

[Yelping Godzilla]

Concerns

You will remember that the existing and/or 1.85 modified unit lineups are basically historically accurate I take it? If you are going to use the basic unit lists as a base I'm sure there's no risk of gameplay suffering too much, but whatever you do you'll be dealing with a game that will present a bastardised form of medieval warfare (actual medieval warfare being far less eventful and interesting) and I worry getting too bogged down in historic realism may damage the fun factor.

Just voicing a concern early on ;]

I'll dig up some French/English/HRE ideas.

Oh and if you want info on the holy orders and roughly which factions could 'use' their units or they could roughly be considered aligned to, it's something of a specialist subject of mine.

EEURAAH.

[Hakonarson]

German (HRE) is a nightmare - there are forces raised by Clerical, City, Free-Conton, Imperial and Feudal lords/authorities.

The basic structure is:

Knights & Ministrales - moderate numbers of poor quality "knights" fighting in deep formations.

Feudal knights are bettre regarded, but only present when a feudal lord raised his forces.

Noderate-large numbers of Spearmen of some sort - most are close order "sheild wall", some are loose order javelinmen but not skirmishers.

Archers and crossbowmen in moderate-large numbers, both massed and skirmishing.

Most troops are average or worse quality.

Good quality mercenary spearmen, axemen/swordsmen/halberdiers and archers and crossbowmen were available in moderate numbers.

Imperial armies might include small numbers of Teutonic Knights.

Mounted crossbowmen and pavise equipped crossbowmen appear after 1320, handgunners after 1375, city spearmen can become pikemen and mercenary spearmen do become pikemen after 1450

[Hakonarson]

Egyptian 1171-1250 - the Ayyubid dynasty

Mamluks form the backbone of the army - armoured cavalry mainly armed with lance and bow on armoured horses, but some lacking lance and/or horse armour.

Lesser proessional cavalry such as Qaraghuklams, Kurds and Syrian Askaris in about equal numbers to the Ghulams - equipped as the lesser armed Ghulams.

Bedouin Arab light horse - essentiallly Saharan Cavalry - always present in small numbers.

Small numbers of Frankish mercenary knights, and Arabs from Medina & the Hejaz as medium cavalry, probably lancers.

Can have religous mob (Mutatawwi'a - fanatics) in small numbers and poorly equipped levies/city mobs (ie peasants).

Can have skirmishing archers and naffatun.

Before 1244

Can have moderate numbers of Sudanese archers (destroyed at La Forbie??) fighing as massed archers and must have small-moderate numbers of Turkopoles - good quality light horse archers

[Hakonarson]

Russians until 1246 (Mongol conquest):

Bulk of the army is Druzhina cavalry - mail armoured cavalry essentially equipped with javelins/light spears and shields. Very useful vs horse archers, not much cop against Knights. Must have in large numbers.

Must have moderate numbers of Polk Spearmen - good quality spearmen

Can have small numbers of Smerdy spearmen - not so good, better than peasants.

Can have small numbers of polk & smerdy skirmishing archers

Can have:

Small numbers of woodsmen

Moderate-large numbers of "Svoi Pogyane" - our own pagans - former nomads, mostly ex-Pechnegs now setteled in the state and still fighting as skirmishing horse archers.

Lrge numbers of Smerdy-ill armed (peasants)

Small numbers of mercenaries:

German Knights
Polish mediaum Cavalry
Hungarian horse archers

After 1150 can have small numbers of Lithuanian light horse (Lithuanian Cav in MTW)

AFTER 1246 - Mongol Conquest:

Must have small numbers of Dvor - well equipped horse archers along the lines of Mongol heavy cavalry (bow, lance, maybe horse armour)

Must have moderate-large numbers of lesser Boyars and their retainers - "medium" cavalry horse archers

Can have small-moderate numbers of militia spearmen and archers (fightign as massed archers no skirmishers), and peasants

After 1380 can add:

Moderate numbers of "Tartars" or "Cossacks" - good light horse archers and Cossack foot - skirmishing archers.

[Yelping Godzilla]

Turks

Just want to throw in one unit at a time at the moment, since it's easier to confirm historically.

In the early period used horse archers, skirmishers etc as well known, but also employed armoured cavalry riding unbarded arab ponies specially bred for quick bursts of speed, keeping them up with the horse archers. These were armed with short slashing sabres called Yataghans which were apparently quite effective against poorly armoured foes - basically fast, reasonably armoured sword cavalry able to mix it up a little, but are still only light/medium cav. Reportedly fairly rare, so probably expensive for what they are. They do give the turks dedicated melee cavalry that are at least as fast as horse archers though, which supports early Turkish tactics - they don't have any lance/spear charge, but the armour and swords mean they can beat the light/missile cavalry only they can catch up to comfortably, as well as guarding such cavalry when on the offence.

Suggested name: Yataghan horse.

EEUURAAH.

[Leet Eriksson]

Quote[/b] (Hakonarson @ July 05 2003,05:50)]Egyptian 1171-1250 - the Ayyubid dynasty

Mamluks form the backbone of the army - armoured cavalry mainly armed with lance and bow on armoured horses, but some lacking lance and/or horse armour.

Lesser proessional cavalry such as Qaraghuklams, Kurds and Syrian Askaris in about equal numbers to the Ghulams - equipped as the lesser armed Ghulams.

Bedouin Arab light horse - essentiallly Saharan Cavalry - always present in small numbers.

Small numbers of Frankish mercenary knights, and Arabs from Medina & the Hejaz as medium cavalry, probably lancers.

Can have religous mob (Mutatawwi'a - fanatics) in small numbers and poorly equipped levies/city mobs (ie peasants).

Can have skirmishing archers and naffatun.

Before 1244

Can have moderate numbers of Sudanese archers (destroyed at La Forbie??) fighing as massed archers and must have small-moderate numbers of Turkopoles - good quality light horse archers
Mamelukes did not use armour on their horses,and most of them were horse archers.

Qaraghulams are a turkish unit,becuase the word Qara is not arabic.

Bediouns light horses were armed with axes and were lightly armoured or probably no armour at all.

Saladin did not use Frankish mercenaries at all

The army had no peasants or mobs,even saladin warned the citizens not to fight.

He used alot of naffatun(basically naptha from MTW)and alot of Archers.

he did not use sudanese archers or sudanese infantry who were called back then Nubians,becuase he expelled them after discovring their revolt from within the sultans palace(who was ill at that time and a mere puppet of his vizier Al Naser).

I'll post more later.

[Galestrum]

hehe faisal,

he gave a period of time, not one reign of saladin


Quote[/b] ]Egyptian 1171-1250 - the Ayyubid dynasty


Quote[/b] ]Qaraghulams are a turkish unit,becuase the word Qara is not arabic

im dont know whether or not this unit existed and was utilized by them but merely because the word Qara may or may not be arabic doesnt prove they werent used alone and by itself http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif There were plenty of turkic people all over the place, and they served in about every dang army that would have them http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif


Quote[/b] ]The army had no peasants or mobs,even saladin warned the citizens not to fight.

Are you saying that in the span of 1171-1250 there was never, ever a battle where "peasants or mobs" were involved in military action?

[Leet Eriksson]

the arabs never used peasants,i don't know whose stupid enough to even commit peasants to fight,even the chinese avoided peasants,except at the battle of Cheng Du where the peasants voluntarily fought with Shu against Wei.

EDIT:Qara is possibly kurdish too,i do not know if saladin used them but i do know he used Kurdish mountain spearmen who are pretty potent at dealing with their enemies.

EDIT:peasants were used at a major battle with Napoleons army near Cairo,Tel Al Kabeer i beleive,where napoleon sluaghtered no less than 20,000 Mamelukes(pretty brave aren't they?)and only lost 40 soldiers.

[Galestrum]

Quote[/b] ]i don't know whose stupid enough to even commit peasants to fight

apparently everybody but the arabs http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

[Yelping Godzilla]

Egypt,.. I guess

Depends what your definition of peasant is.

As far as I'm concerned numerous armies throughout history have overwhelmingly consisted of peasants. Serfs have fought, slaves have fought, the poor have fought. Always have always will.

But, of course, most wouldn't define peasants as just poor. Point is they're pretty much the bottom rung of the ladder (excusing the mad, convicts, true slaves and so on).

I know the 'Frankish' forces in Outremer according to various accounts had mobs 'helping' them out at one time or another. For example at the fall of Acre. I wouldn't exactly call them peasants, they were really out of work manual workers who got blind drunk, blind fanatical and eventually blind dead.

Probably besides the point. As far as my knowledge extends, Saladin's army was never supported by mobs. Possibly mobs fought Saladins enemies, certainly rabbles of poorly trained soldiery did, but I'd have to go with faisal on this one. The occasions of organised armies utilising unequipped unofficered peasant mobs are pretty damn infrequent, especially in the holy land.

Other points:
Egypt did employ Frankish mercenaries, but not enough of them to count mod wise - you can still recruit anything that is disbanded. Such as crusade leftovers etc.
Sudanese archers = desert archers. Egypt had desert archers. Not so important where they come from.
Although Turkish soldiery fought under various banners, we should endeaver to keep to the spirit of the factions in MTW, so Turkish special units should be in the Turkish lineup, or possibly just Islam only, restricted to a couple of Turkish provinces. Overall, I'm more of a fan of territorial PLUS factional/cultural restrictions. Something I'd like to see in the mod.

And watch that 'even the Chinese' stuff ;P

EEUURAAH.

[Yelping Godzilla]

Holy Orders

Please note: I'll keep editing stuff into this post as I remember it, or as I think of new ideas applicable to the mod. It's been a while since I studied these guys.

I'll try to keep this vaguely short (hah) and game related, if you want to question the historical validity, I'll discuss it with you outside the post.

Order Sergeants
The Teutonic Sergeants are pretty spot on from CA, they were back rank sword carrying mini-knights. However the other orders had their own Sergeants which were superior to your bog standard feudal Mounted Sergeant. They wore less armour than the knights, but still a fair bit - medium/heavy rather than superheavy, they were skilled enough fighters and they had backbone. Using lances, they had a powerful charge, if not so dreaded as that of the knights proper. So essentially lance version of Teutonic sergeants, less melee more charge.

Other Orders
I am well aware that a practical decision regarding orders has to be made, as they cannot and should not all be included. CA made the choice to have Santiago, Templar, Hospitaller and Teutonic. All things considered, although I have my doubts about the inclusion of Santiago as compared to the other three, this decision is fine. However, I would like to see mention of the other orders. I propose a generic unit Order Knights much like the generic Order Foot and Order Sergeants which in the description mentions orders such as St Thomas, Lazarus, Calatrava and St John as well has Confrere Knights (ordinary secular knights that had joined the military side of the order as half-brethren, if you will). The knights of the 'smaller' orders did fight in the holy land and often enough, I think, to be included.

Faction Alignment

Templar
*English
*French
Sicilian
Aragon

Teutonic
*HRE
*Polish
Hungarian
Danish

Santiago
*Spanish

Hospitaller
*Italy
Sicily
Aragon

The list is a work in progress, of course ;]

Those marked with * I feel relatively confident in assigning to the orders. Although an order was not a part of any one faction's military, for game purposes these allowances seem fair when creating crusades. English get primarily Templar etc. I say primarily, because they should also have a slight chance of getting in a crusade
Generic Order Knights (rare, small number)
Teutonic Knights and sergeants (rare, small number) Hospitaller (slightly less rare, small number)
Santiago (rare, small number)
This represents that a primarily english backed crusade, while most likely to have Templar support, could also get other orders when created (as it is unlikely to pick them up along the way). For other factions creating crusades, the percentages would be different. HRE get primarily (in the knight 'section' of the crusade) Teutons and so on. Those factions not marked with * are less associated with the order in question and of course there may be overlap. In this case, you might have 120 Templar, 120 Hospitaller in a crusade.

Additionally, the English per crusade should get more Templars than the Italians would get Hospitallers. This simply reflects the fact that the Templars were more numerous and essentially larger than the Hospitallers, so a higher proportion of the crusade would be made up of order knights, if the crusade were mostly templar backed.

Having said this, I doubt having specific percentages for each faction is actually doable. I'll look into it.

As far as stats go for order knights (different from eachother and from chivalric knights), this isn't the time for that discussion.

Finally,
Buildability
I wouldn't want to see order knights buildable by factions, other than by building crusades. However, if for example the French did take Palestine and build it up to sufficient level, it would make sense to allow them to build Knights Templar there and so on. The exact regions from which order knights might be produced is a further discussion.

EEUURAAH.

[Hakonarson]

Y'all might like to note that I said the Ayyubids used levies and city mobs occasionally - the "peasants" bit was in brackets, and refers to what they'd be graded as in MTW IMO.

Sal al a'Din of course ruled Egypt only from 1169-1193.

Many Mamlukes had coverings for their horses - this was reported by the Templar of Tyre in 1291, Baibars had a covered horse at his coronation in 1260.

The coverig was called a Kanbush, nad apparently came into use during the first half of hte 12th century, being common by the end of hte Ayyubid era in the 13th century (Armies and Enemies of hte Crusades 1096-1291, Ian Heath, WRG).

Franks adopted horse armour FROM moslem armies - particularly Turkish ones.

Sudanese infantry were crushed at "the battle of hte Blacks: in Cairo in 1169 after revolting against Saladin, and the survivors thown out of Egypt. However apparently new regimetns were raised as they were present again in hte Egyptian army at Arsouf in 1191, and Sudanese infantry harrassed the 5th Crusade's withdrawl from Damietta in 1221.

Ayyubids employed Frankish mercenaries in various positions - eg in 1111 the Governor of Ascalon had 300 knights as his bodyguard. Saladin appreciated their military prowess too - proposing the for 2000 knights and 5000 foot he would hand over considerable territories to King Richard of England in 1191. More knights are recorded in Egyptian service in Damascus in 1221, while the Mamluk Sultan Baibars (after the Ayyubids) employed them after hte fall of Hatra and Caesarea, even granting them fuedal estates

"Qaraghulams" means litetrally "black slaves", and these troops were apparently Negro and Berber slave cavalry.

[Hakonarson]

Sicilian.

Army based on lots of Moslem archers until 1266 - skirmishing or massed, nothing particularly pecial about them.

Small-moderate numbers of feudal knights, optionally supplemented by small nubmers of knights from the Italian Communities in th area who were perahps a little elss competeant and a little more controlable.

Other communal forces include low-grade disciplines spearmen and crossbowmen in small-moderate numbers.

Could have moderate numbers of "Griffons" - levies of Sicilian Greeks fighting as loose order spearmen.

Also possibly small-very small numbers of Saracen cavalry and javeloinement or axemen, Mercenary crossbowmen.

After 1150 gets small nnumbers of Berber cavalry - Saharan Cav in MTW IMO.

After 1194 Communal crossbowmen adopt pavise and spearmen in front to protect from cavalry and archery, and Griffons become peasants. Can have small numbers of Saracen horse archers.

After 1235 get moderate=large numbers of German mercenary cavalry - knights, Ministrales, sergeants, etc - generally considered not too flash, but comptant enough.

In 1266 Charles of Anjou conquers the kingdom and he didnt' have the enlightened attitude towards his moslem subjects so the Saracen archers were not often used.

In 1282 the Sicilians revolted against Charles, invited Pere III of Aragon to rule them and he arrived with large numbers of Aragonese and Catalans - Almughvars, skirmishing crossbowmen and small numbersof aragonese light horse - skirmishing javelin armed - essentually Jinetes.

The Catalanswere transfered out to Byzantine service as he infanous "Catalan Company" ibn 1301, and no major changes occured afte then until Sicily reconquered and was reunited with Naples in 1442.

[Hakonarson]

Turks.

Seljuks from 1037

Basis of the army is always large numbers of Turkomans - fierce light cavalry, but someonat unreliable politically.

At the start of the MTW period Seljuk troops are all Askaris - disciplined and described by Frankish opponents as charging furiously with javelins. There are always small numbers of Askaris, and they may be present in moderate numbers.

Infantry is sometimes fielded and comes from from the Turkomans, Seljuks and Kurds. It is all very similar - moderate numbers of javelinmen, somtimes archers as well.

Small numbers of hte following may be fielded:
Kurdish cavalry - less well disciplined medium horse archers
Agulani - an enigmatic troop type - apparently fully armoured men on fully armoured horses but fightin only with swords and available only at hte very start of the period.
Syrian cavalry - less well disciplined medium horse archers
Bedouin Arabs - light horse lancers (Saharan Cavalry IMO)
Ahdath militia - essentially peasants
Dailami infantry - highly regarded Kurdish light-medium infantry. Possibly comparable to Almughvars, and possibly mounted on mules as mounted infantry.
Franks - western mercenary knights, but also a lot of Greek cavalry of similar style
Aremenians (Armenian HC would do nicely)
Frankish crossbowmen - well armoured disciplined troops
Naffatun - Naptha throwers
Georgians (a token unit only) - armoured horse archer/lancers
Byzantine cavalry - Disciplined "medium" horse archers levied from newly conquered border areas?

After 1220 some Seljuk infantry upgraded to basic spearmen.

It's interesting to note that from 1276-1281 there was effectively no Turkish "state" - IMO in MTW terms they were "resurrected" by a "revolt....but I digress...

From 1281 - Ottoman Turkish
EArly:

Must have Large numbers of Ghazis - fierce, religously motivated light horse archers - think Szekely for factors.

Can have small numbers of Feudal Sipahis as medium horse archers, maybe half of whome might also have lance.

Must have small-medium numbers of Azabs - some skirmishing slingers, some javelinmen, mostly skirmishing or massed archers.

May have moderate numbers of Levandant - mainly recruited ot police captured areas they weren't much use in open battle - think peasants.

In about 1362 the Yeni-ceri (Jannisaries) were raised, and hte nature of hte army change.

After 1362:
No Ghazis.

Must have moderate numbers of Sipahis, smae proportion upgraded with lance.

Must have small numbers of Janissary archers - very good foot archers, armoured and swordsmen.

Can have very small numbers of Janissary slingers or crossbowmen as skirmishers.

Must have moderate-largge numbers of Akinjis (="raiders") - horse archers sttled in border areas and serving in return for tax exemption and loot. Nothing special as far as horse archers go.

Must have small numbers of Qapukulu cavalry (="Court Slaves"), including Sipahis of the Porte, who of course form all bodyguards.

Can have small numbers of:
Djanbazan (="Daredevils" picked form the Akinjis) or Turkomans or Crimean Tartars - all considered very fierce horse archers
Delis (= "madmen" from converted Serbs, Bosnian and Croats), Kurds, Bedouin Arabs - all spear armed light cavalry (Saharan Cav)
Iaylars - religous fanatics on foot ie Ghazis
Voynuks - armoured foot from the Balkans using a mixture of spears, axes and other long pole arms
Very small nubmers of troops throwing incediaries - napthe throwers.

After 1429 can replace Janissary slingers and archers, and Azab javelinmen with hand gunners

[Leet Eriksson]

Quote[/b] (Hakonarson @ July 05 2003,21:32)]Y'all might like to note that I said the Ayyubids used levies and city mobs occasionally - the "peasants" bit was in brackets, and refers to what they'd be graded as in MTW IMO.

Sal al a'Din of course ruled Egypt only from 1169-1193.

Many Mamlukes had coverings for their horses - this was reported by the Templar of Tyre in 1291, Baibars had a covered horse at his coronation in 1260.

The coverig was called a Kanbush, nad apparently came into use during the first half of hte 12th century, being common by the end of hte Ayyubid era in the 13th century (Armies and Enemies of hte Crusades 1096-1291, Ian Heath, WRG).

Franks adopted horse armour FROM moslem armies - particularly Turkish ones.

Sudanese infantry were crushed at "the battle of hte Blacks: in Cairo in 1169 after revolting against Saladin, and the survivors thown out of Egypt. However apparently new regimetns were raised as they were present again in hte Egyptian army at Arsouf in 1191, and Sudanese infantry harrassed the 5th Crusade's withdrawl from Damietta in 1221.

Ayyubids employed Frankish mercenaries in various positions - eg in 1111 the Governor of Ascalon had 300 knights as his bodyguard. Saladin appreciated their military prowess too - proposing the for 2000 knights and 5000 foot he would hand over considerable territories to King Richard of England in 1191. More knights are recorded in Egyptian service in Damascus in 1221, while the Mamluk Sultan Baibars (after the Ayyubids) employed them after hte fall of Hatra and Caesarea, even granting them fuedal estates

"Qaraghulams" means litetrally "black slaves", and these troops were apparently Negro and Berber slave cavalry.
Yep now it fits the discreption of an islamic army,also from my sources the ayyubids had "half-trained" peasants,but thats it for a peasants unit,probably miltia.I don't really know if mamelukes really had covered horses,its not mentioned in my books.

[Leet Eriksson]

Also Ghazi literally means "raiders" so i guess they come mounted.

[Yelping Godzilla]

A word on mounted infantry

Many foot soldiers could be considered mounted, as they rode to battles rather than marching. However such mounted infantry would dismount before battle and so should be represented by dismounted units.

EEUURAAH.

[Leet Eriksson]

Ok i'm basing this on Suleimans Hassan Suleiman Armies of Islam,7th to 14th centuries:

Ayyubid Dynasty

12th and 13th century:

First Cavalry:

The Elites:

Ayyubid Mameluke Heavy Cavalry-They used a Lance,bow and a shield.

Al Halqa Heavy Cavalry(Al Halqa means The Ring)-they too used a lance,bow and a shield.They were the Elites and natives of Egypt and Arabia.

Toassin Heavy Cavalry-These are veterans but inferior to Al Halqa,they used a lance bow and shield.

Average Cavalry:

Qaraghulams-most of the time they used lances,and shields.

Turkomans-they used Smalls shields,bows and swords.

Ghazi-Superior than both Qaraghulams and turkomans,they used swords and shields.

Levy:

Al Asha'er-These Levies are pretty weak,they carry composite bows,and swords in battle.

Bediouns-carried a lance and shield.pretty fast light cavalry.

I'll go in more detail on infantry in my next post.I just discovered though that Qara Ghulams are black slaves,while Ghulams are white.I'm not sure yet if thats true,becuase arabs refered to black slaves as ghulams too.

[Yelping Godzilla]

Scotland/England

Scottish armies, such that there were, consisted of their own feudal, norman influenced knights, highland clansmen, small numbers of average archers and the bulk was made up of Lowland Pike.

Essentially these are poor quality, generally ill disciplined pikemen, used throughout the medieval period (AFAIK). Less powerful than standard pikemen, but available much earlier in tech tree and time period - they are especially vulernable to missiles (they used the schiltron formation, this represents that) though they are quite useful and affordable defensive troops, particularly against cavalry. However, they are nowhere near the battlefield changing quality of later pike units, so they get less bonus and have lower stats generally.

These would fit in the English unit lineup nicely. Billmen give the English early, affordable access to the Halberd troop type and these, if Scotland was taken, would do the same for the pike troop type. Reinforces the English theme of using specialised, innovative levies (In MTW at least).

EEUURAAH.

[Hakonarson]

Quote[/b] (Yelping Godzilla @ July 05 2003,18:32)]Sudanese archers = desert archers. Egypt had desert archers. Not so important where they come from.
I agree completley - troops may have had different names, but in effect were essentially thesame the world over - there's not too much difference between an Egyptian peasant archer and a Russian one, and only significnat differnces should be worried about IMO.

But by all means give "the same troops" different names in different factins to keep the partisans happy http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Yelping Godzilla]

Right. For example horse archers are a big category, but I think the unit covers the majority, whether Turkish, Byzantine or Hungarian just fine. Of course certain types of horse archer need to be (and plenty already are) distinct units.

EEUURAAH.

[Leet Eriksson]

Quote[/b] (Hakonarson @ July 06 2003,17:25)]
Quote[/b] (Yelping Godzilla @ July 05 2003,18:32)]Sudanese archers = desert archers. Egypt had desert archers. Not so important where they come from.
I agree completley - troops may have had different names, but in effect were essentially thesame the world over - there's not too much difference between an Egyptian peasant archer and a Russian one, and only significnat differnces should be worried about IMO.

But by all means give "the same troops" different names in different factins to keep the partisans happy http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
Sudanese archers were more accurate i beleive,thats why they call them Archers of the Eye,becuase their arrows lands on the targets eye http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif,but still archers are almost useless in MTW unless used in large numbers.

[Yelping Godzilla]

For some factions in some situations, archers might be the only unit capable of stopping horse archer skirmish tactics. In fact I would suggest that we avoid giving western factions the kind of fleet light cavalry needed to chase down horse archers, forcing them to use archers, or simply ignore the rain of arrows tactics favoured by forces such as the Seljuq Turks.

I've been making notes on a lot of pre-feudal (Early/Viking period) units, particularly for minor factions, such as the Irish or Scottish. I'm not sure how useful they would be at this point, so I'll wait and comment later on. It's difficult to contribute without some base.

Out of interest will the difference between eastern compound bows and western shortbows be implemented? I mean desert archers should be superior to ordinary archers simply by virtue of the bow types.

EEUURAAH.

[Turbo]

Quote[/b] (WesW @ July 04 2003,23:38)]One of the new concepts we are developing for the full version of the Medmod IV for VI is that of historically-based unit lists for all the factions. It occurred to me that this may be the part of the mod that elicits the most controversy, and that will take the most time to decide upon, so I want to start an open debate here on what they should be, for the existing factions only. (I will make one for new factions later.)

What I want to do is find out what the various factions specialized in, and what kinds of troops they carried into battle. I have found some sites and descriptions that cover a few of the factions to various degrees, but I would like to get info from you guys, so we could pool our info on this topic.

I ask that you mark which faction you are referring to in bold at the start of your comments on that faction, so I can scan the thread later and pool the comments. I ask that you do this even if you are rebutting or adding to something said in the post immediately before yours.

After discussing this with A_B, who has been helping me put the mod together, what I am going to do is designate certain, historically-based unit types for bonuses to factions that used them as key parts of their armies. What type of bonus is given is one thing that I hope your comments can shed light upon. And, if you comment on the bonus, please back it up with historical references, and don't just say that you like one type of bonus or whatever.

Once I get a good idea of what the factions were good at, I am going to impose penalties on other types of units for that faction. Again, if you have comments on this, I would be very happy to hear them, but please shed a little light on your comment.

All of this means that you *can* produce well-balanced armies, but it is going to cost you extra in most cases.

All this is going to fit into other concepts I am going to introduce in the mod, such as ethnic homelands and major-minor factions, but I want to restrict questions about that to other threads.
Wes,

Why don't you just use the DBA/DBM rules? DBA/DBM is what got me interested in Medieval Total war to begin with.

[Turbo]

Quote[/b] (Hakonarson @ July 05 2003,00:54)]If you have accessss to any decent warganing rule army lists than it's probably easy enough to base something on those.

I'll dig out the DBM ones later tonight & put fingers to keyboard from their point of view.
Do you play DBA and DBM regularly? I belong to a UK group, ISJX, that uses Medieval Total War in a hybrid multiplayer campaign similar to dbaonline. We are looking for devotees. We have full access to orders of battles, and unit compositions from Hastings up to St. Albans. We also have the archives from the tourneys in London.

Units and maps are generic or custom, and battle results are posted on the telnet site. The campaign map is updated to show ownership. Right now we are playing the Baltic crusade covering Livonian-Lithuania.

[Yelping Godzilla]

http://www.fanaticus.org/dba/armies/medievals.html

DBM stuff. For the most part very useful and covers more than I possibly could.

Probably worth a thousand posts :]

EEUURAAH.

[Hakonarson]

Yes I play a lot of DBM, and DBAOL, and am doing a little testing of DBR v2....but I don't think this thread is a good place to talk about it - perhaps in the Tavern or Monastery?? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[WesW]

Geez, 31 posts in two days- WOW And very informative posts, too.

Let me answer a couple of things, and then move on to what I have gathered so far.

I keep getting references to the DBA rules and lists, but I can never find anything on them that I can translate to the mod. I find stuff that refers to unit types, usually in generic terms, or unit names, but nothing about quality, or time period or region. For example, I can't figure out how to construct anything useful from the DBA site Godzilla posted above.
I guess if you have the game, and know how to interpret the data listed, then it's useful, but not to someone just passing through.

Also, I keep hearing that Archers aren't useful. I always have about 4 units of Archers in my armies, and they normally account for 30% to 40% of my kills, at least when I am defending. This is especially true in the Viking Camp, when each unit typically has over a hundred kills each when fighting the Irish or hordes of Celtic Warriors.
This is really a topic for another thread, though.

Let's address the factions now...

Crusader units and Orders-
Right now, I want to leave the Crusades alone. I created a unique setup in this area for the first version, and it fit with what I read about the actual history, too. There were various small Orders that sprang up periodically, especially in the beginning, but the main one was the Templars, until they became a threat to the French king, and he managed to destroy them. Thereafter, the Hospitallers and Teutons were the main fighting orders.
As far as the mod is concerned, if you created new units representing other orders, they would simply have the same stats as the main orders, or the slight variations would be meaningless and/or confusing to the player.

From what I gather in your posts, the Muslim units are pretty realistic, and I changed them quite a bit for 1.85, at least in some areas, so right now I plan on leaving them alone too.
For 1.85, I made adjustments to enhance balance, so I really don't want to mess with the non-Catholic factions unless it's really necessary.
If there is a glaring inaccuracy, such as with the Heavy Cav, let me know, but also come up with an alternate unit that would make up for the hole left by the cav's removal, since I put it there for a good reason, at least imo.

The 1.85 lineup for the Byzantines cavalry also looks pretty good now, except that I plan on making the Kats Horse Archers. The new Byz Lancer has almost identical stats to my Alan Merc Cav, so I can revert the Alans back to their original stats and role as Mercs.
I actually thought that the Byz's pulled it back together somewhat after they re-took Constan, btw.
I like using the new Early VG as simply the VG, only available in Early, and then giving way to the other unit Hakonarson mentioned (didn't write it down yet).
Any thoughts on an archer/med inf. unit to succeed the Trebizond Archers? I would like to use it to replace the current Byz Inf.
I have Menavatoi and Skutaktoi down as equivalents to Chiv Sgts and Pikemen, with the Kontaratoi Hakon mentioned as Feudal Sgts.

I'll try and have a good look at the new Steppe cav units sometime soon, and figure out what the Russian and Kievan lineup now looks like.

This leaves the Catholic units, which is where I wanted to make the bulk of the changes.

From what I can tell from Hakon's posts, the Western Europeans were heavy on knights and short on swordsmen, unless the knights dismounted. I may jack up the stats of the units the knights turn into, so that 40 of them equal 60 of the standard MAA's. This may be hard to do, however.

Generally speaking:

English-
Big on archers, short on spears. Billmen can give early Halb; Longbows are their specialty.
I will probably add an Armoured Longbowman for the Late Era, similar to Sherwood Foresters, with a bonus in Mercia.
Keep the bonus for Wales to standard Longbows, available in High.
Hobilars, introduced in Late as jacked-up Spanish Jinettes, dismount into Medmod Kerns?

French-
Pretty well-balanced overall. Access to some heavy units in Late, such as Ordonnance Gendarmes and Archers, and a version of Armoured Longbows if they can take Scotland.

Btw, when Hakon said the Partisanmen used a staff weapon, does that mean Halbards or Pikes? I never can keep that straight no matter how many Baldur's Gate-type games I play. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

HRE-
Access to all common units, but remove the 2 morale points added for the expansion.

All three-
Add a Spanish Jinette-type of unit in Early or High, to precede or succeed the Mounted Sgts.

My plans for the other Catholic units, which I have managed to find some info on in the past. Feel free to confirm, contradict or elaborate upon them.

Spanish-
Better than average Militia types, due to constant warfare with Muslims. Weak in spears because of this, and light Muslim cavalry units.
Lower unit upkeep because units are fighting for their religion and ethnic identity rather than for pay and plunder.

Hungarians-
Forces have somewhat of a split identity due to fighting both Muslims (Turks), and Christians (HRE).
Knights and heavier infantry restricted to northwest provinces in order to face the HRE, while lighter, Muslim-like units are built in the southeast.
This gives the Huns a wide unit selection, but no real specialty in any one type.

Poles-
Actually, nothing comes to mind regarding the Poles right now, except my v1 changes to the Polish Retainers, making them med-hvy HA's. I'm going to dig up my old unit-restriction thread and see what-all I have forgotten.

Italians-
I plan on splitting up the Italians into the Venetians and Genoese-Tuscans. This is a pretty recent change, so I can use all the help you guys can offer on army composition and specialization.
Right now, I figure to make them big on anti-cavalry units, and stronger than average militia units, due to their city-state make-up. And, of course, they will be big on ships as well.
This way, they can be small but potent when defending, and able to defeat larger armies when defending their native hills and mountains.

The Venetians could be especially powerful in the High Age, when they will have Constantinople in addition to Venice.

Aragonese-
Similar to the Spanish. If anyone has any suggestions here, I would be happy to hear them.

Sicilians-
From what I can tell, the Sicily was conquered and re-conquered by various factions, nationalities and religions continuously throughout the medieval period. Myself, I don't know what to do with them, as far as specializations or even unit lineup is concerned.

Well, for the major Catholic factions anyway, I think this is a good blueprint. Each faction has its own, unique advantages and disadvantages, which lend themselves to different strategies and playing styles. Instead of a unique unit or two, and perhaps a bonus in a couple of provinces or units, you are getting factions with whole new, unique personalties, while still retaining enough of the old to avoid confusion (I hope).

One of the things I am going to do is use the current icons and bifs for all the new units, and use them for units that match, or come very close, to the generic unit's stats.
This means that if a unit has the icon for a Feudal Knight, regardless of its name or era, it will have the stats that you are used to for this icon.
So too when you see an enemy unit on the battlefield; if it looks like a Bulgarian Brigand, then it will have close or matching stats to the unit you are familiar with, regardless of its name.

And there will be a *lot* of new units, at least in name, due to the Homeland, or Regional Restriction, concept.
If you have the 1.84, or later, version of the Medmod, then you can look at the Provinces sheet of the mod's spreadsheet. There I have made an early draft of the homeland for each faction (and yes, there is overlap, but that's intentional).
It is only in these homeland provinces that the faction will be able to recruit any but low-level, generic units such as Spearmen and Horse Archers. And I am going to take away the two morale points that were added by CA for the expansion, to reflect the fact that men were not as willing to die for "foreigners" as they were for their countrymen, even before the rise of nationalism.

I think that this is going to fundamentally change the game, since you will no longer be able to conquer well-developed provinces and start spitting out quality troops in a few turns. You will have the dozen or so provinces of your homeland, and that's it, no matter how much you conquer. You will get their income, but you can only spend it on those homeland provinces.

This does two things:
1) It will reduce the snowball effect that makes the game less challenging as you expand, and
2) It accurately reflects history, from Darious II to Hitler.

So, if I can get some more info on those remaining factions, I can continue working with A_B to get a preliminary unit list made out.

[Yelping Godzilla]

Hmm. I'll hold off making suggestions for crusading/orders until a later date then. Don't get me wrong, I think the 1.84 crusades work very well, in the game and historically, it's just a subject of particular interest to me.

As for the DBA army lists, I've only looked at a few from that page and when it comes to that system I am a layperson. The P's and LH's I just guess at the meaning, I use the site more for an outline of what I should be looking into - such as Ostmen and Gael Gaedhil from pre-feudal Irish etc

Note on archers: In the VI campaign sometimes the only 'safe' way to inflict any casualties at all on powerful viking units such as the royal guards is to pepper them with arrows. Fyrdmen don't do squat.


Byzantine
I always thought the Skuta(k)toi were more average quality medium/heavy infantry with mail, large shield and spear rather than being a pike unit. They were, in the early period at least, used as a regrouping prop to support the superior byzantine cavalry. Later, they appear to have taken on more of a heavy infantry role. Hyperkastai are essentially just horse archers, which I presume the Byzantines will have. Menavlatoi in the chiv serg slot makes sense, though I believe they weren't so heavily armoured and only had small shields. Will you consider Akontistai jav in the lineup as skirmishers?


English
Before Longbowmen were recognised and widely employed in English armies, they weren't actually big on archers at all. CA gave them a discount seemingly to keep archer units worthwhile even once you have longbows. English archers were poor quality and generally ineffective. I'm not saying they shouldn't have archers, just that in the Early period, they only used them as often as say, the French. Regarding Hobilars, I was under the impression the term simply meant mounted infantry, those MI that actually fight on horseback, that is. The English certainly used such a poor quality mounted unit, but I suppose this would be represented by Horsemen rather than hobilars. As for later mounted jav units, I just couldn't say. Leave that one up to you. I would be wary of emphasising the quality of later periods longbowmen (the armoured type), as the quality of Longbowmen generally dropped badly after it peaked fighting against the French.

I like the home provinces idea, although I'll have to see how it changes the way the campaign plays. Historically, I think using more territorial unit restrictions makes a lot of sense.

Interesting stuff. I'll keep rooting around for info and complaining a lot.

EEUURAAH.

[pyhhricvictory]

Wes,

I have a couple of questions,

1. Are the regionalized units going to be restricted to specific factions, or are any factions able to build them if they hold the territory (like Steppe Cav are now).

2. Have you considered making the units, except for certain types of knights, availible to everyone but restricted to a very limited territory? An example would be the Swiss, their home provinces would not have the ability to create cavalry, since they would be a liability in the mountains, forcing them to expand into France or southern FGermany in order to balance their armies a bit more, or the English not having a really good Heavy Cavalry on the isles forcing them to expand to get some.

Would this, in anyones opinion, cause the game to be overly unbalanced?

[Pablo Sanchez]

Quote[/b] (WesW @ July 07 2003,23:11)]This way, they can be small but potent when defending, and able to defeat larger armies when defending their native hills and mountains.
Italian armies tended to rely primarily on mercenaries. Would it be possible to add a "condottierri" unit (effective footspears with low cost but high upkeep) or give them some sort of advantage in hiring from the inn?

[econ21]

Wes - did you find Terry Gore's draft Medieval Warfare Army lists in his Yahoo group that I recommended a while back? They have detailed information on arms/armour, quality and proportions in an army.

One problem I had was how to translate his system based on proportions to the TW system of point-buy. I am not sure how much the SP gamer worries about cost of units - I suspect they get the "best" units they have the tech for, at least for their main armies.

Restricting unit types and using province valour bonuses may be a better way of inducing "historical" armies (e.g. the unique longbowmen and billmen units with their province +1 bonuses in the game work pretty well in inducing English players to have more or less distinctive historical forces, at least if arbalesters were denied them).

The other thing I was thinking of was restricting certain units to be available only as mercenaries - eg so the English player could hire (Flemish) pikes or (Genovese) crossbows but could not raise them locally. I guess that is kinda of like your cost idea, but with uncertainty over availability.

Playing with unit sizes was another idea I toyed with (eg English mounted knights of size 40 say; French and German size 60). Unit sizes could be another way of handling the era changes better - eg size 60 units of mailed spears on early, rising to 100 in high.

BTW, on the Scilians, the only thing that occurred to me was giving a +1 valour for feudal knights. IIRC, they were Normans who thrashed the Byzantines and were highly regarded. Also give them desert archers. (I don't know if you have already, as I confess I am not up to date on 1.85).

[Hakonarson]

Gald you enjoyed the reading Wes http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

A couple of quick comments - Hobilars weer not javelin armed - they used spears, and (in DBM) dismount as something like sheildless spearmen.

Skutatoi - Skutatoi disappeared as such after Manzikert. In their last iteration they consisted of 2 ranks spearmen, 3 ranks archers and another 2 ranks spearmen, with teh job of sustained archery - the spearmen beign there to protect the archers and carryin 12-14 foot long kontos

Byzantium didn't have any archer/mediauminfantry unit after Manzikert - even after they got Constantinople back.

Menavlatoi were armed with heavy armour piercing spears - "as thick as a mans hand" that could also apaprently work as a heavy club. Tehre weer only ever very small numbers of them, and again they dissapear totally after Manzikert.

The DBA lists do not contain a lot of detail, because DBA is a small game - nominally only 12 units per side, so a lot of detail gets lost.

However here's a sumamry of the basic troop types:

Knights - cavalry who charge into contact at the first instance. If armed with bows, javelins or other missile weapons they rarely use them mounted.

Cavalry - the great bulk of ancient mounted troops armed with bows, javelins or spears, who attempt to disorder their opponents with missile fire or fierce "false charges" before actually contacting for hand-to-hand.

Light horse - all cavalry operating in dispersed swarms. Usually keen to avoid close combat, but some will do so.

Spears - troops fightign in sheild wall with held spears.

Pikes - troops using 2-handed spears in close formation

Blades - troops fencing with swords, axes, and cutting pole weapons, with or without initially thrown weapons such as pila, javelin or axes thrown immediately befoer combat. Generally not as strong vs mounted as spears or pikes, but superior vs infantry.

Warband - impetuous irregular foot equivalents of knights - charge into close combat attempting to sweep enemy away by sheer ferocity, loud yells and mass

Auxilia - infantry with a dual role of close combat and skirmishing missiles - will normally attempt to shower enemy with volleys of javelins to disorder them, and not normally so well equipped for close combat as spear, blades, etc. and usually not able to stand up to those. Often identical to warbands except for their fighting style.

Psiloi - pure skirmishers - invulnerable to heavy infantry but only able to do serious damage to them if they aer isolated. Can be armed with bow, sling, javelin, naptha pots, rocks, crossbows, atl-atl, etc.

Bowmen - archers and crossbowmen operating in mass, rather than as skirmishers, and often losing volleys by word of command.

There's a few other odd types about too - Elephants, Camels, Expendables (scythed chariots & stampeding herds), ships, boats, galleys, and also within the main types there are some "Exceptional" oddities that are normally of minor importance.

[Hakonarson]

Right...what have I missed....:)

Hungarians:

Until about 1250 there's a fairly simple army.

Szekelers, Light horse archers, medium horse archers (Gentry) and nobles equipped much like western knights.

Only low-moderate numbers of nobles and gentry, and the King would be noble but other generals might count as gentry.

Also only low-moderate numbes of Szekelers.

Lots and lots of horse archers.

Foot was optional, but would be present in moderate numbers if at all, and consisting of spearmen and skirmishing archers. A few Serbs or Vlach might provide slavic infantry or javelinmen or skirmishing or massed archers.

Croats formed a force within the army - although all under a single Hungarian general, and consisted of more spearmen and skirmishing archers, some good javelin armed mediaum skirmishing foot, and a small number of javelin armed medium cavalry that would become knights as time wore on.

After 1250-ish it gets complicated.

There's stil lots of horse archers and moderate numbers of Szekelers, and small-moderate numbers of knights.

Foot becomes more archery oriented.

After 1395 large numbers of German mercenaries enlist as cavalry - see my previous comments about German "knights".

After 1441 the Royal bodyguard is termed the "Banderum" and becomes more disciplined and numerous (but still small numbers), and may be the only Hungarian Kn on the field ocasionally.

Serbian husars appear in all armies in small numbers.

Good heavy foot armed with pole arms appear in small numbers (armati), and most or all of the previous rough spearmen are replaced by clipeati - good disciplined troops.

Handgunners appear in all armies in small-moderate numbers - mainly German mercenaries.

Hmm...not as complicated as it looks http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Poles
At the start of the period Polish cavalry is spear/javelin armed medium cavalry, but there can be a lot of it.

The rest of the army is large numbers of basic spearmen and well-equipped archers - who skirmish or used mass fire. Also small-moderate numbers of skirmishing slingers.

About 1200 the Cavalry adopts western tactics - and start being light-ish knights rather then medium cavalry, and can occasionally add small numbers of axe/halberd-armed "murderous rustics" (according to Teutonic Knights)

But by 1250 their equipment is every bit as heavy as any Western knight, and they add small numbers of Lithuanian and Russian cavalry, and Hungarian or Cuman horse archers.

Kazimierz III (Casimir the Great) reformed the army about 1335.

The mounted arm now consisted of roughly equal numbers of Rycerz (=knights) and Czeladz - initially medium cross-bow armed cavalry but by 1400 they had lance instead.

There were also small contingents of Lithuanians, Hungarian or Cuman horse archers, and Wallachian or Moldovian light horse - the last being quite fierce (think Dracula) & probably rateable as Szekeler.

Infantry consisted of optional contingents - small numbers of axemen, moderate numbers of town militia crossbow who formed in 10 ranks the first one with pavise and spear instead.

In 1386 the Lithanian and Polish crowns were combined, and large numbers of Lithuanians served under their own commanders, together with small numbers of tartars (Mongol horse archers).

After 1400 add small numbers of Serbian husars (lance armed light cav), guns and hand gunners.

[WesW]

pyhhricvictory Posted on July 08 2003,10:24
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Wes,

I have a couple of questions,

1. Are the regionalized units going to be restricted to specific factions, or are any factions able to build them if they hold the territory (like Steppe Cav are now).

I really haven't decided what to do about the regionalized units. Basic ones like Steppe Cav, Horse Archers I plan on leaving alone, meaning most anyone can build them, depending perhaps upon religion.
The more elite ones like the new Swabian Swordsmen I may restrict to the HRE and French, or I may do away with it and use it's bif for another unit. I'll have to see after I put the unit lists together, and maybe after playtesting.

2. Have you considered making the units, except for certain types of knights, availible to everyone but restricted to a very limited territory? An example would be the Swiss, their home provinces would not have the ability to create cavalry, since they would be a liability in the mountains, forcing them to expand into France or southern Germany in order to balance their armies a bit more, or the English not having a really good Heavy Cavalry on the isles forcing them to expand to get some.

Those are interesting suggestions. As far as the Swiss, I just don't think they should be much of an empire builder. I may allow them to build some of the surrounding factions' light to medium units, such as crossbows and light cav, but I think I will leave it so that, if you are going to win with the Swiss, you will have to use their specialty units. I'll have to think on this some more, but for now the major factions are what I am working on.

For the English, those are also good suggestions. I may indeed limit their knights to the mainland areas of their homeland.

Would this, in anyone's opinion, cause the game to be overly unbalanced?

That will be the key to this modification: to give the factions unique personalities, but not handicap them to the point that they can't win no matter what.
What I want to do is tailor a faction's army to its homeland terrain, or to counter its enemies' strengths, such as the English Longbows or Hungarian's lineup.
The effect I am looking for is to make the factions strong when defending their homelands, but less able to adapt to differing terrain should they begin to expand their empire. I don't think this will affect the AIs much, since they don't seem designed to hold large empires anyway, due to civil wars, revolts, etc, and also because their battles are auto-calc'd, where such things don't matter anyway.
This leaves the human, whom I am focused upon. In the 1.1 version, we had to adapt to each religion's fighting style, which was enough when we were learning to play the game. Now I want us to have to learn a different style for each Christian faction, based upon weaknesses as well as strengths, and with increasing handicaps as we try and expand our empires.
The Muslims already face such handicaps when they try and expand into Catholic lands, and vice versa, but now I want to add more factors for the Christian factions.

Pablo Sanchez Posted on July 08 2003,10:44
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Italian armies tended to rely primarily on mercenaries. Would it be possible to add a "condottierri" unit (effective footspears with low cost but high upkeep) or give them some sort of advantage in hiring from the inn?

I will update my earlier post with what I dug up on the Italians. I know I had condottierri on it.
As far as advantages from Inns; it has seemed to me that the Byzants get more mercs attracted to their Inns than normal, but if there is a flag for this, it is hard-coded somewhere.

Simon, I went through the Terry Gore site, but I couldn't figure out how to use it's info for the mod. If you wanted to post an example of how to do so, I would certainly be grateful.

As for the Inns-only concept; has this idea been fixed for the expansion? From what I could tell, it was either broken or poorly implemented for the 1.1 patch, when CA tried to do this with Highlanders and Gallowglasses. Mercs tpyically only appear near areas of fighting, so once you conquered Scotland or Ireland, their was no more fighting nearby. I think this trait would cripple what you envision as well. What we would need is for the mercs to appear more often when the faction owning the province went to war, rather than just in areas near the fighting.

The idea of mailed spears rising in size is a good one, since it appears that Spearmen remained basically unchanged from the Viking era until the emergence of Pikemen and Halberds.

Hakon, I realize now that the Byz army pretty much fell apart after Manzikert, but I don't want to leave their unit list so poor that they don't have a chance. We need to give them the *possibility* of getting some good troops. Their empire didn't completely collapse for another few hundred years, and I was under the impression that they stood a good change staving off the Turks if the Crusaders had not attacked them due to the plottings of the Italian merchants.

I watched a good History Channel film about this a few years ago, where it described how the Italians were in league with their Muslim trading partners, and competitors with the Byzants for the Med sea trade. They delayed the Crusaders in their cities for months, claiming that their ships weren't ready to ferry them over to attack their trading partners, and throwing them lavish parties in the meantime. After the Crusaders had gone into debt from hotels, meals and the like, the Italians said their ships were ready, and then presented them with the bills for the parties, too.
When the Crusaders realized that they could not possibly pay off those debts, the Italians suggested that they might want to think about attacking fabulously wealthy Constantinople for the needed plunder. The Catholic and Orthodox churches' feud had grown quite hot lately, so the Pope either expressly or implicitly allowed them to change their plans and attack a fellow Christian nation.
After the Crusaders went home with their plunder, the Italians moved right in and took over the Med trade as well as the land routes through Constan.

Anyway, back to the game...
The Byzants would seem to need access to *some* kind of blade unit, other than the VG and such. A type of Bulgarian Brigand, perhaps?

I will go back and update my earlier post with the new info on the Poles and Huns, as well as my tentative plans for the Danes.

[WesW]

Actually, I think I will start a new thread with a preliminary unit lineup for the Christian factions.

[econ21]

Wes - I've e-mailed you the army lists I spoke about. I think it should be apparent that the basic attributes defining the units (armour, weapons, quality) can be translated fairly well into MTW terms. The main problem I perceive is the one I discussed earlier in this thread - how to translate the limitations on unit numbers (eg no more than 4 units of armored longbowmen etc) into the MTW system. On reflection, I guess the obvious solution would be to play around with unit sizes.

I'll also e-mail you an excel worksheet where I tried to line up generic types of units (eg unarmoured archers) with factions in particular eras. This might prove a handy summary of Gore's work although it does not integrate the key issue of how many of each unit there should be in an army. I played around with this with a view to doing my own mod, but gave up largely because of the immense amount of time modding seems to take. Also, I came to the view that MTW does a fairly good job representing the faction units apart from a few apparently fictious units (AUM, Biz infantry) and the whole spears vs swords distinction.

[WesW]

Quote[/b] (Simon Appleton @ July 11 2003,02:04)]


Oh geez, thanks Simon. I am receiving that now. Perhaps it will help with some of the factions, though I hope it doesn't contradict too much for the ones I have already laid out in the preliminary units thread. I am getting more and more excited about this mod the more I get into it, so perhaps this list can flesh things out even more.
This "idea and concept", creative phase is what I love the most about mod-making, and right now the ideas are flowing and the concepts are evolving in fantastic ways. I hope it all pans out like I am envisioning it.

[i]The main problem I perceive is the one I discussed earlier in this thread - how to translate the limitations on unit numbers (eg no more than 4 units of armored longbowmen etc) into the MTW system. On reflection, I guess the obvious solution would be to play around with unit sizes.

Well, I am not too worried about getting this finely tuned right now. And I don't see much that we can do about it, either. Overall composition is a hardcoded thing. I would be happy for the AI to field competitive armies, regardless of proportions or historical limits.

I'll also e-mail you an excel worksheet where I tried to line up generic types of units (eg unarmoured archers) with factions in particular eras. This might prove a handy summary of Gore's work although it does not integrate the key issue of how many of each unit there should be in an army. I played around with this with a view to doing my own mod, but gave up largely because of the immense amount of time modding seems to take. Also, I came to the view that MTW does a fairly good job representing the faction units apart from a few apparently fictious units (AUM, Biz infantry) and the whole spears vs swords distinction.

Great. I want to eliminate the fictitious units, if possible, or at least try and find something *similar* to actual units that can fill a serious hole.

Btw, I have put out a call for unit description researchers and writers in the other thread, and I would love to have you join up. Once we get the units finalized, you could pick out which factions you wanted to work on, and just have responsibility for those. I'll give out specifics in a few days.