Is the armour factory useless AKA can any units actually use it?

My current english game (turn 70 something) has an armour factory in construction in Caen (my heavy infantry prod centre). I made a bad assumption that all units can have 2 armour upgrades. I think this maybe wrong however and the armour factory maybe actually be a waste :(

Any info on any future units that can make use of it? My current unit roster in caen consists of heavy billmen, dismounted english knights and armoured swords and they seem to peak at the one below this one.

I think I have the same problem with the Turks. Qupaluku (SP ?? heavy cav) don't seem to be able to upgrade their armor a second time, nor do general bodyguards.

That's not a bug, most units are limited to 1, or 2 armour upgrades.

yeah but that makes the building useless... I'm all excited to tryout this nice building, spend 15k in building it, but can't use it !

come on alot of units can upgrade armour , its a very important building ( es when you are under a mongol's arrows shower ... ) .... and seeing them look different on the battlefield is great !!

The point is, with some factions (for instance Ottoman and English), it is useless to build the biggest, most expensive armory since the previous instance is enough to upgrade all units in the roster.

One useful tip for armour upgrades - if you go to the Army tab in a city (or if you've highlighted a stack out in the field), right-click on a unit card to bring up their details. Below all of the stats, you'll see a line which says something like "Next armour upgrade - Partial Plate" (or whatever). That line of text only appears if the unit can get an armour upgrade.

As I say, this only works for units you've actually built, but it's handy to avoid splashing loads of cash of blacksmiths / armouries and expecting to get loads of upgrades, only to find out you can't.

The armor buildings are there just as an eye candy now. Ok, you can give "Padded Armor" animations to your town militia. However, their armor will go up only by +1 instead of 4, which is the base for units equipped with padded armor in the first place.

IMHO the approach that certain units cannot be upgraded beyond a certain armor type is fine. It would be ahistorical to have town militia running around in full plate armor, unless the armor upgrade would turn them into halberdiers of sorts. But it would be nice that the animation would actually match the base stats for that armor type. As it is now, every armor upgrade level gives just +1 to armor, which in no way corresponds to the base value of that particular armor.

Kinda waiting for the unpacker to take a look at the unit file. Units have anywhere from 0 to 3 armor upgrades available. An example are English peasants which can get 1 armor upgrade. Upgrades available is not always apparent until after you have built the unit. Each level of upgrade is worth +1 armor regardless of what the upgrade actually is. The cost of upgrading 1 level is the same as upgrading 3 levels. For example, upgrading spear militia in city A with a +1 armor upgrade costs 60. Upgrading a different spear militia in city B that gives a +3 armor upgrade costs only 60 also.

Bottom line. Don't build armour smiths in all your cities. Place them in a few key troop production cities. Once you learn your faction, those key production centers might not need all levels of smithies.

I agree, Slaists. As the spanish, I built a few Military Academies and have been able to build Tercio Pikemen. They have 0 armor by default. With two armor upgrades, the graphic shows them in half-plate, but they have an armor rating of 2 now. They take casualties like crazy, and heavy cavalry are capable of running them down with a correct charge. They should have an armor rating of about 6 instead.

Units can have between 1 and 3 armor upgrades, but it depends upon the unit. My guess is only the chivalric knights/gothic knights and the like can make use of the armor factory. The trouble is, right now you have to build some of those units and the factory to find out.

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Originally Posted by Quillan

<snip> The trouble is, right now you have to build some of those units and the factory to find out.

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Not quite true - you need to build the unit, but not the factory. If you right-click an existing unit's card to view its details, it will tell you if the unit's armour can be upgraded. So if you build a unit of Gothic Knights, it'll tell you whether its armour can be upgraded or not.

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Originally Posted by Aspect

Not quite true - you need to build the unit, but not the factory. If you right-click an existing unit's card to view its details, it will tell you if the unit's armour can be upgraded. So if you build a unit of Gothic Knights, it'll tell you whether its armour can be upgraded or not.

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Indeed... it is below the upkeep. It says "next upgrade padded armour".

It's so cool how they limited the upgrades. Fantastic.

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Originally Posted by Quillan

I agree, Slaists. As the spanish, I built a few Military Academies and have been able to build Tercio Pikemen. They have 0 armor by default. With two armor upgrades, the graphic shows them in half-plate, but they have an armor rating of 2 now. They take casualties like crazy, and heavy cavalry are capable of running them down with a correct charge. They should have an armor rating of about 6 instead.

Units can have between 1 and 3 armor upgrades, but it depends upon the unit. My guess is only the chivalric knights/gothic knights and the like can make use of the armor factory. The trouble is, right now you have to build some of those units and the factory to find out.

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I wonder if it is going to be possible to mod it to be anything else other than a mere +1, +2 or +3 to the armour stat??

I mean the visual and conceptual effect of the different levels being able to produce different armour types is very cool. But tying it to the armour improvement system that was there before (where the assumption was that the armourer improved the units existing equipment rather than replacing it) feels a little odd.

I mean how do we bring to together the facts that a Bronze armour improvment gives one unit padded armour, another chainmail and yet another advanced plate in simple positive modifiers for the armour stat?

Would simply increasing the bonus for each level from +1 to, say, +2 or +3 be sufficient? (and is doing this even possible)

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Originally Posted by Frantz

come on alot of units can upgrade armour , its a very important building ( es when you are under a mongol's arrows shower ... ) .... and seeing them look different on the battlefield is great !!

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Well, the maximum extra armor rating one can get with upgrades is +3 (I think). That's less than padded armor (4) and we know that it is very easy to kill padded armor units even with peasant archers... So, besides good looks, there is not much to be gained from armor upgrades (in terms of protection from missiles).

On a side note, it seems ridiculously easy to kill mounted units with low level archers. A couple volleys from peasant archers and mailed knights go from 40 to 30... Do not ge me wrong, I would have no problem if this happened after a volley from crossbows, but peasant archers? Come on...

And shields do not seem to be much of a protection against peasant arrows either... The only case where I saw difference was a unit of armored spearmen standing under hail of arrows from my peasant archers. Not many fell until I got another unit of peasants to flank the spearmen and shoot them in the back. After that the spearmen (armored!) died like flies... (even though the animation showed some of them in the rear of the unit raise their shields and face the flanking archers).

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Originally Posted by Bob the Insane

I wonder if it is going to be possible to mod it to be anything else other than a mere +1, +2 or +3 to the armour stat??

I mean the visual and conceptual effect of the different levels being able to produce different armour types is very cool. But tying it to the armour improvement system that was there before (where the assumption was that the armourer improved the units existing equipment rather than replacing it) feels a little odd.

I mean how do we bring to together the facts that a Bronze armour improvment gives one unit padded armour, another chainmail and yet another advanced plate in simple positive modifiers for the armour stat?

Would simply increasing the bonus for each level from +1 to, say, +2 or +3 be sufficient? (and is doing this even possible)

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Well, this would not be consistent. We would end up giving too much armor to units that already have some as a base. It seems, the complication stems from the fact that the code allows only (?) a fixed bonus from the building to any unit trained. To achieve the desired effect (plate armor having one armor levela across all units) is to give variable bonus level taking into consideration the armor the unit already has. For example, going from no armor to full plate would be a +10 bonus (and a corresponding cost) while going from padded to full plate would be +6 bonus (and a corresponding cost). Alternatively, they could code it so, that an armor upgrade discards a unit's previous armor level and just gives the new one starting from zero level, which would be realistic IMHO. Just, I am not sure, this is possible using modding tools.

Well what might help is that the more advanced the unit the less armour upgrades it can get. Even with an Armour factor many of the Knights units are limited to one bronze upgrade so they would not be getting +6 or +9 (or something like that)...

What ever change it is need to be simple enough to be modded and even then I am not sure if it is possible as the upgrade adding +1 may well be hardcoded...

This would then require CA to change it which is incredible unlikely as it is not a bug (due to the fact that it is working as designed), it would be a feature change...

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Originally Posted by Bob the Insane

Well what might help is that the more advanced the unit the less armour upgrades it can get. Even with an Armour factor many of the Knights units are limited to one bronze upgrade so they would not be getting +6 or +9 (or something like that)...

What ever change it is need to be simple enough to be modded and even then I am not sure if it is possible as the upgrade adding +1 may well be hardcoded...

This would then require CA to change it which is incredible unlikely as it is not a bug (due to the fact that it is working as designed), it would be a feature change...

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I am wondering how does the battle-engine take armor into account. Does it read the same armor rating number that gets displayed in the "unit description" or it reads in "padded leather", "mail", "partial_plate", etc. If the latter is the case, then we are all set, the number is just a left-over piece from previous versions. That would also explain, why some people observe that armor upgraded units show significant improvement against missiles (+1 armor (padded for example) would not provide much difference, while +4 would...).

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Originally Posted by Quillan

My guess is only the chivalric knights/gothic knights and the like can make use of the armor factory. The trouble is, right now you have to build some of those units and the factory to find out.

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Dead wrong actually. Knights (Of all types) are already armored, so you can only give them one level of armor upgrade.

The units that get the full heavy plate upgrades are actually advanced militia units (If you can believe that) which have lowish armor to start with and can really benefit from the upgrade.

If you want to see which units can use what upgrades, go to custom battle and try to apply armor upgrades to the various troops.

I noticed this as well and wonder why it upgrades the way it does.

I was curious tho if armor is effecting speed at all? Going from nothing to chain or chain to plate would slow a fella down some.

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Originally Posted by Musashi

Dead wrong actually. Knights (Of all types) are already armored, so you can only give them one level of armor upgrade.

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That depends on what you refer to as a "knight". The game considers Byzantine Lancers to be knights, in that they got the initial 2 XP from having a swordsmith's guild HQ building, but they can have 3 armor upgrades. Latinkon could only have one. I've had some mailed knights and feudal knights in my Spanish campaign, but while I have a couple of units of chivalric knights now, I haven't had them in a place where I could try upgrading them, nor have I looked to see. You're probably right about the militia units being the ones most likely to get it. I can regularly put 3 armor upgrades on the spear militia and such. They look better than they perform afterwards. :laugh4:

There you go, giving CA too much credit again. The upgrade system is exactly like in Rome, only now it makes the units change models/textures. 1 point of armor/attack per upgrade, and it's not a bug. Get used to it.

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Originally Posted by absents

There you go, giving CA too much credit again. The upgrade system is exactly like in Rome, only now it makes the units change models/textures. 1 point of armor/attack per upgrade, and it's not a bug. Get used to it.

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I think we all understand that and are wondering if there is anything we can do about it...

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Originally Posted by absents

There you go, giving CA too much credit again. The upgrade system is exactly like in Rome, only now it makes the units change models/textures. 1 point of armor/attack per upgrade, and it's not a bug. Get used to it.

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Why would you want it to give the same values to all units with a given armor type? The game would be dull as all hell if that happened. Variety is good for gameplay.

You're asking for historical accuracy at the expense of gameplay here.

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Originally Posted by Musashi

Why would you want it to give the same values to all units with a given armor type? The game would be dull as all hell if that happened. Variety is good for gameplay.

You're asking for historical accuracy at the expense of gameplay here.

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I don't think it would be at the expense... MTW had names for the armourlevels as well (not directly but you could find it out), and they were exactly the same, and that certainly didn't hurt the game.

I prefer it the way it is. Wide variety means better gameplay. Standardized values detract from the variety and hurt gameplay.

I think same armor kind should give same armor value... it's logical to me :)
The difference is in defence skill (usualy militia got 1 defence, knight 4-5)

It's no logical for me to see plate armored troops (like militia pikemen with 3 upgrades...3 armor) assorbing less dmg then a padded armored one (4 base armor)

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Originally Posted by Musashi

I prefer it the way it is. Wide variety means better gameplay. Standardized values detract from the variety and hurt gameplay.

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But wide value differences between apparantly very similar units leads to excessive unpredicability and is counter intuitive is it not?

I mean on the battlefield I see some heavily armoured troops approaching so I send some of my own apparantly pretty heavily armoured troops to counter and my troops get slaughtered in short order. On examining the stats I see that the kill level of the troops are similar but despite having similar looking armour (due to upgrades) that value is hugely different...

An when the gaps in the armour scores are that great then the armour upgrades only make a different when you fight against other units of the same type.

I guess I just find that the two methods do not match up in my mind... If the visual improvements had only been slight improvements to each unit type then fair enough with the +1 or +2, but they are not. They give the impression that the unit has been re-equiped with a newer and greatly improved type of armour (almost a new unit if you like) and the text descriptions continue this impression (chainmail, partial plate, etc )... This concept has some very interesting strategic possibilities with the sucky militia units from the early game becoming far more useful with these upgrade (if still not a match for the newer units).

But the stats appear to not back this up which is a little but of a let down in my opinion (especially when your spear militia resplendant in it shiny chainmail and extra pointy spears is still chewed up just a fast as it was previously by the same non-upgraded unit of professional spearmen)...

It's not counterintuitive... it's like any video game... you don't go by the way the unit looks, you go by its stats (Which you should have memorized).

Based on my observations, the armor values for the various levels runs as follows:

Unarmored = 0 armor : Most militias, musketeers, Tercio Pikemen, arab units
Padded = 4 armor : Italian militia, Jinetes, other light cavalry
Light Mail/Splint = 5 armor : Mailed Knights, various swordsmen, Moorish miltia
Heavy Mail/Splint/Breastplates = 7 armor : Feudal Knights, SAPs, bodyguards
Partial Plate = 8 armor : Chivalric Knights
Full Plate = 9 armor : Late Bodyguards
Advanced Plate = 11 armor : Gendarmes, Gothic Knights

The most important jump is from unarmored to padded armor. It's a whopping 4 points. If you upgraded an unarmored unit to padded instead, it only gives 1 armor. Kind of lame really. There's also 2-point jumps from light mail to heavy and from full plate to advanced.

Say you take a unit of spear miltia and upgrade it 3 times to heavy mail. The graphic ingame shows them with shiny new helmets, steel breastplates/leggings and chainmail. But their armor reads as only 3. Take a unit that comes with padded armor when first recruited, like Italian spear militia. It starts off with 4 armor. Upgrade it 2 times to heavy mail as well. The same shiny helmets and armor. But they at least have a respectable 6 armor (it's still 1 less than they should be getting).

Some units are even more messed up. Tercio pikemen and musketeers/arquebusiers start of unarmored and their first upgrade level is not padded, it's light mail. So I upgrade them, expecting at least 2 armor, +1 for padded and +1 for mail. I only get 1 armor. With heavy mail and an identical appearance on the battlefield to fully upgraded pikemen, the elite Tercio pikemen have 2 armor compared to 3. I love using Tercio pikemen, but they take hideous casualties because their armor is so bad. I love using musketeers too, and if they had 5 armor like they are supposed to with the light mail upgrade then they could really press their advantage against enemy missile troops (their bullets would ignore enemy armor while their own modest armor protects them from return fire). As it is, however, unarmored troops (most city troops and advanced units) are unfairly gimped because the upgrade system doesn't take the huge jump from unarmored to padded into account, leaving a gap in armor protection between them and castle units (that mostly come with correct armor values) that they cannot close.

Please report this as a bug. I tried over at TWC but they are having problems with the site. A good temporary fix would be to simply give all unarmored units 3 armor to close the gap at the start, although it will not fix the light to heavy mail gap or the full to advanced plate gap.

And to answer the OP, the only unit I can think of offhand that uses the armor factory are the Late General's Bodyguards. They start with full plate and small shields. Upgrading them gives them advanced plate and they keep the shields as will.

As a general rule, knights, armored archers and swordsmen/heavy infantry only get 1 armor upgrade, unarmored ranged infantry and light cavalry get 2, and spears and pikemen get 3.