Units of conquered enemies

The following is not intended to offend any Scotsman, I was merely searching for an example.

Despite losing their entire cavalry to annoying pike formations, the English managed to finally conquer all of Scotland. The English general inspected all captured weapons and wondered what to do with the Scottish pikes. Considering the English army's lack of pikes and the strength of the French cavalry, he decided in favour of the most rational decision. He lit the remaining pikes in front of the French cavalry and sent the message that Englishmen do not need to rely on cowardly little sticks!

I'd like to be able to recruit units of defeated enemies. It'd certainly motivate the player to destroy enemies with entirely different tactics and give the player an option to customise his army to some extent.
And it would, if the AI decides to cooperate, give the player some more interesting fights. (against Milan with Zweihänder, cossack musketeers and camel gunners for example:dizzy2: )


What's you opinion? Would you like to see something like this implemented, if so: how?

Well, that is basically like mercenaries which offer some degree of customability. You can try to increase which mercs you can hire after a faction is destroyed, but I guess it isn't realistic if you could train the enemy units since units are more based on how they are trained and you would be lacking instructros.

Realism of course depends on the conquerable units, granted.
It'd just be an interesting thing in the campaign.

I for one enjoy playing different factions for their limitations as well as their strengths. Having a very strong infantry as well as a very strong cavalry can lead to a boring game. The French are an example of this in my opinion, having all the groovy knights, the longbow horse archer unit coupled with Scots guard melee longbowmen, Aventurier, Voulgiers, Pikemen etc. That's why some of the "minor" factions are fun to play. Thus far the Polish have been the most interesting faction to play.

I wouldn't object having a mercenary pike unit available in Scotland, though. There are the Swiss ones in Europe after all.

I considered it as a measure to strengthen factions like Byzantium in the later game, if they manage to defeat other factions.

Oh yeah, Poland is awesome. I love their mounted nobles.

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Originally Posted by Ragnor_Lodbrok

I considered it as a measure to strengthen factions like Byzantium in the later game, if they manage to defeat other factions.

Oh yeah, Poland is awesome. I love their mounted nobles.

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Playing Russia I have a different oppinion of those cursed nobles! :laugh4:

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Originally Posted by Ragnor_Lodbrok

I'd like to be able to recruit units of defeated enemies. It'd certainly motivate the player to destroy enemies with entirely different tactics and give the player an option to customise his army to some extent.
And it would, if the AI decides to cooperate, give the

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I think it is a brilliant idea. There are many examples in the history of warfare that nations in war stole technologies from the opponent. Romans stole the punnic ship design, germans stole the design of the T34 for the Panthers, etc. Also great empires incorporated many of the defeated subjects and their tactics in their armies, just think of the persian empire, Alexander used balearic slingers, etc.

Of course, there has to be some limit to it or perhaps you can only do it from your vassals (which would give a new meaning to vassal).

Actually, I found the most realistic solution was found in a Rome: Total War mod. If I remember correctly, I think it was Called Rome: Total Realism.

What they had was a very unique "Zone of Recruitment" function. In essence, almost all of the units were only recruitable in certain provinces, even for the home faction.

For instance, as the Moors, Desert Archers are a normal recruitable unit at the second level archery range. But, if I conquer the British isles, should I REALLY be able to churn out Desert Archers out of London? R:TR would make a unit like Desert Archers only recruitable in desert/surrounding regions. Likewise, if you are the English and you successfully take, say, Tripoli, you should be able to recruit desert archers there and not be able to churn out Welsh longbowmen.

It was very unique, and I liked the idea.

I think the EB method of having different layers of government basicaly showed how this could be done. For instance if u captured the territory you had the option of imposing a homeland government or a satrapy (client state) type government one allowed you to build your own troops the other allowed you to build native troops. However the choice you made was important to the way you wanted to progress milirarily and to the stability and hapiness of the province. The whole thing made the game alot more regional and is an example which im sure could be improved and emulated in a MTW2 expansion.

I really enjoyed EB but I've always found that AOR has got a little problem. You can't retrain your troops. If you could only build, say, Norse Axemen in Scandinavia and Denmark but retrain them everywhere, that'd be fine. But now, the AOR just makes these units pointless in larger offensive actions.

I'm trying to script a few things now, perhaps I'll make a little for these conquerable units.

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Originally Posted by Ragnor_Lodbrok

I really enjoyed EB but I've always found that AOR has got a little problem. You can't retrain your troops. If you could only build, say, Norse Axemen in Scandinavia and Denmark but retrain them everywhere, that'd be fine. But now, the AOR just makes these units pointless in larger offensive actions.

I'm trying to script a few things now, perhaps I'll make a little for these conquerable units.

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I think the key is to try and make certain units more general. I think Feudal Knights is a perfect example, because no matter where you go the king is going to grant land to nobles. They will essentially be anywhere you go.

I do see your point a bit, though. I'm assuming a group of norse axemen could train another person, no matter where they are from, in the same technique they use to fight. Still, I like the idea that certain regional units are used more extensively in the region they are from. Raising large armies of norse axemen in Saudi Arabia just seems silly to me.