looking 4 Help on armour for NTW

[British Mutt + Viking]

Hello, I have been spending the last few days playing Napoleonic Total War, which is a great deal of fun, but clearly suffers from the engine, Medieval Total War, not being perfectly suited to it. However, that is not why I am here.
What I am here for is to ask people what they think of something I been throwing around. One of my hobbies is to modify games, not code-work, new models, or things that only skilled modders can do, I mean changing unit values, re-writing campaigns for more realism, & so on. In MTW, I had developed a wonderful system for balancing armour types. The scale is 1-infinity, but I decided to quit at 9, for the most part. The system worked like this. Note that some units which have low quality armour of a particular type will often be listed one level below, to represent the limited quality, poor fitting, & so on.

1 = no armour, whatsoever, just the clothes on their back (cannot use a value of zero, or the game might freeze in battle-mode) example: peasant

2 = no metal armour, leather, heavy cloth, or just a stout little metal helmet Example: Genoese Sailor, Italian Spearman, Highland clansmen

3 = mix of metal & non-metallic armour, less metal than non-metal. Example: feudal men-at-arms, Viking Karl

4 = mix of metal & non metal, more metal than not Example: militia sergeant, chivalric men-at-arms, gallowglasses

5 = complete chainmail suit, little or no plate armour added, or significant plate with no chainmail (like a full breast-plate, helmet, but little else)

6 = chainmail with noteworthy plating, early royal knights (to represent superior quality of chain-mail armour) Example: Feudal Knights, Viking Huscarle, Halbardier

7 = basic full plate armour (like that of knights in the movies) Examples: Chivalric Knights, Swiss Armoured Pikemen (Gothic Sergeants can also be counted here, as they are somewhat better protected than Halbardiers, but do not rate as full gothic)

8 = improved full-plate, really only some of the orders of knights like Templars get this, and the high royal knights.

9 = Gothic Full Plate, the ultimate. Really no need for anything better.
Examples: Gothic Knight, Late Royal Knights, Lancers (as they really have only level 8, but they carry their jousting armour, which gives them extra protection in just the right spots, hence the superior designation)

This system has worked perfectly in MTW, but now I have NTW, I am considering modifying my system to allow armour to play a greater role as most units have nothing more than 1, perhaps 3 at best, but those cavalry-breast-plates are very limited. So I have thought of a system like this.

1 = average build man, no actual armour example:generic Line infantry

2 = above average build man, man with vicious temperment, or inherent physical fortitude example: Grenadiers (usually chosen for their viciousness or physical size, as to better break enemy lines) Some of the Russian infantry units (Russians are tough little S.O.B.s and they are not kidding about the "no complaining when wounded rule" in those unit descriptions.)

3 = extraordinarily tough men, ordinary men with front breast-plates ( but not back) example: Scottish Infantry, Russian grenadiers represent the first type, Austrian Curriassieur the second. Scottish regiments are made of first-generation "subdued" Highlanders, some of the toughest, hardiest men alive in the 18th century, & even 2nd generation regiments (those who served in the Napoleonic wars) remained full of men who at least spent childhoods living like real highlanders.

4 = ordinary men with front & back breast-plates, above average build men with front-only breastplates Example: Generic Cuirassiers for the first type, Austrian Cuirassier Guard for the second

5 = above average men with front & back breast-plates, example: Russian Cuirassier Guard

6 = this is a sort of entirely optional one I am not sure I want to use, for only one unit might be able to use it, but I need to research its history more. It would be for the ScotsGrey cavalry, but only if the riders were drawn from the Highlands, not the lowlands.

Anyway, that is my concept, I would appreciate comments one whether things are too excessive in some cases, or feel fre to ask me questions to help understand just what units are getting what in my system. The examples I chose were the ones that I think are most representative of the armour type, but some units are very tricky & I am still working on who gets what.

[Puzz3D]

I don't know how much of an effect you are looking for going from 1 to 6, but measurements I made in STW show that armor 6 doesn't give much protection against guns.

[British Mutt + Viking]

That is true, armour is worthless against the muskets of NTW, but there is more to the fighting than muskets.
A big man is not much more likely to take a bullet hit better than a smaller one, but in hand-to-hand fighting, it counts. Considering that in Napoleonic armies, very few men were fat (it was hard to be a fat & young non-aristrocratic man in the 18th Century), so if you meet a bigger man, it means he is either physically larger or considerably more muscular, making them much tougher to the blows, strikes, & to a limited degree, stabs, that typifies Napoleonic close-combat. Plus, some men just go berserk when it comes to hand-to-hand combat, & are harder to kill just by virtue that few can or want to get close enough to hurt them.

[Puzz3D]

Keep in mind that armor isn't used in the melee calculation except when the opponent has an armor piercing weapon. In that case the armor piercing weapon increases the opponent's attack value by (target's armor - 1)/2. In MTW, you have to increment the defend value every time you increment the armor value for it to reflect an improvement in melee ability. Each defend point gives a unit a 20% better melee ability.