More Unique Recruitment System for Factions?

[Rhyfelwyr]

One thing I've noticed since RTW is that factions have a very patterned and similar recruitment system. Everyone gets Peasants with a level 1 Barracks, always a basic cavalry unit from a castle building, always Town Militia from a level 1 City Barracks.

Although I never played MTW much and was probably too young at the time to really concentrate and get into a campaign, I remember really liking the little features that made factions unique. For example, the Danish traning Vikings at a fort, instead of just Peasants. And as the English I always conquered Scotland and Ireland straight away to get Highland Clansmen and Kerns from Forts (or Spearmaker for Kerns). Also, in BI Hungary could recuit Jobaggy's from a fort, but they get no such bonuses in M2TW.

Perhaps in ETW, you could introduce some basic but decent units at lower level castle/city buildings, and add regional units. For example in Scotland and Ireland the British could recruit Jacobite Clansmen, or in colonies maybe tribal warriors should be available with a basic castle building. This would be a nice bonus for the non-European factions and would stop them getting steamrollered, as well as keeping long campaigns interesting, if it wasn't for the eastern hordes and the Aztecs M2TW long campaign would get pretty dull.

I miss looking up my Tech Tree like with MTW and matching buildings to get interesting new units, I feel like a robot just upgrading and upgrading in M2TW.

[magnum]

Talking with a friend over the holidays I mentioned that one of the things I missed from MTW was the 'uniqeness' of the factions. Things, buildings or units or recruitment, that made that faction different. It seems that a lot went into making factions balanced in RTW and M2TW, but the balance ended up taking away a piece of the fun of the game.