Missile troops historical accuracy & rebalancing

[Strategos Autokrator]

I always liked the way it was balanced.

Plate armour started with 11 armour. This represented wrought iron/low-carbon steel with a fracture toughness of 180 kJ/m2. That is basic plate armour.
1st bronze upgrade equals 13armour. This represented fully hardened low-carbon steel or air-cooled medium carbon steel with a fracture toughness of approximately 265 kJ/m2. That is the best available armour from around 1460 in Europe in general or north Italian armour from around 1370.
2nd silver upgrade equals 15 armour. This represented slack-quenched medium carbon steel with a fracture toughness of approximately 350 kJ/m2. That is the best available north Italian made armour from 1370 and onward, and common in 1420.
3rd gold upgrade equals 17 armour. This represents full-quenched medium carbon steel with a fracture toughness of approximately 435+ kJ/m2. That is German made 1480 armour.

If you then give archers 5 or 6 attack + different arrows, this balances it quite good.

[Ichon]

I always liked the way it was balanced.

Plate armour started with 11 armour. This represented wrought iron/low-carbon steel with a fracture toughness of 180 kJ/m2. That is basic plate armour.
1st bronze upgrade equals 13armour. This represented fully hardened low-carbon steel or air-cooled medium carbon steel with a fracture toughness of approximately 265 kJ/m2. That is the best available armour from around 1460 in Europe in general or north Italian armour from around 1370.
2nd silver upgrade equals 15 armour. This represented slack-quenched medium carbon steel with a fracture toughness of approximately 350 kJ/m2. That is the best available north Italian made armour from 1370 and onward, and common in 1420.
3rd gold upgrade equals 17 armour. This represents full-quenched medium carbon steel with a fracture toughness of approximately 435+ kJ/m2. That is German made 1480 armour.

If you then give archers 5 or 6 attack + different arrows, this balances it quite good.

Armor upgrades are ok in isolation and the progression is as historical as we can make in game mechanics but the part mostly ignored is that ranged weapons underwent their own evolution however in game most are pretty much the same until arbalests and handguns. Early campaign ranged are war powerful compared to historical example but a good balance is reached around 2nd silver upgrade which is about 16 armour. That is pretty late- majority of an early campaign start is usually over by then.

Mail plus underpadding wasn't useless vs arrows the way it is shown in game and I don't know how many people actually reach 1370 in a campaign.

[Jurand of Cracow]

1st bronze upgrade equals 13armour. This represented fully hardened low-carbon steel or air-cooled medium carbon steel with a fracture toughness of approximately 265 kJ/m2. That is the best available armour from around 1460 in Europe in general or north Italian armour from around 1370.
2nd silver upgrade equals 15 armour. This represented slack-quenched medium carbon steel with a fracture toughness of approximately 350 kJ/m2. That is the best available north Italian made armour from 1370 and onward, and common in 1420.

Hi Strategos, can you explain the dates here - it doesn't make much sense that second upgrade was available earlier than the first...

That is pretty late- majority of an early campaign start is usually over by then.
Mail plus underpadding wasn't useless vs arrows the way it is shown in game and I don't know how many people actually reach 1370 in a campaign.

You've got the point. I think most of the players finish sometime in 13th century. The way to deal with it would be to make High campaing more playable (I mean: more historical starting postions, characters etc.), and to introduce Late campaign starting like 1330. It's why I miss your submod 1390.

[Strategos Autokrator]

Hi Strategos, can you explain the dates here - it doesn't make much sense that second upgrade was available earlier than the first...

The in-game events in SS6.4 are the following:
1310 Partial plate and Chivalric knights
1370 Full plate armour (1st upgrade?)
1400 Improved metallurgy in Italy if you have Huge city (2nd upgrade)
1450 Gothic plate, advanced metallurgy in Italy and improved metallurgy outside of Italy (2nd upgrade outside of Italy and 3rd upgrade in Italy)
Correct me if I'm wrong.

I mixed a bit of in-game events and actual history in my previous comment. The dates only tell when the armour had become common, and since a player in-game has to develop smiths and armies over time, it's justifiable to start earlier than the dates I gave.

Milanese and Brescian armourers had monopoly on quality steel production in the middle of the 14th century, more specific 1360. 1370 is the in-game event?

What I meant was:
1st upgrade is common in northern Italy around 1370 (Venice, Genova, Bologna and Verona etc.)
1st upgrade is common in Europe around 1460 (in-game it's 1370 I believe?)
2nd upgrade is common in Milan and Brescian around 1370 (so in-game Venice, Genova, Bologna and Verona etc. get the 1st upgrade while Milan get the 2nd)
2nd upgrade is common in northern Italy around 1420. This is when Brescian starts with mass-production.

Milan and Brescia was always one step ahead until southern Germany caught up around 1460-80.
Because it takes some time to build the required buildings and retrain the units, this should not be the starting dates. It was purely for my own immersion.

I you want my opinion on how to improve this, I would do it like this.
1310 Half plate event: New knights in Fortress, 1st upgrade in Milan if Large City.
1370 Full plate event: 1st upgrade Huge City/Citadel in general, 1st upgrade in Large City in the rest of northern Italy + Naples in southern Italy, Valencia in Spain (Fortress) and Marseille in France because of trade, and 2nd upgrade in Milan if Large city.
1400 Improved metallurgy event: 1st upgrade in Fortress/Large city in general, 2nd upgrade in northern Italy + Naples in southern Italy, Valencia in Spain and Marseille in France.
1450 Gothic armour event: 2nd upgrade in Huge City/Citadel in general, 3rd upgrade in the south of Germany (Innsbruck, Augsburg and Landshut) and Northern Italy + Naples in southern Italy, Valencia in Spain and Marseille in France.

Then you give Bodyguard units 11 armour as a start to reflect the rich and better off knights with good quality mail armour and a few plates. Remove 1 or 2 defense and give them separate armour upgrades from regular knights. This way they will be one step ahead of the rest of the Nobility. You can give them 1st upgrade in 1334 (The First Public Clock event), 2nd in 1370 and 3rd in 1400. Everything in Large City or Fortress. You could call it Milanese armour, Improved Milanese armour and Advanced Milanese armour to indicate that it's trade and the supply is low.

[Alavaria]

You want to check the armor thing in SSHIP? I did that earlier (other than the first "heavy mail" one, all the others for all my units are like 400 turns away or something). I can look for the file where I noted dates.

Remember that a "year" as listed in the descr_events is indeed 2 turns, so double appropriately. Obviously at only turn 170 (year 85) in my own campaign, I have not "experienced" these directly.




It is also worth noting that later upgrades especially tend to add to an imbalance in that the AI doesn't take advantage of them (at all in some cases, it doesn't see the benefit of higher smiths) and certainly not to the point of the player running whole armies through a single settlement. Consider the (much earlier) case of Spearmen or Spear Militia, where the player might be going into battle with an armor bonus up to +6 compared to the AI.

On the other hand, the really innovative progression of Light Brigandine -> Brigandine -> Heavy Brigandine -> Late Brigandine is something that makes really upgraded Genoese Crossbowmen amusingly tanky (compare other pavise crossbow units, which do not have 3 upgrades, Pavise Crossbow Militia have one I think)

• 1 Upgrade: Pavise Crossbowmen, Pavise Crossbow Militia
• 2 Upgrades: Genoese Crossbow Militia
• 3 Upgrades: Genoese Crossbowmen

The Lettish crossbow unit, by contrast starts off with 1 armor (many use 2 for "has a shirt on") and I think upgrades once (so to 1+2=3) which looks like either light or heavy mail, depending (looks like the heavy mail I see on Urban Crossbow Militia) which is odd.

[Jurand of Cracow]

I mixed a bit of in-game events and actual history in my previous comment. The dates only tell when the armour had become common, and since a player in-game has to develop smiths and armies over time, it's justifiable to start earlier than the dates I gave.

ok, thanks, I just wanted to understand the historical context.
Unfortuntelly, I have little hope to play such high levels of armour in SSHIP game unless we introduce Late era campaign. Too long campaing, even for my standard.

[Alavaria]

3rd gold upgrade equals 17 armour. This represents full-quenched medium carbon steel with a fracture toughness of approximately 435+ kJ/m2. That is German made 1480 armour.

This amusing unit:

type             Templar Guard
dictionary       Templar_Guard      ; Templar Guard, order, elite, early pro
category         infantry ; Longsword, Heavy Mail
class            heavy
voice_type       Heavy
accent         French
banner faction   main_infantry
banner holy      crusade
soldier          templar_guard, 48, 0, 1.5
officer          Dismounted_Knights_Templar_ug1
officer          northern_captain_early_flag
officer          northern_captain_early_flag
mount_effect     horse +2, camel +2
attributes       sea_faring, hide_forest, very_hardy, can_withdraw
move_speed_mod	 0.93
formation        1.2, 0, 2.4, 2.4, 4, square
stat_health      1, 1
stat_pri         10, 7, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, slashing, axe, 50, 1
stat_pri_attr    ap
stat_sec         0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, melee_simple, blunt, none, 0, 1
stat_sec_attr    no
stat_pri_armour  20, 7, 0, metal
stat_sec_armour  0, 0, flesh
stat_heat        7
stat_ground      -1, -3, 1, -2
stat_mental      16, disciplined, trained
stat_charge_dist 6
stat_fire_delay  0
stat_food        60, 300
stat_cost        2, 1759, 862, 90, 862, 862, 1, 250
armour_ug_levels 21, 23, 24, 26
armour_ug_models templar_guard, templar_guard, templar_guard_ug1, templar_guard_ug1
ownership        jerusalem
recruit_priority_offset    40

Upgrading up to a whopping 26 armor, not sure what they've got going on there...

Some units also get up to 29, but it's all horse with the plate barding, these are the highest foot unit, I think.

[Strategos Autokrator]

Yes, there is a lot of inconsistency. For a dismounted unit with full plate the starting armour value is not 20, but 11.

One way to make the game more playable in the early campaign is to introduce new groups of archers later on. An example would be:
Welsh archers with 4 attack in 1220 to 1300 and replace them with a new unite called Free Company Archers.
Longbowmen with 4 attack in 1314
Free Company Archers (Mercenaries) with 5 attack (in England around 1300 and France around 1340 and in Italy around 1370)
Yeoman Archer with 5 attack around 1335
Retinue Archers with 6 attack around 1370

If you make all of these available in all of the English provinces for everyone and make the Longbowmen and Free Company Archers eligible for armour upgrades and give them 2 armour as a start to represent padding, they will represents an elite in the beginning, but later on they represents the common archer. The Yeoman archer could represent archers recruited as part of an indenture and Retinue Archers could represent the late elite during the Hundred Years War and the War of the Roses with partial plate. If Yeomen Archers start with 4 armour + 3 upgrades you'll reach 10. If the Retinue Archers start with 8 + 3 upgrades you are able to reach 14. So when Longbowmen have 2 upgrades (6 armour as a total) around 1370, Yeomen Archers have only 1, and they are the same only with different ranged attack. When the Longbowmen get 3 upgrades the Yeoman Archer get 2, and they are the same around 1400. When the Yeomen Archer have 3 upgrades around 1420, the Retinue Archer have 1 upgrade. In 1435 the Retinue Archer get 2 upgrades. In 1450 The Retinue Archer get 3 upgrades.

If you keep the replenishment very low on the Retinue Archers, below medium on the Yeoman Archer and somewhat high on the Longbowmen, it will be balanced. You could even tie Retinue Archers to the archers/woodsmen guild the way Templar Knights are tied to guilds.

To me an archer was always represented this way:
Range Attack = Draw weight
1 = 29 to 34 lbs (not in use)
2 = 58 to 63 lbs
3 = 87 to 92 lbs
4 = 116 to 121 lbs
5 = 145 to 150 lbs
6 = 174 to 181 lbs

[Ichon]

Yes, there are alot of inconsistencies- I don't have current copy of the EDU but I remember wanting to change many of the higher armor values since plated cavalry should actually be lower armor than plated footmen since horses aren't nearly as well protected. Since most of the plate events and upgrades come into play so late in campaign it was never a priority.

I haven't seen this idea of draw weights with attack values before? Did PointBlank make that guide or someone from CA? The projectile type makes a huge difference too in the older files with various accuracy attributes not just the attack value. However even 1 strength attack value has a pretty good chance of defeating 15 armor. It is up to the current SSHIP team how much work they want to do in the files with next release already looming but I think the current mail and heavy mail values are really too low- decent mail with underpadding could protect as well or perhaps even better than low quality plate at the cost of more encumbrance and less stamina due to the multiple layers for similar protection and how it hangs off a body. Mail is relatively expensive in man hours though and once smiths advanced their industrial practices plate was actually easier to produce if highest quality wasn't necessary.
Range Attack = Draw weight
1 = 29 to 34 lbs (not in use)
2 = 58 to 63 lbs
3 = 87 to 92 lbs
4 = 116 to 121 lbs
5 = 145 to 150 lbs
6 = 174 to 181 lbs

[Alavaria]

Yes, there are alot of inconsistencies- I don't have current copy of the EDU but I remember wanting to change many of the higher armor values since plated cavalry should actually be lower armor than plated footmen since horses aren't nearly as well protected.

I'll say I think the issue of the armor number is simply compensating for the fact that a horse is larger hitbox, so to deal with that you have to adjust the armor upwards to get the right value.

Potentially otherwise horse become oddly weak to being shot by missiles (which I guess is accurate? maybe not with the cloth-barded and later metal-barded units) which of course comes into play since they are melee. Doubly so if there are mounted archers shooting them and just running off (again, maybe an accurate issue)

Since shooting the horse also 100% kills the rider in this world, and it's not possible to dismount units etc, some things get a bit odd I guess.

but I think the current mail and heavy mail values are really too low- decent mail with underpadding could protect as well or perhaps even better than low quality plate at the cost of more encumbrance and less stamina due to the multiple layers for similar protection and how it hangs off a body. Mail is relatively expensive in man hours though and once smiths advanced their industrial practices plate was actually easier to produce if highest quality wasn't necessary.

I liked the earlier idea of giving units like knights etc a particular upgrade path & progression while the sergeants and especially the levies are different.

It's weird to have your spear militia all wearing heavy mail, same as your mailed knights, really soon at the game start, the only difference being you needed to run all your spearmen though one or two settlements to upgrade.

[Strategos Autokrator]

Ichon

The guide was made by me and is based on tests I've done.

I made my own mod to recreate the battle of Agincourt. I increased the unit size and fielded 3 French armies (+ 4 armies with only 1 unite of a few peasants to center them on the battlefield.)
I recreated the entire battle with 70 % of the men. The third division was not included. They didn't participate in the battle after all.

The English army had:
70 % of 1000 men-at-arms = 700
70 % of 5000 longbowmen = 3500
6 units of men-at-arms * 115+3 (46) = 708
14 units of longbowmen * 250 (100) = 3500

The French had:
Army 4 (center army) to represent 1st division.
70 % of 5000 dismounted knights = 3500
70 % of 420 mounted Chivalric knights = 294
15 units of dismounted Chivalric knights/Noble knights * 235+3 (94) = 3570
3 units of mounted Chivalric knights * 95+2 (38) = 291

Army 3 to represent half the archers and crossbowmen and half the 2nd division of men-at-arms and Gros Varlets.
70 % of 2000 archers = 1400
70 % of 750 crossbowmen = 525
70 % of 1971 dismounted Chivalric knights = 1380
70 % of 800 Voulgiers (Gros Varlets) = 560
6 units of archers * 235 (94) = 1410
3 units of crossbowmen * 180 (72) = 540
6 units of dismounted Chivalric knights * 235+3 (94) = 1428
3 units of Voulgiers (Gros Varlets) * 190+2 (76) = 570

Army 5 to represent the other half of the archers and crossbowmen and half the 2nd division of men-at-arms and Gros Varlets.
70 % of 2000 archers = 1400
70 % of 750 crossbowmen = 525
70 % of 1971 dismounted Chivalric knights = 1380
70 % of 800 Voulgiers (Gros Varlets) = 560
6 units of archers * 235 (94) = 1410
3 units of crossbowmen * 180 (72) = 540
6 units of dismounted Chivalric knights * 235+3 (94) = 1428
3 units of Voulgiers (Gros Varlets) * 190+2 (76) = 570

So here we have exactly 6426 dismounted men-at-arms, and that is exactly 70 % of 9180 dismounted men-at-arms. In addition they had 420 mounted men-at-arms and 200 mounted men-at-arms in the third division. This will give us a total of 9800, and only 9600 of these participated in the battle. So it's spot on.

Of all these 27 units of dismounted Chivalric knights and Noble knights I gave 2 gold armour, 4 silver armour and 8 bronze armour and 13 with no armour upgrades. 7.4%, 14.8 %, 29.6 % and 48.1 % respectively. The Voulgiers had silver armour. Archers and crossbowmen had severely reduced moral to trigger a rout as early as possible, the way it happened in real life.

With the English men-at-arms I followed the same distribution. I gave 1 unite silver armour, 2 units bronze armour and the remaining 3 units had no armour. 16.6 %, 33.33% and 49.98 % respectively.
The longbowmen was made up of 10 units of yeoman archers with 5 ranged attack and 4 units of retinue archers with 6 ranged attack and bronze armour upgrades. I gave all the archers 60 arrows.

I deployed the English army far back on swampy ground and protected the archers with stakes on the flanks. When they marched in the French army took damage as predicted, and eventually they lost because of enfilading fire from all sides. My army was beaten up severely because the game does not have a negative effect when the enemy mash all their men into one place. There is no "killing in the press". I had to use my archers in melee a lot and flanked them both with arrows and melee weapons. The men with gold and silver armour was hard nuts to crack. If this battle can be recreated within limits I am happy with the balance. And I made sure that the center in the first division had good armour + all the general units to prevent a rout. The battle was won with 1500 men lost. When I changed the stats so that 10 archers had 4 ranged attack and 4 archers had 5 ranged attack, I only won the battle with a few men remaining. It has to be yeoman archers with 5 ranged attack and retinue archers with 6 ranged attack.

[Ichon]

I deployed the English army far back on swampy ground and protected the archers with stakes on the flanks. When they marched in the French army took damage as predicted, and eventually they lost because of enfilading fire from all sides. My army was beaten up severely because the game does not have a negative effect when the enemy mash all their men into one place. There is no "killing in the press". I had to use my archers in melee a lot and flanked them both with arrows and melee weapons. The men with gold and silver armour was hard nuts to crack. If this battle can be recreated within limits I am happy with the balance. And I made sure that the center in the first division had good armour + all the general units to prevent a rout. The battle was won with 1500 men lost. When I changed the stats so that 10 archers had 4 ranged attack and 4 archers had 5 ranged attack, I only won the battle with a few men remaining. It has to be yeoman archers with 5 ranged attack and retinue archers with 6 ranged attack.

I would consider making it 4,5,6 as the 140lb draw is around the average while 170lb is fairly rare and quite a few 120lb would have been present.

[Jurand of Cracow]

An interesting video about longbow efficiency made by SandRhoman is here to watch.

[Nemesis2345]

Ever considered removing recruitable archers or giving them very low pool of good archers to factions that were crossbow oriented such as Italians , HRE etc.?