Elite Units in Aberation II

[MattyG]

I have an idea for elite units in Aberration.

There is no method currently for representing very high quality troops or specialist units in the game. Either the whole army/navy goes up, or no-one does. I've drawn my idea from the approach used by Incompetent in his Sovereign of the Seas event/unit for Scotland. If you are unfamiliar with it, here's how it works: if you build this massive ship, you get a leader with stats 4/5/4. If you chose to not build it, you get the leader with stats 4/3/3. Nice and simple.

That unit, a ship, lasts as long as the leader does. Elite troops are more of an institution than individuals, so there would need to be some changes to structure. And the ongoing costs need to be somehow accounted for. Accordingly, the event that creates the elite unit would repeat every 20 years, each time asking for additional payment and waking a new version of the same leader/unit. This also means the elite unit is not permanently destroyed because of leader combat losses.

Unfortuneately, it requires a lot of detailed work, and any nation that gets an elite unit would need a full slate of events and leaders written in to its own file.

I have included the event structure below, but here's the meat of it:


Seige Engineers (think sappers)

Available from Land tech 20 with Quality 7+ and Offensive 6 or less.

Leader with stats 1/0/0/1 (seige)


Seige Train

Available from Land tech 45 with Quality 9+ and Offensive 4 or less.

Leader with the stats 1/1/0/2 (seige)


Guard Infantry

Available from Land tech 15 and with Quality 8+ and Offensive 6+

Leader with stats 2/3/2/0


Guard Cavalry

Available from Land tech 1 and with Quality 8+ and Offensive 6+

Leader with stats 3/0/3/0


Now, these numbers are modest, although the seige stats are pretty good all the same. But when combined with Quality and Offensive 10, the Guard Infantry becomes a permanent 2/4/3 leader and the Guard Cavalry 3/1/4. Hell, even the Seige train is 1/2/1/2! (None of which is over the top.)

Then it becomes a matter of Who Gets Them? In a perfect game they ought to be available to all countries, but I simply do not have the time to code all of that. I suggest a maximum of one such unit for any country. As an example, Ukraine would be a good candidate for Guard Cavalry, pretty much from the start of the game.

The second item of note is that - except for the Guard Infantry - they all need to be Player Only events/units. The ai simply will not know how to use elite units, and will have an army of 50K lumbering around with the Seiger Engineer leader at it's head, being hammered well before it can ever seige anything.


Sample event

event = {
........id = 435612
........random = no
........country = UKR
........trigger = {
................domestic = { type = quality value = 8 }
................domestic = { type = offensive value = 6 }
........}
........name = "The Hetman's Cossacks"
........desc = "Something cool about Ukraine fake history and blah blah."
........date = { day = 1 month = january year = 1420 } #and then every 20 years to 1820!

........action_a = {
................name = "We need them"
................command = { type = cash value = -20 }
................command = { type = wakeleader which = 34221 }
........}
........action_b = {
................name = "We don't need them"
................command = { type = vp value = -1 }
........}
}

 

[Incompetent]

Great idea! There are even some areas where this kind of thing is already in the storyline, such as Cordoba's military reform events. I definitely think Cordoba should get a long-lived 'Malwa' unit or two if they go down that route, rather than just gaining a bit of manpower and Quality, as Malwas are only meant to represent part of their army. The warrior-women event (can't remember the actual name) is an even clearer example, though they'd be more for prestige than actual military performance (though even a 2/2/2/0 leader is useful for siege-stealing!) Byzantium also has a 'Ghazi' event IIRC, which could be modelled in a similar way if we consider the Turks to be elites rather than auxiliaries.

I think the prevalence of these would depend on the character of country being played. The Teutonic Order, for example, has a fairly 'romantic' view of warfare, with individual commanders chosen by God to perform mighty feats. So they're going to get lots of invidual leaders and not too many 'institutional' ones (though they could certainly have some). Ukraine would also fall under the 'romantic' category. On the other hand, Byzantium is rather fond of instutional continuity and tradition, with some institutions going back more than 1000 years, so they're more likely to have long-standing 'elite' armies with reasonably fixed roles as the technology evolves around them, like modern-day 'cavalry' regiments.

 

[MattyG]

Incompetant,

Some good responses there, especially about the Malwas.

I take it that others find the idea to be broadly acceptable, so I guess that in beta 5 we ought to chose just one nation and have their elite unit included, thatway people can playtest the concept and structure before we move on and do more work with other files.

Cordoba won't receive much work in beta 5, because it will likely include the new French stuff ONLY up until the reformation.

Maybe we could do it with Byzantium and include some of the propsed changes for that nation, such as the switch to latin tech and the new Armenian events?

MattyG

 

[MattyG]

The original longbowmen were Welsh. I have written a thread about Aberrated Welsh history and feel that a Longbow Guard elite unit would fit well. It would last until 1480, when the firearm takes over.

The leader which represents them would be 2/4/2.

event = {
id =
random = no
country = WLS
name = "The Welsh Longbow Guards"
desc = "The longbow as a weapon of war is one of the great technological advances in military history. A slender piece of wood with a string linking the two ends that could inflict death with ease at more than two hundred yards, or a skilled archer it was possible to fire around twelve well aimed arrows a minute, and up to fifteen with some reduction in accuracy. The range of the longbow was typically described as 240 yards. From the end of the thirteenth century through until the beginning of the sixteenth the longbow was a necessary and highly effective part of the Welsh army, helping them to achieve many great victories where otherwise defeat was inevitable, and permitting Llewelyn the Great to acheive full independence for Wales after the defining battle of Caer Bladwyn. While the longbow was in use throughout Europe, its earliest masters were the Welsh, where it has developed into the weapon of choice for the nobility and foot troops alike. The king's guards are neither mounted knights nor elite swordsmen, but the finest longbowmen in the land."
date = { date = 1 month = january year = 1430 }

action_a = {
name = "Maintain the longbow tradition"
command = { type = cash value = -20 }
command = { type = wakeleader which =
}
action_b = {
name = "Do not force the matter"
command = { type = sleepevent which = }
}
}

 

[unmerged(36826)]

Hmmm I believe that the fire power stat of a general has no effect on its combat skills to LT9, so a 2-4-2 general is actually a 2-2-2 general till the fire phase comes into battles at LT9.

 

[Nikolai II]

Hmmm I believe that the fire power stat of a general has no effect on its combat skills to LT9, so a 2-4-2 general is actually a 2-2-2 general till the fire phase comes into battles at LT9.

I know that the original Aberration added a small amount of firepower to the pre-gunpowder techlevels (bows, crossbows) that would allow such leaders to be of some use. It is possible that Abe2 has such modifications as well.

 

[MattyG]

Hmmm.

Well, we have not altered that aspect of ABI in ABII.

I find the whole Fire/Shock thing to be interesting. Are longbows fire, or are they shock? If shock is supposed to be the first rounds of the combat, then longbows should be shock. Given that they were as potent in pre-gunpowder armies as cavalry, maybe the Longbow unit/leader should be 2/2/3 or 2/2/4?

MattyG

 

[Nikolai II]

Shock is the physical impact of a charge or 'push'. Melee if you would. Fire is the ranged combat phase. At least that has always been how I saw it.

 

[unmerged(16159)]

Right then.

I'll try the Longbowmen out as 2/6/2 to increase the impact they will have in the fire phase, which is limited at that stage.

All praise the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I have been touched by his noodley appendage.

PS. This is actually MattyG writing, but I'm at my brother's computer and it logged on as him. Ooops.

 

[MattyG]

Elite Units for Eire

I have thought of a neat E;ote unit for Eire, the game's preeminent naval power (at least in theory).

Beginning in 1485 and assuming they built the Academy in Cork and have Land at 5 or less and quality 6 or more, then they get an event to reorganise the Navy that includes the position of Commodore, the Rank 1 commander for their high quality navy.

The Commodore (I'll locate a better Gaelic word ... ) would be a 2/3/2 leader that gets ressurected every 30 years by event. This would be one that the AI gets as well.