Greetings! There's been lots of discussion on the forums over 2D art and the 3D character renders, but not so much on good ol' unit renders. I hope this is a topic distinct enough to remain separated from the 3D megathread seeing as that one is focused more on characters lol. As we wait for Project Caesar to continue development, I thought it would be fun to speculate on how the different cultures could be grouped and visualized through units. I remember EU4 initially lacking diversity to the point it felt a tad bit immersion breaking, so I took it upon myself to draw out the absolute minimum amount of unit designs it would take to not break that immersion, at least for myself. I've tried to do research of my own and I am still working on more drawings, but I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts as well as references that we can compile here to make these units as accurate as possible. A couple things I want to address first:
Without further ado, lets jump into the concept art!
Period I (1337-1450): Age of Traditions + Age of Renaissance
- Periods:
As the title implies, I want to keep this thread's discussion within the first half of the game's timeline (about 250 years, doesn't need to be exact). Might be a hassle if we're discussing medieval armor at the same time as French Revolution attire.(Edit: on second thought, I think I’d rather just have everything in one place) This also begs the question of how many periods should be represented though units. EU4 had 4, but Project Caesar covers an even longer span. Should the periods match the 6 Ages that were introduced in Tinto Talks? Not sure since some of these Ages are quite brief and others are very long. Personally, I think cultures should get a maximum of65 (edit: merging first 2 ages) periods, but not all of them do depending on their history and how much we know of them. - Unit Categories: I will initially focus on the units of playable countries, but when I get the opportunity I want to identify how SOP's and tribes could be divided and represented (luckily most if not all of them could use the same units throughout all periods). For playable countries, each culture group will get at least 2 tiers of soldiers. The idea here is that perhaps larger/more powerful armies can use the Tier 2 unit render, and smaller/weaker ones use Tier 1. I will also make an additional peasant tier for the countries that potentially have some peasant revolts.
- Groupings: Tinto's philosophy for 3D art for the launch of the game is "broad strokes". I want to be able to lump as many cultures into as few groups as I can while still making it feel appropriate for the period. As such, these groupings do not need to all be the same throughout the game. Some can diverge, converge, shift, etc, based on how history transpired in real life (the devs have mentioned that they want to focus on historical content for launch, and then perhaps afterwards we can get into alternate history).
- Design Philosophy: Units should be historically authentic to their time period while also being diverse. What I mean by that is that you could have 4 groups feasibly wear the same exact suit of lamellar armor, but that would be boring. They need to be distinct enough not just between groups, but between periods as well, as I want to highlight their evolution over time. This has to be done all while trying not to look too much like one specific culture in that grouping. It has to represent them all sufficiently.
Without further ado, lets jump into the concept art!
Period I (1337-1450): Age of Traditions + Age of Renaissance
Groupings (Playable Countries):
- Let me know your thoughts on these divisions, I am open to changing them. I initially wanted to distinguish Eastern Europe from the Balkans, but I found that during this time period, their equipment could be very similar and so could reasonable be depicted with the same guy, although that will certainly change in future periods. I wanted to place emphasis on Asia as this is the period of large Mongol successor states and emergent empires; their time to shine. Note that D represent Iran and Muslim states in South Asia, both of which fell within the Persian cultural sphere on influence, whereas J represent Hindu states. The distinction of L from N was mainly to separate out the more arid states in the Sahara and Sahel from more tropical states further south. Note F and G are both present in Yuan. This is so that if Yuan collapses, there's a distinction between Mongol/Jurchen states to Chinese/Korean/Vietnamese states.
- A1: Your typical Western European soldier with his gambeson and trusty kettle helmet! Might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I'm personally a big fan of your "average Joe" medieval soldier.
- A2. But alas, we also need to show some love to a knight fully clad in late Medieval plate armor! KCD2 definitely gave me the motivation for these two.
- B1: I wanted to move away from the stereotype of the turban-wearing Muslim warrior as from what I can tell, most Muslim soldiers in this time period are depicted without them. Instead, this guy's helmet mostly features this leather backing that wraps behind the helmet, something that was prominent in the Middle East since the Sassanids but dies off after this period.
- B2: I would consider this period to be the end of the "golden age of lamellar", making this armor type a good candidate as it gets phased out in the next period.
- C1: Very guard energy, but I wanted this guy to be the one covered in the most visible chaimail for distinction.
- C2: From Armenia to Byzantium to Russia, it seems this general fit could be found, even if it is mostly associated with the Greeks. I initially wanted to use scale armor, but it seems that had largely fallen out of use by this time. Oh well, can't hurt with more lamellar! (Edit: I may change the helmet later)
- D1: The Persianate world featured a huge prevalance of Turkic/Central Asian warriors, so I opted for a more heavily armored horseman for this one. Someone you could still expect to be deployed across Iran and the Delhi Sultanate.
- D2: Many depictions of heavy soldiers in Persia and Islamic India show full lamellar suits, full brigandine suits, and some hybrids. I thought the hybrid one looked the most unique!
- E1: With the Golden Horde so prominent and Turkic nomads still present in Europe, it would be cool to see some of these unarmored horse archer boys running around wreaking havoc
- E2: But of course we can't have Cumans and Kipchaks without this iconic mask. This warrior wears a mail armor covered by a coat, and on top of that a kind of harness similar to a Varangian bra for better weight distribution.
- F1: I could have grouped the nomads all together, but I just wanted to have some more variety. Doesn't hurt to have more concepts than needed! Again, an unarmored warrior. This and E1 can also be used for any kind of rebel army as well.
- F2: Your typical lamellar-clad Mongol. From my understanding, hardened leather was definitely in use but was often cut into smaller pieces and arranged similarly to iron armor, despite how Mongols can sometimes be depicted in biker leather or gigantic hunks of it.
- G1: Thanks @pCWentY for the additional references! This Chinese soldier wears lamellar with a kind of coat around his torso, and nothing more than a turban/bandana on his head. With the Red Turban Rebellion brewing, this would be an appropriate set of equipment for the rebels as well as the Yuan and early Ming armies.
- G2: Fully clad in lamellar, this soldier can also represent Yuan and early Ming soldiers. Brigandine exists in this time period but rises to prominence later, so I'll leave that for the next period. Also note that even in Vietnam, elite soldiers would wear full suits of armor like this.
- H1: In the interest of keeping this ashigaru more distinct from the later Sengoku Jidai, I opted to give this guy a relatively light outfit (even barefoot!) and this funny hat which seems more prominent in earlier periods.
- H2: Wearing an O-Yoroi, or "great armor", this samurai is prepared with his primary weapon; the bow.
- I1: Across Southeast Asia, many warriors marched to battle in little more than some shorts! While mostly inspired by Khmer reliefs, I'd say this design fits well for both mainland and maritime Southeast Asia, and you could additionally add extra details and tattoos for individual cultures.
- I2: Many written description mention the use of armors in this region made of buffalo/rhino hide, bamboo, cloth, pangolin scales, and other organic materials. Of course none of it survives from this time period, but there are reliefs which show battles between the Khmer and Cham showcasing cloth and pangolin equipment. I read a theory on the internet that the Khmer could have chosen to depict their warriors mostly unarmored to show how brave they were, similar to how Ancient Greek heroes are depicted. Though this might not be the best representation of the entire region, its not unlikely that many cultures could have utilized similar materials in battle. I opted to model the tier 2 soldier with pangolin scale body armor over the cloth robes, topped with bronze-gilded helmet.
- J1: I did some reading it seems that armor was also quite rare among the Hindus of India at this time, from North to South. For this soldier, I referenced Vijayanagar art and also gave him a katar, which was invented in that country around this time. I might be wrong, but I think this grouping is also suitable for Maldives at the time, despite it being Islamic.
- J2: In the rare occasion Hindus did wear armor, it apparently was little more than a quilted robe and maaaybe a metal helmet. I'll be honest, I initially was thrown off by how CK3 has this cool set of Indian armor, but as far as I can tell, it can only be realistically attributed to Islamic states. If anyone does have a source that says otherwise though, I would like to know!
- K1: From Nubia to Somalia, you can expect most warriors to wear simple tunics and scarves to battle. I don't know much about how the East African coast may have looked, but considering trade relations across the Indian ocean, I think it's sufficient to group them with the Horn Africans at least for the time being.
- K2: Using Nubian and Ethiopian sources, I armed this guy with a suit of chaimail and a simple decorated metal helmet. The turban was my own inclusion as I felt it was plausible and made the unit more interesting as well as making it feel a bit more fitting with Muslim states as well, but who knows, might be inaccurate. I also wanted to avoid making him look too similar to 19th-20th century Ethiopian soldiers. That fit can come later.
- L1: I'm not sure if there are any period depictions of warriors from the Sahel, but the best we can do is interpolate from what we know of neighboring and later cultures. Your average warrior likely wore flowing robes and intricate turbans. The shield was inspired by those of the Tuareg.
- L2: I believe thick quilted armor had been in use for quite some time in the Sahel, although I'm sure if these full suits had been developed at this point yet. It also was not used across the whole region, but couldn't miss the opportunity to get this concept out there. I chose to also have the cap quilted as well, as the helmets shown on surviving examples were imported from Persia at a later period than this one.
- M1: The majority of warriors in Sub Saharan Africa were unarmored. Though there could be a lot of variety amongst different cultures and tribes, this generic concept will suffice in representing most of them.
- M2: We know from the Benin bronzes that the people in that region wore armor of a variety of materials, including pangolin scales just like in Southeast Asia. This drawing is merely an interpretation of those bronze pieces, and we don't really know the extent of organic armor across the rest of Africa, but I thought it was too cool to leave out. Alternatively, tier 2 units could be represented by fancier/chieftain units.
- N1: North America is a big place, but a simple loincloth, shoes, and stone club would not look out of place in most regions apart from the far north.
- N2: We do know that prior to the arrival of Europeans, many North Americans made use of armor made of wood and fiber and even fought in formations. This type of warfare fell out of use later as guns, steel, and horses rendered it useless, thus making guerrilla warfare the most viable tactic against them.
- O1: A simple guy in a loincloth with an atlatl is good enough for Mayans and Aztecs alike.
- O2: Around this time period, soldiers from all around Mesoamerica would wear ichcahuīpīlli, a type of cloth armor made of unspun cotton. When designing this, I also tried to avoid more modern/fantastical depictions of Mayans in particular.
- P1: I found it kind of difficult to find good references for Andean/Inca warriors apart from older illustrations, but it seems that most of them still also went to battle in just tunics, ponchos, and interesting hats.
- P2: Apparently Inca helmets were made of wood and they might have worn some rigid body armors, although likely underneath their tunics which may have been padded. Metal was often used but more for decoration or a status symbol rather than as functional armor. Not particularly fond of this drawing lol, but I think I got tired, it being the last of this whole set.
- The highlight for this drawing would be the Tier 2 Granadan unit. With Granada being one of my favorite countries in the game, I gathered a bunch of information and references to create this speculative set of armor. From what I gather, native Iberians of Al Andalus used a blend of Middle Eastern and European equipment. For example, they often wore the same type of helmets you'd expect from Europeans (in this case a bascinet), but would often add noseguards in line with Middle Eastern norms. I also fitted him with a European orle around his helmet, reminiscent also of a turban. He wears a suit of chaimail and a surcoat over it which bears the Granadan coat of arms. Granadans were also known to wear brigandine armor, but I want to save that for Period II. The Amazigh warrior is unarmored and follows typical depictions from the time period, while the other Granada is based on a more obscure piece of art from the region, which suggested that some wore turbans under their helmet and others did not.
- With its higher degree of isolation, Ireland's warriors were much different than the rest of Europe. Often they went to war completely unarmored and made heavy use of javelins. With the rise of the gallowglass, Norse-Gaelic mercenaries, we also saw men clad in mail or just gambesons. The one I have depicted here wears a skullcap and rondels for his helmet, which I felt was appropriate for the time period and reminiscent of the odd looking helmets that are depicted at a later period. I could have gone with the safe option of giving him a bascinet, but I'd rather this unit stand out from everyone else wearing bascinets.
To be continued! I will soon update this thread with units E-H! But first, some notes:
I'd like some references for Chinese infantry (Tier 1) that can be distinct from later ones.(Edit: found some references!)- Some references for Hindu states (Group J) would be appreciated.
- More references for Africa in general will be useful. I'm not completely confident in the groupings atm.
- I recall a thread that discussed North American armor, so I will be linking that when I get to drawing group N!
- The next period will be the Renaissance/Age of Exploration, but I would like to hear everyone's ideas on how exactly periods can best be divided.
- Even if these concepts don't make the cut in the initial release of the game, they could double as potential armor sets for characters.
- Even for the units I have already designed, I'd love to see additional references/ideas/feedback/critiques!
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