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Westeros M2:TW mod


Marcus

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Here's some material that GoO received from us when Linda and I were working on the RPG with them. Some of the details may have since been superseded by info in AFfC, but it's a start:

Jaime had 12,000 foot and 2-3k horse. Tywin had an army roughly 20k strong, of which 9k was horse. That gives 11-12k horse and 23k foot, for a total of 35k with a rather remarkable 1.9:1 foot to horse ratio. And Ser Stafford was raising another host, say 15k strong, for 50k -- but that last part was the sweepings, as they said, and left the various castle garrisons very weak. GRRM says the Lannisters are the second strongest in land strength, and I suspect this is primarily because the wealth allows them to have a very large mounted force. Also, the pikemen and City Watch from Lannisport are very well trained, probably the most disciplined feudal foot levy in the Seven Kingdoms.

Finally, he also puts them pretty high in strength at sea, and they've largely recovered from the burning of the fleet in Lannisport. The Lannisters have 20 or 30 cogs, carracks, galleys, and dromonds at Lannisport, and can call their various coastal bannermen to bring ships (each has 2 or 3 to patrol their waters, plus maybe three-six longships).. Say they’ve got 50 or 60 big ships in total, presuming they'd retain longships for the purpose of coastal defense while the big craft are on the offensive. We suspect that the Farmans of Fair Isle probably provide a decent percentage of the bannerlords' share.

Given the above, I think the Lannister force composition should have a very strong heavy cavalry component, at the high end of what the game generally uses. They are filthy rich, and they can afford the best armor and barding.

Westerlands infantry should have some strong, highly-disciplined, and expensive units, given comments here.

Finally, as to the navy, see here for information supporting the above statements.

The battle at the Green Fork probably gives us our best view of Lannister troops -- pikes and longbows make a significant portion of the force, as does heavy cavalry, and one wing is devoted to less-disciplined, skilled, and/or armored foot and cavalry forces.

Obviously, they're coming off as extremely powerful. It's not inaccurate, but certainly balance is going to be an issue. I'd suggest that the wealth has led them to have a lot of high end units, and then some low-end units, but very little in the mid-range which makes them less flexible...

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Apologies for not being around much the last couple of days. My Company of Heroes online team was demanding my contribution whilst everyone was off work for New Year's. Fortunately, they're back at work now and late-night gaming can no longer continue, except at weekends.

I think Ran's nailed the Lannisters pretty well. However, I do not believe we know a large amount about their bannermen, compared to others. House Marbrand of Ashemark, for example, seems to be quite tight with the Lannisters but we know virtually nothing about their military contribution to the Lannister host. Cavalry, I'd guess, possibly good footmen/pikes as well (Addam Marbrand has enough experience of commanding infantry in order to be put in charge of the goldcloaks, IIRC?). House Westerling of the Crag have a pretty puny force in comparison, due to their poor lands and their shattered castle, whilst House Farman would be a more substantial naval power, possibly House Banefort as well (as they are close to the Iron Islands). I imagine the Lannister bannermen have good cavalry due to their riches and good foot due to the constricted nature of fighting in the hills of the countryside, which would no doubt feature terrain favouring infantry over cavalry. Skirmishers would play a role as well, I imagine.

Known Westerland houses: Banefort of Banefort, Brax of Hornvale, Crakehall of Crakehall, Estren of Wyndhall, Farman of Faircastle (Fair Isle), Greenfield of Greenfield, Kyndall of Kayce, Lefford of the Golden Tooth, Lydden of the Deep Den, Marbrand of Ashemark, Prester of Feastfires, Reyne of Castamere (extinct), Sarsfield of Sarsfield, Serrett of Silverhill, Swyft of Cornfield, Tarbeck of Tarbeck Hall (extinct), Westerling of the Crag.

As you can see, the Lannister bannermen, although oft-mentioned, have not played a major role in proceedings to date, certainly not enough to guess at their individual military compositions (compared to say what we know about the Umbers' love of close-in fighting or the Reeds' preference for ranged forces and avoiding close-in infantry clashes or the Martell love of spears).

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Excellent, excellent. Thanks for being timely, the faster this is completed, the better. I believe step 1 is completed to about the best of our ability, on to step 2. Who's got a proposed unit list? ( NOT based on M2 units, mind, see my example a few posts up)

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The Martells seemed to be modeled heavily after Muslim armies of the medieval period as in the book they are mentioned to having horses that cannot bear the weight of heavy armor but can run for long periods of time. Thus they will have light cavalry. They are also mentioned as having some of the best horse archers and skirmishers of Westeros so horse archers and javelinmen (maybe a variant of Jinetes as well) should probably go to them. Their love of spear should also mean their infantry are usually spear wieldling. Their archers are mentioned as having double recurve bows with very long range.

The Ironborn are heavily modeled after Vikings/Danes it seems - longships and lots of axemen it seems will be the deal. What cavalry they have will either be very weak cavalry (like the Scouts unit in the game) and perhaps the general bodysguard as their only real heavy cavalry. It is mentioned that the Ironborn cannot withstand a charge of heavy knights but for balance purposes, we'd have to give them some sort of spear unit to take the brunt of cavalry charges. The great advantage the ironborn will have though is its navy - it should start with one of the largest fleets present, especially with the Iron Fleet.

Mercenaries from the Free Cities should be purchaseable only in a few city provinces (Oldtown and King's Landing for instance) and perhaps implement guilds to allow the permanent recruitment of mercenaries from cities. Some obvious units would include Golden Company, etc.

Joffrey's main army composition should be heavily modeled after the northern Italian armies - that is, militia units (spears, halberds, crossbows, pikes) which will be weaker than professional armies but cheaper to maintain. From outside KL, castles should provide a steady supply of your standard knights and cavalry.

From what it sounds like, the Tyrell armies will be very similar to the typical army composition of high medieval France - that is, lots of mounted and dismounted knights. Its large population also seems to mean a large part of infantry may be levied troops - so probably lesser quality spearmen and infantry to augment the nobility.

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Excellent, excellent. Thanks for being timely, the faster this is completed, the better. I believe step 1 is completed to about the best of our ability, on to step 2. Who's got a proposed unit list? ( NOT based on M2 units, mind, see my example a few posts up)

Peasant Militia, Spearmen, Heavy Spearmen, Pikemen, Crossbowmen, Archers, Men-At-Arms (Foot Knights, not Gendarmes), Freeriders (Light Cavalry for Skirmishing/Pursuit), Hedge Knights, Landed Knights (e.g. Gregor Clegane & Amory Lorch-types), Banner Knights (Addam Marbrand, Leo Lefford, Gawen Westerling, Andros Brax, etc), Household Knights (Kevan Lannister, Stafford Lannister, Daven Lannister, etc), Siege Towers, Rams, Catapults, Trebuchets, Ballistas, Cogs, Dromonds, Galleys, Longships, Carracks, The Holy Hundred (Might be better assigned to House Baratheon-Lannister at King's Landing), The Bloody Mummers (Brave Companions), Lannister Guardsmen (Red Cloaks), Lannisport City Watch (Gold Cloaks), The Stone Crows, Burned Men, Moon Brothers and Black Ears (These last four could all appear as Vale Rebels and be assigned to King's Landing as well).

I do not recall the Lannisters using any type of Mounted Missile troops, and my recollection of the battle of the Fords was that the Lannisters did not have Longbowmen (more dependent on crossbows and regular archers) while the Starks and their allies did. I do not recall any mention of Polearms (Poleaxes, Halberds, Voulges, Billhooks, Ahlspiess, etc) by the Lannisters either, nor do I recall warhammers, battleaxes, maces, or flails for that matter.

I would think of the Lannister army is a very basic and conventional Western European Army of Spears and Swords; Their strength flows from their wealth (more access to Elite heavy cavalry), and the professionalism of their troops as opposed to being a fully-integrated force of mixed arms (again, my impression).

The Crusades Mod for R:TW had some very nice units that may be worth copying (Thinking specifically of how well the Latin Heavy Infantry would work as Lannister Guardsmen)

Household Knights > Banner Knights > Landed Knights > Hedge Knights > Freeriders

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Simple bows basically are not used in Westeros -- I don't recall many references to them at all. You have longbows, used widely (in AFfC, Ser Forley Prester -- a westerlands captain -- states, 'I have picked ten men to stay with Tully day and night, my best longbowmen.'), and then the Dornish seem to make use of recurved composite bows. In fact, in AGoT longbows are specifically named only once -- and that's referencing Theon's bow -- but it is clear from later books that longbows are the common armament.

As to mounted archers, we've references for those as well:

This wing too was all cavalry, but where the right was a mailed fist of knights and heavy lancers, the vanguard was made up of the sweepings of the west: mounted archers in leather jerkins...

Now, what "mounted archers" means in this context is difficult to say. Europe made use of mounted archers on occasion, but this almost always seem to have meant men who moved to and about the battlefield on horseback and then dismounted to get their shots off. If they are supposed to be true mounted archers, then they would be using short self-bows, I'd suppose, rather than the more complex and costly composite bows that the Dornish use.

(BTW, in AFfC, a troop of mounted archers are noted as 'Sarsfield's mounted archers'; rather apt, but that said, I'd caution on just assuming that they're the only ones who have them.)

Halberds feature on the arms of House Yarwyck of the westerlands (referenced directly in AFfC), and halberds are mentioned on Lannister guards (admittedly, hired sellswords brought into the guard) and on men of House Bettley and Sarsfield.

There's obviously a need for battleaxes, maces, etc among Tywin's army, since Tyrion is able to requisition these things from supply:

"I shall require three thousand helms and as many hauberks, plus swords, pikes, steel spearheads, maces, battleaxes, gauntlets, gorgets, greaves, breastplates, wagons to carry all this-"

Battleaxes are also mentioned among Gregor Clegane's reaving force in AGoT.

That said, for balance reasons you may want to discard with some of these and go for something like a heap of weak units and a few really strong units with little middle-ground.

As to units, on the whole NakedStark's list looks okay. Again, I think there should be some weak, cheap units, then a big gap until you get to a couple of high-end foot units and a number of high-end cavalry. Even though it may be realistic to have units with a wide variety of weaponry and the like, there's the whole balance thing, IMO, which necessitates abstracting and simplifying things a little. So something like this:

Low-endish foot:

Peasant Militia, Spearmen, Town militia, Dismounted Men-at-Arms

High-endish foot:

Lannisport City Militia (Pike), Lannisport City Watch (Halberds), Dismounted Armored Knights

Low-endish archery:

Mounted archers, crossbowmen

High-endish archery:

Longbowmen

Low-endish cavalry:

Freeriders, Sellswords, Hedge Knights (these should all be on the small-end of unit size)

High-endish cavalry: Heavy Armored Knights, and maybe some sort of ZoR Casterly Rock Knights (or I guess that would be the general's bodyguard knights).

Other units:

Brave Companions Foot, Brave Companions Horse, the various mountain clan units NakedStark mentioned.

Caveat: Again, I haven't played the game, and I don't know things that well. So if there are mistakes, I blame it on my ignorance. ;)

Freeriders (Light Cavalry for Skirmishing/Pursuit), Hedge Knights, Landed Knights (e.g. Gregor Clegane & Amory Lorch-types), Banner Knights (Addam Marbrand, Leo Lefford, Gawen Westerling, Andros Brax, etc), Household Knights (Kevan Lannister, Stafford Lannister, Daven Lannister, etc), Siege Towers, Rams, Catapults, Trebuchets, Ballistas, Cogs, Dromonds, Galleys, Longships, Carracks, The Holy Hundred (Might be better assigned to House Baratheon-Lannister at King's Landing), The Bloody Mummers (Brave Companions), Lannister Guardsmen (Red Cloaks), Lannisport City Watch (Gold Cloaks), The Stone Crows, Burned Men, Moon Brothers and Black Ears (These last four could all appear as Vale Rebels and be assigned to King's Landing as well).

I think I'd replace archers with longbowmen. For halberds, I'd suggest a ZoR-type unit based in Lannisport -- Lannisport City Militia, or even the City Watch (though it's doubtful Tywin took any of them to war -- he's remarked that guardsmen are not the same as soldiers). I'd add some sort of low-discipline, low-quality mounted archers

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After some deliberation, we've decided that we need to organize this in a different way in order to get unit allocation as accurate as possible.

This will likely take a week or two to complete regardless, so we may as well try and be accurate as possible.

Everything posted so far will be kept, your work has not gone to waste, we're just reformatting.

Proposed new structure:

Universal

Militia

Missile

Light Infantry

Infantry

Heavy Infantry

Light cavalry

Cavalry

Heavy Cavalry

Knights

Bodyguards

Specialty Units

Mercenaries

Rebels

Naval forces

This way we can discuss the differences between each house & region and allocate at the same time. Hopefully this will be more effective and lead to less balance issues later. I apologize for not having done this originally.

Also, FAUST is a .pdf file that shows the majority of units in M2, minus mercs and rebels. This will hopefully give everyone a good idea of the untis available. Unfortunetly, FAUST does nto show the image of the unit.

Note: Any unit from any faction can be given to any other faction. As well, ignore gunpowder units as there were none in Westeros.

I believe that covers it.

First, universal units. Peasants. Any others? Suggestions welcome.

Should all houses get the same peasant unit, or are there difference between peasants in different regions?

Also, peasants will be the first units skinned. Any concept art for this unit is welcome, as well as written descriptions.

Once again, I apologize for this, and I appreciate everyone's input.

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I'd love to chip in all sorts of expert advice but frankly, my knowledge is a tiny fraction of that of Ran's, the one man who may know more about Westeros than GRRM himself. But I do play MII:TW, so I can try to be useful (and get myself into the beta test group... ;) )

My only thought on the Lannister unit mix is regarding the Mountain Clans -- both NakedStark and Ran have mentioned them. I don't think the Mountain Clans should be a Lannister specific unit. While they fight for the Lannisters in the series, they have no real loyalty to the Lannisters nor are they from the Westerlands. Frankly, it would be absurd to be able to "build" a mountain clan unit in Lannisport, for exapmle.

They make a lot more sense as mercenaries available in the mountains west of the Vale -- essentially, in the series, that's what they are -- and Tyrion Lannister happened to hire them. In the alternate history that is inevitable with a game mod, any number of different factions could hire this mountain clan or that as a mercenary unit.

Different clans could serve as different type units, Stone Crows, Burned Men etc.

Ran: one thing to note regarding Longbowmen -- in MII:TW they are an advanced missile unit available only to the English (and their main strength over other factions). Having them freely and commonly available would have pretty strong effects on game balance, unless their power was toned down a bit.

ETA: I was writing this before Marcus' post, so sorry I didn't go along with the "new direction" of discussion. I'll look at your post and come up with thoughts on universal units.

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From just glancing at the FAUST troop chart provided (thanks, great link!), it doesn't even look like the game itself as any truly "universal" units, in that even the peasants vary in appearance between the "Standard", "Eastern European", and "Middle Eastern" varieties.

So I'd say Peasants and Peasant Archers should be common to every faction, with the Martells having "Middle Eastern" peasants and possibly the Starks having the "Eastern European" peasants -- if I remember correctly, they have lots of fur hats and other such gestures to ward off the cold, which makes sense for the Northerners. Same goes for the Wildlings.

ETA: Just noticed there are also "Southern" peasants, but I'm not sure what they look like so I don't know who they'd be appropos for.

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@Ser Bazzlebane

That isn't a problem. We can use the longbow model and replace the stats.

As for peasants in M2, they wield either knives, or pitchforks and tridents. No armour, just a surcoat and with faction sigil on it.

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Hi, I'm Rufats, one of the Westeros MII:TW skinners. I'm going to help Marcus with answering questions and posting updates.

Note. Marcus is a team leader, should differences occur, rely on his posts and disregard mine.

Cheers

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One nice feature of MTW2 is the lack of 'universal' units, whereas the difference between, say, France and Germany in MTW1 was negligible.

Peasants, peasant archers, and some kind of levy spearmen should really be the only universal units. Freeriders and so forth could either be universal or hired through mercs.

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I agree with Merentha, that pretty much sums it up. I would include Freeriders amongst the buildable units -- it does provide a common Westeros-y feel to the various regions, and helps the emphasis on horse that's typical to the series. They wouldn't be very good, mind you, basically like the Hobilars.

Tonight I'll take screenshots of different unit types and post them here for people to compare.

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Same problem as Xray here (elaborated in the MII:TW-thread in Entertainment), but I'll add my opinion if I think I have anything worthwhile to say. Right now it seems action is more important than words, though. Good luck. :)

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One nice feature of MTW2 is the lack of 'universal' units, whereas the difference between, say, France and Germany in MTW1 was negligible.

Peasants, peasant archers, and some kind of levy spearmen should really be the only universal units. Freeriders and so forth could either be universal or hired through mercs.

That's why we're asking.

Lets see:

1.One faction (I don't like to mention names) has the best heavy cavalry, but lacks of good spear/pike infantry. The other faction is opposite. The first will have access to recruit certain units that second won't be able to, and vice-virsa.

2.We will re-balance units, even peasants - certain peasants will have advantage over their rivals.

And that's just two examples

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If you're actually changing vanilla peasant units, that open up whole new cans of worms. In an interesting way, of course, but still. Would the peasants of the various 7 Kingdoms be armed differently or have different advantages over each other?

I have to think about that.

ETA: Initial thoughts on peasants of the 7 kingdoms:

1) Peasants from Riverlands (Tully), Westerlands (Lannister), the Reach (Tyrell), the Stormlands (Renly) and the Vale (Arryn), are culturally the same -- Andal descendents in agricultural production. So not much different from MII's standard "Peasant", and not really any reason to make one stronger than another.

2) Peasants from the Iron Islands are more likely to be capable fighters than their mainland equivalents, since they fight from birth, and most men serve aboard the ships at some point in their lives. Perhaps a higher morale, higher attack number, or the ability to throw javelins as well as fight melee would represent this.

3) Peasants from Dorne and the North should look different from the group in (1), but I don't see why they would be "better" or more motivated fighters. They are just still peasants. I would use the stock ME Peasant for Dorne and stock EE Peasant for the North but that's it.

4) King's Landing and Dragonstone peasants could be the SE Peasant in looks, but again, I don't see why they'd be stronger than counterparts from the other 7 Kingdoms.

So to sum up, the only peasants I'd give an advantage to would be the Iron Islanders, whom I imagine will have plenty of disadvantages (little horse?) to balance this.

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Define "changing". Balancing, yes. However we cannot at this time change the models, so weapons cant be changed. Skinned yes, changed no.

Edit: Yes, Ran was saying to me in IM that it was likely Ironborn peasants would have the only advantage. As for appearance, we're going to reskin everything with new colours and heraldry, but we'll think about this when we pick base textures :) Thanks

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