Mod plan: Revising the armour of dom3

[Sombre]

I was planning on changing some cavalry enc, yes, probably to an enc 3 - 5 range.

Heavy Samurai Armour is a bit of a borderline case. It's at 17 prot with a -3 to def, exactly the same as Plate Hauberk (a really bad piece of armour on a foot troop) but at a much lower res cost.

I chose to put Plate Hauberk in Medium Heavy because:

a) plate is high tech and full plate is definitely the heavy one in that group
b) the high resource cost needs an offset
c) prot 17 is borderline of MH/H

So why is Heavy Samurai Armor in Heavy then, with 3 enc?

a) 'Japanese' armour in dom3 seems to be from a lower tech than the Plate series, similar to "Bronze Hauberk" which offers 17 prot but is still in the Heavy category, rather than MH
b) To differentiate it more from Samurai Armour, which at prot 14 def -2 is definitely Medium Heavy
c) Because CBM gave it a resource cost of 12, compared with plate hauberk's 20

I think it's very arguable and I would be happy with it at either 2 enc or 3 enc.

I'm also starting to think I should expand this mod somewhat to encompass changes to prot (though very minor ones) and the def malus too. I have absolutely nothing against heavy armour causing some serious def malus - to me this makes way more sense than it causing your guys to gas out and collapse after three swings. For one thing when you're wearing heavy armour you have much less reason to worry about def, dodging or parrying enemy attacks. It makes sense that you would trust your armour to deal with the minor spear jabs and the like, far more than a guy with no armour on at all, or just a ringmail cuirass.

So I'm currently thinking:

Cuirass/breastplate = -1 def
Hauberk = -2 def
Full body = -3 def

With big weight differences adding to or taking away from that malus. So while full chain mail is now at enc 2 (MH) I think it would be either def -3 (as it currently is) or def -4.

[Kheldron]

I may be wrong but under cbm at least most nations tend to be balanced now. While this mod goes in the right direction, it clearly makes life harder on those light armoured nations.

To even things out, couldn't you trade fatigue for defence? I mean less enc is ok but you'd also get a defence malus.

Heavy units under this mod would not collapse so soon and still be able to attack efficiently but not become invulnerable tanks.