Talk:Soldier

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Someone please change the Standard guard photos back to 50 px. 180 is too big. FPS Headhunter LASER GUNS BEW BEW!!!! :D 22:24, March 24, 2010 (UTC)

Fifty is too small. -- D. Cello 22:49, March 24, 2010 (UTC)

How 'bout something that's somewhat close to that? Like 60 or 70 px. FPS Headhunter LASER GUNS BEW BEW!!!! :D 22:57, March 24, 2010 (UTC)

I think the layout looks pretty good as it is. Personally I wouldn't change it for now. -- D. Cello 23:25, March 24, 2010 (UTC)

Leader Guard

The picture for the leader guard isnt veerry dignified i think we should get a different pic like maybe him standing up ill see if i can get a good one but if anyone already has a nice one i wont bother

Auditor(e)

Also, in a very vague connection can someone please tell me how tall the leader guard is? Either in metres or feet measurements please. I just need to know because I'm making a comparison between it and another character.

Marael 16:38, June 30, 2012 (UTC)

Agile vs Brute

Okay so I got the Bonfire of the Vanities and I stay around to watch a fight but one of them was between a Brute and an Agile and the Agile killed the Brute cuz he dodged every move because brutes are slow so what does that prove?

That skill beats strength? 122.104.151.178 02:39, November 7, 2010 (UTC)

I'd say it was due to his speed and ability to dodge. If he hadn't dodged properly, then a few hits from a Brute would have killed him, I imagine. Aegis Runestone 15:39, July 28, 2011 (UTC)

Templars ?

Are the guards templars or do they even know they are fighting for the templars?Pennassains 02:59, January 19, 2011 (UTC)Pennassains

Some are with the Templars, some aren't 71.7.225.215 15:37, July 28, 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure I've heard several guards shout, "In the memory of paynes" so maybe they are aware.

ACIII Guards

ACIII has a third guard faction with the same archetypes as the British and Americans that seem to be bandits and/or mercenaries. What should they be called? Also, there's a fast-moving guard archetype that wields short blades in melee that don't seem to be mentioned anywhere in the article, should they be added as the Industrial era incarnation of the Agiles or as a separate archetype? Ecthel013 (talk) 11:23, December 18, 2012 (UTC)

Well the browncoats are basically, hunters, poachers pioneers and mercenaries so just call them pioneers, mercenaries or thugs. As for the random agiles, i have no idea nut they are VERY similar to the agiles in brotherhood. I think they are hessians with their grey coats. They should be hunters if you are going to refer to them in a descriptive context. In an aesthetic context they're either mercenaries, a british detachment or a group of hessians. Can someone aks Ubisoft on the Uplay forums? Deniedoperative (talk) 07:45, December 19, 2012 (UTC)

Regulars vs Loyalists/Patriots vs Snipers

So looking through the page I find that there is a ACIII enemy type called "snipers". Now the description match the game's "militia" units (Loyalists and Patriots). These units are often seen in the early part of the game and they are not able to make a three-strike-combo as the regulars. As militia units they will often be asigned easier task such as rooftop guards and lookouts.

Therefore I ask if the "Sniper" enemy type can be deleted?

Also people seem not to be able to tell British Regulars apart from the Loyalists. The ingame description clearly show the Loyalist equipped with an explorer hat instead of a tricon and he also features a backpack. Taliqaeda (talk) 15:24, April 3, 2013 (UTC)

French Troops

I have conclusive evidence labelling the continental agiles with the bowleresque hats as french troops. Historically, france helped out in the revolution a great deal and as such french were present in some cases. In the Braddock expedition mission, sent to parley with the french, when the redcoat column gets ambushed if you look closely, you can see that the enemies have the loyalist agile pattern models,

Also fort duquense has -allegedly- french troops that have a loyalist agile model.

I think it is very likely that these enemies are french.

Opinion?Deniedoperative (talk) 00:26, April 4, 2013 (UTC)

Strange because the French models in my game are recoloured Continental Army. Both does in "The Braddock Expedition" and the one's at Fort Duquense.Taliqaeda (talk) 18:24, April 8, 2013 (UTC)

No title

what's the name of these guards/soldiers? Mercenaries?

File:ACIII-BoorishMan 612.png

ok? thank you for help

Yes, they're mercenaries. --Kainzorus Prime ^{Walkie-talkie} 19:20, July 30, 2013 (UTC)

Liberties with Concept Art?

I am wonder. Why did Ubisoft's concept artists not stay true to the looks of the guards in general (be they Papal Swiss Guard, or a seeker guard)? Was that just a liberty up for grabs? Steven.lotr (talk) 07:57, April 9, 2015 (UTC)

Umm... you realize concept art comes first in the development process, right? If there's a discrepancy between concept art and in-game models, it's because the character modellers didn't "stay true" to the concept art, which could be for a variety of reasons. Things simply change throughout development; have you seen Mary Read's concept art? Her face matches, but her outfit is completely different from what we see her wearing in the game itself. Crook ^{The Constantine District} 08:00, April 9, 2015 (UTC)

missing bounty hunters from AC: rogue? virtually unkillable in melee combat

Unity and Syndicate guards

Oh my, all the guards listed for Unity are all classified incorrectly, with the wrong names not used by the game's entry on enemy archetypes. Same goes for Syndicate as well I think. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 03:27, August 24, 2017 (UTC)

Soldiers

Since as far back as 2012 with the release of Assassin's Creed III, I have been uncomfortable with this article simply because not every enemy the player faces in the games are guards. From Assassin's Creed to Revelations, the terminology wasn't problematic because the settings were mainly urban environments, but as games moved onto fighting enemies serving with armies and fleets, generalizing them all as "guards" became increasingly awkward and incorrect. Case in point, enemies, whether Spartan or Athenian, that you fight in battles are not guards, but soldiers. The soldiers garrisoned in cities like Athens, Thebes, Korinth, etc. are guards because they are defending the city, but the point is that guard, as a word, does not encompass enemies in all scenarios that they are encountered.

There needs to be a correction for this, and with how overloaded this article already is, I have opted for the creation of a soldier page. However, there are many overlaps between guards and soldiers since guards in almost all games with Syndicate being a notable exception, are specifically soldiers defending a city. Because of this, a better idea might just be to either move "Guard" to "Soldier" or merge this page to "Soldier". Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 10:11, June 30, 2019 (UTC)

To be honest, I may have jumped the gun on creating a separate "Soldier" page, but since this has been bothering me for so, so, so many years, the moment I finally set down on this, I couldn't help but act on impulse. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 10:12, June 30, 2019 (UTC)

Exdromo vs Hypaspists

These seem to be backwards. In Rebellion ekdromo are bludgeon carrying brutes while hypaspists carry sword and shield. Does the guide actually contradict this? Lacrossedeamon (talk) 14:25, November 3, 2019 (UTC)

The guide is very clear that the hypaspists are the brutes and the ekdromoi are the armored swordsmen. It isn't without errors in other parts of the References section though, most notably switching the images for the Spartan strategos and hoplite, but since ekdromoi were historically light hoplites who were specially trained to be swift runners, and the guide describes ekdromoi as being fast, it seems accurate that they are not the brutes. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 14:33, November 3, 2019 (UTC)

I’ll send you pics of the two from Rebellion later. Lacrossedeamon (talk) 15:14, November 3, 2019 (UTC)

Sure thing. While you're at it, can you confirm the spelling for hypaspist? Wikipedia gives it as hypaspist, but the Odyssey guide actually gives hypapist. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 15:44, November 3, 2019 (UTC)

Classifications

Are these actually derived from the Assassins or is it from the Animus categorizing them as such? Lacrossedeamon (talk) 04:28, November 7, 2019 (UTC)

I primarily derived the "classifications" from the Shaun and Rebecca's Animi and the Helix. (EDIT: I assumed that they were the authors). Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 05:01, November 7, 2019 (UTC)

I guess that's similar to what I meant with the latter statement. How the article reads to me though is that the classifications were used historically by the contemporaneous Assassins. Since some of the animus and helix are derived from Abstergo I think this could use some rewording to at least clarify that the classifications seem to be a modern derived nomenclature. Lacrossedeamon (talk) 05:19, November 7, 2019 (UTC)

The problem is that we don't know that for sure either way although I admit the latter interpretation is preferable. (EDIT: I mean in terms of the usage being historical vs. modern for the Assassins. I don't think there is evidence that Abstergo themselves invented them since they have only appeared in database entries and manuals written by the Assassins). Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 05:28, November 7, 2019 (UTC)

Do they not appear in BF or Rogue and isn't all of Unity and possibly Syndicate derived from Abstergo? Keeping unit archetype pages with an in universe perspective takes a lot of flexible thinking and wording. Lacrossedeamon (talk) 05:59, November 7, 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure that BF and Rogue ever uses the terms "brute", "agile", and "seeker". Brutes in the American saga of games are called grenadiers, agiles scouts, and the closest analogy to seekers are officers. In any case, my point is that there is no firm evidence that Abstergo has ever authored the entries prescribing these classifications, aside from the technology (but not necessarily all the entries) deriving from Abstergo whereas there all the sources we have on them are Assassin or Assassin in part. You are right that we should be flexible, but that is why we should avoid express claims that Abstergo authored them without firm evidence. With that being said, maybe attributing them to the Assassins is too strong too, but it was really difficult for me to know how to write about the classifications from an in-universe perspective, and I hoped to avoid the concepts as much as possible. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 06:19, November 7, 2019 (UTC)

ACCChina's database is Abstergo created though, right? It uses some of the classifications, specifically seekers. I feel phrasing it as "these classifications were used within the Animus" or something similar would suffice. It doesn't specific that the Animus itself is doing it nor the Assassins or Abstergo just that it happens.

EDIT: Overseer gets used in FC and a few other games but I'm not sure if that counts as one of these archetypes. Lacrossedeamon (talk) 06:37, November 7, 2019 (UTC)

Creation of an Archetype page

Going off of the previous topic. I'd like to propose a Archetype article that a lot of the content from this page would be moved to. This would include classifications that aren't really soldier types such as brutes, agiles, etc. It would also allow us to address conflicting topics such as Odyssey and Rebellion using different terms for the same unit type or unit types that are technically mislabeled such as the almogavars or varangians. The main issue is if this is IU terminology used by the animus or not. I propose that we consider the e-manual pages that are technically part of the database (at least in Syndicate which also has a page labelled Archetypes) as IU instructions for how the animus puppeteering and other systems works. Lacrossedeamon (talk) 13:50, April 18, 2020 (UTC)

Tbh, the first time I read this, I wasn't sure what you meant (blame busy RL). But now that I can see what you meant, I think this is a good idea. Sadelyrate (siniath) 13:35, April 19, 2020 (UTC)

Source of Animus archetypes

I'm still quite skeptical of this, both of the need and the benefits. I think that the need might be to have a page that comprises all of the enemy archetypes, but my main concern is whether it would be more forced to treat these archetypes as strictly Animus designations. We need to be clear if, by that, we mean that the source of it is the Animus in and of itself, attributing to the development of these archetypes as a fully autonomous process of the Animus—as though the Animus is sentient—or if people programmed the Animus to have these archetypes, in which case that would be the Templars and Assassins. But if it is the latter case, then it would not be incorrect to say that the Templars and Assassins had these archetypes in mind in the first place. Then we would circle back to what the article currently presents.

That might be my major point of confusion here: what do you mean by the "Animus"? The Animus' entries were still written by someone, and these archetypes would ultimately be sourced to that individual, one of whom would either be Rebecca or Shaun. I fear it is too far into the realm of speculation to definitively say that the Animus auto-generates archetypes, which is what I'm getting from your draft. We would be declaring a particular interpretation as canonical when it is actually one's own interpretation, and I am not comfortable with that.

Treating e-manuals as IU

I think it would be even more forced if we were to treat e-manuals as in-universe. I always thought that it is illogical to treat most every and anything we see in the video games as literally what the characters see in-universe, down to the most 'gamey' of elements. We need to allow some suspension of disbelief for the reality that it is, at the end of the day, a game. If everything that we experience in the game is 100% what the Animus users experience, even sheer gameplay mechanics, then that diminishes the very premise that they are reliving the memories of ancestors' through a very real experience, the heavily scaled down geography notwithstanding.

Even though the user manuals are always situated under Database, I don't see how any game manual can be in-universe; the Animus user does not rely on buttons of a gaming controller to interact with the simulate environment, but every e-manual refers to them. Not only that, but some of the manuals even mention Uplay and the titles of other Assassin's Creed games. I might also add that some of the names of enemy archetypes aren't included in the e-manuals but are found only in the official game guides. EDIT: Assassin's Creed I's game menu indicate that it is meant to be taken literally as the Animus's interface based on the style and the care to avoid reference to controller buttons, but I think this is an exception.

Two options

I think the two interpretations we are dealing with here are: (a) it is too speculative and forced to treat the e-manuals as in-universe and/or the Animus auto-generates these archetypes or (b) it is too speculative and forced to treat it as an in-universe fact that these archetypes are classifications by the Templars and/or Assassins. Either way, we would be almost canonizing an interpretation, so we need to tread lightly here. I think we need to take the safest and most ambiguous route.

What are the main objectives?

I would like clarification that the main objective you are pursuing here, Lacrosse, is that you think this wiki should have a page that concisely and thoroughly documents every enemy archetype. I also would like clarification if you also think that the term "soldier" is being used incorrectly in this article as you have suggested before. You mentioned that you would be willing to look past it, but I think we need a firm answer if you consider this to be an actual problem that needs rectifying.

Definition of soldier

To the former, I agree that that would probably be best. For the latter, I think that you have to understand soldier in the context of the US military is probably more of a legal definition particular to the US government while the term can be broader in scope in different historical and linguistic contexts. When dealing with soldiers in the time of the Third Crusade, or the Italian Renaissance, or the Ming dynasty, and in Arabic, Italian, and Chinese, and in other languages, soldier is not so strictly defined as what you may be used to in the US military, such as Marines not being soldiers. In academic sources on history, soldier is used in a much more general sense for, well, any combatant of a state because what other more general term do we have for it aside from warrior? As far as I was able to tell when I started on this article revamp, Blighters, being common thugs, were the only enemies in the series which do not fall under this article, which is why for the purpose of having a single page on all enemy types, I was willing to compromise by including them in this page in a roundabout way even though I initially was against this. With Odyssey, however, we also have bandits and tribal warriors (though I guess Brotherhood also had thieves and Followers of Romulus), so such a compromise would no longer be adequate.

Unit name inconsistencies

Finally, while the inconsistency in unit names between Odyssey and Rebellion is an issue we should ideally reconcile, at the end of the day, the more authoritative source coupled with real-life sources on the matter can tell us which overwrites which. We could even just say that the equipment simply varied for some of these units.

Summary

In summary, here is my position so far:

• I agree that having a single page that thoroughly and concisely includes all enemy archetypes in the series is ideal (but if we can't find a solution I am fine settling for less).
• I think we need to be clear if in your proposal, you are suggesting that the Animus auto-generates archetypes or archetype names or if there is still an author behind these archetypes writing them into the Animus.
• I strongly disapprove of e-manuals being treated as in-universe because it simply isn't possible. They refer to PlayStation/Xbox/PC controls, Uplay, Ubisoft, and Assassin's Creed titles trademarked and everything. Also not every enemy type name is found in the manuals; many can be sourced only to game guides.
• I think there are still other solutions we can explore. For example, I can change the writing to describe agiles, brutes, and militia as not general classifications but just types of guards in the Renaissance, only referring to them by analogy in other periods. Or we can just give ambiguous statements about what these types are without citing the sources of these classifications—perhaps my mistake is not being ambiguous enough. We can even have the page you drafted as OOU, but this would set a precedent for allowing full OOU pages on gameplay which we may not like. We can try to think of another name for this "Soldier" page which is even more inclusive of all enemies although I doubt that we would be able to. There are pros and cons to all these solutions. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 00:54, April 20, 2020 (UTC)

After I looked at your draft more closely, it's clear that it is too OOU at this point. I don't want to scrap your ideas either though because it's clear you've been quite invested in it, but we definitely need to work on refining or modifying it somehow. We should take the idea of having a comprehensive page on enemy types and work from there. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 01:15, April 20, 2020 (UTC)

Personally I don’t think my draft implies that the Animus auto-generates the archetypes over them being programmed in specifically by Templars or Assassins. I purposely refrained from attributing the source because either way would be speculative and I don’t think it’s necessary to specify for the article. But if need be we can rewrite in the passive voice more. When I mention Animus I’m only referring to it in the sense that it is what is creating the simulation and everything in it.

I concede that the e-manual has OOU sections as I was going through Rogue's and they had one on controls while outside the Animus which I found disappointing. And trying to decide that some parts of the e-manual are IU while others are OOU would be a no-go. I will argue your other points. The game manual of the first Assassin’s Creed is what introduced the puppeteering system concept stating that the Animus projected controls into the user’s mind and uses a schematic similar to a video game for intuitive ease of use. Furthermore I think the premise that Animus is used to explain gamey features trumps the premise that "they are reliving the memories of ancestors' through a very real experience" when this is less than true given that otherwise Ezio wouldn’t be able to interact with glyphs or Arno with server bridges, etc. While the former premise might still fall through in some areas where we haven’t been given an adequate IU explanation for the mechanic I think we should try to maintain its integrity over the latter since it’s proven that the user does have some degree of autonomy. These of course are moot for the topic of e-manuals though since we can’t pick and choose.

The use of the classifications (regardless of who or what originally designates them) is already canonized by Chronicles Database which further describes the units in very programmed (gamey) language. Odyssey, Rebellion, and Identity also use the terms in what I would call IU but you seem to disagree on.

As for definition of soldier I now agree that we should use a more historically broad term than today’s legal usage to include things like mercenaries, militia, etc. However even doing that I feel Blighters, non Levant Assassins, thieves, bandits, cultists, etc should still be excluded from this. Same with non historical unit designations.

In regards to Odyssey vs Rebellion technically they don’t conflict because Odyssey doesn’t use terms like ekdromos or hypaspist. That’s its game guide which in this case and this case only I feel can be disregarded because it contradicts its own game.

In closing I still think the soldier page needs reworking and would like to provide some form of IU alternative for NPC types. Personally I don’t feel what I have in my draft is OOU but am not adverse to changes that you or others feel are necessary to bring it in compliance with our standards. Lacrossedeamon (talk) 18:12, April 20, 2020 (UTC)

I think I should get the most complicated part out of the way first. What I meant by "gamey features" is anything from things like scaled down geography (where the world in the Animus is a fraction of the size of the real-world which is unfeasible) to viewing the ancestor from at third person point-of-view to RPG gameplay mechanics and physics to controlling the ancestor with controls akin to that of a console controller. A puppeteer system being present doesn't necessarily mean that the Animus user controls everything through buttons they press using only fingers; more likely they control the head with the head, the hands with their hands, the legs with their legs, etc. Otherwise, I'm not sure that you understand what I mean by "reliving the memories of ancestors' through a very real experience" because that certainly won't preclude interaction with glyphs or server bridges; the point is that the user is brought into a virtual environment that feels entirely real and which they can synchronize with as though they are the ancestor themselves. If the user sees the world precisely as we do as players, then this synchronization cannot happen because they would not be literally in their shoes, being that ancestor, to the extent that their identity can even be confused with that ancestor through long-term use. Synchronization and reliving an ancestor's memory is the entire premise of the Animus, the entire premise of Assassin's Creed, so of course it cannot be trumped by the Animus being instead a video game for the user.

"The use of the classifications (regardless of who or what originally designates them) is already canonized by Chronicles Database which further describes the units in very programmed (gamey) language. Odyssey, Rebellion, and Identity also use the terms in what I would call IU but you seem to disagree on."
I never said that the classifications are not canon. The issue I had is that the e-manual is not IU, not that the classifications cannot be IU whatsoever, so I'm not sure where this is coming from at all or what you're even referring to here. You are right that we can't have the e-manuals as half-IU, and half-OOU. However, I can reassure you that even if the e-manual is not IU, OOU sources can be used to inform IU content, which is after all what we are doing when we cite statements by Ubisoft and reference books.

Odyssey vs. Rebellion units

"However even doing that I feel Blighters, non Levant Assassins, thieves, bandits, cultists, etc should still be excluded from this. Same with non historical unit designations."
The former is exactly what I think. I actually only included Blighters in this page in the first place as a compromise for you specifically. I don't understand why we would exclude historical units though. Hoplites, pikemen, and any type of footsoldier are very much soldiers.

The game guide's naming of the Odyssey units doesn't contradict that of Odyssey because one source designating the general archetype to be a brute is not mutually exclusive with another source referring to it by a more specific unit name if that is what you are referring to. The guide's names are also more consistent with real history than Rebellion's are. Ekdromoi are not supposed to be heavy brutes wielding giant warhammers, which is how they are depicted in Rebellion. They were light hoplites, and the soldiers in Odyssey designated as such by the game guide are light and swift. It might be the fact that they are called "heavy soldiers" and wear cuirasses that seems inconsistent. To be honest, I'm not actually sure if the cuirasses are accurate, but I have always interpreted "heavy" and "light" to be relative. They are light for hoplites even in the game, hence fitting the historical description of them being light hoplite, but they may be heavy for pure skirmishers. Nevertheless, they are still light and swift gameplay-wise, so I don't see any strong contradiction. Certainly, the fact that the unit performs as a light unit fits the ekdromoi designation more than the slowest, heaviest unit in the game, and frankly, it does perplex me how even if you think heavy soldiers can't be ekdromoi, you think that that means they would be the brutes (or so it sounded like before when you said the names were switched around).

It may be that the brutes in Odyssey and Rebellion really don't properly correspond with either ekdromoi or hypaspists, and we might have to end up accepting the fact that both sources are simply inaccurate, and the units don't fit any of these designations perfectly. Maybe we should consider a policy where we prioritize real-life historical sources above all for stuff like this... >_<

OOU elements in the draft

Finally, you are right that by sheer ambiguity, we might be able to avoid attributing the source for the Animus archetypes, but the reasons why I think your draft is currently too OOU are the following. The sentence "Animus [...] generates certain individuals" makes it sound like an active agent. Of course, I understand that the sentence doesn't necessarily mean that it is sentient, and that you have already suggested that you could rewrite it to be more passive, so you're on the right track there.

Another is the fact that the draft sticks too literally and exactly to gameplay designations, down to there being precisely four types of Ptolemaic soldiers named A, B, C, and D. This suggests that in the world of the simulation, there were really only exactly four models and four combinations of equipment for Ptolemaic soldiers. The strict delineation between male and female stalkers is weird as well, and I am not comfortable with how it lists out the other non-enemy archetypes so cleanly.

I originally wrote two paragraphs elaborating further on why this is too OOU, but I think I am already overwhelming you with text here, and I didn't want to sound too critical since I already might be doing that. I went more into why we can't take everything we experience as players of the game as exactly and literally everything that the character experiences as the Animus user.

I guess I don't feel confident that the enemy types we meet as players are necessarily how the enemy types all appear to be for Animus users. My idea was that the Animus uses specific classifications and terminology for the enemies that the ancestor met, but not that it renders enemies into these exact types and also nothing else.

The main caveat is that I think the page as it stands currently would violate our policy on OOU-perspective where editors merely document gameplay then shift the wording a little to superficially make it appear to be written from an IU-perspective. Of course, I know that you hadn't meant to do this. The page in question is complicated because unlike writing about things which would be in the "real-world" within the universe, it documents things which would be in the virtual world in the universe.

Solution?

It won't do if I just critiqued and critiqued without providing actual constructive advice on how we might proceed. How about this? You and I make adjustments to the Animus Archetype and Soldier pages respectively based on one another's (and everyone else's) feedback. We can do like a round or two of this and then see where we're at to see if perhaps both pages are more satisfactory for one another and then go from there. I'll take a break from working on the Ezio Auditore article lol.

If it turns out that the Animus archetype page really can't be written from an OOU perspective, or my idea for it deviates too far from the goal you want from it, we can see about just making it a purely OOU page if the ultimate objective is to have such a page for the convenience of our readers. This would set a precedent for allowing full OOU pages for other elements of gameplay, but we can lay down strict guidelines on when this is permitted. As I said, I don't want to completely dump your page or your idea since this is something that you seem invested in, and I want to make sure your contribution means something rather than just being dismissed entirely.

Also let me know if you wish my responses weren't so long. :P Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 21:15, April 20, 2020 (UTC)

I'm fine with how long your responses are; my only gripe is how much I have to type in response as I hate typing on iPad which is what I use most unfortunately.

While I understand your point it seems to be contradicted both by the first game manual which again describes the Animus as projecting video game like controls into the mind of the user and by things like Minerva specifically looking away from Ezio to talk to Desmond. I don't think we know enough about how synchronization works to definitely say it must be experienced first person. While that is the most logical option it is in no way guaranteed. The main issue here is that we disagree on how 1:1 what we see as players is what the animus user sees. And I don’t think that’s ever something that will be answered unless we capture and torture an Ubisoft higher-up.

(b) it is too speculative and forced to treat it as an in-universe fact that these archetypes are classifications by the Templars and/or Assassins. I think I misinterpreted this statement which led me to mentioning the Database abs games that specifically use the terms in their UI.

And now you misread my statement as I said non historical unit designations meaning brute, agile, seeker, etc. Naturally I think units like hoplites, jaegers, pikemen, etc should be on the Soldiers page. I am conflicted on how we should talk about units like Almogavars, Varangians, Grenadiers, or any other misrepresented troop both on this page and their own pages.

When saying the Odyssey game guide and the game contradicted I was referring to getting the strategos and hoplite swapped which on top of the misspelling of hypaspist I was using to hold it at lower credibility than both the game and Rebellion. Of course the game Odyssey also contradicts the novel by having both sides field strategoi and polemarchs instead Sparta only using polemarchs and Athens using strategoi. Rebellion also only uses polemarchs for Sparta and strategoi for Athens but mainly just uses the term general for both and doesn’t explicitly differentiate between which faction used which.

I think in terms of the animus generating something in the simulation it’s okay to use active voice because regardless of whether the input is from a programmer or the animus all on it own, the Animus is actively generating all that is in the simulation. But this is not a major point of contention and on further review think I would prefer passive voice because normally when I write I try to keep the main topic of my paragraph the subject of my sentences rather than try to avoid passive voice.

I only used "Variant ..." as a placeholder and wouldn’t be adverse to changing it but if we can use terms from the guide like "predator" it seems to me that we could use "predator variant ...". Same with male and female models for the Stalkers. And I was iffy on including civilian NPC types since the game guides only refer to archetypes when talking about enemy combatants to the point that it excludes allied combatants. However I felt it best to start most inclusive and pare I think down as need be.

Of course this goes back to our first point. I think the Animus does render enemies of the same archetype as being the same to user vice the aforementioned variants which would be like subclassifications. I have ideas on why this might be the case but that would just be speculation on my part.

Your solution sounds good. Personally I think if we can’t get it to confirm with IU policy we can scrap the idea because I don't want to be the one that sets the OOU precedent outside of BtS sections, franchise entry pages, and staff/actors.

Now it’s time for me to hibernate for an eon after relatively typing so much. Lacrossedeamon (talk) 15:35, April 21, 2020 (UTC)

Alright, thanks for all the clarifications. Feel free to list some suggestions to revise the "Soldier" page by the way, so I have a clearer idea of where to begin. I know we are removing the Blighters. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 15:42, April 21, 2020 (UTC)

Not directly related to the subject, but you both have raised it, so I'm going to toss a couple of cents into the discussion. We know that Animus is a program, and it has subprograms (original test program, the "guts of the Animus" and whatever Clay cooked up). We know, for a fact, that there are instances wherein the 'memories' are experienced as first-person, namely Desmond's Journey and The Lost Archive. However, those memories were abstract and fragmented, unlike anything experienced via 'proper' memories, so their weight on what gameplay mechanics should be consided IU and what OoU is kinda... iffy. (They do, however, bear a passing resemblance to the sole existing piece of an Isu memory.) Sadelyrate (siniath) 17:16, April 21, 2020 (UTC)

Changes

So I think we’d take out the last bit of the intro, most of the meat of the classification section (to remove the non historical designations), the blighters, and maybe the cult. I’d say leave the Levantine Assassins as I’d argue they are a sovereign state with a standing army while the Cult is not.

Gear might also need to be more generalized. Lacrossedeamon (talk) 02:45, April 23, 2020 (UTC)