I agree with OP.
When looking at all the armours in the game at first glance, it looks like there are a bunch.
And while on paper it may look good, there actually isnt alot of armour in the game.
The thing is, there is a serious lack in Low/medium tier armour missing in the game.
Ranging from the categories; peasant clothes, medium/high class clothes, padded armours, chainmails and cheap lamellar.
I believe there are 9 'actual peasant' style clothing in the game, and if you split that to 6 main cultures plus all the various sub cultures in the game, it is actually less than one style peasant outfit per culture.
Regarding peasant clothes, there should be atleast 3 times that number in the game to make it feel more immersive.
Now there are a bunch of other tunics and stuff, but that is not considered peasants clothes, those are either medium class, or noble class clothes.
But the thing is, due to the lack of actual peasant clothes, then DEVS have been forced to give out medium class clothes, to peasants to fill the gap, the lack of armours in the game is actually quite obvious and not something that the devs are even trying to hide.
If you take a look at the actual Sturgian Peasant, which is a troop that can be upgraded to a sturgian recruit.
Then the only thing that tells me that he is a peasant is the fact that he wields a hoe as a working tool.
The actual clothing that he is wearing, resembles not that of a peasant, but instead that of a semi wealthy town person.
And it is the same thing with all the other cultures.
The only ones that looks like actual peasants in the game are looters.
And that is a problem. because that is how all the peasants should look in all the cultures either when you recruit them, or walk around in villages.
Even the first recruit you get from villages, should be wearing clothes like a looter
And the actual looters should in fact look even more ragged than they currently are-
And while we lack a lot of the essential armours, devs are more focused on adding more and more of high tier armour, that should be considered exclusive to lords only.
But instead they give these armours to level 5 troops of the peasant line.
If we look at the ''Heavy Lamellar over Chainmail'' which the sturgian heavy axemen are wearing.
In the sake of Immersion, only a extremely wealthy lord would ever be able to afford this kind of luxury armour, but in TW logics, this is what every levy funded peasant are wearing.
At most and at highest tier these guys would wear some kind of cheap chainmail vest or cheap lamellar or just padded armour, (or to name a armour in the game, then i would probably go with the ''Cured Leather Lamellar Shirt'' for the heavy sturgian axemen which is a tier 5 troop.
If this was supposed to resemble realism/immersion
Even the heavy lamellar vest which is worn by the sturgian heroic line breaker, is considered to be designed for wealthy lords.
Not even for the noble line tier 6, would i let them use these exclusively armours which are intended for lords.
I would instead give them a cheaper looking hauberk or something.
and this is the problem we are having regarding armours.
Currently Tier 1 recruit looks like they should be tier 3 townsman, and tier 5 looks like they should be noble line tier 10.
If TW seeks to provide the consumers a immersive bannerlord experience, then i am sorry to say, but they have to create atleast 3 times the number of armours they have in game, and for every high tier armour they are adding, they should be adding atleast 6 armours considered for lower tier, to equal the difference.
Honestly, i would love to see atleast 15 more actual peasant clothes, then around 20 more clothing which are considered for medium class, 10+ more for noble class.10+ padded armours, 10+ chainmails and hauberks and 10+ more lamellar armours.
But these numbers i am requesting, should not be split in between the cultures, and become culture specific.
All of these armours should be considered ''universal'' armours, which means that every single one of these armours can be used for any kind of culture.
So none of the armours resembles battania, or aserai as default. They have to be neutral cultured.
For over two years now i have been working on a massive overhaul for the game, with a lot of uniquely looking cultures, and i have created so many assets by now, and even with all my many assets i am still in need of more armours to fill the gaps.
If i had to rely only on what TW had provided, it would be impossible.
My troops have currently between 6-15 equipment sets each to give variety.
We are talking hundreds of different troops.
In vanilla, most troops barely have 2 sets each, and if they do, then the only thing that differs from the other is if they have a scarf or not.
So yes, there is a serious lack of armours in the game as of now.