@nifa, just a couple of additional details: -The nine shields should have a rim, and be part of distinct stone blocks, as seen in the photo. -There should be no wood in it, everything was replaced with stone and metal.

All of it  The point of instancing is drawing the same stuff hundreds of time, like say grass. The only thing we do and we can do right now is batching. Where we try to be smart about the order of drawing things. The only scenario where it might help is say when running the game with the option to remove variety. Assuming there are enough similar units for it to work. E.g if you're playing against 12 different civs, won't work much.  

Can you align the /\  with the drape ?

There is no deep plan yet. I'll need someone with a deeper understanding of the game's code to help me do this part, or, at least, make it possible in the base game's code for mods to add battalions of this type, even if public mod ("Empires Ascendant") doesn't use the feature. 

How much variation reduction is necessary to support instancing?