Unit Size

So, I was thinking how right now in the unit designer, we are making guys one at a time.... I think that 1 guy right now should equal about 5. Maybe as the game gets flowing large stacks of units might be churned out, but as it is right now, you are going to have pretty small battles. Do you really want to fight over your town with 10 guys vs 12 guys? If one unit you design comes out in stacks that are about 5 or more units, you then have a 100 vs 120 person battle, which feels more 'epic'. Maybe this is something to do when tactical battles get thrown in, as a unit can still be represented by a single soldier on the map, but still there has to be a bigger scale.

Afterall a massive army might have 50 guys in a stack. Do you really want 50 single troops to be a massive army coming at you, or do you want it to be 10,000? Heck just 1000. This ALSO sets up more spots where your spells feel more epic. If you have a dragon eat up 10 stacks, he didn't just chomp 10 guys, he chompped 100. The spell you just opened up under that stack, you just killed 1000 people, not 100.

This seems like a small detail, but I really feel like it is hugely important to create an epic feel to the game.

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I would also agree that custom-designing each unit will take away from the feel for the scope of the game and could potentially add a cumbersome process if you want to churn out a sizable army. It is an awesome idea in terms of customizability but really, if i am going to go through a stack of 100 peasants and give each of them different items to tweak their different stats that would be insane. I think the Civ4 approach recognized this and over-simplified the process. However, it would be a micromanagement hell if i needed to do this for each unit and each time i wanted to make a squad.

I would say that if the game implements "hero" units, it would be cool to be able to customize them.

That said, if the game could somehow "scale" the size of units given the timeframe that might work (or could fail miserably). Perhaps starting out in the world the units would be small in number as they are simply the survivors. Maybe set milestones as the game progresses that would enlarge the base size of units? Then maybe somehow someway set up a system where you could standarize their equipment and implement training to keep their stats similar? This is perhaps needless as a bigger country can field more units. Just some rambles.

Anyhow - love the ideas so far!

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Wintersong

Join Date 07/2006

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Er... when you start the game, the people start recovering from a cataclism that was close to destroy everything. The Sovereign (and the enemy ones) start rebuilding the world and attracting followers from the forsaken lands to live in his first city (and the later ones as Prestige increases and population reproduces). So it's quite normal that at the beginning you go recruiting 1 guy at a time. If you start recruting too many people too soon, who will make the cities grow? Who will pay the taxes? Who will do the research? Each guy you recruit is a guy less in your city. That said, I'm quite sure that as game advances in turns, you can get quite epic armies going on. But at the very beginning, to recuit 10 veterans guys with some decent equipment is quite a feat (altough research right now is a "joke").

The unit size (currently 1 individual or 10) might need to have more categories once you reach higher populations (50? 100?). But not sure how tactical battles are going to work so I don't know how much the size of the unit is important.

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One of the XML files details out the various "unit sizes". It goes something like single, troop, platoon, company, battalion, legion if I recall correctly. Since it's just an XML file, it should even be moddable if you don't like the out-of-the-box orgs.

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Right, since we aren't sure how battles play out it might be a moot issue. But I guess the 'build 10' button they have in there might eventually become something like 'build 100' and actually be feasable to build multiple times.

I guess what got me thinking on this was the latest post about building units and having each with its own rack of items on it, which might lead me to think that if you aren't abstracting what you are building as a unit of guys, and a solo guy, managing 100 guys and having to creep through their INV to make sure they got built with the +HP ring would be a major PITA.

I think in game though I'd like to see the units represented as 5 guys. Maybe even in the build a soldier screen, you have the main guy standing in front of 4 guys in the background who get updated as you change the load out. Meh this is all visual though and can be a number of things...not really the phase of the beta yet for this I guess.

Just wanted that in the back of everone's head though. Honestly one of my beef's with Age of Wonders was my armies felt tiny since each unit was his own self, didn't feel like I was commanding any kind of army at all, just a small scouting party.

Also roleplaying asside, I think when your populations are around 200 + or so at the begining of the game, thinking of units of 5 rather then 1 is not much of a stretch roleplaying wise.

Though as you said, it would be an interesting feel if you do move from making numbers in the low 10s early game to in the 100's mid game up to 1000's late game.

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eh, like I said in another thread/post, I think its best if you start out building them one at a time, and then later-on, when you have enough man-power, influence, and resources, you can "mass produce" units, so when building one Imperial Lancer, you can slide the cost to build actually 10 units at one time.

we ARE looking at the possibility to field 200-500 individual men/beasts on a battlefield at one time, right? At least?

Also, you can group 10 or so units as one formation, to give them all the same orders, and be represented by one portrait on the short-hand "regiment selector" ... although initially you have the option to build one man at a time, when you only have a few people and a few resources at your desposal.

I think keeping the transition from one man units, to make a total team of maybe 5-20 guys, into 10 man units, to make a total ARMY of 200-300 guys, into a relatively smooth process, is key. Therefore, I think making a customizable slider, from one - 10 men to be built at a time, as well as some sort of regrouping function after losses from battle, would be a good thing.

Edit: one of my main turn-off of Heroes of Might and Magic was having 200+ guys being represented by one person ... that whole system as a 4x game seems pure bollox to me anyways. Lesse, im gonna place 2BILLION cannons on ONE TILE. yea .... that makes sense ...

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