I'm confused. I thought the dev plan for "no built-in units" was in part all about enabling players to develop elite units that really stood out in a crowd. What am I missing?

Maybe I'm not getting something about how upgrades might work (I haven't really messed with the unit design system other than to make decent scouts). I'm also probably making some unconscious assumptions that upgrades will work kind of like they do in GalCiv2, only without the basic framework of hull sizes limiting your options.

And now that Doopliss mentions it, I'm also not fond of the idea of 'forcing' level-grinding into the game by closing off design options with arbitrary unit level boundaries. The game should give Demiansky more or less what he wants, but do it 'organically.'

Putting it simply: your system is forceful and arbitrary, Demiansky - also, it is not needed. There is already a way of controlling how far your army modernization can go and that's called 'price'. By economical reasons, you will not be able to field vast swathes of superbly equipped peasants, unless you are fond of going bankrupt over and over again. A dragon armor is very expensive and it is nearly impossible to equip all your grunts with it. Even top-notch full-armor is already expensive, making prohibitive to equip all your units with it (they are also not very good for archers, for example). That's a game logic that has been around for ages: more powerful units are more expensive to field and to keep, therefore you might consider equipping only your best units with the best equipment.

Veteran and elite units will naturally arise from battles, after gathering enough experience. These units will not only be generally more powerful but also might acquire new skills. They will be naturally stronger than common units even better equipped. If you throw your money into equipping them with the best, they will truly become feared in the battlefield. There is no need to limit the use of some equipments just for them - it is already the logical choice.

Forceful is exactly what is necessary.  In theory you are right, but this balance is never, ever achieved in strategy games.  You are treating unit design like a free market, which works well when an individual has perfect information and is capable of behaving perfectly rational in their own best interest.  Assuming that players will have this, you also must assume that the per capita benefits of fielding non-elite units will match with per capita benefits of fielding elites, which thus is practically never done properly in strategy games with military components.

You make reference to a game logic that has been around "for ages," but I can think of very few games (if any) where training a greater number of inferior units as opposed to very powerful units is a rewarding strategy, unless they are trained in small quantities for fringe roles or "happiness garrisons".  As a result, you end up with homogenious units in each roll which are upgraded with each tech advance.  In Master of Magic, you never built spearmen for your regular army in a city that could build paladins.  In Civilization 4, you never built axmen when you could build macemen.  In Master of Orion 2 and Ascendancy, building smaller ships at anything but the very beginning was almost always foolhardy, and even the AI knew it.  By the way, all of these games have been cited by developers as being inspirations for Elemental.  Just assuming that Elemental will be the one to "get it right" this time and properly balance values just isn't good enough for me.

So yes, forceful is exactly what we need.  I don't want elite units to be spammable, I want them to have strategic roles that can't be easily replaced, and I don't want this feature to be left up to fickle economic theory.

And there are other advantage too.  With formal "tiers" it's much easier to recognize where your, and an enemy's, formidable soldiers are on the battlefield (1-4 chevrons near the unit would be sufficient to denote level). 

Something along these lines seems like it might do a better job of doing what Demiansky wants re avoiding 'elite unit spam' while also avoiding weird things like level-based limits on unit equipment.

I've never played the other games you mention, so it sounds to me like you're calling for some kind of unit status between regulars (what we can create in Unit Design mode) and champions (what I suppose we can only get via some yet-to-be-in-the-beta deployment mechanism).

If that's true, I like the idea because I want to see clear distinctions between strong stack-leaders who rose from the ranks and storied heroes who might make WoT's Mat Cauthon look like an unblemished paragon of the officer class.

I don't think units should have to gain experience or in any way "grow into" the ability to use their weapons to full potential. If I can afford to equip an entire 1000-man army with lightning infused mithril swords, I should be able to, without any arbitray level limits or whatever. "Oh, my army is only at 50% efficiency until they all get to level 10... great..."

I like Tasunke's suggestion better, that leveling up makes that unit better, but there aren't any debuffs for not reaching that level.

Goodmorning all,

I would like to suggest that rather then being able to use differnt equipment,  that higher level units can use trained abilities better.

There is no really good reason why somebody should not be able to use a +5 sword, we're trained to accept this by Diablo and Ilk,  but really, a good sword is Easer to use then a poor quality one.  so if anything, leveling up would allow one to use poorer equipment...

However leveling up Does allow you to addapt to situations faster.  So a High level unit can preform special abilities and use special equipment in less ideal situations.

A green unit with a medkit can only use it  when no enemies are nearby and hasn't been attacked for a full 2 rounds,   An elite unit can use the same med kit while laying the beat down on his or her opponent.

So your Eleit units becomes spcial because they can DO things when green units can't

Also whatever system used has to account for armies of size  3, and size 300,000.

10,000 greens can 'march' together, and fight like a untrained mob . . . or can be elite and stand thier ground acting as one, and using group skills that turn the unit into killing mashines. using the same equipment.


It's not always waht you have,  often it's how well you use it.... so to speak.

take care

Robbie Price.

There is literally no difference between both methods.  It's like arguing that the glass is half full instead of half empty.  Both methods achieve the same end of making a weapon less efficient in the hands of a green soldier compared to an elite soldier.  And why is "arbitrary" the word of the hour?  I'm not throwing this feature up for the hell of it--- I'm throwing it up for stability and balance. 

And aside from that, giving your green soldiers lightening swords is still better than mundane swords.  What matters is that certain weapons aren't so powerful that the difference between a green soldier armed with uuber weapons and an elite soldier armed with uuber weapons is slim.  If that's the case, then no one will be using elite, experienced soldiers in tactically meaningful ways.  Creating a feature by which good weapons aren't as good for crappy soldiers as they are for well trained soldiers is a way to guarentee that elite soldiers will always earn special consideration in tactical battles.  They also become something that are very valuable to deploy in strenuous situations, but very painful to lose.  If the afore mentioned margin is too small, than you can simply spam whatever soldiers you need to fill tactical niches, whenever you want, without any long term strategic foresight, and this is what I'm worried about.

People are people. They should get skills proper to their initial training and as they gain experience, those skills should improve (and unlock new ones if he meets some requirements). Equipment should be able to be changed, veterans or not. Special equipment should be only used proficiently by more seasoned troops though.

The grinding... well, if you want veteran armies, you need to grind. If along the way you get some extra cities or something like that, the better. If normal units could lose experience (never below their initial one when they were recruited) during prolonged periods of no combat even better. And bigger upkeep for them.

Troops should be able to get sent to train anytime so the regular Guard you recruited in the first turns can go to your Misspoint Academy and become Elite after the proper amount of time and training (with some extra cost to upkeep?). Or maybe learn a different set of skills (in addition to the ones he already has).

After reading some of the posts here, it seems to me restricting equipment to veteran and elite status troops is untenable. But, I'm trying to imagine a green peasant with heavy gothic plate and a greatsword, and it is just not working in my head. More sophisticated weapons should incur... I dunno... a penalty. Although to be fair I think the green peasant wouldn't be good with a shield and spear, either.

Other than that, I don't see why armies shouldn't equip fresh troops with viciously awesome equipment. If an empire just found the Master Sword and only has green troops, why shouldn't it give someone a Master Sword for a last ditch effort?

It's a good word.