Unit Sizes

**MasterAdnin** · August 22, 2007, 08:38 PM

This is really what I am concerned about. Ever since RTW, and maybe before that I do not know, CA always said battles with up to 10,000 soldiers. Will this actually be possible in Empire Total War? By this I mean will the unit sizes be bigger? Or will it be like Kingdoms where you can also control reinforcement armies? What do you guys think? Also it'd be nice if a CA person could reply

.

Salaam,
Adnan

**Hattori** · August 22, 2007, 08:42 PM

I hope so, but with those graphics... wouldnt 10.000 be hard to handle?

**The Walrus** · August 22, 2007, 08:45 PM

Lets answer this question to?

Do we care more about graphics, or about unit sizes? I've heard of MTW battles with 10,000+ soldiers(reinforcements of course) and it actually being playable(but a little laggy)

**Spiff** · August 22, 2007, 08:50 PM

Depends how good the engine is, if it's well enough written then its entirely possible battles could be huge while seamlessly reducing to a lower level of detail when zoomed out, so it only draws what it needs to fool you into thinking it still looks highly defined.

The majority of slowdown would then come from the AI path finding and logic i would guess since it i imagine has to be calculated at the same level of complexity continually, but would be worth some slowdown i think if it ended up being more realistic.

From what i know more modern games tend to take advantage of CPU multiple cores and divide AI and rendering tasks more efficiently - so who knows, depends which way they want to go with it. I certainly wouldn't say more men on screen = better game though.

**italiano** · August 22, 2007, 08:51 PM

Well going by the features they've already said I expect armies to be larger. We get to control reinforcements in kingdoms, and I think the next step is for those reinforcements to just be included in the main army in the first place.

It doesn't really make sense for there to be say a 20 unit limit per stack, but then to be able to control 2-3 stacks. It's cleaner and more simple just to control one huge stack, especially for the AI. Of course that brings up the issue of performance, so perhaps the game is high scalable? Maybe the engine will just be more efficient at displaying larger numbers of troops?

It's really tough to speculate about this since we won't even be able to properly take advantage of the reinforcements in kingdoms. How many of us will be able to play 4 stacks of huge units on high settings and play it well? Then we've got to consider how the graphical improvements of the Empire engine will affect performance. Can we really get an idea of what to expect?

At this point I'm expecting larger battles but at the same time will be impressed if they are larger.

**Chola_Kingdom** · August 22, 2007, 10:11 PM

i just have doubt do they have land battles too? or isit like pirates we have to hung in the ships forever, can we take a look at Maps any ?

**chewietobbacca** · August 22, 2007, 11:50 PM

Yes they do have land battles too. Each ship would represent a unit as each ship alone has multiple men that will take casualties etc.

As far as 20 sets of units per stack, nobody is sure right now since ETW will be a completely new engine and may not even play the same way as RTW/M2TW.

But this era DID have huge battles - i'm talking 40,000+ on each side facing off. So in all likelihood, units may be larger.

**italiano** · August 23, 2007, 08:26 AM

Chewie, my guess is that the "stack" style will change just as it seems everything else is. I'm thinking "army" instead of generic stacks, so you can have as large a stack as you want (probably with an eventual limit). To handle hardware limits they might just make it so only a certain amount of troops can be used on the battlefield and the rest wait as reinforcements.

**LegionnaireX** · August 23, 2007, 08:35 AM

But this era DID have huge battles - i'm talking 40,000+ on each side facing off. So in all likelihood, units may be larger.

Imperial Rome fought battles with men numbering in the 100,000's, but that didn't lead CA to drastically increase the number of men on the field from MTW. Its all about balance. I bet sieges in Rome and M2 would have been path finding catastrophes if you were allowed more men then you could have.

**Garnier** · August 23, 2007, 09:26 AM

What I always say in regard to making the system work better, would be to allow unlimited troops in an army, but when you go into battle, scale the armies down to a set number for each battle, say if 6000 men could be handled, and there are two armies, one with 40000 and one with 20000, the numbers would be divided by 10 so there would be 4000 against 2000.

**D.B. Cooper** · August 23, 2007, 09:51 AM

Originally Posted by chewietobbacca

Y
As far as 20 sets of units per stack, nobody is sure right now since ETW will be a completely new engine and may not even play the same way as RTW/M2TW.

But this era DID have huge battles - i'm talking 40,000+ on each side facing off. So in all likelihood, units may be larger.

I seriously doubt the unit sizes will be bigger than Med2 or Rome, because I suspect the system requirements will be so high that most people won't have the computer to play with 40 000 men and high graphical settings. I think that CA should stop trying to enhance their graphics, which are already pretty much the best in strategy games.

But I still need to figure out the system requirements before I decide if I'm going to buy it.

**italiano** · August 23, 2007, 10:06 AM

I seriously doubt the unit sizes will be bigger than Med2 or Rome

Unit sizes perhaps not, but armies should be much larger. Battles have always had the potential to be 28-45k, which would happen if 9 stacks met on the battle map. In Kingdoms we'll actually be able to control these reinforcements and to make the campaign map more slick it's logical to just include all the stacks into one large single stack. What remains to be seen is whether they'll leave it at that or introduce playability limits (I hope not). The only reason battles were limited in previous games is because stacks weren't grouped together, not the actual stack and unit limits themselves.

**Ketchup** · August 23, 2007, 11:25 AM

I dont know if any of you guys have heard of/played a game called mount and blade, but the system they have works quite well. basically, there may be a party of troops numbering 400 men against 300 men but because of limitations it only allows 60 people onscreen. Therefore, according to the general's tactical skill he will be allowed a certain portion of his army onto the field, with the rest waiting by as reinforcements. Allow me to demonstrate:

General A has 4 command stars and controls an army of 20 000 men.

General B has 2 command stars and also controls an army of 20 000 men.

When the 2 armies do battle, say the computer can only handle 10 000 men onscreen, General A will field say, 5500 troops whereas General B (due to his skill being less) is only able to field 4500 troops, making up the total 10 000 troop cap.

This would reflect general A's superieor logistical and tactical skill as well as understanding troop movement, without unbalancing it too much.

What do you guys think?

PS. those numbers are only approximate and I, personally, will be hoping for more men onscreen.

Cheers

**Acamas** · August 24, 2007, 11:37 PM

I'm really not interested in land battles anymore. There's just too much lag for huge battles, most real historical battles (which made a difference in history and required a lot of strategy) consisted of over 50,000 troops, not many computers can take that even with the lowest possible settings. But I would live to have larger battles in Europe, less medium size battles with only around 4000 units. Most battles should either consist of 15,000 units or 1000 or less in skirmishes. These are the fun battles that require a lot of strategy and uniqueness in units.

What I'm interested in is maneuverability in units. I want them to swim, climb cliffs, build small defenses, and hide in trees or under brush correctly. This has been done in Ancient Wars: Sparta but on a much smaller scale.

**tco** · August 25, 2007, 12:09 AM

Originally Posted by ArPharazon

I seriously doubt the unit sizes will be bigger than Med2 or Rome, because I suspect the system requirements will be so high that most people won't have the computer to play with 40 000 men and high graphical settings. I think that CA should stop trying to enhance their graphics, which are already pretty much the best in strategy games.

But I still need to figure out the system requirements before I decide if I'm going to buy it.

OK people it is time to start thinking 4th dimensionally, to quote Dr. Emit Brown. You need to think that upcoming stragady games will defiantly take Med 2'S Graf crown.

All equal, you people have a year to upgrade, it is not like it is coming out tomorrow. Heck I have a comp that is nearly 3 years old and is running Med 2 on the highest settings, with only 2 upgrades.

I want the CA to work on game play more too. Med 2 was lacking in style and Substance. So I feel your pain there. Just start thinking 4th dimensionally.

Yea I too want 500 man units.

**lamerlot** · August 25, 2007, 12:35 AM

CA also should plan for future beyond late 2008 hardware date. At end of 2007 C2D is pretty much mid spec. I guess by end of 2008, quad core will be standard mid spec. And beyond 2009, 8 cores, 16 cores,etc... What I am saying is that ETW should be able to scale to machine 3 years or so after the game released. I love epic battles and cinematic effects. I think the ultimate Total War would be a one-to-one scale ! What I think CA should do is not to lock into a fixed scale size like small - medium - large - huge. Instead there should be a scale like 1to10 as in 10 men in real life equal 1 men in game...for example. I rather take RTW graphic level but with a 1to1 scale.