My concern with unit cards and the removal of unit strength represented in a number.

[CTD_or_Bust]

Unit cards are one of the basic elements of battles in Total War. They exist so you may quickly select your units and quickly gauge the strength of your units. Rome 2 has made a step backwards and removed the numerical strength of a unit remaining. This post will demonstrate through examples why it was a mistake.

Shogun 2 in many ways has been the pinnacle of Creative Assemblys craft. Unit cards are functional and simple which allows the player to immediately see what kind of unit it is and how many soldiers are in the unit. Let's take a look at a Shogun 2 unit card. Note that this is a modified unit card with a custom background but our focus is on the units strength, represented in the bottom left corner.

You can immediately discern several facts that are important to your decision making in a battle. You can see the total strength in men which is represented by a number. You can see the strength remaining which is represented by a bar underneath the number. You can see a rough estimate of how much damage the unit has taken in a battle by the color of the bar (red, yellow or green). I cannot find any flaw in Shogun 2s representation of the units strength. It conveys all the important decision making information immediately and can be read with accuracy at a glance. Now let's have a look at Rome 2s unit cards in an image from the Battle of Teutoburg Forest.

You can immediately discern what kind of unit it is but the exact strength has been removed. As well it appears the color coded bars (red for low units, yellow for roughly half remaining, green for more than half) seem absent. No longer can you tell at a glance how many units exactly remain. This is very important for two reasons. Firstly, a bar can only tell you how many units are remaining from the start of a battle. Secondly, not all of your battles start with units at full strength.

For example:
I am fighting in Iberia and attack the settlement of Carthago Nova. I win the siege but suffer some losses. In the next turn a Carthaginian army assaults my army. There is not enough time for the full replenishment of a units lost numbers and some units are under strengthed. What will the unit cards tell me in battle? We know that there will be a green bar representing the units 'health' in remaining men. However the remaining men will be less than a full strength unit. Now do you understand the plight of removing the number of men remaining from the unit card?

Let's say you have two units of the same type. One at full strength with 150 men and one at half strength with 75 men. Won't they look identical in battle? Both units will have a full green bar and without hovering over the units card for more information (precious seconds) or visually inspecting the unit (even more time ill spent) how would you tell the units apart? In Shogun 2 and earlier you could see the numerical strength of a unit and tell at a glance how many men it contained. In Rome 2, that is missing and with it, an important part of the players decision making is also missing.

I know it's very trite to request Creative Assembly explains [complaint xyz] on various forums. But in lieu of Creative Assembly who may be too busy, can anyone here hazard a guess at why the units numerical strength was removed and how we will learn to compensate for having part of our basic elements of battle taken away from us?

mods used in unit card compilation image:
RTW: Europa Barbarorum
M2TW: Stainless Steel
ETW: Darth Mod Ultimate Commander
NTW: NTW3
Shogun 2: DarthMod with JFC unit cards
mods were used simply because I was too lazy to uninstall them before
taking a screenshot and are not part of a point I am trying to make.

[DisgruntledGoat]

Unit strength is there. Its the green bar at the bottom of the card. The red bar is the ammo for that unit. So at a glance I can see the strength of the unit no problem.

[RGA]

As well it appears the color coded bars (red for low units, yellow for roughly half remaining, green for more than half) seem absent. No longer can you tell at a glance how many units exactly remain.

Not true. Unit strength is displayed as green bar, which stays green during the whole battle. As your unit suffers casualties, its "health bar" grows shorter.

Until you get used to it, it might be somewhat annoying. But I see no significant differences between two systems. For people who are bath at maths, the new one might even be better

Sorry, but your concern is baseless.

[Dreagon]

Not true. Unit strength is displayed as green bar, which stays green during the whole battle. As your unit suffers casualties, its "health bar" grows shorter.

Until you get used to it, it might be somewhat annoying. But I see no significant differences between two systems. For people who are bath at maths, the new one might even be better

Sorry, but your concern is baseless.

I agreed with you at first but OP made a good point. The problem isn't really that it's not clear how many men you lost because you have that bar. But what happens if that army has fought a few battles and you have a unit with 150 men and one with 50 men. In the other games their strength would be represented as 150/150 and 50/50 at the start of the battle. Seeing the number made it easy to select the right unit for a certain job. This time it just seems to be a full bar, with no difference between the 50 men unit and the 150 men unit. Unless the bar of the 50 men unit start at 1/3rd of the full bar but I don't really know if I like that either.

[Dyflinn432]

It is one of the few flaws thats proper annoying me about the game pre-release, i dont give a dam about practically and simplifying the unit card, when im charged or a unit enters combat the first thing i look at is how quickly a unit is dying .. seeing 120 ticking down to 112, now i know exactly how many men have died and by glancing at the card i can see how many more are dying as they are fighting, its so much easier than looking at a tiny bar (I Still don't know which is ammo and which is health), PLEASE CA dont make me download a must have mod just make a small numerical figure in the top left corner!... Its not difficult to do and its a million times better than a stupid green, yellow red whatever goddam color it is, Health bar

[EmperorBatman999]

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." - A term CA never understood.

[Sithxace]

How about they have the option of choosing between the bar or a number in options

[d4g4n]

yeah this looks like a step back for me also...the option would be great, might be in it even?

[HinFoo]

wow, id didnt notice that.


well thats just dumb and... dumb..


hope its modded to numbers, if they keep it like this.

[AzureNight]

It's to prepare for Total War's eventual move to console, probably.

[|Sith|Galvanized Iron]

They should really add a morale bar too.

[Templar Spartan]

It takes less than a second to hover your mouse over the unit's card, revealing all the information you desire. Is that so hard? I like them, they're simple, effective, and uncluttered. To each his own!

[StephanVos]

I agreed with you at first but OP made a good point. The problem isn't really that it's not clear how many men you lost because you have that bar. But what happens if that army has fought a few battles and you have a unit with 150 men and one with 50 men. In the other games their strength would be represented as 150/150 and 50/50 at the start of the battle. Seeing the number made it easy to select the right unit for a certain job. This time it just seems to be a full bar, with no difference between the 50 men unit and the 150 men unit. Unless the bar of the 50 men unit start at 1/3rd of the full bar but I don't really know if I like that either.

exactly! number on the card please CA

[HaveFallen]

I agreed with you at first but OP made a good point. The problem isn't really that it's not clear how many men you lost because you have that bar. But what happens if that army has fought a few battles and you have a unit with 150 men and one with 50 men. In the other games their strength would be represented as 150/150 and 50/50 at the start of the battle. Seeing the number made it easy to select the right unit for a certain job. This time it just seems to be a full bar, with no difference between the 50 men unit and the 150 men unit. Unless the bar of the 50 men unit start at 1/3rd of the full bar but I don't really know if I like that either.

This guy has got it down. This is the ultimate question as far as the unit cards.
.

[Hadro]

Good work OP... This is the first argument against the unit cards that I actually agree with!

Personally, I like the new cards. But you do make a good point which I would like elaborated on by CA - what happens if the unit doesn't start full strength!! And secondly, I don't see why they got rid of the bar changing colour as the unit strength depleted - seems like it helped to reinforce the unit's health at a glance...

[Gingerbeard]

Hopefully, when a unit has lost part of it's strength, the bar stays at that level until it loses more or is replenished; meaning the bar is relative to the total normal amount of the unit at anytime, not to the number of men at the start of the battle.

But I still agree that it's easier to have the Shogun 2 system, with a number and a bar which changes colour. They could even have made it bigger; I, used as I am to the relatively slow death rate in M2 units, was always surprised when I looked at a bar twice within 15 seconds and realised that half my unit was gone and I hadn't even noticed.

[Ariamanesh]

Unit cards are one of the basic elements of battles in Total War. They exist so you may quickly select your units and quickly gauge the strength of your units. Rome 2 has made a step backwards and removed the numerical strength of a unit remaining. This post will demonstrate through examples why it was a mistake. Shogun 2 in many ways has been the pinnacle of Creative Assemblys craft. Unit cards are functional and simple which allows the player to immediately see what kind of unit it is and how many soldiers are in the unit. Let's take a look at a Shogun 2 unit card. Note that this is a modified unit card with a custom background but our focus is on the units strength, represented in the bottom left corner.

You can immediately discern several facts that are important to your decision making in a battle. You can see the total strength in men which is represented by a number. You can see the strength remaining which is represented by a bar underneath the number. You can see a rough estimate of how much damage the unit has taken in a battle by the color of the bar (red, yellow or green). I cannot find any flaw in Shogun 2s representation of the units strength. It conveys all the important decision making information immediately and can be read with accuracy at a glance. Now let's have a look at Rome 2s unit cards in an image from the Battle of Teutoburg Forest.

You can immediately discern what kind of unit it is but the exact strength has been removed. As well it appears the color coded bars (red for low units, yellow for roughly half remaining, green for more than half) seem absent. No longer can you tell at a glance how many units exactly remain. This is very important for two reasons. Firstly, a bar can only tell you how many units are remaining from the start of a battle. Secondly, not all of your battles start with units at full strength. For example: I am fighting in Iberia and attack the settlement of Carthago Nova. I win the siege but suffer some losses. In the next turn a Carthaginian army assaults my army. There is not enough time for the full replenishment of a units lost numbers and some units are under strengthed. What will the unit cards tell me in battle? We know that there will be a green bar representing the units 'health' in remaining men. However the remaining men will be less than a full strength unit. Now do you understand the plight of removing the number of men remaining from the unit card? Let's say you have two units of the same type. One at full strength with 150 men and one at half strength with 75 men. Won't they look identical in battle? Both units will have a full green bar and without hovering over the units card for more information (precious seconds) or visually inspecting the unit (even more time ill spent) how would you tell the units apart? In Shogun 2 and earlier you could see the numerical strength of a unit and tell at a glance how many men it contained. In Rome 2, that is missing and with it, an important part of the players decision making is also missing. I know it's very trite to request Creative Assembly explains [complaint xyz] on various forums. But in lieu of Creative Assembly who may be too busy, can anyone here hazard a guess at why the units numerical strength was removed and how we will learn to compensate for having part of our basic elements of battle taken away from us? mods used in unit card compilation image: RTW: Europa Barbarorum M2TW: Stainless Steel ETW: Darth Mod Ultimate Commander NTW: NTW3 Shogun 2: DarthMod with JFC unit cards mods were used simply because I was too lazy to uninstall them before taking a screenshot and are not part of a point I am trying to make.

Agreed,Good point.I,m with you!

[Cadian Guardsman]

It's hard to say whether this is good or bad in my opinion, for those who don't want to have to think to hard or would rather focus on manuever it's bad because you have to analyse the units the bar doesn't actually streamline anything and this could be very irritating to those who don't like to have to watch every single unit all the time. However it goes in line with what CA have wanted to do, taking your eyes of your HuD. For many people games like TW are basically statistics fests, in order to "Get players off the HuD" they decided to simplify it. I believe they even said something like this in the Teutonburg video (Not sure though).

It does make players have to pay attention to the actual graphical display and from a non-meta stand point is more correct as a general would only see his unit, and then in his mind do a quick estimate on how many are left (assuming it's open field). By forcing players to always look at the graphical representation I think CA is trying to ensure people have a more smooth game i.e. "Unit one is 50% Unit 2 is 60% so I've only got about 55% of my units left" As opposed to "Unit one has 67 men left, Unit Two 136, this altogether equals 203 men". Basically a more clear overview of statistics so people who do in fact "play the stats not the game" will start looking at the graphical interface as a whole not just the HUD.

The bad thing is if you used to it, you will have a hard time adapting. Personally I don't really care as I play without a HuD/banner in battle as it allows me to focus more clearly (especially multilayer) but since the campaign map will have the same thing it could be irritating (but this could be countered by an army screen kinda like the after battle report listing "Total men" "Total Replacements" "Casualties this year" or something like that).

Just my 2 cents.

[Boicote]

Nevermind.

[SirFork]

What i don't understand is why in the unit of sword auxilia there is the simbol of the spear? And what means in the cavalry unit the half yellow simbol of the sword?