Game Concept: Rome, Great Wars

[Arvedui01]

I have to admit that RTW is one of the best games I have ever played. For most of my gaming life I have been an avid player of RTS' but Rome... in ways I cannot fully explain... just makes a near perfect game.

So what is there to complain about when mods like EB, Roma Surrectum, and RTR fill most of the need for historical accuracy? Troop numbers.

Who would like to command more than 20 units at once? I know I would. How about realistically sized units? As in 480 man cohorts, not 243/242 as even some of our great mods provide. Adrianople, Cannae, etc. Both were notable Roman defeats involving absolutely massive amounts of troops. What was it, eight Roman legions at Cannae, with accompanying auxiliaries? 40,000 Romans and many thousands more germanic tribes at Adrianople? The conduct of warfare varies immensely with troop numbers, so I say, why not go bigger?

Most household computers are not built to handle the kind of RTW I envision. But I think it would be absolutely epic to command forty, fifty or even a hundred units at once, allowing for the scale observed in the battles discussed above. If a player were too occupied to command all at once, they could divide a force of say,15,000 men back into their respective legions- so that each functions as one large unit. Player could select legion X- hey move move to right flank, legion III go left etc. When necessary they could break up legions and command their individual cohorts. They could further break up the cohorts into centuries and practice some micromanagement.

If a battle comes down to one phalanx unit versus one legionary cohort unit the player should be able to pull a couple centuries out to flank the enemy phalanx, rather than throwing the full mass into spears. Likewise the phalanx's owner, CPU/Human, should be able to divide to phalanx into smaller halves. Of course the catch would be that the phalanx experiences some sort of movement debuff due to a its natural lack of mobility.

Anyway, sorry for the epic wall of text but I think that was the best way to get concept across.
Do you guys think such a game could be made available for the average household comp within five or so years? It seems that during simple LAN battles the lag of enormous armies is significantly reduced... 20,000 men both CPU and human was handled with minimal lag by my Macbook and Imac together. Both are fairly new machines installed with Intel; combined RAM was 12 GB. Not sure it works that way anyway. Shouldn't battles function better if more computers are put to the task of processing?

As some further additions, armies would have supply lines, specialized officers, and customizable troops- making for the most realistic warfare yet.

Hopefully the last edit here...
In short, this is supposed to be a much harder game incorporating the same basic engine. More troops, more realistic organization and with real world battle difficulties- commanding a large army efficiently, maneuvering across difficult terrain, and supplying armies.

[Magic_8_Ball]

I'd hate to be in command of 480 man strong units. Could you imagine how hard it would be to maneuver a block of troops as big as that?

[Arvedui01]

Difficult perhaps... but not so much on an open plain. Harsher terrain would force the player to break the cohorts into smaller units.

Either that or the use of terrain as a means of gaining a strategic advantage will be that much more available in game.

The First cohorts would be over 800 men -__-

[XxAndrewxX2525]

You'd have to have part of your army CPU because there's no way your handling 40-100 units efficiently. It's hard to micro 20 units efficiently.

[Arvedui01]

But if you can do it doesn't that make you that much greater a commander?
I don't think the ancients had CPU's to help them out with large armies.

I pulled off commanding forty Roman units simultaneously (An eventual Clear victory btw) via LAN battling against 60 units commanded by the Gallic AI. Both computers were in front of me and I switched between the two to coordinate my units... wouldn't the difficulty associated with doing this better simulate a real battle?

[Wegen7 die Große]

I agree that it would make RTW more interesting.
Although I also agree that most household computers cannot handle it and it would also make it more difficult to manage the entire army.

[Hackworthy]

I trip up when commanding half a stack much less 20,000 legionaries lol. The only one in which I can command a huge army well is Empire but that is because 18th century warfare tactics are my forte.

[JRR]

I like the idea, it makes it more historically accurate, i most of all like the things about supply trains, specialised officers and troops.
as in RTW at the momnet you can block roads to cut enermy trade, but with supply trains you could attack them, and see wagons and horse on the battle map, if you win you could get money as a form of 'loot', to go with this you might have to attach a few guard units to defend the supply/trade trains, you could do this yourself or get it auto managed by the AI.
Good idea +rep

[MarsRising]

While the concept might be fun(if a little overwhelming) I think it would also take away from the experience. Not many generals commanded centuries, that was for centurians.

[XxAndrewxX2525]

Exactly, it's not like the generals rode up and down the battle lines screaming commands to all the soldiers. The general would give all the ranking officers a general idea of what to do beforehand, then it would be up to the commanding officers to actually carry them through.

[Arvedui01]

Perhaps centuries are too much micormanagement but maybe Centurions (AI controlled?) could split off portions of cohorts to flank meanwhile you, the general, can still retain command of the unit as a whole.

[MarsRising]

You know, as an actual IRL military guy, it would be awesome to have an AI that could do in battle what we do on the field. I think we are light years away from that though.