New Unit structure.

[Ares1000]

Hi all, if this has all been suggested and talked about before then i apologise for making a new thread about it.

Isent it about time that the TW series does something about the unit structure.

Why not go fullout realistic with Battalions instead of one unit regiments, but this time split it up into 6 units.
What i mean is you will have the standard unit cards but, once you click on a card you'll get a new little window with 6 unites or 6 companies, they are all linked together in a unit card or Battalion/chohort, now you can either sellect induvidual companies and give them orders, perhaps even detach a couple and give them to another Battalion who has lost men or you simply want to strengthen a battalion before you send it into action.

Now, once you have clicked on a unit card/Battalion you can give it orders, form square: and what you will see now is the comapnies are moving to form a square together, fully realistic instead of a regiment of 160 men with 1 captain. you'll be able to form any formation that the battalion is capable of, and each company will form up and take it's place to form the selected formation.

So picture this Rome TW 2 with full Legions of around 5.200 men (depending on time period), each cohort except the first with 480 men standing in formation divided up again into centuries of 80 men.
You'll see Legions in it's full numbers and army structure and you will have the same flexability as a true Legion for the first time in a game afaik.

You'll have 22 unit cards or a bit more, 10 filled with Legionary chohorts and another 10 with Auxilliares/allied troops and 2 more unit cards, 1 for General unit and another for Equites which you can now split up into squadrons and send them around to scout for the enemy.

Yes we will have over 10.000 unites to command, and the enemy the same, so we'll have battles of 20.000 unites, but pc's today and in a few years should by now have no problems with this right ?, it can still be scaled down with settings.

So just to awnser people who think this will be too much to control, No! were still talking 20-22 unit cards, you move each just like it's done today in with clicking and draging into place, the difrence is that you can now choose a lot more formations for every unit card, as you are setting up your army or in battle. So the big difrence is a lot more tactical use for each unit, and it will all look like it's supose to look in a battle. You can split up your cohorts and place centuries here and there to defend walls and forts, so you'll have 6x more unites to place around to defend instead of a big blob of men in one place.

Now am i just unrealstic or should CA be fully capable of creating a new unit system like this ?.

[Minigrinch]

The problem wouldnt be whether players could control it, it would be whether the AI could, they already have enough trouble how it is.

[Plant]

I can understand formation effects, but really, thats just more than one special formation, and greatly increased numbers. Hmmm, you say you have the same amount of unit cards, but then you say that you want to be able to split up these unit cards as well rom one unit card of cohort to 6 centuries. So which is it? Same number of unit cards (20) or 120? You wouldn't be able to individually command centuries and at the same time have only 20 unit cards.

The only other option that I can see is that there is an invisible grouping effect, where in each of the 20 unit card is a group of 6 invisible unit cards which are never shown. You can move each of the 6 units individually, but can also ask that they would go and form a formation for just the 6. In which case, such a system is unwieldy, and you might as well have 120 unit cards just for the sheer control you will be given over the sytem.

[Ares1000]

The AI can control it by useing specific formations, line, column, dobble line. Now i dont know much about creating AI but the AI should have written commands and formations based on what the player has and does on the battlefield, like if im creating a long line, then the AI should do the same to prevent being outflanked it would then use line formation. If im useing a more dense formation or 3 lines then the AI should line up at the same length as me and try to send flanking troops in column or double line. IF the AI know which formations to use for each situation and counter to what the player does then it should work.


Yes about the same amount of unit cards, except when you click on one you get a new little window above, in this window you have have 6 companies or how many is left in the Battalion, you can click on each of these and give them commands just like giving commands to the hole battalion, but you wouldent generally do this on the battlefield, you would control the hole battalion in stead and give orders and set it in formation. For example: click on a unit card, select formation and give it orders just like you are doing with a single unit in RTW or NTW, but the option is there to micro manage which could be useful in certain situations, especially siege. By controlling induvidual companies and taking them out of the battalion formation would make you loose the formation and you get more micro but you can also put it straight back together by selecting the unit card and a formation. If they are out of formation and a bit away from each other and you have selected only the unit card and not one of the companies and lets say you click attack on an enemy, then all 6 companies would move to and attack that enemy unit.

So what this system does is give you a simple way to control a big army, with the option to control each company.

[Voodo chile]

Yes. this guy has got it!!
Seriously, this is a great idea.
In a city you could train 1 army group with their own flags, shield patters, colours. It could contain say 600 men or more and only take up 1 unit card. When set on the map as a default they would start off in double lines similar to grouping units in the existing games. They move as one when told to but are made of 3 or 4 individual companies.

Each of these army groups would have their own commander who when killed would reduce the moral of the soldiers in his army group and only slightly in other army groups.

The individual companies would have their own unique names, eg an army group trained in rome would be called 'Rome Army group 1' and it would be made up of 1st Rome, 2nd Rome, etc. A army group from Patavium would be called 'Patavium Army Group 1' with 1st patavium, 2nd patavium etc. If you create a second army group from the same city it would be 'Patavium army group 2' and the companies continuing '5th patavium,6th patavium etc.

But i would imagine these army groups would be expensive so irregular soldiers would need to be trained. You could probably use a similar system

[Ares1000]

Yes Voodo, CA could put in a lot of details, have the exact same army structure and number of officers.
Now this has been more focused towards the Roman army, other nations would have a diffrent structure based on what they had, meaning less amount of companies perhaps and more men in each, and difrent types of formations. Formations could be unlocked through research.

Imagine seeing the Roman army in the 3rd century BC. Actually moving in the formations they did: double line with spaceing to send induvidual companies through, the velities goes through and then back again, you would then order single line, and what you would see is: each company in the first line moves right, the second line in each chohort of Hastati would then move forward and form up into a single solid line. The line of Hastati advances and attacks, gets blodid and tierd they get the Recall signal. Now the centuries/companies of the origianl second line falls back, wile the first line slides across infront of them. The principes now moves up through the open spaces/gaps that has been created, the Hastati first line withdraws while the first line/group of Centuries of the Principes slides across to cover the retreat of the Hastati, the second group of Principes then moves up and you have a new solid single line.

All this tactical movement is done by the Centuries/Companies. As the game is portrayed today you can not see this, well unless you imagine each unit is a company and you micro manage it, but it's all small compared to what this system would provide, and you wouldent need to micro manage every single Company thanks to the battalions and formations.

If we can get this or something very similar would just be beyond awesome!.

[Plant]

Seems a bit fiddly to me. I think I would prefer having perfect control every time I click on a unit, it only controls that one unit rather than everytime, you click on one unit, it assumes you are controlling 6 at the time. Everything you have written down about moving in formation and double spacing and ordering a single line and so on and so forth can already be done right now with ease. It's not going to get any easier, as all that has changed is scale. In your example, you are still only moving one unit at a time which just happens to be 6 of 20, as opposed to 1 of 20, because you have changed the scaling. You are still micromanaging one at a time in your example, it's just the scale which has changed, moving 6 times more than normal. It really isn't that hard to use shift, ctrl and alt to do everything you have described with ease under the current system.

I do rather like the idea of selecting multiple units though and forming one large pike or square formation without any hole though, and if possible to select the entirety of the army for one formation.

[Ares1000]

You do have perfect control, the battalion is acting like one unit, unless you tell it otherwise, the difrence is that you get the details of what a army really looked like and how a battalion worked.

Details create the big picture.
Sanford I. Weill

[Voodo chile]

To me its not only for the ability to mircomanage but more of a realism thing. But yea the 'double line with the replacing of soldiers' thing it great. It would introduce some real roman army tactics to the game. Also making more of a difference between factions meaning that some players will naturally be better at using a certain faction than another. It would at least add even more re playability to the game.

With the Roman replacement move. You cant do something like this in existing roman titles, because its just that when you tell units that al already engaged to fall back, they lose alot of men because they turn their backs to the enemy and usually their moral falls alot meaning they rout. If there was a special ability for them to perform this move in an organised manner (not running away but slowly falling back cautiously with their shields still facing the enemy while new soldiers fill the gaps.

Once you refine your ideas a bit more i would suggest you make a suggestion to CA if it is possible

[Ares1000]

Yes im planing on doing that Voodo, cant say i got high hopes tho, this might represent more problems than they want to take on, and i havent thought off everything yet. Naval battles for example should probably not have this system. Then you have the Macedonian Phalanx of 256 men which was in fact a battalion on it's own divided in 16 files of 16 men led by many officers, a herald, signaller, trumpeter, extra-ouragos to bring up stragglers, and an aide. The Phalanx battalion marched in open order, when action with the enemy was imminent it went into close order. When the phalanx was on the defensive it adopted locked order, which is the tightest. I dont know if it did any formations on it's own well other than line and column, but the Macedonian phalanx (either on it's own or grouped with others) could form: Line, Oblique, Square, Crescent and Wedge formations. The other problem is that it's only 256 men while a Roman Cohort is 480 men, so 2 Macedonian phalanxes might be the right thing to put into one unit card, but when it comes to formations 2 unites cant form much on it's own unless they split up. But then again you do get double the amount of phalanxes, if we could select several unit cards and then put them into a formation, which seems to be what they did. When you look at battles like Gaugemela and Chaeronea the hole phalanx formed the formation. Now we can do this manually today by grouping, so selecting several unit cards and then selecting a formation isent strictly neceserly, but with double the amount of phalanxes atlest we can get big! formations, and we can put in the close order which seems to be more a agressive formation for each soldier to get more room and better use of his Sarissa/pike, along with open and locked order that we have today.

But im very intrested in hearing what CA thinks off it.

[Voodo chile]

Just copy what you have to say and in future if you dont see it implemented then simply write a letter to a competitor and just paste the same words

[Preatorians100]

Great idea m8. But i think that if u want to give a quick command e.g in a NTW game, like get a unit to square, you may be faffing around for too long??

Also the game would lagg like hell as CA are just increasing the graphics and it takes better and better computers to run the new games.

[Ares1000]

Forming a square should take a little time, in reality forming a square took some time it wasnt done in a blink.

Well they are still saying we can have 56.000 ? on a battlefield, they can balance graphics vs content, and we got settings and scale for pc's that cant handle it.

[Preatorians100]

Forming a square should take a little time, in reality forming a square took some time it wasnt done in a blink.

no but to get to the unit, for a regiment if u want, it would take a while

Well they are still saying we can have 56.000 ? on a battlefield, they can balance graphics vs content, and we got settings and scale for pc's that cant handle it.

thats what they say.
What thwey and what happens are different.

[Ares1000]

It's gonna be Battalion siced unit cards meaning half the sice of a regiment(if full regiments were displayed in TW games), except for Macedonian type units perhaps, the time it's gonna take a Battalion to get into square depends on the formation their already in, but it's basicly 4-6 companies running to their place in the square, how long it's gonna take ? i dont know, what will seem realistic i guess, theres nothing bad about that as far as im concerned.

Well if they were to implement this system im sure they would balance it out, no one wants a laggy game afterall.

[Voodo chile]

Well if the unit scale options were made so that more levels of scaling could be done then that makes it better.
Napoleon worked well on my computer, more so that empire for some reason. I personally wouldnt mind if they downsized the graphics but i doubt they would do that. Maybe can they make it run more efficiently somehow.

Yea doing this might make moves slower but it adds more realism.
I was hoping for some advanced formations aswell eg, you have spear units with shields and javelins. Units are vulnerable when they are in the process of throwing.


Uploaded with ImageShack.us
The front row/regiment brace themselves against incoming cavalry while the back row throw javelins

similar to this picture except maybe 2 rows in the front
http://www.roman-empire.net/army/repel-cavalry.html

[Ares1000]

Great idea for a formation. The spearmen are Auxilliary troops standing on the flanks of the Legion, in the picture they have formed up into a solid line with the Legionaries, but Legionaries on their own would also form this formation useing their Hevy Pila. It's probably the same formation Caesar used at the battle of Pharsalus to stop and rout Pompey's cavalry.

[Preatorians100]

Great idea for a formation. The spearmen are Auxilliary troops standing on the flanks of the Legion, in the picture they have formed up into a solid line with the Legionaries, but Legionaries on their own would also form this formation useing their Hevy Pila. It's probably the same formation Caesar used at the battle of Pharsalus to stop and rout Pompey's cavalry.

he hid the auxilaries, then i think he let the enemy cav charge then made a shield wall, then let the auxlilaires cut down and slaughter the cavalry.

[Ares1000]

I think it was Legionaries, he took out units from some of his legions and created a fourth line hidden behind his cavarly, The legionaries were told to stab with the Pila and not throw it (altough they probably threw the light Pila and stabbed with the heavy. Pompey's much larger cav force charges Caesars cav, Caesars cav retreat through the fourth line while it engages the cav, Caesars cav reforms and outflanks Pompeys cav who are now hit on two sides, they rout and Caesar rolls up Pompeys army.

Anyway i have written to CA about this unit system, i hope the right people see's it.

[Ares1000]

I havent recieved any reply from CA yet. I sent the mail to: info@creative-assembly.co.uk thats CA's contact e-mail, even if it's not the right people who gets it, i would atleast expect some sort of reply.