Army Limits

[Massive_attack]

What are your thoughts on them, given what we know? (which is quite a bit after Jack clarified it up)

Generally I got the impression it was a decisive decision on a gameplay level, attempting to add another (one could argue unnecessary) limitation on military deployments outside of traditional economic stops.

PERSONAL OPINIONS FOLLOW:

Even knowing that the army limits are a game mechanics decision made intentionally to create an experience I havent played, I already despise this idea. The economic model of total war always made much more sense than this sort of silliness, and it will lead to ahistorical 'super stacks' being formed in the late game when your economy outpaces your military hard caps and you'll naturally have to look at eliminating your perhaps otherwise historically accurate legion groups to add the praetorian guard or urban cohort equivalent units.

But beyond immersion the limitation makes no sense. The ancients had no 'army limit' conception. Armies being limited to only being commanded by generals this would make far, far more sense to me, but that is not the case; rather we now had arbitrary freezes on our military command capability which have no historical precedent. Limitations on the deployment of elite solider units would make far more sense as the ancients did have limits as to the number of say, praetorian cohorts that existed at any given time, or first cohorts, or royal guard elements.

From a purely gameplay perspective I worry about how it will be implemented. If the limit is static for all factions strong nations that should dominate the game simply wont for lack of manpower. If the limit is dynamic based on faction strength, and I believe it is, you run the risk of making military power enter a snowball effect as great powers become greater powers and small nations become outnumbered and outgunned. No amount of balancing will make it okay that Pontus can only have two armies in the field whilst the Seleucids can trump out six. Neither is playable so it arguably doesn't matter (GRRRR) but really, you can expect that if a player were at the helm Selecucia would triumph literally every single time. In RTW1 the Seleucids were more limited by economics, holding few rich provinces and many exposed weak ones that demanded border patrol efforts to secure. But Seleucid players from those days will know that after a rough start your next order of business is steamrolling the pathetic neighbors around you with your large armies; places like Pontus, Parthia, and in RS II Armenia's only saving grace is the ability to produce large bodies of warriors of good quality to match you, making the early game for Selecucia tricky and exciting.

Now you would be able to crush pontus in a single battle.

But hey, thats all fine. When the game launches I am going to count down the hours until someone mods this feature out!

((Also, I have to admit, its really fun later in the game to roll out a fifteen stack invasion. Those were some of the best moments in the original game and I always got excited knowing they were coming. R2 wont have any of that. R2 will be simple. Simplicity is exactly what I dont want from a 4X strategy game experience like Total War))

[iWarsaw]

It's fine. Bigger armies (by that, I mean not that the armies will be bigger, but you wont be fighting armies without general or without troops which happened a lot) more important battles, AI will work a lot better.

You saying that Rome 2 is about being Simple..... I think you should of left that out. Rome 2 wont be "simple." You shouldn't throw words like those around.

You have valid concerns, but you are looking at them completely wrong, and you don't know what you're talking about. I'm confident will have the same immersion... BETTER immersion then in any other Total War game.

I think this shows what I'm talking about...

"But beyond immersion the limitation makes no sense. The ancients had no 'army limit' conception. Armies being limited to only being commanded by generals this would make far, far more sense to me, but that is not the case; rather we now had arbitrary freezes on our military command capability which have no historical precedent. Limitations on the deployment of elite solider units would make far more sense as the ancients did have limits as to the number of say, praetorian cohorts that existed at any given time, or first cohorts, or royal guard elements"

It's a video game, not real life. They made changes in game so the AI would act better. Do you not remember all the needless stacks from past AI games? The long ottoman loading times?

[AlexisonfireNZ]

It's a video game, not real life. They made changes in game so the AI would act better. Do you not remember all the needless stacks from past AI games? The long ottoman loading times?

Yes right on the nail there. The only reason I have never played with the Ottomans is because of the loading times I suffered in ETW.

[RGA]

The ancients had no 'army limit' conception.

Yes, it did. Operating several armies on different fronts at the same time put a huge strain on logistics and management.

Even the number of soldiers could not grow indefinitely. Again, huge problems of logistics, management and supply. You might be filthy rich, but still do not have enough troops as you want. Seleucid Empire for example occupied pretty much the same territories of the Persian Empire, yet it failed to exploit its huge manpower as the latter did. Instead, Seleucid Empire relied on a relatively small forces of Greek mercenaries, and a defeat, as in Magnesia, could cripple its power for a generation.

[nameless]

Generally I got the impression it was a decisive decision on a gameplay level, attempting to add another (one could argue unnecessary) limitation on military deployments outside of traditional economic stops.

Unnecessary? The one thing everybody complained about was the million one-man armies and navies going all over the map.

It also deals with another complaint that others have bought out which is in regards to manpower. A small nation, even if it's rich, should not be able to field the same amount of soldiers that a larger nation would.

But beyond immersion the limitation makes no sense. The ancients had no 'army limit' conception. Armies being limited to only being commanded by generals this would make far, far more sense to me, but that is not the case; rather we now had arbitrary freezes on our military command capability which have no historical precedent. Limitations on the deployment of elite solider units would make far more sense as the ancients did have limits as to the number of say, praetorian cohorts that existed at any given time, or first cohorts, or royal guard elements.

You don't seem to know much about history or real life do you?

There's a reason why Roman armies only reached about 50,000 max. Any higher than that would be a logistical nightmare.

And if your population is low how would you raise armies anyways? It's basic Economics 101, human capital is treated as a resource.

[stradar1]

You don't seem to know much about history or real life do you?

There's a reason why Roman armies only reached about 50,000 max. Any higher than that would be a logistical nightmare.

50k max??? Wow you don't know what you are even talking about around early Empire age the Roman empire had around 46 legions at least so the number of troops was at least over 200,000 Troops. So you are wrong about this 50k max bs....

[nameless]

50k max??? Wow you don't know what you are even talking about around early Empire age the Roman empire had around 46 legions at least so the number of troops was at least over 200,000 Troops. So you are wrong about this 50k max bs....

Nice try bud but if you read my post which you didn't you'll notice that I said "Roman armies" and not "Roman army". When the Romans went to war they didn't just send "one legion" they sent a number of legions that would be grouped into an "army." Just like you said the legions are stationed all over the empire/republic and during campaigns would be grouped into a specific army for that campaign.

I don't know why that is so hard to understand.

It was rare for the Romans to deploy armies number over 50,000 at any time on the field or more due to the logistical nightmare it creates. It's not as easy as some people would make it. You have to pay them, feed them, equip them, etc.

There's a difference between the term armies and army. I would expect someone like you would understand but I guess I was wrong.

[stradar1]

Nice try bud but if you read my post which you didn't you'll notice that I said "Roman armies" and not "Roman army". When the Romans went to war they didn't just send "one legion" they sent a number of legions that would be grouped into an "army." Just like you said the legions are stationed all over the empire/republic and during campaigns would be grouped into a specific army for that campaign.

I don't know why that is so hard to understand.

It was rare for the Romans to deploy armies number over 50,000 at any time on the field or more due to the logistical nightmare it creates. It's not as easy as some people would make it. You have to pay them, feed them, equip them, etc.

There's a difference between the term armies and army. I would expect someone like you would understand but I guess I was wrong.

See ill admit I misunderstood you and I apologize for that. But I believe the main reason I misunderstood you was because he was talking about army limits not how many troops in a army. Or maybe I don't understand what he was asking?

[nameless]

See ill admit I misunderstood you and I apologize for that. But I believe the main reason I misunderstood you was because he was talking about army limits not how many troops in a army. Or maybe I don't understand what he was asking?

I don't blame you because his post is long.

His argument is that the size and number of armies should be dicated by economics but the fact is that manpower is one of the capitals that needs to be considered.

Like I said, you can have tons of money but if you got no people (IE. Say they were wiped out by a plague) then how can you even raise an army?

I just pointed out that size and number of armies are dicated by logistics and manpower. Even by economics the number of armies that can be fielded should be dicated also by the manpower available. As you said, 49 legions at some point in time but as time went on due to population depletion and plague the actual size of the legions went down from 5000 to like 2000-3000 if I recall correctly.

[Manuel I Komnenos]

Nice try bud but if you read my post which you didn't you'll notice that I said "Roman armies" and not "Roman army". When the Romans went to war they didn't just send "one legion" they sent a number of legions that would be grouped into an "army." Just like you said the legions are stationed all over the empire/republic and during campaigns would be grouped into a specific army for that campaign.

I don't know why that is so hard to understand.

It was rare for the Romans to deploy armies number over 50,000 at any time on the field or more due to the logistical nightmare it creates. It's not as easy as some people would make it. You have to pay them, feed them, equip them, etc.

There's a difference between the term armies and army. I would expect someone like you would understand but I guess I was wrong.

Trajan's campaign against the Dacians and Marcus Aurelius's campaign against the Marcomanni involved more than 100.000 men.

[CDR Hurricane]

My main dislike of the army limit is the inability to customize my garrisons now... although for most people this will probably be a good thing since it means less micro, but now I can't just recruit an extra town watch unit if one of my cities is unhappy for some reason. (Maybe agents can do this instead now?)

I think the main reason is to make it easier for campaign AI, but it probably won't take me too long to get used to the feature, and it will make strategic decisions more important.

It also deals with another complaint that others have bought out which is in regards to manpower. A small nation, even if it's rich, should not be able to field the same amount of soldiers that a larger nation would.

In this case, I hope that owning client states increases the max army cap, otherwise how will I keep my "United States" in line?

[GussieFinkNottle]

I made a post on this once, I'll quote it here:

Limiting the number of armies the player can have to force you to play big battles. This is a clumsy way to go about making battles feel more epic/reduce the % of battles auto-resolved stats on steam:
Maybe do this to the AI factions, and that will help lead to bigger battles but don’t do it to the player as it merely reduces the options they have. If they want big armies they will clump their troops together. There are plenty of uses for small armies, and you don’t want to have to waste one of your precious few new legion slots for a garrison unit. Raiding and skirmishes were common back then, particularly for barbarian factions as were single-cohort garrisons and missions.

Individual units have other functions outside big campaign armies. Off the top of my head: for keeping order, for bolstering frontier defences and town garrisons, to move across the map to join another army/legion that needs it more, as mentioned above for raiding, for dealing with rebellions and brigands, for catching the fleeing remnants of defeated enemy armies e.g. by breaking the cavalry away from the army, for racing ahead of the main body of an army to commence a siege, and trap the garrison units before they can flee/to start building siege equipment

Stop defending it by banging on about campaign ‘dynamism’ or saying ‘Caesar doesn’t care about his little unit of archers’ (yes he does and so do total war gamers, especially if it’s an experienced unit) as this comes across as disingenuous since it seems to be a short cut to help the new legion system. Legions often detached units, and factions without standing armies (e.g. Arverni, Suebi) did so even more. I accept that at this stage it is final for Rome 2 but how about in future making units belong to one army/legion,yes, but have to be within a certain number of regions/amount of movement points of that army rather than always in it, alternatively each legion has an area of the map assigned to it within which all units belong to that legion,and the legion is managed by selecting the general, who represents the headquarters, to enable players to have flexibility with their armies

Some legions even had troops stationed in forts in different provinces to the main body, and punitive incursions were usually carried out by a moderate force of troops broken off from the legion

[IlluminatiRex]

In most TW games the most full stacks I've been able to field have been 2-3, which is what this limit seems to be. Seems like a good way to stop a lot of the 1 unit spam imo

[GussieFinkNottle]

In most TW games the most full stacks I've been able to field have been 2-3, which is what this limit seems to be. Seems like a good way to stop a lot of the 1 unit spam imo

That's insane! Imagine trying to conquer all of Europe, maintaining order all the way and defending your borders, with only 3 stacks! I'm sure that's just to start, and it will expand to around 30 (the historical total)

It could be applied to the AI to stop them 1 unit spamming, though this was much less of a problem in S2, but for the human player it's just restrictive. Besides, with muster mode, fewer 1 unit armies will be needed, as you won't have to march troops from towns to armies, but that's no reason to create a complete embargo on small armies without generals

[IlluminatiRex]

That's insane! Imagine trying to conquer all of Europe, maintaining order all the way and defending your borders, with only 3 stacks! I'm sure that's just to start, and it will expand to around 30 (the historical total)

It could be applied to the AI to stop them 1 unit spamming, though this was much less of a problem in S2, but for the human player it's just restrictive. Besides, with muster mode, fewer 1 unit armies will be needed, as you won't have to march troops from towns to armies, but that's no reason to create a complete embargo on small armies without generals

Yet in Darthmod Empire, with my 3 Swedish stacks I was able to conquer most of the European part of the map. Defending borders, and attacking was pretty easy imo.

[jtfjtfjtf]

I like the army limits. It should lead to fun gameplay moments.

What I don't like is 20-unit stacks. I feel that 30-40 unit stacks is best with army limits, especially since every army is supposed to have its own character. In FOTS/Shogun 2 I would have a cavalry army just follow around a foot army so they were effectively a 30-40 unit army. But now with the limit and the new character for armies I wouldn't like doing that.

[Raikou]

I'm not as worried about army limits as I'm worried about unit limits.

I have a bad feeling battles will feel underwhelming with max unit caps at 160.

The only thing that will make it feel epic is the new "face of war" I guess

[Templar Spartan]

I'm not as worried about army limits as I'm worried about unit limits.

I have a bad feeling battles will feel underwhelming with max unit caps at 160.

The only thing that will make it feel epic is the new "face of war" I guess

Just edit the preferences file to have bigger units

[Raikou]

Just edit the preferences file to have bigger units

That's good and all but we don't know how transport ships will be affected by increasing unit numbers.

I don't feel like crashing every 15 minutes because I multiplied the unit and they're not represented with a new boat(s)

[Remwr]

Just edit the preferences file to have bigger units

But that would require work. Changing a preference file seems to be too much for some people. Or they won't do it as a matter of principles. Since CA should do it for them