Too many units spoil the fun?

[ma_251]

Hello everybody.
If you guys remember the Darthmods of both Napoleon and Empire, they included too many units. By 'too many units' I mean many units that were ALMOST similar to each other and this actually made the mod a bit repulsive for me.

I think it 'devalues' the individual units themselves if they have a close substitute available either higher up or lower down the chain. It kinda feels anti-climactic.

Lets suppose that units in a some imaginary version of a total war game are rated according to just one variable ranging from 1 to 100. Lets suppose that this version of TW has 100 different units with each unit having stats in an increasing order. So you will have one unit, lets say X with stat of 1, another unit Y with stat of 2, another unit with stat of 3 and so on.

Now lets suppose that you have another version but will just 5 units. Unit x has stat of 1, unit y has stat of 20, unit z has stat of 40 and so on...

Now ask yourselves, what sounds more fun? In which version of the game will you value units more? In which version of the game will you be happy to be allowed to finally recruit a superior unit?

One may think that the "simpler" the unit roster, the better the game is....but it is more complicated than that. Any game maker/modder needs to balance the NUMBER OF TIERS of units. For example, if stats range from 1 to 100, having just 2 units (with stat lets say 1 and 100) is bad.....having 4 units is better....having 5 units lets say is the sweet spot...having 6 units starts to get bad and having 8 units is worse. (and so on)


So my friends, I see this kind of trend catching on to our beloved Divide et Impera mod....Too many units spoil the fun.

There are numerous examples but take simply the example about the Polybian Roman Units. There is no significant difference between the costs and stats of Hastati and Socii Hastati.....Why would I ever need to recruit Socii Hastati that are worse off in stats? (Please dont get fixated on the Hastati/Socii Hastati...it was just an example)

[Butan]

Its true that there is a lot of units in DeI, but dont forget that they still are fine-tuning them to make them more special, and the updates on military reforms/units requisites/buildings works toward less units too fast.

Now, the updates on mercenaries/area of recruitment and auxiliary units are going to offer even more units to DeI, and maybe some will be a bit repulsed by this.


I personaly think, as long as there is differences in stats/abilities/cost/upkeep I think we can have an almost infinite unit pool.

[Revan The Great]

The mistake you're making, OP, is thinking that it's about the stats. For me, and I suspect a lot of other people playing DeI, stats are only one consideration that goes into the units you pick - attention is also paid to historical authenticity, diversity, and to some extent roleplaying - for example an army operating in Illyria would use Illyrian auxiliaries while an army operating in Spain may be of a similar composition in terms of your factional troops, but rely on Hispanic auxiliaries to round out its light infantry, skirmishers, and so forth.

To use your regular Hastati vs Socii Hastati - obviously this is a unit in the game for the people who want to create the most accurate Polybian Legion possible, with Allied Italian troops to supplement your Roman troops. It's fun for me, but if you don't like it, you don't have to use the Socii. Could there be something better done in terms of differentiating this units in stats, or areas to recruit, or buildings required to recruit? Sure. But I don't see it as a huge deal.

The ancient world was a colorful place, so on your imaginary scale having 100 units with values of 1-100 would be more historically accurate. By comparison, your preferred scale of only five units, rated 0, 20, 40, and so on is bland and monotonous - it's what you get in vanilla Rome 2, and it's what you got in vanilla Rome 1 as well. With respect (and I mean that), if that sort of thing is your preference then DeI might not be the mod for you. It goes out of its way to add that diversity in units, catering to historical accuracy, and so forth.

[Igor85]

It's very sad, that most of the units keep intransparent because there is no DEI encyclopedia in Rome 2. You just read their strange name, but don't know anything about them or their history. This is very sad. As long as it is not possible to intewgrate an own encyclopedia most Mods will have problems to inform user about new buildings/units/events or historical infos,...

[Destin Faroda]

It's very sad, that most of the units keep intransparent because there is no DEI encyclopedia in Rome 2.

In Shogun II it was possible to add new encyclopedia entries. Did Rome II change the system?
Otherwise, encyclopedia work is something you do when the mod is finished. Otherwise, with every change in unit stats, number of men or abilities, you would have to update all corresponding encyclopedia entries.

DeI has unit caps plus AoR will be added soon. You will have to make diverse armies. Plus this mod is about realism, hence diversity is justified and in place.

Indeed. Dynamic unit caps and AoR are excellent instruments to force the use of balanced armies. It also convinces the AI to use better armies.

[KAM 2150]

DeI has unit caps plus AoR will be added soon. You will have to make diverse armies. Plus this mod is about realism, hence diversity is justified and in place.

[ma_251]

I disagree, gentlemen, that the reason for so many units is for variety or roleplay. Roleplay is a word that doesn't appeal to me. Afterall I believe a game that gets it right won't need roleplaying. It won't need us to, lets say, pick 5 hastati, 4 principes, and 3 triarii, just for the sake of roleplaying.....it would need us to pick them because it would make sense gameplay wise.

Too many units with little gameplay difference are also in my opinion are too taxing on the modders making these units. Call it a duplication of effort for little reward.

I agree that something can be done to differentiate the units but to ignore what I said and keeping on adding units will make the mod messy and full of clutter.

Also, games are based off on reality. Why would you think Romans used auxiliaries? I am no history buff but I reckon it was because of limited ROMAN manpower but not limited or surplus cash flows. So why not utilise the manpower of auxiliaries and pay them? Ok that makes sense. But how can it be implemented in a game where there is no limit on the manpower? I mean you can continue to play the whole campaign and produce 20 full legions just from a single minor province. But I think AOR system will help with this problem somewhat...

All in all, I still think a high number of units is bad. A medium number of units that are highly differentiated in terms of stats, costs and functions is needed. Not a new unit that is 'a bit better' than the previous one. I think the role of DiE is to make the game good, not to copy paste units and let us pretend to roleplay.

Something like this would make more sense in the AoR system: Limited number of legions can be recruited from a province. This solves the issue in terms of manpower.
But what about stats? How would you base off your game on Roman Auxiliary System? Make auxiliaries slightly worse off in stats with a lower cost? (That's what is currently happening)
Or perhaps increase the number of men in an auxiliary unit compared to a roman legionary unit, make the auxiliary significantly cheap, and have significantly lower stats. The key word here is 'significantly'. Significant does not mean drastically, it means something that makes a difference. Keeping up with the essence of the example, I think more elite units should have lesser men in units than compared to earlier units. Then it would make sense to recruit 5 hastati, 4 principes and 3 triarii.

[Matmannen]

I disagree, gentlemen, that the reason for so many units is for variety or roleplay. Roleplay is a word that doesn't appeal to me. Afterall I believe a game that gets it right won't need roleplaying. It won't need us to, lets say, pick 5 hastati, 4 principes, and 3 triarii, just for the sake of roleplaying.....it would need us to pick them because it would make sense gameplay wise.

Too many units with little gameplay difference are also in my opinion are too taxing on the modders making these units. Call it a duplication of effort for little reward.

I agree that something can be done to differentiate the units but to ignore what I said and keeping on adding units will make the mod messy and full of clutter.

Also, games are based off on reality. Why would you think Romans used auxiliaries? I am no history buff but I reckon it was because of limited ROMAN manpower but not limited or surplus cash flows. So why not utilise the manpower of auxiliaries and pay them? Ok that makes sense. But how can it be implemented in a game where there is no limit on the manpower? I mean you can continue to play the whole campaign and produce 20 full legions just from a single minor province. But I think AOR system will help with this problem somewhat...

All in all, I still think a high number of units is bad. A medium number of units that are highly differentiated in terms of stats, costs and functions is needed. Not a new unit that is 'a bit better' than the previous one. I think the role of DiE is to make the game good, not to copy paste units and let us pretend to roleplay.

Something like this would make more sense in the AoR system: Limited number of legions can be recruited from a province. This solves the issue in terms of manpower.
But what about stats? How would you base off your game on Roman Auxiliary System? Make auxiliaries slightly worse off in stats with a lower cost? (That's what is currently happening)
Or perhaps increase the number of men in an auxiliary unit compared to a roman legionary unit, make the auxiliary significantly cheap, and have significantly lower stats. The key word here is 'significantly'. Significant does not mean drastically, it means something that makes a difference. Keeping up with the essence of the example, I think more elite units should have lesser men in units than compared to earlier units. Then it would make sense to recruit 5 hastati, 4 principes and 3 triarii.

To answer your question on Roman Auxilaries, the auxillary was utilized mostly for their role on the battlefield. There is a reaon why there are no roman archers, or roman spear legionaries in game. The Roman citizens who were recruited into the army, all else became auxilia, and they would fill roles the legionaries wern't trained for; spearmen, bowmen, light infantry, cavalry etc...

Now, additionally the high number of troop types within each faction is there due to the loss absence of a AoR system (though is should be comming during the week), as soon as it is here, the nonethncal soldiers in factionrosters will be gone, and they will need to be recruited through the AoR. What will happed is that your army will become more diverse as you reinforce it, also you will be able to recruit some non national soldiers to supplement your own national forces weaknesses... this is why there are so many troop types...

[JObadiah]

Or just combine DeI's scripted per-army caps with the vanilla global unit cap mechanic for units whose manpower is supposed to be strictly limited (or even create scripted global caps on certain units linked to imperium/region ownership, but this would be a ton of work). Romans, for example, but also Carthage's Punic and even Libyan manpower should be strictly limited.

[ma_251]

Or just combine DeI's scripted per-army caps with the vanilla global unit cap mechanic for units whose manpower is supposed to be strictly limited (or even create scripted global caps on certain units linked to imperium/region ownership, but this would be a ton of work). Romans, for example, but also Carthage's Punic and even Libyan manpower should be strictly limited.

Heck yea but that just solves the manpower problem but does not solve the stat/gameplay problem. For that you need to tweak costs/stats drastically so even though I can still recruit 20/20 Principes, it would be efficient for me to recruit 12/20 Hastati and 8/20 Principes...get it? (I am certain this can be achieved. It doesn't require too much coding time...it requires a bit of theory crafting time...so once you figure it out, its easy to do it for the rest of the factions.)

[JObadiah]

Heck yea but that just solves the manpower problem but does not solve the stat/gameplay problem. For that you need to tweak costs/stats drastically so even though I can still recruit 20/20 Principes, it would be efficient for me to recruit 12/20 Hastati and 8/20 Principes...get it? (I am certain this can be achieved. It doesn't require too much coding time...it requires a bit of theory crafting time...so once you figure it out, its easy to do it for the rest of the factions.)

I'm not sure that's justified on realism grounds or necessary from a gameplay standpoint. On the former, the Romans seem to have gradually, essentially turned all their hastati (and for that matter, triarii) into principes, as this became economically and logistically feasible. Yes, they used auxiliaries to supplement their manpower and fill in the gaps tactically - but they had done this all along. As to gameplay, I don't see a problem with, basically, flavor units from a gameplay perspective.

[Baleur]

I agree with you, it's far more satisfying (and comprehensible) to have a reasonable number of units that are moderately different.
BUT i still think there must be some variation within said unit differences! It needs to strike a balance.

I hate when games have 1 archer unit, 1 tank unit and 1 melee unit. It's far too simplistic and leads to stale monotone battles.
But likewise if a game has 50 archer units, 29 different tanks and 20 melee units, it becomes far too irrelevant to ever bother caring about their differences (Wargame, an example of this).

I think between 3-6 different types of units within each "genre" is a good balance, but this is quite subjective. And depends on the type of game of course.
In a game like Starcraft each unit is designed with specific differences, so this problem never really occurs (a zergling is never comparable to an ultralisk, nor is a marine comparable to a firebat, different mechanics).

[Soul Firez]

I agree with you, it's far more satisfying (and comprehensible) to have a reasonable number of units that are moderately different.
BUT i still think there must be some variation within said unit differences! It needs to strike a balance.

I hate when games have 1 archer unit, 1 tank unit and 1 melee unit. It's far too simplistic and leads to stale monotone battles.
But likewise if a game has 50 archer units, 29 different tanks and 20 melee units, it becomes far too irrelevant to ever bother caring about their differences (Wargame, an example of this).

I think between 3-6 different types of units within each "genre" is a good balance, but this is quite subjective. And depends on the type of game of course.
In a game like Starcraft each unit is designed with specific differences, so this problem never really occurs (a zergling is never comparable to an ultralisk, nor is a marine comparable to a firebat, different mechanics).

Well for the OP this is a realisim mod ( as realistic as you can being a game with limited mechanics) In real life there were tons of different units used that were basicly the same thing spear sword etc etc with very slight differences size of sword spear size of man wielding weapon and training level of the unit. You seem to want a simplified hand held standard RTS system sorry i dont i went for DeI because its a realisim mod dont like it try another mod.

For the man i quoted wow i got to play you at wargame because if you dont care about the small differences in units you pretty much aint that good at the game.. Each tiny difference effects how they play out greatly balancing your deck to match a enemy or complementing an allies is vital to being half decent at the game maybe you should just try harder or stick to C&C style games...

[Butan]

I think unit diversity will become the 2nd moot point after killing rate tbh.

Its fair to discuss it but in the end its going to be down to the modders vision... and they seem to want to only stop at "realism" and realism implies the units that existed, and they were somewhat many! Now I hope as Baleur that it wont be sooooo expanded that we cant find head or tail.

[rjacko10]

I agree with the OP. Each unit should have it's own unique place on the roster. If people want to roleplay with very similar units then they should use an extra mod so that the majority of players who just want a decent gaming experience are not exposed.

I hope DeI will take the time to refine all units stats before the final release.

[JObadiah]

I don't really understand the problem. Say you have two units with more or less identical capabilities and they just look different (because they're spearmen, say, from different parts of the world). Well, and what of it?

[Cambion]

I am all for roleplaying and realism, I actually dont get some of the restrictions DEI places on the player (not complaining) because I would abide by them anyway. 20 Legionairies might be invincible but also plain boring. I have to say so, that I get where ma_251 is comming from. This is a game, not an exercise in reality. I which case btw we all would probably suck at it. Darthmod Empire is so awesome, the AI is great (comparativly), the units are beautiful. And almost completely arbitrary. Sure grenadiers beat musketeers in melee but thats pretty much it. Experierence matters a little, the unit does not. When I work to get the best units and pay the price in upkeep I want results. I already limit myself in strategy and tactics because of the less-than-stellar AI. A lot of units are perfectly OK, but please only as long as the make sense. STATS-wise.

Edit: Of course some similiar units are ok, good even. Just not 10 please.
Hurray: I can edit.

[JObadiah]

This is a game, not an exercise in reality.

DeI is explicitly devoted to a high degree of historical realism (not to the highest degree, compared to other mods, but a high one). Not every mod has to be, but this one is.

[corsair831]

i disagree with OP, more units is always better

mo better! mo better! mo better!

[ma_251]

The point I am making is not JUST that the mod seems to be on the path of too many units.

I am saying that the it looks like the mod is on the trend of too many units that are almost identical. Reduce their numbers and/or make them highly differentiated so that people have reason to pick historical armies instead of pretending to roleplay. Get it? I am saying 2 things here not just one thing.

And I am not against you people. Stop thinking me as the foreigner come to incite unrest in your beloved mod. What I advocate is a more historical, realistic, clutter free, less taxing on the modders, no more pretend roleplay, having actual reasons to pick low tier units mod.