What unit size do you use in your game?

[Ceki]

What unit size you use in your game guys? And why?
I use huge unit size coz I like huge armies on battlefield, and lots of corpses afther the battle

[Kara Kolyo]

for quite some time now i use large size. on huge i don't like the city battles and my pc is not that great too...

[DimeBagHo]

I use a custom unit size of 100, which I think is about as big as you can get before you run into the path finding and population stripping problems you get with huge.

[Paul d]

i use custom 60

[Locky]

I use large. Huge is just murder, to my poor old PC.

[Hippias]

Large every time - I don't like the depopulating of cities you get on huge + too much scrolling along the battle line on huge settings. You can see the big picture more eaasily on large.

Large unit size also plays sweetly, on a PC that I have just discovered won't play MTW2 at all.......things move so fast these days

[JD XKiller]

my ALDI is reliable but old, so: UNIT_SIZE:40

[Cúchulainn]

I play on HUGE, mainly just for the scence of scale and grandure.

[Goatus Boyus]

Huge..I find huge slows the Pc factions down,due to draining there population,stops those endless stacks coming out of Macidonia

[Agathon]

I use large (120 men for phalanx units, about 80 for most auxiliares and 40 for cavalry units), largely because the scale gives a measure of realism to my screen captures.

RTW calls the basic unit a cohort, which is laughable when you're referring to a company of 60 men. The Roman cohort historically had a complement of 400 to 600 men. With less than 400 men, you're just commanding maniples of roughly 120 men made up of two centuries of 60 men each. So I tend to think of XGM large roman units (80 men) as reduced maniples, or enlarged centuries, but never as cohorts.

Since a legion contained anything from 2000 men (operationally) to 4000 men (paper strength), I would judge a full stack of 19 units and a general to be roughly equal to a legion, providing you train roughly equal numbers of hastati, principes and triarii to fill 3/4's of the stack. So I tend to think of a cohort as containing 3X to 4X Hastati and 1X archers or velites. The last quarter of the stack would be dedicated to cavalry and artillery.

As for the Greek world, what most of us consider the Phalanx was under the command of a field grade commander called a Taxiarch who usually commanded a line of spears comparible in numbers to something between the modern battalion and the regiment. In practical terms the taxies (or regiment) was divided into lochoi or companies. Each lochos was divided into two or more pentecostyes or 50-60 man platoons and then into 10-man squads. I think that ratio of officers to men in an average taxies of hoplites would remind one of the ratio of a battalion of Frederick II's grenadiers or Napoleon's guards, so the 80-man lochos of hypaspists or sacred band with an officer or standard bearer doesn't seem out of place.

The actual numbers in armies were very flexible depending on the state in question. Since the Spartans (not unlike the modern americans) tended to "double-size" their basic field units, a spartan lochos usually consisted of four pentecostyes giving it a complement of 200 men that was probably twice the size of the lochoi of other states and almost the same size as a small taxies of allies. I think this spread out thin the officers in a Spartan command, but also probably emphasized the realiability of Spartan NCO's to do the work of commanders and of runners to carry commands from lochos to lochos.

So, granting that a 120-man phalanx unit seems about right to me as an average lochos or company, I would consider a good middle game taxies to consist of 2X armoured phalangites, 2X phalangites, 2X hypaspists or thorikitai and 1X or 2X archers or peltasts. Two of these would Dominate a stack and leave room for three or four troops of cavalry. This is roughly what my machine handles best in tactical screen combats.

[LittleWeiz]

I tend to play on huge because i get more corpse. Artillery shots are more likely to hit and u are more likely to see BBQ soldiers. Other than that i just love legions being supersized though i hate the romans now coz they sacked my cities. I will get back with them after clicking reply.

[Cymera]

i always wanted to see HUGE cinematic battles, after seeing some good war movies. so i set it @ huge size. a common roman full stack for me is: 4 legionary first cohorts, 4 triarii, 8 archer aux, 4 praetorian cav. this can handle almost anything, except full stack of armored elephants lol

[LittleWeiz]

I thought triarii are non-recruitable after marius? Or were u talking about custom battles? Sorry for being outdated on roman unit roster.

[Cymera]

i LOVE to edit the export_descr_unit and buildings files to change stuff. i made legionnary first 243 men, triarii post marius, make units available early, make governor building give happiness.