Warhammer requires armies to be lead by lords - assuming lords are limited, army limit again.

[swdgame]

I totaly agree with you. I don't see why we couldn't have captains for example, leading small regiments or garrisons. The captains we had in medieval 2.

There could be a system which determines the number of units an individual can have under his command, and as he progresses with his rank, his army increases in size. Would that be so difficult to make? I really don't think so.

So I am also dissapointed with this decision. I hope there might be a way around this, in terms of moding.


I don't quite agree. Do you think that generals had to be present at all times while the armies were being trained? Do you think it is like that today? No, it's not, and it never was. Generals sit in their offices discusing strategies, not training troops. So I think that is not a reason why they did that, it at least shouldn't be, if they know anything about how the military works (I personaly don't know much and I don't claim that I know a lot, but I am pretty sure about this here).


This can also be solved with a little bit of thinking I believe. E.g. the level of the city determines the number of troops it can produce, and of course the size of its garrison. This is no radical way of thinking, wouldn't you agree? You can also limit the number of captains, as it is with generals in rome 2 (I don't know for attila). That is completely doable. If we can cap the number of units and the number of generals, I simply see no reason whatsoever why we can't have a limit on captains.

1: I don't quite know about Europe. But in Ancient China and China in WWI and WWII, those general who trained the army will be the one that lead it.
2: And what I meant is that if this new system does not make more sense than previous ones, it at least makes the same level of sense.
3: I don't quite understand the difference between your captain and lords.
4: I really really don't understand how what you described is different from Rome 2's system. City level and garrison ARE the main things that defined what you can recruit and how fast you can recruit.

[frenchyvinnie]

3: I don't quite understand the difference between your captain and lords.

On this point, I think we can look back at Shogun 2. In S2TW, you had generals/family members, and captains. You could control an army with a captain, so you were not limited in troop movements, recruitment or army count, which is a good thing.

However, using a captain in battle was extremely risky/disadvantageous. An army controlled by a captain was extremely vulnerable to enemy agents and would usually get wrecked by an army controlled by a general. Since the game only gave a new general to your faction every so often, you were limited in the number of armies you could use in battle. However, you could still move troops around the place and manage garrisons using captains.

This is the system I expect for future TW games. No army spamming, so the game is challenging and balanced. But you can still manage your garrisons and move units around without stupid restrictions, so the game isn't frustrating for the player.

[swdgame]

On this point, I think we can look back at Shogun 2. In S2TW, you had generals/family members, and captains. You could control an army with a captain, so you were not limited in troop movements, recruitment or army count, which is a good thing.

However, using a captain in battle was extremely risky/disadvantageous. An army controlled by a captain was extremely vulnerable to enemy agents and would usually get wrecked by an army controlled by a general. Since the game only gave a new general to your faction every so often, you were limited in the number of armies you could use in battle. However, you could still move troops around the place and manage garrisons using captains.

This is the system I expect for future TW games. No army spamming, so the game is challenging and balanced. But you can still manage your garrisons and move units around without stupid restrictions, so the game isn't frustrating for the player.

1.I think army number limit is a good thing. As I have noted in previous posts, it slows down snowballing, it removes unit spamming, it simplifies army and unit managements, it forces you to focus more on politics and foreign affairs. It is just a better and advanced system. If you have any doubt, just ask yourself, how many times have you fought a full stack battle in grand campaign in M2TW and how many in Rome2.
2.I have not played Shogun 2. But from what you described, captain is just like general, but with less ability. Then Rome2 just basically put captains and generals together. And you still have better generals and worse generals.
3.The most important thing of Rome 2 army system, is that is simplifies previous systems. It is more approachable, understandable, while at the same time, it offers the same level of tactic choices.

[Collateral_dmg]

4: I really really don't understand how what you described is different from Rome 2's system. City level and garrison ARE the main things that defined what you can recruit and how fast you can recruit.

But you need a general to recruit an army, that is what I am talking about. What I described is different. And I also said that the number of units rucruited should be limited for each city level. I haven't played rome 2 in a while so I don't remember if that is the case, but I think it's not. You can train as much as you want as long as you have the money (and a general). And you can't move garrisons anywhere. Shogun 2 is the same in that aspect, but I would prefer if you could move garrisons within the province they are situated in at least. That way you could reinforce armies if needed, but they couldn't go further than their home province.

3: I don't quite understand the difference between your captain and lords.

The difference is in the number of units they can command, as I wrote clearly. At the very least I would like to be able to split up the armies if needed. I don't see how that would be impossible. That is not unrealistic, as armies did that throughout history. It's not a radical new concept. It would also introduce some kind of army hierarchy. Wouldn't that give you even more immersion, and the feeling that you are indeed commanding a kingdom or an empire? It would also allow you to field raiding parties, patrols, scouts etc., so you can harass your enemies, patrol for enemy raids and so on. Do you think that every raiding party or patrol was lead by a high ranking general? It most definitely wasn't.

[swdgame]

But you need a general to recruit an army, that is what I am talking about. What I described is different. And I also said that the number of units rucruited should be limited for each city level. I haven't played rome 2 in a while so I don't remember if that is the case, but I think it's not. You can train as much as you want as long as you have the money (and a general). And you can't move garrisons anywhere. Shogun 2 is the same in that aspect, but I would prefer if you could move garrisons within the province they are situated in at least. That way you could reinforce armies if needed, but they couldn't go further than their home province.


The difference is in the number of units they can command, as I wrote clearly. At the very least I would like to be able to split up the armies if needed. I don't see how that would be impossible. That is not unrealistic, as armies did that throughout history. It's not a radical new concept. It would also introduce some kind of army hierarchy. Wouldn't that give you even more immersion, and the feeling that you are indeed commanding a kingdom or an empire? It would also allow you to field raiding parties, patrols, scouts etc., so you can harass your enemies, patrol for enemy raids and so on. Do you think that every raiding party or patrol was lead by a high ranking general? It most definitely wasn't.

So it all comes down to one thing, army limitation.

As I have said before, army limitation is a step forward. End of story.

[Collateral_dmg]

So it all comes down to one thing, army limitation.

As I have said before, army limitation is a step forward. End of story.

That's what I was talking about the whole time. Army limitation is good, but not like this.

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

Army limitation is good. But not a hard cap. Not such a gamey system.

Armies should be limited by manpower and economy, not because of some arbitrary "Imperium." Shogun 2 handled this nearly perfectly, I fought giant battles, between multiple enemy stacks, all the time.

[frenchyvinnie]

slows down snowballing, it removes unit spamming, it simplifies army and unit managements

Unit spamming and army snowballing are both absent from S2TW. As for simplifying army and unit management, I'd say it's actually a bad thing. TW games have never been overly complex to begin with. A lot of people complained that Rome 2's mechanics were streamlined and watered down compared to previous titles. I won't expand on this because ultimately, it's a matter of personal preference. If you prefer a simplified system, that's fine with me.

have not played Shogun 2. But from what you described, captain is just like general, but with less ability. Then Rome2 just basically put captains and generals together. And you still have better generals and worse generals.

You are actually missing my point here. The key advantage of captains in Shogun 2 is that you can have as many of them as you want. If you want to send a few units to reinforce the front, you can.If you want to reinforce a garrison to prevent a rebellion or invasion, you can. If you want to move units between armies, you can. You can't do any of those things in Rome 2 because of the hard cap on the number of armies.

Rome 2 offers the same level of tactic choices.

See my point above. That's clearly wrong. :/

To sum things up:
I'm all for the idea of limiting the number of full-stacks armies you can field. It would be challenging and fun, even in late games. BUT doing so with arbitrary hard caps limits the options available to the player when managing armies. It causes frustration and breaks immersion.
The smart way of doing things would be with "soft caps", like re-balancing unit upkeeps, adding empire maintenance or introducing manpower.

[Saladin]

To be fair in the warhammer army books, lords can be just a general. The system it seems they are using is from warhammer. You must have at least one "Lord" to lead your army. So don't expect some all powerful hero leading every one of armies, you would have to build him up. Elector counts would legendary lords for their respective subfactions (if there are subfactions).

[Caradrayan]

I don't see why anyone assumes that "Lords" means "Elector Counts." There are only, like, 12 Elector counts in the Empire, but there are thousands of nobles. I'm pretty sure a character can be "Lord of Rock Creek" and work as a lord to lead an army. The point is that the empire has a professional soldiery, but it's state troops don't have a professional officer class, they are led by the nobility.

[joedreck]

I do not unterstand. In Rome 2 there are Generals. In warhammer there will be Lords.

Where is the Problem?

[scoicarius]

The only problem is the ambiguity of the word "Lord".

[swdgame]

Unit spamming and army snowballing are both absent from S2TW. As for simplifying army and unit management, I'd say it's actually a bad thing. TW games have never been overly complex to begin with. A lot of people complained that Rome 2's mechanics were streamlined and watered down compared to previous titles. I won't expand on this because ultimately, it's a matter of personal preference. If you prefer a simplified system, that's fine with me.



You are actually missing my point here. The key advantage of captains in Shogun 2 is that you can have as many of them as you want. If you want to send a few units to reinforce the front, you can.If you want to reinforce a garrison to prevent a rebellion or invasion, you can. If you want to move units between armies, you can. You can't do any of those things in Rome 2 because of the hard cap on the number of armies.



See my point above. That's clearly wrong. :/

To sum things up:
I'm all for the idea of limiting the number of full-stacks armies you can field. It would be challenging and fun, even in late games. BUT doing so with arbitrary hard caps limits the options available to the player when managing armies. It causes frustration and breaks immersion.
The smart way of doing things would be with "soft caps", like re-balancing unit upkeeps, adding empire maintenance or introducing manpower.

You are actually missing my point here.
From what you said, captains are just like armies without generals in M2TW. So basically, it has all the bad side effect of M2TW army system, as I have described before.
And as I have described before, army limitation and recruitment in Rome 2 does not break immersion.
And what you described as the "key advantage"s are the things that are broken. (And these are not tactical choices, these are strategy choices.) With the new system, you have to spend more time building your empire and foreign affairs instead of just spamming units and focusing solely on economy. And you have to carefully plan your invasion of other countries.

And all of what you describe as "soft cap" will increase game complexity hugely. Why would you do something the hard way, when you can do it the easy way?

I am not gonna argue in this post anymore. I have completely laid out all my points and all I am seeing are the same counter arguments.
To sum it up, the army limitation and army management system is a simple, straight forward, immersion friendly, flexible system, that fix some problems in previous titles, it is a step forward. -the end-

[Imperator Artorius]

Firstly, a manpower system functioning as a soft cap does not increase game complexity hugely. Can anyone argue that Medieval 2 was a "hugely" more complex game than Rome II in this regard? Even in Europa Universalis, the manpower system is very easy to understand.

Secondly, are you saying we should accept and treat imperium as an improvement over systems that have existed in previous Total War games, i.e. Medieval 2 purely because it was somehow easier to implement? As for it being immersion friendly, well that is in the eye of the beholder. I for one see manpower and economy as far more immersive limiting factors than the game's God like figure telling you "sorry mate, no more armies for you; cant have you steamrolling the AI."

[frenchyvinnie]

Firstly, a manpower system functioning as a soft cap does not increase game complexity hugely. Can anyone argue that Medieval 2 was a "hugely" more complex game than Rome II in this regard? Even in Europa Universalis, the manpower system is very easy to understand.

Secondly, are you saying we should accept and treat imperium as an improvement over systems that have existed in previous Total War games, i.e. Medieval 2 purely because it was somehow easier to implement? As for it being immersion friendly, well that is in the eye of the beholder. I for one see manpower and economy as far more immersive limiting factors than the game's God like figure telling you "sorry mate, no more armies for you; cant have you steamrolling the AI."

My point exactly. Couldn't agree more.

The definition of immersion is when the player becomes so involved into the game that he doesn't feel like he's playing a game any more. He becomes immersed into the game's story. To achieve immersion, a game needs to portray real-life elements as accurately and interestingly as possible for the player.

Now tell me what an arbitrary "15 armies maximum cap for every faction on the map" is supposed to represent in real life history? Were there trade unions for faction leaders and generals in Roman Antiquity that specifically forbade Rome to hire more than 15 generals at a time?

This is what I mean when I say that this system breaks immersion. It takes the player out of the game. It is a killjoy if you will. And having played Europa Universalis 4, Crusader Kings 2, Shogun 2 along with various mods that all experimented with soft caps for armies, I can see that there are smarter and more enjoyable ways to design the game than what was done in Rome 2.

[GatoVolador]

Manpower system is the key. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why they removed the genius unit pool thing they had in M2TW. Expand on it, like stainless steel. It made you worry about army composition a lot more. I am not a huge fan of the replenishment system of the older games, a toned down version of the replenishment we have now would work just fine to use elite units at the correct time instead of spamming armies full of elites cuz money is coming out of your ears.

Also, the "lil armies of 5 catapults"-spam present in M2TW is something that should be removed by improving the CAI, not by introducing arbitrary caps.

Cheers

[Evan MF]

You are actually missing my point here.
From what you said, captains are just like armies without generals in M2TW. So basically, it has all the bad side effect of M2TW army system, as I have described before.
And as I have described before, army limitation and recruitment in Rome 2 does not break immersion.
And what you described as the "key advantage"s are the things that are broken. (And these are not tactical choices, these are strategy choices.) With the new system, you have to spend more time building your empire and foreign affairs instead of just spamming units and focusing solely on economy. And you have to carefully plan your invasion of other countries.

And all of what you describe as "soft cap" will increase game complexity hugely. Why would you do something the hard way, when you can do it the easy way?

I am not gonna argue in this post anymore. I have completely laid out all my points and all I am seeing are the same counter arguments.
To sum it up, the army limitation and army management system is a simple, straight forward, immersion friendly, flexible system, that fix some problems in previous titles, it is a step forward. -the end-

The caps are completely arbitrary and are not justified from a historical standpoint. I don't know how you don't find it immersion breaking, it's a mechanic that sticks out like a sore thumb reminding you that you're playing a game rather than actually immersed in a historical geo-political environment.

I don't question the need for limits on armies, but it would work far better thematically to have a manpower reserve system such as in paradox games (Europa Universalis 4 is a good example) and a force-limit (max number of battalions) which you can go over, but at exponentially increasing costs and detracting from your pool of manpower for reinforcing existing stacks. A real world type of trade off between over-spending/over-extending your manpower for a bigger military or having a limited, elite force that can be readily replenished at a normal cost.

[swdgame]

I'll admit, I have a problem. I need to get away from this forum. But anyways, here I am again.


1. Immersion of army limitation.
Some of you think that army limitation does not make sense. Well here is how it makes sense.
The decision to build a army is decided by the rulers. And in ancient times, who have an army, who gets to others. And every army that you don't have in your control, is a potential threat. So the rulers will only field an army if there is an absolute necessity to guard an area or to invade another nation. That's why when your empire's land get bigger, you get to have more armies.
For example, in Tang Dynasty in China, there are basically 12 normal armies and 6 royal armies. Tang has 52 million to 80 million population, and each normal army has about 50k soldiers (royal armies have much less)(you might be surprised by the number, but since like 200 BC, Chinese armies are fight in sizes of 100k). And in earlier days, Tang got harassed by northern nations pretty bad, until they reached an political agreement. So why not field more armies? They are the richest in the world, they have a lot of population. The reason is quite simple, Tang got to build a dynasty by plotting a military coup. They know what harm an army can do, so they keep it that way.
Now my point is, army limitation makes sense, it has historical basis. It is a limitation set by the rulers to keep their rulings safe.
2. Manpower.
I have not played Rome 1. And from my experience of M2TW and what I read, here is what manpower does. Manpower restricts how fast you can field and how many units you can field. Manpower is determined by the local population, agriculture and politics and culture.
Now the how fast part is basically in Rome 2. When your units are replenishing, the speed is determined by agriculture and politics and culture.
The how much is not necessary, cuz there is already a limitation.
So there is no need to use a much more complex manpower system.
3. The benefits of army limitation
It limits the speed of snowballing. You can't just put all your forces in front line, and just push your borderlines any more. You need to build your cities, get allies, look out for invasions in other parts of your empire. Cuz you can't just spam 5 emergency units to guard a castle any more. It is harder in late campaign compared to previous titles. That is what CA wanted, and they achieved it.
4. The benefits of army management
When I say the new system is straight forward, I don't mean the new system is simpler or easy to implement. I mean that the new system is easy to understand, easy to manage.
Since all the management of your units are within your army, you don't have to constantly move inside your city to replenish your units, or recruit. And you don't have to manage 5 small stacks of army when you can just manage one. And you get to play a lot more full stack battles now because you will get your armies to full stack, and AI will get their armies to full stack. That is what I personally enjoyed, full stack 10k soldiers' battle, not 1k soldiers' skirmish fight.
At the same time, you still face many choices as in previous titles. Do you want to field weaker units in front line area and fight immediately? Or do you want to get back to your military province and field stronger units? Do you want to move your army into city to replenish faster and safer? Or do you want to hold an important location wile replenish slower? Choices like this exist.

To sum it up, new army limitation and management system are better systems, and a step forward.


And I swear I will not come back to this post any more.

[frenchyvinnie]

swdgames, I've read all your points, and I must simply really, really advise you to try out other games than just medieval 2 and Rome 2. I don't mean this in any mean and underhanded way. I truly think that if you try Shogun 2 or Europa Universalis 4, you will have a blast and you will finally realize how poorly designed and unimaginative the army management system in Rome 2 was.

Your points make sense, it's simply that I would not associate them with Rome 2. Just as an example, EU4 has a manpower system that is infinitely better than anything we've seen in a TW game (especially Rome 2).

Just my two cents, take it as you will.

[Carl Jung was right]

I might buy into some of the arguments concerning limiting recruitment to named characters only, but there should be an option to move units in and out of a general-led army for the purposes of garrison, raiding or simply depleted unit traffic. There's no reason to always have a general on hand for the explicit purpose of "fetching" units to your main field army.

And no, agents with their X% to succeed actions do not replace the active role of skirmishing, which was always a minor, but nonetheless important part of TW games. I enjoyed using a small stack of cavalry units in Empire and Shogun to set fire to weakly defended ports and provincial structures.


Another thing you could always do with a small, uncommanded stack is send them against a powerful enemy army in order to cause casualties to their archers or siege engines with their initial charge (or missiles), and then pull them back out immediately before they get tied up in serious combat. If done correctly, this kind of skirmishing could wipe out a good portion of the dangerous units in the enemy army, and even kill the commander if you're lucky. There's just so many creative ways in which these small, uncommanded "tendrils" could be employed. In Rome 2, the way your units were somehow magically tied to the general's force, feels unnecessarily restricting. You have to fetch a general from half an empire away just to ferry a handful of units to a province with a higher replenishment rate. It's absolute bollocks. Suppose you want to leave a bit of a garrison in a newly captured city? Nope, can't do that, your soldiers are too scared to be more than a few hundred feet away from their commanding officer. Anyone who thinks this is fun or logical is in my opinion, out of their mind.