Unit Size question

[gnosis89]

I am contemplating playing either medium, or small unit sizes. My laptop can generally handle a full battle well with medium unit size(ie. two full stack armies in the open field) but sometimes has quite a bit of lag on sieges or if more than two armies are present. So there's the obvious performance difference (more men equates to a heavier toll on graphics etc...) what are the benefits/cons to having small unit sizes, and those to having medium unit size.

I notice that many units using small unit size still have around 100 men, the average is probably around 70 or so. Perhaps this would also assist in siege battles, for positioning on walls and whatnot. Also I imagine it affects troop upkeep/unit costs? Does this negatively affect the game and its intended balance etc..?

[KAM 2150]

Costs are exactly the same. For some odd reason, even if unit has only 1 guy in the squad (although not possible in DeI since it would be disbanded), he would cost the same as if the squad is full.


Overal for balance stuff I think there is no difference except...towers and boiling oil. These two stuff do not scale so for example all towers are much more lethal on small unit size then on max units size since losing 50 guys in 300 strong squad is not that bad while losing 50 guys out of 100 men squad is rather big loss.

[Soontir]

Costs are independent of unit sizes. Mainly siege ballance, ramming to boarding benefits and to some dregree field balance, as less men won't be able to stretch formation that much and keep same bracing, but cav units will have easier times disengaging in formations.
Now towers do such low damage, that you can capture it without loses with heavy inf. I assume that on ultra they're near to useless. Boiling oil flows almost all the time, and moving larger unit takes more time, so percentage loses should be similar.