Limit Maximum Size of Group? » Forum Post by Othello

Why would only 20-30 people fit in one tile? It makes no sense! And tactical battles would be underwhelming and boring. The only size limit that woudl make snese would be 100,000+, and I seriously doubt we'll see armies that big.

And really, one stack of 20-30 super heros with a dragons and a sovreign would equal game over. How are you supposed to fight a dragon with 20-30 peasants? It should take 3,000+!

I'm sorry, but 20-30 people is neither large nor strategic. 1,000 is.

I am adamantly opposed to any hard cap that makes no sense. If you can't fit that many units in that sized tile, sure, but I doubt we'll ever make that many units.

I want to have my 10,000 vs. 10,000 battles on gigantic maps!

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Also against having a limit on the number of units/tyle. Bill_Door said it well enough.

However...I do say that instead of showing individuals on one tile, make them take up more. A gargantuan army shouldn't all fit on one square - perhaps ever 1000 people/army adds a universal square to the whole army. It's still one unified group, but it takes up more space.

Unless, of course, 1x1 tile is a massive size. Which it could be.

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Unless the time required or amount changes, producing thousands of units at this rate would take many many turns. isn't the max group you can make is ten? and isn't the time required, without special building, 10 turns. so you'd need 100 groups of 10 to amass 1000 units. or 1000 groups of 10 for 10,000 units. lets take the 10,000 troop number: it would take 10,000 turns (1000 groups of 10 troops at 10 turns a piece) to build them at one city. divide that by 5 cities, still 2000 turns. 2000 turns which doesn't include the build-up to where you are able to make those troops.

-Othello

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But why would you limit someone who managed to accomplish such a feat?

I doubt training numbers are final, and it should be possible to draft huge numbers of untrained peasants, give them a stick, and send your 1,000-man army off in one turn.

In Beta 1 you could create legions, so I doubt a 10-man company will be the largest group in the final game.

And honestly, the game would become a level up sovreign/get super powerful heros/dragons race, and then steamroller the guy with a mundane army because he can only use a pathetic amount of units at a time.

Give one advantage to a hard cap. Just one.

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No Limits Please...

There Will be some kind of limit in place simply from a "processing power" point of view. That's why the Total War games have a hard capped limit. Once you get so many units and individual soldiers on screen and moving at once it will seriously bog-down performance. Things will start looking laggy and generally just "bad". Rather then slow down people's machines or make it look like the game couldn't perform well they limited the number of units that could be on screen at once with the current "Minimum System Specs" recommended on the box.

I can guarantee one of the first things people with more powerful machines are going to Mod in Elemental will be the numbers of units on screen at one time. People want to have MASSIVE EPIC BATTLES. They WANT to SEE and CONTROL THOUSANDS of Soldiers, or TENS of THOUSANDS. Some people's machines will be able to display more on screen at once then others people's machines will. Some people have more memory or a more powerful processor or a better video card. The game needs to be able to take advantage of those things for the people who have them, while managing to still look decent (and play decent) for those who don't.

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Having played plenty of CivIV games where the computer just makes gigantic stacks that you can't possibly defend everywhere against, I have to say I want limits in the game. That being said, I fully expect a "unit" of peasants to actually be like 50 peasants. Like in Total War games, the epicness is in how those units are displayed in tactical combat, which is really just graphical representations of the unit's hit points.

Later,
LAR

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Why not have no units at all? Just the soverigns battling it out? And while we are at it we can make it from a first person perspective, and add guns and stuff.... it's Elemental WAR of Magic, not Elemetal: Small Skirmishes of Magic!

+1

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Quoting strager,

reply 7

Why not have no units at all? Just the soverigns battling it out? And while we are at it we can make it from a first person perspective, and add guns and stuff.... it's Elemental WAR of Magic, not Elemetal: Small Skirmishes of Magic!

Indeed.

Quoting larrypeters,

reply 6

Having played plenty of CivIV games where the computer just makes gigantic stacks that you can't possibly defend everywhere against, I have to say I want limits in the game. That being said, I fully expect a "unit" of peasants to actually be like 50 peasants. Like in Total War games, the epicness is in how those units are displayed in tactical combat, which is really just graphical representations of the unit's hit points.

Later,
LAR

Hit Points. I hate hit points. I shall mod them out asap, if it is possible to replace them with a Dwarf Fortress-like combat system that is. "'Your sovereign hits the Dragon in the Head with the Death Mace, and it explodes in gore!"

I'm only half-joking.

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Quoting strager,

reply 7

Why not have no units at all? Just the sovereigns battling it out? And while we are at it we can make it from a first person perspective, and add guns and stuff.... it's Elemental WAR of Magic, not Elemental: Small Skirmishes of Magic!

%100 Agree. I couldn't have said it better my-self. Well done, my friend.

Quoting larrypeters,

reply 6

That being said, I fully expect a "unit" of peasants to actually be like 50 peasants. Like in Total War games, the epicness is in how those units are displayed in tactical combat, which is really just graphical representations of the unit's hit points.

Later,
LAR

I may not agree with wanting limits, but, I do agree with this part here. It all comes down to how it's represented. Total War solves this (in part) with a option in the settings called "Unit Scale". That option doesn't mean "How big does this look on the map" , it's talking about "How Many Individual Soldiers are Displayed Per-Unit". It goes from tiny/small (for people with slower machines) up to Ultra (for those with more powerful machines). The Ultra options shows the Soldiers at a 1 to 1 count, meaning if it's a "Unit" with 100 Soldiers in it then during Tactical Battles All 100 of those Soldiers will be shown. As you turn the setting down from ultra it becomes less. One of the options only shows half the unit count on screen. So a 100 man unit would only be displayed as 50 men during a tactical battle.

It's simple to implement and I think logically it's the best way to go here as well. Why fix a system that isn't broken? Just use this option that's been used in previous games before. Elemental currently has a "Unit Scale" option but I believe it refers to "How Big it is on the Map".

The Creative Assembly made one fatal mistake when they put in a unit cap in the TW series. They HARD CODED it into the game engine. You can Never have more then 20 units (regardless of soldier count) on screen and under your direct control at one time. There can be more then 20 units on screen, but they are controled by your enemies or allies in battle and Not by the Player. Even Modders can Not Bypass this option. The Creative Assembly did this On Purpose so that people wouldn't think bad about the engine when they tried to display a lot of units on screen at once and got bad performance. Well of course you got bad performance, you're trying to show half a million men at one time in detail with separate animations. That Will bog-down any home system, I don't care how much money you spent on it.

Please, Stardock...Don't Hard Code Any Limits. Even if it makes things run slow at least leave us Modders the Option to try to play with Far More Units then originally intended. We're not stupid, we don't expect perfect performance when we push the limits of both software and hardware. We don't want our Mods to run like crap either so obviously we won't put in anything that will hamper how the game runs (at least a Good modder won't).

So far Stardock has done a Great Job leaving all the code open enough that modders can change what we want. Please continue to do this when it comes to Hard Caps for units on screen and under the players direct control. Please. We'll understand what does and doesn't push the engine too far when we're making our Mods.

Please

Thank You

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Well, any limits should be organic and not some hard-coded limit. As theoretically cool it would be to have 100,000+ units I'd like there to be practical gameplay limits to the amount of units you could make. Winning by burning out your opponent's processor is not sporting...

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Quoting Raven X,

reply 5

No Limits Please...

There Will be some kind of limit in place simply from a "processing power" point of view. That's why the Total War games have a hard capped limit. Once you get so many units and individual soldiers on screen and moving at once it will seriously bog-down performance. Things will start looking laggy and generally just "bad". Rather then slow down people's machines or make it look like the game couldn't perform well they limited the number of units that could be on screen at once with the current "Minimum System Specs" recommended on the box.

I can guarantee one of the first things people with more powerful machines are going to Mod in Elemental will be the numbers of units on screen at one time. People want to have MASSIVE EPIC BATTLES. They WANT to SEE and CONTROL THOUSANDS of Soldiers, or TENS of THOUSANDS. Some people's machines will be able to display more on screen at once then others people's machines will. Some people have more memory or a more powerful processor or a better video card. The game needs to be able to take advantage of those things for the people who have them, while managing to still look decent (and play decent) for those who don't.

Well said Raven!

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Wintersong

Join Date 07/2006

+235

Quoting Bill_Door,

reply 1

And really, one stack of 20-30 super heros with a dragons and a sovreign would equal game over. How are you supposed to fight a dragon with 20-30 peasants? It should take 3,000+!

Bah, 300 spartan peasants should be more than enough. Or a hair from Chuck Norris' beard.

Quoting strager,

reply 7

it's Elemental WAR of Magic, not Elemetal: Small Skirmishes of Magic!

That kind of examples are quite dangerous. Should we skip diplomacy or quests because they are not in the title?

I vote for no limits.

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Quoting Wintersong,

reply 12

Quoting Bill_Door,
reply 1
And really, one stack of 20-30 super heros with a dragons and a sovreign would equal game over. How are you supposed to fight a dragon with 20-30 peasants? It should take 3,000+!

Bah, 300 spartan peasants should be more than enough. Or a hair from Chuck Norris' beard

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Quoting larrypeters,

reply 6

Having played plenty of CivIV games where the computer just makes gigantic stacks that you can't possibly defend everywhere against, I have to say I want limits in the game.

In Elemental, as in other fantasy games, giant stacks could just be giants with clay feet. Once spotted, they can receive some spell as "Rain of Fire", "Poison Cloud", "Cloud of Death", "Earthquake" and such, and get decimated. Or they can be blocked by "Turn terrain into swamps" or "Raise poison forest" during several turns.

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Such passion on this thread. I don't care how stacks are limited, be it by hard coding because only so many units can fit on a chunk of land or threat of destruction by magic. I just don't want to the see the game dissolve into whoever has the biggest stack wins.

Later,
LAR

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Or a hair from Chuck Norris' beard.

I'll take your hair from Chuck Norris' beard and raise you a drop of sweat from Bruce Lee's brow.

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Quoting larrypeters,

reply 15

Such passion on this thread. I don't care how stacks are limited, be it by hard coding because only so many units can fit on a chunk of land or threat of destruction by magic. I just don't want to the see the game dissolve into whoever has the biggest stack wins.

Later,
LAR

That and wars usually being decided by a single battle are two things that I would prefer not to see.

By a single battle I mean, two armies meet, the winner always automatically utterly destroys the loser, such as in HoMAM, then it's just a race capture the loser's capital while they are without troops.

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Quoting wraithstalke,

reply 17

Quoting larrypeters, reply 15Such passion on this thread. I don't care how stacks are limited, be it by hard coding because only so many units can fit on a chunk of land or threat of destruction by magic. I just don't want to the see the game dissolve into whoever has the biggest stack wins.

Later,
LAR
That and wars usually being decided by a single battle are two things that I would prefer not to see.

By a single battle I mean, two armies meet, the winner always automatically utterly destroys the loser, such as in HoMAM, then it's just a race capture the loser's capital while they are without troops.

but at present the battles are winner kills all of loser, but loser managed to kill part of winners troops, and a cautious general/sovereign would re-supply/replenish the troops before heading in to the next battle.

BUT I also would prefer a limit of units per square, but if a square is for example a square MILE then the number of units is HUGE

harpo

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Quoting Nathikal,

reply 2

Also against having a limit on the number of units/tyle. Bill_Door said it well enough.

However...I do say that instead of showing individuals on one tile, make them take up more. A gargantuan army shouldn't all fit on one square - perhaps ever 1000 people/army adds a universal square to the whole army. It's still one unified group, but it takes up more space.

Unless, of course, 1x1 tile is a massive size. Which it could be.

Let's put it this way. 1 tile is as far as an army can move in a day (currently). A conservative estimate would be that an army can travel 10 leagues in a day, so a 10 league by 10 league area? Yeah, you could fit a LOT of units in that. That's enough to be 100,000+.

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Quoting Mandelik,

reply 14

Quoting larrypeters,
reply 6
Having played plenty of CivIV games where the computer just makes gigantic stacks that you can't possibly defend everywhere against, I have to say I want limits in the game.

In Elemental, as in other fantasy games, giant stacks could just be giants with clay feet. Once spotted, they can receive some spell as "Rain of Fire", "Poison Cloud", "Cloud of Death", "Earthquake" and such, and get decimated. Or they can be blocked by "Turn terrain into swamps" or "Raise poison forest" during several turns.

I'm hesitant with this kind of "crowd control" of mega stacks. You'll end up with all kinds of squirrley ways to game it. You know, breaking armies into smaller stacks, then insta-combining them right before a city battle to have a mega stack, then break the stack apart after.

What we need is game mechanics and incentives that encourage the player not to have 1 mega stack. Make more strategic objectives in war beyond simply grab-the-capital-yay-I-win or kill-the-sovereign-yay-I-win. For instance, give a defender in war a decisive advantage while fighting on their home turf via something like "linked shards." While the defender is in their home range, their sovereign and other magical heroes could be highly powerful--- however, neutralize the shards and the sovereign becomes much more manageable. This encourages the invader to strike at multiple targets with multiple armies and also encourages the defender to defend those sites.

This is just an example, but it's far better than gimmicky spells or hard coded caps. Institute a cap and all we end up with is players stacking bigger units into a mega stack rather than simply bigger numbers.

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Quoting Demiansky,

reply 20

I'm hesitant with this kind of "crowd control" of mega stacks. You'll end up with all kinds of squirrley ways to game it. You know, breaking armies into smaller stacks, then insta-combining them right before a city battle to have a mega stack, then break the stack apart after.

What we need is game mechanics and incentives that encourage the player not to have 1 mega stack. Make more strategic objectives in war beyond simply grab-the-capital-yay-I-win or kill-the-sovereign-yay-I-win. For instance, give a defender in war a decisive advantage while fighting on their home turf via something like "linked shards." While the defender is in their home range, their sovereign and other magical heroes could be highly powerful--- however, neutralize the shards and the sovereign becomes much more manageable. This encourages the invader to strike at multiple targets with multiple armies and also encourages the defender to defend those sites.

This is just an example, but it's far better than gimmicky spells or hard coded caps. Institute a cap and all we end up with is players stacking bigger units into a mega stack rather than simply bigger numbers.

Those are very good points, Demiansky. Well said indeed.

Also though, we have to look at the "Epic" nature of what's being emulated here. Two things really. Fantasy Worlds and Games, and Warfare. In War, numbers matter. This is a rule in Real Life. If you want to win a war, have more soldiers and better weapons then your enemy, or you'll be killed and wiped out.

The source material that has inspired Elemental and games like it in the past come from "Epic" stories and "Epic Wars". I'd call WW2 pretty "Epic", right? How many ships was it that landed on D-Day? What other "Epic Wars" can we think of through-out history? We've got the "Trojan War", that launched the Largest Fleet man-kind has ever seen (with the exception of D-Day I'm sure). We've got the 300 Spartans defending their heritage against 500,000 Persians. I can go on and on with "Epic" examples here.

Now lets look at our Fantasy source material. Well, I can't not say LotR or someone would try to kill me, so...LotR. We have stories like "Dragonlance" and magic and monsters from "Dungeons and Dragons". We've got things from Fairy Tales like Giants and Unicorns and Witches and Wizards and all that stuff. To some person or another all of that stuff is "Epic".

We all want Elemental to be "Epic" don't we? I know I do . That means we need a game, and a War, on a EPIC scale. That means Huge Monsters, Massive Spells, and Huge Armies that number in the Thousands!!!!

EPIC!!!! FTW!!!!!

No Limits, Brother, No Limits.

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Tridus

Join Date 03/2008

+110

Quoting larrypeters,

reply 15

Such passion on this thread. I don't care how stacks are limited, be it by hard coding because only so many units can fit on a chunk of land or threat of destruction by magic. I just don't want to the see the game dissolve into whoever has the biggest stack wins.

Later,
LAR

So you want the side effects instead? That being whoever min-maxes their stack best wins?

AoW 2 was notorious for that. Stack limit of 8 in a stack. So... the tier 4 units were pretty much all a smart player would build once they got the ability to build them. A mixed stack of Archers/Footmen/Ballistae/etc sounds great on paper and costs a fraction of the cost for a stack of Dread Reapers... and gets completely destroyed. In a proper fight with the two stacks having equal costs? You might have a shot. But some arbitrary hard coded limit no matter what it is ensures that one combination of units always reigns supreme over all other combinations.

Even if you try to base the limit on something like costs, inevitably it won't be balanced correctly and some unit will be better then all the others due to having a lower cost relative to its power.

Besides, isn't the underlying point kind of silly. If my army is twice the size of yours, shouldn't I have a better chance of winning? How does forcing me to line them up and attack you five times solve anything over one single giant battle?

to arbitrary stack limits.

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Quoting Bill_Door,

reply 1

Why would only 20-30 people fit in one tile? It makes no sense! And tactical battles would be underwhelming and boring. The only size limit that woudl make snese would be 100,000+, and I seriously doubt we'll see armies that big.

And really, one stack of 20-30 super heros with a dragons and a sovreign would equal game over. How are you supposed to fight a dragon with 20-30 peasants? It should take 3,000+!

I'm sorry, but 20-30 people is neither large nor strategic. 1,000 is.

I am adamantly opposed to any hard cap that makes no sense. If you can't fit that many units in that sized tile, sure, but I doubt we'll ever make that many units.

I want to have my 10,000 vs. 10,000 battles on gigantic maps!

I agree to no limits. Now my favorite TBS Fantasy game was the AOW series and they had a linit of 8 in a stack where each unit had thier own powers and this one fun but I would like a more epic feel like Total War blened with the feel I had with AOW

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Quoting Tridus,

reply 22

AoW 2 was notorious for that. Stack limit of 8 in a stack. ....

If I'm remembering correctly, couldn't you attack with multiple stacks at once in Age of Wonders? I do agree that a limit of 8 units per stack is way too low, but let me respond to your example with another example. In Civ IV a popular strategy of AI is the stack of doom. We're talking about 30+ units in a single stack. The only defense against this, at least in a mid-stage game, is to create a stack of greater than or equal size and basically trick the AI into attacking it (since defenders have massive bonuses). One of the few failings of the game.

I understand where you're coming from and that it's stupid when a game has artificial limits for no good reason. But I don't know how much fun it is to allow opponents to dictate the pace of the game simply because they have the largest army. That being said, I've also played games were, like in Rome: Total War, you could pretty easily defend a city with a wall, archers and some infantry. So I guess it all comes down to how tactical tactical battles turn out.

As I said before I don't care how stacks sizes are limited. If it's because they're ineffective, that's fine. But I'd much prefer a game where strategy, like having stacks attack from different angles, is more important than how big your stack is. If the best way to do that is to limit the size of stack I'm perfectly fine with that. I'm hoping it's not.

I do apologize for originally saying to simply limit stack sizes, at the time I was focusing on how to achieve epic battles without the need for massive armies.

Later,
LAR

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I guess my main conflict unlimited numbers in a group is creating the HoMaM effect, where you have 4 cities pumping out as many units as possible to focus in one group. Maybe it focuses gameplay too narrow. It essentially lessens the impact of strategically placing warbands at various parts of the map. You could have a huge main force, but the smaller scouting/defending groups shouldn't be completely pointless.

Although if you want to play a barbarian horde with 100 of units attacking, that's a pretty cool idea too. And it might be a shame to not see.

-Othello

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