Troops: Quanity v Quality

[Elmar Bijlsma]

With a new engine it begs the question: Will the amount of troops per unit go up? I certainly hope so. While I'm liking the improved units in M2TW better then I would have thought, I still prefer the bigger units of RTW. Seeing a lovely knight hack and slash his way through a crowd of enemies has never been so good to watch. But I rarely get in close enough with the camera to appreciate the very high detail, while looking at a massive army sprawled across a ridge never gets old. The bigger the better I say!
With gun powder units being the prime troop type, I fear we might not see an increase in troop numbers, as the smoke I'd expect to be part of the game can be a real frame rate killer.

So please, share with us what you would like to see.

[pevergreen]

I would like to see high detail, but with the option of lots of units as well. Something to cover for all tastes.

[Hoplite7]

Max detail, anything from 20 soldiers per unit (low) to 300 (ultra-giant) unit scale

That would be epic... M2TW doesn't stress my computer enough. :p

[pevergreen]

It needs to be able to be toggled. Low graphics low units, high graphics high units.

[Warluster]

I would like the choice. In game, depending on my mood, I would like to have the choice of lots of units but crap detail, or not a lot but painful attention of graphics.

[Brusilov]

One of the things that I liked about M2:TW was the ability to change most of the graphic settings 'in game' on the battlefield.

Larger troop numbers always gives the impression of a large battle, but I agree that it needs to be scalable. Not everyone will have the same spec PC.

While I quite like 'eye candy' the AI needs to be improved on the battlefield. I've been reading the posts about Shogun and it sounds as if the AI was very good in that game.

[Belgolas]

If you can ungodly amount of grahpics with ungodly amount of troops. That would be awesome. But obviuosly it will look better then M2TW and it will have more troops. M2TW has more troops then RTW. So anybody saying RTW has more troops doesn't look at troop sizes.

[Discoman]

Well from what I've seen my computer in no way can handle this game. Honestly I really liked how the units looked in MTW2, so I have to say that they could look a miniscule amount better, but larger numbers is a must for me.

[Bijo]

With gun powder units being the prime troop type, I fear we might not see an increase in troop numbers, as the smoke I'd expect to be part of the game can be a real frame rate killer.

So please, share with us what you would like to see.

Hmmm, I think that it is good if the smoke (of which there would be much) would be "2D simulating 3D" to save performance while still maintaining decent quality. Kind of like the unit sprites but then for smoke. It suspect the smoke could look very nice if done well. It should be possible... anything is possible.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

More people, graphics the same as M2 would be fine. They should be able to increase the number of soldiers with good optimization...

[Lord Winter]

I'd rather have armys of 30,000 units at say MTW graphics then 2,000 at MTW2 graphics.

[Charge]

Firstly numbers! quality after.
Quality only affects unit's looking, but size affects its behaviour directly
But this all must be in options - from lowest to hugest unit scale, same thing with graphic.

[ratbarf]

Point of Interest: They better have a killer UI if they want you to be able to effectively control 30 000 + units. I mean whats the point of having 50 000 men if you can only keep an eye on 30 000 of them??? Plus, Generals back then didn't even do that. They would give vague or general orders and the cammander of that section would handle the minor details. I mean if they didn't do that it would become a mad shortcut mapping spree.... Which would ruin the game for me because I like to give orders, then sit back and watch the magic.

[Charge]

Scrolling for cards... In real battles generals did not command all army full time, some orders before, than corrections.
Maybe let ai (if he competent) to take some parts of your army.
10-20,000 in your command and 20,000 ai? Pause at last...

[challengethesea]

I can deal with uglier troops if it allows me to get armies on the battlefield more often in the 10,000+ range rather than a few thousand. For this era especially. I expect M2TW quality, however, and like the past games, reduced numbers of men on the field than what could be seen historically. Doesn't really bother me if that's the case, as I know I can't get everything I want. I imagine unit detail will be scalable anyways.

[Furious Mental]

Personally I would like the unit detail to remain the same and the armies get larger. Although I don't count on commanding 200,000 troops all at once, I would hope the battles and battlefield will be significantly larger in ETW.

[ninjahboy]

i want some choice like in medieval 2 - max maybe 200-250 units per group nothing like the smell of gunpowder in the mornin' :D

[trickydicky]

As long as I can have 10-50 thousand troops on the screen, I'm not that bothered about the quality of the graphics. Within reason that is.

Of course in an ideal world I would want MTW2 graphics and 200,000 + troops

[Charge]

trickydicky

As long as I can have 10-50 thousand troops on the screen, I'm not that bothered about the quality of the graphics. Within reason that is.

Of course in an ideal world I would want MTW2 graphics and 200,000 + troops

No, in ideal we want see up to 500,000 troops and graphics far more better than m2tw

BTW, I can have only 6,000 (RTW) AND 3,000 (MTW2)

EDIT: instead of better graphics it is better to make better animations!

[Caius]

I'd prefer a balance of both.

[Veho Nex]

i prefer the amazing beuty of troops because that means later on they can update to allow more

[Incongruous]

Well considering that by the time of the Seven years war, lines of battle were begining to stretch on for miles, I am really looking foreward to see how they will handle battlefield size. Quantity versus quality odly wins out in this one. Go figure..