Troop Numbers Adjuster?

[Praetyre]

Hello. I am Praetyre, a relative newbie to the world of RTW mods and Europa Barbarorum. I must say, EB is a spectacular mod, particularily in areas of languages, accuracy in relation to less well-known/Hollywoodized groups. However, a persistant gripe of mine with real time strategy games has been the lack of scale. Cossacks: Total War and Rome: Total War are the only two games that can even come close to hitting the mark (excluding, of course, games that employ different, more representational systems, a fair number of which are turn based).

This is, of course, no fault of the team at EB or any other mod, merely the result of hardcoded maximums to unit size (240, 244 counting 2 officers, flagbearer and general, 304 in custom maps counting same). But, in essence, even Antiquity offers us battles beyond the scope of the TW engine to truly convey, such as Agrigentum, where 40,000 Roman forces faced off against 50,000 Carthaginian troops, Rhone Crossing, where 46,000 troops of Carthage faced off against the Volcae, Zama, where around 54,080 Carthaginian troops faced off against 43,000 Roman forces (including 6000 Numidians) or even the siege of Carthage herself, where 40,000 Roman troops were faced with 90,000 Carthaginian troops.

While some historians assert numbers (Herodotus being the most well known example) of certain forces were scribal versions of typos or exaggerations, even conservative estimates place large forces in the range of tens of thousands. Some have observed a parallel with the issue of unrealistic city populations, while others have embarked on attempted solutions, such as Southern Hunter, who developed the Realistic Troop Numbers mod.

As SH so astutely observed, the only viable solution (short of merely playing small to medium sized battles, which would cut off the use of a fair amount of high-level, elite and command units in addition to serious campaigning) is to set up a scale of some sort, in the line of wargames. I was wondering if it would be possible to create something akin to the Trivial Script to adjust the scaling:

It would work via the following equation:
Where t=Maximum number of troops on the battlefield, m=maximum number of men per unit, u=maximum number of units per army, a=maximum number of armies..

m*u*a=t

Which, in 1:1 scale is:

240*20*8=38,400

The script would alter the EDU, pricing and movement files to reflect the scaling at which it had been set. The scale would probably go from 1-10, reading 1:x as x*m, which I think covers good ground (1:10 maxing out at 384,000, large enough to show multiple entire armed forces of EB's timeframe).

Would such a project be feasible, and if so, would it be in the form of an application or something more esoteric (such as the shortcuts to the SP and MP EDUs)?

[Che Roriniho]

Hello. I am Praetyre, a relative newbie to the world of RTW mods and Europa Barbarorum. I must say, EB is a spectacular mod, particularily in areas of languages, accuracy in relation to less well-known/Hollywoodized groups. However, a persistant gripe of mine with real time strategy games has been the lack of scale. Cossacks: Total War and Rome: Total War are the only two games that can even come close to hitting the mark (excluding, of course, games that employ different, more representational systems, a fair number of which are turn based).

This is, of course, no fault of the team at EB or any other mod, merely the result of hardcoded maximums to unit size (240, 244 counting 2 officers, flagbearer and general, 304 in custom maps counting same). But, in essence, even Antiquity offers us battles beyond the scope of the TW engine to truly convey, such as Agrigentum, where 40,000 Roman forces faced off against 50,000 Carthaginian troops, Rhone Crossing, where 46,000 troops of Carthage faced off against the Volcae, Zama, where around 54,080 Carthaginian troops faced off against 43,000 Roman forces (including 6000 Numidians) or even the siege of Carthage herself, where 40,000 Roman troops were faced with 90,000 Carthaginian troops.

While some historians assert numbers (Herodotus being the most well known example) of certain forces were scribal versions of typos or exaggerations, even conservative estimates place large forces in the range of tens of thousands. Some have observed a parallel with the issue of unrealistic city populations, while others have embarked on attempted solutions, such as Southern Hunter, who developed the Realistic Troop Numbers mod.

As SH so astutely observed, the only viable solution (short of merely playing small to medium sized battles, which would cut off the use of a fair amount of high-level, elite and command units in addition to serious campaigning) is to set up a scale of some sort, in the line of wargames. I was wondering if it would be possible to create something akin to the Trivial Script to adjust the scaling:

It would work via the following equation:
Where t=Maximum number of troops on the battlefield, m=maximum number of men per unit, u=maximum number of units per army, a=maximum number of armies..

m*u*a=t

Which, in 1:1 scale is:

240*20*8=38,400

The script would alter the EDU, pricing and movement files to reflect the scaling at which it had been set. The scale would probably go from 1-10, reading 1:x as x*m, which I think covers good ground (1:10 maxing out at 384,000, large enough to show multiple entire armed forces of EB's timeframe).

Would such a project be feasible, and if so, would it be in the form of an application or something more esoteric (such as the shortcuts to the SP and MP EDUs)?

Wow. Now THAT is what I call a 1st Post. First off, welcome, glad you enjoy it, like the rest of us do.

Second, I'm not sure if this would work. I would really really want it to work, because I for one would like battles with half a million troops in them, but wheher or not the poor engine could take it is something else entirely.

[Praetyre]

Heh.. thank you. For some reason, the more map-fringe groups (Ethiopians, Sakae, Baktrians, Casse) are among the most fascinating to me, probably part of the reason the mod appeals to me.

The idea, like SH's mod, is to have the same magnitude number of troops in a literal sense (assuming you use Huge unit settings) but to adopt a scale where one "model" (man on the battlefield) actually represents a larger amount of men, much as one man with a big banner represents your army on the campaign map and to adjust it accordingly. The idea is very much in the spirit of the RTN mod, but allowing for easier adjustment (indeed, 1:1 would allow you to revert to vanilla EB) and for some sense of maximums and minimums (which would allow you to plan accordingly, particularily in relation to large lag chokepoints (6500 and 10,000 seem the worst culprits) and thus allow you to, in all but visuals and certain aspects of mechanics, play with tens of thousands of men.

It also makes for a more realistic campaign, since you can both get around the city population issue and embark on historically massive campaigns like that of Caesar's 4-legion strong expedition into Gaul or the invasion of the Italian mainland by Carthage (that is, if you are into recreating history).

[LorDBulA]

Ok I am a bit lost.
I think my English is really terrible today because I just cant understand your idea.

Is this another lets scale up battles idea (although in this case it would be freely scallable)?
Assume for example 1:10 scale give each soldier 10 health points, slow down units movements.
Do you want to rise up or lower unit recruitment and upkeep cost ?
Rising unit cost will result in less men on the battlefield and more boring battles IMO.

Right now in my Romanii campaign holding around 45 regions I have around 37.000 of soldiers (10.000 Romans and Italians in 4 legions the rest are garrisons and allied Cities/tribes armies ).
The largest battle I had was in Sicily 5000 Romans vs 7300 Carthaginians.

I think this are pretty awesome numbers taking into account that each soldier is actually represented on the battlefield.

[Foot]

I don't get the scale thing either. It is assumed, I believe, by players that on Huge unit numbers a soldier represents (in real life) something like 25 soldiers. I don't know the exact ratio that was worked out, but I cannot see the need for a script that would alter unit costs. Its already taken into account when you play.

Foot

[teh1337tim]

i believe hes saying he wants to alter to script since every soldier is represented as 1;1 to 1;10 so 1 soldier is representing 10
or does he mean making it to 10 soldiers for every 1 theres now?
its not really posible to make it above 15,000 lag free on this game
hell i tried that on my cousins tri-sli 260gtx and it still lagged a bit
maybe it might work on m2tw or ETW but i dont think rtw can handle it if u are asking what im thinking u are trying 2 say

[konny]

@ Praetyre
Could you please specify what exactly the script is intended to change in what file? As you said yourself troop numbers cannot be raised above the given limits.

[Praetyre]

Ok.. let's take the example of a Cohors Reformata, which consists of 480 men. Under 1:2 scale, it would boost the unit up to it's maximum actual size, 240.

In the EDU:
soldier roman_infantry_cohorsreformata, 50, 0, 1.18
would become
soldier roman_infantry_cohorsreformata, 60, 0, 1.18

In 1:3 scale, it would be 160 men, thus:
soldier roman_infantry_cohorsreformata, 40, 0, 1.18

In 1:4 scale, it would be 120 men, thus:
soldier roman_infantry_cohorsreformata, 30, 0, 1.18

In 1:5 scale, it would be 96, thus:
soldier roman_infantry_cohorsreformata, 24, 0, 1.18

And so on. 1:10 gives us quite useful proportions even at this point, being 48 men and thus:
soldier roman_infantry_cohorsreformata, 12, 0, 1.18

The script would need to edit both the SP and MP EDUs (or leave an option to specify which, if that would be unviable) and would display the max men you can theoretically field (going by scales, of course, as the actual number of men on the battlefield will not change visually). So, you could easily switch between 1:1 scale (when you'd like to enjoy something around the size of a single Marian Legion) and 1:10 scale (when you'd like to enjoy things on a truly gargantuan scale, even the "exaggerated" antiquity battles, including a battle I remember hearing about where Roman troops are said to have faced 250,000 Britons).

[Che Roriniho]

(when you'd like to enjoy things on a truly gargantuan scale, even the "exaggerated" antiquity battles, including a battle I remember hearing about where Roman troops are said to have faced 250,000 Britons).

Yes, and I recall that whoever it was who wrote about that (think it was tacitus), said that they faced just over 30,000 romans. And that the romans killed ALL the Brits.

[Praetyre]

Which would translate to 3k Romani vs 25k Casse (?) in game terms under 1:10. You'd probably need a powerful computer, but even Xerxes sent waves of 10,000.

[LorDBulA]

Ok.. let's take the example of a Cohors Reformata, which consists of 480 men. Under 1:2 scale, it would boost the unit up to it's maximum actual size, 240.

In the EDU:
soldier roman_infantry_cohorsreformata, 50, 0, 1.18
would become
soldier roman_infantry_cohorsreformata, 60, 0, 1.18

In 1:3 scale, it would be 160 men, thus:
soldier roman_infantry_cohorsreformata, 40, 0, 1.18

In 1:4 scale, it would be 120 men, thus:
soldier roman_infantry_cohorsreformata, 30, 0, 1.18

In 1:5 scale, it would be 96, thus:
soldier roman_infantry_cohorsreformata, 24, 0, 1.18

And so on. 1:10 gives us quite useful proportions even at this point, being 48 men and thus:
soldier roman_infantry_cohorsreformata, 12, 0, 1.18

The script would need to edit both the SP and MP EDUs (or leave an option to specify which, if that would be unviable) and would display the max men you can theoretically field (going by scales, of course, as the actual number of men on the battlefield will not change visually). So, you could easily switch between 1:1 scale (when you'd like to enjoy something around the size of a single Marian Legion) and 1:10 scale (when you'd like to enjoy things on a truly gargantuan scale, even the "exaggerated" antiquity battles, including a battle I remember hearing about where Roman troops are said to have faced 250,000 Britons).

I dont think this is very good idea.

First you would need to find biggest formation on battlefield to make sure it will fit into 240 men unit ( on huge ).
And you must remember that we dont have alot of data for such calculations.
So lets take from wiki for example 1,500-man Macedonian phalanx brigade.
To fit it in 240 unit you must use 1:7 scale.

This means 214men phalanx and your Cohors Reformata is down to only 68 men on Huge! :thumbsdown:

[Praetyre]

Ah, but remember that your Cohors Reformata is "really" 480 men, barely 1/3 of the 1500 man brigade. The proportions are quite well preserved when you downsize it, and it allows you to play proportionally while working within the hardcoded 240 limit. Also, was a phalanx brigade the most common tactical unit, or a combination of several Makedonian tactical units?

[LorDBulA]

My reason is that battles would most likely get smaller and IMO small battles are not fun.


Also, was a phalanx brigade the most common tactical unit, or a combination of several Makedonian tactical units?

Ha and hear we get to another problem what tactical unit size do we use. And how we reference this between different factions (not to mention lack of data from barbarian factions ).

From wiki:

These soldiers fought in close-ranked rectangular formations, of which the smallest tactical unit was the 256 men strong syntagma or speira.

But wasn't the smallest tactical unit of Cohors Reformata 80 men strong or something along this lines?

[Praetyre]

Even if it's technically the most common numerically (after all, it takes more men to make larger formations), what of employment? The most "common" unit numerically in modern warfare is a fireteam, but I doubt that they'd march independently as often as, say, a company.

A Cohors Reformata would be a cohort of 480 post-Marian legionaries, and was, IIRC, the predominant military formation of the Roman legion. Whereas, you can put Polybian/Camillan units to larger sizes due to the way Hastati, Principes and Triarii were historically arranged. We can get a rough idea of barbarian formations from historical accounts, numbers and populations at the time, along with looking at foreign influence from Hellenes.

It could, technically, lead to smaller battles in some cases, but that's because the IG numbers required to get, say, a legion are reduced to make for both a more realistic game (where you can field legions without the use of 0-turn or scripting) and allow the construction of even larger forces, like consular armies, and give a proper feel to battles involving rare/advanced units, which otherwise would make you ask "Why is the Sacred Band/Praetorians/Consul/General showing up at a minor skirmish?".

[LorDBulA]

Not to drag this discussion longer.

Yes what you want to do is doable. How will it look like when finished and how will it play I have no idea.
Truth is that you will have to make a lot of arbitrary decisions on the way, I hope you will not limit yourself to only roman point of view.

I dont expect EB team as whole will participate in this project.

Good luck with the project.

[Praetyre]

Very well. I certainly won't exclusively focus on Romans, as they are not the only faction out there with documentation on military structure, formation and organisation.

[Praetyre]

Alright.. I've come up with an Excel-formatted spreadsheet, for general purpose RTW use. It works via the formula above, along with a side section showing the optimum unit max (judging by comments I've heard in the area of AI and system slowdown from people with high end computers around the 10,000 mark) for additional information. Tell me what you think.

1:1 Scale
Max non-officers per unit Max total non-officer men per battle
Small Scale 30 4800
Medium Scale 60 9600
Large Scale 120 19,200
Huge Scale 240 38,400
Optimum max Number of total men per battle
10,000

1:2 Scale
Max non-officers per unit Max total non-officer men per battle
Small Scale 60 9600
Medium Scale 120 19,200
Large Scale 240 38,400
Huge Scale 480 76,800
Optimum max Number of total men per battle
20,000

1:3 Scale
Max non-officers per unit Max total non-officer men per battle
Small Scale 90 14,400
Medium Scale 180 28,800
Large Scale 360 57,600
Huge Scale 720 115,200
Optimum max Number of total men per battle
30,000

1:4 Scale
Max non-officers per unit Max total non-officer men per battle
Small Scale 120 19,200
Medium Scale 240 38,400
Large Scale 480 76,800
Huge Scale 960 153,600
Optimum max Number of total men per battle
40,000

1:5 Scale
Max non-officers per unit Max total non-officer men per battle
Small Scale 150 24,000
Medium Scale 300 48,000
Large Scale 600 96,000
Huge Scale 1200 192,000
Optimum max Number of total men per battle
50,000

1:6 Scale
Max non-officers per unit Max total non-officer men per battle
Small Scale 180 28,800
Medium Scale 360 57,600
Large Scale 720 115,200
Huge Scale 1440 230,400
Optimum max Number of total men per battle
60,000

1:7 Scale
Max non-officers per unit Max total non-officer men per battle
Small Scale 210 33,600
Medium Scale 420 67,200
Large Scale 840 134,400
Huge Scale 1680 268,800
Optimum max Number of total men per battle
70,000

1:8 Scale
Max non-officers per unit Max total non-officer men per battle
Small Scale 240 38,400
Medium Scale 480 76,800
Large Scale 960 153,600
Huge Scale 1920 307,200
Optimum max Number of total men per battle
80,000

1:9 Scale
Max non-officers per unit Max total non-officer men per battle
Small Scale 270 43,200
Medium Scale 540 86,400
Large Scale 1080 172,800
Huge Scale 2160 345,600
Optimum max Number of total men per battle
90,000

1:10 Scale
Max non-officers per unit Max total non-officer men per battle
Small Scale 300 48,000
Medium Scale 600 96,000
Large Scale 1200 192,000
Huge Scale 2400 384,000
Optimum max Number of total men per battle
100,000