Unit sizes.

[jrexchandler]

Hi All,

I know that this topic has been discussed (several times) before, but I didn't find any definitive answers.

I've always played with the unit size on Huge. But, for stability and speed reasons, I'm thinking of lowering it.
Taking Hobilars as an example the sizes and times go as follows:

Option Time Unit Size
------ ---- ---------
Default 1 Yr 40
Large 1 Yr 66
Huge 2 Yr 80

So, with huge, it takes twice as long, but you get twice the men. This goes for every faction.

An army of 800 men on Huge is the equivalent of 400 men on Default because it takes 10 years to build, and the enemy will have any army size relative to the setting that you choose.

So, in summary, by choosing Huge, you get a nice big army but it will take you twice as long to do most things as it would if you chose Default. Is there any real impact to this?

What do you guys use? I liked huge because it gave you nice big armies to play with. If the enemies armies are smaller too, then it should be the same.

In conculsion then, I think that Large is a good compromise. You get bigger armies, but a shorter time to build them than Huge. But, I still want to know what y'all think.

Sorry for the rambling message, and thanks,

Rex

[Asmodeus]

I'd love to try it but my old machine would go up in smoke

[Gaius Julius]

I would think that if you field a larger army; which takes longer to produce, then your support costs also increase.
It takes alot of florins to support a larger army.
Is it worth it to you? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[jrexchandler]

Quote[/b] ]
I would think that if you field a larger army; which takes longer to produce, then your support costs also increase.
It takes alot of florins to support a larger army.
Is it worth it to you?


Hmmm.. I didn't think about that. I've never had an income problem when I played on Huge, so that shouldn't be a big problem.

Now that I think about it, I'm not really sure what my question is http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif I guess I just want to know if there is any real drawback to the fact that it takes twice as long to field an army on huge.

I guess that I am going to try Large and see if it makes the game less fun for me.

Rex

[Nelson]

I play with huge units because I prefer large armies for their look and grandeur on the battlefield.

There are things to consider when choosing to go huge.

2 turns to raise units makes the game take longer. Some units like naphtha throwers or Varangians need 4 turns. They can still be retrained and refit in one turn so it pays to have a well developed region to handle this for a variety of unit types.

I’m pretty sure support costs go up. Again, the game can seem slower as a result because raising cash for campaigning takes longer. Because war is in fact very expensive I like this fact.

Mercs become more important because they are raised immediately. That causes one to be more likely to use them in an emergency and that’s a good authentic feature IMO.

Larger units have greater staying power in a fight and though they of course shrink with casualties the cadre remaining gets very good without appearing tiny. Whittle 200 men down to 60 during a few wins and they are some tough cookies.

Handling larger units may seem less responsive at first but this passes quickly. Besides, armies were ponderous things. Moving in columns of 200 over significant distances is more important because units redirect much more quickly than a long line. Get where you need to be and then deploy into line.

I believe castle capacity remains the same. Defending them is so rare I don’t recall how the game populates castles using huge units.

Only powerful machines will pull it off with a frame rate that is acceptable when 32 units take the field. My Athlon 2000 + with 512 RAM running XP couldn’t hack it until I replaced a Geforce3 with a Geforce4 4200. Now I’m down town.

If you can manage, nothing looks so awesome as several 120 strong archer units cutting loose on a vast Mongol Horde. Quantity has a quality all it’s own.