View Full Version : Huge unit settings. Should I?
I was avoiding playing with huge settings until now, cause I feared that it would drain my cities from population. Can you tell me your opinions on this? Does it have a serious impact on a campaign?
Yes, it has an effect. The human player is better able to deal with the population loss, so the game might be a tad easier. Also cavalry charges are less effective unless you get the whole broadside slamming. Again, as at least I have a hard time getting my cavalry to properly charge but the AI always gets it right, this makes the game a little bit easier.
Kralizec
02-20-2007, 00:09
I'm forced to be satisfied with Large unit sizes. The population-drain effect is noticable on large too, so I guess that Huge would be even worse for the AI.
I don't like to play battles with anything beneath Large. Phalanxes are disadvantaged because you really need at least 4 ranks, limiting your already sparse "frontal cover". Because of this it becomes really easy, for human and AI, to bypass the flanks and envelop the enemy.
Boyar Son
02-20-2007, 00:31
9 phalanx units are good enough for an army, add what ever else you want
9 units of phalanx at normal size is good enough.
Huge is good for a while...then you get tired (i did)
I am especially worried about the AI draining the cities. Cause since I have a brain( I hope) I would stop using one city while the AI would turn a metropolis to a village.
Fondor_Yards
02-20-2007, 01:02
Based on my 1st 2 campain, I would greatly recommand NOT using huge sizes.
Don't the AI get bonus population every few turns like the economical help they receive too?
MarcusAureliusAntoninus
02-20-2007, 05:02
Population drain? Someone is worried their cities are going to run out of people? You can afford the recruit guys fast enough to keep population level...
I've played on huge since vanilla in order to drain population. The only time I've had to worry about running out of people was when I played Arthurian - Total War.
Centurio Nixalsverdrus
02-20-2007, 05:06
I never even thought of using less than huge sizes ;-)
It just adds a whole lot of realism to your battles. My personal opinion is that smaller units just look ridicoulous. And I never had severe problems with the population.
Lord Gruffles
02-20-2007, 05:38
Population drain? Someone is worried their cities are going to run out of people? You can afford the recruit guys fast enough to keep population level...
I've played on huge since vanilla in order to drain population.
I never even thought of using less than huge sizes ;-)
It just adds a whole lot of realism to your battles. My personal opinion is that smaller units just look ridicoulous. And I never had severe problems with the population.
Agreed. :yes:
I think that playing on Huge is an essential part of getting a good feeling of immersion in RTW.
Anything less just doesn't look like a real army.
I would disagree that Huge makes the game easy - just try assaulting a city against a decent garrison. Path-finding difficulties and the unit size can make it very difficult to get enough of the right units to the plaza at the same time to avoid defeat in detail.
Playing Huge forces you to think carefully about casualties since training and retraining can be a significant drain on your population.
Formations in Huge are more difficult to arrange quickly - on many occasions I have left my deployment into line of battle too late and have been punished by an A.I. rush. We may think that the A.I. is stupid - but it can control all of its units simultaneously whereas the Human player has to restrict the number of points of decision to just one or two.
There is no better sight than seeing the hated enemy going down under a sea of your troops at the end of a city assault - especially if you lost a lot of men at the walls.
Haven't you ever had the tempation to join in with the victory cheer when the last enemy goes down? :whip:
Digby Tatham Warter
02-20-2007, 12:41
I only ever play on hugh, looks more epic.
I have not noticed any population problems, the AI always seems to find another stack, the Backtrians are putting my Seluekid East under threat quite nicely, even though I keep wiping them out.
Perhaps assaults are more difficult on huge, yes. I tend to rain arrows and slingstones on the garrison and reposition my guys to come from several sides before assaulting the plaza, so the remaining defenders are rarely much of a problem regardless of unit size.
Other differences: missile units are more effective the larger the unit size is, as fewer missiles miss the mark. And stamina plays a larger role, as hand-to-hand fighting takes longer.
If the AI manages to do well with population management, I guess I will give it a try. Too bad I am away from my home for a week, this damn computer doesn't have EB installed:furious3: :furious3:
PantsToucher
02-20-2007, 20:21
The AI gets a population boost when it recruits a unit due to the EB script I believe, which is also scaled for the different unite sizes. I've personally never had a problem with the AI depopulating its cities; rather, it seems to have its cites grow way faster than mine due to the script.
GodEmperorLeto
02-20-2007, 21:46
I only play on huge. Period. And that's still not enough for me. At Cannae, Varro and Pavllvs led 8 legions (40,000 men), 40,000 auxilliaries, and 6,500 cavalry. I would desperately love to actually have that many troops on my screen, but with hardcoded limits (and hardware limitations), I accept that it is impossible.
But consider this. At 162 men per unit, and 20 slots per army, you can't even re-create Caesar's 8 cohorts (48 centuries total) of 4,000 men, even if each unit represented two centuries. (2 centuries = 1 cohort, if I remember correctly). It would take 24 slots to simulate the 8 cohorts with siege spears. Thus, to run a battle like Pharsalus would require a massive multi-user project more computers than could possibly fit in an online multiplayer battle room.
Anyway, the point is, playing on huge might not be perfectly realistic, but it is good enough for me. And that's about it.
Kralizec
02-20-2007, 22:09
As I posted elsewhere, I sometimes hope that my current fossilzed PC breaks down so I have to get a new, better one...so that I can play Huge battles ~:(
I'd take even my old large battles over what I have now - wich is to say, nothing after I de-installed everything. I'm having trouble installing the patch...I'll try the full 0.81 file.
Hi Guys,
I definitely agree that Large is the minimum size to play with, but for a lot of people (like me) with slightly slower computers, huge can be just a little too much when fighting large battles. So I just found a good compromise between Large and Huge. I edited the "preferences.txt" so that the UNIT SIZE= 120 instead of 80 on Large setting and 160? or 180? on HUGE. I find the Unit Size of 120 to be a perfect medium between the two both for my computer/game performance and for the problem of draining populations.
Try it out for yourself! :yes:
kalkwerk
02-21-2007, 21:35
For gameplay huge. Never looked back after I began playing on huge settings.
Spectral
02-21-2007, 22:04
Do battles take longer in average in huge size vs large ? I had that impression that they do, and that was one of the things that kept me from huge size...
can unit sizes be changed during a campaign?
2 things:
1) Does the 120 thing really work, Koenig? My comps a little weak, so a middle ground would be nice.
2) "the AI always seems to find another stack" - Digby. Well said! Only rarely do I come upon towns that have been totally depleted by the AI.
MarcusAureliusAntoninus
02-22-2007, 00:05
can unit sizes be changed during a campaign?
No, it is not save game compatible.
I remember when I first found this option (back in vanilla) I changed it to huge, loaded my game, and noticed nothing different. I remember thinking, "What did it make the unit models taller? I see nothing different." Then, like a month later when I started a new campaign, I thought I had broken something: I had like four times as many guys in each group.
pezhetairoi
02-22-2007, 00:09
I always play on huge. Can't stand smaller sizes. Depletion has never been a problem for me, the AI always manages to keep their cities between 3 and 8k for me, and some go up to 16k. So no problem. Even depleted ones, whenever they occur, are mighty nearby to heavily populated ones so i just transfer. No sweat. Even historically there were depopulated areas, not uniformly covered empires.
I remember reading about somebody applying it mid-campign but only having the new units at the huge level. It must be more involved than just changing the option i guess.
MarcusAureliusAntoninus
02-22-2007, 00:15
I remember reading about somebody applying it mid-campign but only having the new units at the huge level. It must be more involved than just changing the option i guess.
I think that was "RomeSage", a saved game editor. ("RomeSage" can cause unexplained errors and bugs though.)
2 things:
1) Does the 120 thing really work, Koenig? My comps a little weak, so a middle ground would be nice.
2) "the AI always seems to find another stack" - Digby. Well said! Only rarely do I come upon towns that have been totally depleted by the AI.
Hi Paullus,
The 120 thing does work, i've used it since RTR6.0 and ever since. I find its a perfect medium between Large and Huge settings.
Whether or not you can change the preferences.txt to UNIT SIZE = 120, and if it will work...i'm not sure actually. I don't remember ever making the change mid-campaign. I would just try it out, the worst that could happen is that you have to change it back if it doesn't work and continue on your original setting. Unlike using RomeSAGE.exe to actually edit the saved game file, this is simply changing the preferences.txt for the whole game.
PS. While your in the preferences.txt, turn those ugly green arrows and the bnanners off too!
Good Luck! ~:cheers:
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