Large or Huge? [Archive]

Landwalker

10-31-2007, 23:07

I play it on huge. I'm not sure why. Maybe because I just can?

The issues I run up against are: Maneuvering huge units around the battlefield is clunky and awkward, and is just made even worse when they're phalangite units. You can't really "see" as much of the action, because fewer units will fit on your screen (relatedly, the action will be more "spread out"). Outside of battle, recruiting huge units versus large units has a dramatic effect on the population and growth of your cities, which in turn considerably affects your economies.

On the other hand, playing on huge means a lot more guys with pointy metal sticks running around poking each other. :yes:

Cheers.

Bootsiuv

10-31-2007, 23:15

I find the sizes in huge more realistic, so I always used to play it on those settings.

Once I figured out how much large will help with the overall choppiness of battles for me, I play large now.

After playing large for so long, I often find huge units unwieldy to say the least.

I would say for realism sake, huge would be the best bet. :yes:

The Celtic Viking

10-31-2007, 23:16

Huge. The bigger the battle is, the more fun I get out of them.

Intranetusa

10-31-2007, 23:18

CaesarAugustus

10-31-2007, 23:21

Large. It is easier to maneuver your units, phalanxes don't take a ridiculously long time to destroy, and even on huge the unit sizes are still somewhat small and unrealistic, so that doesn't really count for me.

Bootsiuv

10-31-2007, 23:28

My specs are hurting in the game tbh...

Pentium IV 2.7 ghz
Radeon 1600x 256 MB vidoecard
756MB of RAM (ya, I know, I know)
and I know my HD speed is 5200 rpm, if that's at all relevant (which I think it is, but am not sure. :shrug:

BTW, it's over 3 years old now....any 500 dollar rig of today will likely beat mine hands down, but it's sufficient for most games I own...

Intranetusa

10-31-2007, 23:37

russia almighty

10-31-2007, 23:40

Landwalker

10-31-2007, 23:45

Huge and by God I wish there was a ****ing huge size . I would cream myself if CA made for uber PC's a setting that had some units as large as 1024 men .

Can you imagine the Phalanx battles with that ?

Sure can---every battle would end in a draw, because the two opposing phalanxes would never manage to kill or rout their opponent in the 45-minute time limit. Besides, can you imagine the depopulation that would wreck on your settlements?

Cheers.

Intranetusa

10-31-2007, 23:53

Sure can---every battle would end in a draw, because the two opposing phalanxes would never manage to kill or rout their opponent in the 45-minute time limit. Besides, can you imagine the depopulation that would wreck on your settlements?

Cheers.

Then that would actually be a DETERRENT to war...lol

Pharnakes

11-01-2007, 01:08

I have always played on huge because i feel its is more realistic, not because of the more men (which as people say is still wildley unrealistc) but because it makes the units much more clumsy and hard to manouver, which I feel is better, afterall, in RL a general wouldn't be able to line his untis up exactly, he would just tell them "go over there and do this, that and the other."

I feel that the greater difficulty in manuvering in huge scale is much more realistic, and the slowed down battles actualy give the AI a chance. Also, phlalanxes preform much more realistcly on huge scale, and as I am a principaly Greek player, this means alot to me.

Also the greater impact on population and economy means you actualy have to think before throwing away your levies, afterall if you keep doing that you will rapidly run out, which would have been an issue IRL, IMHO, but it is not an issue with the lower unit scales.

Landwalker

11-01-2007, 02:26

I have always played on huge because i feel its is more realistic, not because of the more men (which as people say is still wildley unrealistc) but because it makes the units much more clumsy and hard to manouver, which I feel is better, afterall, in RL a general wouldn't be able to line his untis up exactly, he would just tell them "go over there and do this, that and the other."

That actually gives me the terrible, terrible idea of playing a campaign using only General Cam (instead of RTS Cam), and using the "Place Groups under AI Control" function extensively, so that as the general, you can give units/groups of units general commands, and then they're largely out of your hands.

Think about how chaotic that would be... If you could manage that and still score heroic victories in battles where the odds are grossly against you, I would be most impressed.

Cheers.

TWFanatic

11-01-2007, 02:51

Interesting idea.

I use huge. I have to crank my settings down though. Say hello to bald grasslands and pointy feet. I turn unit settings up on small battles though. I never get to zoom in close and actually watch a unit fight in big battles anyways, so I don't mind much.

Cyclops

11-01-2007, 03:10

I am enjoying playing on "Huge" as a long time "Large" player.

I started a campaign as Hayasdan with general cam, by god is was interesting but it gave me a constant headache and I had to revert to fixed cam.

You keep turning your head away from the action, there's actually a pioint to posting your general on a hilltop, if you get into a melee its more confusing, and if you're over the crest of a hill you have nfi whats going on with your detached forces (ai control is a must here). I loved it but i just couldn't get used to it.

I switched back to fixed cam and trounced the AS out of Asia Minor.

Lysander13

11-01-2007, 04:38

Definitely Huge....The bigger the battles in terms of fighting men the better.

Malik of Sindh

11-01-2007, 07:52

I play on Large because my great video card(NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 (128 MB)) can't play on Huge.

hoom

11-01-2007, 10:20

*points at Malik & laughs at his Graphics Decelerator*

I play huge, with most stuff maxed, at 1920*1200 and it is great :balloon2:

I've actually had to drop AA down to low & unit detail to high for EB 1.0 to keep my framerate above slideshow :(

Malik of Sindh

11-01-2007, 11:33

Hey,Im getting a new one soon!RAM is what keeps my comp going!

Leão magno

11-01-2007, 12:09

Huge, and I would play it in the "hugiest" if my Pc could handle it since I would love the idea of a battle fulled with units and really have tousands of soldiers as the advertises say instead of role playing 2800 men as a 28000 men army, I would love to have a real army, something like the 80000 of Cannae and so on! Believe that would make for a real historical and challenging game!

blank

11-01-2007, 13:12

Huge. It's more realistic and also consider that the general did not have total control over his soldiers as in TW, and neither did he have a line of sight to all of them, so i have no problem with them being less manouverable

Intrepid Adventurer

11-01-2007, 14:38

I've always played on huge, because I thought it would be more realistic. So although the units might be less wieldy, I never noticed the difference. I think units are maneuverable enough.

Malik of Sindh

11-01-2007, 14:51

Also Huge drains settlements of their population.Ambrakia gets its population killed when you recruit 2 deuterois.

The Internet

11-01-2007, 15:01

Huge with all the setting on the highest possible settings.

TWFanatic

11-01-2007, 16:32

:dizzy2:
I would kill for your computer.

Tellos Athenaios

11-01-2007, 16:36

Don't play much atm.

Currently the same for me, but may revert it to large though. :juggle:

Centurion Crastinus

11-01-2007, 16:43

I always play on the huge setting. The way I figure, it adds to the realism for several reasons. One is that it does make it more difficult to control, but imagine how difficult it would have been if you were an actual general controing the battle without the birds eye view that EB gives you. Also, for the romans at least, one unit of Principes is roughly the size of one Maniple, and one unit of Marian Legionairres represents 1/2 a cohort. Thus, the huge setting allows the player to recreate a legion pretty close to a 1:2 scale.

The Internet

11-01-2007, 16:52

:dizzy2:
I would kill for your computer.

:laugh4: Me and my wife built it up from scratch, it took us about half a year to find the money for everything and then we had to wait a while til we moved into our new place so that we could get the internet hooked up but it was all worth it.

Cost us about £750 altogether (monitor included).

Watchman

11-01-2007, 17:45

I use huge, for much the same reasons people have already mentioned; the bigger clunkier units just feel "more right". And avoiding the population depletion is certainly a major encouragement for building all those sewers and doctors and whatnots...

And, yes, my comp can take it. At highest unit detail and low anti-aliasing to boot, in 32-bit 1280x1024. ~;p

Batahr

11-01-2007, 21:40

Large, because ...
I think because that's close to the MTW unit sizes I was used to. But my current PC could handle huge I assume (never tried :embarassed:)

hoom

11-02-2007, 13:19

Forgot to put it in before but yeah, I really like how you have to be very careful about population management with Huge.
Particularly in the early game where you can easily drain your homelands dry of all your military age citizens.

Puupertti Ruma

11-02-2007, 13:52

That actually gives me the terrible, terrible idea of playing a campaign using only General Cam (instead of RTS Cam), and using the "Place Groups under AI Control" function extensively, so that as the general, you can give units/groups of units general commands, and then they're largely out of your hands.

Think about how chaotic that would be... If you could manage that and still score heroic victories in battles where the odds are grossly against you, I would be most impressed.

Cheers.

I actually tried that a couple of days ago. The problem is, you can't give your units general commands of "go there and skirmish", as the stupid AI keeps formatting human given orders with it's owns. In effect, when you put your units under AI control, YOU don't have ANY control over them. Given the stupidity of AI, it means lost battles.

Thaatu

11-02-2007, 17:50

I actually tried that a couple of days ago. The problem is, you can't give your units general commands of "go there and skirmish", as the stupid AI keeps formatting human given orders with it's owns. In effect, when you put your units under AI control, YOU don't have ANY control over them. Given the stupidity of AI, it means lost battles.
I'm still experimenting on it, but it does seem that AI tries to fulfill the player's orders to some extent at least. If I order the group to move somewhere, it does until it encounters the enemy. That could be just the work of chance, but I'll try to do some more testing. There's a faint chance that there's some AI waypoint system thingy in the game, but wouldn't bet on it.

Digby Tatham Warter

11-02-2007, 19:44

I prefer huge settings, those small elite units only get 120 men, a scrap or two on large and you must be commanding the dirty dozen.
As for the pike blocks taking a while to break on huge, I think large bodies of men should take a while to break, it also gives me more time to deal with the flanks, before I turn my attention to over coming their massed pikes.

The main point for me is the spectical, as I like the dramatic look of my armies laid out before battle, the advance to contact, etc. Pike blocks of 240 men look more dramatic, and I do not find these armies to be unduly unwieldly.

konny

11-03-2007, 00:46

Placing units under AI controll works fine up to some degree. Skirmish untis doesn't do, no idea why. The units simply do either nothing or charge the enemy .

All other units work under AI controll. When the enemy is close enough you must not give them orders either, they pick targets by themselves and change formation/deployment if needed. They also try to outflank the enemy, and use tricks that the human player cannot use to that degree: for example, when you order three units under AI controll to attack a single enemy unit the AI will most likely sent one of these three around the target. Ok, that's something you would do, too. And then you would charge the enemy from behind? Not the AI. It waits until the enemy unit has reached exactly the point when an attack from behind would instantly rout it - and then charges with the thrid unit. A human player can't do that because he only gets very vague information on the enemy units situation ("shaken" etc).

Another thing you must be aware of is that your AI "sub-commanders" do not use all units that are under their command (i.e. in a groop) at once, they keep reserves. That is sometimes very annoying when one unit of the groop gets a terrible beating while another stands idle by. The AI will use that unit only when the other one has no chance to win the fight or is routed.

A situation when I always prefer units under AI controll are pila units inside towns. The AI is able to switch between missle and melee attack at will, but when you try to do this manuel the units will always show the crossed swords even though they are far away from the enemy.

LusitanianWolf

11-03-2007, 04:43

Huge and would play in "super hugiest" if I could!!!!!:yes:

Dyabedes of Aphrodisias

11-03-2007, 05:39

I play huge, because I just like the scale, the clunkiness and bodypiles. Sure, the battles take longer, but that's realistic; ya' think ancient battles took only 45 minutes?

And also because I can. My laptop isn't the greatest, but it handles huge with everything maxed (All the bells n' whistles, shimmer, desynchronized units movements, etc. but with grass at medium, terrain on low, AA on low and detailed shadows off).

Ma' specs:
1.8GHz
1GB RAM
ATI something (laptop version; I think it has a 900 in it)

You'd think I'd be hurting with the specs I play on (especially with my sorry processor and graphics card), but it's only a bit choppy when there are a buttload of units in one place. It's really perplexing, but it's pretty awesome.

antisocialmunky

11-03-2007, 15:49

Huge is the way its meant to be played. Cavalry charges are crazy on huge.

Spoofa

11-03-2007, 18:24

actually TW was meant to be played on supermegahugex10 where we could get at least 10,000 soldiers on the field per army, or at least that was my dream. :laugh4: then again we probably couldnt have so much detail with units if we had that many figures on the field and our computers would have to be extremely high-end to play it, maybe soon.

blank

11-03-2007, 18:25

Huge and would play in "super hugiest" if I could!!!!!:yes:

I hope CA will increase unit sizes a lot for Empires (i think 500 men per unit would be nice), by then i should have gotten a new computer

My specs are kind of crappy ATM:
Pentium 4 @ 2.4 GhZ
512MB RAM
Geforce FX 5200 :scared:

and i still prefer huge :egypt:

Spoofa

11-03-2007, 18:28

I hope CA will increase unit sizes a lot for Empires (i think 500 men per unit would be nice), by then i should have gotten a new computer

My specs are kind of crappy ATM:
Pentium 4 @ 2.4 GhZ
512MB RAM
Geforce FX 5200 :scared:

and i still prefer huge :egypt:

lol Blank i almost died when i saw those system specs and huge in the same post :skull:

Intranetusa

11-03-2007, 20:08

lol, I can't even play normal on my desktop if I had those specs... I have better specs for my desktop and large lags... >.<

Sygrod

11-03-2007, 22:22

I can smell a mod...

Anyone up to adjusting export_descr_unit.txt to reflect larger unit sizes? Perhaps an adjustment to town sizes has to be made as well.

Palasta

11-03-2007, 22:48

I can smell a mod...

Anyone up to adjusting export_descr_unit.txt to reflect larger unit sizes? Perhaps an adjustment to town sizes has to be made as well.

I guess everyone is eager to command an amount of pixelsoldiers next to reality.
But if that would be possible, they would already have done it... i think... at least tried it.

Pharnakes

11-04-2007, 00:35

244 is the maximum possible men in a unit, 240 men, 3 officers and a general,anything larger than that is not possible.

Bootsiuv

11-04-2007, 01:08

I hope CA will increase unit sizes a lot for Empires (i think 500 men per unit would be nice), by then i should have gotten a new computer

My specs are kind of crappy ATM:
Pentium 4 @ 2.4 GhZ
512MB RAM
Geforce FX 5200 :scared:

and i still prefer huge :egypt:

Geez....what are your graphics settings at?

I like mine on high, which is why I've found huge unfavorable....the battles look much nicer and move smoothly with my specs and large settings.