This request is a spin-off of the discussion on the defending AI. The ultimate goal is to improve the ability to make historical battles that play out historically even with the AI defending.
SUMMARY
I think the AI is hardwired to always deploy with some standard force density in terms of X men per Y meters of ground. This creates a problem due to the difference in scale between the max size of an MTW army (3200 men at once) vs. the minimum size of the map (820m square). The result is a strong tendency for the AI to pull in flanking units to achieve its prefered troop density even with the certainty of leaving its flanks in the air. Thus, the defending AI won't stay where the scenario designer wants it. The solution is to either allow smaller maps or larger armies, or maybe both.
THE PROBLEM
MTW's map sizes are as follows:
Small: 820m square
Medium: 1066m square
Large: 1271m square[/list]
In most medieval battles, the opposing armies usually seem to have had frontages of about these same sizes, namely 1000m +/- 200m. A few battles had smaller frontages but larger frontages really didn't become common until after MTW's period. So the existing map sizes give the scenario designer the ability to make full-scale maps.
Problem is, the largest possible number of troops an MTW army can have on the field at once is 3200 (16 units x 200 men). Given the need to make some units smaller than others to reflect historical force compositions, the practical max army size is considerably less than this. The result is that the largest MTW army is AT MOST only 1/2 the size of its historical prototype, often considerably smaller.
NOTE: This is true regardless of what estimate of force sizes you accept for any given historical battle. Even with the smallest estimates available, the MTW army is still only going to be about 1/2 the size of the real thing.
The net result is that 1/2 the number of men (at most) have to cover nearly (at the least) the full historical frontage. This gives a troop density way lower than there was historically.
With the AI defending, this situation is worse because while a human might go with the given deployment and density, the AI certainly won't. It seems to always regroup to achieve its favored troop density. And unfortunately, achieving this desired density takes priority over other tactical considerations, such as flank security. So by pulling in its units, the AI gives the attacker plenty of maneuvering room to encircle it.
This is a major problem for several reasons. First, it makes the battle way too easy for the human attacker. He simply has to leave a few units facing the AI to pin it, then send his wings around both flanks. Result: Cannae.
Secondly, this type of fight is very anachronistic. In medieval times, there simply wasn't much battlefield maneuver, at least in Western Europe. Opposing armies almost always lined up in parallel on approximately equal frontages and went at it head-on. Only towards the end of MTW's period did this start to change to any real degree (in Western Europe, anyway).
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
There are several possible solutions to this problem: A) letting the scenario designer have more control over the AI; B) smaller maps; or C) larger armies. The 1st is being discussed in another thread so I'll only cover the others.
SMALLER MAPS
The idea here is allow designers to scale the terrain to match the size of the armies, so both have the same relation to their historical counterparts. This would give the forces their historical troop densities and hopefully make the AI happy so it wouldn't get itself into a Cannae so often.
If this solution is adopted, I recommend map sizes in the 300-600m size. Ideally, the scenario designer shouldn't be limited to fixed map sizes. Instead, the designer should be able to specify the length and width of the map, so he could make it exactly the right size to match his battle. In addition, this would allow rectangular maps instead of always having squares.
NOTE: It's possible to kludge smaller playable areas on existing maps. However, this isn't at all easy due to the rather clunky way in which MTW handles impassable terrain. Also, doing things this way makes for an ugly map with all this bogus terrain surrounding the playable area. So I don't like this existing "solution".
LARGER ARMIES
I prefer increasing the size of armies to shrinking the map. I'd rather try to have everything full-scale. Not only would this make more realistic medieval historical battles, it would make things easier for modders of later periods when armies were MUCH larger.
Increasing unit size isn't the way to do this. As it stands now, 200 men is not only a good historical size, but the AI already has problems maneuvering units of this size. So what needs to happen is increasing the number of units that can be on the field at once to some number much higher than 16.
In addition to other game mechanics changes, this of course requires changes to the interface. To me, the best change would be to eliminate the row of unit icons at the bottom of of the screen. If you want to see that stuff, put it on a hotkey to bring it up when needed, but don't leave it there all the time. Then when you bring it up, you're not limited to the bottom row of the screen but can cover the whole screen with icons. The current icon row is only really useful in MP games where you can't pause. Therefore, it's not a requirement for single-player historical battles.
NOTE: I think it would be great to implement both solutions: smaller maps AND larger armies. That way, you could make battles either way, in case somebody lacked the computer horsepower to handle really huge armies.
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-Bullethead
In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria
