Unit retraining - a little too good?

After playing a few games through, I'm starting to think that the 0-turn unit retraining is a little too powerful. Especially since you can queue up as many as the queue will take.

Effectively, I can take as many casualties in combat as I want, knowing full well that I can "heal" them all for the next turn. Sure, I might lose a bit of experience, but since the experience system is individual, my veteran troops are likely to stick around.

From a realism point of view, it doesn't make much sense either. I can "retrain" 8 units with 1 man left up to full strength in a single turn, but I can only "train" one unit? Or even less, should that unit take longer?

My solution would probably be to implement a one per turn limit on retraining. So you can train one unit in a turn, and retrain one unit in a turn, but can't do multiples of either.

Bh

Just have it go by number of men trained for the turns it takes. IE, playing on huge it'd be like this. Say you have 4 units of 120 men Hastati, so they each need 40 men to bring them back up to full strength, so 160 total. Since thats the same as normal unit, they get trained in one turn. But if you had 5 120 men Hastati units it'd take 2 turns and so on.

That might be too annoying to add in, so perhaps just a sit limit for each unit size level. 40-80-120-160(as maximum number of re-trained men per turn). Retraining shouldn't stop you from training a normal unit though as the two could go hand in hand and it might hurt the AI more then it helps to balance things.

I like being able to retrain almost half a full stack at once...as someone who hates taking casualties, it makes painful battles a lot less...painful....if you don't like how the retraining is done, then just use restraint and re-train them once per turn ~:cheers:

I do'nt think its that powerful. especially when it comes to naval warfare. I'd never had sea dominance if it was'nt for the retraining option. The other thing is I'm with sun tsu here. Usually I never had more than 2 units at a time for retraining.

Where it can be real powerful is to throw all your depleted units in your capital of Arretium as Julii making it look poorly defended just waiting for the civil war.

Civil war breaks out ........ doh the Marian reforms have come at the same time. oh well so much for that tactic.

And as I ca'nt watch what the A.I. does it may hurt them more

The really screwy part about retraining is that you can get bonuses from enemy temples for your troops. You shouldn't be able to do that with a temple from a foreign culture.

hmm, if I think of a more realistic way of limiting the retraining of units, it would be the size of the population of the city (or, at least, the settlement's).
e.g. you can only train/retrain 1 man per 100 population in your city.
or you can only train x men for small town, 1.5x for large town, 2x for ... etc.
You get my point.

About the units gaining bonuses from foreign cultures' temples: well, it may seem a bit odd, I agree, but would you rather have them get no bonuses whatsoever until you build your own temples in that city ? I suppose one can think of them in a similar manner that one gets the upgrades - it's just another type of upgrade, and they stack.
(like in MTW, you could retrain a gold armor unit in a province with gold weapons only, and it would keep both bonuses).
I agree however that it would be definitely weird if they actually _kept_ that bonus, and stacked the bonus from Roman (or whatever your faction is) temples.
i.e., they get +2 to missile attacks from Abnoba, but they also get whatever other bonuses your own temples offer when you retrain those units in a city with that kind of temples.
This should be tested ~:)

I like the retraining and think it shouldn't be changed.

In MTW, it was a waste to retrain really. I never bothered.

Not so here. I find myself pulling units back from situations where they are getting slaughtered so that they don't die completely.

It just makes a lot more sense historically. You didn't constantly crank out new legions, you put men back into existing ones. Logistically and as far as organization and command are concerned, it's way easier to fill up the ranks of an existing legion with new recruits than to produce a full legion, complete with commanders, all equipment, complete logistical and organizational tail, etc, from scratch.

I find that only being able to retrain 8 units a turn is rarely a concern. I merge my depleted units being careful to not completely use up the unit I am merging. If I do this wisely I often only have 1 or 2 of each type of unit to retrain. Add in the fact that my war dogs retrain themselves I am almost always ready to invade someone new two turns after my last battle.

well think about it...if you've got gold level armor...are you going to give that up for worse gear? and maybe they have the concept of making gold armor, so they show the new guys how to do it....and how to do the +2 ranged attacks as well :duel:

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Originally Posted by Satyr

I find that only being able to retrain 8 units a turn is rarely a concern. I merge my depleted units being careful to not completely use up the unit I am merging. If I do this wisely I often only have 1 or 2 of each type of unit to retrain. Add in the fact that my war dogs retrain themselves I am almost always ready to invade someone new two turns after my last battle.

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Yes, that's exactly my point. Within a turn of having an army completely decimated, you can have it fully up to strength. So what's the incentive to take any care?

It's even worse when you are attacking/defending a city. You know that as long as you win, you've got a full strength army again. This completely destroys the concept of "attrition".

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well think about it...if you've got gold level armor...are you going to give that up for worse gear? and maybe they have the concept of making gold armor, so they show the new guys how to do it....and how to do the +2 ranged attacks as well

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Not sure what you are talking about. Armour, weapons and "veteran" status are all tracked individually in RTW. You don't lose anything by retraining, you just get some novice units as replacements. That's hardly a tragedy.

Bh

Personally, I still like the "homeland" concept. I actually would like to see legion troops ONLY recruitable in Italy. BUT, the campaign movement speed would have to be adjusted to some degree of normalcy. 4 or 5 years to walk across North Africa? Don't think so. So as long as the speed is rediculously slow, I stick with retraining the way it is. The Senate ordered me to take Domus Dulcis domus last night. I laughed out loud. My closest troops were in Tylis. It wasn't even possible to get there in that length of time. It's not like the AI builds roads or anything. OK, yeah, I know, "But what has Rome done for us?".
But even the Roman AI usually don't build roads.

You guys are forgetting that it costs money.

Yeah it does cost a fair bit. It's easy to seem "too good", but you're forgetting how much it costs to rearm badly damaged units. On the other hand.... it is very quick. And time is money, as they say.

I think it's a good thing that people pull back an army to rearm it, instead of simply cranking out new units like someone said.

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Originally Posted by Blodrast

hmm, if I think of a more realistic way of limiting the retraining of units, it would be the size of the population of the city (or, at least, the settlement's).
e.g. you can only train/retrain 1 man per 100 population in your city.
or you can only train x men for small town, 1.5x for large town, 2x for ... etc.
You get my point.

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Actually it is. Present campaign, after burning Athens down...I can never train or re-train more than one unit; after placing one unit in the que, all selections grey-out. The part that is a little less than believable...with a pop of 400 it has the largest trade income
~:)

I like the unit retraining as it is. Sure, it's somewhat unrealistic but it's a much better alternative for the AI which now replenishes depleted units with alarming regularity. In Medieval the AI would rarely replenish its depleted units, especially the high value ones, and its campaign armies would wither away into nothing. The current system makes for a better AI opponent so I say leave it alone.

not to mention realistically it shouldn't take more than 6 months to train a legionnaire in the 1st place, and the population of town also suffers when a unit is re-queued there

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Originally Posted by Wazikashi

not to mention realistically it shouldn't take more than 6 months to train a legionnaire in the 1st place, and the population of town also suffers when a unit is re-queued there

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but in reality, roman legions rarely brought in new recruits to fill out its ranks. A few times depleted legions were combined and formed Gemina (twins) units, but i recall reading about a Caesarian campaign in north africa, where soldiers were defecting to Caesar because Scipio was filling in their ranks with raw recruits.
Part of the adhesion of a roman legion was the fact they all came from the same region, roughly the same age group, spoke the same dialect and followed the same customs. Fellow legionaries were family, friends, neighbors or someone who lived in a nearby town. When a legion's recruitment retired, some re-signed and formed the 1st (and sometimes the 2nd) cohorts of a legion, as well as taking on all the NCO slots.


Aaaanyway, back on topic. I agree with Spino. Overall, the AI does benefit from this scheme and i like that. But it could use a slight tweaking perhaps. According to a dev post (posted in the Unit Experience thread ) retrained units are supposed to "replenish the unit with new soldiers *at the units average experience level*". That I don't agree with overall. My 3-chevron gold unit down to 1 man can retrain back up to a full unit of 3-gold???

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Originally Posted by Spino

I like the unit retraining as it is. Sure, it's somewhat unrealistic but it's a much better alternative for the AI which now replenishes depleted units with alarming regularity. In Medieval the AI would rarely replenish its depleted units, especially the high value ones, and its campaign armies would wither away into nothing. The current system makes for a better AI opponent so I say leave it alone.

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Wait, you are trying to tell me that you think the AI gets more of an advantage from this than the player does? Are you serious?

The player can abuse the system to a much greater degree than the AI can. Imagine that you are attacking a city, and the enemy has a huge stack 3 spaces away. The city is somewhat well defended. You attack, and it takes everything you've got to take over the city. Now, in a realistic game (and by that I mean "realistically fun"), there'd be no way you'd be able to hold on to that city. The enemy stack would walk in and wipe out the few pitiful troops you've got remaining.

But in RTW, thanks to this bogus retraining system, the full stack walks up and, oh, look, you've got a completely retrained army.

The same is true while defending. Who cares how many casualties you take in fighting off an invader? As long as you beat them, your army will be back to 100% full strength next turn.

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You guys are forgetting that it costs money.

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If the amount of money it costs were relevant, than no, I wouldn't "forget" it. But, sadly, money is rarely a limiting factor when it comes to unit retraining. Neither is population growth, unless you play on huge unit sizes. Forgoing building a single 3000+ Denarii building is generally enough to pay for all of the retraining you need.

Bh

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Originally Posted by Bhruic

The same is true while defending. Who cares how many casualties you take in fighting off an invader? As long as you beat them, your army will be back to 100% full strength next turn.

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A turn is 6 months. In 6 months in real life you could recruit and train an entire army.

6 months to train one unit of 80 men is stupid in the first place. Why just one unit? Why can't you train more than one unit at a time in a city of 24,000? Of course because if you could the game would be too easy....but that would be realistic. You could easily raise an army of 5000 in 6 months in real life....

also think how far you could walk in 6 months....even with an army. I mean at 3mph which is a comfortable walk you could cover 5000 miles. Yet in the game you can barely cover a quarter of France.

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Originally Posted by HopAlongBunny

Actually it is. Present campaign, after burning Athens down...I can never train or re-train more than one unit; after placing one unit in the que, all selections grey-out. The part that is a little less than believable...with a pop of 400 it has the largest trade income
~:)

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If I understand what you're saying correctly, then I have to contradict you ;)
Right now it's not limited in the way I was suggesting in my post above; the _only_ limitation right now is what you're seeing, that you have to have over 400 (or some similar number) men in order to be able to train _at all_. But whether you have 800, 8000 or 32000 makes no difference whatsoever in the number of units you are allowed to train (as long as the population doesn't go below 400, of course, but it's practically impossible to do that in a city with a few thousand population). _That_ is what I was talking about.

I believe that gives you a bit of an advantage over the AI, since it will never be able to exploit this to the extent a human can - hell, it doesn't use full stacks as often as it should to begin with ! (remember all those 2-3- unit stacks that you meet all over the map, and the continuous trickle of crappy armies that come to attack your city every turn ?).

I also believe that because of the faulty way the AI is managing its armies, i.e. not merging them when it could easily do that, that the retraining of a unit and preserving entirely its experience gives you yet another extra edge against the poor AI.
Why ? Well, because it's trivial for you as a human to get very experienced units, very fast - precisely because the AI keeps offering you an infinite amount of 3-unit stacks for you to clobber at your convenience, gaining experience without any significant losses.
So in that light I believe this is slightly overpowered. It would be more balanced if the AI were able to use full stacks properly - in that case I reckon we could leave the retraining in 0 turns and the preservation of the unit's exp as they are...

You all make good points but this should be change.

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Originally Posted by GFX707

A turn is 6 months. In 6 months in real life you could recruit and train an entire army.

6 months to train one unit of 80 men is stupid in the first place. Why just one unit? Why can't you train more than one unit at a time in a city of 24,000? Of course because if you could the game would be too easy....but that would be realistic. You could easily raise an army of 5000 in 6 months in real life....

also think how far you could walk in 6 months....even with an army. I mean at 3mph which is a comfortable walk you could cover 5000 miles. Yet in the game you can barely cover a quarter of France.

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While what you say may be true, I don't see how it has any impact on the point at hand. I mean, if you are advocating being able to train/retrain as many units as the queue will hold in general, ok, that's a position. I don't think it would be something that would improve things, but you're right, it would probably be a little more realistic. But barring training as many units as you want per turn, I think having the ability to retrain as many units as you want per turn is unbalanced.

As for the movement issue, suffice it to say that the TW games have never focused on realistic movement rates.

Bh

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Originally Posted by Bhruic

The player can abuse the system to a much greater degree than the AI can. Imagine that you are attacking a city, and the enemy has a huge stack 3 spaces away. The city is somewhat well defended. You attack, and it takes everything you've got to take over the city. Now, in a realistic game (and by that I mean "realistically fun"), there'd be no way you'd be able to hold on to that city. The enemy stack would walk in and wipe out the few pitiful troops you've got remaining.

But in RTW, thanks to this bogus retraining system, the full stack walks up and, oh, look, you've got a completely retrained army.

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- agreed. this can be easily abused by the player, giving the poor AI even less chance. I'd call it the "sea monkey" effect. Player carefully preserves small, good valor units and moves them into a city that is either near the front lines or facing some possible, future threat. Pump city garrison up with some cheapo peasants to improve happiness. When danger appears imminent, add water to your "sea monkey" units (retrain) and suddenly you've got 9 fully equipped, +valor units to fight with. Why pay those legionary cohorts 210/turn, just preserve a few depleted seed units and retrain only when needed.

edit: just thought of another abusable feature of sea monkeys. use those units to pump up valor of damaged units, since merging units does take into account the xp level of the troops being added. ex: keep a depleted unit of gold chevron legionaries in a city, bring in other damaged legionary units to said city. retrain the gold chevron unit, then dump their 8xp men into damaged unit to pump up their valor. rinse, wash, repeat, abuse.

I agree that retraining is a bit too good. The problem is on the "replacement recruiting" side of the equation. It encourages retraining of many small scrap units in a single turn. I always retrain the most depleted units first. Seems a bit unrealistic to train so many green troops in a single province in a turn.

I believe retraining/training should be capped at some much smaller maximum (for the recruits, not the retrained vet survivors.) It should probably vary with population. At present this is not an issue unless population would fall to 400 or below.

"This completely destroys the concept of "attrition"."

That's not true. First of all, if the town is a low level frontier town, you can't replace all your losses because you can't retrain your good units.

So, suppose it is a major city with all the highest level buildings. In that case, as long as you have the money to buy weapons for the men, and the men in the city to form units, you *could* keep cranking out your troops. It's silly to think that a vast city like rome would only manage to produce one century of legionares every sixth months.

The current system does a good job of relatively good job of limiting production of new units to a rather slow trickle, but allowing you to recruit a flood of new men to bolster the ranks in an emergency (if you are defending your city with an army).

Moreover, it makes the AI armies tougher, because you actually see full strength units with many chevrons, instead of how it was in MTW.

"but in reality, roman legions rarely brought in new recruits to fill out its ranks."

Whaaat? Of course they did. The alternative was to merge existing legions (which was very very rare) or scrap existing legions every time their strength got low from losses. The romans didn't do this much because the men were very proud of their legions. They'd keep specific legions around for many years.

It just feels more accurate the way it is now: I'll fight several battles, maybe take a barbarian town, then fall back to a town I've had long enough to build it up so that I can retrain my men, rest etc.

I think this better mirrors the way campaigns were actually carried out, rather than the uber army marching across the land and then a steady stream of brand spankin' new legions hurrying to catch up.

If you think being able to retrain right after you capture an enemy city is a problem, only allow you to recruit soldiers from a town where the culture penalty is

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Originally Posted by Ulstan

"This completely destroys the concept of "attrition"."

That's not true. First of all, if the town is a low level frontier town, you can't replace all your losses because you can't retrain your good units.

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Actually, it is true. If an army is in a city that can make the units it has, you can never defeat that army through attrition unless you can cause the enemy to run out of funds.

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So, suppose it is a major city with all the highest level buildings. In that case, as long as you have the money to buy weapons for the men, and the men in the city to form units, you *could* keep cranking out your troops. It's silly to think that a vast city like rome would only manage to produce one century of legionares every sixth months.

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Which is part of my point. Why can you fill up 9 units that have 1 man left in 6 months, but only recruit one? Or, none, if you've got a unit that takes 2 turns to train (but still 0 to retrain from 1 unit).

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Moreover, it makes the AI armies tougher, because you actually see full strength units with many chevrons, instead of how it was in MTW.

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Granted, it makes the AI tougher. But what you seem to forget is that it makes the player proportionally tougher. That is, the player is able to exploit the retraining system much better than the AI can. That means that instead of giving the AI a benefit, like you imply, it actually penalizes them.

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It just feels more accurate the way it is now: I'll fight several battles, maybe take a barbarian town, then fall back to a town I've had long enough to build it up so that I can retrain my men, rest etc.

I think this better mirrors the way campaigns were actually carried out, rather than the uber army marching across the land and then a steady stream of brand spankin' new legions hurrying to catch up.

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Enemy cities are almost always better built up for military than my own. I can count on one hand the number of times I've taken a city and not been able to retrain most (if not all) of my units. Frankly, I'd be happy with the system you're talking about. If, for example, I could only retrain Roman units in Roman cities (ie, the cities the Roman factions start with), that'd be fine. But being able to take over a British city and immediately retrain all of my Roman legions just doesn't seem "more accurate" to me.

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If you think being able to retrain right after you capture an enemy city is a problem, only allow you to recruit soldiers from a town where the culture penalty is (less than) 25%. Or maybe reduce all the level of all troop training facilities by one.

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Something like that could work. I've never really been sure why you can recruit/retrain units from a city you just took over in any case - wouldn't they sort of not like you? I guess you could conscript soldiers, but they wouldn't be terribly effective in battle.

Bh

It's the only way to play with huge units. My war with egypt has had made me build forts with my long war with Egypt. I lost Cyrene(cyrencia) but it did'nt have the potential for training troops with 1600 population. When I took back Cyrencia the population was nearly unchanged and that long battle for Siwa had me sending back troops to Carthage and Sicily for retraining. So right there was 10 turns/5 game years. And if I had used Cyrene just once for this long battle it would have ensured Cyrene would be unusable. For the first 100 years of the game there really is'nt too many cities that you can use for mass retraining

Also the Marin reforms hurts the Romans more than it helps at first. There are very few cities that you can train the cohorts in. What is the closest city above Patavium that can train early cohorts, none in any of my campaigns. At least until you run into the Parthians all the way in the east and if your lucky London.

I think Bhruic should go back to playing MTW. He wants stupid diplomacy and one unit per turn retraining. Perfect solution.

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Originally Posted by GFX707

I think Bhruic should go back to playing MTW. He wants stupid diplomacy and one unit per turn retraining. Perfect solution.

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a very convincing and constructive post...(that's sarcasm :dizzy2: )

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Originally Posted by oaty

Also the Marin reforms hurts the Romans more than it helps at first. There are very few cities that you can train the cohorts in. What is the closest city above Patavium that can train early cohorts, none in any of my campaigns. At least until you run into the Parthians all the way in the east and if your lucky London.

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Personally I have found playing the campaign game at either Hard or Very Hard and against the Greeks and Carthage that their cities are often a advanced as my very best city so no problems rebuilding the legions...

Additionally I think people are forgetting that a turn is 6 months... And recruitment is not always on a strictly voluntary basis!! I have no problem with the mass rebuilding of units even using the regious structure of other cultures. Firstly you have to pay for the troops, secondly the troops come out the the existing population, thirdly 6 months is a sufficiently long training period, fourth you can only rebuild a unit if the facilities exist to do so, fifth if the culture/region produces experienced warriors they will be just as experienced in a Roman uniform....

All IMHO of course....

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Originally Posted by Hosakawa Tito

The really screwy part about retraining is that you can get bonuses from enemy temples for your troops. You shouldn't be able to do that with a temple from a foreign culture.

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I disagree. From a gameplay standpoint, it creates an interesting strategic decision: Do I keep this enemy temple for the bonuses and take the culture penalty? Or do I raze it and build one of my temples?

From a roleplaying standpoint (for lack of a better word), it simulates that way that a native people who were skilled in, say, archery, could retain those traits that made them good archers under a different country's rule, provided their culture wasn't completely obliterated. By destroying a conquered enemy's temples and building your own, what you are really doing is suppressing their religion and culture and replacing it with your own.

I think the manner in which retraining works is just fine.

The problem may be, as its always been in all the *vanilla* TW series, TOO MUCH MONEY!

Re-training a 1 man unit cost virtually the same as training a new unit. So what's the problem?

TOO MUCH MONEY!

I wonder, how many follow an "Occupation" or "Enslavement" policy feel that re-training is too easy? Or, if the correlation is with an "Extermination" policy?

It just occurred to me that perhaps the game should required the Player to declare a policy of Occupation, Enslavement or Extermination at the Start of a Campaign; and, as a consequence, certain pre-determined *changes* become in effect corresponding to the Policy one chooses.

Choosing a Policy of Extermination migh then result in Re-Training to have a greater *penalty*, such an increased 'Turn' requirement, etc.

Just a thought....

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Originally Posted by motorhead

a very convincing and constructive post...(that's sarcasm :dizzy2: )

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If you had to go to the trouble to point out that it was sarcasm wouldn't it have been more efficient to simply point it out without sarcasm?

Seriously though, if any of you don't like the changes made in RTW, go play MTW instead.

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Originally Posted by ToranagaSama

I think the manner in which retraining works is just fine.

The problem may be, as its always been in all the *vanilla* TW series, TOO MUCH MONEY!

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I am playing my first non-Roman campaign now, with the Parthians, and I am discovering that money is actually hard to come by. Because my territory is so spread out (i.e., it takes several moves just to get from my city to the borders of the province), and especially because there is no Senate to grant me windfalls of cash, I am finding it quite challenging. I'm only about a dozen turns into the campaign, but there is an early difference that is noticable when playing a non-Roman faction.

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Originally Posted by GFX707

Seriously though, if any of you don't like the changes made in RTW, go play MTW instead.

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Yeah, exactly. So why don't you stop whining about bugs, and go back and play MTW instead. :rolleyes:

Bh

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Originally Posted by Orvis Tertia

I disagree. From a gameplay standpoint, it creates an interesting strategic decision: Do I keep this enemy temple for the bonuses and take the culture penalty? Or do I raze it and build one of my temples?

From a roleplaying standpoint (for lack of a better word), it simulates that way that a native people who were skilled in, say, archery, could retain those traits that made them good archers under a different country's rule, provided their culture wasn't completely obliterated. By destroying a conquered enemy's temples and building your own, what you are really doing is suppressing their religion and culture and replacing it with your own.

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The problem is you can do both. Retrain immediately to gain the enemy temple bonus, then next turn demolish the enemy temple and build your own factions temple.

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Originally Posted by Hosakawa Tito

The problem is you can do both. Retrain immediately to gain the enemy temple bonus, then next turn demolish the enemy temple and build your own factions temple.

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True, although personally I don't see it as a problem. You still have to sacrifice that bonus in the future if you decide to demolish and rebuild.

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Originally Posted by Bhruic

Yeah, exactly. So why don't you stop whining about bugs, and go back and play MTW instead. :rolleyes:

Bh

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Because I like the changes, Einstein. Unfasten your teeth from around my ankle.

"If an army is in a city that can make the units it has, you can never defeat that army through attrition unless you can cause the enemy to run out of funds"

Can you retrain men in a city that is actually being besieged? I'm not quite sure - the times I tried it it didn't seem to work.

But anyway, I imagine a lot of this comes down to unit sizes. On huge and even large (though to a lesser extent) unless you have an absolutely enormous metropolis, you just don't have the population to replenish an armies ranks through more than a couple bloody battles. On the normal 40 man size, I imagine you could keep replenishing a full army from even a 13k population town for a looong time. But on huge, where you might lose 2k men per battle, it's not real feasible :)

Another point : I'm curious as to what 'attrition' you are referring too. Usually when I fight the AI, he gets crushed utterly. He'll lose 95% of his forces. I haven't really run into battles where we both fight, it's a draw, and we've each lost like 25% of our men. That at least is what I tend to think of as a battle of attrition. Maybe I am misunderstanding you.

But I do think it's odd you can recruit men from a town you just took - there should be some sort of flag that limits you from recruiting unless the culture penalty is at an appropriate level.

Also, perhaps degrading the level of military buildings by one (as often happened in MTW) might work.

But I do think this change helps the AI.

In MTW, I had armies of veterans. The AI always had armies of utter raw recruits.

In RTW, we both have armies of veterans.

In both cases the player would do whatever it took to make sure he had full strength veteran units, but in MTW, the AI almost never did.

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Originally Posted by Orvis Tertia

I am playing my first non-Roman campaign now, with the Parthians, and I am discovering that money is actually hard to come by. Because my territory is so spread out (i.e., it takes several moves just to get from my city to the borders of the province), and especially because there is no Senate to grant me windfalls of cash, I am finding it quite challenging. I'm only about a dozen turns into the campaign, but there is an early difference that is noticable when playing a non-Roman faction.

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Have you found your capability to re-train units at all being inhibited by the lack of funds?

Playing as the Juii, my Campaign is finally progressing along, and have taken over all but 4 of the Gaul cities, with only one of them left with an army of substantial size.

Since reaching this level of progress, recently, on more than one occaision I've had to wait 1-3 turns to completely re-train an army, or sigificant numbers of units, particularly units which have suffered heavy attrition, for example [several] an 80 man unit[s], down to 60 or less.

Of course, this occurs while simulatenously doing a lot of Building in several provinces.

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Can "re-training" be modded?

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Originally Posted by Bhruic

Yes, that's exactly my point. Within a turn of having an army completely decimated, you can have it fully up to strength. So what's the incentive to take any care?

It's even worse when you are attacking/defending a city. You know that as long as you win, you've got a full strength army again. This completely destroys the concept of "attrition".



Not sure what you are talking about. Armour, weapons and "veteran" status are all tracked individually in RTW. You don't lose anything by retraining, you just get some novice units as replacements. That's hardly a tragedy.

Bh

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Attrition is a little more complicated that you are making it out to be.

Attrition is about resources, both human and otherwise...

A large country with a large economy can out-attrit a smaller country with a small economy. The idea is that you can provide greater numbers of people and material, and train more of them 'in parallel'. Both the larger pool of folks and the larger economy is what make attrition work against a smaller foe.

The retraining of troops in RTW requires money and available bodies. No money, no retraining. So its not like its 'free' or anything. And you do have to have the training facilities both handy, and at the correct level for the unit involved, so logistical issues are taken into account.

Given the fact that (in the real world) it is way easier to put replacements into existing units than bring a new unit completely 'up to snuff', I have no problem at all with the system in RTW. It works and meets with my expectations about logistics and the training of new soldiers.

Given that each turn is 6 months, it just makes sense. Now if each turn was two weeks, you might have a point!

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Originally Posted by Bhruic

Actually, it is true. If an army is in a city that can make the units it has, you can never defeat that army through attrition unless you can cause the enemy to run out of funds.



Which is part of my point. Why can you fill up 9 units that have 1 man left in 6 months, but only recruit one? Or, none, if you've got a unit that takes 2 turns to train (but still 0 to retrain from 1 unit).



Granted, it makes the AI tougher. But what you seem to forget is that it makes the player proportionally tougher. That is, the player is able to exploit the retraining system much better than the AI can. That means that instead of giving the AI a benefit, like you imply, it actually penalizes them.



Enemy cities are almost always better built up for military than my own. I can count on one hand the number of times I've taken a city and not been able to retrain most (if not all) of my units. Frankly, I'd be happy with the system you're talking about. If, for example, I could only retrain Roman units in Roman cities (ie, the cities the Roman factions start with), that'd be fine. But being able to take over a British city and immediately retrain all of my Roman legions just doesn't seem "more accurate" to me.



Something like that could work. I've never really been sure why you can recruit/retrain units from a city you just took over in any case - wouldn't they sort of not like you? I guess you could conscript soldiers, but they wouldn't be terribly effective in battle.

Bh

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Attrition is a grand strategic goal that is economically based. Your whole line of reasoning is flawed because attrition ain't about individual units, its about wearing down an army supported by an inferior economy by attriting their entire army which they can't afford to replace. In game, if you have 20 provinces and the AI opponent has 4, attrition will work given time. At 20 vs. 20, you must find alternate means.

Attrition does not apply to tactical actions, but to long term economic warfare.

I still think it is overboard. With the current "retraining" it is possible to build several times as many total armies as one could otherwise. If you take the retraining argument to its logical conclusion, then why not allow you to build as many NEW units as your bank accounts would allow as well?

The idea of the training structures is that the new guys need instruction and equipping! This is not merely a draft. While retraining would require less of this than forming new units, I somehow doubt that it could be as much as 8 times less... So I see it as more of it just being an unusual rule, than it being a logical extension of existing rules.

I like the fact that retraining can happen at the same time as new unit builds. That makes sense to me, it is the quantity that bothers me.

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Originally Posted by Red Harvest

I still think it is overboard. With the current "retraining" it is possible to build several times as many total armies as one could otherwise. If you take the retraining argument to its logical conclusion, then why not allow you to build as many NEW units as your bank accounts would allow as well?

The idea of the training structures is that the new guys need instruction and equipping! This is not merely a draft. While retraining would require less of this than forming new units, I somehow doubt that it could be as much as 8 times less... So I see it as more of it just being an unusual rule, than it being a logical extension of existing rules.

I like the fact that retraining can happen at the same time as new unit builds. That makes sense to me, it is the quantity that bothers me.

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Under normal circumstances in the game you aren't replacing 90% of your troops in one turn. Its prob. more like 10% of your entire army (say 130 or so guys on normal settings). That doesn't sound like a lot to me. I agree that if all the units you are retraining in a city are down to like 10%, then it seems rather large..

But.. that said.. there is a lot of extra information imparted to completely new officer corps (for new units) that simply doesn't have to happen with replacements. In WW2 replacements were given to existing units just after completing boot. Realistically if your training requirements are high, you might keep the boots over for advanced boot or some supplementary training, but you can shove em at existing units quite quickly. In reali life replacements happen very quickly, and can be in fairly large numbers.

Creating totally new field units in real life is a much longer process than just boot and advanced boot camp. The unit spends a LOT of time together before ever being committed to combat. There is so much that the unit has to learn to do together.

I think the game models the difference between these two things really well. There might be a scale issue in exceptional circumstances, but given the results I'm seeing in my own games I'm just not seeing it.

And on further thing on the 'attrition point', if my logistical/economic support train is right behind me (the city I'm defending has production buildings in it), and the AI has them 200 miles away, I should have an advantage, which is precisely how retraining affects game mechanics.

I personally haven't played any other game that gets the whole economic warfare portion down so well and still does a good job of tactical mechanics. And note here I've played Shogun some and Medieval to death, and am also an RTS junkie (I bought Shogun on a bargain rack about 2 months before Medieval came out.. I keep meaning to go back to Shogun and really get into it.. but Medieval mesmorized me, and now RTW has me awestruck...

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Originally Posted by GFX707

Because I like the changes, Einstein. Unfasten your teeth from around my ankle.

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Right. Yes, of course. So when I'm saying how I like the diplomacy in RTW, and you're saying that it sucks, I'm somehow the one that likes changes and I'm the one that should go back to playing MTW.

If you're going to be an annoying idiot, could you at least try to be a consistent one?

Bh

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Originally Posted by TheDuck

And on further thing on the 'attrition point', if my logistical/economic support train is right behind me (the city I'm defending has production buildings in it), and the AI has them 200 miles away, I should have an advantage, which is precisely how retraining affects game mechanics.

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But that's my point. I don't mind so much when I'm in the middle of my own territory (although I still think it lowers the possible enjoyment level, because it hamstrings the AI).

It's when I march into enemy territory, lose 95% of my army taking a city, and have my army fully retrained immediately before the AI can do anything about it. Even if they attack me on their turn, my army is already retrained. So I can walk into any situation like that, and exploit it.

In a "real life" scenario, there is no way I would (a) want to take that many losses, and (b) try and hold the city if I did. It would be ludicrous to consider. But in RTW, it would be stupid to not consider (because it would work).

Bh

ok, even if we forget about realism (and even consistency) for a moment, the fact remains that the way retraining is implemented gives the player incredible opportunities for abuse, and a huge advantage against the AI simply because the AI doesn't "think". There are several ways to benefit from those opportunities (several were only pointed out by motorhead).
IMO, this is a _bad_ way of giving the human an advantage (not that he needed one), and is producing a significant imbalance in the game.

I agree on that Blodrast. However, on very hard, I really do need that advantage because the AI is sending full stacks at my half stacks every turn... On the other hand, I would like for the AI to play smarter, so that I didn't have to handicap myself so much to get a challenging game.

One thing I'm learning with retraining on limited funds: move all of your greenest guys to veteran units, then retrain the greenest. This saves a lot of money. Training a couple of 3 silver chevron guys is horribly expensive! Better to train a greenish unit and use the high experience guys on the flanks.

One thing I thought of that might work nicely - and it makes sense.

Right now, I find that a lot of the problem comes from the fact that your actions happen before the AI gets to move. That is, if you queue up a bunch of units to retrain on your turn, they get retrained before the AI gets to move.

That doesn't make sense. Everyone is moving within the same 6 month period. Why not wait on unit retraining/recruiting until after everyone has moved? That way, if on your turn you strain your resources taking a city, if the AI has an army close, they can move in and attack and have a decent chance of winning.

Bh

Is there a way to mod this so unit retraining takes a year per unit.

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Originally Posted by Bhruic

It's when I march into enemy territory, lose 95% of my army taking a city, and have my army fully retrained immediately before the AI can do anything about it. Even if they attack me on their turn, my army is already retrained. So I can walk into any situation like that, and exploit it.

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But it is not "immediately" it is 6 months of occupation later you have rebuilt your forces from the local populance as long as the province has sufficient population, you have sufficient funds and the army you are talking about is only 8 units...

How is it more "realistic" than in a conquered city of 10,000 (for example) you could only press gang 60 odd people to reinforce one of your units in 6 months??

If we want more "realisim" we should be moving the Strat Map to real time, rather than turn based, I don't know anyone who really wants that...

I am not arguing that the present system is particularly realistic, only that the old one was not any better...

Game play wise I don't see the issue, this function is just as available to the AI, and I don't come across understrength units anymore unless I am chasing down an army I have already attacked...

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Originally Posted by Bhruic

But that's my point. I don't mind so much when I'm in the middle of my own territory (although I still think it lowers the possible enjoyment level, because it hamstrings the AI).

It's when I march into enemy territory, lose 95% of my army taking a city, and have my army fully retrained immediately before the AI can do anything about it. Even if they attack me on their turn, my army is already retrained. So I can walk into any situation like that, and exploit it.

In a "real life" scenario, there is no way I would (a) want to take that many losses, and (b) try and hold the city if I did. It would be ludicrous to consider. But in RTW, it would be stupid to not consider (because it would work).

Bh

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Uh, ask the Germans that tried to take Stalingrad whether that idea is ludicrous or not. Someone didn't think it was ludicrious at all (even if I agree with you completely).

On making a habit of doing that in RTW, you are still spending money producing those units, no matter how you produce them. I'm not seeing this in my campaign because I play to minimize casualties no matter what. More efficient use of $$ = more overall inertia in a campaign.

Additionally.. I'm always fielding units in my campaign that are above the normal unit producing buildings of the cities I'm taking. I take a very focused tech path with just a few cities and the rest are committed to economy. I think I've captured one city in my Julii campaign that can produce hastati (and subsequently early legionarres). Its just so rare to see that for me. So I always have a (light) stream of new units headed to the front. Even in really one sided battles as the Romans I'm maxing at 300 or so casualties (unit size is Large). Maybe as the game goes later I'll see it, but right now its just not happening to me (I can also believe this because I've conquered Iberia, Gaul, Britannia, and am in the process of taking Germania and heading to eastern Europe). I'll see how things go when I hit Asia Minor and the Middle East. What you are saying must be from much later game (current campaign is about 206 BC).

As to RedHarvest's comment about wanting a better AI, that is always the case with me with all games. The AI is never smart enough... although in this situation I'll log a different desire.. I want a campaign game that allows multiple humans. That would really rock.

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Originally Posted by Bob the Insane

But it is not "immediately" it is 6 months of occupation later you have rebuilt your forces from the local populance as long as the province has sufficient population, you have sufficient funds and the army you are talking about is only 8 units...

How is it more "realistic" than in a conquered city of 10,000 (for example) you could only press gang 60 odd people to reinforce one of your units in 6 months??

If we want more "realisim" we should be moving the Strat Map to real time, rather than turn based, I don't know anyone who really wants that...

I am not arguing that the present system is particularly realistic, only that the old one was not any better...

Game play wise I don't see the issue, this function is just as available to the AI, and I don't come across understrength units anymore unless I am chasing down an army I have already attacked...

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I SO agree with you.

And love the sig about the pointy hat. Just love it.

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Originally Posted by Red Harvest

One thing I'm learning with retraining on limited funds: move all of your greenest guys to veteran units, then retrain the greenest. This saves a lot of money. Training a couple of 3 silver chevron guys is horribly expensive! Better to train a greenish unit and use the high experience guys on the flanks.

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I think this is incorrect. I've tested retraining gold chevron biremes and silver chevron roman cavalry and the retraining cost per man is the same as recruiting a green unit if the unit being retrained isn't receiving any armor/weapon upgrades. I can't find the post, but i've read the cost per level for armour/weapon is something like 90/120 per unit. So if you have a gold chevron unit, with no upgrades but are retaining in a town with a foundry you've got to pay four hundred more just for the upgrades.

I can live with being able to retrain multiple units per turn, perhaps if it was tweaked down to 4 or 6 it would help balance issues a bit. I really dislike being able to re-train units while they retain their current XP level. The AI simply doesn't take advantage of the games we can play with retraining high XP units. As per a dev post over at .com: (*Dutch is a CA programmer*)

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Dutch
Moderator
Posts: 141
(10/5/04 1:55 pm)
Reply | Edit | Del Re: What's the go with retraining?
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Retraining can do two things:

1) if the settlement can produce that type of unit, it will replenish the unit with new soldiers *at the units average experience level*; these soldiers are subtracted from the settlement population as normal
2) if the settlement can produce armour or weapon upgrades for which the unit is eligible and which it does not already have, retraining will add these to the unit being retrained

If the settlement can do both, it will do so. Replenishment costs a proportion of the unit's cost in denari, while retraining for upgrades costs a nominal amount per upgrade. You can retrain as many units as will fit into the recruitment queue in one turn, although you end up paying for all of them. Hence it is often better to retrain a lot of old units if you need troops quickly, rather than recruiting new.

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Originally Posted by motorhead

I can live with being able to retrain multiple units per turn, perhaps if it was tweaked down to 4 or 6 it would help balance issues a bit. I really dislike being able to re-train units while they retain their current XP level. The AI simply doesn't take advantage of the games we can play with retraining high XP units. As per a dev post over at .com

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I have to agree with this, the replacements should really be at 0 experience unless there are buildings to boost experience IMO, thus bringing down the average experience of the unit...

I guess there is some justification for reinforcing a experienced unit resulting in the reinforcement being better trained or something, but it is so open to abuse. If you have depleted units it is best to combine them in such a way as the least experienced are reinforced in the field and the most experienced only have a couple of guys left and then rebuild them in a city...

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Originally Posted by TheDuck

And love the sig about the pointy hat. Just love it.

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cheers... ~D I was about to change my sig to one of the nutter battle speeches, the one that goes "anyone who gets through this battle alive will be my sister and there will be free frocks and jollies for everyone, see if there isn't!!". What do you think??

I will add to this discussion:

What about the Generals with their auto regenerating units...

In my Germanian campaign I don't have any Governors, all the generals (8 of them) travel with the army and make up a formidable cavalry line which has single handedly won many battles for me... And the auto regenerate the unit over time without having to go back to a city!!

It was cool at first, but as the number of Generals grew, it has started to feel like an exploit...

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Originally Posted by motorhead

I think this is incorrect. I've tested retraining gold chevron biremes and silver chevron roman cavalry and the retraining cost per man is the same as recruiting a green unit if the unit being retrained isn't receiving any armor/weapon upgrades. I can't find the post, but i've read the cost per level for armour/weapon is something like 90/120 per unit. So if you have a gold chevron unit, with no upgrades but are retaining in a town with a foundry you've got to pay four hundred more just for the upgrades.

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No, it is correct, at least in some situations. In my most recent campaign I was finding it really expensive to add even a few men back to 120 man units because they had tons of experience (often three silver chevrons). There were other units with good experience that needed more men and they were taking about the same amount of money (and sometimes less.) I found it much cheaper to take a more recently trained unit (from the same town) and use it to fill the gaps in the other units then retrain it. Same number of men, but the lower experience level saved me enough money to train several other units. Sure, I got a bit less experience, but experience was superfluous for these units anyway since they were winning so easily and building experience in a few turns.

The problem gets back to the training of recruits to the experience level of the unit. It doesn't make sense, green guys with high experience with no special training structures.

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Originally Posted by Bob the Insane

I have to agree with this, the replacements should really be at 0 experience unless there are buildings to boost experience IMO, thus bringing down the average experience of the unit...

I guess there is some justification for reinforcing a experienced unit resulting in the reinforcement being better trained or something, but it is so open to abuse. If you have depleted units it is best to combine them in such a way as the least experienced are reinforced in the field and the most experienced only have a couple of guys left and then rebuild them in a city...



cheers... ~D I was about to change my sig to one of the nutter battle speeches, the one that goes "anyone who gets through this battle alive will be my sister and there will be free frocks and jollies for everyone, see if there isn't!!". What do you think??

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ROFL!! I like the new sig too!!! Very very difficult to choose. Although I like the more 'world domination' theme of the pointy hat sig. :)

Is 'nutter' a site on the net? Or a comic I'm unfamiliar with? (I'm an American, but one with an appreciation for British style humor.. I'm quite an odd bird here)

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Originally Posted by Bob the Insane

But it is not "immediately" it is 6 months of occupation later you have rebuilt your forces from the local populance as long as the province has sufficient population, you have sufficient funds and the army you are talking about is only 8 units...

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Sorry, you are mistaken. Turns all take place within the same 6 months. So if I attack and take a city during my turn, when the AI takes their turn, it is the same time period. The 6 months don't pass until we are all finished.

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Game play wise I don't see the issue, this function is just as available to the AI, and I don't come across understrength units anymore unless I am chasing down an army I have already attacked...

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I see understrength units quite often... But that's not really the point. As has been repeatedly pointed out, the human player can exploit this system much better than the AI ever will. That means that we've given yet another advantage to the human player, when the AI had enough trouble to begin with.

Bh

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Originally Posted by Red Harvest

No, it is correct, at least in some situations. In my most recent campaign I was finding it really expensive to add even a few men back to 120 man units because they had tons of experience (often three silver chevrons). There were other units with good experience that needed more men and they were taking about the same amount of money (and sometimes less.) I found it much cheaper to take a more recently trained unit (from the same town) and use it to fill the gaps in the other units then retrain it. Same number of men, but the lower experience level saved me enough money to train several other units. Sure, I got a bit less experience, but experience was superfluous for these units anyway since they were winning so easily and building experience in a few turns.

The problem gets back to the training of recruits to the experience level of the unit. It doesn't make sense, green guys with high experience with no special training structures.

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This I agree with. Recruits are recruits. There is no substitute for real experience other than the doing. I use the old MTW system of consolidating all my guys into experience stacks then retraining the depleted greenhorn stack. Its efficient in cash and feels right..

And on the question of 'fun factor', I never use cheat codes, ever. Yet lots of folks do. This whole area kinda comes under the same heading for me. Its there to use/abuse if you wish, but there are other ways to achieve it that are more consistent and 'fair' if you want to play that way (which I do). And I think the AI uses this feature.. but its ok since I think it needs any bit of help it can get.

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Originally Posted by Bhruic

Sorry, you are mistaken. Turns all take place within the same 6 months. So if I attack and take a city during my turn, when the AI takes their turn, it is the same time period. The 6 months don't pass until we are all finished.



I see understrength units quite often... But that's not really the point. As has been repeatedly pointed out, the human player can exploit this system much better than the AI ever will. That means that we've given yet another advantage to the human player, when the AI had enough trouble to begin with.

Bh

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And so what? If you don't think its fair to use it, don't. Its not like its in the MP portion of the game.

I've known folks that play Starcraft skirmish mode using cheat codes. I saw it as totally pointless, but they thought it was fun. Go figure.

You know, the point of offering suggestions about a game is to try and improve it. So, sure, the game could ship with the ability to hire infinite units, travel across the entire map in a single turn, etc, and you could simply say "If you don't like it, don't use it".

Games generally don't ship like that. And if they do have such options (ie, "cheats"), then they aren't enabled in general, you have to specifically go enable them.

"And so what?" The "so what" is that I believe the game would be better with a less exploitive retraining system. Feel free to disagree (which you have). Feel free to present counter-arguments (which you have). But dismissing the issue simply because the option to not use it exists is just sloppy thinking.

Bh

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Originally Posted by Bhruic

Sorry, you are mistaken. Turns all take place within the same 6 months. So if I attack and take a city during my turn, when the AI takes their turn, it is the same time period. The 6 months don't pass until we are all finished.

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There is a question in that.. Does the player go first in a turn, or last???

Does it mater? Because we are already rationalizing six months passing into the click of a button so I don't see why we are looking for any sort of realistic effects for the passage of time...

I think this all boils down to the point:

Is being able retrain multiple units giving the player an unfair advantage over the AI or making he game easier?

Personally I don't see either, I fight both hard battle and easy battles (a work to avoid situations where I am fighting impossible battles)...

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Originally Posted by TheDuck

Is 'nutter' a site on the net? Or a comic I'm unfamiliar with? (I'm an American, but one with an appreciation for British style humor.. I'm quite an odd bird here)

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"Nutter" - classic British (and by that I mean used universally in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland) word for a mad or insane individual... Usually a violent or funny one (possibly both)...

Usage - "Se 'im, he's a right nutter he is!!"

Transalation - " Do you see that man over there? I have reason to believe he is quite insane and possibly violent!"

That quote was taken from one of the in game speeches by one of my mad roman generals... ~D

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Originally Posted by Bob the Insane

There is a question in that.. Does the player go first in a turn, or last???

Does it mater? Because we are already rationalizing six months passing into the click of a button so I don't see why we are looking for any sort of realistic effects for the passage of time...

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Oh, I agree. I really don't care about the realism of it. I just care about how it affects game balance.

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I think this all boils down to the point:

Is being able retrain multiple units giving the player an unfair advantage over the AI or making he game easier?

Personally I don't see either, I fight both hard battle and easy battles (a work to avoid situations where I am fighting impossible battles)...

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I'd probably disagree and say that it makes things easier for the player. I'm certainly not trying to suggest it's the worst offender, there are plenty of other areas that could use work first. I just think some "balancing" in this area would be nice.

Bh

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Originally Posted by Bhruic

You know, the point of offering suggestions about a game is to try and improve it. So, sure, the game could ship with the ability to hire infinite units, travel across the entire map in a single turn, etc, and you could simply say "If you don't like it, don't use it".

Games generally don't ship like that. And if they do have such options (ie, "cheats"), then they aren't enabled in general, you have to specifically go enable them.

"And so what?" The "so what" is that I believe the game would be better with a less exploitive retraining system. Feel free to disagree (which you have). Feel free to present counter-arguments (which you have). But dismissing the issue simply because the option to not use it exists is just sloppy thinking.

Bh

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You are very quick to insult my thinking capacity.... most interesting. My statements are not meant to be 'dismissive of' your recommendations. Not at all. They are a recognition of the business environment that a gaming company exists in.. I thought I had communicated that sufficiently before, but I guess not.. so:

Remember, Creative Assembly is trying to sell a game to the widest audience possible. Things like cheat codes have the same affect as the features you are criticizing in RTW. They slant the game totally in favor of the human so that winning is easy. Some folks want this in a game. I don't (just like you). I do recognize however that the game company wants to make as much money as possible and will place features in their games to make it easy for the folks that like that type of game . And since I know this about people, I see the need for those features. Better that than a gaming company that creates a more 'pure' game that can't sell as widely, having them go out of business. So from that perspective, I'm not fond of your suggestion at all.

When you insult, you give up the intellectual field.. and I know your better than that!

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Originally Posted by Bob the Insane

"Nutter" - classic British (and by that I mean used universally in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland) word for a mad or insane individual... Usually a violent or funny one (possibly both)...

Usage - "Se 'im, he's a right nutter he is!!"

Transalation - " Do you see that man over there? I have reason to believe he is quite insane and possibly violent!"

That quote was taken from one of the in game speeches by one of my mad roman generals... ~D

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Thanks for the explanation. :)

I should listen to more of those speeches. I normally just skip over them to get on with the fighting.

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Originally Posted by TheDuck

You are very quick to insult my thinking capacity.... most interesting.

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Where did I "insult your thinking capacity"?

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My statements are not meant to be 'dismissive of' your recommendations. Not at all. They are a recognition of the business environment that a gaming company exists in.. I thought I had communicated that sufficiently before, but I guess not.. so:

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I still don't understand your point then. I mean, right now, cavalry vastly overpower infantry. Is your recommendation "just don't use cavalry"? Sap points are vastly better than ladders/siege towers. Is your recommendation "just don't use sap points"? The phalanx formation involves men shuffling to the right, completely removing it as a useful defensive formation. Is your recommendation "just don't use phalanx formation"?

All of these are issues of game balance. And they don't have anything to do with "the business environment". Neither does my suggestion(s) regarding retraining. While it is certainly possible to play the game and "just not use X" for all the problem areas, fixing the problem areas is obviously the preferred solution. Ignoring the problems won't make them go away.

Bh

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Originally Posted by Bhruic

Where did I "insult your thinking capacity"?

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But dismissing the issue simply because the option to not use it exists is just sloppy thinking.

That is insulting.

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Originally Posted by Bhruic

I still don't understand your point then. I mean, right now, cavalry vastly overpower infantry. Is your recommendation "just don't use cavalry"? Sap points are vastly better than ladders/siege towers. Is your recommendation "just don't use sap points"? The phalanx formation involves men shuffling to the right, completely removing it as a useful defensive formation. Is your recommendation "just don't use phalanx formation"?

All of these are issues of game balance. And they don't have anything to do with "the business environment". Neither does my suggestion(s) regarding retraining. While it is certainly possible to play the game and "just not use X" for all the problem areas, fixing the problem areas is obviously the preferred solution. Ignoring the problems won't make them go away.

Bh

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Game balance is of most concern in multi-player games, not single player. The issues facing a game designer in single player are more about whether the game is fun. If you think this affects your fun factor, it is your right to complain. Some folks prefer a very hard challenge, some want to role play, some want it totally easy. This makes for an audience that is very difficult to please. Its why there are so many types of games with so many different types of goals. Just because a feature exists in a single player game does not mean you have to use it (i.e. cheat codes, excessive retraining, etc.). Its all personal choice. The best game designs that have created the largest audiences seem to appeal to more than one category of player. And frequently things are not 'balanced' as you seem to want.

If I'm playing against a human, I want things totally fair. No one should have an advantage.. This is because both of us start out level. Against the AI, its all about choice. AIs will always be more stupid, and giving them advantages is good (IMO). But requiring a human to always give those advantages to the AI sells less games (by taking away features that allow a human to have an 'unnecessary advantage', which some strategy players seem to want). That is my point. Taking away retraining as it is is tantamount to taking away cheat codes. Both features (IMO) make things easier on a human, and both involve choices in single player only. Hence my comment.. 'so what?'.

Pleasing all audiences is hard, and to do so requires putting things in games that will make folks that like the challenge (like you and I) say 'why would I use that??'.

The part of me that plays for the game challenge agrees with your points.

The part of me that wants to see CA be wildly successful and create more games vehemently disagrees with your points.

I want CA to be successful.

And now I'm going to make a heretical statement to many at the ORG. We are a fraction of the percentage of players that actually buy and play CA games. We are a measuring stick for sure, but our in depth involvement with the previous games may actually be a detriment to how the game needs to be to appeal to a wider audience. Those are choices that affect success and failure in all businesses. A business that prefers minority customers to the majority will soon go out of business. So does CA pay attention to us? Or to features that sell to more than a few thousand players?

I for one like the direction CA is going in. I've never expected the AI in strategy games to give me a great game when the going is even. So I pick situations where the AI has huge advantages to make it tougher on me. RTW is by no means the only example of this. Ever RTS I ever played has been the same. In all these games the AI just sucks. So I play at the hardest settings giving the AI every advantage to give myself a challenge. Its why folks that use cheat codes mystify me. How boring. That said, those cheat code users payed cold hard cash for the game, and that keeps CA in business.. hence my current position.

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Originally Posted by TheDuck

But dismissing the issue simply because the option to not use it exists is just sloppy thinking.

That is insulting.

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Well then I guess you have an extremely thin skin, metaphorically speaking. I certainly wasn't trying to insult you, I was just pointing out (what I believed to be) sloppy thinking on your part.

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Game balance is of most concern in multi-player games, not single player.

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It depends on your definition of "game balance". For example, I don't think that all of the factions should be balanced amongst each other. But when it comes to combat, I think that you need to have a balanced system. Having cavalry defeat all comers, for example, simply encourages one to build nothing but cavalry. Which begs the question, why have anything but cavalry? And why does the AI not build all cavalry?

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Taking away retraining as it is is tantamount to taking away cheat codes. Both features (IMO) make things easier on a human, and both involve choices in single player only. Hence my comment.. 'so what?'.

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And taking away the cavalry advantage is equivalent to taking away cheat codes? Taking away the sap point advantage is equivalent? I don't know, perhaps you enjoy having those "human exploitable" areas in the game. I certainly don't. By all means, include a cheat code for "cavalry gain +10 attack strength", or something, but the game, as shipped, shouldn't be unbalanced in such a fashion. I believe that retraining is a similar situation.

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The part of me that wants to see CA be wildly successful and create more games vehemently disagrees with your points.

I want CA to be successful.

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I'd love CA to be successful. I'm certainly hoping they are. But I don't agree that being "wildly successful" and having a balanced game are mutually exclusive concepts.

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And now I'm going to make a heretical statement to many at the ORG. We are a fraction of the percentage of players that actually buy and play CA games. We are a measuring stick for sure, but our in depth involvement with the previous games may actually be a detriment to how the game needs to be to appeal to a wider audience. Those are choices that affect success and failure in all businesses. A business that prefers minority customers to the majority will soon go out of business. So does CA pay attention to us? Or to features that sell to more than a few thousand players?

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I think you're getting much too speculative at this point. Basically, you seem to be claiming that the "masses", such as they are, would not buy/appreciate the game if retraining worked differently. I'm sorry, but that's a rather large assumption that I don't believe you have any evidence to support. I could just as easily claim (admittedly, with an equal amount, ie, no support) that the masses would just love it if retraining and hiring of new units didn't occur until the end of everyone's turn instead of the end of the player's.

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I for one like the direction CA is going in. I've never expected the AI in strategy games to give me a great game when the going is even. So I pick situations where the AI has huge advantages to make it tougher on me. RTW is by no means the only example of this. Ever RTS I ever played has been the same. In all these games the AI just sucks. So I play at the hardest settings giving the AI every advantage to give myself a challenge. Its why folks that use cheat codes mystify me. How boring. That said, those cheat code users payed cold hard cash for the game, and that keeps CA in business.. hence my current position.

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My expectation for AI is pretty simple - I expect a new game to give me an equal or greater challenge than the previous incarnation did. I'm not sure that RTW qualifies. But be that as it may, the degree of challenge of the game, as a whole, doesn't really enter the picture here. I'm all for a cheat code of "infinite retrains", if someone decides that's what they want. But I still believe that shipping the game with retraining as it is now was not the best way to handle it.

Bh