Army sizes

[Aztec Warrior]

Has anyone herd any info on how large the armies will be in Emire. If not than any guesses?

[Ticu]

I don't remember the exact numbers, but I believe I heard that they were going to be much larger than the previous games.

[rajpoot]

The SEGA rep has put it around 10,000. Check the interview vid at gamespot and form your own openion as to how you interpret his words.

[Aztec Warrior]

Thanks I'll make sure to check it out. If that 10,000 figure is true then this game's battles are going to rock!

[pevergreen]

Either 10 000 in total or up to 10 000 controllable by the player.

I hope for the latter.

[TenkiSoratoti_]

I say screw graphics, they're way overrated for RTS games.

[General_Someone]

I say screw graphics, they're way overrated for RTS games.

I completely agree with you there; most new games are judged by how good the graphics are, not by how good the game play is. Its nice to able to tell your soldiers are wearing uniforms but don't sacrifice game play with fancy graphics. Graphics might make some of us buy a game and it might entertain us for a week or two, but, with the exception of some less intelligent people, almost all gamers want a game that is fun to play not cool to look at for a minute then go find a better game to play. Everyone likes good graphics, but a game that is all fancy, cool looking visual effects is not what most of us want.

[Aztec Warrior]

I say screw graphics, they're way overrated for RTS games.

What do you mean by that?

[Colonel Flambard]

I nearly perished when I heard 10 thousand soldiers, I am crestfallen, my poor poor computer is quaking in metaphorical boots.

[WarMachine187]

What do you mean by that?

he means hed rather have ca focus more on gameplay rather than graphics.

[Che Roriniho]

10,000? I WANT 100,000+, DAMMIT! Also, I would like to have more than 20 units please, especially when the AI can have almost unlimited amounts.

[Zapp]

The thing about "screwing graphics" because you want more units; I don't think it will help THAT much. Each soldier on the battlefield is controlled by the processor, so if you want as advanced fighting as possible (each man on in a regiment has a will of his own, etc.) you can choose either with 10.000 troops with a modern processor, OR a 100.000 troops with a 100 cored 15GHz processor.

I could be wrong though, but it seems logical IMO...

[rajpoot]

Try running M2TW with two full stack armies of archers on max visuals. It'll bleed the machine dead. At least it does that to mine. Try the same with min visuals. It'll go smooth. It's straight and simple, higher graphic detail, lower number of units, lower graphic detail, more units....!

[pevergreen]

I did:

Huge Unit Sizes

20 Longbow units vs 20 Highlanders

Full graphics.

On a GeForce 7900 no lag.

[rajpoot]

Well, I don't know then, my machine is quite old all right just 1 GB RAM and an onboard GeForce 6100........but either way, more objects onscreen with high details do cause machines to lag, that is true with all games. And considering the how the stuff looks in Empire, I doubt it'll run properly on anything more than a year old.

[pevergreen]

Aint that the truth.

Most new games require a semi new PC to run. Shame

[Zenicetus]

My current system can handle huge armies in M2TW, but I use the normal size because I don't like having to waste time flying the camera around the battlefield to see what's going on. With the current RTW/M2TW camera and order interface, it just takes longer to maintain situational awareness and command your units with huge armies. I tend to spend more time zoomed way out, and that's basically a waste of all the low-level combat animations.

If Empire supports even larger armies, I hope they're revamping the UI for camera control and unit orders. The current design is a bit clumsy, and I don't think it's been updated since Rome.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

The thing that worries me is that CA are really proud of and busy with ragdoll effects and motion capture and all that to make the series more beautiful then ever. Yet they seemingly undervalue the beauty of seeing a huge army marching to engage an equally huge army. Remember what made STW so unique? The 2-D soldiers were ugly as sin but the visual of an army arrayed along a ridge was breathtaking. No-one had seen anything like it before. It was that that sold the game to many a player and got raved about by reviewers. Has CA forgotten this? Because seemingly they are trying to compete with FPS on soldier looks and have lost sight of what caused the big sensation when the series started out. For sure, the series has made much progress, yet the huge army feature (the big selling point IMHO) has stalled pretty near where it started. Shogun had 16x120 men and Medieval 2 hasn't gone all that much beyond that.


I don't need really my troops to look all that good anyway, because most times I'll be zoomed out some ways to control my army. About the only time I get close enough to enjoy the highly detailed soldiers is during sieges when I zoom in on the breach my soldiers are storming.

[LadyAnn]

Why do you need 10000 men? Twenty elephants would do the job!

Annie

[Martok]

I don't need really my troops to look all that good anyway, because most times I'll be zoomed out some ways to control my army. About the only time I get close enough to enjoy the highly detailed soldiers is during sieges when I zoom in on the breach my soldiers are storming.

Ditto that. I find the improved soldier graphics in RTW/M2TW to be somewhat pointless, as I'm rarely zoomed in on them enough to appreciate the effect.

That being said, however, I'm not sure how desirable it would actually be to significantly increase the army size over that of the first four TW titles. I mean, sure I'd like to see "real life"-sized armies of 100,000 men duke it out on the battlefield, but I don't think it would be very practical. I can't imagine a UI/control scheme that would allow a player to effectively manage that many troops at once.

[pevergreen]

I must differ from most of the patrons here.

I love sitting back and watching the fights.

I bought Medieval 1 but can not fight battles in it, the graphics are just...too bad for me. I can't look at it.

[Lusitani]

I must differ from most of the patrons here.

I love sitting back and watching the fights.

I bought Medieval 1 but can not fight battles in it, the graphics are just...too bad for me. I can't look at it.

IMHO Med I although having poorer graphics had a very good playability ( i remember some huge battles, with reinforcements that were very entertaining), it also had good diplomacy...at least it made more sense as well as the ability to distribute titles to your generals.
I think i like good graphs as well as pretty much everyone else, but i also enjoy spending many hours enjoying something as expensive as a computer game (I believe that around 50 euros is quite expensive).
All imho of course

V

[CBR]

I prefer the STW/MTW 2D sprites over RTW/M2TW sprites as they are not as blurred. Maybe CA can finally manage to let the ETW 2D and 3D artists at least talk together at lunch breaks so they can have the same colors this time?


CBR

[Philippon]

Lady Annie: Why do you need 10000 men? Twenty elephants would do the job!

Me: If you can get them going in the right direction.

The year, 275 BC, the place, Beneventum, the forces, Greeks under Phyrrus verses the Romans. The elephants charge through the Roman line, turn around, charge through the Greek line, turn around, charge down the lenght of the line knocking both Greeks and Romans like bowling pins before dashing off.

The winner of the battle? The elephants of course.

[Juggernaut]

Try running M2TW with two full stack armies of archers on max visuals. It'll bleed the machine dead. At least it does that to mine. Try the same with min visuals. It'll go smooth. It's straight and simple, higher graphic detail, lower number of units, lower graphic detail, more units....!

I tried the same thing.
It didn't made any noticable difference whether if the setting was on high or minimal.
It sill lagged as hell.

[ArtistofWarfare]

I did:

Huge Unit Sizes

20 Longbow units vs 20 Highlanders

Full graphics.

On a GeForce 7900 no lag.

Did the same on an 8800...core 2 duo 2.67.

No lag.

Matter of fact- when i put it as 2 full stacks of archers vs eachother- still didn't lag.

Theory proven false.

[ArtistofWarfare]

I must differ from most of the patrons here.

I love sitting back and watching the fights.

I bought Medieval 1 but can not fight battles in it, the graphics are just...too bad for me. I can't look at it.

So the realism is a total non factor for you...you just want something good to look at?

Either a) Go play lord of the rings or some other fantasy game or b) go watch the history channel.

MTW was by far the best game in the series so far.

[Martok]

So the realism is a total non factor for you...you just want something good to look at?

Either a) Go play lord of the rings or some other fantasy game or b) go watch the history channel.

Easy, man. I know you tend to have strong opinions on certain subjects, but that's no reason one can't still be civil when discussing them.

That said, I don't think pev was implying that realism doesn't matter, just that great visuals are a higher priority for him than for a lot of us here. Some players simply can't deal with the older graphics of Shogun and MTW. We can't really do much about it other than to acknowledge that it's their loss.

MTW was by far the best game in the series so far.

You'll get no argument here.

If CA is able to improve the AI beyond what it was in that game, however, then it might have a serious contender for that honor. Of course, that's a pretty big "if"....

[pevergreen]

I dont disagree that the AI in MTW was good, I just, as Martok said, can not handle the battlemap graphics. It literally pains me to see it. Being one of the only supporters of Rome: Total Realism on this forum, realism does play a good part in what I look for in this type of game. That said, the majority of my gaming time is now split between SSB Brawl and Warcraft 3.

I do enjoy the graphics part of the game, but as you said in the other thread, AI is paramount.

[AussieGiant]

I think CA is renowned for getting a good level of AI performance in conjunction with excellent graphics.

one without the other in the current world of PC gaming just wouldn't cut the mustard.