Army sizes

**pevergreen** · 06-23-2008, 01:53

I did:

Huge Unit Sizes

20 Longbow units vs 20 Highlanders

Full graphics.

On a GeForce 7900 no lag.

**rajpoot** · 06-23-2008, 08:59

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** · 06-23-2008, 09:53

Aint that the truth.

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

**Zenicetus** · 06-23-2008, 20:42

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** · 06-23-2008, 23:22

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** · 06-24-2008, 06:04

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

Annie

**Philippon** · 07-01-2008, 16:12

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.

**Martok** · 06-24-2008, 07:39

Originally Posted by Elmar Bijlsma

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** · 06-24-2008, 10:40

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.

**ArtistofWarfare** · 07-06-2008, 23:00

Originally Posted by pevergreen

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.