Troop Numbers Adjuster?

[Che Roriniho]

Hello. I am Praetyre, a relative newbie to the world of RTW mods and Europa Barbarorum. I must say, EB is a spectacular mod, particularily in areas of languages, accuracy in relation to less well-known/Hollywoodized groups. However, a persistant gripe of mine with real time strategy games has been the lack of scale. Cossacks: Total War and Rome: Total War are the only two games that can even come close to hitting the mark (excluding, of course, games that employ different, more representational systems, a fair number of which are turn based).

This is, of course, no fault of the team at EB or any other mod, merely the result of hardcoded maximums to unit size (240, 244 counting 2 officers, flagbearer and general, 304 in custom maps counting same). But, in essence, even Antiquity offers us battles beyond the scope of the TW engine to truly convey, such as Agrigentum, where 40,000 Roman forces faced off against 50,000 Carthaginian troops, Rhone Crossing, where 46,000 troops of Carthage faced off against the Volcae, Zama, where around 54,080 Carthaginian troops faced off against 43,000 Roman forces (including 6000 Numidians) or even the siege of Carthage herself, where 40,000 Roman troops were faced with 90,000 Carthaginian troops.

While some historians assert numbers (Herodotus being the most well known example) of certain forces were scribal versions of typos or exaggerations, even conservative estimates place large forces in the range of tens of thousands. Some have observed a parallel with the issue of unrealistic city populations, while others have embarked on attempted solutions, such as Southern Hunter, who developed the Realistic Troop Numbers mod.

As SH so astutely observed, the only viable solution (short of merely playing small to medium sized battles, which would cut off the use of a fair amount of high-level, elite and command units in addition to serious campaigning) is to set up a scale of some sort, in the line of wargames. I was wondering if it would be possible to create something akin to the Trivial Script to adjust the scaling:

It would work via the following equation:
Where t=Maximum number of troops on the battlefield, m=maximum number of men per unit, u=maximum number of units per army, a=maximum number of armies..

m*u*a=t

Which, in 1:1 scale is:

240*20*8=38,400

The script would alter the EDU, pricing and movement files to reflect the scaling at which it had been set. The scale would probably go from 1-10, reading 1:x as x*m, which I think covers good ground (1:10 maxing out at 384,000, large enough to show multiple entire armed forces of EB's timeframe).

Would such a project be feasible, and if so, would it be in the form of an application or something more esoteric (such as the shortcuts to the SP and MP EDUs)?

Wow. Now THAT is what I call a 1st Post. First off, welcome, glad you enjoy it, like the rest of us do.

Second, I'm not sure if this would work. I would really really want it to work, because I for one would like battles with half a million troops in them, but wheher or not the poor engine could take it is something else entirely.

[Praetyre]

Heh.. thank you. For some reason, the more map-fringe groups (Ethiopians, Sakae, Baktrians, Casse) are among the most fascinating to me, probably part of the reason the mod appeals to me.

The idea, like SH's mod, is to have the same magnitude number of troops in a literal sense (assuming you use Huge unit settings) but to adopt a scale where one "model" (man on the battlefield) actually represents a larger amount of men, much as one man with a big banner represents your army on the campaign map and to adjust it accordingly. The idea is very much in the spirit of the RTN mod, but allowing for easier adjustment (indeed, 1:1 would allow you to revert to vanilla EB) and for some sense of maximums and minimums (which would allow you to plan accordingly, particularily in relation to large lag chokepoints (6500 and 10,000 seem the worst culprits) and thus allow you to, in all but visuals and certain aspects of mechanics, play with tens of thousands of men.

It also makes for a more realistic campaign, since you can both get around the city population issue and embark on historically massive campaigns like that of Caesar's 4-legion strong expedition into Gaul or the invasion of the Italian mainland by Carthage (that is, if you are into recreating history).

[LorDBulA]

Ok I am a bit lost.
I think my English is really terrible today because I just cant understand your idea.

Is this another lets scale up battles idea (although in this case it would be freely scallable)?
Assume for example 1:10 scale give each soldier 10 health points, slow down units movements.
Do you want to rise up or lower unit recruitment and upkeep cost ?
Rising unit cost will result in less men on the battlefield and more boring battles IMO.

Right now in my Romanii campaign holding around 45 regions I have around 37.000 of soldiers (10.000 Romans and Italians in 4 legions the rest are garrisons and allied Cities/tribes armies ).
The largest battle I had was in Sicily 5000 Romans vs 7300 Carthaginians.

I think this are pretty awesome numbers taking into account that each soldier is actually represented on the battlefield.

[Foot]

I don't get the scale thing either. It is assumed, I believe, by players that on Huge unit numbers a soldier represents (in real life) something like 25 soldiers. I don't know the exact ratio that was worked out, but I cannot see the need for a script that would alter unit costs. Its already taken into account when you play.

Foot

[teh1337tim]

i believe hes saying he wants to alter to script since every soldier is represented as 1;1 to 1;10 so 1 soldier is representing 10
or does he mean making it to 10 soldiers for every 1 theres now?
its not really posible to make it above 15,000 lag free on this game
hell i tried that on my cousins tri-sli 260gtx and it still lagged a bit
maybe it might work on m2tw or ETW but i dont think rtw can handle it if u are asking what im thinking u are trying 2 say

[konny]

@ Praetyre
Could you please specify what exactly the script is intended to change in what file? As you said yourself troop numbers cannot be raised above the given limits.

[Praetyre]

Ok.. let's take the example of a Cohors Reformata, which consists of 480 men. Under 1:2 scale, it would boost the unit up to it's maximum actual size, 240.

In the EDU:
soldier roman_infantry_cohorsreformata, 50, 0, 1.18
would become
soldier roman_infantry_cohorsreformata, 60, 0, 1.18

In 1:3 scale, it would be 160 men, thus:
soldier roman_infantry_cohorsreformata, 40, 0, 1.18

In 1:4 scale, it would be 120 men, thus:
soldier roman_infantry_cohorsreformata, 30, 0, 1.18

In 1:5 scale, it would be 96, thus:
soldier roman_infantry_cohorsreformata, 24, 0, 1.18

And so on. 1:10 gives us quite useful proportions even at this point, being 48 men and thus:
soldier roman_infantry_cohorsreformata, 12, 0, 1.18

The script would need to edit both the SP and MP EDUs (or leave an option to specify which, if that would be unviable) and would display the max men you can theoretically field (going by scales, of course, as the actual number of men on the battlefield will not change visually). So, you could easily switch between 1:1 scale (when you'd like to enjoy something around the size of a single Marian Legion) and 1:10 scale (when you'd like to enjoy things on a truly gargantuan scale, even the "exaggerated" antiquity battles, including a battle I remember hearing about where Roman troops are said to have faced 250,000 Britons).

[Che Roriniho]

(when you'd like to enjoy things on a truly gargantuan scale, even the "exaggerated" antiquity battles, including a battle I remember hearing about where Roman troops are said to have faced 250,000 Britons).

Yes, and I recall that whoever it was who wrote about that (think it was tacitus), said that they faced just over 30,000 romans. And that the romans killed ALL the Brits.