Recommended unit size?

[AstroCat]

Large or Huge? I remember Huge had path-finding issues and drained cities too much on vanilla. Same on EB? I believe Large was the overall consensus in vanilla, how about EB?

Thanks!

[QuintusSertorius]

Personally, I think Huge gives the best results in terms of realism and challenge. It's approximately 1/10 scale, which has a neatness about it.

There's a script to redress AI recruitment (preventing them depleting their populations by adding them back in) which means it simply becomes a check on the player over-recruiting out of their main population centres.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Huge is best, because of the EB script only the player gets stung from depleting his cities, not the AI. Which means the player is encouraged to recruit as little as possible and use his army efficiently. I also hire as many mercs as possible, it's worth the money to avoid depleting your town population.

Pathfinding in towns is difficult on Huge unit size, but that is as it should be. There's a reason why most ancient battles were fought on the field and not in city streets - street fighting did make armies very hard for generals to control.

[Captain Trek]

I personally prefer large. Units on huge I tend to find are simply too unwieldy for my liking, whereas on normal there often aren't enough men on the field to make for interesting battles. It's true that the EB scripting is more geared torwards huge (as otherwise the AI gets 100 population dumped into its settlement for every unit it recruits, as, IIRC, the AI gets 200 free population for every unit it recruits), but that's just fine by me. Bigger cities are harder to keep under control once conqured anyway, which adds to the challenge.

[Ca Putt]

I like Huge best as having phalangite units of less than 200 men seems somewhat strage. that said I rarely use phalangites myself, most of the time I'm fighting AS or Ptolemaic Phalanxes.

apart from that with "huge" you're about as close on real numbers as "realtime strategy games" gets (yeah RTW is actually turn based but the battles are realtime) it gives one an atleast remote idea of how large battles were compared to movies atleast where you'd be happy to see fifty guys run into another fifty and the king of persias BG consists of like 5 horsemen^^

[A_Dane]

You mean, that's not how things went down back then? :O

[AstroCat]

Seems like in EB I should give Huge a shot. Thanks for the advice!

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

I personally prefer large. Units on huge I tend to find are simply too unwieldy for my liking.

Understandable from a gaming point of view. Large may be best for multiplayer. But in campaign, huge is best, the more unwieldy your army, the harder it is for you to micro-manage it, and therefore the better chance the AI has of beating you, which is good!

[QuintusSertorius]

Pathfinding in towns is difficult on Huge unit size, but that is as it should be. There's a reason why most ancient battles were fought on the field and not in city streets - street fighting did make armies very hard for generals to control.

Absolutely, it's as close as we can get within the confines of the engine to representing the chaos of taking a settlement by siege with streetfighting.

[A_Dane]

Absolutely, it's as close as we can get within the confines of the engine to representing the chaos of taking a settlement by siege with streetfighting.

it's even worse, if you do it by turning on the "general POW cam"... Makes it extremely difficult to see wth is going on xD

[Rahl]

It's true that the EB scripting is more geared torwards huge (as otherwise the AI gets 100 population dumped into its settlement for every unit it recruits, as, IIRC, the AI gets 200 free population for every unit it recruits), but that's just fine by me.

The script checks what unit size you use and gives 200/100/50/25 pop for inf units and half of that for cavalry units.

I prefer huge units, the big battles are one of the great pros of TW games for me, I never want to play with smaller size.

[Ca Putt]

...and half of that for cavalry units.

ah that explaines why steppe camps ere not all huge :D