Changing unit size without affecting the cost & time to train

[Nahkuri]

Hello. First post here and so forth.
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MTW didn't really agree with my old computer's Gayhorse 8800 GTS, but now I've a new computer and I can finally get my filthy hands on the boardgamey campaign map and slow battles and weird unit maneuvers and all that stuff which have made me remember the first M:TW so fondly. There's one thing I don't like, though. My brave assault with the Danish king and one tiny unit of viking buddies went kinda bad as I was counting on being able to send reinforcements the next turn. Turns out that changing the unit sizes in the options also changes the cost and time required to train them, and it takes bleeding 2 years to gather 100 archers.

I don't like it all that much. It's a bit silly. Why should a performance altering options have a difficulty changing mechanics attached to them? Can I change the unit sizes without changing the costs and all that? Like the way (I think) it is in the later games. If I can, how do I do so?

Cheers.

[drone]

Welcome to the Org, Nahkuri!

The time to train only increases when you use the Huge size option, this will double the build time of all scalable units. Large size and below will use the standard recruit time. The cost of the unit increases proportionally with the size, 1 man costs the same regardless of the unit size selected. Unit sizes and costs can be modded, but the pricing mechanic remains the same when you adjust the size option.

Playing in Huge requires a different mindset, both the costs and the build time require better planning, and the battelfield management is tougher.

[Nahkuri]

Cheers, seems like a nice place inhabited by jolly good sorts

Yeah, I figured there was some "upkeep by individual soldier" kinda thing going on. I'm spoiled by the later games' massive unit sizes because big armies are totally flashy, but IIRC they didn't affect the costs and such on the campaign map. I want that, but being "new" to the game means I'd rather have the flashy big armies affect the campaign too much. So I'm thinking I might want to have a go at modding the sizes/costs of the units so that I could have units the size of large/huge settings that are about as costly as the ones in default settings.

How hard would that be? Is there some general settings files I could play with, or would I have change the costs of every single troop type?

[drone]

So I'm thinking I might want to have a go at modding the sizes/costs of the units so that I could have units the size of large/huge settings that are about as costly as the ones in default settings.

How hard would that be? Is there some general settings files I could play with, or would I have change the costs of every single troop type?

You would need to change each unit, I'm pretty sure everything is hardcoded around the basic parameters each unit has.

The unit parameters are all in the unit prod file specific to the campaign, for the Grand campaign this file is CRUSADERS_UNIT_PROD11.TXT located at the top level directory of your MTW install. The file is a tab-delimited text file, where each line holds the params for one unit type. If you are going to edit this, it is advised that you make a backup copy first. The three columns you will want to tweak are the Cost Integer (cost of unit at default size), Support Cost Integer (upkeep cost = this value x men in unit / 8), and Number of Men (number of men at the default unit size). There is also the Scaleable column, this determines if the unit's size changes with the unit size setting or is fixed (artillery, bodyguards, and specials will not scale).

I can't remember the exact value, but there is a maximum size a unit can be. I'm guessing 255 but I'm not sure. For reference, the sizes scale as follows

• Small = Default Size / 2
• Default = Default Size
• Medium = Default Size x 1.33
• Large = Default Size x 1.66
• Huge = Default Size x 2 (plus double recruit time)

[Stazi]

Max hardcoded unit size is 200 bodies.

[caravel]

One solution: Only ever use default (base) size and manually set the unit sizes to the sizes you want in the unit prod file (e.g. 80/120/200). This avoids the doubled training time (though you'll be missing out, as the huge unit size is quite arguably the best way to play the game).

Even with this approach, more men will still mean higher support costs so you will have to tweak those manually.