"HUGE" very hard

[Maltz]

I just attempted a "HUGE" unit size campaign on VH setting. I found it really "very hard", harder than large and normal. I was using Julii against the Gauls - one of the very beginning battles.

The reason is the army now takes much longer time to turn - so there is always more time required to manuever - to be more specific, to turn the shocking unit and charge home now take much longer to happen.

The AI also tends to use about 4-rank deep formation, always making a very long line. When I charge home, I can only cover part of their arses, so there is not enough morale penalty to rout them this fast.

One potential benefit is to use this against the AI - they turn slowly and get shot by HA to pieces. I guess huge size really favors "fast factions" like Parthia, Scythia, Armenia etc.

I guess in medium/easy difficulty this actually gives human players more advantage because slower turning & routing implies more 1 vs. 1 fighting time. (similar to what happens in the realism mod) However, in VH 1 vs. 1 human always loses, so I really don't see any good odds...

Also, somehow my system screwed up so after every battle my campaign map turns completely black. I have to quit the game to windows then restart... Guess I have to wait for an upgrade to play HUGE, then.

[Red Harvest]

I've been sticking with the "large" default. What you say about the larger units and armies make sense.

It often required several hours for consular armies to march out and fully deploy. (You can imagine how essential skirmishers and cavalry would be in protecting maneuvering infantry as they deployed.) For full sized armies, battle lines were ~1 or 2 miles wide. Major changes in such a formation will take quite a bit of time.

[LordKhaine]

I'd imagine phalanx formations are far more effective with larger unit sizes.

[Shottie]

I'd imagine phalanx formations are far more effective with larger unit sizes.

They are, try sending cavalry right at one of them, its funny to watch, but its a lot of lost money and troops.

[Maltz]

I just had a few more runs with HUGE. I found everything seems to be in slow motion, so it is much harder to flank the enemy.

it is quite awkward to ask a large group of army to turn, naturally. Indeed commanding a large infantry army is not an easy thing in VH...

[Shottie]

Well, just think about the real men and their units LOL Just think how hard it was to control them, and with out radios!!! Its amazing how they did it, compared to todays High tech communication.

[Maltz]

After a few more battles, I am a little more used to huge unit size now: For every flanking action I have to move my shock troops well in advance. I guess this is a good training exercise.

Field battles are really fun to watch. Only on huge do I start to see "the line" (on large & normal they get broken all the time). Sieges are harder now because the streets gets crowded easily, and units get stuck & slow when they are on top of each other. So there is an advantage for the defenders. Quite fun!

[Parmenio]

I found once I played on Huge Unit sizes there was no going back. :)

[snake0606]

I stoped using HUGE formations. I understand the concept of "it is a BAD thing to depopulate cities" but the AI is not. I went back to LARGE formations.

[Nelson]

Aside from the effect huge units may have on strategy and tactics, there's the performance issue too. When I tried a custom battle with 20 huge units on each side my frame rate was painfully below what I get with large units.

I suspect that to play with huge units you need one of two things: an exceptionally powerful machine or a high tolerance for low frame rates. I have neither...

[Wrangel]

I play HUGE + "Very hard" setting, and it is really a lot harder.

I play as Carthage and in the early ears i was eager to crush rome at its own backyard. So i deployed the largest army i could rally with the faction leader as general, boarded it on my fleet and headed for Rome. But there the happy tail of my roman adventure ended. I faced an equally large S.P.Q.R. army on the fields outside of Rome.
I was confident before the battle started, i had elephants and i little cavalry advantage. But of course it was the infantry that failed. The Romans breached the center of my libyan pike wall so i supported the spot with my general... bad move. The genral/faction leader was killed and the big route started. The whole center collapsed and as i only, during the battle, managed to win the battle on the right flank, not the left it also collapsed. Left was my left flank (funny =), a couple of round shield cavalry and some skirmishers was the only troops that hadn't routed... yet. The became the rout protection force, a task the only could perform for approx. 10 seconds... then they routed too. *Sigh* My whole army almost annihilated and my faction leader dead...

Ok, enoug combat details (so fun to write about though =þ )

Well anyway...
I would probably had won this battle if it wasn't for the huge settings which makes the phalanx even more stiff and the cavalry i little immobile sometimes.

But one learn from mistakes isn't it so? I think the game gets more exciting if you never load, just use the autosave to continue where you left off. (all this writing just to say this sentence =)

[LordKhaine]

Well my PC would struggle with huge sizes, so I'm using large right now. Certainly a large improvement over normal sizes

[Maltz]

There was a mentioning that huge unit size does not affect AI city pop. size - I found this is only partially true. For settlment that comes with enough pop. from the beginning, the AI always "cheats" to grow high enough population, no problem with that.

In my current campaign I found that the barbarian AI usually suffer from a large number of small towns, hense their tech. is not high enough. For example, by the time I reached Germania (about 10-15 years in the game), there were only 2-3 settlements developed to pop. 2000, while others close to the 400 pop. minimum threshold, obviously depleted due to recruit. For Britons (15-20 years in the game) they only have the "London" settlement over 2000, while all the others 400 pop. There is no port built in other 3 settlements.

The AI still trains the army in its programmed way. So I indeed encountered full stacks of Germania & Briton armies, but at the cost of their pathetic towns. The good news is I can easily "Romanize" them through Egyptian slaves.

[m4rt14n]

I always thought Romans get an advantage with Huge Units since it cost the same to recruit a 60-80-120 units of Legionary Cohort. When u have that unit attack a Warband they have more attack value though...

[j4k3]

I, too, tried the "Huge" setting on VH and my battles seem to last over 20+mins. longer and they're much MUCH harder now so I think I'm going back to "Large."

Part of the reason is the added soldiers. The more, the harder to control and consequently, beat.

[dedmoroz]

Another drawback to HUGE unit size is "reinforcements delayed" problem. Apparently the game can't field more than 5000-6000 troops simultaneously so if you bring 2 big stacks to the fight you can well find yourself fighting with only one of them at a time.
For example, once my spy spotted near some Greek city a huge Greek army, some 4000 soldiers, and a stack of Brutii about same size. They were standing against each other without attacking. I decided to move there smaller army of mine (1000 soldiers) and attack Greek force. By doing this I was hoping to escalate a fight between Greeks and Brutii and after the fighting done just roll over the weakened Greek force and slaughter the wounded
When I attacked the Greeks, in pre battle scroll I saw Brutii army along with my force.
But when I entered the battle I got message "reinforcements delayed" I had to fight huge Greek army all by myself with no option to retreat. My small army was entirely slaughtered!!

[Zatoichi]

Well, as a result of reading this thread, I was inspired to go home from work last night and fire up a brand new campaign as the Brutii on VH/H with Huge units. I'd been concerned before about my PC not being able to handle it, but it seems OK so far - those Macedonian phalanxes look awesome with 240 nasty pointy things poking out at you! It's changed the way I approach the balance of recruiting and building, as the larger dent in the population when recruiting units can be a real problem if you're too 'extermination happy' with your conquest - seems like slavery is the new best approach... It's early days in my campaign, but I'm already enjoying more than my last campaign as the Germans with large units... So thanks guys!

[Fridge]

I've never played on anything other than Huge, and some of the things I've read on this board seem to make more sense now!

For example, some people like mercenaries, some don't - but I expect those who use huge unit sizes will tend to use a lot more, as with slow growing factions like the Seleucids, removing 240 men from your population at the beginning of the game (when you're going up less than 50 men a turn!) is a nightmare.

[hoof]

The AI is definitely affected by depopulation when on Huge unit size. I've played two Seleucid campaigns, one with "Large" and one with "Huge". Due to population issues, the "Huge" campaign went slower vs the Egyptians than on "Large". However, the three nile cities of the Egyptians hadn't even reached 12k in population before I took them in Huge, while they were pushing 24k on "Large". The types of units being hurled my way on "Large" were considerably better than on "Huge" (tech-wise). Both campaigns were on Medium/Medium.

I really like the "Huge" unit sizes, however, until the population cost issue is addressed, it's pointless to fight a campaign on "Huge" unless you like the world being low-pop and the units low-tech.

[Maltz]

In harder difficulty settings I doubt the AI get a better population growth bonus (you can say the AI cheats). For example, I always see the Brutii build a port in Apollonia after a few years, even though the pop. there is only 900. To build a port it needs at least 2000. The AI also has a "unique ability" to prevent riot/revolt.

For factions that has very lower pop. towns to start with, the AI trains unit faster than its cheated pop. growth in huge unit size. For example, for regular small towns (pop. < 2000) owned by AI at the start, when I get there its pop. is always only about 400 - depleted due to training. However, for everything that starts as a large town (pop. 2000-5999), then the AI always manage to maintain its size, or more frequently grow into > 6000 despite its military recruit. I always find Egyptians to get close to 24000 towns, too.

As a partial solution, I mod my new Carthagian campaign to 1/2 building time combined with huge unit size, and the result is very satisfying. Both the AI and I are able to tech up really fast. For only a few years into the game, I am able to fight with, and against advanced unit, and see much more stone walls on the way.

[Ellesthyan]

That 1/2 building time solution is very interesting, Maltz. Care to explain how you changed that?

But staying on topic, huge sizes is just too huge for my pc to handle. A big battle on large is almost too much already.. Besides, I like my cities populated.

[Maltz]

That 1/2 building time solution is very interesting, Maltz. Care to explain how you changed that?

You can go to your RTW directory, under ./Data
Then look for a .txt file that has a "building" in its name. I don't exactly remember which file, but it should be easy to find. Perhaps under the export_unit series (?). You can sort file by names.

You can open this file with note pad. At the beginning there are two lines of warnings. They say something like "! This file is generated by a spreadsheet and should not be altered manually." Well - actually it is fine as long as you know what you are doing. (at least I haven't encountered any problem... yet )

Now you can find all data of buildings. Each building takes quite a few lines - saying which units can be built from this building, and so on. There is a term called "construction" that you want to find. The number following construction is the number of terms required to build such a building. Now, you can use the "Replace all" function of your notepad to change all "construction 2" to "construction 1" (with the same format, keep the same number of tabs/space), etc. etc.

You want to change starting from the lower numbers, or you will reduce the same building more than one time, and wind up everything down to 1 turn, though.


(please remember to backup the original file)

[Ellesthyan]

Great, thank you! How's the AI handling it, apart from going a lot faster?

[Maltz]

I haven't found any AI flaw yet.

I was afraid the AI would spend way too much money on building but not on units. I don't really notice any change of army size really. The AI still gains regular military power (and now shifts toward the good, high end).

I also monitored the financial status of AI factions. I havne't noticed any faction getting bankrupt earlier than the vanilla game.

So I think shorter building time really makes harder difficulties even harder because the AI is further rewarded by its money & pop. cheats. Plus it has the benefit of actually seeing the best unit in a campaign.

[lars573]

I stoped using HUGE formations. I understand the concept of "it is a BAD thing to depopulate cities" but the AI is not. I went back to LARGE formations.

Pussy, the only thing that keeps me on large unit size is that my PC can't handle huge very well. A very noticable performance dip in battles.

[djsway]

Dumb question but you can't change the unit size in the middle of a campaign?

[hoom]

Nope. At the start only.

I like to use Huge, but the pathfinding in towns is abysmal.
Units like chariots basically don't fit & can't be repositioned on defence.
Also, inspite of having recently upgraded, my PC can't really hack the strain (ok, so I could turn some stuff down from max settings...)

[Maltz]

The AI doesn't handle bridge offense well when a unit (usually barbarian) charges blindly. It was actually a bridge defense for them - but they decided to take the aggressive stance...

The AI likes to use wide formation, so every unit is spread to a thin line. They march this thin line onto the bridge, only to find 80% of their soldier submerged in cold stream. It is fun to watch.

Another weird thing is the "sudden death" of a unit that starts routing on a bridge. They rout, and without a sense of direction, so a lot of them run off the bridge and drown. (This might make real-world sense because my slinger pond them from the other end, so they better off take their chance - too bad they don't know how to swim.) Yet after a few bridge jumping suddenly all of the survivors dropped dead "on the brdige", falling almost at the same time. I am sure I didn't have stones hitting them at the moment, there was no other unit engaging them. This case is identical to what some people have reported about unit suddenly killed by God's finger on the bridge.

One last thing (not restricted to huge unit size) is that once units cross the bridge anr route, they don't try to flee across the bridge and go back to where they come from. Instead they try to flee parallel to the river, both direction. This makes them very vulnerable to cavalry chase. I guess this already happened in the tutorial campaign (first battle) just we didn't really notice this.