the elephants issue

[Hakonarson]

Dude what do you think the maintenance costs of the unit represent?

Fodder, wages, barracks/stables, tack, weapons, and virtually everything that gets used up except for replacement elephants.

What do you think it represents?

[lomeinchef]

Um, I think the maintainence costs in RTW are a very general way to avoid micromanaging. Could you imagine if your armies would retire? and you had to keep building a constant resupply to maintain attrition? It would make the game deeper, but also much more annoying. The upkeep costs i assume represent not only the maintainence costs but also the cost of replacing soldiers as they retire, etc. I just assume that all of that is going on and it doesnt bother me.

[Furious Mental]

What lomeinchef said.

[Hakonarson]

Yes I understand that too - despite the obvious inadequacy of the mechanism - for example why doesn't a depleted unit grow in strength with replacements as upkeep is paid?

That's not really the point - I have no interest in micromanagement either - that's what the computer is for! What I want to know is how many legions can I raise at Tarentum? How many Pezeratoi (foot companions - Alex's Pikemen) at Pella, How many Cataphracts at Seleucia, etc.

When the ancients raised armies they didn't wait a year for each unit to form - they decided how many ment they needed, and called out that many.

In some cases if was by lot - eg the Romans and Athenians would decide they needed 4 legions, or 2000 troops, or whatever, and cast lots for who would actually serve.

For "ordinary" troops this is easy enough - you just set the built time to 0 and you can build the army you want in 1 turn. You are limited by your population in RTW, and I think that plus money is fine for them.

But for elite troops, or strange troops like elephants you need some sort of limiting mechanism otherwise you end up with armies entirely of them - a common feature in basic RTW.

The most accurate limiting feature is the populatoin theycan be drawn from - or - for elephants - needing to equip an expedition to go get some. The number crunching can be done in hte background - I see no reason why the player should be saddled with it other than to be told you have "x" veterans able to be promoted, or whatever, each time you want to know.