0 turn building time?

[jerby]

I know i already posted it, but i'd liek to know a lot of opinions of this issue.
what is EB's stand on 0 turn building time? what are the Cons/Pros?
IMO, 0-building-time is more accurate. Soldiers were trained from infacny( some later than others) and later were 'summoned' for a war (i'm not completly right probably, im no expert)
If alexander had to start training his army before he had invaded he'd be 50 before he started.
again (as always) correct me if i'm wrong (i say it so often it shoudl be in my sig.. )

[Danest]

We would need significant city populations, unless we want a depopulated Rome(though I suppose the limit of Romans was an issue, hence auxiliaries). But the AI might not know it, and depopulate its cities (if it were a rich faction capable of supporting such large armies).
And I think, at least professional armies like the Legions didn't just pop up but most likely had quite significant training periods. But then, maybe being able to produce several legions in 0 time is better than a giant city being able to produce no greater number of units per turn than a village. So maybe only really special/exotic/expensive/rare units should take more than 0 turns to build? Cavalry, elephants, etc? But I bet EB already has their plan for build times in place, and that's fine either way.

[shifty157]

And also 1 city can train more than 80 men in 6 months.

[khelvan]

As an aside, 1 man does not equal 1 man. These represent larger armies. If you think of the largest battles of antiquity, and make the scale equivalent to one stack per main battle line, and one stack per reserves, you see that 1 man in our armies equals many more men in reality.

We are limited to the scale that CA has forced upon us.

[shifty157]

Thats true khelvan but history does show that it is possible to call up a massive army in very little time. The Romans managed to raise an army of 80,000 (i think thats right) in relatively little time to go and fight (and lose) at Canea. Thats just one example off the top of my head.

Also i have played SPQR quite a bit and the AI depleting cities didnt seem like a very large issue in the campaigns i played.

[khelvan]

Yes, but RTW's recruitment system is ahistorical no matter how you look at it - 0 turn or no. The whole system can't reflect reality in any way. You're talking about two equally ahistorical ways of showing how armies were raised.

Build a barracks and voila! Instant army. It doesn't work that way. Many armies were called up quickly, but the training had already happened, the infrastructure to support the army in place, and various other things that have to happen before such an army can be raised. It wasn't as though 80,000 trained, equipped, fed, clothed, etc. men appeared out of nowhere.

It really is a pointless argument from a historical standpoint - six of one, half dozen of the other.

[shifty157]

so history aside i think 0 turn recruitment is better in gameplay. perhaps make it teired. using the premarian romans as an example, peasants/town militia/hastati take 0 turns to build while principes/triarii take 1 turn. velites and other auxilaries take 0 turns. equites take 1 turn. id say this sounds like a good plan. not only can you recruit the large armies (although of only weaker units) but it adds more strategy as well. would you rather recruit 3 units of hastati or 1 unit of principes? You can also use this to show the various specialties of a faction. As with the romans, roman cavalry was few and far between so they take 1 turn to build. While in another faction, a unit of light cavalry equivalent to equites would take 0 turns to build.

I dont think any units should take more than 1 turn to build however. This impedes gameplay rather than increasing strategy.

[Sheep]

would you rather recruit 3 units of hastati or 1 unit of principes?

It doesn't matter. You can recruit both from the same city at the same time. You could recruit 8 units of hastati (at 0-turn) and 1 unit of principes (at 1-turn) and still get all of them the next turn provided you had the money and population.

[shifty157]

It doesn't matter. You can recruit both from the same city at the same time. You could recruit 8 units of hastati (at 0-turn) and 1 unit of principes (at 1-turn) and still get all of them the next turn provided you had the money and population.

Yes i know. That was just the first thing that came to my mind. You understand what i meant though.

[cunctator]

I prefer no to use 0 turn buildtimes for units. The game will become still easier and less accurate. To stay with the cannae example: It would be no desaster at all for the romans if their 80.000 army is destroyed. They simply can recruit a new one before Hannibal even has the chance to move to rome. If it`s the romans turn , the RTW Hannibal could be attacked by several monster armies in a row.

[Steppe Merc]

Of course most places already had armies in place. But those soldiers were already ready. They already had their weapons ready, but they were farming most of the time (for a broad example). Most soldiers wouldn't even stay recruited (in RTW terms) after the battle. Most armies would go home after a battle.
Either way, it's wrong.

[metatron]

We would need significant city populations, unless we want a depopulated Rome(though I suppose the limit of Romans was an issue, hence auxiliaries). But the AI might not know it, and depopulate its cities (if it were a rich faction capable of supporting such large armies).
And I think, at least professional armies like the Legions didn't just pop up but most likely had quite significant training periods. But then, maybe being able to produce several legions in 0 time is better than a giant city being able to produce no greater number of units per turn than a village. So maybe only really special/exotic/expensive/rare units should take more than 0 turns to build? Cavalry, elephants, etc? But I bet EB already has their plan for build times in place, and that's fine either way.

Exactly right. The strength of a legion was in it's training.

[jerby]

yes indeed. but 0 turn doenst state they didnt hav etraining. IMO 0-turn would state that legionares were trained and then Summoned to go fighting.this is reflected better.
but 0-turn gives more cons than pro's so i am persuaded.

[Pycckuu]

Would it be possible to create more then 1 unit per one turn? i think that might work better.

[Khan of ED]

I think that 0-turns build time is better for game-play and this is game no matter how hard you try to bring realism in it.

And i really like the idea of some more elite units using 1-turn
(and for spartans 36-turns to keep things real lol) but we can do that ourself is just the question of how much self-control one have lol.

Somebody said that 0-turn building time would make game to easy i disagree if you killed full stack in vanilla that was a big blow for AI and player could walk around unopposed for some time (and AI is never able to kill player full stack).
So more full stack that AI has and that can easy replace the better, players usually don't go full stack crazy ( well i don't )
Plus more full stack that AI has better chances for full stack ambush lol (and full stack ambush hurts )
Maybe 9 units per turn is really to much, but 4 i could live with ( and AI usually don't build more than 4 units per turn in one city when using 0-turns build time anyway) but here our self-control comes in.
I think there should be big discusion about this issue because it has big part of have the mod will play.

Keep it real

[Steppe Merc]

Really, the only way to do it if you had 0 turns would be to force almost all of those troops to disband somehow right after a campaign. Which would be a pain, and impossible...

[Greek_fire19]

Well....Things like town watch or barbarian warband (or whatever EB replaces low quality militias with) should probably be zero turn because they represent a levy of conscripted townsfolk raised to deal with a particular crisis or invasion. If you could make units like town watch have zero movement allowance that might prevent the AI raising gigantic hordes of them and roaming around the map. I dont know how much of that is possible or what it would do to seige battles, but it seems reasonable to me that townsfolk would take up what arms they could find in the face of a beseiging enemy. Sortof an 'every able-bodied man able to fight' thing.

Just a suggestion...

[GoreBag]

I think 0-turn recruitment is a good idea. Obviously, levies could be raised in short time, and 0-turn recruitment is the best way to show this. Elite units would take longer to train. My worry is that 0-turn units would not be able to be trained while the training of an elite unit was taking place.

[phred]

Does the build time have to be a whole number?
I think a build time of 0.5 (2 units per turn) or maybe even 0.25 (4 units per turn) is reasonable.

[Simetrical]

Yes, it does.

-Simetrical

[Khan of ED]

SPQR isn't boring, don't know where you came up with that

If i want full stack army in SPQR i get it in 2-turns and go to fight (plus its easier to control unrest ).

I vanilla if i want full stack army 20-turns later and i have it (so what is more boring than waiting plus there is very little full stacks battles in vanilla)

But ok if we get two versions of EB one with 0-turns and other like vanilla makes all happy and we all win (it should not be so hard to mod it IMHO)

[Eucarionte]

Mmmm...what about 0 turn recruitment only for peasants and militia type troops (such as town watch and militia hoplites, for instance)? A city could easily equip quite a number of these troops in 6 months (no training or special equipment required).

It could represent a last desperate effort to defend a city. It is said that one of the reasons why Hannibal didn´t assault Rome was precisely this (among other reasons like mobility, lack of war engines, etc.).

I don´t know how the AI would make use of this, though...

[Ano2]

I'm just gunna paste my argument from the RTR forums...

Okay the main arguement of the No camp appears to be that battles would become unimportant due to the fact you could keep churning out army after army.

Heres how you counter that: High upkeep costs.

Yup thats it. Those who have played Roma mod know what i mean. You can churn out a large well-equipted army in 1 turn. Then you go into debt. Whilst this army is being used the debt rises. Then when the army is destroyed or severly depleted you monet slowly rises again. This means you have to cancel out all the debt before you can put another large army out into the field. Add to this the fact that you will have less population due to the Homeland system, and you really can't just throw away your armies. Of course if you own half the map you would probably be able to churn out 3 or 4 armies, and keep them coming after each is destroyed, but that makes sense as you own HALF the map.

0 turn does not unbalance the game at all as long as it is properly implemented. Most nations may be able to field a few armies at most and this will lead to some epic battles that are meaninful.

Also if auxillia still take a turn each it means only citizenship cities can produce big armies quickly.

This system is realistic and will IMPROVE gameplay if it is implemented properly.

[Greek_fire19]

As has been said before, people are arguing about this as if EB will the the one and only holy grail, sacred and untouchable, whereas I would bet money that within days of it's open beta release people will have modded it, altered it and implemented their own things to suit their own preferences. There will WITHOUT A DOUBT be a zero turn mod for EB within a week or two of release.

[Ano2]

True Greek_Fire but you must also accept the argument that those who want 0 turn could turn your argument around and say those who want 1 turn can mod it. Given that supporters of 0 turn recruitment do not want 0 turn across the board, and we will have to mess with upkeep costs ,you can understand that ours will take a lot more modding than simply turning everything to 1 turn.

[ENSAIS]

Personally, I find that the 0 turn recruitment and the resulting massive armies give an epic feel to SPQR battles.

I hope EB has a recruiting mechanism or options that will allow similarly epic battles.

I look foward to the diversity of units and recruitment schemes EB will have. I just wanted to put in my 2cents for a 0 recruitment type element for bigger armies.

[Copperhaired Berserker!]

No, don't use 0 turn stuff, only use it on guys who are easily trained

[khelvan]

We have said it before - there is very little chance of 0-turn recruitment for us. We have other plans to address some of the things people have brought up, such as levies being raised to defend a city under siege. At this point it is safe to assume that if you guys want 0-turn recruitment, you will have to mod it in.

[Jebus]

I say that whatever EB chooses, they'll have made sure it ties in with their mod perfectly and will be completely balanced.

And I say that because I'm kissing ass.

[shifty157]

And I say that because I'm kissing ass.

Well done. Well done indeed.