Shouldn't armies die out like Generals?

[Garvanko]

Assuming they don't get killed in action of course..

It would make the game a whole lot more interesting...

[Oaty]

Well it would be realistic, but gameplay wise could possibly be the number 1 most annoying feature.


Especially when marching in parts of North Africa.

[scorillo]

true...just think about how often u have to retrain the armies within the city walls...not to mention the abroading armies

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Your not buying men. You are buying units. Consider the attrition through age or disease to be abstracted in such a way that recruiters keep the unit up to current strength.

[vale]

that will make the game more challenging since you will lose your men while marching to siege a city, this way the number of man in your army when arriving at the destination will be more of a variable than a full army with max strenght. To reduce the must retrain men behind the wall why not make fort a recruit station, or maybe that the unit auto recruit when you click end turn to fill in their rank but a portion of dinari will be subtract from your treasury.

[Byzantine Prince]

I think you should be able to start losing men once the unit reaches the age of 20. That way you don't have units that are 200 years old, because that's obsene. This of course provided that someone finds a way to increase the movement speeds of the board pieces.

[Colovion]

your thread inspired me to produce a thread

[HarunTaiwan]

How about desertion rates, especially if you are far from home and have lost battles. Or the General has bad traits.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Some units are hundreds of years old. For example the Black Watch. I think desertion and disease rates would be fun, but just plain old age is ridiculous IMO. Recruiters could easily keep up with that even with just a stop in a city every ten years.

[TheViciousChicken]

That would require even more micromanagement...hmm...I have enough as it is. Specially once you are winning the game and have some 30 regions the turns take forever just because of the need to move all those hundred stacks/units/spies/diplomats/ships/assasins/newborn generals/etc...Of course if retraining of that kind might be made automatic so that it would consume population but not require the player to decide about the fate of every unit it might make the resource management more realistic. Kind of like every unit requiring not just money but people as upkeep.

[Puzz3D]

The age of every man was tracked in MTW and the original intent was to have men die from old age and disease, but the feature was not implemented because CA felt that many players would not like having a unit who's valor they had built up over many battles die off.

[antisocialmunky]

Only generals were tracked in MTW.

[Colovion]

Only generals were tracked in MTW.

judging from Puzz3D's credentials - I'm going with him on this one.

[KSEG]

Wait, IIRC in MTW i don't think anyone died from old age apart from family members.

[Cheater]

Guys, Puzz3D said that this stuff of every man aging WAS to have been implemented. But they cut it out before release.

[Puzz3D]

Eat Cold Steel, who programmed it, did have the code in MTW which tracked the age of every man, but he was told to disable it. As I recall it was Activision that wanted this feature disabled. Even generals dying was disabled in MTW, but ECS brought back the generals dying in VI which accidentally caused the "all kings die at age 56 bug" which was fixed in the patch to VI. If you put the -green-generals switch in the shortcut which starts MTW/VI, a less experienced general will replace those who die otherwise you get a replacement who is the same as the general who died.

[IceTorque]

Eat Cold Steel, who programmed it, did have the code in MTW which tracked the age of every man, but he was told to disable it. As I recall it was Activision that wanted this feature disabled. Even generals dying was disabled in MTW, but ECS brought back the generals dying in VI which accidentally caused the "all kings die at age 56 bug" which was fixed in the patch to VI. If you put the -green-generals switch in the shortcut which starts MTW/VI, a less experienced general will replace those who die otherwise you get a replacement who is the same as the general who died.

I'm not so sure i would like my armies dying from old age but,
I wonder what other design decisions we can thank Activision for.
Small battlemaps.
Fast kill speed.
speedy gonzales infantry.

[pezhetairoi]

I would certainly like aging to be implemented--that way the whole campaign will slow down and katanking will not be completely possible since instead of one army sweeping through a continent in one breath, campaigns will have to stop and start because whole armies have to be replaced. Nice idea. But before anyone kills me, I go for the realism more than the gameplay, so.

[Muska Burnt]

if armies did die out this thread would be backwards everyone here would complain "why do armies have to die out?!"

[pezhetairoi]

Absolutely, because that's what the majority'd grouse about...

[Muska Burnt]

ya retraining every few turns would get old fast

[ToranagaSama]

Gentlemen, the feature would/should be made **Optionable**, so those who can't deal, won't have to...

:green armies: would be AWESOME!

Though, I'm sure such Code has been thrown our with the rest of the TW bath water, either literally and/or philosphically....

So, the likelihood of it being implemented is about nil, *THEY* ain't listening to *US*!~

[ToranagaSama]

Eat Cold Steel, who programmed it, did have the code in MTW which tracked the age of every man, but he was told to disable it. As I recall it was Activision that wanted this feature disabled. Even generals dying was disabled in MTW, but ECS brought back the generals dying in VI which accidentally caused the "all kings die at age 56 bug" which was fixed in the patch to VI. If you put the -green-generals switch in the shortcut which starts MTW/VI, a less experienced general will replace those who die otherwise you get a replacement who is the same as the general who died.

ToranagaSama bows down and raises a beer in TRUE and DEAR appreciation to EAT COLD STEEL!!!!


:green generals: [Just one, in a line of features, that makes MTW superior to RTW....]


Thank you.





ECS, a true Samurai....

[Kagemusha]

I would not like to see my armies dying off old age.Instead i would like that,if their numbers would start to diminish if they are too long in the enemy area away from their support area.Because ancient armies suffered much more casulties because of disease and lack of proper food and drinking water than actual casulties in battles.

[mfberg]

So we need to track in each individual
Age (for retirement purposes)
Home/homesickness
Loyalty to an officer
Loyalty to a ruler
Loyalty to a faction
Loyalty to a homeland
Resistance to illness
As units move around they would recruit from either natives, followers, or mercenaries, and lose men to retirement of soldiers (in their new homelands) and desertion/fatigue factors. Old style units would not recruit as well as new styles unless they have fame. This would take tons of tracking, and work a little better in the 3 ages style of MTW than in the 2 eras of RTW.
After that all we need are complete rosters of the camp followers and famine/food collection variables and we've got a great big mess. It would be fun, but a bit of a task to program.

mfberg

[Kagemusha]

I would settle to that if they would loose lets say 2% of their troops in turn in hostile territory.

[Armoryk]

I'd go for an attrition rate in hostile territory (as an option) and have it mitigated by building a fort. Essentially forts could serve as supply depots, with a supply range that could keep foreign units up to snuff in hostile territory. They could have a supply radius and only work optimally to mitigate erosion of armies if they are linked by connecting to the supply radii of controlled territories or other forts "in supply". In huge territories in the East (Arabia, Tribus Alanni) this would create an interesting strategic challenge to both invaders and defenders.

[Kagemusha]

Great idea! That is exactly how they could create supply lines in the game.

[Colovion]

ya retraining every few turns would get old fast

You're exagerating.

Unless you feel the same way about Generals dying after their entire lifespan.

Personally I think that ~50 years (100 turns) is plenty for an army to be in service. Also, we could setup a "serve the nation for X years" and would give those soldiers battle experience which you could use to call on them in the future, but would also allow them to go back to farming their fields.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Just an FYI, it takes four months to train a Roman soldier for combat. Generally the Romans would only recruit when at their base, from the local population. If roughly the the same thing was implemented in MTW it would mean that armies would only lose strenght when mobile or in enemy territory.