How would a Real Time Tactical game on a 1:1 scale play?

[Duke John]

1:1 meaning that each soldier ingame represents 1 actual soldier (as opposed to 1:10 or smaller by most RTT games).

S:TW, M:TW, R:TW and Imperial Glory are all RTT games that feature hundreds or even a couple of thousand soldiers. That seems impressive but most of the famous battles were between armies several thousands strong and some even ten thousands. While playing said games I can't help wondering why the tactics that I use very rarely resemble the ones used in the historical battles. Red Harvest once pointed out that since the lines aren't as wide as they were in real life it becomes more easy to flank an opponent. If you tried playing a 5000 vs 5000 battle with R:TW you would start to notice that the flanks become less important and you will become more concerned with wether a hole doesn't appear in the middle of your line. Since you cannot quickly collapse the enemy line because of it's length reserves become more valuable as those holes need to be plugged. And having that said the game suddenly becomes more like the battles you read about.

CA and Pyro, or for that matter almost every developer, value getting up close higher than having the scale right. Both 1:1 scale and zooming right into the battle is with the current hardware not yet possible. However since I do like to play a 1:1 game I am currently developing my own medieval game engine which does have that feature. Now I would like to ask you what influence a 1:1 scale would have on the gameplay. Would certain tactics become obsolete? Would it introduce new tactics? Controlling fifty 100-men units would be a nightmare so do you an idea how to make controlling them easier?

Cheers,
Duke John

[Just A Girl]

well on a 1:1 scale on a 16 inch monitor....
You would see a foot of 1 unit.

The display area is no where near capable of displaying 1:1 ratio humans.

So the influence it would have would be to make the game un playable.

You just cant squeese 6 feet in to 16 inches...

Unless of course you use a smaller ratio...
1:10 would mean 72inches now become 7.2 inches.
And you can then squeese the little man in to your screen.

Or are you talking about the ratio of men per unit?

I always play with the largest unit size.
People wont play STW mp like that though (cos "it affects flanking")
Personally i like Large units so id be happy if thats what you mean

[Geoffrey S]

It'd be nice, but entirely unfeasible with the usual RTS controls, or those of the TW series for that matter. If such a scale were to be achieved there'd have to be some kind of ordering system akin to what can be found in games such as Spartan or Legion Arena, where control is for the largest part indirect: armies would be set up before the battle, whilst each unit gets orders (for instance to wait until another specific unit moves, then to march forward) before the battle, and any further orders after the planning phase take longer to be followed depending on the distance of the general and some kind of 'command points' meter. More complex orders in the middle of a battle, or orders requiring more discipline (such as ordering cavalry to flank the enemy or ordering a false retreat) would cost more of such command points than simply ordering certain units to advance, or to fire at will.

Edit: perhaps a TW style control system for smaller skirmishes, and the above system for when troops exceed a certain number? After all, not all battles were fought with huge numbers, probably not even a majority.

[Duke John]

Shambles

well on a 1:1 scale on a 16 inch monitor....
You would see a foot of 1 unit.

No, not that! A 100-men unit in R:TW could represent 1000-men in real life. The game Battle for Bull Run by MadMinute Games has the feature: "Real-time tactical combat with a 10:1 soldier to sprite ratio."

People wont play STW mp like that though (cos "it affects flanking")

Well, some people do not like change, but this discussion is not aimed at them anyway. Single man units in standard RTS games also have a different gameplay then RTT games. As far as I know there is no game that has tried to display armies on a 1:1 scale so I don't know how the gameplay is, but I think it would be an interesting experiment to see how it would change. (Although R:TW comes close if you have a computer with the newest bells and whistles.)

Geoffrey
Legion Arena has indeed an interesting system where you are given points that can be used to issue orders and those points slowly regenerate. IMO it quite reflects realism much better than being able to click 10 times in 1 second.
Although not worked out, I do have a possible solution on how to make movement easier; units can be linked on their flanks forming a bigger unit. This would make it possible to create one large unit of 50 10-men units or 5 100-men units. You can move around a single linked unit but it would affect the others; moving it forward would mean that it would bulge out of the line, a bit like half a sinus graph. If the unit would be pushed back in melee it would take its neighbouring friendly units with it and not unlike R:TW where groups mean little more than being in formation.
So while you can form the linked unit however you like (with some restrictions in how much it can bend) it remains one body. You can then give it orders and it will move as a whole. It would make sense to link if you had a limited amount of orders like in Legion Arena since bigger units mean that you can still control your whole army.

After all, not all battles were fought with huge numbers, probably not even a majority.

Since I plan to first make the game about the Wars of the Roses, here is a run down of some battles during those wars (numbers may vary between sources):
1st Battle of St. Albans: 2000 vs 3000
Blore Heath: 3000 vs 6000
Wakefield: 15000 vs 6000
Mortimer's Cross: 8000 vs 10000
2nd Battle of St. Albans: 9000 vs 12000
Towton: 30000 vs 40000
Barnet: 12000 vs 15000
Tewkesbury: 6000 vs 6000
During those wars there were some skirmishers of course, but the wars were decided by the large battles.

[Geoffrey S]

The group idea sounds good. So, it'd mean that if one unit in the larger group moves, it'd affect the rest but with a slight delay; if one unit of the whole is making headway in the enemy formation it moves surrounding units further forward too (thus pushing the enemy back further), but if a unit is pushed back it drags the rest back a little too (potentially causing larger problems).

If you're doing selected battles the system would work. I was assuming there'd be a strategical section too, which would mean there would be smaller scale battles, but if there isn't there's no reason this system shouldn't work.

More unit cohesion than something like the TW series is a must; armies should roughly remain in a line, not scatter around as various sections are needed. A lot of my TW battles degenerate into loose unit battles, rather than armies fighting as a whole. Possibly this is also due to the smaller troop amounts.

[Fragony]

It would be more focussed on the strategic map, moving troops around in a more intelligent way. MTW could have been better, cavalry should travel faster then foot soldiers, that sort of stuff. More organisation, with the actual battle the climax of numerous evasive moves on the strategic map. It would be awesome to attack a province from 3 different provinces, and actually having that happen on the battlefield. Reduce the graphics to little purple boxes clashing for all I care, I would love a 'bigger' game.

[Duke John]

Geoffrey

So, it'd mean that if one unit in the larger group moves, it'd affect the rest but with a slight delay;

A bit different. Imagine the units being people who hold hands. If one man moves 3 metres forward his neighbours would go 2.7 metres, their neighbours 2.5 and so on with the man at the end of the line noticing nothing of that man moving forward as the movement is "absorbed" by the many people between the two.

I was assuming there'd be a strategical section too

Possible, but I will first concetrate on making the tactical game which will be enough work for the coming year.

Fragony

Reduce the graphics to little purple boxes clashing for all I care, I would love a 'bigger' game.

I was thinking of that initially too, a bit like the Osprey battle maps (if you know them). It would make the engine a hell of a lot quicker to finish, but the loss of seeing the soldiers might be too big to still feel immersed in the game. Or not?

[Quietus]

1:1 meaning that each soldier ingame represents 1 actual soldier (as opposed to 1:10 or smaller by most RTT games).

S:TW, M:TW, R:TW and Imperial Glory are all RTT games that feature hundreds or even a couple of thousand soldiers. That seems impressive but most of the famous battles were between armies several thousands strong and some even ten thousands. While playing said games I can't help wondering why the tactics that I use very rarely resemble the ones used in the historical battles. Red Harvest once pointed out that since the lines aren't as wide as they were in real life it becomes more easy to flank an opponent. If you tried playing a 5000 vs 5000 battle with R:TW you would start to notice that the flanks become less important and you will become more concerned with wether a hole doesn't appear in the middle of your line. Since you cannot quickly collapse the enemy line because of it's length reserves become more valuable as those holes need to be plugged. And having that said the game suddenly becomes more like the battles you read about.

CA and Pyro, or for that matter almost every developer, value getting up close higher than having the scale right. Both 1:1 scale and zooming right into the battle is with the current hardware not yet possible. However since I do like to play a 1:1 game I am currently developing my own medieval game engine which does have that feature. Now I would like to ask you what influence a 1:1 scale would have on the gameplay. Would certain tactics become obsolete? Would it introduce new tactics? Controlling fifty 100-men units would be a nightmare so do you an idea how to make controlling them easier?

Cheers,
Duke John

Have you never tried Mount & Blade, DJ? You can only fully control one soldier but you can order other troops to follow you or stay put.

[Somebody Else]

Have you never tried Mount & Blade, DJ? You can only fully control one soldier but you can order other troops to follow you or stay put.

Hardly any more than skirmishes in it though, and the battles do tend to descend into large brawls (or small ones depending on the settings).

Although, I did contemplate what it'd be like multiplayer once... a line of shieldsmen with polearmed troops behind to attack over their heads would be quite hard to break through, or damage - with those shields continually up... Anyway, my point is it'd likely require human interaction for any semblence of battlefield tactics. Or an extraordinarily sophisticated AI... (Actually, a vaguely competent human would be handy - some people, after all, are morons.)

[Papewaio]

Interesting idea.

Given Moore' Law. PC's should be able to handle 100,000 men RTW style in just 5 years... assuming that it is a linear computational requirement of 10x. If it is a square, then to get to 100x computational power will be in 10 years time.

Would I like to see massive battles? Yes.

But I would like to avoid micromanagement and avoid the absolute control aspect that makes games quite so gamey.

Although it would be good to play the larger battle on a board representing the greater battle outside and then resolve the turn... so a bit like TW except you do a turn on a battlefield strategy map of say 10 minutes (rather then half a year) and then the battle plays out based on your orders to the pieces... cake and eat it approach... could be totally AI or you have control of a few units.

[Samurai Waki]

Perhaps a more intuitive system should be put into place, where it could still have that TW feel. Like switching between a birds-eye view map of the area, with blocks representing the units, from this view you could issue orders and formations, as well as get your battlefield information (geographical information as well as troop movements... where it would have blocks representing seen enemy units which would have to be of a different colour than your's to avoid confusion) after you issue all of your orders, you can go back to real time, either using the traditional TW panasonic view of the battle, or being able to switch between the individual units, which would focus in as a 1st person view of the Unit's Commander, from there you could see what that commander is capable of seeing and assess the situation. Also whilst in Realtime, other AI commanders could give reports on their current status, like having a commander from the opposite end of the battle line saying "A Unit of Cavalry is moving to Flank Us!" From that information you could pause, switch over to see what that commander sees, assess the situation, go into you're tactical birds-eye view map, change change orders, and continue.

[Duke John]

Have you never tried Mount & Blade, DJ?

I have, but I do not plan or wish to use such a system.

But I would like to avoid micromanagement and avoid the absolute control aspect that makes games quite so gamey.

I agree, although deciding how much influence a player gets while still keeping the game enjoyable is a difficult choice to make.

Although it would be good to play the larger battle on a board representing the greater battle outside and then resolve the turn

I do have some plans to have a map that lies between the TW campaign map and the battlemaps. A map where only whole armies can be controlled and not the individual units. This will create great situations where an army must try to outmanuevre the other army and if succeeding prohibiting the enemy from joining with its other armies or reaching a city. A turn should then of course represent a smaller time period (half a day or so).

Combat mathematics
I have been thinking about how to simulate the following situations that occured during the Wars of the Roses:
- Army A pushing back the whole of Army B (Battle of Wakefield)
- Both lines rotating as each line is winning on its right flank (Battle of Barnet/Towton)
- Making a dent in the line and being pushed back again (Battle of Bosworth)
I came up with the following theory:


Casualties during melee wasn't usually that high. And with units being represented by blocks there is no little visual indication of how the units are doing. My solution focuses on how lines gave ground as during the battle of Towton where the Yorkists were in the danger of being pushed over the hill only to be timely rescued by the arriving duke of Norfolk. During this battle the line also pivoted as the Lancastrians attacked the Yorkist left flank with ambushing cavalry.
I want to use these visual changes of the battlelines to show where the player's units are winning and where they are being losing. To calculate this I use add up several factors of which the sum represents the force with which the line is pushing against the opposing line. The player can influence the magnitude of these factors by concentrating elite units, by bombarding the enemy with archers and cannons before the lines clash, by having deeper ranks or by occupying higher grounds.




With the sum of the forces it is calculated how the line deforms. As you can see above it is quite clear that red is losing on the left flank and winning on the right. This will cause a rotation of the lines. If red keeps losing and winning on respectively the left and right flank the lines will keep rotating.


You can see that blue has made a big dent in the left flank and this may stretch and thus thin reds line so much that its left flank detaches from the center. As these units are no longer strengthened by the closeness of the other units they will be pushed even further which will most probably result in a rout. However if blue was told to hold ground and the captains can keep in control of their soldiers then the blue line will not push further and red's left flank would have either routed or fold back towards the center further rotating the line.

Tactical map
The tactical map will be 3D. The player can rotate and change height and angle (within certain limits). It will be very much like the maps of Osprey, you can zoom in further though:

Terrain textures are tiled and only certain pieces can be joined (like with M:TW and unlike R:TW which has texture splattering). The battlemap will be large enough to allow some movement before battle and detailed enough to be able to take advantage of small hills. Terrain will affect combat and you should be able to place terrain fortifications if you have the time, although visually not very detailed.

Visualisation of units
Below is a possible visualisation of units. It will be visible how large indivudual units are and they will be given enough geometry to be able to follow the Bezier curves. You can see that four units have linked to form a bigger unit and clicking on a flag will allow you to perform certain actions; breaking up, linking with other units, advance, change facing/formation, etc.


I'm looking forward to read what you think about the above system.

Cheers,
Duke John