Quote Originally Posted by anders
wasnt that how it was for many medieval generals anyway, impossible to tell who is who once they had entered the fray, and the only unit ID was a banner?
Probably, not to mention how difficult it would have been to give commands once a battle started, with helmets blocking ears. However, arguing from realism doesn't apply here, because the player's units have no autonomy -- no sense of self-preservation, or ability to make their own combat decisions like real soldiers would. For example, no real unit of soldiers anchoring one end of a battle line, would fail to turn and face a flanking attempt from the side or rear. But the player's units will just stand there and get slaughtered, if you don't take control. And that means being able to quickly ID your units.

I posted in another thread about how I was having trouble recognizing units from a distance, and I think part of it is the new variations in dress and equipment. In RTW, units showed more as blocks of uniform color at a distance; not so much in M2TW, with all the variation within a unit.

In 20/20 hindsight, I think it might have been a good idea to develop the radar/map a bit more... maybe adding a toggle to expand the map, with icons that actually ID'd the unit type, instead of just simple generic triangles. That would have provided a quick overview of what was going on, then you could either direct units by clicking on the radar/map, or jump back to the full 3D view and control the action there.

Oh well... the graphics engine and unit modeling obviously aren't going to change at this late date, so I guess we'll just have to learn to live with it, and hope we'll get better at recognizing banners.