Unit abstraction?
Hey all,
I've just recently begun looking at the demo for this game again after reading some great reviews on it (CGW, others). I'd heard about it awhile ago, but at the time was turned off by the inability to mod the nations in the game (as I was looking for an engine that would let me create a Conan/Hyborian War scenario). However, I saw that it was certainly deep and rich in content, and the new patch that adds the ability to mod the nations may very well entice me to buy it (since I've been unable to find a good game to create said scenario, although Civ3 Conquests looks promising due to how much can be customized).
However, I am having a real problem with one facet of this game, which is impacting my "suspension of disbelief" to the point where I'm not sure I could really enjoy the game.
It has to do with unit scale and the size of armies. From the reading I have done, and from the demo, it appears that each unit is meant to represent one man, monster, etc. It is probably just me, but I feel that there is something wrong with the size of the forces that are then being represented. How awesome is it to imagine my mighty "army" of 200 heavy spearmen having a "climactic" battle with 10 enemy giants and 50 archers (just a random example)? Even if an army were to reach 1,000 units and fight a similarly sized force, it'd still be small when compared to the epic battles that I want to see in my mind's eye, or that are frequently depicted in fantasy literature.
So, that being said and without making this too long, is there an abstraction built in to the unit sizes mentioned anywhere? Does a single infantry unit really represent 50 or 100 men, for example, or did they really design this game with the idea that it's just a bunch of platoons and companies running around fighting each other? One thing I loved about MOM was that units didn't represent just one guy, but were actually an abstraction for larger military formations. As such, attack/defense factors decreased as a unit took damage to represent combat losses. I lost interest in Age of Wonders for similar suspension of disbelief issues, as well...it just didn't feel "real"...4 Elven Archers and an Elven Swordsman conquer the city of X while battling 3 spiders...whoa!!!
I don't want this to sound like I'm bashing Dominions 2, because I can see the intense love of this game by a lot of people. For me to enjoy a game, though, I need to "believe" in the mythos that is being represented, and small bands of troops supposedly conquering a world just doesn't do it for me... "Yes, my lord, we conquered that province with 5 knights...all 50,000 subjects bent their knee to us 5 mighty men because of our big lances..."
Can anyone shed some light on either what the designers are representing per unit, or on how you specifically mentally abstract armies to make them feel more realistic (yeah, yeah, I know it's a GAME and not real, but games are meant to provide a degree of suspension of disbelief, no?)
Oh, yeah, the mercenary screen gets me every time...so and so is available, and he leads 10 men... Remind me not to piss THAT guy off... Does anyone else feel this does something negative for the epic scale of the game? If the text would at least say ten units or formations or something, it wouldn't pull me back to the fact that I'm playing a game, as opposed to experiencing a tale...
Am I alone on this subject?
Thanks and good gaming,
Carl G.
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