Unit abstraction?

[CarlG2]

Hey ceremony,

Gandalf Parker is correct...I deduced from the way the challenge between Tom C. and his opponent was written that the turns were at the very least seasonal, and potentially bi-annual.

Add that on top of the fact that I swear I have recently read about a game where the turns represented 6 month chunks of time, and I think I made an (incorrect) unconcious correlation.

Add that on top of the fact that I was watching the Packers/Eagle game as I was reading the mag...my mistake.

Good gaming,
Carl G.

Well I believe it simple enough to do (as you said) and mentally apply a x10 or x100 base for each troop and leave out the commanders.

Even at 100 per figure, it would take 200 units for 20,000 by that estimation. 200 units is quite a large army And 200 units on the battlefield is quite busy.

As some have stated before, I don't find imagining these types of mental applications very hard as compared to a game like AoW:SM, WC3 or any other RTS, or TBS game that is currently floating around. Especially with how the units look and are equipped I lean towards more epic, than less.

[CarlG2]

Hey Zen,

Thanks for the follow-up.

I think that reasonably sized forces can be put together via the abstraction that you use.

I believe that an army of 20,000 troops represents a good-sized mustering, and I wouldn't expect that most hosts would get a lot bigger than that (especially when one considers that you could have multiple armies of that size running around). From my reading on the game (and limited playing of the demo) it seems like an epic host in the hundreds of thousands (say 1,500 to 2,000 or more units) could be put together at great cost, as well...but doing so would really focus your power in one location, which would greatly reduce your forces across a larger front.

Again, I appreciate the feedback.

Good gaming,
Carl G.

[PvK]

Yep. Keir has been planning a War of the Ring mod, and it was suggested he base Moria on Ermor. Ermor could definitely field an army in the thousands, if left alone to build up for long enough. A major limit on army size tends to be available (and magic-provided) supplies, and undead (and demons) don't eat.

One could also make maps to support larger armies, by increasing the populations/gold/resources/supply available. Ten times might work a lot better than a hundred times, though - I don't know of a way to mod the available size on a battlefield, for example. You'd probably also want to mod the leadership values of the commanders to match, or else it would start to be cumbersome to order maneuvers (since each commander needs their own orders).

PvK

[licker]

This is part of the strangeness of this problem. Multiplying everything by 10 essentially changes nothing in a beneficial way. It may 'feel' more right to some people, but the impact on game play is zero. Except that if you actually wanted to represent all 10x more troops in the battle replays, or even on the recruiting screen/army set up screens. All it does is add complexity and drive up system requirements (graphically at least) to satisfy the whim of a few.

Granted, this isn't going to happen from the devs so I'm not worried about it. Anyway, Dom is much better with size of forces than AoW (any of them), however, the personal nature of the afflictions makes it seem as though each unit is indeed an individual rather than a group of 10 or 50 or 100. In the end though its all dependant on the gamers ability to accept things as they are, or imagine that things are more abstracted.

What would seemingly be more troubleing to me is the reletive sizes of provinces on a map to their popualtions or army sizes. The World map while very cool is harder to handle in this respect as the province sizes are too large (actually it doesn't bother me, but seemingly it would bother some people). Playing on "smaller" maps, where smaller doesn't mean fewer provinces, but rather smaller province dimentions, would make more sense in this respect.

Anyway, no one size (for armies or provinces) is going to satisfy everyone, and I don't think it really should matter that much anyway. But I'm a real proponent of looking at game mechanics first and reality second, which isn't always a popular view

[Wauthan]

This might sound a bit dorky but at times I feel like Dominions started out as a RPG project that spiraled out of control. There's a lot going on in the game that makes it feel like you're the master of a small band rather than leading armies.

Would be neat if someone actually made an RPG style map, like say a really big dungeon, were every tile represented a room or similar feature. And the pretender as the leader of a party of adventurers.

[PrinzMegaherz]

Well, dom2 battles remind me a bit of braveheart. If I remember correctly, they dont field such huge armies as you like in the movie.
Dominions 2 is no pure fantasy game. There are no orcs and no elves, most nations (except maybe ermor and R'yleh, but that one does not count as fantasy anyway...) are somehow related to historical nations/religions. This is a background where such epic scale battles would not fit in, as battles in those ages usualy not involved so many soldiers.

[licker]

Originally posted by PrinzMegaherz:
Well, dom2 battles remind me a bit of braveheart. If I remember correctly, they dont field such huge armies as you like in the movie.
Dominions 2 is no pure fantasy game. There are no orcs and no elves, most nations (except maybe ermor and R'yleh, but that one does not count as fantasy anyway...) are somehow related to historical nations/religions. This is a background where such epic scale battles would not fit in, as battles in those ages usualy not involved so many soldiers.

There may not be elves or orcs (well there are elves just not as a pure nation), but there are Lizard men, Flying Ice Angles, Giants, Centaurs, Minotaurs, DemonBread, ...

I don't quite remember what rubric I used when I did the count but I came up with 8human nations and 9nonhuman nations (or primarilly human/nonhuman). As such I'd say you can play it in either a 'pure fantasy' mode, or a more 'fantastical history' mode. Of course magic and indies will still be there either way.

I don't think many people will argue that the scales of armie sizes to populations to province sizes to time are 'realistic', but as far as how everything comes together to provide an entertaining game the devs should be applauded. Of course everyone will have a pet-peeve about this or that and how it isn't realistic, but you simply can't make it all realistic and still keep the same game mechanics as there are. I'd even argue that if you went for more 'realism' game play would suffer greatly.

DeamonBread, Ice Angles.

Oh man, that killed me

And I believe Dom2 combines the best aspects of a RPG, historically generated fantasy. Some of them are based on history, or at least societies, and others are completely out or based on novels.

It gives a more 'real' feel for me at least.

[Pocus]

Originally posted by Wauthan:
This might sound a bit dorky but at times I feel like Dominions started out as a RPG project that spiraled out of control. There's a lot going on in the game that makes it feel like you're the master of a small band rather than leading armies.

Would be neat if someone actually made an RPG style map, like say a really big dungeon, were every tile represented a room or similar feature. And the pretender as the leader of a party of adventurers.

On the spot I think. You will trigger soon a response from IW which will lengthily describe to you, with much details, what is Conquest of Elysium.