Unit abstraction?

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by General Tacticus:
I am sure that I killed more people in my Mictlan AAR so far than died in the entire Illiad, and I am not yet in turn 10.

I doubt it very much. The Trojan War written of by Homer seems to have covered large parts of western anatolia which had recently formed itself into a powerful coalition with the decline of the Hittites to the East. This was a heavily populated area.

The Mycanaens (Greeks) where essentially taking on a major rival to their trade supremacy which bought them vast wealth.

To give you an idea of the scale of the conflict shortly after the Trojan Wars the defeated peoples of Anatolia rose up and destroyed Near Eastern Civilisation as far as Egypt where the "Peoples of the Sea" were turned back and went on to settle in Palestine, Sardinia, Italy, France, Corsica . . .

It is not suprising the tale has been passed down considering the incredible human epic the Trojan Wars unleashed and the fact that the dispossed peoples of Anatolia went on to found Rome, the Etruscan league etc and then went on to mold the future of the Mediterrainian.

If I ever write a book it will be this story which has emerged recently with the ongoing translation of Hittite archives and the reports back from the dig at Thera which have provided what seem to be the missing links. Starting in 1628BC with the Volcanic eruption that destroyed of Thera (which had flush toilets and running water!) and the fleeing of the Minoans to surrounding environs including Mycanae and West Anatolia.

Regarding battle sizes I would note that Meso American Cultures (Mictlan) regularily fielded armies of over 50 000 and even battles in that backwater England were generally of 1000's not 100's.

Cheers

Keir

[Arralen]

Originally posted by CarlG2:
Hey Arralen,

I played the heck out of Harpoon years ago, ...
Since then I've been dreaming of Harpoon 4 and its ever changing release date...which now seems to be hanging out in the abyss somewhere.

It's dead. At least until the source code is released to the folks which did H3/H2002 ...

Did you ever play the Simulations Canada games Northern Fleet or Red Sky at Morning?

Don't think they where ever available in Europe.

Back to Harpoon 3...from your link it sounds like they took Harpoon 2 and updated it for Windows, fixed bugs, updated units, etc. Is that a good assessment? How does the interface hold up to modern standards, and is it pretty stable?

Yes.
Yes.
The interface didn't change at all - check out the screenshots.
It's really stable, and the code actually got faster when it was ported to Win32, despited a lot of goodies where added in / activated.
In fact, they got even the multiplayer part, that was in it since the beginning but never used, to work - they needed it for the military Version. These changes are "rolled back" into the normal Version.

A.

[CarlG2]

Hey Keir Maxwell,

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
I'm like you Carl in seeing game mechanics as attempts to as accurately capture "reality" as possible. I came to gaming through history, and history through gaming, and I have never left.

I got to this type of gaming in a similar fashion... My original roots were in pen and paper fantasy rpg's and board wargames, though, which led to computer rpg's and wargames, etc. I know that my knowledge of the then modern world expanded exponentially when I started playing Balance of Power way back when...

On the scale question I use a figure scale in my imagining. Most discussion uses the term unit to describe a single warior you recruit. Like you I find the numbers way to small otherwise and I think Pocus has it about right suggesting 100 for a standard unit. Sure there are problems with this but I find concerns over all 100 men having lost their legs far and away secondary to fundamental questions like how many dudes are at the battle. Is this a skirmish or a battle? Damn Games Workshop! Ooops - got off topic.

I could not agree more on all points (including the GW comment!) As far as the issue of afflictions, etc., I guess I don't have too hard a time imagining that a wizard could call forth powers that could afflict a large number of troops. Like you, I guess, I am more put off by the warband-sized armies (when using a 1 to 1 relationship).

I do not believe it to be a good idea to try and mod Dom to enable players to get 1000's of units at a battle. To much micormanagement involved. Others, younger and/or more fanatical, may think different but the thought scares me. You need to recruit by regiment to do this.

From my relatively limited playing of the demo, I think that the game system would quickly spiral out of control if one were to try to maintain a 1 to 1 ratio and implement tens of thousands of units...talk about micromanagement to the nth degree!!! There are some great monster boardgames out there that are fun to think about (if one is into rulebook reading for fun, like I am), but playing them is darn near impossible... I always wanted to play a full campaign of Vietnam 1965-1975, but didn't have a place where I could set up the game and leave it for 2 or 3 years!

Personally, like you, I prefer the representation in games of one unit representing a number of men (probably goes back to my board wargaming days). Fitting in with that representation, I would like to see units cause less damage as they take casualties, and not necessarily lose attack or defense factors (i.e. fewer blades swinging, but those swinging have the same chance to hit)... I've always enjoyed the tough decisions that must be made when considering to refit an experienced unit, since there is always a trade-off between increasing the survivability of the unit (i.e. recovering hit points) vs. reducing the morale and/or better attack/defense Ratings that a more experienced unit possesses (i.e. to represent the inclusion of raw recruits into the unit).

The key advantage of both TW and Chariots apporoach against Dominons is that you recruit a unit with multiple warriors (at whatever the scale is) rather than one warrior at whatever scale. It just looks better and its alot less fiddly than the dom system of making larger units. I would like a unit in Dom to be a regiment. Sure regiments are not perfect but they are better.

From where I am sitting right now, I concur 100%. Granted, I have only been playing around with the demo, but the sentiment just expressed is pretty much why I started this thread. First off, I wanted to see what the scale "officially" was, and from there determine if others who have a similar game philosophy as mine could get past this issue and continue to enjoy the game as a whole. As PvK most eloquently put it in an earlier post, I have limited time to game these days and didn't want to waste that time learning a game system that I might ultimately be turned off to due to certain inconsistencies in the games' "foundation". One of my biggest pet peeves in gaming is the seeming lack of adherence to proportion and scale (most RTS' are absolutely TERRIBLE in this regard, and I agree that Medieval TW doesn't exactly earn 5 stars in its adherence to historical reality...) One game series that has really impressed me, though, is the Europa Universalis series. I find it hard to fault when it comes to the size of armies that one can raise, support issues, attrition, etc. The diplomatic system is pretty impressive, as well, IMHO.

Other than that, and lots of minor gripes, Dominons slaughters the competition - including Chariots, the TW series, etc. It is the best strategy game yet made for those with a love of deep involving and highly challenging games. The added ability to produce your own scenarios and nations (I'm working on Middle Earth)

I keep hearing this over and over again, and I am most likely going to be ordering the game. I've been waiting for a good grand strategy game based on Middle Earth, and I look forward to seeing what you come up with. I myself have been looking for a game engine that I could mod to create a Conan/Hyboria scenario (I had a bLast in days past playing Hyborian War by RSI, a play-by-mail game).

Anyway, thanks for all of your comments; and, thanks to everyone who has posted for a lively and interesting conversation.

Good gaming,
Carl G.

[CarlG2]

Originally posted by PvK:
It makes me wonder sometimes too, though often, as in this case, I think the answer is that the person wants to avoid investing a lot of time in a game, only to find out that it's not interesting to them, generally due to logic/realism/history issues. So, the player explains the elements they would like to see included in the game, to see if there are other players with similar interests who have come to the game before them and can explain how the game fits their interests or not.

PvK

I could not have said it better myself...

I don't have the time to game that I once did, and try to focus what time I do have into games that I will more than likely enjoy. Certain aspects, on face value, of Dominions 2 turned me off (those being the focus of this thread), and I was eager to see what veterans of the game had to say on the matter.

I must say that I am extremely impressed with the level and civility of the discussion here, which reflects well on the game and the people who play it.

Thanks, and good gaming,
Carl G.

[CarlG2]

Originally posted by DimmurWyrd:
First off let me say that my overall view of games very nicely syncs with the originator of this topic hehe I also really look for the "realism" underlying the fantasy of a game.

It is somewhat funny to talk about realism when referring to a fantasy world, isn't it? I do firmly believe, though, that a well-thought out and designed fantasy or sci-fi setting will "fit together" in its own Version of "reality".

I know that whether it's a game, a book, or a movie, I always look at the underlying reality of a mythos. While I won't say that I won't enjoy a poorly designed "world", it DOES reduce my level of enjoyment. For example, let's look at the movie Underworld. Vampires rock. Werewolves are cool, too. White Wolf's World of Darkness is great (which Underworld shamelessly plagiarized). The premise of Underworld was awesome...but, the execution left me cold. Let's see...were they vampires or SpecOps guys (don't know since there didn't seem to be any difference)? And the whole 1/2 vampire, 1/2 werewolf but greater than both thing was just too lame, and a ripoff of Blade. How about Blade? No, I cannot even go there... They ruined the vampire mythos in so many ways that I can't even touch that subject (I know he's supposed to be a comic book hero, but their logic falls apart)... 1/2 man, 1/2 vampire...stronger than both? Why??? I can understand how he could tolerate sunlight, but why would he be STRONGER than a pure-blood since pure-bloods are much stronger than a human? It doesn't make sense by the rules set forth in that world's "reality".

Back to Dominions 2... I think the underlying mythos and back story that is the fabric of the game is very cool and holds most things together very well. I just have a problem with its representation of the size of military forces based on the rest of the mythos they've put together. I guess I haven't played enough to see how the other systems hold up (i.e. population, supply, etc.), but from my limited playing thus far, I get the impression that with some abstractions to how gold and supply are represented, they'd do okay with an abstraction to the number of men in a single unit (perhaps a 100 to 1 ratio, etc.) Now if I could mod the system to where full strength units do more damage than a reduced strength unit (i.e. due to casualties and thus fewer men trying to hurt other men, and on a sliding scale with cutoffs for like 100%, 75%, 50%, 25%, etc., or since a computer is handling the details make it a straight percentage drop...25% fewer hit points results in 25% less damage rating for the unit), I think I'd be able to immerse myself fully. Give me then the ability to refit a unit, and thereby dilute experience and associated bonuses, etc. (but increase survivability due to replenished hit points), and I'd be in heavan.

That said I think the major reason that the ancients fielded such immense armies and the more modern such smaller ones (before industrialization) is simply that as time passed better and better armaments were developed requiring geater resources and time to manufacture leading to fewer full time soldiers.

Interestingly, the exact opposite seems to have been the case in the progression from the Bronze to the Iron age when more advanced weapons and armor became available. The armies of the Iron age dwarf those of the Bronze age (which has to do with a number of issues). However, your statement does certainly hold true for post-Roman Europe, which didn't see massive armies again until the 19th century. Not disagreeing completely, just throwing out an interesting trend between Bronze age and Iron age military forces.

I think DOM 2 represents that fairly well in some ways... for example a nice ulm plate wearing infantry is 28 gold 24 resources but a peasant with a bow and some rags on is 7 gold 3 resources hehe...

No complaint here that the production cost ratio between inexperienced cannon fodder and professional soldier is fine. I don't have a problem with ALL of Dominions 2's systems. Just the one that bugs me the most in games...

Good gaming,
Carl G.

[Arralen]

To stirr up the discussion again:

Runciman claims that the East Roman Empire had a force of sixty thousand cavalry stationed on the Syrian frontier during the first half of the eleventh century. (Runciman, p 62)

It's from this page - an interesting reading, by the way.
(May fuel another heated discussion. Explains why DOM knights cannot trample - and are way to effective nevertheless)

And if we can agree - or at least trust the devs choice in music (medieval), DOMs settings is pretty much that of a medieval fantasy (or the other way 'round), very much like the Ars Magica Series (Paper'n'Pen RPG)

There's an interesting account about medieval warfare (and army size) in that doc, too:

Mobility was also a characteristic which suited the essential raiding nature of warfare in the medieval period, described accurately as "above all made up of pillaging, often of sieges, sometimes of battles" (Contamine, p 219) He argues for the "relative rarity of true battles" because of the very high casualty rates that accompanied them. (p 258) There is considerable evidence to support this view. The chronicle of Geoffrey Plantagenet's military campaigns mentions only skirmishing, raiding, and siege. In nineteen years of civil war in England between Stephen and Matilda, Henry of Huntington's History mentions only two actual battles, at Northallerton and Lincoln, compared with twenty four accounts of siege and constant references to 'harrying with fire and sword'. In the eighty-year period from 1136 to 1216 there are only four pitched battles, one of which took place during the Third Crusade. The battle of Arsuf was the only set piece battle, as distinct from siege and skirmish, that Richard the Lionheart actually fought.

Warfare in the medieval period is thus unlike our notion of war between nation states or large-scale societies. It is more in the nature of 'feuding' or guerre guerroyante. (Contamine,p 219) The armed forces of the Roman state, of the Byzantine empire, and of the nation states of Europe from c. 1500 until the present day are the opposite to a medieval host. They had (or have) a unified central command, paid regular units of all arms, a systematic program of training, and a hierarchical command staff. By comparison, a medieval army was an ad hoc gathering of warriors led by an hereditary aristocracy and lacking any notion of national loyalty. A gathering such as this was unsuitable for a protracted military campaign in the modern sense. The mounted warrior, however, was strategically superior to other arms in the skirmishing and raiding warfare of the period because of his ability to cover distance rapidly, and to pursue effectively.
...
One particular aspect of a battle is quite striking. The number of infantry in a set battle is always greater than the number of cavalry, and greater by a considerable degree. Runciman, for example, argues that the proportion of cavalry to infantry in the army of the First Crusade was probably one in seven, and the total force was likely to have been four and a half thousand cavalry and fifteen thousand infantry. (p 336) Duby claims that the combatants at Bouvines probably numbered some four thousand cavalry (knights as well as sergeants) and twelve thousand infantry, a proportion of one in four. ( p 63) Green's analysis of twenty-three medieval battles, admittedly mostly from the later medieval period, shows that the infantry component considerably outnumbered the cavalry in every case.
...
Green's work also shows that the cavalry are almost without exception held as a reserve force, and that many of the knights usually dismounted to fight. This is the case with all twenty-three battles he discusses. Poole, discussing the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, claims that the mounted knights formed the core of a medieval army, but that the emphasis on cavalry fighting has been exaggerated. (p 23) There is abundant evidence that knights throughout the medieval period often dismounted to fight in a pitched battle. This is stated quite explicitly in a contemporary account of the battle of the Standard in 1138. According to Henry of Huntingdon, King Stephen and his knights dismounted and took up position in the centre of the line at the battle of Lincoln, 1141 (Hallam, p 172). John Beeler (1971), writing about the period AD700-1200, says:


"..to insist that the frontal cavalry charge was the sole tactical expedient of feudal generals is to ignore the evidence that can be found about literally scores of engagements" (p 251)




A.

[ January 16, 2004, 06:02: Message edited by: Arralen ]

[General Tacticus]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:

quote:

---

Originally posted by General Tacticus:
I am sure that I killed more people in my Mictlan AAR so far than died in the entire Illiad, and I am not yet in turn 10.

I doubt it very much. The Trojan War written of by Homer seems to have covered large parts of western anatolia which had recently formed itself into a powerful coalition with the decline of the Hittites to the East. This was a heavily populated area.

The Mycanaens (Greeks) where essentially taking on a major rival to their trade supremacy which bought them vast wealth.

To give you an idea of the scale of the conflict shortly after the Trojan Wars the defeated peoples of Anatolia rose up and destroyed Near Eastern Civilisation as far as Egypt where the "Peoples of the Sea" were turned back and went on to settle in Palestine, Sardinia, Italy, France, Corsica . . .

It is not suprising the tale has been passed down considering the incredible human epic the Trojan Wars unleashed and the fact that the dispossed peoples of Anatolia went on to found Rome, the Etruscan league etc and then went on to mold the future of the Mediterrainian.

If I ever write a book it will be this story which has emerged recently with the ongoing translation of Hittite archives and the reports back from the dig at Thera which have provided what seem to be the missing links. Starting in 1628BC with the Volcanic eruption that destroyed of Thera (which had flush toilets and running water!) and the fleeing of the Minoans to surrounding environs including Mycanae and West Anatolia.

Regarding battle sizes I would note that Meso American Cultures (Mictlan) regularily fielded armies of over 50 000 and even battles in that backwater England were generally of 1000's not 100's.

Cheers

Keir

---

Well, yes, but Homer didn't write about all these people. Actually, as far as we know, Homer didn't write at all, and the Illiad was passed down through oral tradition, but that is beside the point. Homer's poem doesn't really dwell on large number, that was my point. To me, it is already quite epic enough to see that Mitzomatec the sun warrior, despite having lost an arm, has just embedded his copper hatchet into that evil warden's skull, I don't need to see my 205th Holy Regiment of sun warriors defeat the 107th Guardian Battalion of warden with heavy losses...

Go Mitzomatec GO !!

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Arralen:
To stirr up the discussion again:

Runciman claims that the East Roman Empire had a force of sixty thousand cavalry stationed on the Syrian frontier during the first half of the eleventh century. (Runciman, p 62)

"..to insist that the frontal cavalry charge was the sole tactical expedient of feudal generals is to ignore the evidence that can be found about literally scores of engagements" (p 251)

Stationed full time? Sounds odd. Are you sure he's not talking about the total number of mounted in the border Themes? The Byzantines during this period kept there cavalry back from the border to attack raiders as they attempted to get away with their loot. In general Runciman should be taken seriously and the Byzantince armies had huge numbers of mounted in an army which relied heavily on its mounted but still had good foot - wasn't a feudal one either obviously. While Byzantium had features of feudalism it is more analogous to Rome.

This other dude(s) seems to be overdressing his case - of course the mounted charge wasn't the sole expediant but who suggests it was? Whats the battle where the William the Conquerors son Henry beats his borther Robert by dismounting the Knights to form a front line to ther foot and is able to repulse the Norman knights charge? [edit thats Technebrai (sp?) I think - remember Technebria become the Saxons response the the Normans cry of remember Hastings.] Revenge for Senlac (Hastings) was the cry from the Saxon (becoming English) foot having beaten the Normans second time round even if this time they were ruled by one of them.

I agree with the depiction of the general low level of feudal military capability/competence and the scrapiness of their warfare but most Feudal armies had their most important elements mounted - Konradins at Tagliacozza was entirely made up of mounted - and many feudal battles were decided by knight charges and this certainly goes for most during the first crusade. Suggesting Knights were almost always kept in reserve is gross exageration and I could bore you with many accounts of feudal battles to show this to be the case. The bottom line is feudal armies varied enormously in make up from French and Normans with large amounts of Knights in some periods to Germans who used alot of foot yet still fielded an entirely mounted army at Tagliacoza. Some Spanish armies relied heavily on their above average (for the period) foot while others were mounted for speed of raiding. It depends what you are up to when you stumble into battle.

In truth feudalism is such a period of military ignorance (hell general ignorance) and stupidity that fashion and bigotry played more of a role than sense in most Generals calculations and very few Generals had a clue how to fight a large battle - which for them meant more than 1000. Bunch of ignorant, thugish, brutes the nobility but man were they staunch in the charge - almost the only thing useful they knew how to do on the battle field. I would certainly argue strongly that the charge is the central, and almost only, weapon of most Knights once on the battle field and their enitire trainging (the whole Quitain thing) was based on making them succeed at the moment of impact. Trouble is most of their leaders were so incompetent that getting the charge in could prove difficult - without Bohemond (a rare smart one)to save them the First Crusade would have failed.

Arsuf was not actually a set piece battle in the classic sense its more an attack on a marching force. That Richard did so well is a testement to his strength of character even if he was a big headed, lying, murdering, utter bastard. Richard is actually responsible for some of the worst Crusader atrocities and has been seen as one of the reasons the Saracans turned their back on Chivilrous behaviour towards the defeated (other than miltary order who they killed out of hand for good reasons). Previously a fair element of decorum had existed in delaing with prisoners who were not religous nutters.

Cheers

Keir

[ January 16, 2004, 22:12: Message edited by: Keir Maxwell ]

[Keir Maxwell]

Another point on Feudal armies.

In many ways the only way to get a really good feel for the role of Knights on the battle field is there interaction with other cultures with more sane military traditions and thus somewhat less chaotic insane, accidental battles. Its the accounts of the Arabs and Byznatines that have lead military writers to place great weight on the role of the Knights charge as this was the thing the enemies of Knights feared and why Knights turn up all over the place as mercenaries. Knights were the best shock weapons of the period and Byzantine and Arab sources make this very clear.

Who has seen the Rohan hit the Orcish line in the Movie the Return of the King? The most inspiring depiction (indeed the only detailed one) of mounted hitting foot I have ever seen and boy did they trample them. Think about the training at the Quitain on this one and you will understand knights much better - flinch and you lose is what the Quitain teaches and Knights learnt this over and over agian in the becoming of a Knight.

The difficulty is that charging mounted only trampled foot who didn't maintain their nerve and also had the capability to form a solid wall. No idea how to represent this in dom at this point but including push backs would be a big step forward.

cheers

Keir

[ January 16, 2004, 20:53: Message edited by: Keir Maxwell ]