While many people may not consider Monolithic Armies a problem, I think it hurts the strategic breadth of a game.
What I mean is, in many strategy games, pursuing a strategy of always build the strongest soldiers available of each class is almost always the best and it is almost always easy. For instance, in Master of Magic, the only difference between training spearmen and paladins was a longer training time and a higher upkeep. Once you gained a unit of greater strength than previous units, there was rarely a need to build lesser units outside of the need of provide a skeleton garrison.
The Greatest Middle Age battles were interesting and involved great tactical depth specifically because the range of soldiers taking part in the battle were varied. Spear armed peasants marched alongside heavily armored Knights.
I'm wondering how Elemental will be designed to preserve this essence? If not, then why? In my vision, you would always have a certain number of standard footsoldiers on the field throughout the game (which would improve marginally with improving technology) but new technologies and better magicks would allow you to field specialty units like mounted Knights and fantastic monsters which would give you a unique strategic asset.
Exceptional units shouldn't be easy to acquire, and adding 'in the field' experience to the various training/resource/etc. requirements makes sense.
It also gives another reason to preserve forces (which is good game design) as you wouldn't want to lose exceptionals before they 'mature'.
Let's assume exceptional units take special buildings and/or special training and/or special resources and/or longer time. Will you go with no troops while you're recruiting/training your exceptionals, all the while defenseless (troopwise)? That would put you at great risk to an early 'rush'.
It doesn't provide choice at all, and it doesn't allow you to freely choose to only use certain units unless you want to deliberately shoot yourself in the foot. The point is to have meaningful choices - "do I train all my exceptional units or train all these rejects?" does not present a meaningful choice because one is inherently superior to the other.
The beginning of a game is always immune to this problem, because economies, army sizes, technology, research etc are never at a point yet where it's relevant. The problem only arises once your economy is in place, your resources secured and so on. But once the problem arises in a system that doesn't provide meaningful choice, then there is only one real option for someone who doesn't want to handicap himself.
A large army of 'rejects' would only be inferior if exceptionals were not significantly limited in number -- which is why I propose limiting their number.
Second, it's not the either-or choice you present. The "best" (most meaningful) choice should be a wise combination (defined by available resources, player preferences, racial abilities, etc.) of many troop types, obviating monolithic armies as the superior choice. Limiting numbers of the better troops is what keeps lesser troops viable.
So you have it exactly backwards -- this proposal gives reason to train both and increases choices, whereas yours does the opposite.
I'm wondering if I haven't explained this well enough, as your statements suggest a basic miscomprehension of what I've proposed.
No, you completely missed my point. With a limited number of exceptionals, once the dust has settled the superior choice will be to use up all your exceptionals, then all of the next rung below them, and so on down the chain.
If there are good reasons to continue building inferior troops (possibly due to training costs, upkeep, etc) even if you haven't exhausted your pool of 'exceptionals' then your mechanism doesn't really accomplish anything because the problem is already solved. If there is no good reason to build inferior troops until you have exhausted all your superior ones, then your system results in just as little choice as we started with: the only difference is armies, instead of being composed of your best archers, your best infantry and your best cavalry, will be composed of as many of those as you could possibly train, followed by as many of the next rung of 'combat potential' as you could possibly train, etc. It breaks the monolithic army, but it doesn't add choice or strategy. It forcibly prevents a player from trying to field a small but elite army (hard cap on the # of 'elite' troops), and there is a clear superior strategy.
Your suggestion doesn't solve the problem, it just pretends to; by which I mean on the surface it appears to solve it, but in reality it just changes the nature of it.
That's my point, in disguise. If you can have so many exceptionals that you don't need anything else, and there is no reason to train inferior troops unless you have exhausted your supply of superior troops, then it means the superior strategy is to just train exceptionals all day long. If you do have a limited number of exceptionals, but there is still no reason to train inferior troops unless you have exhausted your supply of superior ones, then the 'low hanging fruit' will just the highest rung still available. If you've exhausted your exceptionals, you will move onto your superiors; if you've exhausted your superiors, you'll move onto your mediocre, etc. But trying to field, for example, an army consisting of almost entirely mediocre units with a small handful of exceptional ones would be a losing strategy, because we've already determined that training the best that is still available before moving on down the ladder is the way to go...
On the other hand if there is a reason to train inferior troops even if you haven't exhausted your pool of exceptional troops, then all of a sudden there are meaningful player choices. Do I focus on an elite core supported by a large number of inferior troops? Maybe. Do I focus on a relatively small but entirely elite army? Maybe. Capping the number or exceptional troops in this situation accomplishes nothing because there is already reason to train a mix of troop qualities.
If we are defining people by quality, then that becomes a civilian issue as well. With limited numbers of exceptional individuals, you would have to choose between using them in the civilian economy or recruiting them to fight in your military. If exceptional people provided a significant bonus to whatever civilian activity they were providing in your cities then removing them from that role and employing them in the military would remove that bonus. This would provide an "opportunity cost" as it was to employing all exceptional (or even better) troops as opposed to merely taking out your lowest rung (where instead of losing an educated person with potential you are merely removing a strong back from the economy). This would mean a genuine hard choice between your elite military units and your economy, but would prevent you from tapping out any one labor pool.
Sure, that would provide some minor strategic choices, but it would also be a real headache... Also, it assumes that someone with great combat potential is also going to make a fine carpenter, or blacksmith, or whatever. I'd rather do without any sort of citizen-ranking system, unless they implement governors and things like that, but those would be special individuals rather than numbers on a spreadsheet.
Sorry, but to me monolithic armies of, say, all swordsmen, is a problem. However, if everyone uses a mix of knights + pikes + archers because it's the best combo, it's not a problem, because it makes sense. Most medieval armies were very similar (knights + peasants + archers). So when your OP says monolithic armies should be avoided, I understand and agree. When you say that by monolithic you mean 'always using the best units', you're twisting the meaning of the word and I no longer understand until you explain, so no I didn't know what you were talking about because you used one word to say something different.
Anyway, if you have the choice between fast strategic movement units and strong slow units, it's meaningful to build both, one for defense or core offense, the other for scouting and as rapid response forces on the strategic map. If they could combine on the tactical battlefield so that adding a tenth slow unit is less interesting than adding a first fast unit but 10 fast units are worse than 10 slow, I'd be happy.
What i would like to know if the devs consider steamrolling battles using hordes of the same unit type to be a problem?
Take for example the historical Battle of Agincourt, where an army of 5000 British knights,men at arms and archers defeated 30 000+ heavily armoured mounted French knights and their men at arms.
The powerful British archers and careful positioning and use of terrain allowed the British to pull off a victory against a vastly superior foe.In fact, historically, the French army's heavier armour actually worked against them by slowing them down and was one of the reasons for their defeat.
Now lets say we are faced with exactly the same battle in WoM and we keep replaying this same battle scenario. Would the 30 000 armoured knights keep steamrolling the 5000 British mixed army no matter what you did? If yes, then do we think such battle mechanics as fun, no fun, or it is not important?
Whether people decide that the best kind, or at least most versatile kind, of army is one that has a mix between knights, pikes and archers or whatever is less relevant.
What's being discussed here is, will all your armies be composed of the best knights you can possibly train, the best pikes you can possibly train, and the best archers you can possibly train? Or will it be possible for an army composed of different quantities of a wide variety of qualities of troops to be viable?
If I can afford to train 100 Paladins (uber knights), or 200 regular knights - and likewise with pikes and archers... Will 100 Paladins be the inherently superior option (as is usually the case)? Or will I be able to field 200 regular knights and still have a viable army versus foes about my size? Will 50 Paladins and 100 knights be viable? Etc? If I have an army comprised of more lower quality units, will it have a chance against proportionally smaller forces of higher quality troops?
The problem is whether or not lower quality troops of a given type of unit will still be useful once you're able to train better units. Usually these games fairly quickly progress to the point where you are economically able to mass produce even your highest quality units - so will that not happen in Elemental? Or even if it will, will we still be able to train that many more lower quality troops and as such remain competitive?
at moondoggie, I think it would be wise to enable well-played (and perhaps lucky) smaller army to defeat a poorly played (and perhaps unlucky) large army.
Also, poorly-organizing a super-large army, even with victory, could quickly become a Pyrrhic Victory. Where-as leading-organizing a large army well could be a viable strategy for victory against a smaller elite army. This is what I would like to see.
say, a double strength elite units army, but outnumbered 1:10, could kill many times more their number than simply twice the number (as implied by being double strength) if the large army plays poor tactics. And if the small army also plays very well tactics, up to say 90% of this army could be destroyed ... effectively doubling the usefulness of the elite troops if played well
Meanwhile, elites poorly fielded against such an army could kill below twice their number of enemy troops (such as being surrounded/flanked/ ect ... and perhaps even kill as low as only their number (against half-strength troops, which would mean a 50% loss of strategic effectiveness)
Ergo Tactical Advantage can emphasize and evolve the strategic usage of certain units .... the battle-field being a determining factor.
Actually, at Azincourt the French armies were as mixed as the English: crossbowmen and knights. The knights struck their own crossbowmen because they 'were in the way'... The English king had ordered his own knights to dismount so they couldn't charge as stupidly as the French did. the only way to represent something like this would be to use some character trait like 'berserk', where a french knight would charge like crazy, not heeding friends in-between and not considering the fact that the terrain hinders them. It's not a mixed army issue but one fortified army vs. another one which arrives piecemeal and where eaach unit strikes as it arrives, hindering the following units
In Dominions 3, there's a mod that tries to achieve something like that, making each unit worth buying, so you always have a choice of 10 or 20 different units rather than 2 or 3 among the list of 20 units. It's possible by tuning each unit cost, and even then it's quite hard. In a design-your-own-unit system, such tweaking will be impossible, so I doubt it may be done. I don't see it as a problem, though. Peasants, heavy infantry, knights, archers, are all different categories of units, and I miss the point of not producing the best knight or not producing the best heavy infantry. you have. Just having light and heavy infantry, cavalry, plus militia and siege weapons mean 6 categories of units. If I have to handle different categories of each, Id probably feel like it's too much micromanagement to no avail.
Well to me it seems like this will simly be solved by 3 things
First, availbility of resources. i.e. Iron ore is far more rare than leather.
Second, time to craft and equip. i.e. The time it takes to make plate mail is far longer than the time it takes to make studded leather.
Third, these 'uber units' are not really all that uber, they may be very good at one thing but quiet simply, their strengths can be accounted for in tactics, like frogboy said, some shitty mounted archers will destroy some 'uber footmen' as long as they do not engage in melee combat.
Basiclly all of this is contigent on the differention is strength of units being somewhat realistic in comparison to each other. If we are talking about 1 knight killing 1000 peseants than we have left a realm that we can balance for.
A knight couldn't kill them all so easily ... no ... but if you had the single knight try to get the peasants to chase him, isolate individual groups of soliders/units, cut many of them down to form a route, do this several times, and then retreat ... over 5-6 battles of killing say, 100 peasants each battle, around 20-30 at a time, you could cause some serious damage to the mobs.
Of course, while mentioning it is possible I also mention a single knight could probably kill no more than 2-3 peasants in a single turn of combat, ergo taking a long time (theoretically 100 in a single battle if he used superior tactics) ... and while if left to his own devices for an indefinite number of turns ...
but the fact remains that peasants would act (under such a system) as a blanket of fodder separating the real units from each other ... and if these peasants managed to hold-rank (morale), surround the knight, and have him fight to the death, they should be able to kill him with as little as 100-200 casualties (or less, but doubtful) as opposed to a protracted war possibly losing 600 or more.
Anyways, im saying yes it will be a balanced system, although also yes, under extreme circumstances, a single knight could kill alot of peasants over the course of a few strategic world/turns
Holy crap Tasunke, what world do you live in? A knight killing 100-200 peasants that have him surrounded? Nah uh. Maybe 10, if he is really luck and skilled. Nor would he be able to kill 20 or 30 peasants at a time, nor would he be able to continue to kill round after round of 20-30 peasants. Killing that many units would be exhausting, and he'd be absolutely spent long before he came anywhere near defeating 1000 peasants. A lone knight would not really be able to defeat very many (determined) peasants at all, in my book.
He isn't really alone, he has his horse
Well, I was condering that said peasants A) had no armor, B ) were wielding pitchforks or less, and C) did not all of a sudden surround him, but had to use a LARGE radius in order for him to not notice, given speed advantage, and I was also assuming said knight was on an armored horse, had a Lance for charging and a longsword for in-fighting, and that most of the advantage came from large scary horse vs unarmored average joes. Therefore, most of the killing (70-150) would be while the peasants were encircling him, making the strangle-hold tighter and tighter.
Of course, your argument makes more sense if peasants had better weapons, basic armor, if the knight Was not riding a massive war-horse, and if peasants could magically teleport. However, most of the factors you weren't thinking about was because of giant warhorse vs unarmored peasants ....
but yea, there I clarified. Now, 10-20 knights could easily do what I was talking about ... im beginning to think that one lone knight might be a bit of a strech, unless he was a special unit/royalty/hero
I mean, 10-20 knights working together are about 100x more effective than a lone knight. But yea I guess I was thinking more-so of a hero-knight on horseback (and whenever I think of knight I normally think of horseback, unless someone specifically says heavy melee)
but yea, I never said he could kill more than 100 pieces of misguided meat over the course of a day ... but if you are completely outnumbered you get them to chase you ... and the fastest naturally break from the pack ... and you pick them off, especially since your on a horse which is many times faster than a beer-belly thug with a big stick.
That being said, if somehow magically you teleported the knight into a mob which already had him not only surrounded on the map, but also were all pressed up against him and such, it wouldn't be long before he was some-how badly wounded, and in the process of him and his horse dying, due to peasant density, most likely around 5-10 peasants would die. 3 from death throughs/kicking by horse, 2 before knight gets wounded, and 5 while fighting to the death. Possibly.
meanwhile 20 knights in full charge, tight formation, would trample about 50 unarmored peasants in a matter of seconds (if they got a running start, assuming they were poorly armed)
Unlimited exceptionals, leading to armies of solely/mostly exceptionals, is to you better game design?!?!
We'll have to agree to disagree on this.
You're focusing on the wrong type of 'choice' -- you're focusing on the obvious and unarguable 'best to use best units when all else is equal'. That's a no-brainer. The real choice starts after that, and that's what I'm addressing, and to maximize choices past that point is why limiting exceptionals is proposed.
You're arguing the obvious 'apple' when I'm talking about the 'oranges' that come next.
As an aside -- and moving beyond your 'apples' -- you're also making assumptions, as we don't know how things will be designed so you can't say your above scenario is best. It may be that lessers can be fielded in sufficient numbers and timely manner, and exceptionals in such limited numbers, that your scenario isn't true. It may be that a 'bottom heavy' army in some situations it better than your 'top heavy' (hopefully this will be true). We just don't know this yet.
One thing we do know is that the more exceptionals that are available, the more preferentially using them ('top heavy' armies) will be the 'best' choice (once they're available) so the fewer viable choices there'll be. That's why limiting their number increases choice.
You're also ignoring the basic idea that exceptionals are by definition limited in number. That this is a 'fantasy' game doesn't preclude using such 'realities' -- especially as it increases choices. Even 'fantasy' has rules, and if they improve game play then using them is a good thing.
As the rest of your response is predicated upon this I'll not address it further, except for...
If you are limited in the number of knights and are still training them, you don't stop training footmen until knights are done -- unless you have unlimited knights which obviates the need for said footmen. Your unlimited exceptionals is what causes what you decry.
Perhaps "exceptionals" as you say, could be a constant 5-10% of your total population (perhaps based upon your level of prestige, or even the amount of power you give to warriors vs merchants, so that a class system that rewards the warrior class will attract better soldier immigrants).
With this constant, this also keeps tally of the number of living humanoid units in your armies as well.
Therefore, if 5% of your total population is already trained, and they were somehow ALL exceptionals, then you cannot build anymore until your population grows, or your army dies.
I don't think we should limit certain classes to needing someone "exceptional" per se ... unless they were some sort of personal-guard, or royal guard, but instead to simply give them a constant +1 in everything they do ... or something similar.
Or perhaps starting out at level 5? Or perhaps gaining much more morale, endurance, and strength a normally trained unit.
Im thinking double morale, perhaps 50% more endurance, and a constant +10 strength (or +5 depending on what the "normal strength" turns out to be)
Say one's empire can support 1000 troops (as troops numbers depend on population/etc.). Let's use your 10% number (easier math and let's assume that the game mechanism would be that each recruit has a 10% chance of being exceptional so the number would vary slightly according to chance ) -- there could be at most ~100 exceptionals. You'd have to increase you base population to get more (and perhaps there'd be a game mechanism to increase/decrease the odds a slight bit, so one could choose to pursue a top heavy or bottom heavy approach).
How you'd get them is up for discussion (special resources, special training, surviving a number of battles, etc.). They'd be relatively expensive to get and maintain and take relatively long to field (thus balancing risk/cost vs reward). Their numbers would be small enough that by themselves they'd not be game winners (unless one is very good at tactics&strategy and has designed their empire to maximize their effect vs their particular enemies and one can survive long enough to field them in sufficient numbers, etc.).
How their 'exceptionalism' is defined (endurance, strength, ability to utilize certain gear or spells or the like, etc.) is open for discussion (and could be determined by the players, subject to their race/available resources/whims/etc.).
I'm just looking for a way to encourage using a mix of units, adding choice. If we don't want armies comprised of only the 'best' units then they have to be limited in number by some way. Training time, cost, etc. only works in the early game. In time, that's no limit. So, some other way to limit their number is necessary, and thinking of units as having 'potential', and some units having exceptional potential (which is realistic, as no amount of resources/training/time/experience will turn me into a Michael Jordan or Muhammad Ali) is one such possibility.
There could also be 'inferior' recruits -- they can't be trained beyond 'peasant cannon fodder' skill. Giving them better training/items/etc. would be fruitless.
As an aside -- is there no 'preview' option for those of us (like me) who make too many typos/mistakes?
You gotta look at all of the factors, including cost. Spearmen in MoM were the weakest units in the game, however, they were also the cheapest units in the game and they all had 8 figures (except for trolls) which made them much better for buffing than units with fewer figures (the effects of a buff are multiplied by the number of figures).
Lets not forget army composition. Cheap/weak units can always be used as a buffer zone to protect your more valuable units from getting hit. I've done that often in games and I'm sure it'll be a tactic I use in Elemental. If I have a caster unit who is weak on defense I'll surround him with a bunch of "expendable" units so he can cast safely without worrying about getting killed by anything but direct damage.
Appart from limiting how many ubber units the player can recruit, the game could force how armies are composed/formed:
- 0-1 Heroes leading the army
- 0-1 Elite units
- N normal units
- Whatever
That mirrors how armies (or taks forces) are organized in real life and it's used also in some games (Warhammer comes to my mind). This allows small elite armies that are good for hit and run strategies or strategic attacks against lightly defended places, but in serious combat you have to use real armies, composed from several different units.
Well, I would prefer to see organic incentives to build a diversity of unit caliburs. Every army doesn't have to be an even mix, but when people do make armies of almost completely elite units or almost completely lowbie units, it should be because they have some kind of strategic advantage on the map or that they have pursued to their advantage.
Words can have multiple meanings or be used in different contexts. Either way, I think we both agree that game mechanics that encourage armies of all 1 class of soldier and mechanics that encourage all 1 type of calibur is not good. My original post was referring to calibur, which, given that monolithic is a geological term, can be used to describe soldiery in a variety of ways. If you'd like to comandeer the definition for your own purpose, I don't mind, because creating a game that rewards building armies of one soldier class is an important topic too.
I don't mind forced incentives if they work, but you can disguise them if you want: a elite unit gives a bonus to normal units (command bonus), but if there is more than elite unit you get penalties instead on your units (contradicting orders). The posibility of having 2 elite units exists, but it's discouraged.
I don't mind if someone decides to field all of one type of unit, but I think it should (usually) limit his tactical choices. Perhaps even strategic choices?
Anyway, I would consider it a strategic choice that limits tactical choices. For instance, if your all swordsman, that should limit your tactical choices in some way (well, you will have no ranged and will be some-what vulnerable to flanking ... will probably be sluggish some-what compared to your enemy- assuming its heavy swordsmen)
and if you choose all cavalry, on open fields you are superior, but without foot-men or seige, you cannot take a walled city.
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