How large should armies get?

[Lord of Mordor]

Hey guys,

this is a topic I've been pondering for a while, and I'd welcome your feedback

As you know, armies in Edain can get much larger than in the original Battle for Middle-Earth games. This makes battles more epic, but also presents some gameplay problems.

For one, units tend to clump together once there are too many of them, so you could have twenty groups of Gondor soldiers, but they all stand in the same spot and look like they're just one or two units. This also makes area of effect abilities much more powerful, because even a small wizard blast can hit a huge chunk of troops. Furthermore, large armies are more difficult to control and some spaces like fortress walls are limited in space and work better when armies are smaller. On the other hand, of course, battles between large armies are part of what of what makes the movies so cool and that's what many are looking for when they play these games.

This is a bit of a dilemma, so I'd be very curious to hear what the community thinks on this topic. Do you think an army at full command points in the default Skirmish game mode is a good size at the moment? Would you rather be able to build even more troops in the default mode? Do you usually play Battle or Epic Battle because you really want the increased command points? Or do you feel that armies already get too large in the default mode and that the game would play better with smaller armies that are easier to control? This could be achieved in several ways, including just reducing the maximum limit of 1800 CP or reducing troop sizes to 10 or 5 per bataillon while leaving CP costs intact. But right now I'm mostly interested in your general opinion and how big you want armies in Edain 4.0 to be.

This does not mean that we already have changes in this area planned for the near future, by the way! But it is a question on our minds and a very fundamental one, so it would be very helpful to know what our players prefer.

[Fredius]

I for one find the amount of CP points fine, it is the size of the battalions, however, that cause this problem. Even if you reduce the CP points, the clumping will not get away because the battalions are sometimes very big. I don't know how much influence it has on the clumping, but if you really want to remove this problem then in my case I'd suggest to make the battalions a bit smaller.

[Lord of Mordor]

Yes, smaller bataillons would be an option here. The question is whether people would enjoy seeing less soldiers on the field (and thus less epic battles) if it also reduces issues like clumping and unit control, which is one of the reasons I made this poll.

[Odysseus]

Hmm, I think it is largely fine the way it is. The clumping together issue can mostly be resolved with a bit of micro. Larger armies will just overburden the engine, I find. Anyway, I would advise adding a smaller army and larger army gamemode (like there already is, if I am not mistaken) just in case there is popular/communal support for this notion.

Loving the mod so far as a newcomer and trying to get myself into some pvp soon .

[dgsgomes]

The armies are just fine IMO. Changing their size could result in need of changing lots of things in the game to make it balanced again. The game looks great and works perfectly the way it is. Anyway, I appreciate the fact that you want to know our thoughts and opinions. ^^

[kai69]

i think the CP and batallions are just fine as they are now but maybe a little less CP than now would be better because when i have armies with 1800 CP I get a lot of lag and that when i play alone, when I play with friends (2 friends) we stick to 900-1000 CP each because if not its quite imposible to play. now i mostly play alone so maybe 1400-1500 it would be better, if not, you can always change back to 1800

[LordDainIronfoot]

I think the size of a the Armies is ideal,the CP are fine and with the current size of the Armies you can get Epic Battles without game lagging or crashing! :-) And we still have Epic Battle Mod which is perfect for the purpose! :-)

I personally do not like the idea of increasing or decreasing the number of soldiers in a Battalion,I always thought that it is one of the best and most unique things in Edain cuz the size of the battalion represented absolutely properly the situation with the population of each Race and Kingdom ,to me is perfect as it is! Not to mention if the size is changed will need a lot of other balance changes as health and damage and so on!
So basically to me it is just perfect the way it is!
Greetings and have a great day ! :-)

[ringbearer]

I'm in favour of smaller units like BFME1 but with an option to combine them , it was one of the best features of BFME1 ( tower guards in front and rangers behind them    ). Afterall , i think the dwarves have the best size of batalions and 20 orcs when just 3 or 4 of them are fighting are too much.

[Adrigabbro]

I voted "Armies could be slitghtly smaller than they are now", but as many have stated, it would require many more balance changes to match this change.
The current system is fine, but there are several issues. For instance, because of the amount of troops, only a small part of the batallion is fighting while the other part is standing still. Last but not least, computers have hard time when all players reach 1800 CP.
Thats why, if anything, I'd rather see fewer units per batallion, but I'm not sure what would happen concerning balance and ambiance. Have you tried in intern some modifications? If so, what did your testers think about it?
Final note: the amount of CP is fine.

[Elendils Cousin 3. Grades]

Have you tried in intern some modifications? If so, what did your testers think about it?

This does not mean that we already have changes in this area planned for the near future, by the way! But it is a question on our minds and a very fundamental one, so it would be very helpful to know what our players prefer.

[™Æ¿® Aragorn £ ‡™]

I believe reducing the battalions sizes to something like Bfme1 would greatly reduce the lag.

[Lord of Mordor]

It would, though part of the lag is simply that the engine is quite outdated at this point. However, smaller armies are obviously easier to handle.

Thanks for all your votes so far Please don't take into account how much work a change would potentially be though - that's what we'll have to shoulder What's most important here is how you would enjoy the game the most.

[Adrigabbro]

Have you tried in intern some modifications? If so, what did your testers think about it?

This does not mean that we already have changes in this area planned for the near future, by the way! But it is a question on our minds and a very fundamental one, so it would be very helpful to know what our players prefer.

The main question was the second one: how does it affect gameplay? 

[DrHouse93]

Honestly, I like the way armies are right now. The only exception may be Imladris, since I saw their batallions too small in 3.81, though I don't know their actual/planned size, so maybe if you can make Imladris' batallions a bit larger would be glad^^

[Elendils Cousin 3. Grades]

Have you tried in intern some modifications? If so, what did your testers think about it?

This does not mean that we already have changes in this area planned for the near future, by the way! But it is a question on our minds and a very fundamental one, so it would be very helpful to know what our players prefer.

The main question was the second one: how does it affect gameplay? 

Since the answer to the first question is no (what Lord of Mordor said), the second question becomes irrelevant^^