How large should armies get?

[Fredius]

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^^

I believe they did that because of the lore. There aren't many Imladris Elves left in Middle-Earth.

[Walküre]

I don't have any problem with the largeness of the armies as well; it's quite fine for me 

I believe they did that because of the lore. There aren't many Imladris Elves left in Middle-Earth.

Exactly 
The remaining Noldor of Middle Earth were very few in the late Third Age.
Their number had constantly been reducing since the end of the War of the Last Alliance and the Second Age; many of them were also heading to the Grey Havens to leave the World forever.

The number of the Imladris' units is thus an unique and characteristic trait of this faction, and, most importantly, lore accurate.
Rivendell mainly focuses on Quality and on the unmatchable Experience of its soldiers (some of them might even be Veterans of the Elder Days) 
Changing or replacing an element like this would be like, I think, changing the free regular Orcs of Mordor.

[dgsgomes]

"Changing or replacing an element like this would be like, I think, changing the free regular Orcs of Mordor."

Damn, you are good on argumentation, Walk. I did not like the idea of small batallions for Imladris until now, because I always thought it was strange, did not look cool and also made its units desproporcionaly strong compared to other factions troops. But I got your point. Makes all the sense and fits very well, when analysing it from this perspective. 

They may just need adjustements concerning flank while fighting, as the batallions are very small. But this is not the topic of this thread. 

[Walküre]

Damn, you are good on argumentation, Walk.

Thank you 

I did not like the idea of small batallions for Imladris until now, because I always thought it was strange, did not look cool and also made its units desproporcionaly strong compared to other factions troops. But I got your point. Makes all the sense and fits very well, when analysing it from this perspective. 

I'm very glad to see that you changed idea about this matter 
This trait, and all the reasons behind it, is exactly one of the things that I like the most about Rivendell 

[Sir_Stig]

I would say maybe the units per battalion could be made a little smaller (I find weak units like orcs are especially difficult to utilize effectively atm due to 3/4 of the battalion just standing around watching. I would say that we should wait till imladris at least is released, as the would be among the most affected by any changes in battalion size, but honestly I'm pretty okay with it as it is.

[Thumba-umba]

Here is what i tell you.
I am going to suggest you to decrease BOTH the amount of CP and the cost of units. Why is that? Because right now the CP cost system looks ridiculous. Why would i need those huge 1500CP, 1800CP, 2000CP, if NONE of the units cost 1 CP/single fighter? Seriously, can anyone tell my what is the real difference between having 100 CP limit with each unit costs 1 CP/fighter and having 600 CP and all units 6 CP/fighter? Just so you can have nice big numbers in left bottom of the screen? That is pointless. BfME had reasonable unit counting, with cheapest militia units starting at 1 CP/fighter. BfME raised CP limit to 1000, yet even the cheapest units starts at aroun 3-4 CP/fighter. That is not an increase, it is simply an inflation. We don't need this.
What i suggest is to develop a consistent system with unit ranks where units of the same rank being roughly similar in performance and CP cost, with slight deviations, and each following rank being 25 (or 33 or 50, dont know for sure) persent stronger than previous.
The foolowing ranks are:
Militia-grade units - cheapes and weakest.
Militia-grade units come at 1CP/fighter for melee infantry, 2CP for ranged infantry, 3CP for melee cavalry, 4CP for ranged cavalry.
Regular grade units - regular army is not super powerful, but it is trained and disciplined.
Regular-grade units come at 1CP/fighter more than militia ones, so 2CP for melee infantry, 3 CP for ranged infantry, and so on.
Veteran grade units - contains of skillful die-hards who can certainly kick some big ass.
Same here - 3CP/fighter for melee infantry, 4CP for ranged infantry, so on.
Elite units - best of the best. Literally One Man Army units.
Elite units come at variable CP per fighter, but something comparable with heroes.
Heroes comes for 5 to 20 CP
Siege machines cost from 5 to 20 CP.

Brief check-list:
Militia-grade infantry
- Rohan militia
- Easterlings militia (balcloth maybe?)
- Orcs
- Goblins (yes, i know they are still just orcs, but this is for the record)
- Dunlendings
- Corsairs
Regular-grade infantry
- Gondor/Arnor infantry
- Harad army
- Isengard scouts
- Elite orcs (like Gundabad orcs)
- Men of Dale infantry
- Elven militia (maybe? Not sure elves would use militia at all, except in extreme need)
Veteran-grade infantry
- Isengard infantry
- Easterlings infantry
- Variag infantry
- Dwarven infantry
- Lorien/Mirkwood infantry
- Dunedain infantry
- Dol Amroth infantry/Fountain Guards
- Half-trolls (if there will be)
Elite infantry
- All Hero infantry
- All Imladris/Lindon infantry

Militia-grade cavalry
- Spiders
- Wargs
Regular-grade cavalry
- Spider riders
- Warg riders
- Harad cavalry
- Mountain trolls
Veterean-grade cavalry
- Rohirrim
- Gondor Knights
- Dwarven Battlewagons
- Lorien/Mirkwood cavalry
- Easterlings cavalry (if there will be)
- War trolls
Elite cavalry
- All Hero cavalry
- Imladris cavalry

As for the CP limit i think you should get back to 1000CP, or even to 500-600CP for normal mode. For epic battle 4000-5000CP sounds about right.

Concerning the unit size - i think the best balance was the Isengard in BfME, with their infantry units are of 10 fighters and cavalry units are of 5 riders. I still believe that size of units to be the most appropriate. For those who want larger units, you can add a compromise solution - add the ability to merge few units of the same type in one larger unit. Say, good factions can merge two units into bigger one, and evil factions can merge up to four units. This would be also an homage to the larger evil hordes of original BfME.

[Melkor Bauglir]

Well, while I agree in some way, it isn't completely right: The high amount of CP makes it easier to balance different units. For example, Mordors orcs cost 3 CP per unit, Gondors soldiers 4. There is no mathmatical way to have the same effect with integer CP-values if the orcs cost... say 1, as they did in 3.8.1. To be honest, in this version Mordors units did actually cost only half of Gondors which completely changed in 4.0. So therefore high numbers do have an advantage as it allows to more carefully balance different CP-costs towards others.

Greetings
Melkor Bauglir

Edit: BTW, I think the current system is absolutely fine and I would hate smaller armies. The game didn't lose lags because of smaller armies (3.8.1 armies were massively larger) and also I didn't micro my units less in 3.8.1.
However decreasing the troup size would create TONS of new problems, e.g. all heroes and hero-troups would be a lot stronger because their weakness is their limited availability. Also e.g. Mordors CU-units would get massively stronger and so on. If Edain wants to be more demanding for the players, this way is definitely not the right one!

[Thumba-umba]

Well, while I agree in some way, it isn't completely right: The high amount of CP makes it easier to balance different units. For example, Mordors orcs cost 3 CP per unit, Gondors soldiers 4. There is no mathmatical way to have the same effect with integer CP-values if the orcs cost... say 1, as they did in 3.8.1. To be honest, in this version Mordors units did actually cost only half of Gondors which completely changed in 4.0. So therefore high numbers do have an advantage as it allows to more carefully balance different CP-costs towards others.

Greetings
Melkor Bauglir

Edit: BTW, I think the current system is absolutely fine and I would hate smaller armies. The game didn't lose lags because of smaller armies (3.8.1 armies were massively larger) and also I didn't micro my units less in 3.8.1.
However decreasing the troup size would create TONS of new problems, e.g. all heroes and hero-troups would be a lot stronger because their weakness is their limited availability. Also e.g. Mordors CU-units would get massively stronger and so on. If Edain wants to be more demanding for the players, this way is definitely not the right one!

High CP cost of units makes it considerably difficult to to tightly fill the capacity of armies in the war of the rings, for example. The CP cost in that matter is clearly not the only way ot balance units. In fact, i would say that developers made too much ways to balance units, which is partially the reason why the balance tweaking is so pain in the ass in this game.
As for the unit size - just shorten the build time accordingly, and you will lose nothing.

[Lord of Mordor]

Melkor hit the nail on the head: 60 CP is the first number that can be used for groups of 5, 10, 15 and 20 men at the same time. That is an essential requirement, so we use that number as  a baseline.

Thanks for your feedback on your votes on army size everyone! Looks like most people are happy with the current army sizes, while some could stand to see them reduced slightly. But with the votes standing as they are, we'll probably simply leave them as they are because there's no majority for any sort of change. If anything, we may consider a slight reduction in max CP for the future, like 1500 instead of 1800 or something like that. But it doesn't seem like there's any urgency for change here, and I'm glad to see we got it right for most of our players on the first try

[™Æ¿® Aragorn £ ‡™]

Melkor hit the nail on the head: 60 CP is the first number that can be used for groups of 5, 10, 15 and 20 men at the same time. That is an essential requirement, so we use that number as  a baseline.

Thanks for your feedback on your votes on army size everyone! Looks like most people are happy with the current army sizes, while some could stand to see them reduced slightly. But with the votes standing as they are, we'll probably simply leave them as they are because there's no majority for any sort of change. If anything, we may consider a slight reduction in max CP for the future, like 1500 instead of 1800 or something like that. But it doesn't seem like there's any urgency for change here, and I'm glad to see we got it right for most of our players on the first try

Perhaps you could add a new mode called 'less command points'. It would reduce the max commandpoints to 1000, and unlike massacre, units would not diefaster/deal more damage.