Do infantry move too fast?

[Imhotep]

My vehicles, like bikers and buggies, can move six hexes in a turn, while infantry can move four hexes.

In our world, walking speed is 2-4 miles per hour, which means vehicles in the game world move around 3-6 miles per hour at top speed.

This doesn't seem very realistic to me.

[FourGreenFields]

Originally posted by Imhotep:

In our world, walking speed is 2-4 miles per hour

For jesus maybe, the rest of us can't walk in any situation where "miles" is an approriate unit of measurement.

[Imhotep]

Originally posted by FourGreenFields:

Originally posted by Imhotep:

In our world, walking speed is 2-4 miles per hour

For jesus maybe, the rest of us can't walk in any situation where "miles" is an approriate unit of measurement.

That's around 3-6 km/h for walking (infantry) pace and 5-10 km/h for vehicles.

[Karlito]

On clear terrain or roads my light vehicles can easily move over 10 hexes. If you have a lot of rough terrain, infantry won't be as relatively slow.

[Imhotep]

Originally posted by Karlito:

On clear terrain or roads my light vehicles can easily move over 10 hexes.

I guess that's a bit better - vehicles moving at 10 mph (16 km/h) on roads.

[Slippy]

Worth keeping in mind that moving your infantry 100 AP a turn reduces their readiness by 30 while for vehicles it’s only 10. That means after those long marches your infantry suffer at least a 30% reduction in combat effectiveness until their readiness is recovered. So those long forced marches are taking their toll on your poor troops feet.

It’s always going to be a bit wonky due to the scale of the games map and actually making the game playable.

[Imhotep]

Originally posted by Slippy:

It’s always going to be a bit wonky due to the scale of the games map and actually making the game playable.

I appreciate that, but I don't think four hexes for infantry is the right point of balance between realism and playabiilty.

[Imhotep]

It's a shame the game only has limited modding capability. Editing units does not seem to be possible.

[soldier6661111]

Have you considered the length of a turn (2 months)?

Seems realistic to me.

[Imhotep]

Originally posted by soldier6661111:

Seems realistic to me.

It's not realistic. Modern vehicles are capable of moving much faster than 10 mph (16 km/h) on roads. Even the very first automobile, built in 1885, could reach this speed. The fastest cars today can reach speeds of over 300 mph. The minimum speed limit in the city of New York is 20 mph, which is double the speed of vehicles in Shadow Empire, and, in the US, the highest speed limits are up to 80 mph, although even the average consumer car is technically capable of moving faster.

[Slippy]

Originally posted by Imhotep:

Originally posted by Slippy:

It’s always going to be a bit wonky due to the scale of the games map and actually making the game playable.

I appreciate that, but I don't think four hexes for infantry is the right point of balance between realism and playabiilty.

Crunched some numbers. A hex is 200 sq km. Lets assume units are walking in a straight line so must cross to 200km a hex. 4 hexes = 800km.

Let say the walking speed is 5km an hour and soldiers march for 8 hours a day. Turns are 2 months so lets call that 60 days. That means a soldier could cover 2400km a turn. So sounds like we are within limits. Soldiers can also cross any terrain in a far easier manner than vehicles (unless the terrain is particularly favourable to vehicles).

Its also worth mentioning that your early vehicles are likely going to be hamstrung with awful engines/poor weight to amour ratios which massively hurts how far they can go.

[Jsinwitt]

I have always assumed they were using limited exoskeletons since the theme is post apocalyptic futurism.

[Imhotep]

The game manual states that the size of a hex is 200km across and that a turn is 2 earth months, so let's say 60 days.

This means that a vehicle travelling along a road in the game moves ten hexes or 2,000 km (1200 miles) in a turn. This translates to 33 km (20 miles) each day. In our world, a vehicle travelling at the not unrealistic speed of 60 mph (100 km/h) would be able to cover this distance in 20 minutes.

A human in the game, if they move four hexes per turn, is walking 800 km (500 miles) over 60 days. This equates to 13 km (8 miles) in a day. This is considerably slower than an army is capable of travelling in our world, which is up to around 20 miles (32 km/h).

Originally posted by Jsinwitt:

I have always assumed they were using limited exoskeletons since the theme is post apocalyptic futurism.

The world's fastest ever human, Usain Bolt, reached speeds of 24 mph (44 km/h) over 10 seconds. Even with some kind of supporting exoskeleton that did the work, the legs of the human would still need to move and I doubt that a human would be physiologically cope with the strain of moving at such speeds for several hours a day.

[Imhotep]

Okay, what if we imagine that people use these things?

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ZkzCxSIsSig

[Pain]

Originally posted by Slippy:

Originally posted by Imhotep:

I appreciate that, but I don't think four hexes for infantry is the right point of balance between realism and playabiilty.

Crunched some numbers. A hex is 200 sq km. Lets assume units are walking in a straight line so must cross to 200km a hex. 4 hexes = 800km.

Let say the walking speed is 5km an hour and soldiers march for 8 hours a day. Turns are 2 months so lets call that 60 days. That means a soldier could cover 2400km a turn. So sounds like we are within limits. Soldiers can also cross any terrain in a far easier manner than vehicles (unless the terrain is particularly favourable to vehicles).

Its also worth mentioning that your early vehicles are likely going to be hamstrung with awful engines/poor weight to amour ratios which massively hurts how far they can go.

It's not 200 square kms, it's 200 km across a hex. If the hex were a a square (instead of a hexagon) that would make it 200km * 200km = 40000 square km.

[Slippy]

Originally posted by Pain:

Originally posted by Slippy:

Crunched some numbers. A hex is 200 sq km. Lets assume units are walking in a straight line so must cross to 200km a hex. 4 hexes = 800km.

Let say the walking speed is 5km an hour and soldiers march for 8 hours a day. Turns are 2 months so lets call that 60 days. That means a soldier could cover 2400km a turn. So sounds like we are within limits. Soldiers can also cross any terrain in a far easier manner than vehicles (unless the terrain is particularly favourable to vehicles).

Its also worth mentioning that your early vehicles are likely going to be hamstrung with awful engines/poor weight to amour ratios which massively hurts how far they can go.

It's not 200 square kms, it's 200 km across a hex. If the hex were a a square (instead of a hexagon) that would make it 200km * 200km = 40000 square km.

Yeah sorry, in my head I had it that it was sq and it’s not.