Change Army Size?

[Oubley]

Is there a way to change army size? It was cute several versions of the game ago.... Sort of annoying with this version of the game. Something like 14 be nice
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edit:
this is where I'm coming from:
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I dislike moving 3-4 stacks of 6 on the strat map.
I'm already using 21+ units in battles.

I'd also rather have 1 battle of 24-30 vs two battles of 18 and 12 or whatever is left.

Everyone and their brother does the 5-7 thing.
I get that the ship has sailed. More thoughts for the future.

Loving the game so far =)

[Fendelphi]

So when you have 3 armies fighting 3 other armies(84 units in total), you intend to do the turn-based manually?

Because the only appeal of "larger armies" is the visual presentation in battle. Which means more units to move around.

Another issue is that it skewers balance to an extreme degree. Since each side takes turn on moving during battle, you can potentially frontload a massive amount of damage, taking out 2/3 of the enemy in a single turn(especially if using various AoE abilities and enchantments).
World and battle spells that deals damage to all entities in an army becomes far superior to the rest.
Stuff like that.

[Arcanum Elite]

technically there are 2 spells that change your army size... but only slightly...

supergrowth spell reduces your army size by 1 but all your units become giant and have more hp.

i believe the other one is called swarmkin? or something like that and it increases army size by 1 but your people are tiny now.

[Razamanaz]

Originally posted by Fendelphi:

So when you have 3 armies fighting 3 other armies(84 units in total), you intend to do the turn-based manually?

Because the only appeal of "larger armies" is the visual presentation in battle. Which means more units to move around.

Another issue is that it skewers balance to an extreme degree. Since each side takes turn on moving during battle, you can potentially frontload a massive amount of damage, taking out 2/3 of the enemy in a single turn(especially if using various AoE abilities and enchantments).
World and battle spells that deals damage to all entities in an army becomes far superior to the rest.
Stuff like that.

From my understanding it's only 3 armies max in a battle for each side, with a maximum army size of 6. That would make a total of 36 units (18 for each side). Plenty big enough to take a few minutes to finish for sure.

[Oubley]

Originally posted by Fendelphi:

So when you have 3 armies fighting 3 other armies(84 units in total), you intend to do the turn-based manually?

Because the only appeal of "larger armies" is the visual presentation in battle. Which means more units to move around.

Another issue is that it skewers balance to an extreme degree. Since each side takes turn on moving during battle, you can potentially frontload a massive amount of damage, taking out 2/3 of the enemy in a single turn(especially if using various AoE abilities and enchantments).
World and battle spells that deals damage to all entities in an army becomes far superior to the rest.
Stuff like that.

How is it different then having 2 armies of 6/7 or 3 of 6X6X2????

There are ways you can speed that up, you can limit actions per leader trait or even have group orders. I can't help they are still using mechanics from several versions ago.

There is no reason they can't have an option in the settings that says max army size for those of us who want bigger armies and battles.

You can also force battles to only allow x amount of units, and the rest have to be reinforcements that come onto the field after a unit has died.

To adjust for multiplayer, it wouldn't be that hard to have a setting to check click which units should be the "reserve" units if auto resolving. It's a simple boolean and an extra layer of logic, or use a number system/roster that orders them if want to get marginally more sophisticated.

"So when you have 3 armies fighting 3 other armies(84 units in total), you intend to do the turn-based manually?"

Yes, that is what I want.

[Oubley]

Originally posted by Arcanum Elite:

technically there are 2 spells that change your army size... but only slightly...

supergrowth spell reduces your army size by 1 but all your units become giant and have more hp.

i believe the other one is called swarmkin? or something like that and it increases army size by 1 but your people are tiny now.

so possibly game file manipulation? I was thinking of looking into seeing if I could half the cost and upkeep of units somewhere so could field 2x the units as poor mans way of getting what desire.

[Fendelphi]

Originally posted by Razamanaz:

Originally posted by Fendelphi:

So when you have 3 armies fighting 3 other armies(84 units in total), you intend to do the turn-based manually?

Because the only appeal of "larger armies" is the visual presentation in battle. Which means more units to move around.

Another issue is that it skewers balance to an extreme degree. Since each side takes turn on moving during battle, you can potentially frontload a massive amount of damage, taking out 2/3 of the enemy in a single turn(especially if using various AoE abilities and enchantments).
World and battle spells that deals damage to all entities in an army becomes far superior to the rest.
Stuff like that.

From my understanding it's only 3 armies max in a battle for each side, with a maximum army size of 6. That would make a total of 36 units (18 for each side). Plenty big enough to take a few minutes to finish for sure.

The OP wants 14 in each army(where there currently is 6). Meaning if 3 armies are fighting 3 other armies, there are 42 units on either side(compared to the current 18).

[Fendelphi]

Originally posted by Oubley:

Originally posted by Fendelphi:

So when you have 3 armies fighting 3 other armies(84 units in total), you intend to do the turn-based manually?

Because the only appeal of "larger armies" is the visual presentation in battle. Which means more units to move around.

Another issue is that it skewers balance to an extreme degree. Since each side takes turn on moving during battle, you can potentially frontload a massive amount of damage, taking out 2/3 of the enemy in a single turn(especially if using various AoE abilities and enchantments).
World and battle spells that deals damage to all entities in an army becomes far superior to the rest.
Stuff like that.

How is it different then having 2 armies of 6/7 or 3 of 6X6X2????

There are ways you can speed that up, you can limit actions per leader trait or even have group orders. I can't help they are still using mechanics from several versions ago.

There is no reason they can't have an option in the settings that says max army size for those of us who want bigger armies and battles.

You can also force battles to only allow x amount of units, and the rest have to be reinforcements that come onto the field after a unit has died.

To adjust for multiplayer, it wouldn't be that hard to have a setting to check click which units should be the "reserve" units if auto resolving. It's a simple boolean and an extra layer of logic, or use a number system/roster that orders them if want to get marginally more sophisticated.

Because if you have 14 units fighting on one side, you currently are near the max cap of participants in a battle(18), rather than just 1/3 of it.

Even if you sped up everything in battle(in terms of animation), you still have that many more decisions to make. And it would still take 2-3 times longer than it currently does, even if you let the game make all the decisions for you.

Yes, there is a reason why it is not part of the options. Because it is not intended, in any way, to be played like that. It is not just a matter of "balance" but also a representation of how the game is meant to be played. The devs have to be responsible for what they add into the game.
If you want to go beyond balance and design, you mod stuff. Then the devs are no longer responsible when the game begins to stutter and the AI breaks down on fast forward.

If you think it is easy to implement, just do it yourself. No reason to come here and complain.

[Oubley]

Originally posted by Fendelphi:

Originally posted by Razamanaz:

From my understanding it's only 3 armies max in a battle for each side, with a maximum army size of 6. That would make a total of 36 units (18 for each side). Plenty big enough to take a few minutes to finish for sure.

The OP wants 14 in each army(where there currently is 6). Meaning if 3 armies are fighting 3 other armies, there are 42 units on either side(compared to the current 18).

yes.
I'm playing the game for the turn based fantasy battles,
Why do you guys play if I may ask?
There has never been a lot going on strategy wise and we already have civilization.

[Coldhands]

Manually setting orders for 42 units in a round, every round, really doesn't sound like a good time to me. Turn based combat works for smaller encounter sizes, but it really bogs down when you've got dozens of combatants on a side. You run into this issue all the time in tabletop RPGs, which is why a lot of systems have abstracted rules for mass combat.

Total War is probably the series you want if you're looking for big battles with lots of units on a side. You can roll into a Total War fight with 40 units on the field at once, and more in reserve.

[Oubley]

Originally posted by Fendelphi:

If you want to go beyond balance and design, you mod stuff. Then the devs are no longer responsible when the game begins to stutter and the AI breaks down on fast forward.

If majority of people are already playing on fast forward that is in indicator something is wrong with the game design....
The 6 vs 6 battles are super lame imo. If you're cool with it, cool.
15 turns in I'm already using 2 armies of 6.
Personally wouldn't mind going through 42 vs 42 but there are ways to mitigate that if that was their design decision or if there were performance issues.

Originally posted by Fendelphi:

If you think it is easy to implement, just do it yourself.

I am making my own games already but thanks.

[Oubley]

Originally posted by Coldhands:

Manually setting orders for 42 units in a round, every round, really doesn't sound like a good time to me. Turn based combat works for

Having to move multiple armies around to get bigger battles and bring more troops eats up just as much time though.

if 18 units is to much for people, not sure why people are playing but ok, good to know.

So I take it as a no, nobody knows of a way offhand. thanks for feedback, I'll check the game files later.

[Coldhands]

^I mean, moving 3 armies together on the campaign map doesn't take as long as moving all of their units together on a battle map.
If you've got to set orders for 42 separate units, every round of combat, that's going to make combat take a whole lot longer than if your cap is 18. I think Total War's real time combat, with the tactical pause system, works much better for mass combat like that than AoW's turn based system.

[Oubley]

Originally posted by Coldhands:

^I mean, moving 3 armies together on the campaign map doesn't take as long as moving all of their units together on a battle map.
If you've got to set orders for 42 separate units, every round of combat, that's going to make combat take a whole lot longer than if your cap is 18. I think Total War's real time combat, with the tactical pause system, works much better for mass combat like that than AoW's turn based system.

I'm not disagreeing that some people may think that 42 is too excessive. I personally wouldn't mind. and think the smaller battles do the game a disservice.

I've played total war games since 2003, March 10 so i'm very familiar with what they offer.
I've played age of wonders since about 2013.

I'm a little surprised more people wouldn't want bigger battles to some degree. Which is also why I'm a little surprised we are still rolling with the same game mechanics more or less as passed versions.

I'm more hung up on the smaller battles. 6vs6 don't do it for me. If I'm not fielding at least 12-18 units, I'm more of in the mind set of what are we doing here?

so in that regards larger battles would at least be 24 units.

to me design wise 2 armies of 12-14 is better then stacks of 1-6 running around everywhere.
We've already done that for several game versions.

I'm not pounding my fist saying this has to change. I'm more asking if anyone knows of a way offhand cause the smaller battles for myself don't do it for me.

[Nanako]

Originally posted by Fendelphi:

Another issue is that it skewers balance to an extreme degree. Since each side takes turn on moving during battle, you can potentially frontload a massive amount of damage, taking out 2/3 of the enemy in a single turn(especially if using various AoE abilities and enchantments).
World and battle spells that deals damage to all entities in an army becomes far superior to the rest.
Stuff like that.

The devs are responsible for the design decisions they make, not chained to them. If they design a system that cant work with big armies and force us to have small armies because of it, thats on them, and folks have every right to criticise it.

When my army is as big as its ever going to get in the first ten turns of gameplay, all i feel is immeasureable disappointment, and its killing any desire to continue

[Toppins]

The battle cap of 18 units on each side is there for a reason, and that reason is "fun". It's a good reason really. The game is fun like this. They made a good decision!