And i also hope we will still be able to build individual units in stead of the creation of groups (battallions).

WC3 didn't have a very big popcap (it was like, 100 right?) and yet there was so much micro involved. I think that is the way to go, if you want to make competetive games.

To be honest I didn't mind too much in AOK, as armies were generally not huge in the AOK's time frame.

Now if we look at the period for AOE3, which seems to be from
the very late 15th century/Early 16th century, to sometime around the 19th century, armies grew to huge proportions.

I would love to see the pop. cap became much higher...

:S

Well, if it adds to realism to fight now with 200+ unit armies than with 100+ unit armies in AOK, then be it.

IMHO it does not matter. Usability and balance have priority.

Of course it is more fun to the eye seeing 50 units running in artillery fire than just ten units, but I doubt that seeing 100 units is a lot more fun than those 50 units. Like always, the more you get, the less more satisfied you get

Not if your aible to split up those 100 men in two times fifty and let the other fifty attack the artillery from the side

<quote>Like always, the more you get, the less more satisfied you get</quote>

That's personal opinion of course, I understand that ES can't/won't make a pop amount of thousands of men, but It would be great to see atleast one thousand, this way, you could get real tactics into the game on a relatively acceptable realism scale

So, ES, could you please give us an estimate of the amount

Thanks

[This message has been edited by Joker II (edited 02-14-2005 @ 11:47 AM).]

[This message has been edited by You_Are_Pwned (edited 02-14-2005 @ 11:51 AM).]

1. Will you ever train 1000 units in a game? Imagine how long it will take to create 1.000 units. Even 5 sec./unit means that you have to wait 1 hour and 20/25 minutes just to create them. (escpet if the pop thing AoM-like, but then it will be 40 min. or such and that long too .

2. Resources . even creating 1000 villes wil cost 50000 food, so that will be even unlikely (even in a Deathmatch game)

[This message has been edited by Monkey Trouble (edited 02-14-2005 @ 03:37 PM).]

Quote:

I most definitely agree with your statement, but the AOE series has to move on in the population limit department. I've loved the series, as AOE was one of my first ventures into RTS gaming, but it cannot keep with the exact same formula all the time.

Of course there are a majority of things that shouldn't be taken away otherwise it would not be like the AOE games we have played before, but some small changes such as a higher pop. cap would not harm the series imho. Even taking a leaf out of RON's book by having a multiple troops for each unit would be a step in the right direction - that way there would be less micromanagent as well as giving a sense of the scale that battles were fought in.

If micromanage is an issue, they could go around it by either the RON style above, or even having formations of troops which act as one, ala Cossacks 2.

[This message has been edited by Billman (edited 02-14-2005 @ 12:07 PM).]

I work with small to mid-sized groups, and focus on the strategy.

It's the best (and most rewarding) way, if you ask me.

But, I understand that this is all personal, that's why I'm not asking for thousands and thousands of units

Just a rounded number of 1000

Anyway, I would love if these kind of speculations could end and ES could give us an aproximate number

But ES' games have never been epic in scale. It may look big and grand, but you rarely see more than 75 units fighting at a time, more so in the campaigns.

I like games that are easier to handle, so I can micromage earlier.

It's difficult to micromanage when you get too many dudes on screen at a time.

Using, officers like sergeants, lieutenants, captains, etc... so you can control small formations who each have there own sergeant, two formations with sergeant have one lieutenant, four formations have four sergeants, two lieutenants and one captain, this way you could go on and on and control your formations very easily.

Then you could give each type of officer a certain amount of command buttons, the higher the rank, the more command buttons they will have, like these ones:

- march
- stop
- retreat
- open fire
- open fire at will
- change formation type into square, column, ...
- send two formations forward (this could be used by higher ranked officers)
- send scouts
- charge (for cavalry, infantry)
- charge with bayonet
- send x amount of formations left, right, to flank enemies right, left side

You could add several others, the only thing I would like to point out with this is that it could be possible to simplify the control of bigger numbers of units/formations.

One thing that is absolutly necessary of course is a good Artificial Intelligence, but I believe this should be the challenge that developers have to take, not only improving GRAPHICS, but GAMEPLAY ASWELL

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I don't think so. Competetive RTS depends on the micromanagement of strategic units, not hero wars. WCIII is not a true RTS, heading more towards the fantasy/action-rpg type game.

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The amount of units bothers me.

To be honest I didn't mind too much in AOK, as armies were generally not huge in the AOK's time frame.

Now if we look at the period for AOE3, which seems to be from the very late 15th century/Early 16th century, to sometime around the 19th century, armies grew to huge proportions.

I would love to see the pop. cap became much higher...
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As much as I would love be be able to control huge armies, unless you are referring to Napoleonics, combat in this time period actually involved fewer relative numbers in the colonies. Not saying there weren't large battles in colonies.

[This message has been edited by barley_n_oats (edited 02-14-2005 @ 04:38 PM).]

Quote:

The trouble is in WC3 it feels more like you're handling a tiny squad rather than an army. And like barley_n_oats said, WC3 isn't a true RTS.

I'd prefer to see a pop limit of around 400, with none of that multiple pop slot unit rubbish that AoM had. Possibly the more units you have, the slower they train.

Smaller numbers + Micromanagement = Better. IMO.

Quote:

Less units = more important micro

If you could micro a few units onto theit counters in a 200 man fight, it would be nowhere near as effective as microing as microing the same number of units in a 20 man fight.

And what is a true RTS? How can you say 'Age of' games are 'truer' RTS than WC 3?

You ask a good question. Many gamers identify WCIII as a RTS. I don't. I also assume that you are a fan of WC series.

Is it Real Time? yes. Does it involve strategy? yes.

But WCIII, especially, has become more single-unit action oriented, with the addition of heroes. Think about a game of WC3. Can you win w/o a hero? unlikely, not in a skilled multiplayer, anyways. It reminded me more of diablo, with spell casting and small squads of support units.

"True" RTS embodies the commmand of armies and using them to battle an opponent. It's not a single unit that has any importance, but the combination of units and style of your strategies that shape the overall effect. Turn-based games have been able to do this, but not to the same dramatic effect as in real time.

Take the Total War series. One of the most hardcore and best RTS out there. It's a bit complex to begin w/, more so than Age gmaes.

Starcraft is an RTS. You don't need a single unit to win the game. Your armies consists of marines, wraiths, zerglings, etc. Even in this game, the loss of a powerful unit should not be able to cripple one player completely, unless he/she has totally f'ed up.

Rise of Nation is RTS. You gather resources, build buildings, build units, research technologies.

Empire Earth, RTS. very complex, that it turned off many RTS players. Personally, not a favorite.

========

Conclusion: The loss of a single unit should not be as impactful on the success of an army in an RTS.

A true RTS, I take it, would allow a player to use real time actions to shape an overall strategy to win a game, as opposed to the individual actions of single units.

[This message has been edited by barley_n_oats (edited 02-15-2005 @ 00:31 AM).]

Nothing that I can do about it then

It's ES's right to keep it down of course, tough I find it funny that alltough he mentioned the amount to be AoK'ish, he does speak about "large armies" Sorry mister Street, but that's just HILARIOUS You really are a funny fellow LOL

Do like the overall interview tough and the rest what Ive heard about AOEIII, I just think it's an opportunity that ES is letting go.

Once again, this is all personal of course

Personally, I do consider WCIII to be an RTS (even if a slightly hybrid one) because of its adherence to RTS conventions, such as building buildings, gathering resources, training units, researching technologies, and commanding groups of units in battles. Interestingly, the game was originally meant to be even more RPGish; but in the end Blizzard returned to a more WCII like model.

I find no link between an RTS game’s quality or success and the number of units. WCIII is hugely successful with 90 pop slots, translating to armies of only about 30 units. AoK has a standard pop limit of 75; the 200 pop is an optional extra, and even so, still not great. AoM can allow up to 300, but in general, the armies are fairly small. METW has a pop limit of 16 per player per battle and RTW of 20 per player per battle. Of course, one unit has many men, but as far as control goes, you still only have 16 or 20 units.

Having multiple men per unit is an option, but not one I really like for the classic RTS mould. For one thing, I didn’t think the games that did it; RoN and BFME, were that great. For another, having 5 men pop out of buildings at once, especially in early games, might pose balance issues.

Huge population limits create various issues. There is, of course, the system resources thing. In addition, it can make control bewildering and difficult, with players spending all their time trying to keep track of their units. It could create cases where games become huge boomfests, each side trying to swamp the other with units and filling the map with houses in the process. In other words, the game is a single huge buildup. It could create cases where players administer the coupe de grace by creating 200 extra soldiers to flatten an enemy who has fallen behind. In AoM, GPs originally cost favour, but could be used unlimited times, but the idea was abandoned as a winning player would start smashing the enemy with Meteors or Tornados. I could see the same thing happening with huge pop games.

I’d like to see slightly more pop than in AoK, perhaps 500 slots max with military units taking up multiple slots, but no larger than that.

That's pretty much what I was trying to say but you said it 100x better.