Mythos_Ruler

The point of putting a bunch of units into a battalion/formation is so they act as one and you control them as one.

Well, we generally already have formations decided. Some will have to have different behaviors, yeah, e.g. Phalanx will be slower than Line, and should only attack when tasked to do so. And there could be additional formations once you've selected multiple battalions. This could be context sensitive. Select one battalion, you get a battalion-level set of formations; select multiple battalions, you get army-level formations, we'll call "Battle Lines" for now. At any rate, if you have multiple battalions selected and task them over a long distance, they'll fall out of their battle line and form a column to move to their destination. If the battle line is too wide for them to form a column in a timely manner or without looking dumb, then they can form their own columns and march their own path to the destination and reform the battle line. I think it would be useful to pathing to have specific instances where your units can just pass right through each other. One instance is shuttling resources back to the dropsite when gathering. Units should pass right through each other in this instance. Another is when forming up into the different formations. One thing I would like not to see is soldiers walking right through trees or right through enemy soldiers. When in a formation, perhaps the unit's actor can dither left or right around an obstacle like a tree. Thing is, I don't want to have to select a standard bearer dude in order to select the whole battalion. I want to select the whole battalion whenever I select any of the dudes within the battalion (e.g. Battle for Middle Earth 2). It would be easy enough to bind and unbind battalions with Space Bar. I do like the idea of cutting down the number of formations. One thing I would like to see is context sensitive stuff, like if you have a mixed formation, then there should be no reason to even show the cavalry-only formation buttons, only the ones you are able to use. Or if we want to show all the buttons, then hitting the wedge formation, for instance, will move the cavalry out of the mixed battalion into their own battalion utilizing the wedge formation. (Alternatively we can give Wedge to infantry too--they'd just form up behind the cavalry who will act like the "spear tip" of the wedge.) With the 100-member battalion example, I could see the front parts of the snake breaking off from the column and forming their formation as they approach the destination. They'd do this in clumps (or companies). What if this ginormous battalion gets attacked while half of it is still coming up in column formation and the forward half is formed up for battle? I could see these "companies" auto-forming their own battalions when they are attacked, 15-30 units at a time to deal with the attackers.

I could see battalions of 100 being possible, if they broke up into "companies" that attempt to maintain proximity while moving through and around obstacles. Over long distances the whole formation falls into a column and snakes to the destination.

Gotcha.

30 unit selection seems so low. What about 40? I could see having a 40 unit selection, hitting the space bar, then they become one "entity" (i.e., battalion), then if you have multiple battalions you can select them (meaning you can actually select more than 40 soldiers this way). You can task battalions together, but they path separately. Or, if we have a larger unit selection, say 100, you can task them all to the same place, but they'll split up into multiple smaller groups (30/ 30/ 40?) for pathing.

Only in our game, where soldiers and gatherers are one in the same. :/ The only reason BfME2's economic system was so dumbed down was because the game was designed for console, not PC.

Right, but can't that JS file be edited to include a new civ?

IMHO, if you've deforested the entire map and still haven't won, then you should suffer the consequences of poor planning and resource management.

Yeah, the font is missing a few of the necessary accented letters. We had this issue with a couple of Carthaginian names as well. Anyone have an idea how this was resolved? Addendum: I changed all of the <SpecificNames> per your lists. Just need one more for the Rhodian Slinger.

Yeah, you could task them along with a formation of soldiers, but they wouldn't join the battalion.

probably treat them like in BfME2... as their own entities. Essentially they'd work like they do now. And we'd probably prevent them from joining a battalion with "meat" units. Reminds me, we need to stop rams from attacking meat units. They kill units with one blow. lol

You would still need to tell them which direction to "retreat."

Here, the soldiers would sidestep the obstacles while maintaining formation. Obstacles bigger than this, the formation would fall into pathing groups and move around it. Though, now, we'll need some way for them to know that they'll meet back up together at an acceptable distance, or else they would just choose to fall into a snaking column to move around it.

I think Erik pretty much has the right idea going, except I don't think units in a formation should take damage evenly. This doesn't occur in Battle for Middle Earth 2, nor does it in Rome:Total War. Even with 5000 soldiers on the screen in a Total War game, each soldier still has individual stats (attack, defense, life points), except where fatigue, morale, movement, etc. are concerned. I think generally, units should act as they do now as individuals, even when selected and tasked as a group, but if you want to really "group" them all together into a coherent unit, you can use Spacebar to auto-group the selected units into a battalion. Once in this battalion they get assigned the next free control group number and generally act as one entity as far as selection and movement are concerned. I also think manually putting a group of selected units into a formation auto-groups them into a battalion as well. Basically, any kind of input, whether clicking a formation button or using Spacebar, puts these units into a battalion that is selected by one click. The selection rings are even like in BfME2 where they merge to show you that they are indeed one battalion. Spacebar would also break up a selected battalion back into individual usable soldiers. A battalion sent to gather could either auto-break (while the soldiers retain their control group number) or still maintain their battalion features (group select and movement), but still spread out and gather as individuals. I think any group of units that is batch trained 20+ soldiers (or 10+ cav) should auto-group into a battalion. Things like this can help immensely. This brings up the problem of grouping multiple types of units in one battalion, like say 10 archers, 5 hoplites, and 7 skirmishers. In this situation I think we should come up with some more custom formations like the 'Formation12' formation we have already in-game. Select half dozen battalions and click a battle line formation button that puts archers behind, pikes in front, cavalry on the wings (Call this an 'Alexandrian Battle Line'). We can have multiple versions of these too. A couple more things: -- I really hate how the "scatter" formation is currently working. Right now it's either useless or just plain broken. -- I think column formation shouldn't even be a selectable formation. It's simply a formation that units default to when moving over long distances. Gives a speed bonus, but also an armour de-bonus. As far as movement goes, I'd like to see a large formation of units just collapse down into a column to pass through an obstacle. I'm thinking some of this will need to be implemented and rigorously playtested at the implementation stage. Could it be possible for a large 50+ formation of soldiers to break up into multiple groups of columns to pass through multiple pathways around obstacles?

Hunting was a very very small part of the economy, even back then. I'd say 80% of all food was grain-based at the time. The rest made up with fruits and vegetables and some fish and meat (on festival days).

LOL I do think a "battalion" mindset should be the way to go as far as battles/formations are concerned. But when it comes to economics, then individual units are the way to go. And that's not to say it wouldn't be possible to fight without using battalions/formations, but you would be rewarded for using them. I propose using a prominent hotkey, such as SPACE BAR, to form and break battalions easily and quickly. We can also put buttons for this purpose in the UI, but I personally would probably use a hotkey.

Right. Line infantry could have more (maybe 20-30), while skirmishers and cavalry battalions would have less. Persian battalions could have more, but individually be weaker, etc.

I would definitely like to see something like this (the jitter) with less disciplined troops, like skirmishers and such.

Pretty sure in BfME2 the battalions (of swordsmen, for example) are generally 15 units, 5 wide x 3 rows. I actually prefer the battalion system to separate soldiers, but no one else seems to (although this may be self-selected, since most of our fans were Age of Empires fanatics). Oh well.

I think we should aim for an average game length that doesn't include deforesting the entire map. There is also trading and bartering for the late game econ.

Agreed. That would be good.

The Romans will already receive an Army Camp that can be built anywhere on the map, even in enemy territory. Catch is, it slowly loses Health.

One building we could possibly add is a Siege Workshop for the Romans, to emphasize their siege capabilities (they'll have the best siege in the game, rivaled only by the Greeks).

My reply is to the third post.

I can't speak for everybody, but I think we're happy with the 3 embassies. Any other ideas, though?