Unit abstraction?

[CarlG2]

Originally posted by PrinzMegaherz:
Well, dom2 battles remind me a bit of braveheart. If I remember correctly, they dont field such huge armies as you like in the movie.
Dominions 2 is no pure fantasy game. There are no orcs and no elves, most nations (except maybe ermor and R'yleh, but that one does not count as fantasy anyway...) are somehow related to historical nations/religions. This is a background where such epic scale battles would not fit in, as battles in those ages usualy not involved so many soldiers.

Hi PrinzMegaherz,

Thanks for the feedback!

While I am certainly no expert on the subject, the reading and research I have done over the years has given me the impression that the military forces of the ancient world were often larger than would be expected.

It often depended largely on the nation in question and the age (Bronze, Iron, etc.), but there are examples of immense forces (and also relatively small forces). The ancient Romans and Persians fielded military forces numbering in the hundreds of thousands, while the Greeks only fielded armies of around 10,000 men.

Interestingly, the Europeans typically fielded relatively small militaries following the fall of Rome (in comparison to those of the Middle East and Far East at the same time). I believe the armies clashing at the time of Braveheart numbered close to 5,000 men, and I think this was fairly typical of the armies of Europe at the time.

I recall that Alexander the Great led a host that grew as large as 60,000 men, the Egyptians at one time fielded over 100,000, and the Assyrians could muster close to 200,000.

Getting back to the ratio of men to unit size in Dominions 2, I don't see any way that reasonably impressive forces could be achieved in the game without assuming an abstraction ratio of some type.

In fact, I think that the game would be unplayable if armies of any size were to be represented in the game with a 1 to 1 ratio...it'd get too unwieldly, and the battles would take ages to watch...

I do have to agree with some other posters that this is, at its heart, a fantasy universe based roughly on historical themes for the various nations (as is true of almost all fantasy worlds).

Thanks for a lively discussion, and good gaming!
Carl G.

[CarlG2]

Originally posted by Pocus:
Imagine 700.000 undeads moving thru the land, as a kind of sea of rotting flesh? Because if you are ok with the scale 1 unit = 100 beings, then you can sight on big AI games Ermorian armies of 7000 units...

I dont know at which point dominions crash, but I think some of us witnessed Ermorian armies of more than 10.000 units!

Now that's what I'm talking about!

Imagine in your mind's eye the land blackened from horizon to horizon by the shuffling dead... Then, imagine a struggle of titanic proportions as a host of knights carves a wedge of silver through the rotting corpses of the damned.

Good gaming,
Carl G.

[CarlG2]

Originally posted by licker:
Anyway, no one size (for armies or provinces) is going to satisfy everyone, and I don't think it really should matter that much anyway. But I'm a real proponent of looking at game mechanics first and reality second, which isn't always a popular view

and

Originally posted by licker:
I don't think many people will argue that the scales of armie sizes to populations to province sizes to time are 'realistic', but as far as how everything comes together to provide an entertaining game the devs should be applauded. Of course everyone will have a pet-peeve about this or that and how it isn't realistic, but you simply can't make it all realistic and still keep the same game mechanics as there are. I'd even argue that if you went for more 'realism' game play would suffer greatly.

Hi licker,

Thanks for the comments. I think that where you and I would differ here is that I like to find a closer relationship between realism and game mechanics. I really don't like it when game mechanics trump too many gestures to realistic relationships, as it really ruins my suspension of disbelief.

For example, take Age of Wonders 2: Shadow Magic. All of the AOW games have a scale where 1 turn = 1 day. This completely breaks every system in that game (population growth, training, spell progression, etc.) At that rate, every wizard in the world would be an archmage in 120 days... Also, in the first scenario you start as Julia, a "powerful" elven wizard queen who happens to be a level 1 apprentice...as a great South Park lawyer stated during the Chewbacca defense, "It does not make sense!"

Chess is a good example of my next point. It is basically a wargame, but abstracted to the ultimate level for the sake of gameplay. It is a great game, but completely uselss in its ability to recreate a historical conflict at a "simulation" level.

Which gets me to my other desire in a game system. My wargaming roots go back to the desire to simulate a conflict. In the case of historical wargaming, a game should simulate a conflict in such a way that it has the ability to exactly replicate history...but also with the ability to explore alternate results based on different strategies.

So, I guess that makes me a simulation gamer.

In fantasy games, I like to "simulate" a good fantasy novel in my mind, for each game played to create a new history...and, as such, I need to be able to find some level of reality in the "system" that a game uses (of course, we're talking about a subject that defies reality, as I don't recall the Last time I saw a dragon...but even in a fantasy world, I like to see the "systems" have a realistic relationship). When I look at a game design, I immediately evaluate things like, "Does the magic system have a 'believable' origin or reason for working?", "Does the back story hold up under scrutiny?", "Are the races interesting, or just weird/silly?", etc. If too many of the answers are no, then I am turned off to the game. If the answers are yes (as they are in so many cases for Dominions 2), I look at the game further to see if I'd like to play it (which is why I'm here!).

I do agree with you that taking realism to the ultimate end results in a bad game. Master of Orion III had a grand design plan with an intense amount of realism...but the implementation failed to make a good game (or, at the least, the publisher forced the developers to change the game design and then release it while it was a hybrid between the original design and modified plan...) I realize I'm looking for some kind of happy medium that might fit me, but also might be despised by others.

I'm not advocating that illwinter go and change their game design, because it is THEIR game design. I am, however, trying to see if I can reasonably abstract certain facets of their game (i.e. unit size, etc.) and still be able to "believe" in the "simulation" that I am playing.

Does that even remotely make sense? If you read this far...thanks and I hope it was at least interesting!

Good gaming,
Carl G.

[ January 15, 2004, 04:06: Message edited by: CarlG2 ]

[CarlG2]

Originally posted by johan osterman:
Actually it started out as tactical combat fantasy engine, that spiralled out of control. So the province map, pretenders, dominion etc. came along later.

Hey johan osterman,

So you are saying that there was a bit of scope creep on the project?!?

Anyway, kudos to you and illwinter for building this game. It's a testament to how much can be done by a small team, and how many resources are wasted by the big game-development shops.

Good gaming,
Carl G.

[Arralen]

Originally posted by CarlG2:
Which gets me to my other desire in a game system. My wargaming roots go back to the desire to simulate a conflict. In the case of historical wargaming, a game should simulate a conflict in such a way that it has the ability to exactly replicate history...but also with the ability to explore alternate results based on different strategies.

So, I guess that makes me a simulation gamer.

Did you ever try out HarpoonIII ?
Harpoon Headquarters .com

Why I mention it?

It's the most "simming" conflict simulation I know off. A "professional" Version is even used by the Australian Military. I was beta tester for the civil Version as long as my time allowed.

A.

[ January 15, 2004, 04:23: Message edited by: Arralen ]

Carl,

Just a little footnote here, since I hope you decide to purchase the game for all of it's great qualities and not this single one that is divergent from your desires.

Dom2 has a modding tool. In this tool it is possible to adjust upkeep, statistics, gold/resource cost and even .tga (the icon representing a unit).

You could if you desired Mod the game, keeping all of it's current balances and nation/theme ideas (the whole of Dom2) but change aspects to create a more epic feel. Say, lower the cost of every unit by 1/4 and upkeep by 1/4 and stats by 1/4, increase the leadership of all commanders by 3/4ths and suddenly those armies of 200 that we were talking about are 800 without directly changing anything in the game. This might be hard to represent those big battles (The battlefield is unfortunately only so big) but even small skirmishes (75-100) all take on a grander feel for you and it would more than likely fill up your battlefields from edge to edge.

The limitation on that would be the size of maximum units (32000) in the game, but its worth a shot. Or alternatively you could modify the .tga so that it's like MoM and add multiple figures (if you can squeeze it in) per unit.

Some ideas at least to fit your style of play.

[CarlG2]

Originally posted by Arralen:
Did you ever try out HarpoonIII ?
Harpoon Headquarters .com

Why I mention it?

It's the most "simming" conflict simulation I know off. A "professional" Version is even used by the Australian Military. I was beta tester for the civil Version as long as my time allowed.

A.

Hey Arralen,

I played the heck out of Harpoon years ago, and tried to get into Harpoon II, but my computer at the time wasn't powerful enough to play it...

Since then I've been dreaming of Harpoon 4 and its ever changing release date...which now seems to be hanging out in the abyss somewhere.

Did you ever play the Simulations Canada games Northern Fleet or Red Sky at Morning? Both of those, while SERIOUSLY lacking in the graphics department, were quite a bit of fun...

Back to Harpoon 3...from your link it sounds like they took Harpoon 2 and updated it for Windows, fixed bugs, updated units, etc. Is that a good assessment? How does the interface hold up to modern standards, and is it pretty stable?

Harpoon used to have me sitting on the edge of my seat as Soviet SSM's came streaking in towards my carriers while my integrated air defenses based on Standard SM's and CIWS engaged them... Primitive graphics but good stuff!!! Those games sure gave me an appreciation for the differences in philosphy between NATO/United States and Warsaw Pact/Soviet Union naval strategy and ship design!

To pull this into Dominions 2, I think that the Harpoon series was a great balance between game design and realism...things worked like they should in real life (or, in fantasy terms, as the mythos of the game world says they should), but a lot of the minutiae was either fully abstracted or handled by the computer.

Good gaming,
Carl G.