Slitherine

Might seem like a stupid question but I just noticed that units will have equal, less, or more than the stated man count when you play a custom battle. For example I had four Xystophoroi units in a battle and the man count was 244, 242, 232, and 249. The stated count is [Edited] 240. Considering there is no way to tweak soft factors up or down (least none that I noticed) is the count supposed to represent armies rarely ever having the exact manpower they are supposed to? I tried looking in the manual but didn't find anything.

Mord.

Mord wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2019 11:54 am Might seem like a stupid question but I just noticed that units will have equal, less, or more than the stated man count when you play a custom battle. For example I had four Xystophoroi units in a battle and the man count was 244, 242, 232, and 249. The stated count is 244. Considering there is no way to tweak soft factors up or down (least none that I noticed) is the count supposed to represent armies rarely ever having the exact manpower they are supposed to? I tried looking in the manual but didn't find anything.

Mord.

Man counts for units in Custom battles and most Epic battles vary randomly, I'm not sure about the campaigns. A four figure unit would normally be 240 men, but the randomisation means it will probably be a little more or less.

The randomness doesn’t change performance though. It’s just cosmetic.

jomni wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2019 10:51 pm The randomness doesn’t change performance though. It’s just cosmetic.

Call me crazy, but I’m quite positive the ( slight) change in performance is real.

TheGrayMouser wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2019 11:06 pm

jomni wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2019 10:51 pm The randomness doesn’t change performance though. It’s just cosmetic.

Call me crazy, but I’m quite positive the ( slight) change in performance is real.

I always thought it was real too. In fact I am pretty sure it is, those extra few men always seem to make a difference in the combat calculations.

Thanks for the answers.

Mord.

TheGrayMouser wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2019 11:06 pm

jomni wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2019 10:51 pm The randomness doesn’t change performance though. It’s just cosmetic.

Call me crazy, but I’m quite positive the ( slight) change in performance is real.

You are correct, It does (minimally) change performance.

Oh so it does.

Paul59 wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2019 3:51 pm

Mord wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2019 11:54 am Might seem like a stupid question but I just noticed that units will have equal, less, or more than the stated man count when you play a custom battle. For example I had four Xystophoroi units in a battle and the man count was 244, 242, 232, and 249. The stated count is 244. Considering there is no way to tweak soft factors up or down (least none that I noticed) is the count supposed to represent armies rarely ever having the exact manpower they are supposed to? I tried looking in the manual but didn't find anything.

Mord.

Man counts for units in Custom battles and most Epic battles vary randomly, I'm not sure about the campaigns. A four figure unit would normally be 240 men, but the randomisation means it will probably be a little more or less.

I have noticed the same . For example, the Greek army 460-281 BC in a custom battle had Citizen and Raw Hoplites of 480 men (60 men per figure according to the manual). In the Philip of Macedon campaign, playing the last battle, Citizen Hoplites had 658 men and Raw 705. It is really weird.

Historical battles and campaigns can have a scaling factor (designer’s choice) such that total man count in the battles mimic historical levels. This is done to keep unit count in check. Else we will have so many units to push around on the field if we kept to default man count.

GeneralKostas wrote: ↑Mon Jul 29, 2019 9:19 pm

Paul59 wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2019 3:51 pm

Mord wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2019 11:54 am Might seem like a stupid question but I just noticed that units will have equal, less, or more than the stated man count when you play a custom battle. For example I had four Xystophoroi units in a battle and the man count was 244, 242, 232, and 249. The stated count is 244. Considering there is no way to tweak soft factors up or down (least none that I noticed) is the count supposed to represent armies rarely ever having the exact manpower they are supposed to? I tried looking in the manual but didn't find anything.

Mord.

Man counts for units in Custom battles and most Epic battles vary randomly, I'm not sure about the campaigns. A four figure unit would normally be 240 men, but the randomisation means it will probably be a little more or less.

I have noticed the same . For example, the Greek army 460-281 BC in a custom battle had Citizen and Raw Hoplites of 480 men (60 men per figure according to the manual). In the Philip of Macedon campaign, playing the last battle, Citizen Hoplites had 658 men and Raw 705. It is really weird.

Actually the difference in numbers in the Philip of Macedon campaign is nothing to do with the randomisation. As jomni said in the previous post, Historical campaigns (and Epic battles) can have a scaling factor to increase (or decrease) the size of all units, so that the historical army numbers can be achieved while keeping the total numbers of individual units to a reasonable level.

As the scaling factor affects all units in the scenario equally it does not affect the outcome of any combat calculations, only the numbers that are displayed in the UI.

Yes, it was easy to win the last battle with the pikes in lvl 3 difficulty of course. Citizen and Raw hoplites had no luck against them. Thanks for the answers.
I was thinking the possibility to have these numbers (658 and 705) as the basic unit strength of the Greek Army in Custom Battles. Maybe this army will be more powerful and antagonistic.

GeneralKostas wrote: ↑Wed Jul 31, 2019 9:58 am Yes, it was easy to win the last battle with the pikes in lvl 3 difficulty of course. Citizen and Raw hoplites had no luck against them. Thanks for the answers.
I was thinking the possibility to have these numbers (658 and 705) as the basic unit strength of the Greek Army in Custom Battles. Maybe this army will be more powerful and antagonistic.

Un-scaled default size of a unit is not arbitrary number and increasing the size of the unit would also increase their fighting performance which is not realistic or necessary with the Hoplites. They are currently very effective against various ancient unit types that they historically dethroned but struggle against pikes and impact foot that historically superseded them.

In practice increasing the default unit size of Hoplites would also reduce their cost efficiency, and as a result the efficiency of hoplite armies in general, rather than help them.