Can somebody explain?

[Shurikens and Lightning]

I loved Pikmin when I was a little kid. The fact that I could control a 100 person army was amazing at the time. I loved that game.

One day last week I saw overlord and thought What the heck Ill rent it. While playing it something kept on bothering me. If technology truely is getting better I should have more than a hundred people following me. Why cant I have a thousand followers? I still dont get why this isnt feasoble with todays tech?

And the same goes for RTS's Why cant I have 100 person units instead of 9? I like seeing giant battles unfold instead of just 16 troop battles.

If someone can explain this to me it would be great.

 

[xitel]

It's too hard to do intellectually speaking, managing 1000's of people would be too much of a stress on your brain.

 

[meatloaf231]

Yes, the tech is getting better, thus the units themselves are better looking overall as well. It's mostly management of all the hardware. Overlord was a solid game, but it did feel like you should have been commanding bigger forces. Most of the game fit with smaller ones, however. There weren't huge attacking armies left and right that required the use of thousands of units.

If you're looking for some really large fights, check out the Total War series.

 

[Hobo Of Hell]

Due to everyones fixation on high graphics.
Any console or PC would struggle with 1000 well animated highly detailed soldiers\minions\pikmins and to make the game less fixated on graphics would lose alot of people's intrest in the game losing the company sales.

 

[Shurikens and Lightning]

It's too hard to do intellectually speaking, managing 1000's of people would be too much of a stress on your brain.

I guess but your talking to a guy who plays RTS's on extreme diffuculties and beats them within 24 gameplay hours.

In reality someone who would pick a game this hardcore wouldnt be a non RTS lover.

Due to everyones fixation on high graphics.
Any console or PC would struggle with 1000 well animated highly detailed soldiers\minions\pikmins and to make the game less fixated on graphics would lose alot of people's intrest in the game losing the company sales.

I think with todays tech we can accomplish it. Also with the average RTS we have a camera that is zoomed out. I dont care if im playing with solid color pixels if it has good gameplay but that is just me. But if you ever played the battle for middle earth than you know that it is boring unless your controlling 100 person platoons. and having massive battles raging all over the map.

 

[Rezuvious]

if you want you could play Medieval: total war, if i remember correctly you could get upto 28000 soldiers on that battlefield at once,

less troops = more stratergy though

 

[megapenguinx]

Better graphics plus the amount of object would put a serious strain on any machine. With pikmin it was possible because they were all simple models that weren't too advanced or detailed. I think on a machine like the PS3, you could control a pikmin army in the thousands.

 

[Underdark_jester]

Personally, I'll throw this out. In a multi-player game, having giant caps would just add anouther thing that would seem unfair "Whoever can produce fastest, wins". The small caps are there to keep a level of complexity.

Starcraft, for example, if everyone has aroudn teh same number of units, the battles are great and sometimes unpredictible. However, anyone who has played a game of Starcraft and been slower to build units is no stranger to the "Oh my god, I have 3 marines and he is attackign me with 45 zerglings." Now, imagin if the limit of units, instead of 200, was 2000. Both of the above still become true, only now the 15 mins game in teh second situation has become a 2 hour game, where you are still overwhelmed.

For a simgle-player game, Overlord for example, the small cap helps the designers has an idea of what the player is able to have. It's easier to design an end-game knowing the player most likely has X number of units, that it is to design an end game where the player could possible have just a 100 or 1000 units, as overlord had the 'control more minions' part. Also, the idea of "if 3 of yours can kill 1 of theirs, why give them 300 to kill 100." Granted, it might be more satisfing, but the large amount of models on screen would cripple most consoles (Lets not even talk about people like me who's computer was 'good' in like 2006) Performance plays large into it, as well as most people in the RTS field really aren't looking to slaughter 10000 enemies, they leave that to the FPS people.

Lower numbers means more tactics, instead of just "I have 1000 more guys than you, you are dead"

 

[Aiden Rebirth]

it's to tough to work with.

 

[keithburgun]

Perfect example of regular people not knowing WHAT they want. This is why we have game designers.

While you think you want to see "huge battles", the fact is that generally that leads to a more chaotic, less orderly game. And while chaos can be kind of neat sometimes, it gets boring quickly. One comprimise is to have "units" that you control, which LOOK like a group of maybe 10 or so units but function as just one.

 

[Aardvark]

You could get a metric arseload in Supreme Commander. That's one game I always regretted hating. I could see how it was a good game, but just couldn't stand it. Worse is I sunk a thousand bucks into an upgrade just to play the thing.

 

[fedpayne]

Boo Overlord. Yay Dungeon Keeper. That is all.

 

[Ronwue]

if you want you could play Medieval: total war, if i remember correctly you could get upto 28000 soldiers on that battlefield at once,

less troops = more stratergy though

Hurling massive numbers of cheap enemies at well fortified enemy entrenchments is also a strategy. Not a good one, for your average cheap unit, but a good strategy nonetheless.

 

[Nivag the Owl]

I just find it really weird to meet someone who played Pikmin when they were a little kid. How old are you? Also, if you want HUGE armies, try a few Total War games.

 

[Ronwue]

I just find it really weird to meet someone who played Pikmin when they were a little kid. How old are you? Also, if you want HUGE armies, try a few Total War games.

Or Supreme commander. Now that's huge.

 

[Baby Tea]

And the same goes for RTS's Why cant I have 100 person units instead of 9? I like seeing giant battles unfold instead of just 16 troop battles.

It's been said all over this thread (Rhyming not intended), but the Total War series has EASILY the most number of troops on screen (Saving, perhaps, 'Cossacks', but I'm assuming you want something fairly recent).
Grab Medieval Total War 2, sit back, and watch as your thousands and thousands of troops clash with thousands and thousands of enemy troops.
It's 5 shades of 'bad ass'.
My favourite PC strategy game series, by far.

 

[MrGFunk]

I loved Pikmin when I was a little kid. The fact that I could control a 100 person army was amazing at the time. I loved that game.

One day last week I saw overlord and thought What the heck Ill rent it. While playing it something kept on bothering me. If technology truely is getting better I should have more than a hundred people following me. Why cant I have a thousand followers? I still dont get why this isnt feasoble with todays tech?

And the same goes for RTS's Why cant I have 100 person units instead of 9? I like seeing giant battles unfold instead of just 16 troop battles.

If someone can explain this to me it would be great.

Surely by increasing numbers you're just increasing the numbers of people assigned to groups so 10 units of 10 is a hundred. if you had 1000 the units would just be 10 of 100 people. Are you saying you want to individually organise 1000 people. because that's dumb (to think you could) everyone delegates to middle managment.

The game would be for the supergenius (as yourself) only and would sell very poorly. And who would play against?

Shurikens and Lightning vs Stephen Hawkin(assuming he's clever)

Or

Do you mean you just want more people on the screen?
Because that's graphics.

 

[beddo]

I loved Pikmin when I was a little kid. The fact that I could control a 100 person army was amazing at the time. I loved that game.

One day last week I saw overlord and thought What the heck Ill rent it. While playing it something kept on bothering me. If technology truely is getting better I should have more than a hundred people following me. Why cant I have a thousand followers? I still dont get why this isnt feasoble with todays tech?

And the same goes for RTS's Why cant I have 100 person units instead of 9? I like seeing giant battles unfold instead of just 16 troop battles.

If someone can explain this to me it would be great.

Well Kameo managed over a thousand NPCs on screen. Though they all had very limited AI. Kingdon Under Fire on the Xbox had quite a few hundred.

The main reason is computing power. Path-finding for multiple AI becomes exponentially more complicated when there are more units to control.

 

[beddo]

And the same goes for RTS's Why cant I have 100 person units instead of 9? I like seeing giant battles unfold instead of just 16 troop battles.

It's been said all over this thread (Rhyming not intended), but the Total War series has EASILY the most number of troops on screen (Saving, perhaps, 'Cossacks', but I'm assuming you want something fairly recent).
Grab Medieval Total War 2, sit back, and watch as your thousands and thousands of troops clash with thousands and thousands of enemy troops.
It's 5 shades of 'bad ass'.
My favourite PC strategy game series, by far.

I'm pretty sure that the Total War uses a method to make it appear as though there are more units. Ultimately, there are a set number of units in the tens then the individual units therein follow pre-programmed events based on their state.