What is the optimal number of units under player control in a turn based tactics game? How much is too much? How much is too few?I'm asking about a strategy game like Old-Com, not about a CRPG with turn based combat like ToEE or BG3.
That entirely depends on how many RPG elements your game has. Do your units have an MMO's worth of active abilities? Or is the game more simulationist and instead of pressing "Mercenary's wrath" for +10% critical chance for the next 2 rounds, "Male privilege" to refresh all of your abilities, a second MW, sip a beer (+5 flat damage for the next 4 attacks) and using the "Suppressive Fire ability" to do 10 attacks in a round at -50% accuracy or are you just telling him to attack with the Suppressive Fire mode toggled?If it's the latter, you can easily control like 20 units, if each unit just takes you 1-3 seconds to command. If it's the former kind of game, then I would not go too far away from 4 character with 8 as a maximum.
>>1888186Six, plus or minus two. Between four and eight. Bigger sizes and you end up getting bogged down making all the parts move, smaller means you don't have enough map presence, error room, and unit variety.
So squad-level tactics instead of strategy?2 teams of battle buddies, times 2 makes 8, then a commander and deputy on top is the usual baseline in reality, maybe with extra special weapons team for 12.since armchair commanders are by definition unable to perform at the level expected by reality and pay for "entertainment" instead, just dumb it down with less things to keep track of and give the machine gunner the rocket launcher too.just draw him bigger and he can take the weight.and just in case you're serious, there's no optimum unless you introduce time limits to take turns which stops you from creating a masterplan at any chosen amount of moving parts
>>188818612 maxEven in something like XCOM where you don't have too much to keep track of, I would start adding some automation beyond that. Maybe add more general commands like "go here and defend in this direction" and the units will find cover themselvesConsidering how many units you can control in RTS games it's odd that they haven't gravitated towards this. They should take some inspiration from Close Combat.
>>1888186Just my opinion but I wish there were more turn based multiplayer games with massive armies. Something like giant Battle Brothers. It would take too long though and is too niche so a community could probably never work. So I guess don't do my idea.
>>1888186A lot. At least two fireteams
>>1890944This guy has a good idea, do it.
>>188818610-20 seems like a good amountThe main issue is not with the number imo, but with non-turnsFor exampe in old-com and especially in mods there are a lot of situations where the outcome of the battle is basically predetermined but you still have to put in effort to find and kill the remaining 5 guysIt's tedious, and the more units you have to control the worse the problem getsI would kill for a old-com style game where each battle is a self-contained skirmish where each side sets up, fights and doesn't have to check each bathroom in 3 different apartment blocks for the single remaining survivor that has no chance of changing the outcome
>>1892931>old-com style game where each battle is a self-contained skirmish where each side sets up, fights and doesn't have to check each bathroom in 3 different apartment blocks for the single remaining survivor that has no chance of changing the outcomeSo, a CRPG then?
>>1888186It all depends on how long it takes to disseminate orders to your units. I think the ideal max time clicking over and over to finish a turn, personally is 3 mins max. Shorter is better of course. Anything more and the game slows down into a slog.The number of units you can order in that 3 minutes can vary greatly depending on how much QoL features that the game has. For example, if a game has queued commands or similar multi-turn memorized command system, then I can justify spending something double the time to prep multiple turns of orders in order to let the next turns pass by very quickly, and with little tweaking on my end. Another potential QoL feature that barely if ever exist in turn based games is something that is pretty much standard for RTS games - drag box group-orders. There are times when I just want to move my units from one side of the map to another without any expectation of danger. For that, I don't really mind leaving it to an algorithm to select the exact path each unit takes, or even the exact box each one ends up in. I can just take over when they're 1 turn to the frontline again. But group-move simply does not exist in a vast majority of turn based games, which greatly reduces the number of units I am prepared to micro one by one each turn.
>>1888186I like large numbers of moving parts, but I think in such cases units should be comparatively simplified. There should be lots of different units with little to no customization rather than few units with a lot of customization. Firaxis XCOM vs classic XCOM is a good example, where you have 4-6 guys with a bunch of customization elements vs 12+ guys who are basically "Guy with X weapon" and maybe "Guy with high stats". I also wish units were more often disposable, obviously you always want to minimize losses but having tons of leveling and customization for your units always makes it a huge pain to lose even one guy if there's permadeath.
Optimal: 6-8Fun: Whatever the player can manage without the turns becoming 10 minutes long.It's single player, if the player wants to larp it up and have a realistical approach, bring 2 squads + 1 heavy weapons team / sniper + spotter on ja2 1.13 let him do it.You could pretend to be an officer commanding a platoon, or an NCO commanding a squad, idk.I loved taking casualties in xcom, bringing in more guys than I needed, saving my good ones and risking my worthless rookies. Couldn't do that with smaller squads.
