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.

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

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.

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.

xitel:
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.

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.

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.

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

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.

technology sucks nowadays. If you want big fights in RTSs, look into Age of Empires 2. It's not visually stunning but you can have up to 200 units.

the only 3D game with anything like that size armies that i can think of is aoeIII (which sucks) or age of mythology (to a sliightly lesser scale)

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"

it's to tough to work with.

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.

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.

Boo Overlord. Yay Dungeon Keeper. That is all.

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

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.

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.

Nivag:
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.

Shurikens and Lightning:
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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Baby Tea:

Shurikens and Lightning:
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.

If a game came out today with the graphics ot Total Annihalation (my favourite RTS ever) or Command & Conquer, you probably could have thousand on thousand unit battles.

On TA I would frequently end up with 200+ separate units.

MrGFunk:
Surely by increasing numbers you're just increasing the numbers of people assigned to groups so 10 units of 10 is a hundred.
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.

Good point, but by increasing the number of units you increase your options to build your own squads and task forces up.
You may end up delegating things down to ten squads of 100 units, but they would be squads you constructed to follow your specific purposes. I would rather have that than the current RTS trend of upgradable squads with a few optional extras like one better gun or a more badass character attached.

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.

Try the Kingdom Under Fire series. The crusaders is only eight bucks used on gamestop.com and Kingdom Under Fire : 2 is coming out this year.

Although it still only may be in the hundred. Not sure.

becaust RTS is Real Time Strategy, emphasis on the Strategy, not RTC which would be Real Time CHAOS

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.

Exactly. This is what I was trying to allude to. I honestly hate micro managing but Having a cheap infantry that has 40 units as one one serve as a easy way to control your battle and to create chaos which I for some reason like.

Nivag:
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.

I was 7 when I got it so figure it out for yourself if you care. Why is it weird?

Also I was not asking for reccomendations but I probably should pick up some of the ones you mentioned that I dont own. Also Whats wrong with chaos? I for one love the chaos of battle, Something I blame watching The Lord of the Rings as a little kid and playing alot of shooters but Once I tell my troops what to do I zoom in as much as I can and get a cinematic look.

MrGFunk:

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.

You got me. I hate micromanaging. I just feel like having bigger squads for the el cheapo units would allow a little chaos and epicness that a RTS doesnt have. I wonder how Hawking would play a RTS though.

This isnt a thread about wether more troops equal less strategy. I just feel that we have the ability, Devs just dont do it. Im not saying that every RTS should have 10000 units its just that some should, but they dont.

Another way I can put this. In games were there is a city and something goes down. Why are there only 10 people in the middle of a crowded street? If I start a shoot out I want to see hundreds of AI running for their lives. Assasins creed did a pretty good job with this.