FrankTrollman (in another thread) at [unixtime wrote:1108863325[/unixtime]]
f the answer to absolutely all military problems is "Send more idiots with spears" there is no purpose served in investing in elites, new technology, or even tactics. It's just a question of who has more people to expend. And that's dumb. For there to be meaningful tactics and strategy in fantasy warfare, there has to be a reason why you have to throw in the Rat Ogres or Thunder Knights every time the enemy throws up a Niefel Giant or Sirrush.
If numbers alone mean anything than the great heroes and the legendary weapons mean nothing. Less than nothing.
Well, first I hardly think that Navy SEALS and Green Berets "mean nothing" because they can't take on the entire Iraqi army.
The problem is that right now, legendary units mean too much. I mean you're way better off having a single high level guy than pretty much any number of little army men.
In LotR the oliphants pretty much owned the calvalry but still the calvalry managed to bring some of them down. In warfare, special units should be very efficient, but they shouldn't be completely invulnerable.
While it is true that mass numbers can't always be the answer, sometimes they have to be. If high level guys is always the answer then armies serve no place on the battlefield. There needs to be some balance.
At the very least, there has to be some kind of RPS system like:
Legendary Monster > Army > Hero > Legendary Monster
I'm not sure what a good way to set that up is, but it should be in place if we want to incorporate armies into games at all. For armies to work there has to be a reason why people use them, instead of just recruiting a field of high level characters. The standard grunts have to be good for something, or at the very least they've got to be cheap. Right now it takes way more to outfit 20,000 crossbowmen than it does to outfit a few high level characters.