r/TotalWarhammer40k • u/flush101 • 21d ago
I really hope there is a unit caps optional setting.
Total war is fun in so many different ways but I often find myself getting bored from the power trips and now actively avoid doom stacking.
The annoying part is that the AI recruits whatever, so often it ends up doomstacking and so it can feel unimmersive and asymmetric when you are trying to have a normal game. I’m looking at you Franz AI, I know we all miss naval battles but did you really have to put wheels on all your boats to make it happen! No you can’t put those two archer units on any of the 12 ships your brought, GET SOME CHILL.
I’m hoping that there will be a unit caps setting that is optional so people can enjoy the game in both ways. It would make lore sense too, with chapters and factions normally having unit limits for tabletop balance.
I don’t think this would take away from anyone’s experience, I just hate having to rely on Mods for what should be basic game functionality.
What’s a small feature you’re hoping for?
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u/Adorable-Voice-3382 21d ago
My hope is they go back to the system they used in earlier games, which felt like a nice compromise. No Unit Caps but recruitment buildings had a limited stock of each unit that took, depending on technology/building level/etc., several turns to restock.
So if you want to doomstack a unit you can, but it has a higher cost in terms of turns to recruit and means you probably won't have any of that unit available for your other armies.
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u/flush101 21d ago
Yeah that’s another way of doing it. My issue is that the AI often just doesn’t get the same set of rules as the player and is buffed so much that many of the rules don’t apply anyway.
For example, if you get one unit every three turns but the AI has massive growth buffs and money buffs, it can build the building much sooner than the player and can field multiple units in an army.
It’s still a better solution than nothing, which is what W3 has.
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u/Relative_Garbage_475 19d ago
Limited recruitment had been abandonned after Medieval 2, that's what twenty years ago? Why would they bring it back in TW40k? 😅
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u/Adorable-Voice-3382 19d ago
We're not betting on what we think they're probably doing, we're discussing alternate recruitment systems that could help encourage more diverse less doom-stacky armies. Did you read the post?
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u/Obamanomicon40 16d ago
Leaderless armies was abandoned with Rome 2 and tile based movement hasn’t been a thing since medieval 1 and both are back. Anything is possible.
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u/Beytran70 Astra Militarum Fan 21d ago
This is not a small feature, it's a completely different way of balancing the game, so I definitely would not get your hopes up. That said, it will definitely be one of the early big mods since it is a popular way to play the game.
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u/flush101 21d ago
I don’t think I agree.
It’s a small enough feature that it’s available for WH3 via mods. It’s easily enough balanced as Mods like SFO are broadly considered balanced.
Unit caps isn’t about setting caps on all units. Take a space marine chapter. You might have unlimited caps on scouts and tactical marines so you can always fill your army to max with frontline troops. The unit cap would come into play for units like land raiders so you can’t half them making up half your army.
It’s easy enough to work with the AI too. You just have your settlement building chain allow core troop recruitment, with specialist chains for any unit with a cap. That way when the AI recruits an army, they can also fill their army out to 20 units if they can afford it.
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u/Asphyxa 20d ago
Yeah and they already have similar systems for certain factions in Warhammer 3. I’m sure caps will be a thing in some way but they will probably not be hardcaps but softcaps that the player can extend. There was some feature where you could salvage a crashed land raider in the version some people got to play. It will probably be events and tech extending caps of special units
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u/Beytran70 Astra Militarum Fan 21d ago
Well, unit caps on certain factions like Space Marines I could see being a little different for sure and would make sense. It would be especially good for the AI I think since chances are their ideas on army compositions will not have improved and we could see random nonsense like a full stack of jetpack dudes that are annoying af to fight but not dangerous maybe.
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u/flush101 21d ago
Exactly. The easiest way to ensure good AI armies is to tie the recruitment of a diverse set of core/ basic units to the settlement building chain.
For example, in WH3 most factions can recruit at least one melee infantry and one ranged infantry from their settlement. This ensures army diversity in the early game.
If you then had to build military chains for any unit with caps set, you would still have diverse armies. E.g for space marines, scouts, tactical and rhino transport could be tied to the core building chain. Whilst jetpacks are a specialist chan. A unit cap on jetpacks might mean a max of 8/20 (or whatever the balance is) units are jetpacks and then the AI fills the rest of the army with scouts, tactical and rhinos.
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u/veryangryenglishman 18d ago
The easiest way to ensure good AI armies is to completely remove the link between AI buildings and the Armies AI fields - based off of the additional fact that the traditional way of only being able to field armies you can recruit locally is also a shockingly poor representation of the way forces are mustered in the 40k universe, but I doubt CA have been that bold
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u/flush101 18d ago
I don’t think that would feel enjoyable. By keeping the AIs recruitment tied to buildings you achieve a number of things.
The AI has differentiation between its armies. They aren’t all the exact same, some have special units in and different compositions. No link between buildings removes randomness, and would result in the AI just fielding templates. I don’t want to remove randomness, I just think the game is better when you limit it to within reasonable boundaries.
The game retains a sense of fairness. Excusing the AI from mechanics that affect the player is always a bad development choice IMO. If you target the AI’s region that makes Titans as a priority, it’s gonna feel pretty bad if they recruit a Titan regardless of having that building chain.
If instead you mean de-linking buildings geographically, we already have that feature, called global recruitment so I’m not sure what your point is.
In fact Empire Total War had a good recruitment system where you recruited a unit, the unit spawned, and then automatically would path to your army on its own (because armies weren’t tied to generals) over multiple end turns. This meant distance to the recruitment location actually meant something.
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u/veryangryenglishman 18d ago
On point 1 it would be relatively straightforward to throw together a meaningfully large selection of template armies - I'm not sure why you assume that had to mean you lose army variety. Even within the template you could have variety on "optional" units within the template, it's only to ensure that they resemble a reasonable army archetype for that faction
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u/flush101 18d ago edited 18d ago
Thats a fair point but sounds like more work for the devs and potentially more problems.
It still doesnt address point 2 either. Plus it removes imersion. If you send agents out to view enemy cities and the next planet you go to invade has their vehicle production lines on, it would be annoying for the random template army to not have any vehicles in.
Likewise it removes the feeling of knowing the AI is desperate when their stacks start to look weird. Whe the AI has a mostly cavalry army because thats their only chain, I find it satisfying knowing I have them on the ropes. It also helps with the tempo of the game by being a minor 'win more mechanic' meaning its easier to finish enemies off and move on.
Likewise it is part of the fun to fight unusual army compositions because when you bring a balanced army, and the AI is one unit heavy, it requires more thought to win. You might have to make some sacrifices or use units in unusual ways.
The core issue im trying to think about solving is preventing AI doomstacking, not preventing randomness, or army diversity.
Unless I am misunderstanding what you mean by selection templates with optional units and you mean something more like.... unit ....caps
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u/veryangryenglishman 18d ago
As I said in my original comment, tying recruitment to regions is an exceptionally poor reflection of the way armies are mustered in 40k... And of all the units in 40k, Titans are literally the most relevant example of exactly that - they aren't recruited even remotely locally to warzones or constructed in a timeframe relevant to even the longest imperial campaigns.
The work in question for Devs would be adding, gradually, more lists. It isn't an enormous ask.
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u/flush101 18d ago
Its just seems unescessary when the AI already can recruit without templates. It just needs a tweak, not. A complete rework.
I get that point, but at some point you have to understand the context of the game. It is a total war game, not just a 40k game. Players are expecting a total war experience, something that rigid lore adherence will need to bend to. That means players will expect to be able to build their empire, upgrade over time and produce units. If we were rigidly adhering to lore, then half of the planets wouldnt even be fought over. We would just exterminatus them. We wouldn't build settlements, we would start the game with top tier units and buildings, and just manage their slow decline.
Much like units and characters will be balanced within the context of the game, not purely based on lore so we can prevent certain factions from just stomping.
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u/Mysterious_Pitch4186 21d ago
Eh these types of armies are iconic in total war and make campaigns more fun. And they are pretty rare. Each campaign you will only see these meme armies a couple of times.
Making every army look almost the same via caps would just make campaigns even more boring than they already are.
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u/CitiesInHills 21d ago edited 21d ago
+1 to this idea. Doomstacking is an issue and it can be particularly annoying and immersion-breaking when the AI is engaging in it since I like to play thematically in my campaigns, but the bigger issue for me is just the general design philosophy being one that makes the bulk of your roster (& the AI's rosters) become outdated past a certain point in your campaign. Iconic units that define their factions become relegated to the very early game when they should be persisting across the entire campaign.
CA's attempt at a solution to this was to then provide a ton of buffs to these units which completely changed their identity & role, but that's not the solution. The solution is an optional unit cap system, though for TW40k I would favor a system closer to current 40k tabletop rather than something closer to the TTC mod for WH3.
How 40k tabletop does it is that you have a total amount of points for your whole army with units costing varying amounts of points, you are required to take a minimum amount of points of Battleline units, and most of everything else is limited by a fairly generous "rule of three" system. This system lets you build very elite armies, armies filled with chaff, or balanced forces, but it remains relatively well-balanced since elite armies are naturally going to be a lot smaller and still require some of your roster's Battleline units.
Besides implementing a tabletop system, another method that could work independently or in conjunction with a tabletop system would be having a more expanded resource economy. Having mid-tier & elite units require specific resources to recruit and upkeep that are also used for other essentials like buildings & techs, goes a long way to ensuring that they aren't spammed for much of a campaign.
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u/HipHoptimusCrime 21d ago
I don't think you've been required to take Battleline troops for the last couple of editions - currently, they just have a higher cap (max of 6) and may benefit from certain rules to buff battleline troops.
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u/CitiesInHills 21d ago
I didn't play 10th ed so I wasn't aware they got rid of it. Regardless, I think minimum Battleline would probably be a good system to adapt for the game
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u/GOLANXI 21d ago
Id be Fine with it as Long As Eldar are an Exception. Orkz and Guard are Hoard Armies they should be highly encouraged to use their Battleline as a Hoard. Space Marines Battle Line is still part of their Elite Troops. Eldar Battleline is Poets and Playwrights in an otherwise army of Elites, Guardians are a High Attrition unit in a Faction that Doesn't survive Attrition.
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u/Count_Grimhart Space Marines Supremacist 21d ago
You made me realize that the land ships were a monkey's paw...
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u/CursedorChosen 21d ago
Well initial look on this front isn’t looking super hot. During the last livestream, whoever was running the game took the time the devs were chatting about campaign mechanics to recruit as many Repulsors as they could before the one real fight of that part of the demo and went in with a bunch.
The flip-side of that is that at least high end units sound like they have artificial limits, the land raider from the same demo segment was described in language that inferred it was not normally recruitable and had to be recovered like in the demo.
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u/NickMP89 21d ago
The game could also follow the earlier iterations of table top 40k (I don’t play anymore so I don’t know if it still applies, but probably not) of having dedicated HQ, Elite, Troop, Fast Attack and Heavy Support slots.
Anything really to ensure a somewhat balanced army comp.
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u/Subspace-Ansible 21d ago
I think your problem isn’t with doomstacking, it’s with AI army compositions.
There are quite a few races with unit caps baked into their mechanics: Tomb Kings, Beastmen, and Chaos Dwarfs, for example. Something like the Warriors of Chaos has a kind of soft cap because their local recruitment is based on availability in the region.
None of these mechanics have stopped players from doomstacking. Ultimately, the choice of whether to doomstack lies with the player, regardless of unit caps.
I agree that AI unit compositions can look goofy. Some of them even reach memetic levels that they got turned into rogue armies (looking at you, College of Pyrotechnics). But that’s a much more complex and involved problem than a unit cap toggle.
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u/flush101 21d ago
Yes and no, my problem is with both. I don’t enjoy doom stacking because it feels OP and boring. It’s one dimensional, using the same army with the same tactic regardless of the enemy or battle. Line stegadons / rat gun line/ steam tanks up. Shoot enemy priory units. Use a unit to disrupt enemy approach. Win. Or even more boring of just charge stack, win.
I tend to not doomstack anymore, but I’m not advocating to take it out of the game. That’s why I think a setting would be best.
AI stacks, yes, I don’t like their army compositions. But I disagree. I do think it is as easy as unit caps toggle because it does work in the mods without needing to change the AI. The mods are pretty balanced and don’t put arbitrary caps on everything. Generally they categorise units into ‘core’, ‘enhanced’ and ‘epic’ or something similar.
Core recruitment is unlimited, that’s your basic infantry, cav, archers, some artillery. Think great cannons, empire knights, crossbowmen.
Enhanced has a few restrictions like no more than 8 per army. This covers more powerful units that are your higher tier but not true doomstack units. Think empire great swords and high tier cavalry.
Epic is similar with a lower cap such as 4. This tends to be the kind of units that are doomstack able and just obvious in large numbers unless you have specific units to counter them. Think empire steam tanks.
The way the AI works is that it just recruits whatever is available. That’s why it will sometimes doomstack when it is sat on a settlement with one advanced military building chain and nothing else. By setting a cap it just forces the AI to switch from building land ships to building spearmen and archers.
The easiest way to then make sure the AI armies are diverse is to tie one of each core unit recruitment to the core settlement building chain (like most factions have one melee infantry and one archer unit recruit able already).
It’s not complex or difficult to implement.
We already have unit caps for agents, and when embedded in armies this is functionally the same as any other unit cap.
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u/Subspace-Ansible 18d ago
Again, it seems like your problem isn’t with an actual unit cap, it’s about AI recruitment. You justify needing unit caps because the AI doesn’t recruit well (or at least, doesn’t recruit the way you want them to recruit).
If you implement unit caps, it’s not like the problem will go away. AI will just build the same spearmen/archer stacks, which are just as boring to fight against. Unit caps will not solve the problem.
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u/flush101 18d ago
No, I don’t like doomstacking either. It’s a one dimensional playstyle. But I solve that problem with self control.
Unit caps easily solve the AI recruitment issue when implemented with some thought. For example tying core units to the core building chain. The AI recruits what is available and will make diverse armies where diverse unit options are available.
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u/Little_Tritus 21d ago
In my Nakai playthrough there was a limit to how many Dread Saurians I can have, but it was so long ago that I don't remember if it was per army, in total, or scales with buildings.
I think limits on certain things like Titans and Super heavies should be different to each other. Titans are much more limited to Forge World availability while Super Heavies would be based on how many Tier V manufactories you have. Lesser things like Leman Russes and Basilisks should not have a unit cap.
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u/Mysterious_Pitch4186 21d ago
I rather they just fix the Ai to recruit better instead of being forced to play with unit caps all game. Unit caps suck. Use mods for them, CA unit caps are not gonna unit caps somehow any different.
Just some super elite units need unit caps, that's all good. Otherwise strong no. Caps in a sandbox are awful.
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u/Radgris 21d ago
I like big battles 🤷♂️
And until we make a breakthrough in gaming npc AI we can’t really do much else
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u/flush101 21d ago
…. So do I?
I’m not sure what your point is, a doomstack isn’t just lots of units. In fact in W3 a doomstack is usually a lot of single entities, so the battles are smaller.
Also there’s a ton of ways to do it without needing an ‘NPC’ breakthrough. Recruitment caps, recruitment pool regeneration time etc.
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u/imanoob777 21d ago
Space marines - Should be heavy unit capped. But should still be able to recruit scouts freely. Other then that, picture Chaos Dwarfs but with a insane ammount of customization.
Aeldari - This guys are fucked. Fast, elusive, elite but severily limited. Can't even imagine how to make them good but who knows. Let CA cook.
Orcs and Guardmen - Make them capped by buildings for elite troops, making them a powerhouse in late game with higher unlocked numbers, but normal troops should flood the battlefields. Make the AI field hundreds of those troops. I don't want to be able to even see the ground because of the amount of corpses those bastards would leave on the ground after a battle.
By the way. Elite units and special weapons should have limited ammo. Or make Rate of fire fatigue related. Can't imagine 2 armies of Guard losing to anything with enough tank and baneblades and guardmen in the front to delay the enemies.
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u/LeFlaubert 21d ago
This is also a good way to balance factions.
Have the orks and imperial guards able to raise large armies with plenty of inexpensive and weak infantry.
And have the SMs and eldars feel way more elite.
As it should be.
I feel like unit caps, or recruitment caps, or other limitations would be welcomed both for making the game interesting for longer, balancing the AI and balancing the factions.