Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Trope common in [[Real Time Strategy]] games, in which the overall number of units or the count of a particular powerful, but not unique unit are limited by assigning a completely arbitrary [[Cap]] to them. This limit is often far lower than what the resources available or the technical limits of the game engine could allow. Particularly ridiculous when the rule can be broken through scenario design or using a perfectly legitimate game feature. Most often implemented as a way to enforce game balance. It can also be a matter of resources; each unit requires not just rendering power but AI, collision, and other intangibles. This can be partially justified by representing the High Command's reluctance to commit too many resources into one battle when you- in theory- have more than enough resources, though this justification [[Fridge Logic|does not work as well when you are fighting THE climatic battle and yet there are only so many units you can deploy.]]

* In ''[[Brave Story]]'': ''New Traveler'', you can not control more than three people in the party, one of them being your character.

* ''[[The Last Remnant]]'' has an extremely generous limit that increases over time.

* Parodied in ''[[Dragon Quest IV]]''. At the beginning of chapter five when the hero first enters Branca, a four-person team is leaving the town. If you talk to them, one will tell you that their party is full and that you'll need to find another one to join.

** Played ''painfully'' straight in ''[[Dragon Quest VII]]'', though, which sticks to the [[Dragon Quest|series]]' usual four-person party... when there's only five main heroes. Leading to a few [[Contrived Coincidence]]s to keep that ''one extra hero'' distracted until it's time to rotate again...

* The older ''[[Civilization]]'' games had an Arbitrary City Count Limit ([[Powers of Two Minus One|255]] for Civ2, to be specific). The table of cities only had room for 255 entries

** ''Civilization IV'' implements a more typical Cap, forbidding each civilization from having more than three missionaries of a given religion at any given time. However, since missionaries are self-consuming, the limit is not nearly as annoying.

*** This can get annoying, as conquering civilizations will tend to have a lot of puppet cities, whose government cannot be influenced for some reason ([[Non-Indicative Name|isn't that the whole point of a puppet government that they do what you want?]]), so they continue to build nuclear power plants when you're desperately need your few uranium deposits to build nukes/submarines/HumongousMecha. There should at least be an option to restrict any construction that requires strategic resources. As the ruler of that civilization, you should have the final say on resource allocation.

* Averted in ''[[Master of Orion]] II''. Each of your star bases would generate a certain number of "Command Points" for your empire, representing the capacity of your logistics to manage, maintain and command ships. All the military ships in your empire counted against the number of Command Points you had, with larger ships costing more. If you happened to exceed your Command Points through overbuilding or loss of facilities, you had to pay for the difference in cash, every turn, until you either replaced/recaptured facilities or reduced the size of your fleet.

* In ''[[Cross Edge]]'' you get a rather '''large''' cast of playable characters from different games, but only four can be in battle at any time. Granted you can swap out characters (even dead ones) for other members of the in-active party, except for some plot battles that require certain party members to be in at all times, you are still only allowed four in the battle party.

* ''[[Hogs of War]]'' never lets you control more than five pigs at once, with some missions in single-player and most multi-player battles limiting you to less than that. Multi-player deathmatches are interesting, as thanks to respawning you'll always have the maximum number of pigs - no more, no less.