by Seravy » Sun Nov 27, 2016 1:36 pm
The original game used a pretty simple solution, the units in lairs didn't exist at all. They were created on-demand when entering the battle and ceased to exist immediately when it was over, they were stored as mere numbers, such as "4 copies of unit type 177 and 2 copies of unit type 192". Since these units didn't exist on the overland map, the "neutral player" didn't need to control them in the first place.
I assume there won't be a global unit cap in your game unlike the original, and AI will be better written so large amount of units won't cause slowdowns, in which case you don't need to do that.
On the other hand, knowing too much detail without having to sacrifice a unit to enter and see the enemy does take out a little from the game, I think having a somewhat less detailed scouting report was fun...though the original was not detailed enough. In my mod I have a report that says "many" for 5+ primary monsters, "a few" for 3-4 and "a" for 1-2, and ofc no information about secondary monsters, however earth lore and nature awareness reveals both monster types, but no numbers are given for either.