History Main / SuspiciouslySmallArmy

** Rome used 80-man units ("centuries") in real life, and 4,800 men is the low-end size of a Roman legion. Of course, most major battles in Roman history involved several; for instance, Julius Caesar commanded twelve legions at the battle of Alesia (which was an under-powered force for the task).

* Despite being one of the most realistic representations of battlefield tactics in the gaming industry, ''TotalWar'' does this, at least in the earlier games. A units standard size in Rome is between 40 and 60 men, and even at the huge unit size of 240 men, armies can't exceed 4,800 men. The actual Roman army, meanwhile, could number tens of thousands in single battles. Naturally this is due to graphical limitations, a 10,000-man army would break all but the most advanced computers. Every faction bringing that many or more to the field would make the game impossible to run.
** Rome used 80-man units ("centuries") in real life, and 4,800 men is the low-end size of a Roman legion. Of course, most major battles in Roman history involved more than one legion.

** In a possible UrbanLegend from RealLife, a German soldier was asked on the phone how many Allied ships he saw from the Normandy beach, and was reported to have said "All of them".

** In RealLife, a German soldier is reported in a possible UrbanLegend to have said, when asked on the phone how many Allied ships he saw from the Normandy beach to have said, "All of them".

** Averted in ''7'' (where outside of the prologue and one battle, both against a single province in a confederation, you never control or fight an “army,” just a band of soldiers on an expedition.) Justified in ''9'' & ''10'' (the player is said to be controlling a vanguard when the plot has the player's units allied with an army.) ''4'', while not having a headcap, is the most {{egregious}} because of its map size, with single units taking entire regions.

** Averted in ''7'' (where outside of the prologue and one battle you never control or fight an “army,” just a band of soldiers on an expedition.) Justified in ''9'' & ''10'' (the player is said to be controlling a vanguard when the plot has the player's units allied with an army.) ''4'', while not having a headcap, is the most {{egregious}} because of its map size, with single units taking entire regions.

** Then again they're gaint robots.

* ''The Big Red One'' rarely had more than a half-dozen men on screen at any one time.

** Averted in 7 (where outside of the prologue and one battle you never control or fight and "army", just a band of soldiers on an expedition) Justified in 9 and 10 (the player is said to be controlling a vanguard when the plot has the player's units allied with an army). 4, while not having a headcap limit, is the most egregious because of its map size, with single units taking entire regions.

* ''{{Star wars battlefront}}2''. Other than yourself, every battle you participate in is fought with just 16 troops a side! Somehow, this is still enough to make the battles feel dangorous and full of hundreds of soldiers. Might have something to do with A1s respaning and you dieing every 10 seconds.

* ''{{Star wars battlefront 2}}''. Other than yourself, every battle you participate in is fought with just 16 troops a side! Somehow, this is still enough to make the battles feel dangorous and full of hundreds of soldiers. Might have something to do with A1s respaning and you dieing every 10 seconds.

* In the original ''{{Starcraft}}'', Terran 9 mission, the entire Protoss fleet apparently consists of a couple of bases with dozens of zealots and dragoons.

Its worth noting that the notion of a 1:1 correspondence between army size and depiction is something of an innovation in itself and represents a considerable advancement in graphical technology. (The single classic wargame counter represents a unit that might have any number of men in it.) In TabletopGames involving miniatures, one miniature is often a "stand-in" for [[ReallyFourMooks a whole bunch of guys]]. The same factor often contributes to computer games, with one guy or a small group of guys standing in for a much larger force, as the trope quote will indicate.

Its worth noting that the notion of a 1:1 correspondence between army size and depiction is something of an innovation in itself and represents a considerable advancement in graphical technology. (The single classic wargame counter represents a unit that might have any number of men in it.) In TabletopGames involving miniatures, one miniature is often a "stand-in" for a bunch of guys. The same factor often contributes to computer games, with one guy or a small group of guys standing in for a much larger force, as the trope quote will indicate.

* Despite being one of the most realistic representations of battlefield tactics in the gaming industry, ''TotalWar'' does this, at least in the earlier games. A units standard size in Rome is between 40 and 60 men, and even at the huge unit size, armies can't exceed 4,800 men. The actual Roman army, meanwhile, could number tens of thousands in single battles. Naturally this is due to graphical limitations, a 10,000-man army would break all but the most advanced computers. Every faction bringing that many or more to the field would make the game impossible to run.

--> '''Hamalcar:''' "Come on, you painted gold leaf on the city walls, you can afford to supply a few hundred hungry soldiers!"
--> '''Mago:''' "Thats representative of an army of thousands you idiot!"
-->''[[TotalWar Europa Barbarorum]] [[LetsPlay Liveblog]]''

*AgeOfWonders has a maximum of nine units per hex, and each unit on the battle screen is merely 1 person. This leads to battles over large cities being fought between armies of around 20-30 people.

* In DynasyWarriors, SamuraiWarriors, and WarriorsOrochi, the player characters do have NPC soldiers running around with them, but they're effectively a OneManArmy against waves and waves of {{Mooks}} and {{Elite Mook}}s.

[[AC: Examples]]

Armies in video games and animation in general don't just get the [[UnitsNotToScale size of their individual soldiers]] wrong in video games. Due to gameplay and graphical limitations, particularly graphical limitations, armies tend to be a lot smaller than they would have been in real life. An army that would have numbered in the tens of thousands will number a few hundred or at most a thousand men, and that's for a very big battle.

Its also worth noting that it is not just animated media that fall victim to this trope. You think its expensive making a graphical engine that can run a battle of 10,000 people? Try paying 10,000 actors. As a result, film and TV can fall victim to this as well. Thanks to CGI technology, this trope is considerably less frequent.

*''{{Transformers}}'' does this in a big way. Even when fighting for the fate of the universe, or the very fabric of space and time, it's rare to see more than a few dozen fighters involved in any battle.

** In RealLife a German soldier is reported in a possible UrbanLegend to have said when asked on the phone how many Allied ships he saw from the Normandy beach to have said, "All of them".

*Despite being one of the most realistic representations of battlefield tactics in the gaming industry, TotalWar does this, at least in the earlier games. A units standard size in Rome is between 40 and 60 men, and even at the huge unit size, armies can't exceed 4800 men. The actual Roman army, meanwhile, could number tens of thousands in single battles. Naturally this is due to graphical limitations, a 10,000 man army would break all but the most advanced computers. Every faction bringing that many or more to the field would make the game impossible to run.
* The {{advance wars}} series is very guilty of this. No more than 50 units under your control ever. note however that every unit in the ''Advance Wars'' games except for Megatanks/Wartanks is a literal unit composed of no fewer than ten of whatever you're specifically talking about.
* {{Fire Emblem}} takes this UpToEleven. The {{arbitrary headcount limit}} is, on a huge map, around 20 people.
*AgeOfWonders has a maximum of 9 units per hex, and each unit on the battle screen is merely 1 person. This leads to battles over large cities being fought between armies of around 20-30 people.
*In the original {{Starcraft}}, terran 9 mission, the entire protoss fleet apparently consists of a couple of bases with tens of zealots and dragoons.

*Despite being one of the most realistic representations of battlefield tactics in the gaming industry, TotalWar does this. A units standard size in Rome is between 40 and 60 men, and even at the huge unit size, armies can't exceed 1200 men. The actual Roman army, meanwhile, could number tens of thousands in single battles. Naturally this is due to graphical limitations, a 10,000 man army would break all but the most advanced computers. Every faction bringing that many or more to the field would make the game impossible to run.

** In RealLife a German soldier is reported in a possible UrbanLegend to have said when asked on the phone how many Allied ships he saw from the Normandy beach to have said, "All of them".

[[AC: LiveActionTelevision]]
* In the ''ILoveLucy'' episode "Lucy and Superman" the fact that Superman was coming to Little Ricky's birthday party meant that every kid in Ricky's class, and kids from other schools even, were going to be there - including the other kid whose birthday party was going on that day! Then we actually ''see'' the party, and there're only about 10 kids there.

* ZerothLaw: {{Lampshaded}} in ThePrologue to {{Shakespeare}}'s ''HenryV''

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