I was just pondering an idea for a Total Conversion, which would allow you to lead a number of troops ... but before I get to ahead of myself I'm wondering how well Oblivion handles a large number of companions? Even if just very basic ones.

How many troops are you talking about? You lead 8 troops in the last Knights of the nine quest and that runs alright.

any more the nmaybe 10 on one side and it just turns into choas....not to mention any more then (i think) 24 NPCs and NPC will start turning off thier AI (aka, not do anything till another NPC dies or moves to another cell).

Hmmm, was hoping for around 20 aside to give it a vaguely armyish illusion ... might just not be possibly, well thanks for the answers

20 would be a bit too much anyway, the framerate would take a pretty big hit and you would be able to defeat pretty much anything with 20 followers.

I think he's saying he plans on having an even 20 on each side.

Even so, the game will deal with this by murdering your FPS with a large butchering knife.

Plus I think it's hard coded that you can't have more than three people following you at one time, so you'd need to muck about with the AI to get them to follow properly. All in all, probably not the best engine to base a war game on.

This game is an illusion any way (as are most 3d games) what about faking the other NPC in combat around the player using billboards of fighting npc? (like trees are when far away or the spectators in the arena) It would take a little creative scripting to switch out the real NPC for the fake ones as the player moves around the battlefield, but I know I could do it based on project I have done in the past.

When close by NPC get killed bodies would replace the billboards behind the player when they cannot see the switch.

That is IF the billboards are possible.
I am weak in the graphics department so making the billboards I would not be able to help with.

Just an idea, I once worked a a stage magician so this kind of thing seems practical to me.

Fair enough, was just a rough concept in my head at this point at anyrate.

It isn't hardcoded, and the default setting is 6, not 3 irrc.

Number of active AI's, NPCs in combat and companions are all modable.

In any case, you don't want lots of companions in an "army" setting, you want to script most the army using quests and just have a small team following the player, preferably of named characters.

Fair enough, I just noticed the bashed patch tweak.

I too had originally thought a army based based on such a system would be impossible, but http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=8685 has been showing promise on the Morrowind engine. It's not really an army but it's an interesting take on the idea where you buy and command units (okay I haven't actually played it yet). A similar mod would be possible but I assume NPCs in Oblivion use a lot more CPU in combat than Morrowind ones.

If I remember correctly, the max is 12 per cell. Any more than that and the game just can't handle it.