Page 4 of 6 FirstFirst 123456 LastLast
Results 91 to 120 of 172

Thread: Maps and Provinces

  1. #91
    Camel Lord Senior Member Capture The Flag Champion Martok's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Location
    In my own little world....but it's okay, they know me there.
    Posts
    8,257

    Default Re: Maps and Provinces

    Quote Originally Posted by caravel
    I agree with the splitting of Poland If someone can find a map showing this and also an idea as to how the existing province could be divided then I'll be interested. This is all I've found so far but it would involve a lot of moving of existing borders to get it right.

    http://www.euratlas.com/history_euro..._map_1200.html
    To be honest, I'm not sure you'll find a better map than that. I found two maps in Wikipedia, but they're not terribly useful since they're both too recent.

    You may end up having to do what VikingHorde did with XL and just divide the existing province as you best see fit. I'll keep looking to see if I can find a map more suited to our needs, but I probably wouldn't hold my breath.
    "MTW is not a game, it's a way of life." -- drone

  2. #92

    Default Re: Maps and Provinces

    Moving existing borders can be just one big headache to you. I've experienced it recently because I'm working in a map for a "Teutonic" campaign, and I decided to use original borders as far as possible. The 1200 euratlas map that you've posted come in useful to split Poland in two regions, 1)Great Poland comprising Great Poland and Mazovia, and 2)Lesser Poland the southern part. As Martok says "You may end up having to do what VikingHorde did with XL", or having to do what WesW did with MedMod: 1)Poland comprising Great and Lesser Poland, 2)Mazovia. If you have free regions I suggest Samogitia (northwest Lithuania), a good addition if you include the Lithuanians as a new faction.

  3. #93
    Senior Member Senior Member naut's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Posts
    9,103

    Default Re: Maps and Provinces

    Quote Originally Posted by Belisario
    Moving existing borders can be just one big headache to you.
    Tell me abut it.

    Regarding Poland, if divided it should be as Great Poland or Wielkopolska in Polish and Little Poland or Malopolska in Polish. The section that becomes Galacia or Galacja in Polish on the Euratlas map would be a Principality of the Kievian Rus.
    Last edited by naut; 02-27-2008 at 00:12.
    #Hillary4prism

    BD:TW

    Some piously affirm: "The truth is such and such. I know! I see!"
    And hold that everything depends upon having the “right” religion.
    But when one really knows, one has no need of religion. - Mahavyuha Sutra

    Freedom necessarily involves risk. - Alan Watts

  4. #94

    Default Re: Maps and Provinces

    Moving borders isn't a problem. I've grown used to that, and if the region will work better rearranged then I'm all for it. I would like to add Mazovia as well as splitting Poland, though this may not be possible given the restraints.

  5. #95

    Default Re: Maps and Provinces

    I was just putting together a complex post on splitting the sea into three regions and then clicked the close button on the browser window...

    Anyway I am thinking of splitting the map at the straits of Gibraltar and again at the southern point of Morea. This will provide three distinct regions, will curb trade and over expansion and will stop some of the silliness that comes of having cheaper ships such as the Byzantine Emperor in Wales etc. I'm also proposing to remove all of the three deep sea zones as they will be pretty much redundant once the sea zones are split.

    Thoughts?
    Last edited by caravel; 12-17-2008 at 20:54.

  6. #96
    Cthonic God of Deception Member ULC's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    In the swirling maddening chaos of the cosmos unseen to man...
    Posts
    4,138

    Default Re: Maps and Provinces

    So the plan is to go from 22 sea regions to 3-5? Sounds great, the AI may finally be able to actually have trade income

    But Seriously, it sounds terrific, and to me addresses one of the major exploits for player. Now the computer too can have massive trade income
    Last edited by ULC; 12-17-2008 at 21:23.

  7. #97

    Smile Re: Maps and Provinces

    Long distance invasions are one of the most unrealistic features of MTW, so dividing sea regions to prevent this is a good thing in my book. There were plenty of shortish range invasions in period, but I can't think of a single long one - even the third crusade was a two stage thing, breaking journey in Sicily

  8. #98
    Camel Lord Senior Member Capture The Flag Champion Martok's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Location
    In my own little world....but it's okay, they know me there.
    Posts
    8,257

    Default Re: Maps and Provinces

    Quote Originally Posted by Cynewulf View Post
    I was just putting together a complex post on splitting the sea into three regions and then clicked the close button on the browser window...

    Anyway I am thinking of splitting the map at the straits of Gibraltar and again at the southern point of Morea. This will provide three distinct regions, will curb trade and over expansion and will stop some of the silliness that comes of having cheaper ships such as the Byzantine Emperor in Wales etc. I'm also proposing to remove all of the three deep sea zones as they will be pretty much redundant once the sea zones are split.

    Thoughts?
    I wholeheartedly approve. I've been meaning to suggest dropping the deep-sea regions for a while anyway.

    The other part sounds excellent as well. As others have pointed out, it should improve the realism aspect to a degree (no more absurdly long sea invasion routes) in addition to (somewhat) equalizing things for the AI, trade-wise.
    Last edited by Martok; 12-18-2008 at 09:51.
    "MTW is not a game, it's a way of life." -- drone

  9. #99

    Default Re: Maps and Provinces

    The Morea area will have no clear division to show where the split is. If needed I can adjust some of the borders there to produce a "gap" to show that there is no link between the neighbouring sea regions in this area.
    Last edited by caravel; 12-18-2008 at 10:35.

  10. #100

    Default Re: Maps and Provinces

    Hi,
    this is a double edged knife in my opinion. You solve certain problems true and yet you reduce the ingrain potential of the game by a large margin.

    The problem to my knowledge comes from the way the AI calculates what is advantageous trade network for him, coming invariably to the conclusion that the one running say from the home ports of Genoa, Florence if the Italians all the way to the baltic. This is because i guess this is the longest unninterrupted line of adjacent coastal sea reagions and therefore in Ais mind the most profitable.

    Now the cost of ship maintenance increases two fold for every sea region of distance from a sea region with a port. So if you have a dromon of 15 florins per year meintenance, it costs 30 when one sea region away from say the home port of Genoa, 45 two regions, 60 three regions etc. Now if you follow this all the way say to the baltic sea, and multiply the costs of ships you ll find that its 11 or so odd regions away from the Genoa sea region that is 11x15 plus 10x15 plus... plus 15.

    That is 165 plus 150 plus 135 plus 120 plus 105 plus 90 plus 75 plus 60 plus 45 plus 30 plus 15 or a positive slope line with costs on y and coastal region distance from home port on x. The cummulative cost is the area under the curve.

    This is obviously a respectable sum and whats more is at the minimum; AI or player you wont have one ship per region for long if that network is to prove permanent and so profitable.

    The various Doges and Byzantine Emperors then invade Wales or Sweden or Saxony or Prussia or other such silliness to cut down these costs. If say the imaginary Italian manages to Invade Prussia and have a port in the baltic the above line of costs looks like this;

    15 plus 30 plus 45 plus 60 plus 75 plus 90 plus 75 plus 60 plus 45 plus 30 plus 15

    Now the curve consists of two lines; one increasing like previously and one decreasing making it look like a pyramid.

    The cummulative costs are far less in this second case (basically two fourths, 50 percent down).

    So all in all the Ai strategy of far off invasions isnt all that bad in that respect, the problem is that the AI comes invariably at this solution and ignores all the other strategic opportunities, say to have a much shorter network from the adriatic to Nile_coast and eastern Med as the Sicilians that can make millions if assisted by the right politics (no war with the Egyptians).

    The other problem is that as noted the AI needs to maintain substantial garrisons in his colonies neglecting meny times his home provinces and also as noted that he often choses to invade with his monarch, a measure that cause much grief through civil wars and drop of loyalty.

    The reason i say however that some of this should be allowed to continue is that this is an integral part of the game and whats more if it was a bit more carefully better implemented it was also an integral part of medieval reality. The Venetians and Genoese were notorius for having colonies and whole posts in Constantinople and the Crimea where they took advantage of the trading goods of the silk road arriving there.

    The deep sea regions are similarly a part of the game and a nice abstraction over a basic reality of the time too. The real problem in my opinion is that the AI does not a very good job at keeping all these ends together - yet it does a good enough job for the game to play at a decent level if given the conditions. Yet castrating so to speak the game of what the AI cannot do well will leave very few things unspoiled as far as i am concerned. Better to assist and cajoled him with modding at doing them better rather than taking them out by... violent means.

    However if you must have set apart sea regions my suggestion is this;

    Chop them thus; take out Atlantic and North Atlantic. Make impassable to coastal vessels (deep sea regions) the Gibraltar straits to Gulf of Cadiz passing and the Bay of Biscay. Add an additional coastal region in western france that would turn the Bay of Biscay in a true deep sea region (as it is in reality). This sea reagion should not contact the Spanish coast.

    Now for all other factions other than the Muslims (something quite historically plausible) the seas for most of the game are cut in three distinct regions; the Mediterannean sea, the Straits of Gibraltar to Bay of Biscay, and the Bay of Biscay to the Baltic.

    This gives opportunities for trade and competition for trade colonies to exist and yet cuts down a large percent of the possibility on the unnacceptable far off invasions.

    !it burnsus!
    Last edited by gollum; 12-18-2008 at 13:41.
    The Caravel Mod: a (very much) improvedvanilla MTW/VI v2.1 early campaign

    Please make sure you have the latest version (v3.3)
    Since v3.3 the Caravel Mod includes customised campaigns for huge and default unit settings

    Download v3.3
    Info & Discussion Thread

  11. #101

    Default Re: Maps and Provinces

    Hi,
    another thing to mention in this vain is that the basic maintenance ship cost that is anything between 15 to 30 florins per year is set definitely with the condition of the vanilla map in mind. If you cut down the sea regions in strings of 3 to 4 in line i suggest you increase it slightly (but not too much because the AI will turn it into a burden to itself) and perhaps return the building times of ships to three turns otherwise my guess is that serious ship spamming will happen.

    !it burnsus!
    The Caravel Mod: a (very much) improvedvanilla MTW/VI v2.1 early campaign

    Please make sure you have the latest version (v3.3)
    Since v3.3 the Caravel Mod includes customised campaigns for huge and default unit settings

    Download v3.3
    Info & Discussion Thread

  12. #102

    Default Re: Maps and Provinces

    I think you may be giving the AI a little too much credit. The sea crossings work very simplistically in fact. The AI sends ships out at random, it does not build trade routes and does not place ships in adjacent seas to protect it's coasts correctly. The reason that the Byzantines invade provinces along the "shipping lanes" is very simple: It's by sheer luck that an AI faction crosses the sea and nothing more. It's a matter of ships happening to be in the right places at the right time.

    The AI factions are much more aggressive towards the rebel faction so as a whole they will invade rebels without hesitation when the opportunity presents itself. It's important to remember that when a link is created, such as a link from Epirus to Valencia, the AI sees this link as a direct invasion path to an easily acquired rebel province - which it is. It does not think about reducing shipping support costs.

    To the AI Scotland linked to Jerusalem by a continuous line of ships is the same as Scotland and Northumbria, there is no difference. The invasion takes one turn and the AI will do it if it is viable.

    In the campaign I was playing, the Byzantine did (by chance, because they had spammed so many ships it took me years to hunt them all down) have decent trade/transportation links for about 3 turns... this got them to Valencia and Wales (where the Byzantine Emperor became cut off causing the rest of his lands in the east to rebel and fall to the Turks (me) and the Sicilians). Then the AI began moving fleets around - and their ships, quite predictably, formed into clumps dotted around in pointless locations,cutting off the aforementioned territories. Two Byzantine "super fleets" appeared off the west coast of Spain. These were two almost full stacks in one sea region. The rest of their shipping was similarly dotted around.

    Personally I disagree that the trade, fleets and shipping is an integral part of the game. MTW is basically an "STW mod" and STW did not have fleets of ships. The shipping in MTW often seems like it was added as an afterthought. It is highly unpredictable and does not work how it should. The player can exploit sea trade, raking in hundreds of thousands of florins and protect his coasts effectively, where the AI is totally incapable of doing either effectively. I've seen the Sicilians send their starting fleet of a few ships up to the Baltic! This alone proves that the AI shipping is totally uncoordinated.

    IMHO the shipping would have worked better had the ships themselves also produced the links to the neighbouring sea regions. So if you build a ship and then try to move it out to an adjacent sea that does not border one of your provinces or a sea zone controlled by your fleets it cannot be moved. This would have forced the creation of chains of fleets that could only be broken by ships getting sunk.

  13. #103

    Default Re: Maps and Provinces

    Hi,
    I agree in almost all that concerns the invasion of far off provinces that you say and yet, it is for in my view certainly not randomly decided and i will give evidence of this claim. The Italians, Sicilians and English in the game (vanilla or not) are set to either CATHOLIC_CRUSADER_TRADER, CATHOLIC_TRADER or CATHOLIC_NAVAL_EXPANSIONIST. Now these factions with a bit of starting buck (unlike the Danes that start with little of that), always consciously as soon as they have a bit of money to take it to the seas invariably do this scenario of baltic to medditerannean trade route. The Italians sooner than anybody, but the English join the fray when they have a good part of France and the Sicilians when the takeover some extra province that produces good money.

    Factions that do not have the sea/trader personna do not bother often with this strategy unless stinking rich and large. Say for example the French, the HRE, but also the poles and hungarians.

    The Byzantines, Egyptians,Turks and the Almohads do it too when they become very rich as everyone else. In fact the Byzantines try to get to Lithuania in early vanilla securing in this way a land route to a port in the baltic that will serve as maintenance cost reducer.

    This is something that is actually observable as far as i am concerned and you can decide as to weather it happens by checking it out in campaigns. In mods that the sea regions are divided you see the AI choosing the western mediterranean as its optimal trade network. It frequently chooses last the eastern med and the black sea, perhaps because the number of sea regions/ports on the way is smaller.

    In the campaigns i played in the Poecket Mod 1.8 beta, the Italians invariably did the baltic to med trade network and colonised as i reported in the Byzantine campaign Portugal, Scotland, Wales and Mercia. They were always rich and venice at times was making more than constantinople under my coomand.

    Even with MTW being a STW mod as you say it has yet at least in the campaign (the battlefield too, STW ai does not tend to flank with cavalry for example) very many enhancements, that came to be regarded as integral, such as the titles, the crusade mechanics, the pope that brings a sense of politics at to the catholics, different cultures, different terrains, separate managing of provinces. It does not have the seasons and weather impact that goes with it, the harvest, the throne room and the agent/event videos.

    The problem with vanilla is that the provinces are too rich agriculturally and this income suffices for winning the game, however they are not rich enough in order to do all that building up to get the high end units - it is no secret that the player outconstructs the AI factions everytime. My approach would be to make cheaper and faster the military production buildings as you have done so that the AI has actually money to spend in troops but also reduce the agricultural income to a point that it does not permit alone armies to conquer the world. Then trade becomes a necessity and periods without it or with it being disturbed by enemies on the other side of the map (especially if you play without disbanding units like me since the AI cannot do this) require caution.

    Of course trade profit should also be limited, but this you have done already; the highest profit commodity has a value of 20 in the pocket mod, when in vanilla 50. Also you put a 50 percent imoprt profit that means that the receiver makes half as much as the merchant without having to support ships.

    This actually opens another fine tuning aspect, that is overall money available on the map (essentially agricultural income total and distribution). This is a point of interest, as you can optimize the province incomes for specific unit sizes as the maintenance costs are linked with unit sizes (unlike RTW/M2TW). By optimal i mean in the following two aspects;

    -balance between dynamic play and border defense for Ai factions - this currently works well at least when factions occupy initial territories.

    - balance in regards to overall provincial money available. This refers to that point when one faction becomes the size of two or three of its neighbours, that is bound to happen especially when the map comes at a dead end, such as in the Levant and Mahreb. Essentially, imagine that you are the Byzantines and take over the Turks and Egyptians - even if it takes you up to 1230 by that time you ll be very rich. The point of balancing overalls is that even when of that size you do not have endless armies for expansion, that is your income does not grow linearly with the land you occupy. If so, you end up with mods like XL, that are fun only for the *challenge* of playing Bohemia, Armenia and Volga Bulalgaria, because everyone knows that once you are decently big the game is over you can outproduce the enemies into submission. If however overall balance is set right, that is profits do not shoot to the stars with size, then the challenge continues on a larger scale against another large nation somewhere instead of being diminished with empire size increase. Thats were trade can come in not as an exploit but as an esential tool for winning the game that requires the right politics too (grant favors, seek for peace etc).

    All this sounds pretty theoretical and yet it is achievable - i talk from experience.

    For your concept of the sea regions, the best way to find out how it works is to actually go with it. You never know how it will work until implemented and thats what modding is all about. Everybody has a way of perceiving how the game should be, but this is caravels pocket mod with contributions and not the contributors pocket mod with caravel implementing their thoughts.

    !it burnsus!
    Last edited by gollum; 12-18-2008 at 19:36.
    The Caravel Mod: a (very much) improvedvanilla MTW/VI v2.1 early campaign

    Please make sure you have the latest version (v3.3)
    Since v3.3 the Caravel Mod includes customised campaigns for huge and default unit settings

    Download v3.3
    Info & Discussion Thread

  14. #104

    Default Re: Maps and Provinces

    It's a complex issue and I would like to see some detailed opinions on this.


  15. #105
    Camel Lord Senior Member Capture The Flag Champion Martok's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Location
    In my own little world....but it's okay, they know me there.
    Posts
    8,257

    Default Re: Maps and Provinces

    Well if we were to lower agricultural income to the point that trade is virtually necessary for higher-end construction and/or unit recruitment, then wouldn't we want to reduce the number of sea regions so as to better enable the AI to establish a decent trade income? What are the drawbacks? (Not a rhetorical question, btw; I'm really asking.)
    "MTW is not a game, it's a way of life." -- drone

  16. #106

    Smile Re: Maps and Provinces

    Hi Cynewulf (aka Caravel)

    You asked for opinions. I agree with Martok - drawbacks seem minimal. And also with Gollum - best way is to try it.

    There are 2 aspects to this. First, realism. What matters for most states at this period is near-range trade - wool to Flanders and wine from Gascony. They should be encouraged to concentrate on this. (If you really wanted, you could equip the Venices and Genoas with unique ability to carry out long range trade by making the gaps between big sea regions into deep sea areas rather than voids, and giving only these powers access to deep sea ships.)

    Second gameplay. Trade is moddable to achieve pretty much any results you want. Number, distribution and value of commodities can all be changed, as can import value - so if you wanted you could make trade in a restricted area still very valuable. Invasions are hardly moddable at all (all you can do is close the province off from the sea, which closes off trade as well). So my conclusion from that is that you can fix the long range invasion problem - by taking the only solution that offers this -and still achieve just about any situation you want re attractiveness of trade.

    Final point - a lot of the trade that mattered didn't go by sea. Milan, for example, stood on the axis of trade from Germany to Italy. If we make trade all about chains of ships from Wessex to Crimea (which never happened), this is moving further from any kind of model of what the medieval world was really like. The change you're contemplating therefore seems to fit with the pocket mod concept as I understand it

  17. #107
    Senior Member Senior Member naut's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Posts
    9,103

    Default Re: Maps and Provinces

    One little snag I can see. No province can have more than 15 linked neighbour provinces, have more and the game CTDs. I'm fairly certain this relates to both land and sea provinces.
    #Hillary4prism

    BD:TW

    Some piously affirm: "The truth is such and such. I know! I see!"
    And hold that everything depends upon having the “right” religion.
    But when one really knows, one has no need of religion. - Mahavyuha Sutra

    Freedom necessarily involves risk. - Alan Watts

  18. #108

    Default Re: Maps and Provinces

    Well I won't be adding any more neighbours, more so removing neighbours so I'm not sure if that will be an issue?


  19. #109

    Default Re: Maps and Provinces

    Hi,

    just out of curiousity i did a little experiment by closing off the gulf of cadiz to straits of gibraltar and monitored the Italians that get to do the naval thing first in 4 campaigns with autorun and god mode 1187 to 1240 or there abouts.

    As long as they were able to maintain their initial provinces they actually didnt spam ships and didnt blob them together in superstacks. Once they lost their moneymaking trade provinces though they did exactly that.

    In the cases that they didnt lose starting provinces they managed actually the network reasonably tidy and extended up till 1240 or so when i gave up - not bad at all. In the cases that they lost interest in trade due to being catastrophically reduced, they indeed created superstacks out of their financial dead waight ships and sailed off in a *i ll spoil your network too* mission.

    Whats also interesting is that they fared better if they didnt managed to expand in a rebel province somewhere as in Serbia or Valencia - they ve built a lot of troops (that would have been kept in the colony otherwise) and then expanded at the cost of HRE.

    !it burnsus!
    Last edited by gollum; 12-20-2008 at 05:38.
    The Caravel Mod: a (very much) improvedvanilla MTW/VI v2.1 early campaign

    Please make sure you have the latest version (v3.3)
    Since v3.3 the Caravel Mod includes customised campaigns for huge and default unit settings

    Download v3.3
    Info & Discussion Thread

  20. #110

    Default Re: Maps and Provinces

    In my Sicilian campaign at present I still have the same situation with the Byzantine now in Wales and Scotland as they were in the Siclian campaign.

    Anyway I am going to add the sea zone restrictions and release another testing version.

  21. #111

    Default Re: Maps and Provinces

    Hi,

    a suggestion:

    The only area of the map that slightly suffers is the area in and around the alps. If you are thinking to restrict the sea zones, you could for example say get rid of Corsica, Sardinia, Crete and Cyprus leaving only Sicily as the largest in the med and most significant island during the period and add extra provinces there (i assume that you have used all )

    Two more would be great - one in between Provence - Genoa -Burgundy - Milan - Tyrolia (Savoy), one in between Austria - Venice - Hungary - Croatia (Carinthia). Assuming you disable the Islands, you could add more in France (split Provence in Dauphin and Provence - split Toulouse to get Toulouse and Auvergne - split Aqutaine to get Gascony and Aquitaine) or more in Poland (split Poland in Greater Polar and Mazovia) or split Hungary.

    As i mentioned elsewhere the map is worthy of a lot of praise - the only area that perhaps got slightly more attention than needed is maybe Greece - Moreas and Athens could merge in a single Province (Achaia? Moreas?).

    !it burns us!
    The Caravel Mod: a (very much) improvedvanilla MTW/VI v2.1 early campaign

    Please make sure you have the latest version (v3.3)
    Since v3.3 the Caravel Mod includes customised campaigns for huge and default unit settings

    Download v3.3
    Info & Discussion Thread

  22. #112

    Default Re: Maps and Provinces

    Quote Originally Posted by gollum View Post
    Hi,

    a suggestion:

    The only area of the map that slightly suffers is the area in and around the alps. If you are thinking to restrict the sea zones, you could for example say get rid of Corsica, Sardinia, Crete and Cyprus leaving only Sicily as the largest in the med and most significant island during the period and add extra provinces there (i assume that you have used all )
    I'd like to hear a concise factual argument as to why the area around the Alps is a problem? You're not the first person to mention this. I myself cannot see a problem with that region.

    I do have a few provinces going spare so we will be looking into their best uses. I would be good to have some clear historical data this time around however, as in the past there was a lot of: "just do it how Medmod has" or "split Poland in the same way XL does".

    As to the islands, they are a problem due to poor connectivity. In the next version I plan to do something about Britain, Ireland, Sardinia, Corsica, Crete and Cyprus. This would most likely involve the creation of land bridges to the mainland. Britain/Ireland is straightforward, it's the others that are more perplexing. Cyprus for example could be liked to a number of provinces, the same goes for Corsica. Crete would best be linked to Morea.

    Quote Originally Posted by gollum View Post
    Two more would be great - one in between Provence - Genoa -Burgundy - Milan - Tyrolia (Savoy), one in between Austria - Venice - Hungary - Croatia (Carinthia). Assuming you disable the Islands, you could add more in France (split Provence in Dauphin and Provence - split Toulouse to get Toulouse and Auvergne - split Aqutaine to get Gascony and Aquitaine) or more in Poland (split Poland in Greater Polar and Mazovia) or split Hungary.
    The way I see it, apart from around Poland, Volhynia, Kiev, Lithuania and perhaps Khazar, Europe has more than enough provinces. This is why I have concentrated on the east and Spain, where there were not enough provinces per faction or poorly laid out provinces.

    Quote Originally Posted by gollum View Post
    As i mentioned elsewhere the map is worthy of a lot of praise - the only area that perhaps got slightly more attention than needed is maybe Greece - Moreas and Athens could merge in a single Province (Achaia? Moreas?).

    !it burns us!
    I added both because there were important separate Duchies in there after the sack of Constantinople and creation of the "Latin Empire". It's also clear that "Greece" was not enough in itself. I had left Thessaly as a large province to act as a buffer to Constantinople. I am also thinking of adding a province to the Dalmatian coast.

  23. #113
    Cthonic God of Deception Member ULC's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    In the swirling maddening chaos of the cosmos unseen to man...
    Posts
    4,138

    Default Re: Maps and Provinces

    Sorry to budge in like this, but the only issue I ever found with Central/Northern/Western Europe was the speed at which the France's borders met Poland's, or the quickness in which Hungary or Denmark would gobble it all up, or the way Aragon would suddenly replace France. It's a general problem associated (IMHO) with how well armies can be funded, how many troops can be fielded, and the general ability of the conquering faction to actually hold onto that province. Again, IMHO, the Pocket Mod addresses this.

    However, Eastern Europe is lacking a bit, and the speed with which it is gobbled up is even faster then Central Europe, even with fewer competitors. I don't have any thing to back up redrawing borders, but I will say Eastern Europe and the Steppes are badly underrepresented.

    As for Land Bridges - Cyprus to Tripoli, Corsica to Florence (or Genoa, that is a hard one). This will help those the French early on in the High period, and Corsica to Florence or Genoa would help the Italians immensely - no more King stuck permanently on an island. Also, is Sicily connected to Naples (Also, is this divided yet into Spoletto and Apulia? May have names confused)

    If there is one thing I want to see, it's more factions on the Steppe. I like my Lithuanians and Volga-Bulgars (As a side note, IIRC the Volga-Bulgars were a client state of the Golden Horde during the Late period and only vanished until the late 14th - I'll have to check )

  24. #114

    Default Re: Maps and Provinces

    Quote Originally Posted by YLC View Post
    Sorry to budge in like this, but the only issue I ever found with Central/Northern/Western Europe was the speed at which the France's borders met Poland's, or the quickness in which Hungary or Denmark would gobble it all up, or the way Aragon would suddenly replace France. It's a general problem associated (IMHO) with how well armies can be funded, how many troops can be fielded, and the general ability of the conquering faction to actually hold onto that province. Again, IMHO, the Pocket Mod addresses this.
    Yes the only provinces in the west I've been looking at so far are Aquitaine and Toulouse. I don't mind splitting those as they're huge and unrealistic (They are part of the same problem that was afflicting Spain).

    Quote Originally Posted by YLC View Post
    However, Eastern Europe is lacking a bit, and the speed with which it is gobbled up is even faster then Central Europe, even with fewer competitors. I don't have any thing to back up redrawing borders, but I will say Eastern Europe and the Steppes are badly underrepresented.
    The main problem areas is Poland, Lithuania, Kiev and Volyhnia etc. The extreme east of the map (the steppes, russia etc) has quite a few provinces and they're difficult to hold on to. In general you see a lot of rebels out there and not much else. It's a large area with good connectivity and plenty of provinces.

    Quote Originally Posted by YLC View Post
    As for Land Bridges - Cyprus to Tripoli, Corsica to Florence (or Genoa, that is a hard one). This will help those the French early on in the High period, and Corsica to Florence or Genoa would help the Italians immensely - no more King stuck permanently on an island. Also, is Sicily connected to Naples (Also, is this divided yet into Spoletto and Apulia? May have names confused)
    Yes those were the ones I had in mind. I'm still not sure about dividing Naples however. It gives us another province tagged onto the end of the peninsula with no real tactical value.

    Quote Originally Posted by YLC View Post
    If there is one thing I want to see, it's more factions on the Steppe. I like my Lithuanians and Volga-Bulgars (As a side note, IIRC the Volga-Bulgars were a client state of the Golden Horde during the Late period and only vanished until the late 14th - I'll have to check )
    Well if someone wants to add these factions and do the work involved I can include them in a future release. I don't really have the time nor the historical knowledge to add extra factions.
    Last edited by caravel; 12-22-2008 at 17:53.

  25. #115
    Cthonic God of Deception Member ULC's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    In the swirling maddening chaos of the cosmos unseen to man...
    Posts
    4,138

    Default Re: Maps and Provinces

    I can see your point about the Steppes, But Khazar always felt...too much land for too little effort

    If I have your permission, I wouldn't mind doing new factions for the pocket mod - with your approval first. To me, it's the funnest part of modding. Shall I post my suggestions in the correct thread then ?

  26. #116
    Camel Lord Senior Member Capture The Flag Champion Martok's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Location
    In my own little world....but it's okay, they know me there.
    Posts
    8,257

    Default Re: Maps and Provinces

    Quote Originally Posted by Cynewulf View Post
    The way I see it, apart from around Poland, Volhynia, Kiev, Lithuania and perhaps Khazar, Europe has more than enough provinces. This is why I have concentrated on the east and Spain, where there were not enough provinces per faction or poorly laid out provinces.
    Agreed. Aside from possibly splitting Aquitaine and Tolouse, I think most of Europe already has plenty of provinces. If we add more, it should probably be in the Poland/Lithuania region.


    Quote Originally Posted by YLC View Post
    Also, is Sicily connected to Naples (Also, is this divided yet into Spoletto and Apulia? May have names confused)
    By the time the game starts, the Normans had almost completely conquered the region (save for the city itself, which remained under Byzantine control til 1137). Given that, Cynewulf and I decided to keep Naples as a single province.
    "MTW is not a game, it's a way of life." -- drone

  27. #117
    Cthonic God of Deception Member ULC's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    In the swirling maddening chaos of the cosmos unseen to man...
    Posts
    4,138

    Default Re: Maps and Provinces

    Speaking of maps, it's too bad we couldn't used the expanded one I have that reaches to about the same size as the RTW one - One could really include several new Factions and do them justice, and I would do this myself, but I fear I am horrible at doing maps by hand and I lost all my tools

  28. #118

    Default Re: Maps and Provinces

    Hi,
    The main concise factual arguments are the ones you and YLC offer; that is that areas are badly misrepresented and highly abstracted and so are too well connected - the best example is jumping from Lorraine to Poland in two steps as YLC mentions.

    I agree that the steppes are reasonably represented although Khazar could do with one more province.

    What you mention about spliting Naples can be also applied to Morea its the same sort of argument and yet Appulia was equally significant and distinct to Naples when Aragon and the Siculo Normans conquered south Italy as Moreas during the death throes of the Byzantine.

    Toulouse and Aquitaine are highly abstracted yes, but so is Provence (the northern part of it was Dauphin of the famed Dauphin Charles de Valois and the eastern Savoy an Italian-French border province that included the western Alpine crossing) - the choice of course is yours relative to what you want to achieve in the map.

    The reason i mention the Alpine areas is that they are supposed to work as a Border something like the Pyrenees in which correctly you attributed tones of provinces (Catalonia, Aragon, Saragossa and Navarre). The Alps where an imoprtant barrier and its nice to have a gameplay representation of this in the game.

    France is mentioned as the largest and richest medieval nation and this state of affairs lasted all the way up to the industrial revolution that the wheels of economy shifted to oether ways. The English with the small professional army had great difficulties garrisoning it in reality which became their ndoing over the 100 years war, and yet in the game France can be occupied very quickly.

    Franconia is best cutoff from Silesia - Saxony and Bavaria should grow southwise and northwise respectively to limit Franconia in the west part of Germany.


    Austria is also too large and abstracted as is Venice (Actually Venice was the Venice island plus little of the cost, the rest of the todays Venetto province was centred around Verona) and Croatia. The minimum that can be done is to add Carinthia that represents the Alpine passses from Austria into Italy.

    Poland and Hungary are close to abominations, they deserve to be split. They were ok in the days of MTW v1.0 that Hungary was unplayable and the game was still close to *Crusader Total war* concept, but when the Hungarians appear as a faction its insufficient.


    The reason i mention getting rid of the islands relates to the issue you mention (that is that they are badly connected and we see factions get trapped there or invade them when they are not worth it), but also because the Islands were somewhat insignificant duchies or provinces in ralation to other hugely important provinces of the map, that are lumped together in huge provinces that as you mention are misrepresented. In my mind its best to get rid of them altogether since the 109 limit cannot allow the moder to do too much, but with 5 more gratuit provinces, there is a lot that can be fixed.

    !it burnsus!
    The Caravel Mod: a (very much) improvedvanilla MTW/VI v2.1 early campaign

    Please make sure you have the latest version (v3.3)
    Since v3.3 the Caravel Mod includes customised campaigns for huge and default unit settings

    Download v3.3
    Info & Discussion Thread

  29. #119

    Default Re: Maps and Provinces

    Quote Originally Posted by YLC View Post
    I can see your point about the Steppes, But Khazar always felt...too much land for too little effort

    If I have your permission, I wouldn't mind doing new factions for the pocket mod - with your approval first. To me, it's the funnest part of modding. Shall I post my suggestions in the correct thread then ?
    You have my permission of course. Can you attempt just one faction first and get that faction working before moving on to the next? I cannot of course guarantee that any work you do will be added to the mod. I do appreciate your efforts and continued interest however.

    Quote Originally Posted by Martok View Post
    Agreed. Aside from possibly splitting Aquitaine and Tolouse, I think most of Europe already has plenty of provinces. If we add more, it should probably be in the Poland/Lithuania region.
    Yes I prefer to add provinces where they're needed - and tagging a province onto the end of another doesn't seem like a valid province as it provides little strategic value.

    Quote Originally Posted by Martok View Post
    By the time the game starts, the Normans had almost completely conquered the region (save for the city itself, which remained under Byzantine control til 1137). Given that, Cynewulf and I decided to keep Naples as a single province.
    Yes there's historical accuracy to think about, but in reality we cannot hope to do Italy justice anyway with the limited number of provinces available. At the end of the day it's down to "popular history". We know of Apulia and other provinces such as Morea, Athens and Scania, but there are many more that have been omitted and are rarely added by modders. I have added some of these instead of adding the same provinces that other modders have added. A matter of opinion? Perhaps, though I have also taken into account those areas that are very lacking. I found that the Muslim factions with their poor provinces layout and peasant armies were just there are the "crusade victims" rather than as viable factions. This is why I have tried to improve them and the regions of the near east.
    Quote Originally Posted by YLC View Post
    Speaking of maps, it's too bad we couldn't used the expanded one I have that reaches to about the same size as the RTW one - One could really include several new Factions and do them justice, and I would do this myself, but I fear I am horrible at doing maps by hand and I lost all my tools
    Again the hardcoded province limit makes larger maps useless. The current map is really stretching it as it is. The limit is optimal for Feudal Japan or Dark Ages Britain - not Medieval Europe and parts of the east.

  30. #120

    Default Re: Maps and Provinces

    Note: gollum I haven't passed over you last post, but it's now 1:30 here and I need to be getting to sleep as any reply I make at this time will probably consist of "yes" and "no" only.


Page 4 of 6 FirstFirst 123456 LastLast

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  
Single Sign On provided by vBSSO