View Full Version : Cities and Landbridges...
With the new map size are still going to be landbridges or no?
Also will all cities grow to the top level or just some to Huge lvl, few Large and all the rest to Minor? (Afterall usually population gathered in the big economic or political centers)...
I surely hope they don't implement artificial population caps on certain settlements. Base fertility and trade potential should be enough to make city growth follow realistic patterns. I doubt chivalry will be used (though I could certainly be wrong), which was responsible for a lot of the ridiculous growth rates witnessed in M2TW.
That too, but a roman empire with 100 cities like Rome isn't too much?
Some Ideas:
Huge: could be cities with more than 100.000 people living inside the proper city walls.
Large: 40.000 - 100.000
Minor: less than 40.000
All these numbers are referred to the historical demographics, not the in-game...
It's hard for the nomads and Germania, if I remember right Tacitus said that there were no more than 2.000 living in a village, but the in-game city could represent the whole region (as it was in EBI)...
seienchin
09-14-2010, 23:00
But Tacitus was wrong. (He also never went to Germania ;) ) We know today that it was densely populated. I guess most regions in EB had quite a huge population. Even Steppe Regions had probably tribes with populations up to 100.000(Including woman and children of course).
In one of the reviews they showed that they had a nomadic camp campain map model, but I am also curious about how much population it might have and how they count province via single city.
You're right it is better to consider the regions and not the single cities...
It kinda takes away flavour to the huge cities of antiquity though XD
It would be interesting to raise the max cap for Huge cities quite high but I am not sure how flexible those levels are. Because if max pop is raised then squalor, law, taxes, corruption, etc all have to be reworked not to mention rebellion risk. Can you imagine 100,000 pop city being captured? I do hope there is a way to increase public order with full garrison. Most of the MTW2 mods I play now cap public order by garrison at 20% which often 3-4 units can achieve. There is not a benefit to putting a large garrison to maintain order unless the city population is truly huge but there is always a max 20% cap. I've seen that same cap in several mods so I'm not sure if that means it is hard coded or some other reason 20% is a common number.
If max population for huge city was 80,000 or something then perhaps aqueducts and some of the other buildings could have even more effect and finally have a real impact. Probably only some cities should be able to reach Huge since that unlocks the top tier structures and even in the height of the Pax Romana few truly huge cities existed. Many Large cities though... in fact I'd hope most cities outside of a few in deserts/steppes could reach at least Large. The city is supposed to reflect the whole region but realistically that is quite difficult as some regions might have had 500,000 or perhaps even higher at the top of the population boom while many regions of the size depicted in EB1 could have fewer than 10,000.
Cambyses
09-15-2010, 16:26
Im not sure its an entirely good idea simply to follow what happened in history as a guide to how populated a settlement can get. If a city was important politcially or became powerful through trade and sustained peace it was possible for large populations to exist in what might be considered very unfavourable areas. (witness some of the north african civilizations). Circumstance was a key factor in exploding growth rates, there are surely only a very few places that would certainly become huge metropolises.
If I play a campaign with the Averni, for example, and conquer Rome early on - should it always be bigger than my own capital (that historically was comparitively tiny) when I have an empire that spans half a continent?
Also, on a gameplay level, the AI will get many growth advantages over the player on harder difficulty settings. This can lead to the AI settlements becoming much more powerful than the player's and will encourage blitzing. This doesnt happen (so much) in EB1 because the player is better at managing growth and using his governors. But from my experience of various M2TW mods it can become an issue if player growth is restricted.
My humble suggested solution is to setup growth rates that are linked to the homeland resource or lack of it, and therefore it would not be practically possible for non-Homeland cities to grow too big. Assuming those resources - or equivalent - are being kept in EB2. ie, Lvl 1 could get +3% growth, lvl 2, 0% and lvl 3 -5%.
I doubt that we will see individual buildings in EB2. I'm pretty sure that "buildings" will be turned into various "complexes", "laws", "structures" etc.
I hope that each province will get more character than in EB1, representing the whole region, not only one city. I want local rulers, revolts, plots and civil wars and I'm sure that EB team will be able to achieve this in MTW2, since the engine is better suited for such events (just look at other mods and what they managed to achieve). The key words here should be "diversity", "realism" and "choice".
Cambyses
09-16-2010, 11:55
Indeed, however local "wonders" (that have global not faction specific effects) will simply reinforce the issue of not validating the alternative history that your game will be proposing. Personally, I would like to see a system that puts a steep penalty on growth of populations outside of a faction's homeland area. This represents the lowered importance and income of that area, not its "actual" population.
I don't really see the logic in penalizing growth rates outside a faction's homeland. Why wouldn't a city far from a kingdom's capital be able to grow as fast as it would if a more local ruler controlled it? When the Roman Empire was at its height, did cities at its edges develop more slowly than they did before? I doubt it.
I don't really see the logic in penalizing growth rates outside a faction's homeland. Why wouldn't a city far from a kingdom's capital be able to grow as fast as it would if a more local ruler controlled it? When the Roman Empire was at its height, did cities at its edges develop more slowly than they did before? I doubt it.
Remember that the so-called "population" value is in fact the number of potential recruits. Women, children, elders, cripples, bandits and the diseased are excluded.
That doesn't actually apply to M2TW. Recruiting units does not deplete a settlement's population anymore, so I don't see why the numbers should only represent able-bodied males.
Cambyses
09-18-2010, 00:36
Population in TW games population does not actually represent the number of people living in a region, it never has done. If that was what anyone wanted to do, the numbers would be massively different, especially in less civilized areas of the world.
All population values in the game are an abstract of the contribution that was made by that region to the substantial economic and military infrastructure of a faction's empire. It represents what a region actually gives to the controlling empire. So, to have some out of the way disenfranchised region able to make a larger financial contribution, with more developed infranstructure than the faction capital is IMO extremely unrealistic in most circumstances.
If we take the Romans for example (who were in general a far more inclusive imperial power than many others) a major post conquest element in any region they took was the removal of wealth from the hands of locals and the transfer of that wealth to Roman citizens - normally based in central Italy. Large parts of the population would also be killed or (more commonly) removed as slaves to the centre of the empire. So to answer the question - cities far from imperial centres very much declined in importance once they had been conquered. In many cases there was also - actually - a substantial drop in population numbers at least in the short term (a couple of generations - ie 80 EB turns - to recover at least). It is only after people gained citizenship (or the local chief did) that the importance of their city could increase.
So, IMO, anywhere that does not have the franchise (represented in EB1 by government type) should have substantial penalties to growth - so that the regions that do, will almost always be the biggest and most important part of the empire.
That might be true of the Roman system but Alexanders conquests did not decrease in comparison to Macedonian cities, if anything the wealth and size of the new cities made Macedonia pale in comparison. So not every empire works in the same fashion. Ideally the Roman culture and system of government might work close to how you describe but other governments could work differently. "Uncivilized" cultures/governments more often adopted the cites/regions of their conquests than shipping wealth and slaves to the homelands as Rome but it wasn't universal and much of that might have to do with barbarians conquests often being part of a migration. To ship the wealth and slaves back efficiently there would need to be already strong centralization and infrastructure and most empires lacked that so what you are saying actually applies to quite few of the numerous factions which will be represented in EB2.
That the TW game population does not accurately reflect number of people living in a region is obvious but as a game mechanic it doesn't really work well in representing any sort of reality. It is simply more about balance and some thoughts toward populations. Even considering if the population represents theoretically 'free' citizens who are militarily available or taxable the numbers aren't correct though maybe closer thinking of it that way than any other way.
Just ignore the population number aside from some abstract threshold for the city/castle sizes and it seems more clear as to your second point that regions represent contributions economically, culturally, and militarily. Excepting that faction capitols are always the most financially or most developed infrastructure which capitols often were not.
The OP also mentioned Landbridges. I like the idea. In order to compensate for the AI's lack of naval invasions as well as trying to support cities on separate landmasses a landbridge should help greatly. Having a bridge to span the Gibraltr strait could help carthage to pursue and protect its interests in Spain and a bridge across the english channel is much more likely to involve the Pritanoi with mainland Gaul, as well as encourage gallic and other factions to attempt to move into britain.
These bridges are already used afterall in connecting Asia minor to greece as well as crossing the nile (although thats a different concept), as well as across the danish islands in the baltic.
Yeah I would actually like to see a couple land bridges connecting Britain, between Iberia and N Africa maybe... not as convinced there since it would work both ways and Carthage wasn't exactly quick to respond to problems in its Iberian holdings.
How many land bridges are there already? Dardenelles, Aegean, Sicily, Baltic...?
moonburn
09-20-2010, 17:38
well maybe those landbridges should have movement resctrictions so that a full statck would have to loose 1 turn in the landbridges to cross over (unleass there was a fleet there ready to help with the crossing) that would normally give enough time for a fort garrison to respond
Is that possible, though? I've only dabbled with map editing, a long time ago, but I think the most you can do to slow movement is set the terrain to wooded hills. But I agree that an army crossing a landbridge with no fleet should take considerably longer than normal movement.
Brave Brave Sir Robin
09-20-2010, 22:17
Yeah I would actually like to see a couple land bridges connecting Britain, between Iberia and N Africa maybe... not as convinced there since it would work both ways and Carthage wasn't exactly quick to respond to problems in its Iberian holdings.
How many land bridges are there already? Dardenelles, Aegean, Sicily, Baltic...?
Hellespont(Dardenelles), Bosporus, Lesbos, Euboea, one on the Azov Sea, various Baltic ones connecting Scandinavia as well as one connecting Gawjam Rugoz, Ireland, Sicily. Technically the Peloponnese and Nile count as well but those are special cases made for ships rather than land armies.
Noble Wrath
09-20-2010, 22:46
Since we're discussing land bridges, is it possible to somehow discourage the movement of armies between Syrthim and Kyrenaia?
Because when I play as Karthadast or the Ptolemaioi (or as any faction controlling that area), my rival at the opposite end of the African coast focuses all its efforts on me and I end up fighting full stack after full stack of phalanxes. I understand that the AI controlled factions are programmed to be aggressive towards the human player and that Karthadast in particular doesn't have other enemies in Africa, but not only is this situation frustrating gameplay-wise, it is also quite ahistorical.
The only two incidents of military action between the two areas, that I am aware of, are the hostilities between Kyrene and Lepki over their borders, hostilities that were resolved with the race described in the wonder in the punic city and the second one is the planned expedition of Cambyses son of Cyrus against Karthadast, which was nonetheless canceled due to the unwillingness of the Phoenicians, who provided the Persian King with the bulk of his navy, to wage war against their own colony. So there it is: a border dispute (hardly a real invasion with the purpose of conquering the enemy) and an abandoned plan of an invasion, abandoned because without naval support a significant army could not cross that desert. And in any case the Qarthadastim seemed more eager to send armies to Iberia or over the Alps into Italy than going for Kyrene, likewise the Ptolemaioi used to send their fleets to the Aegean islands, Byzantion (and in one case if I am not mistaken even to Sinope) but they never attacked Karthadast.
Proposed solution: First of all I guess that the inclusion of the Numidians in EB2 will balance things a bit, also the enlargement of the map will make the trip from Kyrene to Lepki last longer. But because of the stubbornness of the AI, I think the problem will remain. A possible fix might be to design the two provinces in a way that they share no borders, with the province of Eremos in between. Or maybe more penalties could be implemented for armies crossing deserts, like losing soldiers when your supplies run low (if that is moddable), or at least greater morale penalties than the current ones, reduced hitpoints for the general, reduced cost to bribe, increased possibility to rebel etc
Last but not least I am not a historian and my arguments may be invalid. If someone knows better, please correct me.
The diplomatic AI in M2TW is much better (modable) then in RTW, the AI doesn't break alliances so easily and the Ptolies and Carthago are allied at the game start.
I don't know if the new landbridge feature of M2TW is modable so that a army would need nearly a full turn just to cross the landbridge, but at least the player can easily block the bridges with fleets to protect his lands against invasion forces.
I doubt that it's that important, the AI is modable and will probably use fleets and naval invasions much more often, at least I hope the EB team changes it this way.
When reading the EB II forum and suggestions posted here, I often got the feeling that many never played M2TW and some of it's mods.
It's not EB I and the RTW engine! The engine is improved and you should probably know this new engine before making suggestions. If you don't want to play other M2TW mods, wait for the EB II beta.
If land bridge had a terrain tile that cost high movement it could work but I'm not sure how moddable basic terrain is.
Since we're discussing land bridges, is it possible to somehow discourage the movement of armies between Syrthim and Kyrenaia?
If you don't build any roads in Syrthim, the Ptolemaioi won't attack you (I was in 200 BC on VH/M no tribute and still allied with them ^^)
I would guess that it works with Kyrenaia too...
Cambyses
09-21-2010, 15:14
If anyone else has played the 3rd Age mod, you can see in M2TW it is possible to prevent roads from connecting specific provinces to each other. I would imagine that this feature might appear in a few places on the EB2 map. You could also make the desert between the two impassable terrain.
Ther downside of that solution however is that the player can manage proper naval invasions but the AI struggles with this. Also, remember that in EB2 there will be anotehr faction in Africa, so I suspect the whole area will now work to a different dynamic.
If anyone else has played the 3rd Age mod, you can see in M2TW it is possible to prevent roads from connecting specific provinces to each other. I would imagine that this feature might appear in a few places on the EB2 map. You could also make the desert between the two impassable terrain.
As far as I know that is no new feature of M2TW but also possible in RTW. To make the terrain impassable wouldn't be realistic, thus I doubt that the EB team will do that.
As far as I know that is no new feature of M2TW but also possible in RTW. To make the terrain impassable wouldn't be realistic, thus I doubt that the EB team will do that.
It was close to being impassable for a large army with that era technology. Naval transport sure... walking through the deserts, I don't know. I'd rather see those areas blocked from access by land as historically their focus was other direction. If they grow large enough to become rivals then they should be able to manage some sea transport even as AI if tis enabled.
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