Altering the original strategic map,

[WesW]

The purpose of this thread is to give step-by-step instructions for both altering the existing campaign map, and for creating a new campaign map ala the Vikings.

I hope that this will eventually become the standard map that everyone uses. This of course means that there may eventually be a version of it for the basic game, which players can use as is, and mod-makers can incorporate into their work.

Below are some of Berengario's comments from another thread, with some mild editing, which I think clearly and succinctly lay out which files are involved. I have also added some comments of my own, from the experience gained since this thread was first made.

I am also going to try and chronicle the steps that we go through in making the map, so that others can get a picture of "exactly" what is involved, the sequence that they need to go through to make the map, and observe the mistakes that we make so that they can avoid them in the future. There are threads stuck and directions given and steps listed, etc., but imo nothing beats actually witnessing the process itself, and I hope that we can give you that as we go along.

Berengario's comments:
There is the LMM utility thread and another one started by Wellington if I remember correctly, which are full of info about the strategical map. My knowledge comes from there and by experience, as I have already modified the map successfully (days of trial and error, you know what I mean ).

The files to be graphically modified are in Total War\Medieval : Total War\textures\campmap if you want to modify the original map, or
textures\campmap\[your mod name here] if you want your mod to be a VI-style add-on.

In those directories you will find TGA, LBM and BIF files, so you need a program that can read those types if you plan to alter the map yourself.
Note:I used PaintShopPro -WW

The texture\campmap directory files are:

MapTex.tga -> hires strategical map
MapTex2.tga -> lores strategical map

These maps use the standard, 24-bit palette.
Note:MapTex2 is not necessary if you are making a VI-style add-on. -WW

Those are the terrain maps you see in the strategic screen, depending upon the resolution in which you run the game.
Note:Any alterations to these maps, such as names or terrain features, must be hand-drawn on it.

The rest have the word "lukup" in them, and they are used by the game to set the provincial borders, and to overlay a "political" map onto the terrain map of Europe, which is the maptex.

Unlike the MapTex.tga, which uses a 24-bit palette, the lukup maps all use the same 8-bit, 256-colors palette, which is hardcoded, and unique to the game. This means that you have to be careful that whatever graphics program you use picks this unique palette to use when altering any of the lbm files.

LUKUPMAP.LBM -> hires provinces map
LUKUPMAP2.LBM -> lores provinces map

Those images are "political" maps, depicting the various provinces by using the colors defined in the palette of the images themselves.

MINIMAP.BIF
MINILUKUP.BIF

These are the images used in the selection screen (where you choose your faction and see its lands on the map). MINIMAP.BIF is the map, and MINILUKMAP.BIF is the "political" map showing the provinces.

FE_MINIMAP.BIF
FE_MINIMAP_LUKUP.BIF

These are the images used for the little map displayed on the left-up corner of the strategic screen. The same principles as above apply here as well.

PROVINCIAL COLORS:
Each land province uses 2 colors (one for the border, and one for the interior), while sea provinces use just one color.
Note:From what I can tell, every pixel on the map must be colored, which has been known for some time, but I don't think that the border colors have to form an unbroken line around their province.

Pink is used for the borders between all seas and between all sea and land provinces.
Note:I have found evidence that CA initially tried to use one color for the border of all the land provinces, but for some reason they obviously didn't implement it. The color in question is the one next to pink, which is not used in the game.-WW

How are the colors linked with the provinces?

They are linked by the palette entry number and the order in which the provinces are declared in the startpos file.
Scotland has color palette entries 2 and 3, and NorthUmbria 4 and 5, since these are the first two provinces declared in the startpos files.
DeclareLandRegion ID_SCOTLAND
DeclareLandRegion ID_NORTH_UMBRIA

Constantinople is defined by the color palette entries 114 and 115, and in the startpos ID_CONSTANTINOPLE is the 57th LandRegion declared (114/2=57).
I hope it is clear so far.
Note: I decided to change Constantinople to the castle or capital city, and use Thrace as the provincial name.-WW

But how does the game tell land regions from sea regions on the map?

Sea regions are assigned by hardcode to palette entries 216 to 251, and cannot be re-assigned. All previous entries are assigned to land regions.

So we have:

Pink sea border- color entry 0
Unused land border- color entry 1

DeclareLandRegion:: "ID_SCOTLAND" color entries 2 (interior) and 3 (border)
DeclareLandRegion:: "ID_NORTH_UMBRIA" color entries 4 and 5....
DeclareLandRegion:: "ID_CONSTANTINOPLE" color entries 114 and 115....
DeclareLandRegion:: "ID_SICILY" color entries 198 and 199
DeclareSeaRegion:: "ID_NORTH_ATLANTIC" color entry 216....
DeclareSeaRegion:: "ID_ATLANTIC_COAST" color entry 251

Note: The examples above are for the original map, not for the Medmod map.

What does all this mean?

a) We have 199-1= 198/2= 99 land regions assigned in the game, and just (215-199)/2= 8 couples of "land" colors free. So just 8 new provinces may be added. Sad but true.

b) Also, you can't even add 4 more seas because the palette entries from 251 to 255 are identical colors, so "game over".

Ok, since we have covered the graphical part of the work... then you have to obviously change or add all the declarations in the startpos file regarding provinces:

DeclareLandRegion,
DeclareSeaRegion,
SetRegionUnfloodable,
SetRegionUnquakeable,
SetRegionRebels,
SetNeighbours,
SetBorderInfo,
SetCastle,
SetOrigin,
SetPort,
SetAttributes,
SetResources,
SetTradableGoods,
SetRegionOwner, and
AddTitle.

Next you need to alter the strings in the \loc directory: default_region_specific.txt and default_faction_specific.txt, or
[your mod name]_region_specific.txt and [your mod name]_faction_specific.txt, if you use the VI add-on structure.

I am not sure if you have to change names.txt and description.txt, since with VI the strings used for provinces and factions should be the ones in the above files (faction_specific and region_specific).

Finally, you have to check the unit_prod and build_prod texts to modify the region assignments as necessary, and then the regowner_table to set the GA points. Then you should be done...

End of comments

So, in conclusion, here is where we are at the moment:

What we know is that there can theoretically be 107 land regions in the game, meaning that we can add 8 more. There cannot be anymore sea regions added, nor can sea regions be converted into land regions.

[WesW]

http://wes.apolyton.net/LukMap.gif

NOTE: This is the final map that we decided upon. I have listed below the major changes made to the map, followed by my reasoning for them.

Removed (9): Finland, Brandenburg, Switzerland, Volga-Bulgaria, Pereyaslavl, Malta, Rhodes, the Sinai and Navarre.

Added (17):
Murcia, New Castile, Al-Gharb
Poitou, Auverge, Dauphine,
Savoy, Verona, Apulia,
Carniola, Pannonia, Epirus, Macedonia,
Mazovia, Ruthenia, Levedia and Gotland

This adds up to a net increase of 8, which is what we have to work with. In addition,

Re-named (9):
Naples to Campania
Greece to Achaea
Castile to Old Castile
Toulouse to Languedoc
Genoa to Liguria
Milan to Lombardy
Carpathia to Transylvania
Hungary to Transdanubia
Constantinople to Thrace

Note: I am using Africa's colors for the region of Finland, as well as the point of Intersection mentioned above.
I have not tested to see if two of the colors unavailable for normal provinces could be substituted for Africa's present colors. If so, it would then give us one last province to add to the game.

Explanations for the changes:

The provincial name is given first, followed by the capital city/castle.

Iberia:

1)Murcia, Murcia; created from eastern Cordoba.
2)New Castile; Toledo, created mostly from (Old) Castile.
3)Al-Gharb, Silves; created from southern Portugal.

Navarre was removed from the game, because there were better uses for its provincial slot.

I believe that these additional provinces will help keep the battle between the Alhomads, Spanish and Aragonese from being a blitzkrieg often decided within a few years.

There is simply no way to make a "correct" version of Iberia for the entire Medieval age, but I think I managed to achieve that elusive blend of historical accurracy and good gameplay.
Cordoba has access to both parts of Portugal, but not Old Castile. Whomever controls New Castile can strike every province in Iberia except for Granada and Portugal. Aragon is much larger, to better represent its influence and power, both on land and sea.
In the Early Campaign, I would give Portugal, Leon and Old Castile to the Spanish; Aragon and Languedoc to the Aragonese; while the Almoravids get Al-Gharb, New Castile, Cordoba, Murcia and Granada.

Historically, the Almoravids were the Muslim empire in control of the southern half of Iberia, plus Morocco. They were in civil unrest, however, and this allowed the Christians to consolidate their holdings while a desert people, the Almohads, defeated the Almoravid and took their holdings, plus Algeria and Valencia. Losing Al-Gharb was probably not that big of a deal to them at the time.

France:

*)Toulouse has been re-named Languedoc, with Toulouse the capital.

1)Auverge, Clermont, taken from northern Toulouse and parts of Aquitaine, Anjou and Provence. Clermont was the site where the Pope launched his call for the First Crusade, and formed the southern region of royal French control. Auverge lay between some of the most powerful rulers of Europe, bordered by Savoy, Toulouse, Aquitaine and Burgundy among others, and was often devastated by war, as it was a crossroads and gateway between these provinces.
CA set up the map so that these powerful provinces came to a junction in historical Auverge to create this effect, while I want to see how the creation of this strategic province will affect the game.

2)Poitou, Poitiers, an area north of Aquataine fought over by the French and English during the entire Middle Ages.

3)Dauphine, Grenoble, occupying the northern two-thirds of Provence. This was the area under control of the HRE in the Early area, as part of Burgundy.

*)Provence was never under HRE or French control in the Middle Ages, rather it changed hands from the House of Anjou to Aragon and other intricate affairs.


Italy:

1)Savoy, Chambery, carved from parts of Provence, Genoa and Burgundy.
Savoy contains the mountain passes between France and Italy, and control of them will be crucial, as will Carniola, and for the same reason.

*)Genoa, re-named Liguria, with Genoa as the capital, is somewhat reduced in size.

*)Milan, re-named Lombardy with Milan as the capital, is shifted eastward to occupy north-central Italy, taking territory from Venice, Tyrolia and Tuscany.

*)The altered Tyrolia still occupies the mountain passes from Germany to Italy.

2)Verona, Verona, consisting of the former Venice, except for the coastal regions.

*)Venice has been reduced to the city and some coastal areas of the Adriatic.

3)Apulia, Taranto, the last area in Italy controlled by the Byzantines.

*)Naples has been re-named to the Kingdom of Naples, with Naples still the capital.

Note: After looking over everything, I consider Apulia to be the weakest addition made. It is not a particularly rich province, and was almost always part of the Kingdom of Naples after the Byzantines were driven away in the Early era. If testing finds that there needs to be another province added somewhere, Apulia would be my choice to replace, if Africa is unavailable.

*)Malta and Rhodes were removed because they add little to the game, had little land or strategic value, and were most noted for being the headquarters of Crusader Orders once the Holy Lands were lost. These were the first two provinces that we decided were better used elsewhere, once it became clear that more than eight changes or additions needed to be made to the map.

Balkans:

1)Carniola, Ljubjana, from eastern Venice and southern Austria. This is another gateway province, occupying the Alpine passes between Hungary and Italy to the west, and to Germany in the north.

2)Pannonia, Esztergom, The CA province of Hungary needs to be broken up, and this area occupies the valley of the Danube.

*)Hungary was re-named TransDanubia, occupying the fertile lands in the bend of the Danube.

*)Carpathia was re-named Transylvania, for historical accuracy.

3)Macedonia, Thessalonica, an important province historically, now including a land connection to Nicaea.

4)Epirus, Dyrrachium, a strategically located area of Greece in the heart of the Med.

*)Greece re-named Achaea, Thebes, representing Athens and the rest of lower Greece. One of the last areas lost by the Byzantine Empire.

Proposal- changing the name of Constantinople to Thrace, and leaving Constantinople as the capital of the province.


Central Europe:

*)Brandenburg was removed from the game, since was an unsettled, fairly un-important area. Its region slot was better used elsewhere.

*)Switzerland was removed from the game, since the Swiss never achieved independence or notoriety until after this period in history.

*) Friesland-Flanders -I remembered someone's rant about the current way things were set up, so I decided to do some research. It turned out that Flanders never seemed to control anything north of Zeeland, while at one point Friesland extended all the way to Zeeland, so I decided to change the map, also tinkering with Flanders' eastern boundary with Lorraine in addition to the changes with Saxony, and Franconia.

*)Germany- Almost every province in Germany was altered in size and shape to one degree or another, either to deal with the deleted provinces, and/or make them closer to their historical size and location.

1)Ruthenia, Halych, an historical kingdom that CA folded into Greater Poland, located between historical Poland and Moldavia.

2)Mazovia, Warsaw, another historical duchy that CA folded into Poland, occupying the area between historical Poland and Prussia.

*)Poland, Krakow. This may be the capital in the game already, but I'll put it here just to be clear.

Baltic Sea region:

1)Gotland, Visby, replacing Finland, whose area was removed from the game.
I decided to add a couple of seas here, for a couple of reasons.
I wanted the eastern Baltic made into its own sea, so that the Novgorods or whomever could defend their coasts without threatening anyone else, such as the Danes or Swedes. They would also get a connection to Gotland and thus an invasion route.
The reason I added the Gulf of Bothnia was partly to cut off the top of the map, since it's beside Finland. but mostly because things just looked funny after I added the Gulf of Riga.

I also thought of adding another sea across from the Gulf of Riga. This one would leave off from the border of Denmark's Scandinavian Peninsula territory and connect to Gotland as well. It would contain the ports of both Sweden and Gotland, which would make it a crucial trade link.

*)Livonia was increased in size to include the coastal areas formerly given to Lithuania, which include Riga, which sits at the mouth of the Daugava River trade routes to the Black and Caspian Seas, making it a very important area to control, with a large trade value.

*)Lithuania no longer has access to the sea, and is a much smaller province, which more closely fits with my research. The CA version seemed to be from the Polish-Lithuania Empire period late in the game's time period.

Historical note: After going up the Daugava, traders could
1)cross overland either south to Smolensk, and down the Dnieper to Kiev, then to the Black Sea, near the Crimea and the Greek, Byzantine and, later, Genoan trading colonies located there. Or,
2)traders could go west, to Moscow and the Volga, and wind their way down to the Caspian Sea, and then along its shores to Persia or Central Asia.


Steppes:

1)Levidia, no capital as yet, occupying the coastal areas south of the re-worked Kiev.

*)Kiev has been moved north, to its rightful place at the border of the game's Lithuania and Kiev.

*)I took the kingdom of Polazk, which CA had folded into Lithuania, and folded it into Smolensk.

*)Volga-Bulgaria was folded into Ryazan, to make a single, more valuable province.

*)Pereyaslavl was folded into Chernigov, for the same reason as V-B and Ryazan. Having fewer, more valuable provinces should make it easier for the Horde to suppress their population, obtain more income, and have fewer structures to build.

Asia Minor:

Generally speaking, I reduced the size of the Crusader States and Nicaea, and enlarged the size of Lesser Armenia, Rum, Armenia and Syria. This is another area, like Iberia, that is impossible to create to everyone's satisfaction. You could create an entire scenario from Egypt to Hungary to Georgia and probably use 100 provinces and 20 factions.
I chose to expand Lesser Armenia to cut off Anatolia from the coast, meaning that the Turks must take a province and start a war to get any kind of trade going, though I don't think trade mattered much after the Mongols arrived, anyhow.
I expanded Armenia eastward so that Rum and Syria no longer border each other. We can probably make Syria richer to represent its increased size and trade routes. This would help somewhat with strengthening either the Turks or the Egyptians, and explain why the Crusader States put so much effort into their attempt to conquer Damascus, which ended in betrayal if I remember correctly.

[Ellesthyan]

To make room free for the Kiev project, you could combine Peryaslav and (?) Chernigov, as I doubt that that would have much impact on the game. Besides, you wouldn't take Peryaslav without taking the other province...

I love what you plan on the Italian provinces. It's exactly like I would have done it http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Re Berengario I]

Your map proposal is very good and it is a good compromise if you have to use the same map for al the eras.

My considerations are the following:


Quote[/b] ]2)Savoy, Turin, carved from parts of Provence, Genoa and Milan. Savoy strattled the boundary of modern-day Italy and France, and included most of the Piedmont region of Italy. The House of Savoy was one of the most powerful families in Europe for much of the Middle Ages, controlling Turin, Geneva, Nice and much of the eastern Rhone River valley.

Not early, The Savoy family was just a feudataries of the Burgundy Kingdom first and the HRE later. They were given the duchy title just in 1416 from Emperor Sigismond and start to be a significative noble household with the end of the Burgundy Duchy. Turin was just a couple of huts till the XVI century (if I remember correctly) when the Savoy family brought the capitol there from Chambery in the mountain of Savoy. From then they started to expand in Italy (trying to get Montferrat) instead than in France. The boundaries you fixed are the ones after the spanish war of succession (1714). I'd better like having most of the italian part of this province to be in the Milan province as the political rulers there were the communal cities just like in all the Lombardy.


Quote[/b] ]4)Verona, Padua?, formed from the remaining areas of Venice, and having access to the sea east of the city of Venice.

*)Venice, re-named Venice and Dalmatia, is reduced to the coastal areas of the northern and eastern Adriatic.


Historically correct but there is a technical problem. A so slim province won't probabably work because there won't be enough space to draw a castle and the other strategic pieces (alas CTD http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif). I created an island for Venice, to reflect its good defensive position (and reality as Venice is built upon a group of island very close each to the other) and to give the province enough room (the size is similar to Malta). We can add the coastal territories then creating also a link to the continent, the pros is that when the Venetian faction return it won't be stuck on an island without ships anymore, the cons is that is easier to invade successfully (when instead you should have naval supremacy to be able to).


Quote[/b] ]*)Serbia, Sophia, is shifted south into northern Greece and western Bulgaria. I am not sure what the name needs to be.

Tha capitol city of the Bulgarian Kingdom was Ohrida first and Turnovo later. Russ Mitchell has surely more informations on Bulgary than me otherway you have to wait me to have a look at my Byz history books.

Anyway have fun visiting PERIODICAL HISTORICAL ATLAS OF EUROPE (www.euratlas.com). They are "simpified" maps but for what we need they suit perfectly.

[Lord Of Storms]

I agree with your points Wes and see this as a good step towards a base community map project which will help others learn the process and the end result will be a new map for anyone who chooses to use it, as I stated I will help any way I can, thanks...LOS

[Norseman]

Many good points there Wes, especially I liked the split of Cordoba.

IMO Rhodos should be removed as well, for use somewhere else. We already have plenty of islands in the med.sea (Sardinia, Corsica, Crete, Malta, Cyprus).

[cutepuppy]

And maybe Smolensk can be removed (this territory can be divided between novgorod,muscovy,lithuania and chernigov)

[WesW]

The maps at Euratlas are what I have been referencing for this. I just wish I had a better resolution so that I could see the city names.
If you have already worked on a Malta-like island solution to the Venice castle problem, that is great news. You could probably go either way, an island or a peninsula, as far as connecting to other provinces. I would probably set it with a land connection to Verona, using a river map. I probably wouldn't make any connections to any other provinces, even though Venice will control the coastal areas down the Adriatic. I figure that, even if these areas had fallen to an enemy, it wouldn't matter much if Venice remained free.

What do you think should be done with the area where I have Savoy located? I think that Provence is simply much too big the way CA has it drawn.
What about enlarging Lombardy westward to include most of the Piedmont, while extending Provence to the east, so that Savoy becomes centered below Burgundy?
Then it would be an HRE territory in Early and High, and part of the Burgundy faction in Late.

Who should control Provence in Early? Right now, I have it belonging to the Aragonese in High, and the Genoese Confederation in Late.

I have been wondering about adding the Genoese faction in Early and High as well. I need someone who knows a lot about Italian history, and you certainly seem to have that, to lay out how the provinces should be divided. I just don't have enough knowledge about the allegiances, shifting and loose as they were, to know which parts tended to band together. About all I know is the Barbarossa invasions, and one big naval war that Venice and Genoa had, though I don't remember when that occurred.

Rhodes is the next province that I would remove. I think the only historical significance it had in the Middle Ages was that it became the headquarters of one of the Crusader Orders after they were driven off the mainland.

I'm not sure if I want to take any more provinces away from the steppes, since several factions will be located there. Ryazan and V-B were poor provinces that didn't add anything to the game strategically, so I thought it would be good to combine them into one good province.
I thought of folding Crimea into Khazar, but it seemed that factions from across the Black Sea always had trading outposts located there, so I held off on making a decision until I saw how the rest of the map shaped up.

If you study the map borders in the game, Pereyaslavl is the only route to attack between Kiev and Khazar without facing a river map. They were also a real kingdom throughout the middle ages, though it may work out fine to combine them with Chernigov if we split Kiev up. There are just a lot of ways to go with it.

[Re Berengario I]

Quote[/b] ]What do you think should be done with the area where I have Savoy located? I think that Provence is simply much too big the way CA has it drawn.
What about enlarging Lombardy westward to include most of the Piedmont, while extending Provence to the east, so that Savoy becomes centered below Burgundy?

This should reflect well the political situation of that area in middle-age.


Quote[/b] ]Who should control Provence in Early? Right now, I have it belonging to the Aragonese in High, and the Genoese Confederation in Late.

HRE in Early as part of the kingdom of Burgundy Emperor Konrad II inherited from his wife. In High, Provence is under the Anjoins who ruled on Sicily and Naples too. But Anjoins were a family branch of the Capet Royal Household of France so I'll give it to France, together with Naples and Sicily. Sicily in 1282 revolted against the angevin rule (Sicilian Vespers http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif) and called the King of Aragon Pedro III to support.

In Late it is under France as Genoa was a french protectorate in that period.


Quote[/b] ]I have been wondering about adding the Genoese faction in Early and High as well. I need someone who knows a lot about Italian history, and you certainly seem to have that, to lay out how the provinces should be divided. I just don't have enough knowledge about the allegiances, shifting and loose as they were, to know which parts tended to band together. About all I know is the Barbarossa invasions, and one big naval war that Venice and Genoa had, though I don't remember when that occurred.

Genoa in Early is little more than a city state. It struggled with Pisa for the control of the tirrenean sea and the islands of Corsica and Sardinia.
There were four wars between Genoa and Venice the last of which ended in 1381. In 1300-1400 Genoa controlled Corsica, north of Sardinia, some greek islands and the coast of Crimea, Venice contolled Dalmatia, Creta, a lot of Greek islands (included Rhodes) and some coast of the southern Greece (Peloponnesus). Pisa controlled Sardinia and Corsica till 1300 then it degraded to a minor power and it becomes an "imperial" city to protect itself from the welf Florence.


Quote[/b] ]Rhodes is the next province that I would remove. I think the only historical significance it had in the Middle Ages was that it became the headquarters of one of the Crusader Orders after they were driven off the mainland.

Rhodes was important as the seat of the Order of the Hospitalliers of St.John from 1309. Malta is pretty useless as it is in 1522, when the Order was transferred there, that became an important naval base against the ottomans, before it was just a rock in the sea http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif.

[Russ Mitchell]

Oh, man, would you believe that I couldn't read your colors right on my print-out at home... I completely missed that you'd put in Carinthia/Carniola... I had thought you did Austria/Moravia... check out my post in the other thread GA/wandering... the two of them can maybe be smushed together... can Carpathia be given its rightful name, as well? Please? It's like naming Switzerland "Alps" or something... yuck.

I had quibbles with how you redid Hungary and the Balkans... now that I get it, I think Carniola is great, and like Galicia/Mazovia, definitely... I don't know Spain from a hole in the ground, so can't say anything there...
the way I did the map gives room for one more province ("Hungary" divided into its two historical regions, rather than three regions vertically -- Slovakia didn't exist in the 19th century, let alone the 13th, and only during the Turkish Wars did that rough area exist under the separate name of Royal Hungary)...

would you rather cut Kiev in half to fix teh Cuman problem and show the bottom half of the Kievan empire, or maybe create a Moravia province in Southern Bohemia? Hrm? Or does anybody else have something they'd like to see if there was suddenly an extra province to play with?

[Norseman]

Quote[/b] ]
Rhodes was important as the seat of the Order of the Hospitalliers of St.John from 1309. Malta is pretty useless as it is in 1522, when the Order was transferred there, that became an important naval base against the ottomans, before it was just a rock in the sea .


Please don't take away Malta. It may not have been that important historicly, but in MTW it is stratigicly important as it makes a "bridge" across the med.sea for factions without any seagoing ships.

Historicly, the Sicilian-Normans did take Tunisia, although they didn't hold it long. If Malta is removed the Sicilians can't take Tunisia without making a big fleet that can stretch all the way from Sicily, via Gibraltar/Crete to Tunisia.

Besides, Cyprus and Crete are close enough to Jerusalem to serve as Crusader ports, so IMO Rhodos isn't really needed stratigicly.

[Eastside Character]

If you are going to rearrange any old provinces, I would strongly suggest dividing the province of Poland at least in two - Greater Poland and Lesser Poland, also Duchy of Mazovia was pretty much important (an independent country for some time - I recognise it as as much important as Silesia).

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/handball.gif
.EC.

[WesW]

Quote[/b] (Eastside Character @ Jan. 03 2004,11:15)]If you are going to rearrange any old provinces, I would strongly suggest dividing the province of Poland at least in two - Greater Poland and Lesser Poland, also Duchy of Mazovia was pretty much important (an independent country for some time - I recognise it as as much important as Silesia).
.EC.
Ahhh...ok, if I ever think about dividing up Poland and adding Mazovia I'll be sure to remember you. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

Russ, after reading your emails, looking at your map, and reading your post here each two or three times, I have to say.... "Wha?" http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/dizzy.gif
I understand about Hungary, and I'll arrange it like your map the next time. I still don't know what to do about the Balkans. (Which I have learned are different from the Carpathians, the Alps and the Danube weaving between them all. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif )

I feel good about Bosnia, but I don't know about south and east of there. From the Euratlas maps, Bulgaria included the Danube valley below Belgrade, and whomever controlled Constan held Thrace up to the Balkans, or about the middle of modern-day Bulgaria. I don't think Greece has stuck that far up the map since the Byzantines collapsed.

The area unclaimed by Bulgaria, Constan, Greece and Bosnia needs to more-or-less be able to be combined with Bulgaria for the Bulgarian Empire in High, I believe, and be able to be combined with Bosnia in a Serbian Empire in Late.
By taking Bosnia out, this area will better fall into the Byzantine Empire in Early.

What were the important cities in southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, and who controlled them?

We need to get an idea of the important ones both economically and strategically, though I think these co-incide most of the time. Then we have to decide which cities and areas go to which province, which to make the capitals, and then we should be able to know just how to draw in the provinces.
For example, who controlled Belgrade, the Serbs or the Hungarians, can help decide what to make the capital of Pannoia, which affects Trans-Danubia I assume. Was Belgrade more important than Sofia? Looking at the map, you can see how each of these were important junctions and/or passes, and therefore probably on the border between territories.

I still don't know what the capital of Galicia needs to be, though I might read Encarta's entry for Poland here in a minute.

As for the extra province, I would probably use it to split up Kiev.

We can take out Malta, and have the sea around it absorbed in the one below it, along the African coast.
I have always thought that the North Sea maybe needed to be split up. It just seemed odd that controlling the coast off Mercia also gave you control off of Denmark and Saxony.

As to the extra province this would give, I have thought about splitting up Castile into Old and New Castile. This would even out the Iberian provinces between the Spanish and Almohads, and help even things out with the Medmod-strengthened Aragonese.
It just seems to me that CA short-changed Iberia in the number of provinces, and attempted to be true to their historical wealth and significance by making them all quite wealthy. This threw off the game's balance, since one or the other would usually quickly win the struggle, and then be a powerhouse, with provinces it could encircle with ships and thus be safe from invasion. I think that this last part is as important to AI performance as the wealth, since it would then leave these secure provinces lightly defended, and throw all of its strength into invading France and/or Egypt.

Btw, there have been mods with more than 100 provinces, haven't there? I'd hate to be doing all this for nothing.

[Wellington]

Quote[/b] (WesW @ Jan. 04 2004,04:14)]Btw, there have been mods with more than 100 provinces, haven't there? I'd hate to be doing all this for nothing.
Wes,

Unfortunately not.

Check this thread, especially the entry on Nov 19th fronm target -

http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin....3&st=25 (http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST&f=26&t=10133&st=25)

In it he says -

The land regions get 2 colours each (one for the main body of land and one for the border) and the sea regions get one colour each. We allowed for a maximum of 40 sea regions, which left enough space for 108 land regions. We only use 100 land regions, and that's the limit for the game (and any mods you guys decide to make). Someone asked in a different thread why we didn't have more regions in the game and one of the reasons is the limiting factor of the 256 colour format of the lukmap file.


The problem is that the theoretical extra 8 provinces available ar'nt really available in MTW 1.1 as there are no gard coded identifiers for them. What the situation is for VI I'm not sure.

If you wish to add new provinces to the original MTW 1.1 map you can only add 1 (ID_Africa) as the maximum is 100 and MTW only uses 99.

You'd have to lose some other existing land provinces if you wish to subdivide some provinces to create new ones.

Welly

[WesW]

Well, I feel pretty certain that things have changed for VI. For example, it took me a while, but I finally found this in the campaign texts for VI. These notes are not in the 1.1 files, so I don't know why the programmers would have added them for VI if they were incorrect.


//========================================
// Land region declarations.
//
// These MUST be declared before
// being used anywhere else in this file.
//
// The number of regions is restricted to >.
//
// The proper game will search for these
// region labels and act upon them for
// a number of things such as historical events.
// MODDERS use different names to avoid this.
//
// Region ID's are assigned in the order the
// declarations are found in.
//
// eg:-
//
// DeclareLandRegion:: "Blackhill" -> assigned to 0
// DeclareLandRegion:: "Consett" -> assigned to 1
// DeclareLandRegion:: "Durham" -> assigned to 2
//
//========================================

Now, this may be huge, if someone wants to take the time to check it out. In the Vikngs campaign, they made a new map and everything that goes with it. If someone were to check out the color palette used in the viking lukup maps and compare it to the colors used for the land and sea provinces, you could determine if CA still used the last 40 for the sea regions, or not. If not, then that would mean that they erased the hardcoded partition of the palette into sea and land areas, which means that we could arrange things anyway we wanted.

[Eastside Character]

Quote[/b] ]I still don't know what the capital of Galicia needs to be, though I might read Encarta's entry for Poland here in a minute.



The capital should be Lviv, but the province name is not correct I'm affraid. The name Galicia comes from later period, in medieval times this province was called Ruthenia, Red Ruthenia or Halicz.

Hope this will help. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/handball.gif
.EC.

[Wellington]

Quote[/b] (WesW @ Jan. 04 2004,07:23)]Well, I feel pretty certain that things have changed for VI. For example, it took me a while, but I finally found this in the campaign texts for VI. These notes are not in the 1.1 files, so I don't know why the programmers would have added them for VI if they were incorrect.


//
// The number of regions is restricted to >.
//
Hi WesW,

I'm pretty sure your right in terms of VI allowing usage of the extra 8 provinces that are available (in terms of the original MTW 1.1). This would appear to be born out by the fact they have changed the hard coded region names to allow "anything".

However, the 254 available regions is incorrect.

I can see how the CA programmer who amended MTW for the VI release would reach such a conclusion (256 available colours - minus entries 0 and 1 for the "Region Zero" colours necessary in the BIF mini lukups) ... but you still need 2 colours per land region in the lukmaps - 1 for the region colour and 1 for the region boder colour.

Open up either the VI Lukmaps (both 256 palletted images) and you'll see the borders are still there. Hence, it's still 2 colours for land regions (only 1 for sea regions).

I understand what your trying to do, and I think it's a great idea to make the original MTW campaign map more accurate, but I know the region limitations are still determined by the maximum 256 colour palette that is available in both the campaign map BIFs and the LBMs.

Maybe some of the guys who pioneered campaign maps for VI (Komninos, Antolis, Barocca, BKB) could assist with more info in this respect but I suspect no-one has really attempted to create a lot more provinces than were originally available in MTW.

To be honest, I should'nt trust too much in terms of CA comments/documentation that may be provided in some files. I've written a lot of documentation in my time and have often got it wrong http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

Welly

[Russ Mitchell]

Eastside is correct on both counts. I didn't call it "Halich" as it's referred to in the Hungarian historiography, for fear that nobody would recognize it...

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

Hi, WesW http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

Great idea and discussion http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

Although, there's something I might had.
Historically, Portugal should be split in 3 provinces:

-Portucale (North of river Tagus)
-Alentejo: means Beyond Tagus (South of river Tagus)
-Al Gharb: today Algarve (Southern strip of the Southern Coast)

This is, because the Condado Portucalense (Portucale) was a region taken from Léon. This region should follow the southern border line of Léon until it reaches the "Spanish" http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif Coast waters. Before, this was a smaller territory that Afonso Henriques (Afonso I of Portugal) expanded to the south, beginning in 1128. The other two regions were conquered troughout the realms of the 4 first kings of Portugal (Afonso I, Sancho I, Afonso II and Sancho II from 1128 to 1249).

I know it's just bad, because of the max limit of regions on the game, but I had to explain it... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

[Russ Mitchell]

Quote[/b] (WesW @ Jan. 04 2004,04:14)]

Quote[/b] ]Russ, after reading your emails, looking at your map, and reading your post here each two or three times, I have to say.... "Wha?" http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/dizzy.gif

Say thank you. Believe it or not, I could be making it much worse on you... I could include Macedonia, Hum, and Albania, too... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif
------
Belgrade means "white castle." It is Slavonic name from "Nandorfehervar," which means "White Castle of the Bulgars." Don't ask me to explain why Nandor=Bulgar here, it's an old linguistic thing. Belgrade was the great border fortress of the Bulgars against the Franks, and when the Hungarians took over, it was the southernmost great fortress of Hungary proper until it was conquered by the Turks. I've have no idea why some of the online stuff I'm looking at is describing it as a medieval Serbian town, which would be more appropriate for Pristina.

The Greece/Constantinople borders were not meant to be taken as gospel by any stretch, and now that I think of it, my Serbian border depends on whether I guessed at which river was the Morava correctly, too... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif -- it may need to be shifted westwards, and Bosnia made smaller. where and how big "Bulgaria," for instance, is, depends on where you are in time. At one point, say, the early thirteenth century, after the fourth Crusade, you have both a Serb and a Bulgar empire sitting next to each other like Dominoes on top of a VERY narrow Byzantium (despotate of Epirus + Latin Empire), going from the Adriatic straight to the Black Sea. But that'd be totally unacceptable for the twelfth century... my map probably has Bulgaria not extending as far to the Morava as it should...


Quote[/b] ]The area unclaimed by Bulgaria, Constan, Greece and Bosnia needs to more-or-less be able to be combined with Bulgaria for the Bulgarian Empire in High, I believe, and be able to be combined with Bosnia in a Serbian Empire in Late. By taking Bosnia out, this area will better fall into the Byzantine Empire in Early.

I'm confused by what you mean here about having "in" and "out." In Early, the Byzantines control Greece, Dalmatia/Bosnia... unless you're literally talking about having a separate strategic map for every period (which would handily solve the whole "just where and how big is Serbia" problem, but would involve just stupid amounts of work)... I don't really understand what you're going for there.

for your city question, damn, I know the book I really need to consult, and I don't own it, it's a library trip... John Fine's history of the late medieval balkans... let me go sit down with a copy of that and see if I can answer your cities question (I'm assuming you're looking for capitals, in which case the Macva is definitely going to be a p.i.t.a. ...)

[metatron]

Too bad there aren't that many provinces left, as I wish that certain cities would become small provinces. I say this because some cities were so important, that they were in a sense a smaller region.

Case in point, Constantinople. Constantinople in my opinion should be just the city (you could draw it out into the Black Sea, as is done with Malta and Rhodes). The province should be broken up into Thrace (the European half), Chalcedon (the Anatolian), and Constantinople (the city, Nova Roma). Now, if you don't have enough regions to spare, Chalcedon could be merged with Nicea. I stress this here: There should be no land bridge between Thrace and Anatolia.

The city of Constantinople itself shouldhave a strategic importance of +2 valour for emissaries trained in the region. This reflects the Roman's own use of their emissaries, spies, and diplomats in maintaining a system of alliances and bribing enimies to stay alive. As for the spies, you might give Crete, Rhodes, or Cyprus a +1 to spies.

Now for why I ask this: Historically, the area was at times one large theme (as it is in the game), but, the game in recognizing this, destroys a significant advantage for the Romans, and that is the sea. Constantinople was only approachable from Europe on land, control of the seas was the only option if you didn't control Thrace.

That said, you might be persuaded to bring back the Sea of Marma, which could also help invade Constantine's city.

PS: Are you going to rename the Byzantines the "Romans"? Please...

[Re Berengario I]

Quote[/b] ]If you wish to add new provinces to the original MTW 1.1 map you can only add 1 (ID_Africa) as the maximum is 100 and MTW only uses 99.

I feared of that even if the palette of the LBM file (VI installation) defines color entries for other 8 provinces.

I'll try to add some a new province using the next 2 free colors and see what it happens.


Quote[/b] ]Case in point, Constantinople. Constantinople in my opinion should be just the city (you could draw it out into the Black Sea, as is done with Malta and Rhodes). The province should be broken up into Thrace (the European half), Chalcedon (the Anatolian), and Constantinople (the city, Nova Roma). Now, if you don't have enough regions to spare, Chalcedon could be merged with Nicea. I stress this here: There should be no land bridge between Thrace and Anatolia.

I agree. I made that process to Venice and I already removed the asian part of the Constantinople province giving the land to Nicaea. Not that hard to do really except changing some neighbours region definitions.

I'm guessing if at the very end we need all that regions in the now Russian territory.

To be honest those lands and states didn't enter heavily in the european middle-age history. Apart from the invasion of Constantinople together with the Pechenegs, Kievan Princes wasn't very active in the european scenario. Their large kingdom split in a lot of principalities before being absorbed by the Golden Horde.
Just in the late era the Prince of Moscow gained some political influence as being one of the few who managed to retain indipendence from the Horde. But still this had very little effect to the rest of Europe. I don't state that the history of those lands is unimportant. Just that it didn't tie very strictly to the the history of all the western Europe as hungarians, Serbs and other balkanic states which instead are hardly considered. They were too busy messing with the miriad of barbaric tribes before (pechenegs, Cumans, Volga-bulgars, Khazars, etc...) and then the Horde. And they didn't stop the horde, as it dissolved in succession wars and limited to the south by the iranian muslim dinasty. And if we include Muscovy why not Tamerlan's kingdom which was far more important (at least for the islamic kingdoms)?

If the number of provinces is so strictly limited I'd prefer to have a western part working well instead than having an approssimative map which lead just to a Risk style of play. My 2 cents of course.

[Ellesthyan]

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/read.gif About the region above the Provence:
At one point in history this region was in hands of a certain duke, who had dolphins on his shield. Therefor, he was called the "Dauphine" (dolphin in French), and his lands the Dauphiné. All dukes after him where also called Dauphines, until the Dauphiné was annexed by France. From that time, the crownprinces of France would control it (until they would assume the crown of course), and where therefor called Dauphines.
Although the province itself is not entirely a signifant area, this should be the name of the region, as its the most fitting one.. Savoy wasn't really a large power here (yet), and making the province would allow the creation of more historical correct borders for France.

Splitting Portugal would seem right to me, but its not a big issue. Splitting Castilie would have more impact I'd think.
It was not very logical to give Constantinople an Asian part, as many times Anatolia was overrun and the city only saved because of the sea and its naval power. Besides, the city Nicaea lies in the province Constantinople... A bit strange, or what? Also it would be a solution to the deleted Nicaea-Const land road, as it'd be reduced to a sea route this way :smokin:
Making Constantinople a separate province is nice of course, (and adrianople could finally have some importance) but its far from a necessary change. Whenever Thracia would be reduced to its size sofar as to what would be the new province, you should be counting Const. as under siege anyway.

I think Malta and Rhodos could be easily given up, so 2 extra provinces are made free. Splitting up Kiev was said before, and therefor I'd rather see another province in Spain or a separate Constantinople created, then holding a near useless island http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

Anyway, good luck I hope I'll be able to have fun with version 4 of your magificient mod soon http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif

[Ellesthyan]

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/idea.gif Just a small addition:
What about adding Cyrenaica or Sinaï with Egypt together in one province? Cyrenaica and Sinai do not have much signicance, big cities, or special troops. Only thing is that they act like a buffer between Egypt and the rest of the world... Don't really see the reason why they should be, hm? My preference would go out to a merge of Sinai and Egypt, as these two regions have never been separated anyway.

[Re Berengario I]

Quote[/b] ]What about adding Cyrenaica or Sinaï with Egypt together in one province? Cyrenaica and Sinai do not have much signicance, big cities, or special troops. Only thing is that they act like a buffer between Egypt and the rest of the world... Don't really see the reason why they should be, hm? My preference would go out to a merge of Sinai and Egypt, as these two regions have never been separated anyway.

I completely agree, Cyrenaica could be put under Tunisia and Sinai under Egypt. Arabia too is pretty useless right now as we don't have the Persian Gulf and Iran. The coast of Arabia was important for the muslim expansion in the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, Iran and India... but this would be another history and another mod.

[metatron]

I suppose Sinai could be merged with Egypt, but those provinces (Sinai and Cyrenaica) serve as buffer zones from agressors. Perhaps Arabia could be given alot of tradable goods, as to simulate the land-trade routes used by the muslim caravels.

[Russ Mitchell]

Berengario: Western Europeans always ignore Hungary and Poland... the same way they betrayed them time and again in the twentieth century... it's just a part of Europe they'd rather forget existed. Otherwise, historically speaking, I'd say, don't tell it to a Russian, but otherwise I agree with you. Granted, with Hungary my primary area of study, I'm biased. If we're stuck with one extra province, consolidate them, imho, and do what I've suggested to Wes in greatly expanding the numbers inside the cavalry units in Hungary -- apply that to the Russians, as well, to reflect the literally far greater number of horses and horsemen available....

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/idea.gif
Wes: I just stumbled onto an easy Balkan solution. It's not really perfectly accurate, but in this game, what is? Forget Macva, it's relatively insignificant, and most people couldn't find Albania if it was tattooed on their ass. Look on your map for Macedonia... make its capital Ohrid. This lets you give control of it to Byzantium, Bulgaria, and (kinda-sorta) Serbia in their respective turns, and will make it much more difficult for any faction to simply walk through the Balkans as if it didn't exist... ESPECIALLY if all of these provinces are defined such that fights pretty much always wind up in the high mountains. This allows you to give M. and S. to the Bulgarians, for a Bulgarian Empire with much production potential such that it can actually pose a threat to Byzantium the way that a one-province production base (since remember, folks, numbers of provinces equals production power in this game) will never be able to do. (Not to mention the VERY entertaining question of what if Symeon had succeeded, with his excellent Vlach/Pecheneg relations -- or Asen, with the help of the Cumans-- and founded an empire capable of dominating all the Balkans and the west half of the Black Sea before going after Carpathia and Anatolia? But that's just geektalk, I guess.)

Then, for major cities, you can make the "capital" of Bosnia be either Dubrovnik or Brcko, depending on who you want to anger (neither are truly accurate, but the very concept of a "capital" is a concept that literally didn't exist in 9/10s of Europe in this period, and you can make arguments for either. Sardika (modern Sofia) should remain the capital of Bulgaria. For Serbia, don't use any specific city, because periodization will kill you. Call the capital area "Raska." (Hacek over hte s, pronounce it like s in sugar). It's not perfect for your purposes, since it's not a castle per se, but it's more true to history. All of these regions should have excellent silver income potential, and Serbia should already have a mine installed.

For Pannonia, use Visegrad as the capital, unless you want to get fancy, then for Early, use Esztergom. For TransDanubia, use Eger, as it was a royal seat and bishopric. For Carpathia, use Nagyvarad, and for heaven's sake, PLEASE rename it Transylvania.

[WesW]

Russ, let me get things straight, just to be sure: You want to keep all of the existing provinces in southeastern Europe, and add two more- Bosnia and Macedonia?
This is in addition to splitting Hungary in two and adding Carniola? I'm not commenting here, but trying to make a list.

Let me make a new list of the proposed changes that I support at the moment:

Remove Tyrolia, Malta and Rhodes.

Combine Volga-Bul. and Ryazan.

Add these provinces:
Murcia, New Castile
Auverge, Dauphine
Verona, Carniola
Bosnia, Pannonia, Macedonia
Mazovia, Ruthenia
Odessa (until someone comes up with a proper name)

This adds up to a net increase of 8, which is what we have to work with.

I'm reluctant to take provinces away from North Africa since there are only a few as it is, and the lesser ones do serve as a buffer for Egypt. It would be more fair, imo, to bulk up these provinces a little to represent how rich and powerful Egypt was in this era. The reasoning is the same as why I want to split up Hungary- one province can only produce a single unit per turn at most.

I don't think Portugal needs to be split because they are a minor faction in this era, and with the two new provinces Iberia now has 10, which is enough imo.

Ok, now to other map changes:

Remove the Asia portion of Constan., i.e. split it between Nicaea and Trebizond.

Keep it possible for level-one ships to go from Sicily to Tunisia. Ber, I'll leave it to you to decide how you want to do this.

Re-name Castile to Old Castile
Re-name Toulouse to Languedoc
Re-name Genoa to Liguria
Re-name Milan to Lombardy
Re-name Venice to Venice and Dalmatia
Re-name Carpathia to Transylvania
Re-name Hungary to TransDanubia

Berengario, what do you want to do about the seas that I deleted as far as map representation? The Adriatic and Ionian need to be combined, as well as the Aegean and Sea of Marmara.

How do you feel about splitting up the North Sea? Having thought about it some, it seems like a good idea to me. It may well help keep the Scandinavian factions from getting into a naval race, too, since you wouldn't have the situation where protecting Wessex and Northumbria simultaneously threatens Denmark, and vice versa.
The new sea should follow the continental coast, and link the English Channel and the coast of Norway. This will keep the Danes and English from sharing coastal waters.

[Re Berengario I]

Quote[/b] ]Remove Tyrolia, Malta and Rhodes.

Combine Volga-Bul. and Ryazan.

Add these provinces:
Murcia, New Castile
Auverge, Dauphine
Verona, Carniola
Bosnia, Pannonia, Macedonia
Mazovia, Ruthenia
Odessa (until someone comes up with a proper name)


Even Switzerland is senseless until late era as it was divided between Swabia, Burgundy and Lombardy. And even in late era the early Swiss Confederation was just a legue of little mountain cantons. Switzerland came up in modern era together with the fall of the Burgundy Duchy (which they contribuited to speed up http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif).

Seas are a pain, I know. I'd better reduce them because AI is highly unable to manage trade and coastal defence, instead is very apt to manage offense through the sea, that's why sometimes it stacks some sea region with ships.
While we players think about sea first for trade and making money, then to attack or defend, AI first think to defend its coasts, then, if set CATHOLIC_TRADER, trade or, if set elseway, attack http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif.

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

Could you maybe remove Volynia and that would give you another extra space, maybe samogotia which would allow Prussia a border to Livonia through the top of Lithuania?

[Russ Mitchell]

BKB: Aw, hell, I should have thought of that...

Wes: Unless we suddenly get room for enough regions that this discussion becomes moot, it's the best solution I can think of... it bypasses the nasty question of "where are Serbia's borders today" while providing for map leverage. The one thing that practically defines the Balkans (and unlike East-Central Europe, I'm not even particularly interested in the region) is that it's just totally impossible to steamroller unless you're coming in with a psychotic amount of troops... and once you've done that, holding it is a royal pain, too.

Venice and Dalmatia? Two separate areas... did I miss something?

I guess the neat thing is that over time, there's plenty of material for regional mods. I saw on BKB's site that he was thinking of at least two of them...

[SicilianVespers]

Wes,
From a Sicilian's point of view, it would be a good feature to have NAPLES divided into two provinces. Possibly Apulia and Calabria? or Spoleto and Apulia?

This would be a big help in simulating the Wars of the Sicilian Vespers, Between the Sicilians and Angevins.

A provence of Calabria would act as a buffer between the Angevins or HRE and the Sicilians.

It would also give the Byzantines something to hold onto, in earlier mods, without holding half of Italy.

If you need any information about Sicilian or Italian history, I would be glad to help.

Slightly off the topic in this thread...

Your Contadina Cavalry and Infantry? do these represent Communal Knights and Communal Infantry?

[Eastside Character]

Quote[/b] ]From a Sicilian's point of view, it would be a good feature to have NAPLES divided into two provinces. Possibly Apulia and Calabria? or Spoleto and Apulia?


I also think it's a good idea to have Apulia and Calabria separated. But there would have to be another region erased to do that.



Quote[/b] ]Odessa (until someone comes up with a proper name)


Wes,
If by Odessa you mean the region between Moldavia and Crimea, then it is quite hard to determine what should be its name (as for most of the medieval period this land wasn't viewed as a separate province or region, it was barely inhabited).
I would say Yedisan, this name comes from a later period (15th c. - 17th c.) but at that time this land was finally recognised as a province (btw name Yedisan comes either from Turks or Tatars, who owned the province until Russia conquered it in the 18th c.).
As for the capital of this province I wouldn't suggest Odessa (which was established by the Russian Queen Catherine II only in 1794). The capital should be Otchakov as I just haven't found any other possibility.

Volhynia should remain as it is I think, erasing it makes no sense to me.

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/handball.gif
.EC.

[SicilianVespers]

Quote[/b] (Eastside Character @ Jan. 05 2004,15:06)]I also think it's a good idea to have Apulia and Calabria separated. But there would have to be another region erased to do that.
No offense to the Finns, but has anyone considered merging Finnland with its bordering provence? I could definitely give up Finnland for another Southern Italian Provence.

...and please don't delete Malta.

[Eastside Character]

Quote[/b] ]No offense to the Finns, but has anyone considered merging Finnland with its bordering provence? I could definitely give up Finnland for another Southern Italian Provence.

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif
I thought about deleting Finland would be a good idea, but then I've decided not to post this - I thought nobody would support it, but hey, here is SicilianVespers http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/handball.gif
.EC.

[torsoboy]

This may sound crazy, but how about making Nicae / Anatolia accesible from Constantinople but not the other way round, except over sea? Or is that just not possible?

[Russ Mitchell]

Odessa => Cassaria? I seem to recall Rubruck referring to the region under that name as he headed out to Karakorum to see the Mongols.... the magyars simply called it TransCarpathia... but that's not a good objective name by any standard.

[Norseman]

Quote[/b] ]
This may sound crazy, but how about making Nicae / Anatolia accesible from Constantinople but not the other way round, except over sea? Or is that just not possible?


A few days ago I tried that in a test on the border between Denmark and Saxony. I only wanted to be able to go from Saxony to Denmark, and not the other way. Result: CTD at endturn when I tried to move some units from Saxony to Denmark.

If you can find some way to make it work though, please let me know. I was hoping to use this in the "Fury of the Northmen" mod.

[Re Berengario I]

Quote[/b] ]This may sound crazy, but how about making Nicae / Anatolia accesible from Constantinople but not the other way round, except over sea? Or is that just not possible?


Quote[/b] ]A few days ago I tried that in a test on the border between Denmark and Saxony. I only wanted to be able to go from Saxony to Denmark, and not the other way. Result: CTD at endturn when I tried to move some units from Saxony to Denmark.

I tried it from Venice to Milan. Result was the same: CTD.

Now we know that borders must work on both direction.

Sicilianvespers, come on... you know... don't let me say it in italian http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif Malta had no importance until Karl V lend it to the St.John Order for a maltese falcon a year. And it was modern era.

If you are worried about the Normans not being able to raid Tunisia the right way is to eliminate the sea around Malta (which would also make sense) or making dromons and galley able to pass those waters (just an easy edit in the unit_prod file).

If it was just me I'll kick outta map Malta, Switzerland, Tyrolia, Rhodes, Finland and a couple of provinces in the Russia as IMHO the map should reflect population density. Lithuanians together with Polish managed to rule over a vaste territory in the east because about none lived there. Poor german emperors never managed to rule Italy because there were cities and castles every 10 miles.

[SicilianVespers]

Re Berengario,
I could see giving up Malta, if it's slot went into Southern Italy.

I think the game really needs three provinces in the south, Apulia (Apulia & Calabria), Campania (Naples, Capua, Benevento), and Spoleto.

As for Rhodes, I could only see giving it up, if it went towards the creation of Thessalonika. Greece really needs some serious subdivisions.

Greece should really have Thessalonika, Morea (Pelopponese), and Epirus. I would rather see more provinces in Greece, than the Balkans proper.

Just a thought here, but could we use sea regions as island provinces? Would we need extra palette colors?

[Russ Mitchell]

You're right about Greece, too.
But the other side of the problem is that... well, even Chernigov was an important province, constantly involved in the Kievan state and Halich (and thus the big four-way tussle between Poland, Lithuania (which oughta be its own faction at one point), Hungary, and the Kievan state itself, for instance... but since nobody knows about this sort of thing... to the inhabitants of East-Central Europe, Spain's significance was zero... there's a wee matter of perspective here, and CA really screwed the pooch by simply turning Eastern Europe into a giant vacuum of essentially spineless provinces.

Malta was insignificant no matter how many territories are in the game. He's got you there. But your suggestions regarding Greece are correct. But then, go into the Turkish wars, and even Albania becomes important as a catspaw/gateway province between the Ottomans and Venetians... if the seas around Malta can also go away, that might buy you Epirus and Calabria...

[SicilianVespers]

The point I was trying to make, is that a stong Sicily (within her historic borders) is very important to game play. She stood at the crossroards of three empires, holding two at bay (Byzantium & HRE) and making major gains agaist the third (Islam, Roger took Tunis & Frederick took Jerusalem).

A Sicily that is a pain in the A#$ to these empires assisting countries like Poland and Hungary vs the HRE and the Ottomans (Albania and the Duchy of Athens were Sicilian vassals).

A major annoyance to me is that Frederick II isn't even King of Sicily in the game. I always have to mod it.

I'm not sure how much everyone knows about this, so I'll stop the history lesson http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/read.gif

If I have time this weekend, I will take a good look at my maps. How many provinces are we allowed? including ex sea regions...

I think I will have to do Federico II mod with Sicily controlling Italy, Germany, and Palestine. The German faction will be the Welfs (Bavaria, etc.. and some of Italy) rather than the HRE.

Berengario is Federico in your mod? I haven't had a chance to look at it yet...

[Eastside Character]

Quote[/b] (SicilianVespers @ Jan. 07 2004,07:12)]If I have time this weekend, I will take a good look at my maps. How many provinces are we allowed? including ex sea regions...
Sea regions cannot be converted to land regions.
Total number of possible land regions is 99 + 8 = 107, and that's all (quite enough I think).

.EC.

[SicilianVespers]

It should be more than enough.

I am hoping to draw something up for you all to look at this weekend, We shouldn't have to slight any one region when 107 slots are available.

I may even have some maps I have done in the past, that I can scan.

can anyone post a picture here?

[SicilianVespers]

I was wondering what all of you thought about removing the border connection in the alpine provinces between Italy & Germany, except for the provinces that actually were passable (Burgundy/Milan & Tyrolia/Venice)? so you would only be able to enter nothern Italy thru the Brenner or Saint Bernard passes.

The HRE's control of the Brenner pass would be crucial to maintaining control of Lombardy. I think it would add to the game.

[Russ Mitchell]

If you can actually figure out how to map in the actual physical passes, that would be AWESOME.

Also, Wow, if you're describing a total re-do... but you're right, it could be done. I can already see Wes with "game balance" written across his eyeballs, but you and I are in practically total agreement..

[Re Berengario I]

Quote[/b] ]The HRE's control of the Brenner pass would be crucial to maintaining control of Lombardy. I think it would add to the game.

Right, for that reason Friuli and Verona was put by Otto I under the duchy of Carinzia. The choice is: merge Veneto with Tyrolia or keep 2 regions aside?

[SicilianVespers]

I was thinking last night, when my son woke me up at 4:00am and I couldn't fall asleep...

I wonder if the extra provinces should be put into the three factions that were put in as after thoughts...Sicily, Hungary and Aragon?

Since they weren't intended to be player factions it looks like those areas were under developed.

If the HRE is done correctly, as in Berengario's Millenium mod. Hungary and Sicily won't stand a chance. Poland can expand into its historic Lithuanian lands, so they should be ok.

With the loss of one province when playing Hungary or Sicily, you lose half your kingdom, and resources.

I think two southern Banats for Hungary and another two Duchies in Southern Italy would be perfect.

The rest should go the Aegean and Greece.

and we can't forget Berengario's Venice of course.

We would be able to do that before we even remove or merge other provinces.

Dalmatia would also be needed.

[Russ Mitchell]

The HRE **should** be done correctly.. that said, can this be done with the amount of territories available? We still need Mazovia and Halich -- they're important. The Kiev split I proposed probably isn't a huge deal, but Halich at least is one of the lynchpins of Europe... it controls access to the same kinds of mountain issues that you describe for the HRE (just like you don't drive from Szekesfehervar to Moldavia, but have to go through Wallachia first)... the number of passes through the Carpathians is limited... on the map for Wes I fixed the Hungarian borders so that Hungary's "capital" of Esztergom wasn't sitting in Austria http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

So we wind up with...

Hungary split into Pannonia and TransDanubia (+1)
Halich
Mazovia
Dalmatia
Sclavonia (Banat)
Vojvodina (Banat)
Italian duchy of choice
Italian duchy of choice
Carinthia/Carniola

Don't know where the extras come from, unless major consolidations occur on the step, and neither Aragon nor the Greek territories have even been touched yet...

[SicilianVespers]

Some other suggestions:

Delete Switzerland, and use the slot to create Spoleto out of the Northern part of Naples (directly east of Rome). This Province would be assigned to the HRE in Early. (yes, the Normans of Sicily loses territory http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif )

Delete Malta, and use the slot to create Calabria.

Sicilian Naples would be split into Capua, Apulia, and Calabria.

Delete Tyrolia, and give it's slot to Venice. Redraw the border between Bavaria and Verona. The pass would have to be the Bavaria/Verona border?

It would be good to keep Tyrolia as the pass, to fight over, but we may not be able to if we want to add all these provinces.

Where are Halich and Mazovia?

[Russ Mitchell]

If you look at "Carpathia" and go to what would amount to its NE corner, that's Halich. Mazovia is a bit to the north of that... I'll let Eastside take care of the exacts, because it's his territory.

If you want access to the Carpathian basin from the East, you have to come in through the mountain passes, just like going from the HRE to "Italy."

I have to find a copy of the strat map, and I"ll draw up for you a larger version of what I did for Wes... maybe send a copy to everybody so that we can all mark all over it... haven't heard from Wes, though, which bothers me...

[SicilianVespers]

Can we afford to have "pass" provinces, or should we just do border connections like Bavaria to Verona? without a middle man...

It would amount to having to control both sides of the border, rather than just the pass.

It would be a shame not to have Greece done right.

What else is there to consolidate? Finland, I would give up Rhodes for a mainland Greek province.

[SicilianVespers]

I also have one request. It looks like we will not be able to do Aegean islands, but we should still draw them in.

They would theoretically be owned by the maritime power that has the fleets there, so Venice and Genoa could fight over them with ships?

I'm talking about Negroponte, Naxos, etc...

This goes for the balearic islands as well, it bugs me that they aren't there...

[metatron]

^Indeed, I too am mystified they weren't included into the game.

I still stick to my idea that Constantinople should be a tiny province, coupled with Thrace. Constantinople was the most imporant city in the world during MTW, and should be treated as such. Doing this would also enable the Romans deny the Turks (or any other agressor) the trade of the city, but still be allowed to expand into Europe/Anatolia without going around the Black Sea.

Well, maybe that wasn't a convincing argument, but it would be interesting to play with the historical reality of the new eternal city almost never falling. (Even non castle maps in this province should have "never-ending" walls that need to be breached in order to assault, then there's the inner city...)

[Eastside Character]

Constantinople as a small city-privince is certainly a good idea, but it should be also very hard to conquer (or at least the siege should take ages).
I think I have an idea how this can be done: we can make another castle piece and another castle upgrade, unit capacity 100.000 or sth like that (the castle would never fall - the Turks or anybody else would have to assault it ). Someone may say that giving a castle that big unit capacity would mean that the AI can retreat thousands of soldiers to the castle - and so loose it, but even if the AI retreated 2000 troops to the castle it wouldn't fall and the besiged army would really suffer very little casualities forcing the besiging army to assault - almost impossible to win for attackers. What do you think about that?


Quote[/b] ]If you look at "Carpathia" and go to what would amount to its NE corner, that's Halich. Mazovia is a bit to the north of that... I'll let Eastside take care of the exacts, because it's his territory

Well, Mazovia isn't really my territory (rather Volhynia). http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/shock.gif

As far as polish provinces are concerned; I like that there is going to be Mazovia, but Poland should be divided into Greater Poland and Lesser Poland (this division existed even before any polish state came to being, at the time when polish tribes were fighting for supremacy over what is on MTW map province of Poland).

It seems that everyone wants for his country to have as many provinces as possible, well I only want that division of Poland, although I could came up with lots of other provinces to make everything more complicated. This discussion is becoming a mess anyway.

Where is WesW????? If you're out there please drop few lines to make everythings clear - after all it's your thread. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif


.EC.

[SicilianVespers]

I think the priority should be Greece, and putting a proper Venice on the map, as Berengario has already done. But I would keep a Verona (mainland Venezia) province.

As far as more Italian provinces. We have to remember that there are 5 - 6 "Native" factions fighting over the Italian Peninsula.

Italians ===> or Genoese & Venetians thanks to Berengario
Sicilians
Papacy
HRE
Byzantium

There really is a legitimate need for more provinces in Italy.

If you want to start the Byzantines in S. Italy, you have to turn over half the peninsula to them. It's ridiculous.

I thought 2 for Italy, 2 for central europe, and the rest in Greece would be the best option. and we haven't removed any provinces yet.

Venice would become the city of Venice, and Tyrolia would become Verona. Switzerland becomes Spoleto and the HRE doesn't lose any territory.

Rhodes could go into a Mainland Greek province.

[Ellesthyan]

What kind of Greece provinces are you thinking off? Thessalonika (with as capital Thessalonika) and Morea (with as capital Misithra) will do the trick I think, as Wes was already planning a new province next to Bulgaria. Eastern europe definately needs some more provinces, and I think that splitting Naples in to two provinces (That Byzantine part and the rest) will do nicely. Creating some more provinces in Spain seems reasonable to me too... And has possibly more priority. (because of it directly influencing whats happening in the game; Will Spain, Aragon or the Almohads dominate south-west Europe?)

[-Isapostolos-]

I agree with Sicilian vespers. Greece needs more provinces. I suggest the Morea, Mistra(Peloponese) and Epiros, Dyracchium (Albania) be made. The rest of Greece should be renamed Thessally (Macedonia if uou wish) with it's capital in Thessalonica.

In early these provinces wouldn't be that important (except Epiros to Sicily), but in high and early they would really come into their own. Venice was very important in the Morea aswell as Byzantium. IMHO this would make the battle between the Crusaders and Byzantines alot more intresting.

Epiros was also an important part of the empire since it lay at the Adriatic. Many invaders started their invasions here, and the Bulgars and Serbs also laid claim to it a couple of times.

So, if you want to make the battle in greece a little more spicy, I'd suggest greece should at least be getting another province.

[Ellesthyan]

Make the land that Wes called Servia, Epirus and move it a bit to the west; only one other province that needs to be created in Greece using the set-up from Wes would be Morea.

[Russ Mitchell]

I'm actually fine with Hungary simply being put on the correct place in the map, and divided into its requisite parts, just like Poland...

I begin to strongly suspect that the best ways to handle this might be with regional variants on VI... but I have almost zero ability to actually bring that idea to fruition... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

But again, the important bit... where's Wes?

[SicilianVespers]

So, the "Thessaly" province could be used as the Latin Kingdom of Thessalonika and 100 years later as the Catalan-Sicilian Duchy of Athens?

That will work, there is no need to have a seperate Athens province.

I don't want to be a pain in the neck here, but all this this will really be a big improvement.

Just think of all the new factions we could mod, The Latin Empire, the Despote of Epirus, the Empires of Trebizond and Nicaea.

Morea, Epirus and Thessaly sound perfect to me. That's only two new provinces for Greece.

If we relocate Switzerland and Tyrolia into Italy, we would only need one new province for the Lombard Principalities (Capua/Salerno/Benevento, this could also substitute as the Duchy of Naples depending on the Mod).

If we want to seperate Calabria from Apulia, we can use Malta's slot.

One province to Spain (Murcia?)

4 provinces to Central Europe?

Thats 8 right there. and we haven't even touched the Steppes.


Berengario,
What do you think is better Calabria or Malta? I think Calabria.

[SicilianVespers]

Russ, I was thinking the same thing, but it would be best if we could all agree on a standard map.

would 2 new for Hungary and 2 new for Poland work?

Most of the Italian changes can be accomplished by redistributing provinces.

[Ellesthyan]

I really like the map Wes already provided, and I suggest we keep to that one. I propose some changes will be made to it:

4 other provinces:
Morea (capital Misithra)
New Castile (capital Toledo) = south half of Castile
Apulia/Basilicata (capital Brindisi) = Byzantine held Italy
Odessa (or however it is called) = south Kiev

4 provinces have to be taken:
Malta
Rhodos
Switzerland
South Hungary (the southern 1/3)

Servia renamed to Epirus (capital Durazzo)
Greece (whats left of it) renamed Thessalonica (capital same name)
Castilie renamed Old Castilie (capital Burgos)


I think that Switzerland could be substituted for another province if it would be necessary; I heard Finland often. Egypt and Sinai could be combined (wes doesnt like this I think), or Krim and the new Odessa province...

I dont think another Italian city state is necessary. The states as they are now represent the borders and power of the regions quite well; besides South Italy doesn't seem to have been such an important place. As SicilianVespers pointed out, the Greece lands will greatly enhance the historical feel and will enable us to present the latin kingdoms much better. The thing that bothers me the most is the weakened German south border; but I guess the HRE is supposed to be having it difficult http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif The pass idea would help the HRE a lot, and I really like it, but only if it could be represented correctly. (pass battles, anyone?)

Everyone, and especially Wes, what do you think about this?

[Ellesthyan]

Argh, can't edit my previous posts

Anyway, Id like to point out that I would slice Hungary as it is now in two: a northern and a southern part. I don't really now how these places should be called.. But I think Wes had already figured out some names and capitals.

[SicilianVespers]

Well, lets lay out what we absolutely must have:

New Venice province & rename old mainland Venice to Verona. +1

New Dalmatia Province +1

New Morea province +1
New Epirus province +1
Rename rest of Greece to Thessaly.

That's 4 so far.

Another option would be to put the remaining 4 provinces into all the missing island provinces...like:

Balearics for Spain +1
Negroponte for Greece +1
Naxos for Greece +1
Chios for Greece +1

or make Constantinople it's own province and create a new Macedonian/Thracian province.

That's 8

We could just tackle region specific stuff with new maps.

[Eastside Character]

Making so many new greek provinces would greatly overpower already overpowered Byzantines. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/angry.gif

[Ellesthyan]

SicilianVesper, I'd to point out that this is not going to be Greekmod, but Wesmod... And key for the Wesmod is balance. Malta and Rhodos do not have any strategic value, and they did not have much back in the middle ages. What you are suggesting is nice for your own mod, but certainly not good for the overal balance I think the province of Greece has been made too huge, and allowing the italian factions to have more territory to attack (and thus probably easier pickings) will make them take some provinces from the Byzantines; and thus symbolising the holds they had. Besides, walking over the balkan was always far too easy; this makes it a bit more complex. Also, I am trying to enhance the map Wes has gave us, as Im quite sure I do not have the capabilities to make such a map, and Wes has.

Wes already used 8 provinces on his map, so altering his plan takes a bit of skill... What you are suggesting is simply not possible unless you want to scrap whole Wes's plan... And ignore the rest of Europe.

[metatron]

I think the Romans should suffer from a loyalty problem among their generals or lowered influence among their emperors.

Civil wars destroyed the empire, it should in game.

[SicilianVespers]

The extra islands was just thought...and you are correct, the place for those is in my own map.

I'm not understanding here, I thought we already agreed on removing Malta in favor of a S. Italian Province, and Rhodes for a Greek province?

I think Naples could only be split in two...there wouldn't be room for more.

If Rhodes is used for a Mainland province that would leave 5 for Wes to put where he thinks best. 6 if Tyrolia becomes Verona. right?

Venice redefined as per Berengario's mod +0
Malta for Calabria or Campania +0
Tyrolia for Verona +0

Dalmatia +1

Rhodes becomes Morea +0
Epirus +1
Rename rest of Greece to Thessaly. +0

That's only 2, leaving 6 for Wes to distribute as he sees fit.

[SicilianVespers]

I think you guys are misinterpreting my motives here.

Greece and the islands have nothing to do with Sicily.

1) Beregario has graciously given us the Venetian Empire as a faction. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif

2) The Venetian Empire was a maritime empire.

3) The Venetian empire's "homelands" were in Greece and the Aegean.

4) An island like Rhodes that has "no strategic value" becomes strategic for a faction when it is their last out post in the east. Just ask the Knights of Rhodes (Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem).

5) This map was also to be used for Berengario's mod, and everyone elses for that matter.

and as for Southern Italy not being "very important" here is a list of the real provinces in mainland southern Italy:

All these were not city-states, but vassals of the Kingdom of Sicily.

Duchy of Apulia / Catepanate of Langobardia
Duchy of Calabria
Principality of Taranto
County of Aversa
Principality of Benevento
Principality of Capua
Principality of Salerno
Duchy of Naples
Duchy of Amalfi
Duchy of Gaeta
Duchy of Spoleto / County of Molise

To put this another way, imagine France being made up of the Ile de France, and one huge province of France.

But, I can live with all this being one province if we get a proper Venetian Empire.

This is all i have to say about this, If Wes and Berengario need me as an historical resource I am here.

[Norseman]

I really like that mountain pass idea for southern Germany to northern Italy.


Quote[/b] ]
To put this another way, imagine France being made up of the Ile de France, and one huge province of France.

I'm no history buff, but IMO you can't compare the sizes of the many Duchy's and principalities of southern Italy with the regions of France on the MTW map. Many other factors need to be considered. All you have to do is to look at a map of Europe, and you'll see that Naples (the MTW region) is about the same size as one of the French regions. Sure, more regions in southern Italy would make it more fun and realistic when simulating the wars in Italy, but then we should also have more regions in France to simulate the 100 yrs war. Only problem is, we don't have that many regions.


Quote[/b] ]
But, I can live with all this being one province if we get a proper Venetian Empire.

IMO we will have enough islands with Corsica, Sardinia, Crete and Cyprus, as long as the sea around Malta is combined with the one of Tunisia. If we have more, I think it will only unbalance the rest of the game. Those factions(Venize, Byz, Genoa...) that want islands in the medsea should be forced to fight over the few that are.


Quote[/b] ]
Wes already used 8 provinces on his map, so altering his plan takes a bit of skill... What you are suggesting is simply not possible unless you want to scrap whole Wes's plan... And ignore the rest of Europe.

Basicly, I agree with Ellesthyan and Eastside on this.

[Ellesthyan]

>> Ive taken SicilianVespers post, and added my own thoughts to it...

I think you guys are misinterpreting my motives here.

Greece and the islands have nothing to do with Sicily.

>> Hey hey, I wasnt suggesting that Everyone wants his own lands, or the lands that interest him the most.

1) Beregario has graciously given us the Venetian Empire as a faction.


2) The Venetian Empire was a maritime empire.

3) The Venetian empire's "homelands" were in Greece and the Aegean.

>> Correct. This could be repressented by drawing a few islands and adding them to Morea, Crete, Nicaea, and Thessalonica. Sure, It's not the same, but we cant do everything

4) An island like Rhodes that has "no strategic value" becomes strategic for a faction when it is their last out post in the east. Just ask the Knights of Rhodes (Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem).

>> Ok, let me put it in another way: It has less strategic value, impact, and will allow less historical realism then taking it away and adding a more significant province instead.

5) This map was also to be used for Berengario's mod, and everyone elses for that matter.

>> hehe... You should have told that earlier

and as for Southern Italy not being "very important" here is a list of the real provinces in mainland southern Italy:

All these were not city-states, but vassals of the Kingdom of Sicily.

Duchy of Apulia / Catepanate of Langobardia
Duchy of Calabria
Principality of Taranto
County of Aversa
Principality of Benevento
Principality of Capua
Principality of Salerno
Duchy of Naples
Duchy of Amalfi
Duchy of Gaeta
Duchy of Spoleto / County of Molise

>> So... Vassals to Sicily huh? Well, this area was thus always in control by one and only one faction, and never divided.

To put this another way, imagine France being made up of the Ile de France, and one huge province of France.

>> Ok, you've got a point there, although I'd have to point out that there was more war and troubles in France then in Southern Italy... And of course southern Italy is smaller then France. Besides, only a fraction of all the duchies, principalities, bisdoms, etc. of France have been repressented, and they were put together according to culture, historical borders, and power. I don't really know if that should go for Southern Italy, but I dont have that impression...

But, I can live with all this being one province if we get a proper Venetian Empire.

>> Well, make it in your mod then http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif I'd like to see it.

This is all i have to say about this, If Wes and Berengario need me as an historical resource I am here.

>> Im sorry if I offended you in earlier posts, but you should've explained that your plans go for other mods It sure created a lot confusion... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/argue.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/read.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/idea.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif

[Eastside Character]

Now I only wonder what does WesW think about all those ideas we all here posted.

I also think we have to remember that starting this thread, WesW clearly explained he wanted to know others' opinions so that the new camp map would appeal to the most of the members of this community. He was kind enough to ask us about our own opinions, although we could have of course designed the new map by himself (and we would be propably most happy to accept it, as most of us do not posses the skills needed to make appropriate modifications, well, at least not me).

My point is we should apperciate the chance we have been given and not spam the thread repeating ourseves and posting like crazy, because it only creates confusion.

The map we here discuss is going to be used in the first place by WesW, Re Berengario I will propably also use it. Debating here about maps for any other mods than those by WesW and Re Berengario I, is in my opinion "a little bit" pointless. Other threads can be started for dicsussing other projects.

EC

[Ellesthyan]

Ok people, Ive reworked the map Wes gave us in the way how I think it should be changed. The white borders are the changed ones, the white names are from the changed or new provinces. What do you think about it? Please tell me if anything I did was absolutely wrong Im no historican, and my knowledge of history is quite basic (although I read a part of the Alexiad) so have mercy http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif Please state your reasons clear, and bear in mind that Im just trying to help Wes making a great well balanced mod.

http://www.geocities.com/ellesthyan/MedmodMap.htm
(Watch out, its quite a big file, and so may take a while to load..)

Things changed for early campaign:
-Byzantine Empire controls 7 provinces (Thracia, Morea, Bulgaria, Epirus, Thessalia, Crete, Cyprus). Bulgaria is quite rebellious, could maybe be added in the game, or be made a rebel kingdom.
-Sicilian Kingdom controls 3 provinces (Apulia, Naples, Sicilia). Epirus could maybe be added, as it was in their hands only 2 years ago.
-Hungary controls 4 provinces (Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, Carpathia). I took Slovenia over slicing Hungary in two equal parts, as it seems that the Poles controlled a large part of that territory.. And it adds some sort of bufferstate between the Huns and Poles.
-Spain controls 3 provinces (Leon, Old and New Castillia). New Castillia is the only province bordering the muslims for the Spanish, but losing it still leaves them with 2 provinces, who represent proper Asturia.
-HRE controls 14 provinces (a lot...). Now every province borders another faction
-Turkish Sultanate controls 7 provinces (Nicaea, Trebizond, Rum, Armenia, Edessa, Syria) Trebizond wasnt in Greek hands until after the 1st crusade came by. The sultan should have very little influence, because his ameers usually ignored him...

[Russ Mitchell]

OMG.

Sorry, I don't have time for this drivel. I'm off-thread until the peanut gallery calms down: it's bad enough that I don't have the computer skills to give Wes the help he needs doing the actual work... I'm not going to aid and abet the mauling of history to boot. As for the rest of you, I can be reached via email, and thank you for the very good conversation.

[metatron]

Hmmm, if the Sea of Marmara disrupts the economic model, perhaps you could make it a part of the Black and Agean Seas. The same with the other unused bodies of water.

On the land side of things: Perhaps merging Sinai and Egypt wouldn't be so bad. The Crusaders and Egyptians should be at odds with each other. Perhaps it would encourage the AI to work in historical models.

[metatron]

PS: If this idea is green-lighted, I hope my Constantinople idea is too. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[SicilianVespers]

first, Sorry I was getting frustrated.

But that map looks great

There are a few slight adjustments you could make.

Apulia should start on the east coast above the spur in the heel of Italy, and connect diagonally to where the current line begins to dip south.

Morea should be just the Peloponnese.

I would have Thessaly include athens, so it can represent The Duchy of Athens, The Morea can be the Principality of Achaea when Latin.

I wonder if we should take some of Austria to fix Bavaria?

I have to give you credit, for interpreting all of this http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif you did a great job.

[SicilianVespers]

This is for Berengario, or anyone else that know how to make maps,

I have used Switzerland to add the province of Verona to Berengario's map, and Gave the former Swiss territory ro Swabia.

I have modified the LUKUPMAP.LBM, LUKUPMAP2.LBM, FE_MINIMAP_LUKUP.BIF, and MINILUKUP.BIF.

The Campmap\startpos txt file has also been updated.

Now when I go into the game it starts ok, but there are no province borders displayed on the strategic map. I can click on the castles, pick up armies, but it won't let me move them.

Can anyone suggest where I should look for the problem?

Is it in the maps or the txt?

Thanks...

[Re Berengario I]

Quote[/b] ]there are no province borders displayed on the strategic map

You changed the color of the border too? 2 colors define a province.


Quote[/b] ]Is it in the maps or the txt?


You also have to fix all the Setneighbours lines in the startpos to make things work.

[PseRamesses]

May I boldly suggest a new northern province, or two?

Gotland, that big island in the Baltic sea that was an inportant viking hold and the Danes fought desperately to keep it and an important The Hansa-League province.
And I do like to se Sweden split into more parts like Skåne, Västergötland, Svealand and Bergslagen etc. Skåne was the key grain producing province for the Danes and Bergslagen, or Dalarna, had rich iron and copper deposits that later made Sweden into the super-power of the 17th and 18th century.
Although that I´m fully aware that there are a lot of more interesting places throughout Europe in the 11th-15th cetury to portray I´d like the remaining 8 slots of new provinces to be spread out and not concentrated to, mainly Italy.

Thanks and good luck

[SicilianVespers]

Quote[/b] ]
You changed the color of the border too? 2 colors define a province.

Yes, can the two border colors between provinces touch each other?


Quote[/b] ]
You also have to fix all the Setneighbours lines in the startpos to make things work.

I have aleady done this, but I think I will print it out to look at it. It's hard to do it on the screen. I have a feeling this may be were it is.

Thanks

[Ellesthyan]

Yeah Ramses, you're quite right about Gotland; although I honestly dont know what we can offer for it. It would be nice to have some more lands in the north though If we would have to take away a province, which one should it be?

[Norseman]

Quote[/b] ]
Yeah Ramses, you're quite right about Gotland; although I honestly dont know what we can offer for it. It would be nice to have some more lands in the north though If we would have to take away a province, which one should it be?


As Finland will probably be removed, I think it would be fair to keep that region in the North.

[WesW]

Hi everyone. I have been in bed about 18hrs a day for the last ten days or so, due to a problem with my digestive system. My mom and I were convinced that it was something to do with my gall bladder, and my doctor thought this, too, but I had an ultrasound test done, and nothing showed up, so I don't know what is going to happen.
Last week, I couldn't even sit up for more than a few minutes before I would begin vomiting. Being in a vertical position caused immediate nausea, which steadily grew worse until I laid back down, or I vomited. I was very fatigued as well, so I ended up spending most all of last week in bed.
I got fed up with it last Thursday, and stayed up fooling on the mod until I threw up, then I stayed up until it happened again. The second one was much worse than the first, but since then the nausea has been very minor, though the fatigue was still present.
I have been feeling a little stronger the last couple of days, but there's a good chance that things will take a turn for the worst in the next couple of days due to some other choronic problems that I have, and which are also undiagnosed at this time.

Anyway, I have read through all the posts since I left off last week, and I can see making some changes to my last post, where I laid out what I thought should be done with the map.

Everyone needs to remember that this is going to be a generic map, and should be designed for the standard game, which includes mods such as Berengario's and mine which are made to enhance the standard game. Therefore, we need to forget about national pride and so-forth, and approach the map as Total War players rather than as Italians, Swedes, Pols, etc.

Here is my previous post. Bear in mind that the map I posted two weeks ago doesn't reflect the current situation anymore, so you need to envision these changes as being applied to the original map:

Let me make a new list of the proposed changes that I support at the moment:

Remove Tyrolia, Malta and Rhodes.

Combine Volga-Bul. and Ryazan.

Add these provinces:
Murcia, New Castile
Auverge, Dauphine
Verona, Carniola
Bosnia, Pannonia, Macedonia
Mazovia, Ruthenia
Odessa (until someone comes up with a proper name)

This adds up to a net increase of 8, which is what we have to work with.

First off, isn't Macedonia part of Greece at this time? The way I have it envisioned, Macedonia will include the present-day Greek provinces of Eastern, Western and Central Macedonia, as well as the former Yugoslav province. This includes Thessalonika.

Serbia will go back to its original position, which includes the modern-day states of Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro and the eastern half of Bosnia's Serb Republic.

Bosnia would be removed from the game, and Croatia would be restored to its original eastern boundary with Serbia (I drew Bosnia too far east on the map).

I could see making the Epirus province, consisting of the modern-day province as well as modern-day Albania.

I guess I'll withdraw the proposal for breaking Kiev in two, and use the provincal spot to split up Naples instead.

I too had thought about removing Switzerland from the game, but I didn't know enough the specifics of its existence to propose its removal in the first round of proposals.
If we do this, then will the Swiss units become mercs only, or did the Swiss develop their expertise with the pike after the game ends in 1453? My interest here is that I may need to use their unit slots.

As for Switzerland's provincial slot, we can either put Tyrolia back into the game, or use it for another new province. I don't think it needs to go for another Balkan Peninsula province.
I would prefer putting Tyrolia back in, in its original position separating the HRE and the Italian provinces. Swabia would expand to swallow up Switzerland.

So, here is an updated list:

Remove Switzerland, Malta and Rhodes.

Combine Volga-Bul. and Ryazan.

Add these provinces:
Murcia, New Castile
Auverge, Savoy (see my thoughts on Savoy below)
Verona, Carniola, Pannonia
Calabria & Apulia
Epirus, Macedonia
Mazovia, Ruthenia

This adds up to a net increase of 8, which is what we have to work with. In addition,

Re-name Naples to Campania & Abruzzi
Re-name Greece to whatever you guys decide upon

Re-name Castile to Old Castile
Re-name Toulouse to Languedoc
Re-name Genoa to Liguria
Re-name Milan to Lombardy
Re-name Venice to Venice and Dalmatia
Re-name Carpathia to Transylvania
Re-name Hungary to TransDanubia

Btw, I ran across a map of the growth of Italian city states in the 13th century in Encarta, and it showed Turin with an area of influence that corresponded almost exactly to the Savoy that I drew on the map. All that needs to be changed is to not extend Savoy so far west.
The area between Turin and Genoa can be given to either one, especially if Genoa is currently not big enough for castle and troop placements.
It also seems that my proposal of extending Lombardy west and Provence east to occupy almost all of Savoy's Italian territory will be really awkward, since Lombardy would have to become huge to accomplish this, and Provence would extend into territory that it never actually held, from what I can tell.

If you guys think that Savoy is a bad idea, then I would propose turning the eastern portion into the Piedmont, and then we need to decide how the land between Burgundy and Provence needs to be represented, namely if we want to keep Auverge, or designate the former French area of Savoy as Dauphine, using Auverge's slot. The area in question goes from Clermont to Lyon.

Whichever way you guys want to go, the provinces surrounding the unclaimed territory can be enlarged to occupy it. This refers to the western portion of Auverge if you choose to make Dauphine, or the western portion of Savoy if you choose to keep Auverge.

-----------------------------------------------------

With this map setup,

the Iberian Peninsula has 10 provinces.

France also has 10 countries, not including Burgundy or Lorraine.

The Italian territories have 12 provinces, including Sardinia and Corsica.

The Balkan Peninsula has 13 provinces, from Carniola and TransDanubia to Constantinople and southern Greece.

The HRE would also occupy about 10 to 12 provinces.

There are about 10 provinces for Eastern Europe, from Silesia to Kiev and Livonia.

That leaves about 9 or 10 for Russia and the Steppes.

Getting an even distribution of provinces for the various regions of Europe was not an aim of mine, but I think it bodes well for game balance.

As for additional changes, if Berengario wants to go to the trouble of folding Finland into Novgorod, or perhaps just leaving that portion of the map blank, ala Africa, and using the slot for Gotland, I have no objections. It's not a big deal to me either way, since I think Gotland's markets are represented in the Goods and high land value that CA assigned to Sweden.
I happened to see a program last weekend on the Vikings, on the Discovery Channel, I believe, and it talked about the rich trade routes from Scandinavia to the Muslim countries of Central Asia. Gotland was a key meeting ground for these routes, including ones to the west to what would develop into the Hanseatic League. The whole island seemed to be composed of markets trading all kinds of goods from Central Asia to Western Europe.

Ber, the Contadina and Popolo units represent the Italian militia-type units. The infantry are Urban Militia © and Billmen (P), while the cavalry are Mounted Sgts. © and Sgts. who trade their lances for crossbows (P).

[Re Berengario I]

Quote[/b] ]Btw, I ran across a map of the growth of Italian city states in the 13th century in Encarta, and it showed Turin with an area of influence that corresponded almost exactly to the Savoy that I drew on the map.

I may be wrong but Turin hadn't any importance in the 13th century, it was just a Castle with some huts around http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-wink2.gif.
The importance of Savoy was equal to the zones surrounding the Brenner road. Savoy controlled the mountain passes from France to Italy. Many wars were won there (between Annibals and Romans, various barbarians tribes and Romans, Franks and Lombards, etc...) and that made the control of Savoy essential to the kingdom of France till Napoleon. The same with the area of Innsbruck, Trento and Verona (Brenner road) for the communications between Germany and Italy.

To be strategically correct we should made Italy accessible only through those 2 provinces, call them whatever you want http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-wink2.gif (the names are Duky of Savoy and Duky of Carintia though).

There were 2 other lesser used ways to enter Italy, one from Carniola to Friuli (used by the Lombards coming from Pannonia) and the other from the mountains of Switzerland to Milan (Ticino valley), the latter wasn't very used till modern times as Switzerland was too full of mountains to be easily travelled.

IMHO Corsica and Sardinia can be merged together as they were usually controlled by the same faction (saracen pirates, Pisans, Genoans) till modern times (when Corsica was under Genoa and Sardinia under Aragona) and they also share a very similar population.

Constantinople should be made as a large city state giving the asian part of it to Nicaea and the european part to Thracia which should also include the northern part of the actual province of Greece.

Anyway to determine which province is needed and which is not I'd follow these 3 factors:

1) Economical and historical importance (i.e. Ile de France, Rome, Venice, Egypt, Syria, Palestine)
2) Population density (i.e. Northern Italy, Nicaea, Flanders)
3) Strategical position (i.e. Cyprus, Crete, Savoy, Brenner, Georgia and Armenia)

That's why I'd merge most of the russian steppe provinces, Sinai, Cyrenaica and also Brandemburg and Pomerania.

BTW, for those interested in mercenary and wars in Italy in the 14th and 15th century I found a great site (in Italian I'm sorry)
Condottieri di Ventura (http://www.condottieridiventura.it/).

There you can find very valuable infos about late medieval army compositions, how huge the battles in Italy were and discover why conquering a city state in Italy was harder then sweeping away slave tribes from Prussia http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-happy2.gif.

[Re Berengario I]

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-sunny.gif GREAT NEWS http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-thumbsup.gif

I added today a new province (Verona for sake of precision) using the first 2 free colors of the LUKMAP bitmap palette.

I also added the declarations and stuff in the startpos file and in my mod region_specific file and IT WORKS http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-builder.gif

So now I can confirm that we can have new 8 provinces beyond the last official one (Sicily).

At least all the discussion here is not pointless theory

I made all the work by hand not using the LMM utility.

Now what we'd need is a "blank" (without the names of the provinces and without the islands we want to remove) maptex.tga, a new coherent Europe Lukmap and a lot of work to have a graphically pleasing result.

[Norseman]

Quote[/b] ]
I added today a new province (Verona for sake of precision) using the first 2 free colors of the LUKMAP bitmap palette.

I also added the declarations and stuff in the startpos file and in my mod region_specific file and IT WORKS

So now I can confirm that we can have new 8 provinces beyond the last official one (Sicily).

At least all the discussion here is not pointless theory


Great news indeed Re Berengario http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-thumbsup.gif

BTW, can you list the "free" colours(in region-pairs preferably), or tell me how/where I can find them?

And what program do you use to get it done??

[SicilianVespers]

Wes,
I like the idea of a Savoia province in the NW . In earlier scenarios it could be used to represend the Italian March of Ivrea or Turin, and using it as a pass province is perfect.

I am not sure what kind of maps you guys are going off of, but the original Genoa/Liguria province looks somewhat like the Marches of Liguria Orientale and Liguria Occidentale combined. Again it may not look right for later Genoa, but it works for the Earlier period when Liguria was ruled by Margraves and Viscounts.

Turin was one of the Marches of Carolingian & Post-Carolingian Italy. The March of Turin was ruled by the Arduinici. They provided a few Kings to Pre-HRE controlled Italy (When the HRE's were Italian). Berengario II and Arduino are two of them. Adelaide de Susa married Oddone of Savoia, and by 1280 Savoia expanded to Torino.

I think I would prefer Sardinia and Corsica seperate. Corsica was traditionally Lombard-Frankish, and Sardinia Byzantine.

[Re Berengario I]

Quote[/b] ]Turin was one of the Marches of Carolingian & Post-Carolingian Italy. The March of Turin was ruled by the Arduinici. They provided a few Kings to Pre-HRE controlled Italy (When the HRE's were Italian). Berengario II and Arduino are two of them. Adelaide de Susa married Oddone of Savoia, and by 1280 Savoia expanded to Torino.


Arduino and Berengario II were Marquis of Ivrea not Turin.

Turin was formerly the capitol city of a Mark under the Count of Auriate controlling Asti and its territory, the western part of Liguria till Monaco and the Susa Valley. Susa gradually became the center of the Mark replacing Turin which was a little free "comune" continuosly struggling against the bigger and stronger Comune of Asti until in 1280 it was definitively occupied by Savoia.

But the Savoia dinasty kept the capitol city in Chambery and just in the 15th century Turin gradually replaced culturally and politically that city, together with the change of the political interest of the Savoia dinasty from France to Italy. It was Emanuele Filiberto in 1563 who officially brought the capitol city of the Duky from Chambery to Turin.

In brief words Turin in the middle-age was of very little interest, Asti and Ivrea were a lot more important and economically and politically strong.

[SicilianVespers]

I'm sorry, I must have lost my train of thought.

Berengario is correct about Ivrea. Berengario II and Arduino were the Margraves of Ivrea, They were of the Anscarici not Arduinici family.

I do think Savoia would be a good addition.

[Re Berengario I]

Quote[/b] (Norseman @ Jan. 15 2004,16:07)]
Quote[/b] ]
I added today a new province (Verona for sake of precision) using the first 2 free colors of the LUKMAP bitmap palette.

I also added the declarations and stuff in the startpos file and in my mod region_specific file and IT WORKS

So now I can confirm that we can have new 8 provinces beyond the last official one (Sicily).

At least all the discussion here is not pointless theory


Great news indeed Re Berengario http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-thumbsup.gif

BTW, can you list the "free" colours(in region-pairs preferably), or tell me how/where I can find them?

And what program do you use to get it done??

I used Mithel converter (a java app) avalaible here at the org. It converts between PNG and LBM and I then used Ulead Photoimpact to edit PNG files. The Mithel program also displays the correct palette of the LUKMAP LBM files, together with their RGB values (that you can use then in your image editing program).

[-Isapostolos-]

Arn't we forgetting about the muslims? I don't think there are alot of Asian provinces. IMO Syria is way to big and has to many links to other provinces.

Thus, if possible I think it would be a good idea to make a province which would roughly include the Anti-Taurus mountain range. In the game, it would stretch from Antioch to the edge of the map signifying the importance of this mountain range. There were very few passes from Mesopotamia to the Anatolian plain, and the one who controlled would have a major advantage.

By the way, are we forgetting about the Morea? I think we don't need a Macedonia province. It would be better if Macedonia got merged with rest of current Greece, and the Morea being a seperate province, since it's important to more factions than Macedonia is to them.

And don't you think it would be better to rename Lesser Armenia to Cappadocia?

[cutepuppy]

Quote[/b] (Isopostolos @ Jan. 16 2004,15:31)]And don't you think it would be better to rename Lesser Armenia to Cappadocia?
I wanted to do that, but it doesn't seem to work (trying to mod in loc\eng\names, maybe it's the wrong file or names have to be drawn on the map) I also tried to rename lesser armenia in Cilicia, but same problem. So how do you change province names on the map?

Maybe Syria could indeed be divided into several (2?) other provinces. It seems that in the crusading period (until Nur-Ad-Din) syria consisted of several city states (Aleppo, Hama, Homs, Damascus,...) which were almost more likely to cooperate with the crusaders than with each other.

[WesW]

Quote[/b] (Re Berengario I @ Jan. 15 2004,09:54)]So now I can confirm that we can have new 8 provinces beyond the last official one (Sicily).

At least all the discussion here is not pointless theory

I made all the work by hand not using the LMM utility.

Now what we'd need is a "blank" (without the names of the provinces and without the islands we want to remove) maptex.tga, a new coherent Europe Lukmap and a lot of work to have a graphically pleasing result.
Yeah, it's great that we got that confirmed about the extra provinces.

The maptex.tga is a simple graphics file, so all the names, borders and physical features are hand-drawn onto it. I guess anyone with a graphics editor that can edit tgas, and a lot of time, can take whatever you want off of it.

Also, Ber, do you want someone to take the texmap, alter it to our liking, and use it as the blueprint for all the other files? I think that is what you meant, but I want to be sure.

I assume you just meant the Lukmap.lbm that's also in the campmap folder. Could you not use the textmap as a blueprint to make the lukmap?

Also, is the FE_MINILUKUP.BIF not used?
You also mentioned some other lbm or bif files in another folder. I don't have them listed in my initial post here, so I'd like to know what other lbm or bif files outside the campmap folder need to be altered.

[Re Berengario I]

Quote[/b] ]The maptex.tga is a simple graphics file, so all the names, borders and physical features are hand-drawn onto it. I guess anyone with a graphics editor that can edit tgas, and a lot of time, can take whatever you want off of it.

Also, Ber, do you want someone to take the texmap, alter it to our liking, and use it as the blueprint for all the other files? I think that is what you meant, but I want to be sure.

I assume you just meant the Lukmap.lbm that's also in the campmap folder. Could you not use the textmap as a blueprint to make the lukmap?

Also, is the FE_MINILUKUP.BIF not used?


Just to start the work is needed a new lukmap in every file format you prefer (except JPG) with all the borders drawn for the regions we want to have.

It's a work I can do but surely there will be a lot of discussions about borders and "why there is Savoy and not Finland?" sort of stuff.

Every historical atlas is different from the other regarding maps of the same period as those were ages where borders weren't so well fixed by treaties between the states and they moved continuosly.

The new system developed for RTW (based on the cities) would be far easier to manage. I know who ruled in Paris in 1230 but where were the borders of the Ile de France province depended on the property of lands and feuds, continuos little wars between the king of France and his feudal Lords, raids from the English Normans, and so on...

When we choose a definitive lukmap then the textmap are to be graphically modified to reflect it (deleting islands and names, adding other names, etc...), but this is the second step.

All the other little maps are reproductions of the larger ones and I will produce them at the end of the process.

[WesW]

http://wes.apolyton.net/LukMap.gif

Ok, here is what I spent my entire night doing. Except for the sea surrounding Rhodes, which I forgot to delete, this is an image of the real, finished LukMap.lbm.

It's hard to see Venice, since I am going to leave it to Berengario to add the magnified image wherever he thinks it best. I have colored Venice in along the northern coast of the Adriatic, and the new islands I added on the coast of Croatia and Serbia are supposed to be Dalmatia, which is combined with Venice into one province.
I am also leaving it up to him whether or not to put in Gotland.

I just noticed that Africa, which is not used in the game, has color numbers 154 and 155. If we extend the provinces to its north (Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia) south to occupy all of Africa's territory, then we should be able to use this province somewhere else. Another approach would be to color all of it pink, like the coasts of the Sinai, though I don't know if this would work or not.

You'll notice I added a sea off the west coast of Denmark as I had talked about before. The best names I could come up with are the Frisian Coast or Helgoland Bay.

Well, everyone look it over, and see if you have any complaints. Now that I have made a decision as to where the territories around Savoy are going to be placed, I don't really know what to call them. Perhaps you guys will know now that you can see them.

I'm not putting this up and saying that it can't be altered. I just thought that everyone needed to see exactly what we have been discussing to this point. Since there haven't been any posts in about three days, it seemed to me that everyone interested had made their points, and it was time for this new model. If I have messed anything up, or if you disagree with my choices, feel free to speak up.

[Re Berengario I]

It's fine for me except the following things:

1) Anjou shouldn't block out Ile de France from Tolouse (or Languedoc as you please to call it). This is a big mistake in the original map because it breaks in 2 the French kingdom (as Anjou is under the english normans) and it wasn't historically so.
I already fixed it in my map.

2) Constantinople should be assigned a region as a city-state. For historical reason and because it's too easy to arrive there by land from Bulgary. You have to seize Thracia before.

3) Dalmatia should be a separate province and Venetia an island for the very same reason as Constantinople. Venetia would be too much vulnerable.

4) I'd remove a russian province or Sinai to split Syria in Syria and Mesopotamia (which is far more important)

5) Kiev doesn't have access to the sea. Cumans were there and then the Horde.

As those above aren't huge changes I can easlily make 2 different maps but I also prefer an unique map.

[Ellesthyan]

Looking very good It'd be very cool if you could accomplish that.

my thoughts:

1) The north eastern part of Lithuania to Smolensk.
Why: Novgorod can use a buffer state, and Smolensk is strategically more important.
2) Why is hungary this way? Its not bad, but I can't see why this rather strange split up.
3) Carbania province (coast of Kiev) is quite a vital province.
Why: it's historical correct, and it can give the cumans and other factions another coastal province.
4) Why can Poland reach Volhynia?
5) Auvergne not in the game? I liked the idea.
6) Is Savoye necessary? I think it can be added to Milan or Genova with no problems.
7) the Sinai, africa, and corsica are provinces I think could be taken...


What will be controlled by who? Thats also important to see what will add strategy to the game and what will not.

-- http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-gossip.gif Ellesthyan

[iostephanos]

the map looks freakin' really good, man

to answer a question you posed:

macedonia as a province was kept separate from early on, since intervention in macedonia predated that of southern greece. so, for a while it was just "macedonia" and "achaia"; sometime later "epirus" shows up.

for historical clarity (meaning to nitpic an earlier comment, don't change anything), thessaly wasn't a part of the duchy of athens and thebes. i think it may have a part of the kingdom of thessalonica originally, but after the despotate of epirus takes that over and then collapses, it becomes known as something like "megalo-vlachia" (there was also a small vlach state across the peninsula above the morea). only a very small part of this territory if any becomes part of the duchy of neopatras when the catalans show up, and after that, i don't know, maybe straight to the turks. as it's drawn now, it perfectly describes the byzantine theme of "hellas" (without the morea).

if it's a choice of macedonia or morea, i guess i'd flip a coin...

lesser armenia as cappadocia is misplaced; besides, what is the advantage of the name "cappadocia"? "lesser armenia" is prominent in crusader state history, even being united with cyprus for a time, and later becomes the place of a turkish emirate before being absorbed by the ottomans; granted it's called something else, but still...

steph

[-Isapostolos-]

How do I post a picture? I have altered the above map to my my views and I would like to show it.

Anyway, the Thessaly province should be bigger; from the current western border to the Hellespont (so not along with it). The rest of thrace should of Thrace should go to Bulgaria, leaving the province with just Constantinople and it's surroundings.

About Lesser Armenia, I think the province should be realigned. It would be better if it extended from the sea to armenia. This would mean that Armenia and Lesser Armenia would be the only entrances into Asia minor making these key defensive positions, which they were/are in real life. Armenia should then swallow up the southern part of Georgia to put the limited acces into asia minor to effect. If these changes would be made, lesser armenia should be renamed into Taurus(mountains), with it's capital in either Melitene, tarsos or even Kalikala.

I would also like to see a split up of Anatolia into 2 provinces(making a southern and northern one), which would make the battle for Asia minor a little less straightfoward. There is only one central Anatolian province right now, Rum, and this one lies at the back of AM. The main Turkish power base in Asia minor was Anatolian plateau which lay in central Asia minor. If this province would border to all the AM provinces, you would create a important province to have for the conquest and defence of AM.

Making northern Anatolia province plains (since it was a plateau would also be a really exciting change to the the already hilly lay out of AM.

Lastly, I think a current problem is that Trebizond is to big. One can go very fast from Syria to Armenia to Trebizond to Constantinople. To change this, I think Rum should get the little peace of land between the city of Trebizond and Georgia. This would change the rapid adavnces of eastern powers and would also give the Turks a port on the black sea at the start of the game.

[cutepuppy]

Quote[/b] (iostephanos @ Jan. 21 2004,14:10)]the map looks freakin' really good, man
.....

lesser armenia as cappadocia is misplaced; besides, what is the advantage of the name "cappadocia"? "lesser armenia" is prominent in crusader state history, even being united with cyprus for a time, and later becomes the place of a turkish emirate before being absorbed by the ottomans; granted it's called something else, but still...

steph
It is true that lesser armenia should not be renamed as cappadocia. The current province anatolia is what should be cappadocia. If you rename Lesser armenia it rather have to be Cilicia (in reality it was a coastal area that was separated from "rum" and "anatolia/cappadocia" by the Taurus mountains. It might even border Nicaea, and thus making anatolia a real inland province)

But indeed a great map, I like the changes on the Iberian peninsula

edit: looking at an earlier post i noticed I encouraged the idea of renaming lesser armenia to cappadocia. I made a mistake there. I meant rename anatolia to cappadocia and maybe lesser armenia to cilicia. (must be quite tired when I wrote that. Only a few words further I mentioned that I wanted to change lesser armenia to cilicia)

[SicilianVespers]

The map looks good.

The only thing I would suggest is to extend what is now Macedonia down to the isthmus of Corinth. You could call this province Thessaly or Hellas. This would correspond to the Byzantine themes of Hellas, Thessaloniki and Strymon, or the Latin Kingdom of Thessalokina.

I would also definitely have the Morea only accessible from this province of Hellas/Thessaly, via the isthmus, to increase its strategic importance.

[WesW]

Re Berengario I Posted on Jan. 21 2004,04:42
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It's fine for me except the following things:

1) Anjou shouldn't block out Ile de France from Tolouse (or Languedoc as you please to call it). This is a big mistake in the original map because it breaks in 2 the French kingdom (as Anjou is under the english normans) and it wasn't historically so.
I already fixed it in my map.

2) Constantinople should be assigned a region as a city-state. For historical reason and because it's too easy to arrive there by land from Bulgary. You have to seize Thracia before.

3) Dalmatia should be a separate province and Venetia an island for the very same reason as Constantinople. Venetia would be too much vulnerable.

4) I'd remove a russian province or Sinai to split Syria in Syria and Mesopotamia (which is far more important)

5) Kiev doesn't have access to the sea. Cumans were there and then the Horde.

As those above aren't huge changes I can easlily make 2 different maps but I also prefer an unique map.

Well, I hope we can produce the best map possible, given that everyone has their own opinions, as witnessed by the conflicting suggestions for Macedonia given below.

1)This is fine with me. The only thing that I am interested in is seeing if we can't limit the number of provinces that border Burgundy at this intersection.

2)Well, the Byz didn't lose Thracia until they had already lost most everything else, so I don't see why it can't stay like it is. Castle assaults are pretty screwed up in the game, and the game also requires an open field battle before the castle assault. If you reduce Constan to a city-state, where will the field battle occur? I think that the current arrangement is the best here.

3)Well, I plan to only have Venice/Dalmatia connected to Verona, and not the provinces along the coast. Also, I believe that Venice is on a peninsula, and thus "could" have been assaulted by land, though it would have been difficult, which can be simulated by making the connection to Verona a river map.

4)I wouldn't object to combining the Sinai and Egypt if it was done to allow another province in that area. Does the map go far enough east to show anything of value beyond Edessa, which contains the fertile region at the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates?
If you believe that the provinces along the edge of the map need to be re-arranged, I would welcome your thoughts, but I think that we need to constrain ourselves to the theatres of action of the Crusaders and Byzantines.

5)I'll go along with splitting and re-arranging the area around Kiev. I would like to try using the colors set aside for Africa, and see what can be done with Africa's area. It may be that we can use two colors not used by the game per-say, but that will suffice to take up the space on the map.
BTW, what should be the name for this new region? I have done some reading on this area from the encyclopedia, and have not noticed anything we could use.

[Re Berengario I]

Yesterday night I finally finish my map, it works except for some crash probably due to some "border info" missing here and there that I still have to find and fix.


Quote[/b] ]1) Anjou shouldn't block out Ile de France from Tolouse (or Languedoc as you please to call it). This is a big mistake in the original map because it breaks in 2 the French kingdom (as Anjou is under the english normans) and it wasn't historically so.
I already fixed it in my map.
1)This is fine with me. The only thing that I am interested in is seeing if we can't limit the number of provinces that border Burgundy at this intersection.

I splited Aquitaine in two, creating the province of Poitou and leaving Aquitaine as it should be Gascoigne (the kingdom of Aquitaine was a late period territory). I also created Savoy and connected Ile de France with Tolouse cutting out Anjou from Burgundy.


Quote[/b] ]2) Constantinople should be assigned a region as a city-state. For historical reason and because it's too easy to arrive there by land from Bulgary. You have to seize Thracia before.

2)Well, the Byz didn't lose Thracia until they had already lost most everything else, so I don't see why it can't stay like it is. Castle assaults are pretty screwed up in the game, and the game also requires an open field battle before the castle assault. If you reduce Constan to a city-state, where will the field battle occur? I think that the current arrangement is the best here.


Well... it wasn't so. Thracia was seized many times before by Goths, Bulgars and all the others invaders. Also in late it was under the Turks well before Constantinople fell. If the game would make castle assaults to citadels really hard we probably wouldn't need it, but since conquering Constantinope is a cake I tried to make it more difficult.


Quote[/b] ] 3) Dalmatia should be a separate province and Venetia an island for the very same reason as Constantinople. Venetia would be too much vulnerable.

3)Well, I plan to only have Venice/Dalmatia connected to Verona, and not the provinces along the coast. Also, I believe that Venice is on a peninsula, and thus "could" have been assaulted by land, though it would have been difficult, which can be simulated by making the connection to Verona a river map.

Venice is not a peninsula, it's a group of islands some of them connected by bridges. Just in modern times a bridge for the train and cars was built to connect Venice to mainland. In medieval times it was almost impossible for anyone not knowing the Venice Laguna to drive a ship to Venice without being stuck somewhere because of the dangerous seafloor. As I said before there are pro and cons, for the human player is better having an island, for the pc is worse as the AI is unable to really exploit the strategical advantages and the faction resurging means they don't have te money to build ships and the Doge usually get stuck there. The same happens with Genoans being stuck in Corsica.


Quote[/b] ] 4) I'd remove a russian province or Sinai to split Syria in Syria and Mesopotamia (which is far more important)

4)I wouldn't object to combining the Sinai and Egypt if it was done to allow another province in that area. Does the map go far enough east to show anything of value beyond Edessa, which contains the fertile region at the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates?
If you believe that the provinces along the edge of the map need to be re-arranged, I would welcome your thoughts, but I think that we need to constrain ourselves to the theatres of action of the Crusaders and Byzantines.


I used new colors to create the Mesopotamia province even if the map doesn't go east as much as needed. But strategically having a rich province as a backbone of your musilm empire is really needed to replicate the force of the Seljuks and even their need to go west n Anatolia when they losed it to other invaders (mongols).


Quote[/b] ] 5) Kiev doesn't have access to the sea. Cumans were there and then the Horde.

5)I'll go along with splitting and re-arranging the area around Kiev. I would like to try using the colors set aside for Africa, and see what can be done with Africa's area. It may be that we can use two colors not used by the game per-say, but that will suffice to take up the space on the map.
BTW, what should be the name for this new region? I have done some reading on this area from the encyclopedia, and have not noticed anything we could use.

I didn't create a new province, I just extented Volhynia to the Black Sea, cutting Kiev out. The province then represented Volhynia and Galicia which was under Cuman control in the early period.

If you wish could post you a gif, bmp or png file of my map so you can see the wor tha I did. I don't have any problem to creat a LBM map for you different than mine. Maybe it would be even better if our two mods would have different maps so we can see through playtesting which one would be the best to assure balance and correct gameplay.

[WesW]

Well, you can alter your lbm to a type that's not as big, like a gif, and email it to me. I'll upload it to my webpage and post it here for everyone to see.

Ellesthyan Posted on Jan. 21 2004,05:51
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my thoughts:

1) The north eastern part of Lithuania to Smolensk.
Why: Novgorod can use a buffer state, and Smolensk is strategically more important.

I don't have any objections to this. I talk about this area more below.

2) Why is hungary this way? Its not bad, but I can't see why this rather strange split up.

Because Hungary was too powerful to represent as just one province. It would be like representing Wessex, Mercia and prehaps Northumbria as one province in terms of wealth and resources.

Btw, merging Wessex and Mercia might not be a bad idea, as they were probably about the same strength as Egypt, maybe less.

3) Carbania province (coast of Kiev) is quite a vital province.
Why: it's historical correct, and it can give the cumans and other factions another coastal province.

I'll go along with that. See also my proposal below about creating a Baltic States province.

4) Why can Poland reach Volhynia?

Because the maps I am using show that Mazovia and Galicia didn't touch each other, and that Lesser Poland stood between them.

5) Auvergne not in the game? I liked the idea.

Maybe if we had more provincial slots.

6) Is Savoye necessary? I think it can be added to Milan or Genova with no problems.

I think it's necessary, and I believe Berengario does as well from his comments. It represents the mountain passes between France and Italy, so controlling it does not automatically give you control of northern Italy or Genoa, and vice versa.

7) the Sinai, africa, and corsica are provinces I think could be taken...

Well, Africa is not used in the game, and I hope to use its colors somewhere. I can see combining the Sinai under certain conditions, which I cover below. Corsica and Sardinia were rarely under control of the same faction from what I can tell studying the maps, and you can't just remove it from the game like Malta due to its size.


What will be controlled by who? Thats also important to see what will add strategy to the game and what will not.

I agree, and I have a pretty good idea of what will belong to whom, and my recommendations reflect that.

-----------------------------------------------------------

I am addressing Berengario's questions below, but anyone should feel free to offer comments and suggestions.

I had been a little confused about how the Turks were such a power when they held so little territory in Asia Minor, but my reading has answered that to some extent. Adding a wealthy province to serve as a base would go a long ways towards making the game more historically correct, but I think that CA decided to make Rum more wealthy to simulate the Turk's base in Mesopotamia, and perhaps Persia as well. I'm still a little fuzzy on the details. I'll try to do some reading later tonight on them.
If you add Mesopotamia, what needs to be done with Asia Minor? Also, the Euratlas maps only seem to give the Turks credit for areas they directly controlled, whereas it was the migrating tribes who were under their semi-control that did much of the damage to the Byz and took control of central Asia Minor.
What I am thinking is to move Rum further to the west, like Isopostolos suggested, and perhaps Armenia as well, and use this space together with the panhandle of Syria for the new province.

As for Poitou, I seem to remember that name popping up frequently in the maps and so-forth, and it seems to be under French control during the High and Late eras, whereas Aquitaine remained English. Therefore it would be a good candidate for a new province.
Btw, the maps always call the English possession the Duchy of Guyenne. Is this more correct than Aquitaine?

I would probably support merging Chernigov with either Smolensk or Pereyaslavl, and maybe Egypt with Sinai to provide the needed provincial slots.

Finally, from what I can tell reading the maps, Lithuania never seems to extend to the sea, though trade routes of that period travelled along the rivers, so Lithuania was active in trade I imagine.
What I was thinking of was to extend Livonia south to Prussia, and call it the Baltic States.

I plan on using the Africa colors for the new province below Kiev, probably calling it Levedia unless someone has a better name.

[-Isapostolos-]

Firstly, do you plan to rearrange Lesser Armenia and armenia? Like I already said, shutting of Asia minor with just two provinces would show the very limited acces a power had into AM. However once one had acces into AM, you were free to go, so therefor making Rum bigger wouldn't be a bad idea, although I do favor a new province in AM instead of making Rum bigger.

Secondly, I still think Constantinople can be taken to easily, since 3 provinces border to it (making it easy for the AI to leave no garrison there). Therefor I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to restrain acces from Nicaea to Constantinople, but at the same time, making a link between Gallipoli and Nicaea. Galipoli would be given to Macedonia. This would make Macedonia a very contested province since 5 provinces would be bordering to it, adding strategical value to it. This would also be historicaly correct since the Turks didn't enter Europe via the Bosporus (which was far harder to cross), but via Gallipoli from which they started raiding and eventually conquering Macedonia and Bulgaria.

Access would finally be really limited to Constantinople with just 2 provinces bordering to it. You could even take it a little bit further by Bulgaria or Macedonia swallowing up the last piece of land of Thrace, so only one province would border to it, making it even easier to defend. But this wouldn't be really correct because Constantinople could historically be attacked from either Macedonia or Bulgaria, although it would give the AI an easier time defend this very fortified city.

[PseRamesses]

Hey guys
Follow this link to a good source for regions, names etc:
http://chema-cagi.com/Europa_Universalis.html

It related to EUII - Europa Universalis, so if you have the game than you´ll have an even more detailed region-names map of the 14-15th century.

Ex: Wes asked what "Odessa" should be called, well it could be either one of three, Crimea/ Kaffa or Kerch, the way the gamemap looks now. The upper part of Provence should be called Dauphine. The lower part of Anatolia should be named Tarsus or Adana and Nicaea should be called Smyrna etc etc.

Things get confusing when sometimes we use city-names and sometimes region-names we should really decide what to use and stick to it. I agree that Constatinopel sounds cooler than Thrace and Cordoba sounds better than Andalusia/ Toledo/ Mucia which ever part of that monumentally absurd game-province you talk of. But the most absur thing of all is that Aragon is NOT a coastal province but is further inland from Catalonia, modern day Barcelona.

Oh, almost forgot. The game-maps region of Syria´s northern part should be Nuyssaybin.
I can go on like this for ages, correct me if I´m wrong and since we´re playing a game based on facts we should gather some - don´t you think?

[PseRamesses]

As I see it we have 4 major problem areas:
1. Southern Iberia
2. South eastern France
3. Asia Minor
4. Scandinavia

and at least 3 provinces that are wrong, to big or just plain inaccurate:
1. Syria
2. Constantinopel
3. Kiev

My humble suggestion is to split Cordoba into two provs: Andalusia and Murcia. Provence into three provs: Provence, Dauphine and Savoie. Asia minor´s Nicaea into Smyrna and Antalya. Anatolia´s coastal part into Taurus and adding the island of Gotland in the Baltic sea. This gives us 6 new provs.
Syrias northern part should be a new provionce "behind" Edessa and called Nuyssaybin and Kiev´s coastal part shold be called Jedisan. As for Constantiopel just make it a Balkan province and divide its Asia Minor part between Trebizond and Nicaea so that you will have to have a fleet to take the city. That fills the quota

As for Finland I think it is one of the most useless provs of the game so take it away and add some of your suggestions on the Balkans, southern Germany or whatever.
Taking away some useless Rus provs is good too but add Kurland as Lithuanias norther part for godness sake, Lithuania had no sea access what so ever but was blocked by Prussia, Memel and Kurland.

[Ellesthyan]

Ex: Wes asked what "Odessa" should be called, well it could be either one of three, Crimea/ Kaffa or Kerch, the way the gamemap looks now. The upper part of Provence should be called Dauphine. The lower part of Anatolia should be named Tarsus or Adana and Nicaea should be called Smyrna etc etc.

>> Carbania is what its name should be (check the thread). Dauphine was already given by me, Tarsus was the capital of the independend christian kingdom Lesser Armenia (or Cilicia) and calling Nicaea Smyrna is plain silly. (why use another city name? If you would want to give it its proper name it should be Asia, Ionia, Lyria, Pergamum... I'd rather stick with Nicaea. Also, the empire of Nicaea controlled exactly this province...)
> Its not about "it sounds cooler", its rather about people understanding where and what it is. Also, fun is an important factor. If the majority has more fun with a province called Constantinople (I do), then that is what should be done.
Aragon IS a coastal province, as it reflects the kingdom after it merged with Barcelona. Only if a new province would be made called Catalonia your idea almost seems good. Why is it so absurd? You think the province should be called Catalonia? It's called Aragorn because it was controlled by the kingdom of Aragorn from 1087 till 1453. Might give you a clue why they took that name, hm? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-dizzy2.gif
Try to use your brains when you think...
>
It would be VERY impractical to give a province such a difficult name, if only because most players can't say it properly. (there are more reasons) North Mesopotamia would be a much better and more useful name.
Ramses, I dont think we should give any province a name that will confuse the majority. (or confuse it more then something else) Next time you start doing something like this you should read the whole thread first http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

[WesW]

Ellesthyan, please refrain from personal attacks. We all get the urge every now and then to smack someone upside the head, as we say around here, but you have to restrain yourself. There are better ways of showing that you disagree.

PseR, you misunderstood what I meant with Rum. I meant to leave it the same size, more or less, just pick it up and move it west, closer to its historical position, then give the vacant space to a new Mesopotamia province, along with northern Syria.

Looking through the Euratlas maps, Berengario, there was an emirate of Mosul in the Early period and at least part of the High era, but I think you are talking about the Abbassid Califate, or something to represent Mesopotamia and/or Persia. CA at one time planned on having a province to represent the Mongol homeland, but obviously changed their mind at some point. I wish we knew what features they were planning to give it, such as making it very wealthy to simulate the cost bonuses that we finally decided to go with for the mod.

I'll wait for you to post your map, and then I'll post another version of what I have in mind at that point, after I've taken your comments into consideration.

[PseRamesses]

Ellesthyan,
I DID say "correct me if I´m wrong" which you did in some cases and for that I´m grateful. No need to get antagonistic. We´re both wrong in some of the cases.
I didn´t read the whole 5 page thread just the last two so maybee I missed some crucial fact earlier - my bad

Back to my issue: Should we name regions by domination city, regions proper name or what sounds "familiar". Personally I´d go with either first two choices it doesn´t matter.
Ex: The province Aragon in the game is REALLY Catalonia and I don´t see why Aragon´s main province shouldn´t be called by the proper name? The proper region called Aragon was further inland from Catalonia. I some of my suggestions I choose city-names like Tarsus because it´s so dominating in that region and has been there for a very long time. I missed the kingdom of Nicaea though, my bad

Wes, by Odessa I thought you meant the "russian" province by the same name that´s why I suggested the name Kaffa etc.
And I do agree that Rum should be moved a bit.

[-Isapostolos-]

WesW, I agree on moving Rum westward, but the new Mesopotamian province shouldn't lie on the eastern part of current Rum since the Anti-Taurus mountains lie there. Mesopotamia is for more to the south. Therefor I think the space Rum leaves behind should be taken by Lesser Armenia like I have said before, so Asia minor would be shut off by this province, reflecting the limited acces one had into Anatolia. If you would want to place a Mesopotamian province you should use up space of Syria and Edessa, which are far more akin to Mesopotamia in relief and position.

And could someone please comment on my idea of giving Gallipoli to Thessaly/Macedonia, and restraining acces from Nicaea to Constantinople (which I mentioned in my last post)?

And Wes, what do you plan to do with Anatolia if you move Rum westward?

[Ellesthyan]

Im sorry Ramses, Wes, I got a bit taken away by my emotion.

Ramses, I think your way of suggesting kinda ticked me off, but my way was even worse Just try to make it seem more like a new plan, a new suggestion next time.

[PseRamesses]

Quote[/b] (Ellesthyan @ Jan. 28 2004,08:12)]Im sorry Ramses, Wes, I got a bit taken away by my emotion.

Ramses, I think your way of suggesting kinda ticked me off, but my way was even worse Just try to make it seem more like a new plan, a new suggestion next time.
Ellesthyan,
No offence taken. Communication is not what you say but how people hear you say it so I´m sorry if you thought I was a self-proclaimed Mr-know-it-all. I was just making some suggestions and some of them was wrong. And, hey, it´s easy to get carried away with this game, isn´t it Take care

[HopelessCelt]

Hi,

I think the map should be edited for gameplay, not historical correctness. So if you have a choice of 2 provs, choose the one which will add the better game play.

And, what programmes did you use to edited the lbm files as i want to add francland to the viking map. cheers

[WesW]

Here is Berengario's proposed map, which he sent to me a few weeks ago. I emailed him twice so he could be the one to post it and explain it, but I haven't gotten any response. Let me know if he has stopped visiting the forums or what-not, since I have been out of touch myself lately.

I have about decided to go ahead and try and finish my own version of the map, and just use it for the first beta of version four. It won't suit a lot of people, I know, but this topic has just ground the development whole mod to a stop, along with my medical problems, of course. I'll try and post the map soon, but I still don't know how long it will be until the mod itself is all ready. A lot will depend upon whether or not Berengario is still active and willing to help/

http://wes.apolyton.net/BLukMap.gif

[Ellesthyan]

Interesting map, and especially the syria solution is well done. A lot of changes I dont agree with tho, as some seem rather unimportant. For example, was the Poitou a more important region then the Auvergne? I'm thinking that it was sticked to Guyenne/Gascogne most of the time, or was at least under its influence, where a province of Auvergne could have more "positive" impact on the game. But hey, that's only my opinion http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-2thumbsup.gif

[Eastside Character]

Eastern Europe looks pretty screwed up on this map: Hungary is left as it was, Poland is divided in some extraordinary way, and Volhynia stretches from Prussia all the way to Crimea (what was the logic behind it i dont know). Cant say i like this map. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/angry.gif

Oh, almost forgot: good to see you back Wes http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif

Regards,
EC

[WesW]

Just thought I would let everyone interested know that I have corrected a few minor errors in the initial post's information, and that in the second post I have put together everything about the changes that were made to the map, and why.

I do not want to resume the discussion on anything, but those interested can now see it all together.

[dimitrios the samian]

Gooday Wes
You certainly ignited and cooked up a lot of passion
I was hoping to find what i was looking for but ...
Anyway my question... have you looked at changing our playing peices on the strategy map ? particularly our generic soldier peice .
I think we have a excellent game but with only simple boardgame like playing peices and a even more archaic interface on our strategy map .
Please anybody ask me why and i will list more points for improvement , than what I have below .
Im a newbie to this game ( and love it ) but im a old hand at gaming altogether . In the short time Ive been a member I have brought up a few points and made some suggestions but no one seems interested , check em if your curious ,they are .
* BATTLE CAMERA " Intelligence Required "
* UNIT INFO PANEL " Tweaking Required "
* STRATEGY MAP " Modders Required "
Do you really have to right click to see whats in our peice ?
Wouldn't it be easier if you could tell by its size,shape condition or flag etc ,wether it was that group going for retraining or the Mangonel crew heading for the upcoming seiges on the outskirts of your empire, Or perhaps a bubble appearing when over it .
My ten year old even said why was my group of six Royal Knights heading as backup for the outskirts wasn't depicted as such ( a peice with a small horse )
Yes I understand Armies are mixed , but it might be possible only I don't know how ... yet but I will learn and hopefully with the help guidance and assistance of others we can all work together to improve our beloved but frustrating Strategy Map .
cheers
Dimitros the Samian