screwtype
02-19-2005, 09:51
There's been a lot of talk in this forum about the changes many of us would like to see in game basics, like the need for better campaign and battle AI, slower walk and kill speeds, less "uber" cavalry and so on, and I agree with most of it.
However, I thought I might list a few other improvements not related to these issues that I'd like to see. Really I should probably sit down sometime and make a long list of everything I'd like to see, but here are a few for now.
1/ Better management tools.
1a/ First, there is a crying need in this game for a better, faster way to manage your cities. This has been an issue for three games and two expansion packs now and it still hasn't been fixed. It's such a chore to have to cycle through all your cities one by one making the necessary adjustments.
So there needs to be a master interface you can bring up from which you can review and manage ALL your cities. It should list all the relevant details about a city, such as population, happiness level and tax level, and you should be able to adjust the tax level of each city directly from this interface, and see instantly how it impacts on the happiness level.
It should also have a small pic showing which unit and/or building is currently being built in that city (if any) with the name of the unit type/building type below. Next to the unit building pic should be icons showing what upgrades units built in that city are currently eligible for. That way you can easily see which are the best cities to build in.
Naturally, you should also be able to zoom directly to any city from this master interface, where you can make more detailed changes if you wish. But if you have zoomed from the master interface, when you close the city interface you should be automatically taken back to the master interface again.
1b/ Another clumsy game mechanic ATM is the way slavery is managed. If you want to pump up the pop. of one or two cities with slavery, you have to remove all the governors of every other city before fighting your battle. Another tedious chore which could easily be avoided.
Where slaves go should not depend on where your governors are. If you choose the "slavery" option, another window should pop up immediately which lists all the cities you currently possess, together with their populations. You should be able to click on one or more cities and immediately see how it changes the population of each city that slaves are being sent to (to keep it simple, slaves are just evenly divided between however many cities you select, as they are now). When you have it how you want it, you click the okay button and the slaves are sent just to the cities you chose.
Oh and speaking of governors, why has the method of selection changed from MTW? MTW's system was better, where you could nominate the leader of any unit as the governor by dropping the province title on him. (Yes, I'd like to see province titles, and the enhanced ratings they bestow brought back). You can still use your family members as governors, but now you will have more than enough of them to act as generals for your armies.
2/ More complex campaign.
Ca seems to be very timid in adding anything which complicates the basic build more units/conquer the world paradigm. The campaign is desperately in need of some added dimensions which complicate the issue and force you to consider more than just conquering your next province on your inexorable way to steamrolling the world.
I'm not going to suggest that CA adds a supply dimension, because I've yet to see a good implementation of supply on a computer game. But there are certainly some other things that could easily be done to make the campaign more of a multi-dimensional challenge.
Now, there are already "random events" and "effects of war" on provinces, but their effects are so negligible as to make them totally superfluous. So some more work here would be a good start.
2a/ Effects of War.
First, I think that in any province which contains two or more factions which are at war, there should be a substantial negative effect on the population, simulating slash and burn by the interloper and foraging by both sides. So I think there should be, say, -10% growth in any province where two or more warring factions are present. Furthermore in the case of siege, there should be an accelerating negative effect - say 10% loss of pop. on first turn, 20% loss on second, 30% loss on third and subsequent turns.
Also, I think a province's tech level should shrink as its population shrinks. So if, say, it dips below 6000, you lose all the buildings that relied on a 6000 population to initially be built. That reflects loss of vital personnel and infrastructure through death, damage and emigration.
By these simple methods, warfare becomes a very nasty thing indeed for provinces and you will need to take uncontested control of provinces very quickly to avoid substantial damage to your province and its population. (Perhaps, though, these effects should only occur where the human player is a party to the conflict as otherwise the entire map might quickly become depopulated and de-teched).
2b/ Random events.
The trouble with random events as they are currently implemented is (a) they are too infrequent and (b) they don't do much when they do occur.
I think EVERY province should have a random event of its own at the beginning of every turn, either negative or positive. The random event for each province should be announced at the top of every province information sheet when you bring it up, and also on the master interface I talked about before. The proportion of negative to positive random events should increase with harder difficulty levels.
Positive random events could be - baby boom (adds extra to pop), good harvest, excellent harvest, positive prophecies etc. Negative random events would give opposite effects. Random events affect happiness as well in some cases other attributes.
The effects of negative random events should also be bad enough to have a material affect on your campaign. For example a terrible harvest should cause starvation and negative growth for a couple of turns as well as the possibility of disease breaking out. An occasional earthquake or fire should destroy heaps of buildings and a big drop in the population. And so on. But again, I think random events should probably only affect the human player.
Maybe your overall population's happiness should also be affected by the other things you do. For example whenever you capture a province you might see a temporary boost in happiness throughout your kingdom. But losing a battle will cause an across the board drop in happiness, leading to possible revolts in the same turn. Again, higher difficulty levels should decrease the positive effects of winning and increase the negative effects of losing.
Okay, that will probably do for now. I forgot how long it can take to describe a few simple ideas, LOL. But I really think the campaign needs more complexity to make it more interesting and challenging. And it's not as though the changes I've suggested would mean more micromanagement - they would just mean it wouldn't be so easy to win.
And if CA thinks that features like these would make the game too complicated for the average dumbo, then the solution is clear - a campaign that doesn't include any extra features as the default, and an "advanced" campaign for those who like a more immersive gameworld.
However, I thought I might list a few other improvements not related to these issues that I'd like to see. Really I should probably sit down sometime and make a long list of everything I'd like to see, but here are a few for now.
1/ Better management tools.
1a/ First, there is a crying need in this game for a better, faster way to manage your cities. This has been an issue for three games and two expansion packs now and it still hasn't been fixed. It's such a chore to have to cycle through all your cities one by one making the necessary adjustments.
So there needs to be a master interface you can bring up from which you can review and manage ALL your cities. It should list all the relevant details about a city, such as population, happiness level and tax level, and you should be able to adjust the tax level of each city directly from this interface, and see instantly how it impacts on the happiness level.
It should also have a small pic showing which unit and/or building is currently being built in that city (if any) with the name of the unit type/building type below. Next to the unit building pic should be icons showing what upgrades units built in that city are currently eligible for. That way you can easily see which are the best cities to build in.
Naturally, you should also be able to zoom directly to any city from this master interface, where you can make more detailed changes if you wish. But if you have zoomed from the master interface, when you close the city interface you should be automatically taken back to the master interface again.
1b/ Another clumsy game mechanic ATM is the way slavery is managed. If you want to pump up the pop. of one or two cities with slavery, you have to remove all the governors of every other city before fighting your battle. Another tedious chore which could easily be avoided.
Where slaves go should not depend on where your governors are. If you choose the "slavery" option, another window should pop up immediately which lists all the cities you currently possess, together with their populations. You should be able to click on one or more cities and immediately see how it changes the population of each city that slaves are being sent to (to keep it simple, slaves are just evenly divided between however many cities you select, as they are now). When you have it how you want it, you click the okay button and the slaves are sent just to the cities you chose.
Oh and speaking of governors, why has the method of selection changed from MTW? MTW's system was better, where you could nominate the leader of any unit as the governor by dropping the province title on him. (Yes, I'd like to see province titles, and the enhanced ratings they bestow brought back). You can still use your family members as governors, but now you will have more than enough of them to act as generals for your armies.
2/ More complex campaign.
Ca seems to be very timid in adding anything which complicates the basic build more units/conquer the world paradigm. The campaign is desperately in need of some added dimensions which complicate the issue and force you to consider more than just conquering your next province on your inexorable way to steamrolling the world.
I'm not going to suggest that CA adds a supply dimension, because I've yet to see a good implementation of supply on a computer game. But there are certainly some other things that could easily be done to make the campaign more of a multi-dimensional challenge.
Now, there are already "random events" and "effects of war" on provinces, but their effects are so negligible as to make them totally superfluous. So some more work here would be a good start.
2a/ Effects of War.
First, I think that in any province which contains two or more factions which are at war, there should be a substantial negative effect on the population, simulating slash and burn by the interloper and foraging by both sides. So I think there should be, say, -10% growth in any province where two or more warring factions are present. Furthermore in the case of siege, there should be an accelerating negative effect - say 10% loss of pop. on first turn, 20% loss on second, 30% loss on third and subsequent turns.
Also, I think a province's tech level should shrink as its population shrinks. So if, say, it dips below 6000, you lose all the buildings that relied on a 6000 population to initially be built. That reflects loss of vital personnel and infrastructure through death, damage and emigration.
By these simple methods, warfare becomes a very nasty thing indeed for provinces and you will need to take uncontested control of provinces very quickly to avoid substantial damage to your province and its population. (Perhaps, though, these effects should only occur where the human player is a party to the conflict as otherwise the entire map might quickly become depopulated and de-teched).
2b/ Random events.
The trouble with random events as they are currently implemented is (a) they are too infrequent and (b) they don't do much when they do occur.
I think EVERY province should have a random event of its own at the beginning of every turn, either negative or positive. The random event for each province should be announced at the top of every province information sheet when you bring it up, and also on the master interface I talked about before. The proportion of negative to positive random events should increase with harder difficulty levels.
Positive random events could be - baby boom (adds extra to pop), good harvest, excellent harvest, positive prophecies etc. Negative random events would give opposite effects. Random events affect happiness as well in some cases other attributes.
The effects of negative random events should also be bad enough to have a material affect on your campaign. For example a terrible harvest should cause starvation and negative growth for a couple of turns as well as the possibility of disease breaking out. An occasional earthquake or fire should destroy heaps of buildings and a big drop in the population. And so on. But again, I think random events should probably only affect the human player.
Maybe your overall population's happiness should also be affected by the other things you do. For example whenever you capture a province you might see a temporary boost in happiness throughout your kingdom. But losing a battle will cause an across the board drop in happiness, leading to possible revolts in the same turn. Again, higher difficulty levels should decrease the positive effects of winning and increase the negative effects of losing.
Okay, that will probably do for now. I forgot how long it can take to describe a few simple ideas, LOL. But I really think the campaign needs more complexity to make it more interesting and challenging. And it's not as though the changes I've suggested would mean more micromanagement - they would just mean it wouldn't be so easy to win.
And if CA thinks that features like these would make the game too complicated for the average dumbo, then the solution is clear - a campaign that doesn't include any extra features as the default, and an "advanced" campaign for those who like a more immersive gameworld.