Dead Moroz
01-30-2006, 23:36
All the text and pictures below are just my thoughts on how MTW2 map will look like according to current information about project and what it means for gameplay.
According to current set of factions it's logical to assume that the map will be stretched from Mexico (territory of Aztec empire) on the west to city of Samarkand (capital of Tumurids) on the east. Maybe CA will squeeze Atlantic ocean to make map look more compact. The southern edge of the map will be Northern Sahara, I suppose. The northern edge will be central Sweden and southern Finland, 'coz the land to the north of it are hard for life and war and always were out of main medieval wars. But it's possible that CA won't expand map so much east and north. Maybe they make it end on Caspian sea at the east and garble the situation of Tumurids factions as they do it with Parthia in RTW.
Though we don't know if CA plans to make 3 eras system in MTW2 (like in MTW1), many of us hopes that this feature will be included in the game. I suspect there will be these time periods:
1. 1080-1200 (Romanesque)
2. 1200-1400 (Gothic)
3. 1400-1530 (Renaissance)
So there are possible maps of these periods in game. I don't mention America, 'coz it's too small information to talk about it now, plus America will be available only in late periods of game so won't participate in most part of action.
https://img378.imageshack.us/img378/3608/ad1080ca3rj.jpg
https://img378.imageshack.us/img378/729/ad1200ca8ch.jpg
https://img378.imageshack.us/img378/6417/ad1400ca6ys.jpg
You can see that there may be almost the same map of Europe as in previous TW game (personally I think that CA don't plan to expand map to east enough). The number of factions is quite small even on smaller (traditional) version of map. Many regions will belong to rebels, so they will be just source for quick building of super empires. You can notice another dangerous tendency: there are lots of small countries (many of them are just one region states) clamped between large empires. These countries risks to be conquered by their stronger neighbors in first 20-30 turns, especially if AI will the same as in RTW. So there will be even smaller number of "players" on map and gameplay will became more predictable and boring.
I suspect that CA will unite some of historically scattered states into solid factions in game: HRE, later Poland (as Polish-Lithuanian union) and Russia (as collective image of all former Rus states, or just some part of them maybe).
Another dangerous things are cultural/religious and geographical inequalities in set of factions. There will be 13 catholic, 4 muslim, 2 orthodox and 2 pagan factions. (Btw, I wonder how CA will handle question of Mongol's religion: in early period they were pagan, but later the majority of Mongols in Europe were muslims.) The majority of factions are catholic and most of factions are situated in western part of map while eastern part is almost empty.
So the things gonna be imho and if CA won't change their plans on this game we'll get almost the same gameplay as in RTW.
I suggest to make map larger enough to represent declared factions (*cough**Tumurids**cough*) more historically correct and to bring something new in traditional RTW/MTW gameplay. That's why I support idea about America, but don't think it will be enough, 'coz this part of map will be closed for players during major game action. Plus we need more factions to have more opponents and to distribute factions more equally in geographical and cultural aspects. It's also will be great if CA will make a set of emerging factions, so we will be able to play against "later" factions even if we start in early period.
Imho the proper map should look like this:
https://img236.imageshack.us/img236/6214/ad10805nn.jpg
https://img235.imageshack.us/img235/6166/ad12005xt.jpg
https://img378.imageshack.us/img378/1793/ad14006ig.jpg
According to current set of factions it's logical to assume that the map will be stretched from Mexico (territory of Aztec empire) on the west to city of Samarkand (capital of Tumurids) on the east. Maybe CA will squeeze Atlantic ocean to make map look more compact. The southern edge of the map will be Northern Sahara, I suppose. The northern edge will be central Sweden and southern Finland, 'coz the land to the north of it are hard for life and war and always were out of main medieval wars. But it's possible that CA won't expand map so much east and north. Maybe they make it end on Caspian sea at the east and garble the situation of Tumurids factions as they do it with Parthia in RTW.
Though we don't know if CA plans to make 3 eras system in MTW2 (like in MTW1), many of us hopes that this feature will be included in the game. I suspect there will be these time periods:
1. 1080-1200 (Romanesque)
2. 1200-1400 (Gothic)
3. 1400-1530 (Renaissance)
So there are possible maps of these periods in game. I don't mention America, 'coz it's too small information to talk about it now, plus America will be available only in late periods of game so won't participate in most part of action.
https://img378.imageshack.us/img378/3608/ad1080ca3rj.jpg
https://img378.imageshack.us/img378/729/ad1200ca8ch.jpg
https://img378.imageshack.us/img378/6417/ad1400ca6ys.jpg
You can see that there may be almost the same map of Europe as in previous TW game (personally I think that CA don't plan to expand map to east enough). The number of factions is quite small even on smaller (traditional) version of map. Many regions will belong to rebels, so they will be just source for quick building of super empires. You can notice another dangerous tendency: there are lots of small countries (many of them are just one region states) clamped between large empires. These countries risks to be conquered by their stronger neighbors in first 20-30 turns, especially if AI will the same as in RTW. So there will be even smaller number of "players" on map and gameplay will became more predictable and boring.
I suspect that CA will unite some of historically scattered states into solid factions in game: HRE, later Poland (as Polish-Lithuanian union) and Russia (as collective image of all former Rus states, or just some part of them maybe).
Another dangerous things are cultural/religious and geographical inequalities in set of factions. There will be 13 catholic, 4 muslim, 2 orthodox and 2 pagan factions. (Btw, I wonder how CA will handle question of Mongol's religion: in early period they were pagan, but later the majority of Mongols in Europe were muslims.) The majority of factions are catholic and most of factions are situated in western part of map while eastern part is almost empty.
So the things gonna be imho and if CA won't change their plans on this game we'll get almost the same gameplay as in RTW.
I suggest to make map larger enough to represent declared factions (*cough**Tumurids**cough*) more historically correct and to bring something new in traditional RTW/MTW gameplay. That's why I support idea about America, but don't think it will be enough, 'coz this part of map will be closed for players during major game action. Plus we need more factions to have more opponents and to distribute factions more equally in geographical and cultural aspects. It's also will be great if CA will make a set of emerging factions, so we will be able to play against "later" factions even if we start in early period.
Imho the proper map should look like this:
https://img236.imageshack.us/img236/6214/ad10805nn.jpg
https://img235.imageshack.us/img235/6166/ad12005xt.jpg
https://img378.imageshack.us/img378/1793/ad14006ig.jpg