Landblocks

[Christianus]

Will there be any landblocks in 0.8? For example between the russian steppes and parthia, and between the carthagenians and the ptolemoies?

[eadingas]

We are testing various solutions, including this one.

[iberus_generalis]

landblocks? care to explain? im not understanding...what is a landblock in RTW? sorry for my noobish ignorance...

[Conqueror]

I think it's about trying to make some parts of the map impossible to move across.

[fallen851]

No!

Please do not make landblocks! Do not try to direct history like RTR does, just let everything flow!

Doesn't this go against everything the EB team stands for like the "we are setting the table as it was, then you create the history"?

Isn't this something like having a character like Marius show up to do the reforms, when in fact anyone could have done it in a variety of ways?

Please no?

I'll have to learn map editing...

[GMT]

No!

Please do NOT make landblocks! Do not try to direct history like RTR does, just let everything flow!

Doesn't this go against everything the EB team stands for like the "we are setting the table as it was, then you create the history"?

Isn't this something like having a character like Marius show up to do the reforms, when in fact anyone could have done it in a variety of ways?

Please no?

What he said! Although I think he forgot the "not" :sweatdrop:

EDIT: nevermind lol, he edited his post

[Teleklos Archelaou]

We haven't really done it yet. It's got to be an option though guys - as carthie/ptolemy sand wars are not historical and would not have happened like they are in RTW's engine without some geographical hindrance (be it in terrain or strange territorial boundaries or whatever). We have a couple of other tricks to try first, but our mapping ability has been greatly hindered lately.

[Zaknafien]

I agree, I paticularly find annoying the constant war/peace treaties every turn over insignifigant pieces of the saharan desert... :laugh4:

[GMT]

I don't think the AI would handle these landblocks very well.

You'd just get a bunch of full stack armies who are just standing there because of pathfinding problems. :dizzy2:

[fallen851]

I agree, I paticularly find annoying the constant war/peace treaties every turn over insignifigant pieces of the saharan desert... :laugh4:

It the pieces are insignificant, just let the AI have them and forget it. If you want them and the AI wants them... then they are significant. And this is the point. Sand wars may not be "historical" before, but if the player and AI choose to fighter over a peice of terrority, then so be it. Please represent the map as it was.

What are the historical odds of Alexander the Great or Hannibal being repeated? Not very good, but it happened. What if Ptolmey decided to pull a Pyhrrus and invade Carthage? It could have happened!

Many of these wars came down to one side saying "umm lets go invade somewhere for glory!" and the choice was theres, and it should be ours!

[eadingas]

It the pieces are insignificant, just let the AI have them and forget it. If you want them and the AI wants them... then they are significant. And this is the point. Sand wars may not be "historical" before, but if the player and AI choose to fighter over a peice of terrority, then so be it. Please represent the map as it was.

It's not a matter of player vs AI, it's a matter of AI vs AI. It's not a matter of "chance", but of something that repeats itself in almost every campaign, something that is highly improbable historically, and we want to do something about it. Although we are trying to find a way to do this without actually preventing the player - if they want - to do that war. Which kinda makes the landblocks our last resort, as they would stand against that principle.

[abou]

Yes, it is very annoying when Carthage and Egypt go to war with each other very early in the game and you are playing as one of them. :furious3:

[Conqueror]

Not that a landblock in North Africa would stop a player anyway; players actually are able to use naval transport in a non-braindead manner.

[eadingas]

Well yes, but it would be annoying and unnatural.

[Discoskull]

It would be neat if you guys put the Sahara city at the very bottom lefthand corner of the map, so the desert would always be master-less and tan...

[Trithemius]

We haven't really done it yet. It's got to be an option though guys - as carthie/ptolemy sand wars are not historical and would not have happened like they are in RTW's engine without some geographical hindrance (be it in terrain or strange territorial boundaries or whatever). We have a couple of other tricks to try first, but our mapping ability has been greatly hindered lately.

Is it not possible to restrict the province-selection process for AI players, or is that stuff mostly in the inaccessibly code?

[Teleklos Archelaou]

I've no idea what that even is Trithemius :grin:. Nikolai1962 did a lot of work on trying to figure out why the AI goes for certain cities. A lot of it has to do with visibility (can you see the next city) unless they are already at war with someone. But we really can't do much in directing the AI to certain places.

[Trithemius]

I've no idea what that even is Trithemius :grin:. Nikolai1962 did a lot of work on trying to figure out why the AI goes for certain cities. A lot of it has to do with visibility (can you see the next city) unless they are already at war with someone. But we really can't do much in directing the AI to certain places.

Ah. Pesky.

Personally I would prefer no landblocks, for the reasons other people have mentioned. However, if it is based on visibility perhaps you can "encourage" the AI to expand in certain directions by placing watchtowers and spies?

I'm really not sure how you can get the AI to expand over water - I suspect that Carthage will almost always want to take the Ptolemies on. In my recent Baktrian game I saw a Carthaginian full stack land near Tarsos, sit there for a while, then disappear. Very mysterious!

[Cheexsta]

We've done a fair bit of testing with RTRPE using various landblock methods and they seem to work in directing the AI where we want them to go (to a degree).

As for whether you'd want this to happen, I understand there are a lot of people who don't want the AI to be restricted to the historical expansion of a faction. I disagree with this view; it is important that the AI views certain enemies and certain provinces in the same way that the faction would have in history, given the appropriate situations and so on. If the Gauls and Germans were constantly at war in history, then it makes sense to have them likely to go to war in the game. Likewise, if war between Carthage and Egypt was unlikely due to the desert conditions making it near-impossible to transport an army between the two, then war should be avoided between the two in the game.

And lastly, we've done some experiments on naval invasions in RTRPE, with some interesting results: it's easy to get a faction to initiate naval invasions, though it's harder to direct who they go after (the AI tends to prefer attacking the player, for example). Most importantly, however, the AI does do naval invasions; I have seen Macedon, for example, attempt several times to take Rhodes, even without the naval invasions setting on.

Just some interesting findings some might like the sound of :)

[Teleklos Archelaou]

I personally think the next thing we need to try (from reading what nikolai the mad genius wrote up in his brief time with us) is extending the Sahara province all the way to the Syrtis Major. It would unfortunately keep roads from connecting from Syrthim to Kyrene, but that isn't too bad I don't think. If roads and a clear path to the next province's capital (and the Sahara province capital now is further away) aren't there to help, the AI seems like it is much less likely to "jump" a whole province and go on to the next one. Some trade will still leak through on land, and it would be possible for armies to cross, just less likely (esp. with AI). Dunno if this is all for sure how it would turn out, but that's my guess from what I've read so far. We haven't tried this yet, but we might.

[Cheexsta]

TA - that was one of the possible landblocks we tested a short time ago (before the forum downtime), it certainly seems to have its benefits. The only downside I could think of is how the player is capable of crossing this border while the AI is reluctant to do so, though the same could be said of any other block. And there's nothing to stop the AI from being able to react to a player's presence in his land once they've crossed...

I didn't note whether agents crossed this border or not, though I can't see any reason why they couldn't/wouldn't.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Well, I think our main focus is indeed to stop the AI from doing it. If players are foolhardy enough to do it, and want to be ahistorical, then let them. Hard to stop that. But if it will keep the AI from doing it (even just less frequently, though sometimes it might happen), then that's probably the biggest thing we are looking for. It's a nice side benefit that players can still do it if they start feeling antsy around that area. :laugh4:

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

I like the idea of the sahara territory being larger (maybe removing territories and using them elsewhere), unconquerable, and touching the Mediterranean southwest of Cyrene.

A little aside concerning the sahara and its conquest: Did Carthage ever expand inland historically? Were they interested in anything without a port?

[MSB]

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, don't put landblocks in 0.8! PLEASE!!!!!! Landblocks ruin gameplay by stopping factions from going to war with each other. If you don't want people to go across the Sahara as it would have been hard let them do so, but make it difficult to do so. Make sure that all generals that are in the Sahara get a trait which restricts movement and that goes when they leave it. Brilliant solution!

[Musopticon?]

Landblocks all the way. And please get rid of the million desert provinces. There's a wealth of places where those extra provinces could be used.

[eadingas]

You must be playing wrong version of EB... There is only one desert province - Sahara (and one in Arabia). The rest are simply North African provinces. We might get rid of ONE of them. One day. That is the final word on that.

[CountArach]

I'm all for using Landblocks. Perhaps the EB team should put it to a poll as to what the public wants?

[eadingas]

It's not really a matter of what public wants or not. If it works like we want, we'll put it. If we find a better way, we'll put that one in. We have a certain goal in sight and we aim to achieve it the best (and most historically accurate) way possible.

[vizigothe]

I would rather have Carthage focusing on Italy than making sand castles along the bank of the Nile.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Even if generals in certain places got movement penalties, the AI still is stupid. They would just have stacks of slow generals standing in the desert. It would hurt them even more. We have to work within the limits of what we know is possible, considering how the AI will work with these changes.

[fallen851]

Well if I remember correctly, Carthage and Rome went to war because both were expanding naval powers. So what if Egypt and Carthage are expanding naval powers? They should be blocked from going to war directly?

And if this naval invasion idea works, what is going to stop Egypt and Carthage (assuming both are AI) from launching "unnatural" naval invasion on each other?

I guess I see your point, that Carthage and Egypt shouldn't be at war every game, but you need to understand, I mean if Hannibal hadn't crossed the Alps with elephants, I'm sure you'd be here "well were going to make a landblock, because you know, its not like elephants ever crossed the Alps, that is not historical."

Basically that is the arguement your giving, however just because it didn't happen in history, doesn't mean its not historical. Invasions and such didn't exactly follow logical routes, and the invading armies were often lead for glory.

If Hannibal could get to Italy by land (from Spain) with elephants, he could cross the desert if his enemies were at the Nile.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Look, Carthage and Ptolemies go to war in every stinking game because they share a land border. That's the reason. They fight in the middle of the deserts. We don't want this to happen in every game, so we are going to do something about it by making there be less of a reason for them to feel the need to cross over into each others' "spheres of influence". If they attack by sea - that's fine. That would have been how they would have probably done it anyway. But all those little crossed swords in the middle of sand dunes isn't what we want to see every game.

[fallen851]

Well you've convinced me.

I haven't exactly played an EB campaign so I have no idea how the factions go to war. If Egypt and Carthage can't go to war though does it affect Egypt steam rolling the Seleucids? What are the other options to landblocks?

Is there a way to make landblocks when both Egypt and Carthage are the AI, and take them out when one nation is a human (I don't think this is gonna work...)?

[Chuffy]

Well you've convinced me.

I haven't exactly played an EB campaign so I have no idea how the factions go to war. If Egypt and Carthage can't go to war though does it affect Egypt steam rolling the Seleucids? What are the other options to landblocks?

Is there a way to make landblocks when both Egypt and Carthage are the AI, and take them out when one nation is a human (I don't think this is gonna work...)?

If you've never played EB then why did you go on about how a landblock would be a bad thing? How about playing the mod?

As for me, landblocks all the way. Not only would it be ashitorical for the pollies and carthies to start fighting in the desert, or the baktrians to launch Operation Barbarossa it was IMPOSSIBLE for them to do so.

I'll all for making many many areas uncapturable if it means there are more wars with the main powers instead of lots of rebel bullying going on. (Hint...make the huge middle province of arabia uncapturable...aswell as the saharan province).

[fallen851]

If you've never played EB then why did you go on about how a landblock would be a bad thing? How about playing the mod?

As for me, landblocks all the way. Not only would it be ashitorical for the pollies and carthies to start fighting in the desert, or the baktrians to launch Operation Barbarossa it was IMPOSSIBLE for them to do so.

I'll all for making many many areas uncapturable if it means there are more wars with the main powers instead of lots of rebel bullying going on. (Hint...make the huge middle province of arabia uncapturable...aswell as the saharan province).

Thank you for attacking my previous views, I'm not sure why you can't just give your opinion without attacking my previous view that I gave up, but since you care about my views so much, I'll do my best answer.

However, I'm not really interested in getting into an E-pen1s measuring contest so you can make yourself look "good and cool" to everyone else by harping on someone who admitted they were wong, because it seems to me that is what you are trying to do, rather than actually understanding why I believed what I did.

But anyways, can you really not understand why I would go on about it? This is a mod based on realism, and there was no magical landblock in reality so why have it in the mod?

And now I'm quite satisfied with the answer that was given that opposes that view, and it is why I gave up that view. So you can stop flaunting your huge E-pen1s now, maybe it doesn't allow you think logically and see the above. Someday, maybe I'll be as manly as you online, and things like "How about playing the mod?", that do not contribute anything to the conversation, but only prove how manly I can be online.

[Discoskull]

Hmmmm.

I still think that putting the Sahara city at the very bottom left hand corner of the map would do some good things about the Carthage/Egypt desert battles.

Perhaps if the Sahara provence extended to the shores of the Mediteranian(sp) just at one small part, like where it's all desert-y anyway.
Just enough to make it so that egypt and carthage will never share a border, unless in the (unlikely) event that carthage marches all the way to the bottom corner of the map and attacks the rebels there...just an idea...don't know if it will work...you could also just put a landblock around that one city...

Peace out

[Chuffy]

Thank you for attacking my previous views, I'm not sure why you can't just give your opinion without attacking my previous view that I gave up, but since you care about my views so much, I'll do my best answer.

However, I'm not really interested in getting into an E-pen1s measuring contest so you can make yourself look "good and cool" to everyone else by harping on someone who admitted they were wong, because it seems to me that is what you are trying to do, rather than actually understanding why I believed what I did.

But anyways, can you really not understand why I would go on about it? This is a mod based on realism, and there was no magical landblock in reality so why have it in the mod?

And now I'm quite satisfied with the answer that was given that opposes that view, and it is why I gave up that view. So you can stop flaunting your huge E-pen1s now, maybe it doesn't allow you think logically and see the above. Someday, maybe I'll be as manly as you online, and things like "How about playing the mod?", that do not contribute anything to the conversation, but only prove how manly I can be online.

Man, what?

It was just am innocent question, I don't know where this whole e-penis thing has just come from.

Jesus that was sad fallen851. =/

[Ludens]

Gentlemen, please keep this discussion civil, or else the moderators will have to close it.

[Trithemius]

As for me, landblocks all the way. Not only would it be ashitorical for the pollies and carthies to start fighting in the desert, or the baktrians to launch Operation Barbarossa it was IMPOSSIBLE for them to do so.

Why impossible? Where there giant invisible forcefields in history as well? :)


I'll all for making many many areas uncapturable if it means there are more wars with the main powers instead of lots of rebel bullying going on. (Hint...make the huge middle province of arabia uncapturable...aswell as the saharan province).

From looking at my maps it seems that the rebels/independents are doing alright! Why would you have a lot of independents around and then prevent them from being attacked?

[Trithemius]

I am curious about where these landblocks would be placed. I have not really played a lot of the factions (lots of Roman, one Casse, one Makedonian, and one Baktrian game(s)) so I am not really aware of where the problem areas are.

I am, however, particularly curious about tweaking access to the Steppes - wouldn't this sort of ruin things for the Saka? Or is the idea to force them back through Transoxiana?

[Teleklos Archelaou]

We don't have them yet. We are thinking about it if nothing else works. Don't worry about it for now - we don't want them either, but if we feel like in the future we will have to have them we will.

[fallen851]

Man, what?

It was just am innocent question, I don't know where this whole e-penis thing has just come from.

Jesus that was sad fallen851. =/

The bold parts contradict the italic parts.

Anyways...

Why a landblock needed in Russia? Are other factions fighting that *shouldn't* be?

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Many people hate seeing Bactria spread through the plains (or parthia spreading north and west rather than south), so it has been suggested that there be some way of stopping that.

Personnally I hate Bactria spreading at all.

[Cheexsta]

If the landblocks should go anywhere, it should be right through the middle of Africa (just west of Kyrenaica?), and maybe across the Caucassus (I'm tired of the Armenian Steppe empires...). With the Saka faction, the eastern parts of the steppe should be well-contested enough to keep Baktria and Parthia in line...

[Chuffy]

Why impossible? Where there giant invisible forcefields in history as well? :)


How about things like climate, terrain, lack of food and water to sustain a large army...the Sahara really was impossible to excercise any kind of control over...a landblock isn't the prettiest or ideal solution...but it does try to replicate the difficulties certain nations would have faced. And really, is there any need for the pollies and carthies to be fighting over the Sahara? :P


The bold parts contradict the italic parts.

Look, I asked a question with no hostility behind it, neither was I trying to enlarge my e-peen or whatever you're going on about. I really don't see why you had to respond with 4 vitriolic paragraphs blatantly insulting me. If you saw something insulting or inflammatory in my post well, hey thats not my problem man.

Water under the bridge?

[GiantMonkeyMan]

i would like to see a stop the the desert wars, however if there is another way to do this other than landblocks then i think that way would be better... i think that if the player feels like sending his armies through the deserts then he should be allowed to, however perhaps players could get a trait slowing them down or something... :juggle2:

[Zaknafien]

wouldnt it be possible through some tweaking to give a plague-like effect to armies travelling through the desert, killing soldiers? or is this hard coded to cities only?

[Imperator]

maybe they could add a series of 'mini blocks', all along the Sahara so you can travel accross, but it would be nearly impossible (like a maze of impassible terrain to represent having to follow oasises) and the longer you stayed in the desert the more doomed you became (ie, every turn your army becomes more and more dehydrated, -1 morale and -1 General's HP). You CAN cross the desert, but you have a slim chance of making it accross with your army intact (fill the desert with rebels so you fight your way through the maze). That would be cool, Hannibal-esque :2thumbsup:

sadly the AI would undoubtably just throw army after army into the death trap of heat and rebels...:shame:

[Trithemius]

How about things like climate, terrain, lack of food and water to sustain a large army...the Sahara really was impossible to excercise any kind of control over...a landblock isn't the prettiest or ideal solution...but it does try to replicate the difficulties certain nations would have faced. And really, is there any need for the pollies and carthies to be fighting over the Sahara? :P

I was thinking, specifically, about your remarks about the impossibility of people advancing over the steppes.


Look, I asked a question with no hostility behind it, neither was I trying to enlarge my e-peen or whatever you're going on about.

That wasn't me, please be accurate in assigning your quotations.


I really don't see why you had to respond with 4 vitriolic paragraphs blatantly insulting me. If you saw something insulting or inflammatory in my post well, hey thats not my problem man. Water under the bridge?

See above, ie. that wasn't me, man. ;)

[Trithemius]

If the landblocks should go anywhere, it should be right through the middle of Africa (just west of Kyrenaica?), and maybe across the Caucassus (I'm tired of the Armenian Steppe empires...). With the Saka faction, the eastern parts of the steppe should be well-contested enough to keep Baktria and Parthia in line...

That might depend on where they are going in exactly...
The Yuezhi don't seem to be able to keep them in line now (or had that more to do with the Yuezhi's pretty weak troop options?).

[eadingas]

We don't want to AI to simply not be able to cross the desert. We want the AI to NOT WANT to cross the desert.
If the AI wants to get somewhere but is not able to, it creates chokepoints in which stacks upon stacks of AI armies simply get lost trying to go where they shouldn't.

[Tellos Athenaios]

In RTW 1.5 there are a few lines in some .txt document that tells the AI what invasion strategy to prefer. Basically it tells the Greek Cities to use fleets whenever possible, and Romans to hate them. It's very straightforward and unsophisticated, but at least the AI will think twice about what way to invade it's neighbours...

I believe you can find the lines in the strat.txt in your campaign folder, but as I have been playing EB, I haven't seen them for a long time... :laugh4:

[eadingas]

In RTW 1.5 there are a few lines in some .txt document that tells the AI what invasion strategy to prefer. Basically it tells the Greek Cities to use fleets whenever possible, and Romans to hate them. It's very straightforward and unsophisticated, but at least the AI will think twice about what way to invade it's neighbours...

I believe you can find the lines in the strat.txt in your campaign folder, but as I have been playing EB, I haven't seen them for a long time... :laugh4:

As I said in the second post of this thread, we are investigating many possible solutions :) Just because I mentioned we're testing landblocks doesn't mean it's the ONLY thing we're testing.

[Discoskull]

Hmmmm.

I still think that putting the Sahara city at the very bottom left hand corner of the map would do some good things about the Carthage/Egypt desert battles.

Perhaps if the Sahara provence extended to the shores of the Mediteranian(sp) just at one small part, like where it's all desert-y anyway.
Just enough to make it so that egypt and carthage will never share a border, unless in the (unlikely) event that carthage marches all the way to the bottom corner of the map and attacks the rebels there...just an idea...don't know if it will work...you could also just put a landblock around that one city...


Would this work??? I'm just curious...

[GMT]

If the AI wants to get somewhere but is not able to, it creates chokepoints in which stacks upon stacks of AI armies simply get lost trying to go where they shouldn't.

This is exactly why I'm against landblocks because it'll confuse the AI and create loads of pathfinding problems.

[Tellos Athenaios]

As I said in the second post of this thread, we are investigating many possible solutions :) Just because I mentioned we're testing landblocks doesn't mean it's the ONLY thing we're testing.

Just me hoping that you're not going to use them, that you can circumvent them by those lines I mentioned. IMO AI is having enough of a problem with actually moving anywhere at all, so for gameplay reasons (it isn't fun if the already poor AI isn't even able to move it's characters and armies around properly) it would be a very bad thing to make it more difficult by adding blockades.

And I perfectly well understand that this isn't the only solution you're trying: I just thought if this hasn't for some reason (the very obvious solutions are the most common overlooked ones) not been thought of yet, perhaps I could be of some help.

In any case: I wish you all the best of luck with solving your problem and I hope you won't need those blocks.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

i've been doing some thinking and researching on this (mainly due to boredom :laugh4: ) and this is how i would to it:

from this thread https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=63614 it has been found out that hills blocking other factions view will dissuade them to attack into that area but eventually with no other route they will advance that way... so perhaps the carthaginian cities should have hills to the east and the ptolmaic cities to west thus stopping or slowing down both of these factions' advancement to those provinces

https://img521.imageshack.us/img521/7645/landblocktd6.th.png (https://img521.imageshack.us/my.php?image=landblocktd6.png)
the red represents a landblock or where an extenstion to the sahara province should go (thus ensuring that the carthies and ptolmys never have a sharing land border)

also i think that the raspa should be gotten rid of and an innaccessable city to be placed in the distant corner of sahara... it wasn't as if you could recruit anything in raspa anyway and it kinda ruined the look of the map when it turned into a huge swathe of white or yellow

GMM

on an asside note... i haven't seen khelvan post recently, is he away or am i blind?

[Epistolary Richard]

Guys interested in helping 'encourage' certain AI expansion should really read this thread:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=63614 (as I see GMM has already quoted)

and then get serious about it. You've got the map, try tweaking it in the different ways and see what works - I'm sure the team would be interested in your results. This isn't the Backroom, this is a mod forum - that means that we can actually find solutions to our problems and not endlessly dissect them.

[GodEmperorLeto]

As for whether you'd want this to happen, I understand there are a lot of people who don't want the AI to be restricted to the historical expansion of a faction. I disagree with this view; it is important that the AI views certain enemies and certain provinces in the same way that the faction would have in history, given the appropriate situations and so on. If the Gauls and Germans were constantly at war in history, then it makes sense to have them likely to go to war in the game. Likewise, if war between Carthage and Egypt was unlikely due to the desert conditions making it near-impossible to transport an army between the two, then war should be avoided between the two in the game.

Up until now, I was always under the impression that you guys wanted to maintain historical accuracy up to the point of the game's beginning. Hence, you are axing the Yuezhi.

However, if you are going to add landblocks to direct the historical flow of the game, then you should, by all means, severely handicap Epirus so it is basically wiped out and made a non-entity, just like Epirus really was, and then add scripting so that the Yuezhi arrive on time, just like it really happened.

What I am trying to say is, if you add landblocks, then your aims are schizophrenic and contrary. Epirus was honestly only powerful for the first five or six turns of the game, then they are historically nullified, but you include them in order to "see what could have happened".

Well, if you don't want the Ptolemies and Carthaginians fighting over worthless desert, make that desert harder to cross. But don't add landblocks. Make the tribesmen harder to conquer. But adding landblocks is effectively saying that Hannibal shouldn't have been able to cross the Alps.

Armies marched far and wide during this time period. Roman armies marched against Sabaea and Queen Candice of Ethiopia. Although that was too far for them logistically to be successful, they still tried it.

Besides, it matters little to me if I capture Carthage and all of North Africa, but the Karthadast are still active in the Sahara. And I don't necessarily see why the Ptolemies might not become embroiled with the Carthaginians in a war over key oases and caravan stops throughout the Sahara.

In other words, with the exception of a few events that should take place (like military reforms) your job as a modder ends when Turn One begins.

Otherwise, I'm going to expect Julius Caesar, Augustus, Antony, and Sulla to show up in the final version. If you are really that set on the gaming running through as historically accurate, then I'd expect nothing less.

[eadingas]

Cheer up :) I think we have found ways to do what we want without relying on landblocks (except the deep desert). Still testing them, though.

As for the historical accuracy "in the beginning" vs "later on" - well, they are connected. If we make Rome too weak and too poor to ever achieve anything later in the game, we've obviously done something wrong. If we make Ptolemy and Carthage mortal enemies struggling endlessly over a strip of desert, we're obviously doing something wrong. If we make Casse able to become the most powerful nation in the world -every-single-time-, we've obviously done something wrong. We can have Rome sending armies to Arabia some times, but it shouldn't happen in every campaign no matter what. See what I mean? So it's not all that easy. We can't just completely ignore what AI is doing after the game starts, content with the fact that we "set up everything properly in the beginning".

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Well, we don't see it that way, GEL. It is the engine that has problems, not history. We see the game engine continually do one very naughty and illogical thing, and we are trying to use some other tricks to make it stop. There is no crisis of confidence in EB here - the members are happy trying some things out to see what works with least interference. If there is a lot of complaint, a worst case scenario might have us putting up an alternate small file that reverts it to the old problematic (in our opinion) way, but we aren't there yet. Don't get too worked up about it - we have no idea what our final decision will be, and even then there could be options for players. We'll just have to wait and see.

[Cheexsta]

What I am trying to say is, if you add landblocks, then your aims are schizophrenic and contrary. Epirus was honestly only powerful for the first five or six turns of the game, then they are historically nullified, but you include them in order to "see what could have happened".
It's not so much that modders are trying to mould history, we're trying to mould realism and plausibility. It is plausible that the Epeirotes, if they had managed to get a general as skilled/ambitious as Pyrrhus shortly after his death that they could have survived and expanded significantly. It's entirely plausible that the Romans get wiped out by the Gauls, or the Macedonians manage to re-conquer their old empire in the East.

What isn't plausible is the constant sand wars of Africa. Even if the Carthaginians and Ptolemies in history actually wanted to invade each other, launching an invasion over the desert would have come close to being outright impossible.

As for making the Sahara harder to cross - it already is with the summer campaign season traits. But beyond that, it's simply not possible to limit all units' movement across desert. You can limit character movement, but not a captain's...

Either way, the team should be able to appease both crowds by giving the installer the option of having landblocks or not, in the same way that Gaesatae can wear dresses for those offended by nudity. It ends up being pretty much a non-issue. And hell, the landblocks may even turn out being something that you benefit from, even as another faction - instead of Carthage concentrating on its sand wars, it may turn its attention to you as the Roman player and fight to hold Sicily, for example. You may end up liking the change that landblocks bring...

[-Praetor-]

What isn't plausible is the constant sand wars of Africa. Even if the Carthaginians and Ptolemies in history actually wanted to invade each other, launching an invasion over the desert would have come close to being outright impossible.

As for making the Sahara harder to cross - it already is with the summer campaign season traits. But beyond that, it's simply not possible to limit all units' movement across desert. You can limit character movement, but not a captain's...

I agree, it was impossible to cross the lybian desert by foot... remember Cambyses campaigns in africa...

[GodEmperorLeto]

You guys make some very valid points. Seeing it not so much as preserving historical accuracy, but rather seeing it as the AI consistantly doing something absurd in every single simulation is quite understandable.

I'd like to see an army make a legendary march across the Sahara, sort of like Hannibal crossing the Alps. But if it is consistantly occurring... I see what you mean.

I've never played as the Ptolemies or Carthaginians, so I've never "suffered" from these continual "sand wars" between them. As almost a corralary, I notice how the Seleucids and Parthians share borders, but almost never go to war. The Parthians usually get super-powerful from conquering the Central Asian steppelands before they even think of duking it out with the Seleucids.

But anyway, if you can get the AI to do what you want without landblocks, I'd appreciate it, for one. I like the idea of one brave general with a vast army and a crazy plan: to march across a desert, marching from oasis to oasis, to deliver the greatest blow to his people's enemies that they have ever felt.

[fallen851]

So, landblocks or not in .8 before it is release (assuming no other option can be found)? Or will this be done on for .9?

I like the idea of the landblock between Egypt and Carthage, but I always like the idea of the Parthians going north. It just makes more space for more empires. Who occupies the North east section of the map now? You have the Sweboz (sorta), the Sythians the Samaratians... anyone else up there?

[eadingas]

Short answer: we don't know yet.
Long answer: honestly, we don't know yet :)

This is a most minor change in game files, so it can be changed literally minutes before release if we find something new out. Guess you (and we) will just have to wait and see.

[MSB]

I like the idea of the landblock between Egypt and Carthage, but I always like the idea of the Parthians going north. It just makes more space for more empires. Who occupies the North east section of the map now? You have the Sweboz (sorta), the Sythians the Samaratians... anyone else up there?
The Scythians do not appear in EB. They are represented by the Eleutheroi. There is also Saka-Rauka in the NE region in 0.8.

[Krusader]

I've never played as the Ptolemies or Carthaginians, so I've never "suffered" from these continual "sand wars" between them. As almost a corralary, I notice how the Seleucids and Parthians share borders, but almost never go to war. The Parthians usually get super-powerful from conquering the Central Asian steppelands before they even think of duking it out with the Seleucids.

By some -ai tests, it seemed with some changes in core attitudes the Parthians were much more aggressive towards the Seleukids. However, we will wait till all the units are in with stats before making some more thourough tests. :2thumbsup:

[MSB]

In my Quadartism campaign I quiet enjoyed the "sand wars" across the desert. Ptolemy attacking me gave me a good excuse to invade Egypt! However I never had any continuous eternal sand wars with a battle every turn, they send a few stacks over every now and again to steal my towns, but that was it. Eventually they got so busy with the Selucids that they left me alone. That was what enabled me to invade Egypt.

[Kull]

I've been a major proponent of landblocks "behind the scenes", but never something as drastic as a wall that cuts egypt totally off from carthage. We have a lot of debate going on, but nobody wants to eliminate the chance of something happening, just to find ways to reduce the endless repetition of utterly ahistoric behaviour.

And if we can do that without landblocks, we will.

[-Praetor-]

Well, Darthmod has an unconquerable province between the Carthies and the Ptolemies, and it has worked like a charm. The province, "Terra Incognita", comprises the extreme southern part of Africa, and it has prevented the sand wars between carthage and the ptolies very well.

https://img207.imageshack.us/img207/3965/landjl1.th.jpg (https://img207.imageshack.us/my.php?image=landjl1.jpg)

Bye.

[JeffBag]

Well, Darthmod has an unconquerable province between the Carthies and the Ptolemies, and it has worked like a charm. The province, "Terra Incognita", comprises the extreme southern part of Africa, and it has prevented the sand wars between carthage and the ptolies very well.

https://img207.imageshack.us/img207/3965/landjl1.th.jpg (https://img207.imageshack.us/my.php?image=landjl1.jpg)

Bye.

Now thats a pretty simple, yet brilliantly good idea.

[abou]

That is quite a good idea; the only problem is that EB is at a max for provinces. Which one does the team remove to pull that off?

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Couldn't the 'sahara' territory be made into a "Terra Incognita", and include the central arabia territory too, freeing up one?






\/ :shame: \/

[Discoskull]

Hmmmm.

I still think that putting the Sahara city at the very bottom left hand corner of the map would do some good things about the Carthage/Egypt desert battles.

Perhaps if the Sahara provence extended to the shores of the Mediteranian(sp) just at one small part, like where it's all desert-y anyway.
Just enough to make it so that egypt and carthage will never share a border, unless in the (unlikely) event that carthage marches all the way to the bottom corner of the map and attacks the rebels there...just an idea...don't know if it will work...you could also just put a landblock around that one city...

Peace out

Why do I bother:shame:

[-Praetor-]

Why do I bother:shame:

I was beign ilustrative at what you said, no need to be so bitter about it. :sweatdrop:

[Watchman]

A while ago I read in an article about the North African front of WW2 that during the positional warfare stage the armies' inland flanks were anchored against a nigh-impassable depression somewhere between Egypt and the Libyan desert proper (I'm afraid the article wasn't terribly detailed). Anyone know anything about this ? Certainly a geographical barrier uncrossable for armies backed up by the logistical might of modern warfare would seem to be a major obstacle for ancient ones that apparently didn't even have camels for pack animals if I've understood said animals' history west of the Nile correctly...

[eadingas]

Oh, we already have the actual deep desert made uncrossable, in the same way deep forests or mountains are uncrossable. That's not the problem here.
Anyway, I don't think we have to worry anymore about that one. We have found a couple of ways of limiting those african conflicts.

[-Praetor-]

A while ago I read in an article about the North African front of WW2 that during the positional warfare stage the armies' inland flanks were anchored against a nigh-impassable depression somewhere between Egypt and the Libyan desert proper (I'm afraid the article wasn't terribly detailed). Anyone know anything about this ? Certainly a geographical barrier uncrossable for armies backed up by the logistical might of modern warfare would seem to be a major obstacle for ancient ones that apparently didn't even have camels for pack animals if I've understood said animals' history west of the Nile correctly...

Quattara depression. It was a partially dried out sea, impassable for heavy vehicles and difficult for pack animals.

http://www.nielsen-norenforlag.se/pano/images/quattara-pan_01.jpghttp://www.tu-berlin.de/~kehl/project/lv-twk/images/jpgs/11-quattara-2.jpg

[Chuffy]

That wasn't me, please be accurate in assigning your quotations.

See above, ie. that wasn't me, man. ;)

I know it wasn't you and nor was I implying it was you, nowhere did I put 'Trithemius said this'.

Please be careful in reading my quotations. ;)

[Trithemius]

I know it wasn't you and nor was I implying it was you, nowhere did I put 'Trithemius said this'.

Please be careful in reading my quotations. ;)

My name is the only attribution in that post; please take greater care in making your quotations.

[Ignoramus]

Why don't you just put an entire landblock around the Sahara province? You don't need it, and it would help stop AI armies being stupid.

[Dumbass]

If there is a need for more provinces, just get rid of one of those over- powering and useless sea islands on the aegean which just pump even more trade cash into the treasury, but are not significant.

[-Praetor-]

:sweatdrop: So, which solution did you use for disabling the desert wars?

Did you use the solution of the hill and LOS one?

Is it secret? :sweatdrop:

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Not determined 100% just yet. Sorry. Our next internal release (this weekendish?) will have a new arrangement in that area for our beta testers to see how it does.

[Kull]

Well, Darthmod has an unconquerable province between the Carthies and the Ptolemies, and it has worked like a charm. The province, "Terra Incognita", comprises the extreme southern part of Africa, and it has prevented the sand wars between carthage and the ptolies very well.

We had looked at something similar involving the Sahara, but EB is not trying to recreate history "as it happened". Just because there wasn't a war between Carthage and Egypt doesn't mean that it could never have occurred. In EB v.74 you get a war every game - that is unacceptable. Darth's province means there would never be a war, and that's just as bad. We are seeking to limit the chances of such a war occuring, and if it does, to at least ensure it would be fought in a historically accurate context - at sea and along the coast.

But this is not yet solved, and we'll have to see what the testing shows.

[Tellos Athenaios]

The simplest way to make the AI do that, would be using only coastal cities in that part of the world.

But it's probably not historically accurate though, giving that an average oasis was far more important in those day's than the average fishing village that had grown to a point where it's possible to consider it a proper town.

[-Praetor-]

We had looked at something similar involving the Sahara, but EB is not trying to recreate history "as it happened". Just because there wasn't a war between Carthage and Egypt doesn't mean that it could never have occurred. In EB v.74 you get a war every game - that is unacceptable. Darth's province means there would never be a war, and that's just as bad. We are seeking to limit the chances of such a war occuring, and if it does, to at least ensure it would be fought in a historically accurate context - at sea and along the coast.

The thing is that that war was close to impossible with the means of that age. The logistic requiered to travel from Cyrene to Leptis Magna (Some 500 miles roughly) is inmense, and the means requiered to carry water, supplies, etc. through a barren wasteland would have rendered the cost prohibitive.

Off course, there are examples of comparable feats, such as Alexander`s army travel through the Markan desert (but with the logistical support of the fleet). One should also not forget the results of that travel: the army was decimated.

This is not the crossing of the alps. These are 500 miles of a barren desert... and that only from Cyrene to Leptis Magna...

Dont forget Cambyses expeditions too...

[Tellos Athenaios]

Dont forget Cambyses expeditions too...

Which ended up in a sand blizzard, just about one hill from their target... :grin:

Especially with the Sahara it wouldn't have been all that impossible. People at that time had a very good idea of how to cross it, simply because dozens of generations had done so before them. Trade routes through the desert, and such.

Believe it or not, but many a war has been fought over a stretch of desert...

The only thing about it that's so impossible is the way RTW AI tackle's fighting far away from your home territory: little stacks wandering in a vast area, with nowhere to go, seemingly unaware of the fact that had it been real, the insides of their skulls would have been rotten, by now, years ago. :wall:

That's, I'd say, one of the reasons why EB must try to lead them alongside the more easy going routes: that is, those pretty close to the cost and with an allied fleet nearby.