Hardcore-less Dreams

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Ever wanted to mod something in RTW only to find it impossible, or thought, "They should put that in the next one"? And I mean more than just number of provinces/factions/units/models/etc.

Or even that the AI needs to be smarter. Though one thought about the AI is that you should be able to select (easier) what certain factions go after. Like Carthage always goes for ports, successors prioritize going after eachother. And that, to some factions, certain provinces are invisible.

EB team's nomadic government changes gave me an idea, how about the plains not having any settlements, and only nomads can live there. With the nomads opperating similar to BI hordes, but they have with them a upgradable mobile settlement. With growth you can expand into multiple settlements. Later if you capture territories that have cities or move into a forest area, you can choose to giveup the nomadic ways.

A small thing I would like to see is the ablility to change the apearance of a city on campaign map to represent assimilation. I hate being Rome, conjuering Gaul and having a circle of huts (A true roman wouldn't be caught dead in a hut) (I also don't like making cities larger than "city" size). Also the ability to decrease the size of a city (maybe a sacking should decrease a city size).

M2TW's newly appearing areas of the map gave me another idea. Each campaign is like two campaigns: Example: Romans: When you start you only see the italian pennisula with lots of little cities. It would have a bunch of little factions like the Samnites. You would have goals for this, like taking a historic amount of territory at the point when the Roman eyes shifted outside the map, at that point the rest of the map would open up (with the historic possitions of the worlds empires based on the time you managed to meet your goals) and you would only now have your major cities. This really woundn't work with Seleucids, Carthaganians, or other large groups but would be interesting to barbarians or newly rising nations.

A better family system would be nice.

Naval battles on the battle map.

Any other crazy things you wish you could do but can't? Want to change hardcoding, AI stupidity, or somewhat rebuild the game?

[The_Mark]

Yes.

[Chester]

Of course. This mod, these forums, the whole deal is a result of us not being happy with a product.

We liked the idea of RTW. We liked the the basic engine (turn base economy with real time battles) but not the details.

[CountArach]

Yes.

Ditto

[Olaf The Great]

I always wanted to pilot a giant warship and board a enemy Trireme and board it with angry Illryians.

[Discoskull]

That would take a lot of work...that wouldn't happen...unless somebody was getting paid...by a game company...for a game...that wouldn't come out for years...but it is nice to imagine nonetheless

[eadingas]

Oh, if I could make an EB of my dreams, without depending on the engine...

Better diplomacy. Treaties that work. Requests for help, and AI actually responding to those requests. Hostages.

More population mobility, migrations - if some people would simply get up when need comes, get all their stuff and moved everything around the map, like Germans used to do... but not in a nomadic "horde" way, just decade-long migrations.

Campaign map changing as the game goes on. Provinces that actually get developed, instead of capitals. Small towns, villages, visible on the battle map, that can eventually grow into cities. Ability to change the province borders as you see fit.

Only have wars that really mean something. Decisive field battles that cost entire regions, instead of endless sieges. City population reacting to the events around - panic, or mobilization. (some of these can be done with scripts, but it's a lot of work and it will never work the way it could with a better engine)

Naval battles.

As many playable factions as is possible and reasonable. That would be about 40-50. No hardcoded limits - map stretching all the way to China with 500 provinces (although imagine how long would EB development take THEN :)

Inner politics for all factions. Non-family-tree democratic factions, with elections, fighting for votes, etc. Political struggle that is a mini-game of its own, a-la "Machiavelli the Prince", if anyone remembers that old game...

Oh, and one minor thing: auto-generating AAR, with history of all battles, events, traits, dumps of map every x turns, etc.

[MSB]

Oh, if I could make an EB of my dreams, without depending on the engine...

Better diplomacy. Treaties that work. Requests for help, and AI actually responding to those requests. Hostages.

More population mobility, migrations - if some people would simply get up when need comes, get all their stuff and moved everything around the map, like Germans used to do... but not in a nomadic "horde" way, just decade-long migrations.

Campaign map changing as the game goes on. Provinces that actually get developed, instead of capitals. Small towns, villages, visible on the battle map, that can eventually grow into cities. Ability to change the province borders as you see fit.

Only have wars that really mean something. Decisive field battles that cost entire regions, instead of endless sieges. City population reacting to the events around - panic, or mobilization. (some of these can be done with scripts, but it's a lot of work and it will never work the way it could with a better engine)

Naval battles.

As many playable factions as is possible and reasonable. That would be about 40-50. No hardcoded limits - map stretching all the way to China with 500 provinces (although imagine how long would EB development take THEN :)

Inner politics for all factions. Non-family-tree democratic factions, with elections, fighting for votes, etc. Political struggle that is a mini-game of its own, a-la "Machiavelli the Prince", if anyone remembers that old game...

Oh, and one minor thing: auto-generating AAR, with history of all battles, events, traits, dumps of map every x turns, etc.

I like those ideas as well, but if I was creating my own game I would make it like this... (warning long post alert!!)

The population is divided into four classes. These are slaves, peasants, middle class and upper class. There will generally be many peasants yet very few members of the upper class. These classes have some people in them who want to join the military and some that don’t. There are also two types of military unit—levy (quickly drawn up cheap militia taken from lower and middle class who may or may now want to join the military who only serve for a very short time and will automatically disband if they return home) or “professional” volunteers who are people who wanted to join the military and have had at least a small amount of training. They generally serve for up twenty five years before disbanding

The levy units (including slaves) are poorly equipped and as you have to pay for their arms and amour and are moderately expensive to recruit however they have no up keep costs yet as said will disband after about four years or if they return to their homeland. They will however rebel very easily in anger of been dragged from home and if there is a rebellion in their homeland then the chances are that they will join it (unless it is a slave rebellion and then only the "slave" levy units will join).

Professional volunteers are divided into the classes (no slaves allowed) and require a Militia Barracks to be trained (unlike the levy who require no training facilities at all) they last (as said) for up to twenty years before disbanding. They are recruited from the different classes of people who wish to fight. They are also more loyal than levy units. This means they will not rebel against your generals or you as you are paying them. They will however be disloyal like any other unit if their homeland is rebelling and may join the homeland rebel course.

The peasant “professional” units can generally only afford basic training and weapons so have poor discipline and morale, but due to their hard life style they generally have very good stamina and rarely tire. Peasant units can rarely be trained passed the Militia Barracks stage as they cannot afford to be trained beyond this stage.

The middle class “professional” units can generally afford good weapons armour and training up to the large barracks stage. They usually have (depending on the amount of training) good morale and average stamina. This can be optimized with more training.

The upper class “professional” units can afford the best weapons armour and equipment, they can be superbly trained and due to their class have some of the best morale of all troops yet as they are used to doing little except paper work and money counting have some of the poorest stamina as well. Their morale and stamina can be optimized with further training.

This three class style of working has effects on the economy. Each class has jobs which can be done. E.g. Peasants can become farmers (with land), farmers (without land), builders, shopkeepers, blacksmiths, wood-workers (only in wooded areas), fishermen (only in settlements with a port) and ship builders (also only in settlements with a port), middle class people can become farm owners, sea traders (only in settlements with a port), land traders, shopkeepers, scholars, priests, money lenders, treasurers, architects, military trainers (only in settlements with a barracks) and tax collectors and the upper class can become estate owners, priests, settlement managers, scholars, money lenders, treasurers and they can of course just be lazy good for nothings too. These jobs provide advantages and dis-advantages. Having a large amount of tax collectors can add a huge tax bonus to the settlement while causing unrest while having lots of scholars in a settlement will cause characters to gain lots of traits and cause people to get better at their jobs yet will really not contribute anything to your economy while having lots of farmers in the settlements will increase the population growth and give farming bonus’ yet may cause (if a famine) these farmers to lose their jobs and their land. This final issue brings us on to the next issue of unemployment.

Unemployment is extremely bad. Not only does it cause people to die of starvation as they cannot afford food, but it also causes riots and other issues. It is best to try to resolve employment issues before they get really big. If a large amount of people in a settlement is unemployed then the people will riot over food killing the other classes and sometimes taking over a town! This can be cured automatically if there is a good harvest (more jobs for people on the land) or if buildings that provide jobs are built.

The peasant class is very unstable. If there is a famine the farmers (and farm owners) lose some of their jobs and they are often the worst hit by this as they lack the money to buy food. The peasant class then slowly dies off with less and less people to work which them causes issues with the middle class who then due to further inflation cannot afford to eat so they end up becoming peasants themselves. This also courses riots (which very rarely conclude in a settlement being taken over however it is possible).

Another new idea is about culture I think that it would be a good (and historical) idea if barbarians (and all other factions) as they grab new "civilised lands" should be able to absorb the culture of the "civilised lands". This should enable them to build "civilised buildings" in those provinces and as people from the new provinces move to the home land maybe the influence of distant cultures could have an influence here too. Eventually maybe a barbarian faction could end up as a mix of two cultures with mixes of good ideas from conquered factions and their faction. The same could happen with the Greeks or Carthaginians if they were to conquer other lands. Basically the best ideas (and religions) from far away factions could end up in the homelands eventually creating a completely new culture from the mix.

Another new idea is about immigration. If one province is very desirable and rich the un-employed from one settlement (before rioting) try to move out of a settlement to move to another one hence increasing it’s population.

Also instead of a whole entire settlement revolting certain classes revolt as different things make different classes happier or un-happier. For example if peasants are un happy they riot. Also if the peasants or the middle class revolt the chances are that a rebellion would be short lived and would soon be either destroyed or would come back to the old faction in time anyway yet an upper class rebellion would be a full scale high rebellion with professional troops and good generals sometimes even creating a new splinter faction. A rebellion from hell? Also perhaps rebellions could spread from town to town (e.g. if a neighbouring town found out how easy it was to rebel it would join the rebels or rebel it’s self depending on it’s own happiness).

Slaves only riot if there are more of them then there are citizens in a settlement. They usually end up becoming a huge army of slave units that, although having cheap arms and armour, they have exceptional morale!

And finally let generals rebel like in BI if they have a large enough army and they think they can take over...

[Discoskull]

Oh, if I could make an EB of my dreams, without depending on the engine...

Better diplomacy. Treaties that work. Requests for help, and AI actually responding to those requests. Hostages.

More population mobility, migrations - if some people would simply get up when need comes, get all their stuff and moved everything around the map, like Germans used to do... but not in a nomadic "horde" way, just decade-long migrations.

Campaign map changing as the game goes on. Provinces that actually get developed, instead of capitals. Small towns, villages, visible on the battle map, that can eventually grow into cities. Ability to change the province borders as you see fit.

Only have wars that really mean something. Decisive field battles that cost entire regions, instead of endless sieges. City population reacting to the events around - panic, or mobilization. (some of these can be done with scripts, but it's a lot of work and it will never work the way it could with a better engine)

Naval battles.

As many playable factions as is possible and reasonable. That would be about 40-50. No hardcoded limits - map stretching all the way to China with 500 provinces (although imagine how long would EB development take THEN :)

Inner politics for all factions. Non-family-tree democratic factions, with elections, fighting for votes, etc. Political struggle that is a mini-game of its own, a-la "Machiavelli the Prince", if anyone remembers that old game...

Oh, and one minor thing: auto-generating AAR, with history of all battles, events, traits, dumps of map every x turns, etc.

Make it. I don't care who you have to kill. An Isle of Albion with 3 British tribes vying for supremacy with an Irish faction to boot would be just the beginning...

You (or some other historian) should make a faction list for this nonexistant game just for [feces, plural] and giggles. Not that this would do anything contstructive...except produce giggles.

How many unit slots? I'd guess at least 1000...and God knows how many skins...and funktastic animations...

Male AND female leaders for Celtic factions!

What's more, there could be dynamic culture groups. Irish, British Isles Celts, Gallic Celts, Greco-Indian, Greco-Iranian, Pontic, Makedonian, Greek, Samnite, Roman, Nubian, Punic - not just "barbarian," "eastern," Greek, etc. And Indians! Arabians! Ethiopians! Lots and lots and LOTS of steppe tribes! Like cockroaches!

Celtic/Germanic (mostly Celtic) civs will own the Northern seas! Their ships will rock the Atlantic/German oceans! Med civ ships will be ripped apart by storms if they dare to venture there!

Usable encampment models/structures (tents, campfires, temporary entrenchment) if an army laying siege is attacked!

You can take over and use enemy towns (not capitols) without taking over the entire provence! For everything except recruitment, that is...

Ok, tired. Will sleep now.

[eadingas]

We had such a list when we were chosing new factions for EB. The first list, IIRC, had about 20 new factions we wanted to include. And that was only on the map we had then.

If we had unlimited time and manpower, we could avoid hardcoded limits by doing several different EBs for various areas of the map... 20 factions for northern Europe, 20 factions for southern Europe and Africa, 20 factions for eastern Europe and Steppes, 20 factions for middle-east and Central Asia... but what good would it be if there was no interaction between all of them...

[Krusader]

*Different cityplans for cities. Ie, Athens is a hill-city and not a flat thing like any other city. Same with Alexandria, Rome, Antioch and such.

*Different ethnic populations. Ie, Greeks, Iranians, Scythians, Romans and also methods to colonize areas and granting citizenship. Would make playing Successor states much more difficult as losing too many Hellenic units would mean fewer Greeks to recruit your phalanx and cavalry from. Plus, would also make it interesting with Galatians, Jews and other troop types.
Also different social classes.

*A symmachoi system: Your diplomats can recruit mercenaries in other areas. And also you can sign treaties with other factions, allowing you to recruit mercenaries in their provinces. (Like if you're Ptolemaioi and the Getai controls Thrace, you can sign a treaty with them allowing you to recruit Thracian mercenaries)

[eadingas]

Oh, and I remembered one thing that I've always wanted. Vastly improved colonization/migration/assimilation stuff. Something we only hinted at with our government system, and couldn't expand on because of all hardcoded stuff.

You'd capture the province, let's say, a Roman one. It would have native population and culture. All the buildings would be Roman, and would affect only Roman citizen. Why should a german colonist care about chariot races? And why should a Roman care about a tavern? So as the population of that province was assimilated, you'd have to build more german buildings to make your new people happy... of course that would depend on which route the colonization/assimilation you would chose to follow... otherwise you could just leave the Romans in and let them manage themselves.
(frankly, the only thing that prevents us from doing that in EB right now is limit on number of buildings)

And then there would come migrations that would change the map dynamically. Imagine Sarmatians arriving in Getia peacefully - and from that point on, Sarmatian units become available as mercenaries, Sarmatian population ready for recruitment, and requesting funds to build their settlements.

As you can probably see, I'm more into managing-economical-diplomatic stuff rather than battles.. ;)

[Krusader]

Oh, and I remembered one thing that I've always wanted. Vastly improved colonization/migration/assimilation stuff. Something we only hinted at with our government system, and couldn't expand on because of all hardcoded stuff.

You'd capture the province, let's say, a Roman one. It would have native population and culture. All the buildings would be Roman, and would affect only Roman citizen. Why should a german colonist care about chariot races? And why should a Roman care about a tavern? So as the population of that province was assimilated, you'd have to build more german buildings to make your new people happy... of course that would depend on which route the colonization/assimilation you would chose to follow... otherwise you could just leave the Romans in and let them manage themselves.
(frankly, the only thing that prevents us from doing that in EB right now is limit on number of buildings)

And then there would come migrations that would change the map dynamically. Imagine Sarmatians arriving in Getia peacefully - and from that point on, Sarmatian units become available as mercenaries, Sarmatian population ready for recruitment, and requesting funds to build their settlements.

As you can probably see, I'm more into managing-economical-diplomatic stuff rather than battles.. ;)

That german colonist might find it fun watching chariots race at top speed, and betting on who will win :wink:
Just as that Roman might find it fun to drink a lot with other people and getting drunk. Ie, some kind of cultural fusion and syncretism of religions would also be a nice idea. I personally would love to have made some sort of syncretism-script, where if two or three different peoples live long enough together, new deities appear which are a mix of different gods/godesses.

Other ideas Id love to see is guerilla fighting became more prominent. Ie, conquering Iberia, Caucasus, Anatolia etc, wouldn't be so easy.

And of course that settled/sedentary factions should have a fairly well-developed logistical infrastructure before managing to subjugate the steppe or desert areas.

[MSB]

In the EB 0.8 suggestions thread I suggested colonisation as well. If only people with a decent idea of making a good historically accurate game ruled the industry then games would be much more entertaining and educational. I have learnt alot from playing EB!

[Avicenna]

In the EB 0.8 suggestions thread I suggested colonisation as well. If only people with a decent idea of making a good historically accurate game ruled the industry then games would be much more entertaining and educational. I have learnt alot from playing EB!

Sorry to break it to ya, but that's impossible. The company would probably not receive quite so much income for spending more time, as most people can't be bothered to learn the games over a time longer than 5 minutes. Even HoI:Doomsday is a game with a 'steep learning curve', and compared to these suggestions it's pretty simple.

[eadingas]

It might work if it was a multiplayer online game with a monthly fee. Then the longer you would have to spend playing the game, the better. The only problem is, MMO RTS on a closed, finite map is not possible. I spend whole summer trying to think of a way of doing it, and it just doesn't work.

[MSB]

Sorry to break it to ya, but that's impossible. The company would probably not receive quite so much income for spending more time, as most people can't be bothered to learn the games over a time longer than 5 minutes. Even HoI:Doomsday is a game with a 'steep learning curve', and compared to these suggestions it's pretty simple.
Well the tutorial in RTW vannila takes longer than five minuites. It actualy took me one hour! If an RTW vannila tutorial lasted one hour then an efficent tutorial for a game with colonisation and other such things could take just the same ammount of time (the RTW tutorial, and to think of it most TW tutorials, are not particually efficent in teaching you quickly. Some are to short and teach you nothing, others are way too long and could teach you the same stuff in half the time).

[Zaknafien]

alot of those suggestions sound alot like Crusader Kings or Victoria. Ive always felt the Paradox developers put an immense amount of data and research into their games, if only there was a way to combine the two types of game with the engine of RTW.

Speaking of unique city maps, Ive seen some work on unique cities for RTW such as Roma herself, has anyone in here worked on the 3d editors for city maps?

[Simmons]

Speaking of unique city maps, Ive seen some work on unique cities for RTW such as Roma herself, has anyone in here worked on the 3d editors for city maps?I haven't heard anything about unique cities but there have been changes to the nomad cities no more walls an more accurate buildings there are a few screenshots floating around but I can't remember the thread they are in perhaps someone else does.

[Zaknafien]

I had to poke around a bit to remember where I saw it, but check this out. Signifer One has done some excellent work here, groundbreaking really, though obviously still a work in progress:

I believe the city is being included in Paeninsula Italica mod.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showpost.php?p=882656&postcount=1

https://img65.imageshack.us/img65/1145/roma15lw.jpg

https://img221.imageshack.us/img221/4691/ss15jp.jpg

[Simmons]

Heres the thread I was talking about Accurate city maps (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=62741)

[eadingas]

Unique city maps is something we simply don't have the manpower for right now.

[Warlord 11]

It might work if it was a multiplayer online game with a monthly fee. Then the longer you would have to spend playing the game, the better. The only problem is, MMO RTS on a closed, finite map is not possible. I spend whole summer trying to think of a way of doing it, and it just doesn't work.

I have thought about the same thing. The best I could come up with would be having new players or old players whose factions have been destroyed start as a rebellion within a province. However, you would probably be crushed before you could start an empire most of the time. Which would be rather unfun.

[eadingas]

The many-players problem could be solvable by "rooms" with set number of players needed to start the game up. The queues would be nightmarish, but it is a solution... of course, that doesn't provide you with a "massiveness" and long playing time necessary to make the profit of the idea...

The main problem is, what does your nation do when you're /afk. Does it become inaccessible? Or is it ruled by AI? What happens to, for example, alliances? "Wait, don't attack me yet, Jim went to eat dinner and I don't have access to his elephants... noooo.... "

EDIT: Apparently there is a french MMORTS game "Mankind" that has your empire still go on ruled by AI when you're not logged in. I wonder how that works in practice.