Political Map

Most games I've played have political maps which show you who owns where, without revealing exact territorial borders within a factions empire. I hope such a feature will be in ETW; it doesn't have to show the location of settlements or anything like that, but its realistic, especially by the time ETW is set in, to know the boundaries of your rival colonial powers. Perhaps the player should be able to toggle between the normal TW mini-map, and a more colourful political map.

Currently I use the 'toggle_fow' cheat in M2TW every ten turns or so to have a look at the mini-map and see how the other factions are doing. Some players even say they play with 'toggle_fow' on so they can see how the AI is doing, although it is annoying since it gives them far too much information.

A political map would definitely be a useful feature for ETW, so please include it CA!

I completely agree, although at the same time i believe that the further away from you a nation is, and the smaller and more obscure it is, the less info you should have about its borders.

After all, does your great empire that is busy in a war of attrition with a rival great empire really care for the 'Duchy of Schmatybatylavya' on the Russian Steppes?

Well, your great empire might care if your King is suffering from sort of madness...

Well

I think this would be a divided topic at best. While many people I'm sure do dislike the Fog of war, some of us enjoy it. It allows a extra purpose for diplomats, spies, and princesses(Who become useless after turn 15 anyway other then exploring.

Getting map information makes sense to me such as somene selling you thier maps. However having some idea what goes on 300 miles away with no news source, no informant or army thier and no global communications to speak of seems kind of silly to me. :juggle2:

CA seems to like fog of war, so I assume it will stay in some fashion.

Well there are no agents as we know them in ETW anyway. The political map doesn't need to show settlements or even the regional boundaries within an empire, but I think the British would have known about the French in Quebec.

Unless the political map only revealed placed that had been 'discovered'. So the map would not say much about Australia until you found it.

You may know the french are in quebec but without a spy or insider how could you possibly know the army movements of canada month to month?

Yes you may be able to know germany owns this, france this, etc at the start of the game, sure. Even later on it may be well known knowledge, but I don't see you knowing about army movmenets, city building, or other aspects without some kind of unit there.

Plus I have yet to hear agents will not be in the game.

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Originally Posted by Polemists

You may know the french are in quebec but without a spy or insider how could you possibly know the army movements of canada month to month?

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You wouldn't. Look at the Paradox games to see how it's done. You know who owns which provinces, but not what armies are in those provinces (outside of a rough guess for close provinces), or buildings, or necessarily infrastructure.

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Originally Posted by Caledonian Rhyfelwyr

Well there are no agents as we know them in ETW anyway.

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That, as far as my knowladge goes, is incorrect. they never said that there will be no agents, all that was said that there will be a whole new system to operate them, and they would not be seen on the world map like before.

I like the idea of a kind of partial fog of war. You should know what nation owns which area. But you don't have to know their army movements.
You should know where in the area the city is, but you need not know where are the city's armies........travelling merchants, locals etc etc, you could get information from them in those days couldn't you......I mean, had Napoleon not know where Moscow was until he actually reached the city........well..... :juggle2:

I have nothing against partial fog of war. I just think that the specifics such as the nitty gritty details of cities should be left to either A your agents discoveries or B you showing up with a army on thier doorstep.

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Originally Posted by Polemists

I have nothing against partial fog of war. I just think that the specifics such as the nitty gritty details of cities should be left to either A your agents discoveries or B you showing up with a army on thier doorstep.

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And thats the idea behind the political map. It will only show a mini-map style map, but you'll see who owns where on it. Basically you'll see what you see on the mini-map in M2TW if you use toggle_fow, but without getting all the other info.

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Originally Posted by asj_india

I like the idea of a kind of partial fog of war. You should know what nation owns which area. But you don't have to know their army movements.
You should know where in the area the city is, but you need not know where are the city's armies........travelling merchants, locals etc etc, you could get information from them in those days couldn't you......I mean, had Napoleon not know where Moscow was until he actually reached the city........well..... :juggle2:

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That's the point.

It's stupid to think that in 1800 the countries don't know exactly what provinces, settelements and colonies have their foes or their allies.

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Originally Posted by Evil_Maniac From Mars

You wouldn't. Look at the Paradox games to see how it's done. You know who owns which provinces, but not what armies are in those provinces (outside of a rough guess for close provinces), or buildings, or necessarily infrastructure.

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I agree. I've always liked the way paradox handles "fog of war". :thumbsup:

I completely agree on this.

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Originally Posted by Polemists

I think this would be a divided topic at best. While many people I'm sure do dislike the Fog of war, some of us enjoy it. It allows a extra purpose for diplomats, spies, and princesses(Who become useless after turn 15 anyway other then exploring.

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Not to mention the excitement of toggle off every 10 year to find out how the AI have expanded.

comparedt o the time settings of the other games, this is a period where information flowed more easily and freely. Not oly from diplomats, spies and merchants, etc., but most nations had some sort of press with regularly produced papers and travel was more common among the aristocricy. Oh look the paper syas Naploeon march out of paris w/ and army of 100,000. I wonder what he's up to? A fishing trip maybe?

I agree with those favouring the Paradox solution, you need to know who owns what, borders and so on, that should be common knowledge in the napoleonic era, but you shouldnt know exact army placements and sizes.

also its a very valid point that the flow of information and knowledge about faraway places would be completely different in the world of 1700 than in medieval times.

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Originally Posted by anders

I agree with those favouring the Paradox solution, you need to know who owns what, borders and so on, that should be common knowledge in the napoleonic era, but you shouldnt know exact army placements and sizes.

also its a very valid point that the flow of information and knowledge about faraway places would be completely different in the world of 1700 than in medieval times.

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Agreed as well. It's fun to watch changing boundaries, and countries at this time were obsessed w/ maps.

Mostly agreed, I play RTW/M2TW with Fog of War off, just to see the minimap.

The colours changing make me happy, I can sit there and go: "Ooooh! The Russians are getting large, maybe I will fight them in a few hundred years."

Then I start a new campaign...

Shogun did it in the throne room interface where diplomacy happened.
It was easy not to notice but the map infront of you was actually a political map without FoW, showing who owned which province.