Upgradeable forts = cities???

First off a hearty greeting to all the people on this board!

I thought i'd let you know that when i was gleaning information about ROME:total war from various forums i stumbled across the below thread at twcenter.net.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=8382

In précis:

it appears that within the building list there's a section that describes the following settlement upgrades.


{settlement_upgrade_fort_desc} UPGRADE FORT TO A VILLAGE
{settlement_upgrade_village_desc} UPGRADE VILLAGE TO TOWN
{settlement_upgrade_town_desc} UPGRADE TOWN TO A LARGE TOWN
{settlement_upgrade_large_town_desc} UPGRADE TOWN TO A CITY
{settlement_upgrade_city_desc} UPGRADE CITY TO A LARGE CITY
{settlement_upgrade_large_city_desc} UPGRADE CITY TO A HUGE CITY

a debate has then sparked discussing whether of not this means cities are in fact constructible but over a period of time. Of course most of this is based on the assumption that the fort discussed in the code is the same fort type built in the 16 minute video.

Hopefully some of you guys who know more about R:TW than i, can shed some light on this discussion.

thanks

Duronal.

I'd say it's all speculation... so I'll speculate away.

My guess is that, in terms of gameplay, these represent the different levels of city size in the same way that the city upgrade worked in MTW -- i.e. to build certain buildings you need to upgrade to the larger size. Except with RTW we have the added interest that the cities are so detailed on the battle maps.

So in practical terms this probably translates into a larger perimeter wall, with new buildings that you build fitting into the new space created by the city upgrade.

?? maybe ~:)

As to the discussion of, can you start up a city anywhere you want by building a fort then upgrading, I don't think so. Otherwise you'd need the facility to name them (a scary idea from a gameplay perspective). Each provincial region has one city, and as many non-upgradeable forts as you've got the cash to maintain, is my guess.

edit: clarifying the province ref.

But there are no provinces as such, as we have all seen. If the cities have an area of influence, think Civilisation, then we are probably only limited to overlapping influence area's.

Sorry to be pessimistic, but I think cities will be downgraded to forts, for example when it is razed to the ground.

However, I'm for founding cities too. Give the players requirements such as overpopulation. If overpopulated then a player is allowed to build a new cities. But since overpopulation may be tough to accomplish then only few cities can be founded in the course of the game.

~;p

IIRC then in RTW you won't be able to just keep throwing money at a city to upgrade it to the MTW equivolent of a Fortress. I can't remember where I read it (probably Gamespot review) but you need to reach certain population levels before being allowed to upgrade to the next stage of City size.

I'll head off and check this out. ~:cheers:

fantastic news hopefully you'll get an answer!