Campaign Map (STW/MTW Provinces or RTW ones?)

I'm not sure if anyone has pointed this out, (haven't been bothered to read the thread) but CA have already confirmed that they will be using the RTW map.

Whether I like this or note I do not know, although as it has been said quite a few times before, the RTW map would be much better if the AI was fixed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by sapi

Perhaps using rome's system for movement, but having much harsher destruction penalties (when an enemy army is in your province) in order to force field battles?

---

Yes, I'd be very much in agreement with that. As things stand, there are almost no effects at all in a province with an enemy army in it, which is just ridiculous. The presence of the enemy should be devastating to your economy and population, forcing you to try and defeat the enemy quickly before the province is ruined.

And it should work the same way when you are on the offensive. There should be a big incentive to take a city or castle at the earliest possible moment because the province population should be plummeting from famine just by your army's presence. In that way you would want to move quickly before all the wealth and population of the province you're trying to capture is wasted.

And BTW, when you think about it, a mechanic like this would also slow down the rate of conquest and minimize the "steamroller" factor. Because many provinces, especially on faction borders, would be getting smashed back to nothing by constant warfare and would not be very useful to you for quite some time after capturing them. Also, the AI could if necessary be given a much quicker recovery rate for captured provinces, to help it out and make your own expansion a lot more difficult, especially at the harder difficulty levels.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Claudius the God

one personal thing I would absolutely LOVE to see would be more than one settlement in a province, I would love to see the development of minor villages (and coastal seaports areas) within a province as well as the province capital. So when an enemy army moves into the province, it can raid minor villages, seaports, and maybe even other resources (like mines or trade routes) than are not located in the capital city. This would also be great to see these sort of areas having their own minor garrison areas and minor defences.

---

Yes, I made much the same comment on another thread. The RTW campaign map just isn't interactive enough. There isn't really anything you can do on it except march back and forth and siege cities. It would be more fun and more challenging if you could, for example, raid a grain hex and steal its grain for your own faction, or just burn the thing to the ground. Or alternatively, capture stuff like mines and resources and either destroy them or pillage them for goodies.

Alternatively, it would be good if you had to actually develop resources instead of just getting a graphic of a pot somewhere to indicate this province has a pottery resource. So you'd have to actually build a pottery on the resource and build a road to it before you can benefit from it.

That way you'd want to defend your carefully built up and expensive infrastructure from the enemy. It's the kind of thing that would add a lot of interest to the strategy side of things, which in my opinion is just what the TW series most needs at the moment (apart from a better the AI, that is).

I voted M:TW map because I think it worked better than the R:TW map. Don't ask me why, I don't know either. The R:TW map is beautiful and has far more potential than M:TW, but I don't like the way the armies interact with it. If this could be improved, I would vote R:TW.

The RTW/mtw2 campaign map should be a changing earth just like the real thing.

Rivers flood and affect the terrain, crop lands brown in drought conditions, sea coasts flood in storms, lakes swell making land impassable, avalanches block passes, weather, -when you zoom out of the map to fly like an eagle, birds eye view, clouds stroll by, rain and snow storms, and lightning. Weather affects movement on the map. Forest fires. Villages and farms appear and disappear over time. Small towns grow in the countryside dependent on your main capitol, faction and provinces’ growth. The weather and invading armies, spies and diplomats can affect these towns, things, and places on the map.

Like others have said, an army can raze farms, destroy villages, towns, roads, mines, ports, fishing villages, forts, bridges, and buildings, and watch towers should be destroyable. What was with a faction building an icon for a watchtower that can never be removed.

The campaign map as it is now is not a part of the game but only a picture that is a means to the end – battles. Attacking Cities are the only way to affect a faction; the “land” is just eye candy. CA needs to innovate a world map that immerses the player as a living breathing environment, one where battles/armies, changes in terrain, real earth weather and nature effects, landscape and campaign economics are effected by the other.

SKR