Anyone else disappointed in the low number of cities in RTW?

Title says it all.

When I initially read that RTW will have towns instead of provinces and that the campaign map will have about 10,000 squares on which to fight, my hopes were high that the campaign will be even more realistic with many cities to occupy and expand into. Unfortunately, it appears that the total number of provinces and towns is basically the same as MTW (about 103 +/- 5).

One reason TW tactical battles appear so realistic is having so many soldiers on the field. This allows morale, fatigue, formation etc to be simulated well. Of course the player only controls soldiers at the unit level, but they fight at the individual level. Similarly, the TW campaign can be enriched by having large number of cities and towns, but they are controlled at the province level or by family members as in RTW.

My wishlist for improving the campaign in that regard includes:

1. A much larger number of towns.
2. Ability to group and un-group towns into provinces for government purposes.
3. Automatic naming of battles by the TW engine based on closest town or geographic feature.
4. Ability to rename towns when captured from a foreign culture.
5. Ability to found new towns.

I'd like to hear other players comments on this.

Afrit

That would be really awesome. And mabye for 4, it could be automatic, because otherwise people will end up being bored and start naming Cities "Bob" or something.

Originally Posted by Steppe Merc:
That would be really awesome. And mabye for 4, it could be automatic, because otherwise people will end up being bored and start naming Cities "Bob" or something.

An automatic suggestion should be offered, but the player can override it. It would be funny if you have a city named after your pet :-)

(In the same vein, I always thought we should have had the choice of name of children from a list in MTW. Makes it easier to remember your heirs if you named them.)

I like your ideas. That would make it more like Civilization.

What remains to be seen is that whether there is a limit of a number of cities/provinces that can be modded in (like in MTW). Hopefully the limit will be fairly high, it would be great to have more cities on Sicily, Greece and Italy so the Punic Wars could be an epic clash.

more cities does not equal to better gameplay.
it;s more micromaneging to do.
look at VI compared to MTW, i personaly like VI better.

agreed.. but, having the option would appeal to a wider range of players. Just the option of having that kind of micro managment kept auto or manual would please everyone imo.

Originally Posted by USMCNJ:
more cities does not equal to better gameplay.
it;s more micromaneging to do.
look at VI compared to MTW, i personaly like VI better.

More cities *may* lead to worse gameplay, but if done right it leads to better gameplay. Hence the analogy I made with the tactical battle. If TW battles were like Starcraft where you managed each individual soldier, then it would become a nightmare to play with 1000's of soldiers. Rather you manage units, but the fight looks *and feels* much more realistic because the computer simulates each soldier individually.

Similarly, a province really contains many towns and villages and not just a single city. If done right, with most (smaller) towns on auto-manage, then the "feel" and gameplay will improve. Remember that with RTW we will be able to play a realistic rendition of the battles of hannibal in Italy, but we will not be able to play a realistic rendition of his campaign given that there are only 7 or so cities in the entire peninsula!

THink about all the strategies that increasing the number of cities engender:

1. Raids. If you invade a province in MTW (and I bet in RTW) with a small raiding force, you either capture the whole province or have to abandon the raid if the enemy seriously outnumbers you. However, with multiple towns your small raiding army may be able to burn a settlement or two. Or maybe it'll get caught and be destroyed.

2. More flexible borders. In MTW, certain provinces were a "must get" because they shortened your borders. However that is an artificial product of the way the map was drawn. (I believe this would be less of a problem in RTW because you can build forts).

3. More replayability. Reading the guides on different factions in MTW shows that certain factions have a predictable progression (e.g Danes always take sweden etc....). With multi-cities, you may take part of sweden, all of sweden or carve a new province from west sweden and east norway etc...

4. Eliminate some artificial aspects of the game such as a single unit per province per turn. You can build multiple barracks in different towns of the same province. As long as the population supports unit training and you have enough money.

There are many more.

Of course things like loyalty, productivity, religion etc. will become much harder to track. But that;s why we have powerful computers! Also cities would have to fall to an invading army without a fight after a defeat of the defender's army in the field (i.e would have a morale indicator for garrisons).

I could go on . But I think I explained my point.

I really hope the next TW title goes in that direction.

Afrit

Originally Posted by afrit:
More cities *may* lead to worse gameplay, but if done right it leads to better gameplay. Hence the analogy I made with the tactical battle. If TW battles were like Starcraft where you managed each individual soldier, then it would become a nightmare to play with 1000's of soldiers. Rather you manage units, but the fight looks *and feels* much more realistic because the computer simulates each soldier individually.

Similarly, a province really contains many towns and villages and not just a single city. If done right, with most (smaller) towns on auto-manage, then the "feel" and gameplay will improve. Remember that with RTW we will be able to play a realistic rendition of the battles of hannibal in Italy, but we will not be able to play a realistic rendition of his campaign given that there are only 7 or so cities in the entire peninsula!

THink about all the strategies that increasing the number of cities engender:

1. Raids. If you invade a province in MTW (and I bet in RTW) with a small raiding force, you either capture the whole province or have to abandon the raid if the enemy seriously outnumbers you. However, with multiple towns your small raiding army may be able to burn a settlement or two. Or maybe it'll get caught and be destroyed.

2. More flexible borders. In MTW, certain provinces were a "must get" because they shortened your borders. However that is an artificial product of the way the map was drawn. (I believe this would be less of a problem in RTW because you can build forts).

3. More replayability. Reading the guides on different factions in MTW shows that certain factions have a predictable progression (e.g Danes always take sweden etc....). With multi-cities, you may take part of sweden, all of sweden or carve a new province from west sweden and east norway etc...

4. Eliminate some artificial aspects of the game such as a single unit per province per turn. You can build multiple barracks in different towns of the same province. As long as the population supports unit training and you have enough money.

There are many more.

Of course things like loyalty, productivity, religion etc. will become much harder to track. But that;s why we have powerful computers! Also cities would have to fall to an invading army without a fight after a defeat of the defender's army in the field (i.e would have a morale indicator for garrisons).

I could go on . But I think I explained my point.

I really hope the next TW title goes in that direction.

Afrit

very good suggestions

Most reasonable arguments, afrit, and I would like to see your wishes becoming as much as possible part of the Rome.

in theory it sounds good. but think on how it will effect game play.
the map would be clutered with cities. ( you would have the old problem of dozens of units in a provence, but now it would be cities, which you need to build your empire)
emagine having to protect all those cities from raids. you would have to double or triple your forces, (depending on the number of cities). then you have to think about their loyalty , and the cities.
think of the trade system.
it would be worse then victoria. play that game and you will see why more != better.
if you add more cities than a single campaign will take months to complete.
and that takes the replay value out of the game. I personaly would not want to start a new campaign knowing that it would take a month to complete.

Originally Posted by :
if you add more cities than a single campaign will take months to complete.
and that takes the replay value out of the game. I personaly would not want to start a new campaign knowing that it would take a month to complete.

Yeah and arguably MTW campaigns take too long to finish anyway. I couldn't stand it when you become the greatest superpower, nobody can stand before you... Yet you are forced into an endless string of sieges rather than battles.

All I ever seemed to do was lay siege to castles in the latter stages of a MTW campaign it was too boring.

I'd hate for us to have even MORE cities in RTW that we have to sack...

I'm also with the camp of doubters:

One of the nice aspects of R;TW are the city sieges. But to have to do 4 or 5 city sieges to control a province is annoying. Raid tactics would just play a too important role, and the game could inherit the silly sea battle thing from M;TW (one ship blockading and moving around each turn so you can't catch it unless you make faster ships).

Founding new cities may sound nice and plays ok in Civilisation, but here alot would have to be drastically altered to the game I think. Because 2 cities next to eachother should not be allowed (spamming one island full of cities is just unrealistic), the game needs now to calculate the worth of terrain so that the income of the town isn't some random number. Probably have to make up some trade goods as well etc etc.
While I can imagine that there might be events which create cities (thus generated by the game itself, on places predetermined), so that everything (including income trade goods etc) are predetermined that it wouldn't be seen as odd or out of place.

I like the flexible borders and conquering half a land-remarks, but it is really hard to implement I think: How much land would you conquer if you build a town in the middle of a land, where at one of the edges, there are 2 more towns? or 3? Would an extra town make difference? How much? WHo holds the title for the province? can you split up the province so that you get more governers?
Basically the only way I see this as being possible is if you are cutting the provinces up more, into miniprovinces (if you want to). Although there might be people who like that, I for one think the map will be big enough for some quality campaigns, more (mini-)provinces would just make the game even longer.

It also wouldnt really enhance historical accuracy, as in ancient times most generals only needed to take controll of a single strategic location or city to get all the surrounding citys to capitulate of their own accord.

Err... pardon the ignorance but where are people finding lists of cities, or cities linked with provinces?

Maybe we should just wait how it plays with the present number of cities before we make suggestions of improvement? I´m not saying it´s a bad idea, but we don´t even know how RTW will play like. In all likeliness it will be different from MTW, since one doesn´t move anymore from province to province but from square to square, which allows for more strategic movement.

Glad to see well thought replies to my suggestion, although majority seem to disagree with me :-(

I have to admit that I have not played Victoria or Civ, so cannot draw on experience from those (MTW is the only game I have time for. I work an average of 70 hours a week).

My main problem with the current system of few cities is that it just lacks the immersion feel you get with the tactical battles. Playing MTW campaign feels like playing a game, not commanding an empire. Playing MTW battle feels like you're in a battle, not playing a symbolic representation of one.

I'll try to address the issues one by one.

One of the main things that would be different is that cities and towns would surrender to your army without a siege if the garrison's morale is low enough . Things that would affect garrison morale are:
1. size of city. Smaller towns cannot support the garrison long enough.
2. Loyalty of city.
3. Recent defeat of defemder's army in the field. If defender is utterly crushed, the garrison knows there is no relief and would surrender more easily (in MTW, if a single soldier escaped he could hold the defense of the city indefinitely!! Not realistic!).
4. Distance from "the front" and any possibility of relief.
5. Lenght of siege or isolation.
6. Quality of garrison, loyalty and charisma of garrison commander.
7. Fall of the provincial capital . This would allow simulation of capturing an entire province by taking just the main city.

WIth enough parameters like these (all calculated by computer of course), I envision that a single glorious victory of your invading army will mean the surrender of a dozen towns and cities . Of course it also allows for a heroic defense of one fort by an outstanding commander who can harrass the invader etc.. THe point is that variety is introduced.


@soulflame:
1. Sieges would still happen, but only for big cities such as province capitals (see above ).
2. Raids would be annoying, but that is the point of raids. If the are small enough, you can ignore them. If big enough, try to oppose them.
3. City spamming. Founding a new city would require:
-A certain distance from neighboring cities
-A city will control and exploit the surrounding countryside, up to a certain distance. The distance depends on city population (bigger controls farther) and presence of neighboring towns (kind of like gravitational fields of planets).
-The closer a town is to a natural resource, the better it is exploited (e,gfound your cities close to mines).
-Cities are expensive to create, so this will discourage city spamming.

@USMCNJ and Emperor
Endless sieges would make for a tedious campaign. Again, the idea is for multiple towns to fall in *one blow under the right circumstances*. Which is what happened historically. Right circumstances could include:
-Death or capture of enemy king and heirs.
-Similar culture/religion to occupied land
-Good reputation of clemency in your ruler (if you have a habit of enslaving all enemies they may fight more!)
-Having overwhelming power
-Offering autonomous status . (i.e you defeat an enemy, but instead of acquiring his lands outright, you install a client state there).
-Having a bunch of cities being part of the same land for a long time makes them surrender or fight together

Again these are just ideas for long term improvements in the game.

I certainly agree with your sugguestions about the the option for a besieged city to surrender.

Most of my campaigns as you say often had me eliminating the army in a field battle and besiging the few survivors, who are often so few they couldn't even make a football team! Yet because of the "auto shooting walls" any assault gives you massively unrealistic losses and starving them out is not possible...

Hopefully the arrow towers will not be in RTW since we can now place troops on the walls... At least i hope to got they won't be in!

Originally Posted by The_Emperor:
I certainly agree with your sugguestions about the the option for a besieged city to surrender.

Most of my campaigns as you say often had me eliminating the army in a field battle and besiging the few survivors, who are often so few they couldn't even make a football team! Yet because of the "auto shooting walls" any assault gives you massively unrealistic losses and starving them out is not possible...

Hopefully the arrow towers will not be in RTW since we can now place troops on the walls...

I so hope that you are correct!!!!!

The 8 man garrison holding out for 7 years in MTW was a joke . To me that is a much worse historical inacuracy than screeching women, flaming pigs et al. because it affected both gameplay and realism.

Afrit

Originally Posted by A.Saturnus:
Maybe we should just wait how it plays with the present number of cities before we make suggestions of improvement? I´m not saying it´s a bad idea, but we don´t even know how RTW will play like. In all likeliness it will be different from MTW, since one doesn´t move anymore from province to province but from square to square, which allows for more strategic movement.

I mostly agree. The gameplay may be very different from MTW, or pretty similar . Can't predict. But the immersion feel of the map will definitely not be there for me.

Originally Posted by voigtkampf:
Most reasonable arguments, afrit, and I would like to see your wishes becoming as much as possible part of the Rome.

Thanks ~D

I like your ideas, Afrit. But (sorry for that inevitable 'but') just like you I have to work for a living ~:mecry: and I fear that implementing these ideas would only make the game even longer than it is already...

Originally Posted by afrit:
I so hope that you are correct!!!!!

The 8 man garrison holding out for 7 years in MTW was a joke . To me that is a much worse historical inacuracy than screeching women, flaming pigs et al. because it affected both gameplay and realism.

Afrit

actually, it's not so far from the truth, if you read the histories of castles like Harlech and Krak-du-Chevaliers they were regularly under-garrisoned (to the point of a couple dozen defenders), yet they held on for ridiculous periods of time purely because the castles were impregnable.

Originally Posted by afrit:
I mostly agree. The gameplay may be very different from MTW, or pretty similar . Can't predict. But the immersion feel of the map will definitely not be there for me.

Immersion or not, the MTW strategic part was really fun to play. If huge numbers of cities are introduced but most of them surrender anyway because you take the capital, they would just be a nuisance of micromanagment. I think about the worst thing in the Campaign map in MTW was the arbitrary "front line" effect that has been described above, which is no longer present.
In addition, holding the number of cities overseeable adds to an identification effect. It will be especially aggravating when you see the enemy siege devices crush a house in your city that you remember to have placed there yourself. But also especially fun to play.

Perhaps if there was a limit? Or there was only mabye one or two major cities, but you could raid smaller towns? After all, ancient warfare and medival warfare had larger amounts of raids than pitched battles... A lot less men die that way.

I would like to see more cities.

I disovered pretty early from stratmap screenshots that there would not be many more cities/provinces in RTW than there were provinces in MTW.

While I was hoping for more I also realized the gameplay problems this could cause.

The main issue seems to be how far armies can move in six months since the stratmap is not realtime.

For CA to have semi-realistic movement ranges on six month turns you have to balance out quantity and quality.

More cities would probably mean not only a larger stratmap but the turn length would have to be reduced to three or even one month lengths.

Otherwise you could have many of the cities just being bypassed by blitzkriegs deep into enemy territory.

While this could be fun it could also be horribly frustrating to novice players. ~:yin-yang:

I have long been hoping for a game that provides Totalwar's tactical flair with Civilization's strategic flair. However blending the two on a global or even continental scale is probably still beyond modern software capabilities.

Maybe one day...

i like the idea of no provinces other than the ones set up by the player

totally malleable borders like a connect the dot system - i wish i could illustrate it

so that it wouldnt matter if you captured all of the cities in an area to get the province - there would be no real province of sorts - just your area and the area of everyone elseoutside - there could be cultural regions, but not conquerable ones

ie- like ireland - just one island - but because of the cities run by the northern irish/ brit govt - a barrier is formed with irregular previously undetermined borders

every time a city is taken, the area around the city becomes roman (like a perimiter in either direction, based on the influence of the city/fortress)

after the natural lines were formed based on acquisition, a player could add the newly occupied land to a previously created province - or make a new one - all of the values of liveliehoods, military and economy would be calibrated for the highlighted area



in essence, we form our own borders - sorry i couldt explain it correctly

i wish i could explain it better

www.knightsofhonor.com seems to be doing it i think

I would like fewer cities. I recently downloaded the concise Kings of England PBM game which was in an "endgame" state, thinking I would try to finish it off. But the scale of the micromanagement involved just put me off. MTW just gets unwieldy late in conquer the world - just managing the build queues for each city is a big factor. It reminds me of the late game Civ2. Shogun and VI largely avoided this burn out because they had fewer cities/provinces.

What Total War should do what Imperialism 2 did - try to minimise the micromanagement - eg have unit building, tech trees, resource management and economics at the country, not city level. Also make strategic agents work at a higher geographic level so you need less of them. In addition, I'd like to see less armies to move around - maybe allow a few field armies dependant on having a few good leaders and make allowance for more passive garrisons that you don't manage. Imperialism 2 did not totally crack the problem of too much micromanagement in the end game but got impressively close.

I also suspect that simplifying the micromanagement will make the strategic AI better.

Aww, c'mon, each province has about two cities and you can build forts wherever you like. And with 225+ provinces in the game (compared to the some 99 in MTW) that amounts to one hell of a lot of towns. And if you don't like that cos of micromanagement, then you can give it to your generals to look after. Trust me, don't doubt Rome. It has all your needs except for mp campaign, which I really really want.

Another point against a larger number of cities - apologies if it has been made already - is that it could a late game a positively painful firefighting exercise as troops have to be moved betwen cities in double-quick time.

I think the game would be far to time consuming if we had more cities. Remember you have to capture them all ~:eek:

Founding cities might not work well with the mtw campaign map either and the time period. A player who is dominating the game shouldnt be able to build metropolis' all over his empire, CA would need to make it very very time consuming and costly to avoid exploitation.

Founding cities and colonies would be nice if they ever do an age of exploration game

Actually we don't have to conquer all the cities in RTW(at least not as a roman faction).You merely need to conquer Rome(or the senate...not sure) and hold onto it for 20 years for your campaign to be considered a victory.I believe there is also an option of continuing after you have been declared victorious. ~D

Originally Posted by TuffStuffMcGruff:
i like the idea of no provinces other than the ones set up by the player

totally malleable borders like a connect the dot system - i wish i could illustrate it

so that it wouldnt matter if you captured all of the cities in an area to get the province - there would be no real province of sorts - just your area and the area of everyone elseoutside - there could be cultural regions, but not conquerable ones

ie- like ireland - just one island - but because of the cities run by the northern irish/ brit govt - a barrier is formed with irregular previously undetermined borders

every time a city is taken, the area around the city becomes roman (like a perimiter in either direction, based on the influence of the city/fortress)

after the natural lines were formed based on acquisition, a player could add the newly occupied land to a previously created province - or make a new one - all of the values of liveliehoods, military and economy would be calibrated for the highlighted area



in essence, we form our own borders - sorry i couldt explain it correctly

i wish i could explain it better

www.knightsofhonor.com seems to be doing it i think

I think you're talking about something very much like the border system used in both Alpha Centauri and Civilization 3. There each city you own (found or conquer) exerts a certain amount of territorial influence around it. This represents itself by a dotted line, areas within the dotted line are considered your territory for economic, military and diplomatic purposes. The greater the 'culture' (essentially - importance, determined by what is built inside it) of a city, the greater the borders around the city. If two civilizations have adjacent borders, they can flux even without war if one civilization has greater 'culture' on their side of the border.

This could certainly be implemented into the Total War style... but we need to ask ourselves if we really want this. Do we really want Total War to turn into a Civ clone with realtime battles? This game series has always concentrated on being one of the best, if not THE best, in the tactical battlefield simulation genre. The world map is certainly needed to give a broader view of the world and overall strategy, but I fear that trying to put too much detail into the campaign map will simply result in moving Total War into the 'nation building sim' genre of games. This is an area where the Total War series would be seriously out-classed and I fear that it would detract from the quality of the battlefield game.

How so? As long as they have the same quality of battles (why would they downgrade the battles?) the more politcal the better. And it beats trying to go to the RTS crowd...

Wow. Lots of long replies. I'll try to address as many as I can. Hope you can read the entire post ~;)

@TuffStuffMcGruff, voigtkampf,

thanks for agreeing. I really think provinces should be up to the player to draw as TuffStuffMcGruff suggested.



@Tamur,
I made a list of cities and provinces from screenshots of the map in the "Province profile" section of the .com. The demo .pak files also contain campaign related info, including a province and city list. Both sources are pretty close (103 +/- provinces).

@Peregrine Tergiversate,
a cohort of 50 men may hold a castle, but surely cannot hold a large city!! Now if a few survivors garrisoned a minor town (like the ones I'm suggesting) then I'd believe it!

@sir robin,
you mention that "you would have many of the cities just being bypassed by blitzkriegs deep into enemy territory". That is actually a reasonable strategy. If a city is not on your army's path (i.e on a highway) then you should be able to bypass it! If your blitzkrieg succeeds, it will likely surrender on next turn. If not, then it will remain a thorn in the side. Or could become a staging base for the enemy.


@simon,
I totally agree with you that the end game in MTW is broken: it is tedious, non-challenging and takes inordinate amount of time. The solution, however, is not to have less provinces (i.e shrink the game) but to change the way you win (Spartiate mentions that in his post) . CA has done that for RTW. My vision of additional cities should not mean you have to siege them all. Again a mechanism for the surrender of groups of cities should be established.


@SilverRusher
Where did you get the info that there are 2 cities per province in RTW. All info on RTW points to a single city per province. You're right that the ability to found forts will go a long way to satisfy some of what I'm asking for. But those forts will lack a name, resources or any other use besides defense. Once they are not your frontier, you might as well consider them clutter.


@chilliwilli,
a player won't be able to build metropolises all over his empire because you will need people to occupy them. And population can only increase at a certain rate. TO found a city you will need to decrease the population in other cities. A new aspect of empire management is thus created. You may choose to use it or ignore it. Just like some people use assassins in MTW and others don't (I don;'t).

@TinCow,
I haven't played alpha centauri or civ 3, but you describe what I envision well. Cities will have spheres of influence based on their size and surrounding areas. And my opinion is , yes we want that in TW games. Sure it will make it more of an empire building game. That does not mean the tactical aspects are lessened. In fact, the main reason I want more cities is to enhance the tactical aspect of the game. Which route do you take into a province? Do you bother with the small border forts or try to bypass them? etc... I think Steppe Marc answered your point on that one.


In summary, I think that if done right, with all the concerns everyone expressed taken into account, a much more detailed campaign map will increase the depth of the game, will improve its realism, and would give us new challenges. It may lengthen the campaign time further, but as long as it stays enjoyably challenging, I welcome that.

Afrit

1. Expected low number of cities (equal to MTW at best) = Yes
2. Disappointed = No

I did not expect more cities so I'm not disappointed. Do I think there should have been more, yes I do.

Originally Posted by afrit:
I made a list of cities and provinces from screenshots of the map in the "Province profile" section of the .com. The demo .pak files also contain campaign related info, including a province and city list. Both sources are pretty close (103 +/- provinces).

Yeek, sounds like a lot of work. Thanks for the answer!

Originally Posted by Steppe Merc:
How so? As long as they have the same quality of battles (why would they downgrade the battles?) the more politcal the better. And it beats trying to go to the RTS crowd...

My concerns come from the realities of software publishing, not what I would actually like to see in a perfect world. The next TW game (full, not XP) will almost certainly be yet another game engine build, this means from the ground up. The more time spent on improving the campaign map, the less time spent on perfecting and tweaking the battle system. I am simply afraid that due to time and budget constraints, any resources spent on these improvements would actually harm the battle system. This might result in the TW game doing a poor job at both aspects and I would rather have it do an excellent job at one.

Of course if CA is able to get the resources and support from publishers to allow it to expand further into the civilization simulation market, I would be very happy. I guess I'm just a bit cautious about TW reaching for the dream and falling on its face.

Originally Posted by afrit:
@TinCow,
I haven't played alpha centauri or civ 3, but you describe what I envision well. Cities will have spheres of influence based on their size and surrounding areas. And my opinion is , yes we want that in TW games. Sure it will make it more of an empire building game. That does not mean the tactical aspects are lessened. In fact, the main reason I want more cities is to enhance the tactical aspect of the game. Which route do you take into a province? Do you bother with the small border forts or try to bypass them? etc... I think Steppe Marc answered your point on that one.

Here are a few screenshots I found on the net that show Civ 3 with the borders:
http://www.4gamer.net/civ3/images/Civ3_04.jpg
http://www.monitor.ca/monitor/issues...civ-3_scr1.jpg

As I understand it, it was at first the plan not to implement provinces in RTW. Some of the older FAQs pointed in that direction. Obviously CA has decided against it and they had probably a reason for that. If it was justified we will only see if we have played the game.

The difference is that in MTW/STW, units and agents were just generically in a province, but for RTW they are actually at a specific point on the campaign map. It seems to me that really all that the 'provinces' are likely to do in RTW is to signify the faction borders (so that other factions can't just waltz armies up next to your cities without you being able to tell them off for it). I doubt they'll have any other notable impact on the game. It's the settlements/cities that matter.

Originally Posted by :
If it was justified we will only see if we have played the game.

Couldn't agree more. Since the game's due out in less than two weeks, I think I'll sustain passing judgement until I can play the game. I remember playing MTW for quite some time before I reached a point where I was SURE certain changes would be beneficial, and enhance all aspects of play, rather than just make a particular annoyance more tolerable. Kinda hard to mod something ya ain't seen.

Here's a list of all the provinces and their city (taken from the provinces and cities tags in the pak files). There are 103 all up.

Province - City
Britannia Inferior - Eburacum
Tribus Saxones - Bordesholm
Locus Gepidae - Domus Dulcis Domus
Hyperboria - Themiskyra
Tribus Sakae - Campus Sakae
Hibernia - Tara
Tribus Alanni - Campus Alanni
Tribus Silurii - Deva
Locus Gothi - Vicus Gothi
Tribus Sarmatae - Campus Sarmatae
Britannia Superior - Londinium
Germania Inferior - Batavodurum
Tribus Chattii - Damme
Pripet - Vicus Venedae
Regnum Marcomannii - Vicus Marcomannii
Belgica - Samarobriva
Maeotis - Tanais
Agri Decumates - Mogontiacum
Armorica - Condate Redonum
Germania Superior - Trier
Boihaemum - Lovosice
Scythia - Campus Scythii
Tribus Iazyges - Campus Iazyges
Central Gaul - Alesia
Dacia - Porrolissum
Noricum - Iuvavum
Tribus Getae - Campus Getae
Pannonia - Aquincum
Bosphorus - Chersonesos
Aquitania - Lemonum
Lugdinensis - Lugdunum
Colchis - Kotais
Atropatene - Phraaspa
Cisalpine Gaul - Mediolanium
Venetia - Patavium
Transalpine Gaul - Massilia
Illyria - Segestica
Thrace - Tylis
Gallaecia - Asturica
Dalmatia - Salona
Armenia - Artaxarta
Narbonensis - Narbo Martius
Liguria - Segesta
Pontus - Sinope
Celtiberia - Numantia
Paionia - Bylazora
Etruria - Arretium
Taraconenis - Osca
Umbria - Ariminum
Media - Arsakia
Lusitania - Scallabis
Sardinia - Caralis
Latium - Rome
Macedonia - Thessalonica
Propontis - Byzantium
Bithynia - Nicomedia
Galatia - Ancyra
Cappadocia - Mazaka
Hispania - Carthago Nova
Epirus - Apollonia
Apulia - Tarentum
Campania - Capua
Assyria - Hatra
Baetica - Corduba
Phrygia - Pergamum
Cilicia - Tarsus
Thessalia - Larissa
Baliares - Palma
Bruttium - Croton
Ionia - Sardis
Syria - Antioch
Babylonia - Seleucia
Aetolia - Thermon
Attica - Athens
Elymais - Susa
Peloponnesus - Corinth
Lycia - Halicarnassus
Sicilia Romanus - Messana
Sicilia Poeni - Lilybaeum
Mauretania - Tingi
Regnum Palmyrae - Palmyra
Cyprus - Salamis
Phoenicia - Sidon
Numidia - Cirta
Africa - Carthage
Sicilia Graecus - Syracuse
Laconia - Sparta
Coele Syria - Damascus
Rhodos - Rhodes
Arabia - Dumatha
Byzacium - Thapsus
Crete - Kydonia
Nabataea - Bostra
Judaea - Jerusalem
Gaetulia - Dimmidi
Tripolitania - Lepcis Magna
Cyrenaica - Cyrene
Nile Delta - Alexandria
Sinai - Petra
Libya - Siwa
Middle Egypt - Memphis
Sahara - Nepte
Thebais - Thebes

Originally Posted by :
Locus Gepidae - Domus Dulcis Domus

~:eek: ~:confused: ~:joker:

So the main city of the Locus Gepidae is called...."Home Sweet Home"??

Those Gepids must have had a sense of humour... ~;)

Originally Posted by biguth dickuth:
~:eek: ~:confused: ~:joker:

So the main city of the Locus Gepidae is called...."Home Sweet Home"??

Those Gepids must have had a sense of humour... ~;)

ROTFL :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4:

:joker:

Originally Posted by biguth dickuth:
~:eek: ~:confused: ~:joker:

So the main city of the Locus Gepidae is called...."Home Sweet Home"??

Those Gepids must have had a sense of humour... ~;)

heh good one mate ~D

Originally Posted by :
Babylonia - Seleucia

'
I'd thought it would be Baylon... ~:confused:

Originally Posted by :
Tribus Sarmatae - Campus Sarmatae

Camp Sarmatian? Is there the Mickey Mouse camp to? ~:joker:

Originally Posted by biguth dickuth:
~:eek: ~:confused: ~:joker:

So the main city of the Locus Gepidae is called...."Home Sweet Home"??

Those Gepids must have had a sense of humour... ~;)

Interesting... It was noted back when the province profiles came up that there was such a place. Naturally people with experience with CA humour explained the novices that it is a joke, now it seems serious. ~:shock: I'm puzzled. I still hope it is a joke.

Steppe Merc. you haev noticed that there are several other camps right? Any why is that so funny? Am I missing something?

Bear in mind that those province and city names are taking from the demo. So it may have been still in 'joke' phase when the demo build was split from the full build (and so we may well see some different names in the final release). But yes, some funny names there ~:joker:

If you guys think that MTW/RTW had a tedious endgame, you haven't played Civ yet. Even if you weren't clearly winning and the game is still in doubt, the game gets very tedious in the end. My last game of Civ3, I had more than 100 cities in the end and got so sick of the micromanaging. I spent more than 100 hours playing and that game had no tactical battles.

The fact is, there has never been an acceptable AI and there never will be until we discover how to biologically create new lifeforms. Adding more cities will just add more to the micromanagement in the game. You could automate it, but again, the AI will surely be retarded and will never make decisions on the same level as a human does. I thought MTW had enough provinces already and I really don't wish for much more in RTW.

Originally Posted by Steppe Merc:
'
I'd thought it would be Baylon... ~:confused:

The city of Babylon was practically deserted by 275 BCE, which is prior to the start of the game.

Here's an article from Britannica online:

http://www.britannica.com/ebc/articl...y=null&ct=null

To quote:

Originally Posted by :
It (Babylon) was conquered in 539 BC by the Persian Achaemenian dynasty under Cyrus II and in 331 BC by Alexander the Great, after which the capital city was gradually abandoned.

Oh, thanks, Stuie. And yes, I think Camp Sarmatian is funny because
1. The Sarmatians aren't even in the game for some moronic reason. ~:confused: :furious3:
and 2. As nomads they wouldn't really have to many permanate cities. But calling it Camp Sarmatian? I still think it's idiotic.

I don't know guys ... 100+ cities seems plenty to me. Maybe you are forgetting about the forts you can build?

Historically speaking there really wasn't a large number of notable cities in the ancient world. When I read about the Roman campaigns in Briton and Gaul; I get the impression that the number of cities that hold more tactical signifigance than a legionnairy fort are few and far between. Same goes for cites with a significant amount of commerce.

So my answer is no, I'm not dissapointed by the number of cities.

Also, this is definitely one issue that I don't think can be effectively debated until the game is played. The demo did reveal some issues with the battle map, but none of us has played the strat game yet. By all accounts the strat map is very different from the STW and MTW and the ancient world does not map to the fuedal world very well at all. Give the strat map some legs before making you argument I say.

Wow, I thought I had read somewhere that cities could be founded. Guess I'm wrong.

I'm less than 20 turns into a new campaign, and under the impression one could found cities, I put a couple of units along with a Peasant unit (thought you needed peasants to found) onto a boat and sent them over to the Spanish pennisula.

There's a nice spot just over the Pyrnees (sp? is that the right mountain range?), with some tradeable goods and a fishing village. The interesting part about founding a city is choosing a good location.

I choose a spot near enough to the fishing village, with a small mountain range to the rear and a meandering river to the front. The river creates a narrow gap to the north and south, the only approaches to the city. I thought this a VERY defensible location.

I couldn't figure out how to make the units found the city, looked through the manual and found nothing (surprise!!!), and then came to the Org and did a search.

Toooo bad....

It's early in the game, and if I could found and develop a city at this location while I'm at Peace with the Gauls and Spaniards, it would serve as a good base for expansion.

Sigh!

Fantastic thread. I'm not sure I want *more* cities placed into the game, but the capability to develop new cities would be facinating. I like all of the other suggestions of the original poster!!!!

I don't wish for ANY more Sieges/Taking of Cities than there already are in the game. In fact, I think Rome: Tota War could be changed to "Siege: Total War"!!! ;)

As far as Battle Engine development vs Campaign development:

IMUHO, the battle engine is STILL hands down the best thing going. Not much about the mechanics need improvement (save the RTW interface!!). There are two areas that would really take the Battle Engine to the next level:

1) An AI, without gettting into any specifics, simply a more *intelligent* and challeging AI. Something that would be a STEP FORWARD in technology.

2) MODABILITY. The capability to Mod the AI is something that's *sorely* missing. Not simply, as we have now, the capability to mode certain aspects and elements that effect the AI, but the capability to Mod the AI itself. Tailor it to specific tastes and aims.

Lastly, I support the continued *Civilizationing* of the Campaign/Strategic area of Total War. The true accomplishment of Total War is that it brings true STRATEGIC value to, as well as, EXCELLENT *Tactical* elements, to Battles; without which TW would just be another RTS game with little to no, actual, *strategy*.

I'm a Strategy Gamer, first and foremost.

What would be really great would be a collaboration between The Creative Assembly and Sid Meir. Sid Meir is the genius of strategy gaming and CA has the technology, what a wonderful marriage this would make!!

I never had any problems with Medieval's late game, because I never play that long. The fun part is building up your provences civ-style. I usually have a blast playing up untill about the invention of gunpowder, and then start a new game. I also advance slowly and always consolidate my gains, making conquests last longer, and the game not too easy. I find that playing slowly makes it both more challenging, and more fun. Of course "slowly" is a word unheard of in RTW...


Considering how you have to micromanage every damn city in Rome because the heavy handed squalor rate, more cities would be a nightmare. In Rome, expanding is a pain, because you know you are going to get more damn people in your empire, who naturally hate you.

Originally Posted by Tamur:
Err... pardon the ignorance but where are people finding lists of cities, or cities linked with provinces?

Uh, maybe the map with provinces and cities that came with the game?

Grifman

BTW these suggestions are impossible with the current engine - you might as well be asking for the moon. They would require extensive changes to the engine to allow you to found cities, change provincial borders by grouping cities, plus require extensive playtesting and balancing. Play Civ if you want that type of game. I'm happy with RTW as it is in this respect.

Grifman