City Population

[hyphenatedD]

One thing that really irked me with RTW was its inaccurate population size for cities. Rome's peak population was at minimum 400,000 during the early empire, while most sources say 1 million. But in RTW a "huge city" is 24000, 1/10th the size of alexandria during the game's era.

Is the population size for cities changeable or has it been set in stone by CA?

[Ludens]

Hardcoded, I am afraid. However, keep in mind that you could recruit the entire population (minus 400). So the number must represent fit males or perhaps households rather than total population.

[Folgore]

But in RTW a "huge city" is 24000, 1/10th the size of alexandria during the game's era.

Military units are also scaled to 1/10th of their real life counterparts (full stacks ingame being about 3 000 men, rather than the 30 000 one would expect to see in real life), so it's only logical city populations are scaled in the same way.

[anubis88]

Military units are also scaled to 1/10th of their real life counterparts (full stacks ingame being about 3 000 men, rather than the 30 000 one would expect to see in real life), so it's only logical city populations are scaled in the same way.

Now that's an overreaction IMO.
With that logic, every faction in my campaign which has let's say 4 full stacks has an army of 120.000 men. And factions like Seleuci have about 10 of them with medium sized empire, which means 300.000 men, without counting all the smaller half stacks and city garrisons.

[seienchin]

Now that's an overreaction IMO.
With that logic, every faction in my campaign which has let's say 4 full stacks has an army of 120.000 men. And factions like Seleuci have about 10 of them with medium sized empire, which means 300.000 men, without counting all the smaller half stacks and city garrisons.

Exactly.
The Problem in Rome and therefore EB1 is that there is no consisteny.
If all the armies and populations are times 10 the nomads have huge armies and cities.
Raising 100.000 man out of one city wouldnt be impossible.
So the only thing to say:
Thank god for MWII recruitment system.

[Folgore]

With that logic, every faction in my campaign which has let's say 4 full stacks has an army of 120.000 men. And factions like Seleuci have about 10 of them with medium sized empire, which means 300.000 men, without counting all the smaller half stacks and city garrisons.

Ah, but this is a different problem altogether! The masses of stacks the AI sends at you is complete nonsense. In ancient times, to my understanding at least, wars revolved around pitched battles in which each faction would muster as many men as possible and try to defeat the enemy utterly and entirely. For example, when the Romans fought the Seleucids at Magnesia, their 30 000 men strong army soundly defeated Antiochos' army of 70 000 men, resulting in the loss of all the Seleucid's holdings in Asia Minor. Such pitched battles simply are not possible in RTW and every city and small town has to be dealt with individually.

Of course, the Romans are an exception to this rule and they did indeed fight much like the RTW AI. They simply refuse to surrender on any terms and just raise another set of legions.

[B-Wing]

Of course, the Romans are an exception to this rule and they did indeed fight much like the RTW AI. They simply refuse to surrender on any terms and just raise another set of legions.

Well that is a nice way to look at things.

So the only thing to say:
Thank god for MWII recruitment system.

I also much prefer M2TW's recruitment system. I think it will suit EB much better than RTW's.

And keep in mind that although recruitment is done via cities, those cities are representative of entire provinces/regions. So the combined population of a faction's cities need not necessarily reflect the faction's total population, particularly amongst cultures that tended to be less urban and more rural or nomadic.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Military units are also scaled to 1/10th of their real life counterparts (full stacks ingame being about 3 000 men, rather than the 30 000 one would expect to see in real life), so it's only logical city populations are scaled in the same way.

They are not. There is no ‘clear’ scale; and in fact a phalanx unit is very close to its historical size: 242 men instead of 256 (16 x 16).

[abou]

For example, when the Romans fought the Seleucids at Magnesia, their 30 000 men strong army soundly defeated Antiochos' army of 70 000 men...

Not quite. Here is what I wrote for the Magnesia battle description:

NOTE:
Many of you who play EB have by now become familiar with many of the big events in the history of the Mediterranean basin. No doubt that of that many, many have read Livy or other historians both ancient and modern and find themselves focusing on Rome and its achievements. I am quite certain that among you there is a measure of puzzlement at the sheer size of the Roman force as Livy describes their number at being only 33,000. I assure you that this is not an error on my part.

Livy as an historian had a specific goal in mind with his writings: to reawaken a sense a virtue in the Roman people, which was perceived to be lost, by writing about the exploits of Rome’s heroes and citizens. As a result, strictly recounting history is a secondary goal for Livy (although this does not make his writings useless to us) and we see this in his skewing of numbers for the events of Magnesia. After all, what is more impressive: winning a battle with 50,000+ troops or with 33,000?
So, where did the numbers for the Roman army under L. Cornelius Scipio come from?

The numbers are directly from Livy himself. Throughout the several hundred lines devoted to recounting the war between Antiochos and Rome Livy continuously mentions specific numbers of troops raised from both Rome and her allies. It was only recently that those numbers were put together after careful scrutiny by historian John D. Grainger. Hence the value of 50,000+ for the Roman forces.

Back to the main point - guys, don't get caught up in numbers. If it helps, consider the populations of cities as those being only males eligible for military service. I know, it doesn't completely work out that way, but remember that the games are only an abstraction. If you get caught up with every little detail, you'll keep yourself from enjoying the game.

As far as army numbers go, I would consider 240 (242 with the officers) men in a phalanx unit on large as the equivalent of a 4,096 man strategiai. Adjusting unit numbers to more accurately match that ratio is on the list of things to do, but it's low, low down on that list.

[Ca Putt]

did i get this right? you are considering(not yet planning) to increase unit sizes to epic values? or "just" adjust them to more fitting numbers below 300 ? thus 256 for phalangitai etc.

[Bucefalo]

If you take a closer look, he said the ratio, not the actual numbers.

Adjusting unit numbers to more accurately match that ratio is on the list of things to do, but it's low, low down on that list.

It also makes sense too, as representing the actual numbers is impossible with the M2TW engine, you can´t have a phalanx unit of 4.096 soldiers, for example.

[Cambyses]

And keep in mind that although recruitment is done via cities, those cities are representative of entire provinces/regions. So the combined population of a faction's cities need not necessarily reflect the faction's total population, particularly amongst cultures that tended to be less urban and more rural or nomadic.

This is a very important point. Especially as we have very little reliable information about real population sizes for most regions of the ancient world (when 90% of the population lived in the countryside btw) it would be a fool's errand to try and create "realistic" population numbers in EB.

There are so many aspects of the game that are representative rather than exact. IMO its better to accept the limitations of the TW engine and our own historical knowledge and simply make the representations as balanced as possible for good game play.

[Darius]

For some reason this reminded me of how in the game Lords of the Realm II, a highly populated province would have its main "settlement" look bigger and more advanced the greater the population much like in RTW. Your fields for growing wheat/raising cattle however, would be clearly represented on the map and could even be pillaged by your foes, causing economic damage as well as famine, possibly even starvation. Depending on how large your population is you'd eventually see small hamlets and villages popping up within the provinces borders, which of course could also be pillaged and caused direct population loss.

What would be really sweet would be if instead of just making the "fishing villages/mines/etc" simply eye candy that may or may not give you certain economic bonuses, you made it so that they were vulnerable to pillaging or at least razing via devastation. Granted this is most likely something that simply can't be done or at the very least could be done, but there is simply no way to make the "AI" use it. Either way it's a great idea IMO, albeit an unimplementable one given the "AI's" limitations.

[antisocialmunky]

For Ran no Jida, we tossed that idea around. Its quire possible to do it using the resources. Infact, EB already does. I think you're looking for some srot fo dynamic generation of eye candy... which I'm fairly sure hasn't been done.

[tarem]

Not quite. Here is what I wrote for the Magnesia battle description:


Back to the main point - guys, don't get caught up in numbers. If it helps, consider the populations of cities as those being only males eligible for military service. I know, it doesn't completely work out that way, but remember that the games are only an abstraction. If you get caught up with every little detail, you'll keep yourself from enjoying the game.

As far as army numbers go, I would consider 240 (242 with the officers) men in a phalanx unit on large as the equivalent of a 4,096 man strategiai. Adjusting unit numbers to more accurately match that ratio is on the list of things to do, but it's low, low down on that list.

now this is a very good scaling idea. if 1 phalanx unit would represent 4096 men under arms, then 20 of those (full stack) are roughly 82000men. take into account different squad sizes for different factions and units and you would get from 50000 to 100000 men for different full stacks which fits nicely with most documented "grand" armies of the ancients. i like playing this kind of math. so 1 imperial era legion could roughly be represented as 5500 infantry which scales down to 325men unit. can the engine support larger then 300men units? but those 5500 had also some auxilia attached to them so the heavy infantry component would be around 5000-5100men which translates to 300 men unit at full strength. so far so good. but the problem is (i am sure this has been discussed before) how to represent pre-marian legions? any ideas?

[Macilrille]

Abou, hammer+ nail+ Abou BANG!!! Right on point!

The game is an abstraction. It must by necessity be, even World in Flame depicting the relatively well documented WWII must by necessity be an abstraction. It is a game, not RL, so sod the numbers, as long as relative strengths work.

As for ancient populations the only one we know with some slight degree certainty is Rome's thanks to their Census and the work done by Brunt. However, even that is in no way 100 % accurate. We also have fairly accurate ideas of Denmark's population as there has been a lot of digging going on the last 30 years, but from there to say "Denmark had" or even elaborate to "Germania must have had" is sheer folly.

Perhaps one day you will get a detailed depiction of RL, but it will still be an abstraction because of our lack of knowledge and playability.

The game is a game, play it as such.

[Horatius]

The way I think of it is the population reflects the average city for your region, you know all of those cities towns and villages that didn't feature enough in history and largely got left off the historical record.