A more developed economic engine

[jimmi6j]

i love MTW. i do think, however, that the economic model in the game is somewhat simplistic.... which is cool in other rts games like aoe etc but i think that MTW deserves more. An economic and diplomatic model similar to that found in a game like imperialism would be really top. Obviously it wouldnt need to be complex but it would be nice to actually be able to control a bit of trade... and in the process create real alliances with AI built upon such trade... ie developing a reciprocal trade route with an AI may increase the AIs willingness to forge alliances (and keep them). It causes me no end of grief/annoyance when after leaving a caravel in or around the med to have it attacked by the italians and cut me off from their ports even tho theyll be doing a roaring trade in constant. or wherever your home port maybe... this prob wont be as much as a problem in RTW as rome wasnt interested in developing alliances to create trade routes as it was taking over individual states to impose trade routes .. but it would be a nice add-on... possibly an optional one that people could turn off/on ...

[econ21]

Yes, Imperialism 2 had a wonderful economic engine but in a way, that was the game - trying to overcome all the different constraints on growth. The military part was pretty lack lustre and far inferior to TW. One tip - you can deterr piracy by stacking ships along your trade route. Don't have a single vessel in a sea with AI vessels - at least double them up to deterr piracy and pointless war.

[Asaji Shimazu]

I wholeheartedly agree. I love games like SimCity4, IndustryGiant II - Patricitan II (Supercool game) - anything with fake money. Yet I love the strategy of MTW. Once would think that since they'd already begun handling the finances - they'd take it further - but they never really have.

The fact is - this is two games. The action portion won because the demographics were behind it. I would love to see an economic expansion pack instead of the vikings, but we all know - there's more money with the vikings....

Sigh....
Asaji

[Asaji Shimazu]

Imperialism must have been it's European name. Regardless of the name, Patrician II was the most addicting game of 2002 in my opinion. I was making little charts and things off the computer. A true sign that I was addicted...:D

Asaji

[Brutal DLX]

I don't know.. I think, after all it is a wargame, the economy should be left simplified. But if you want better diplomacy, ie. more options for yourself and better AI diplomacy, I'm all for it.

As for the money concerns, you should build trade routes to get money for building upgrades and raising armies, not just for the sake of it. If you like, you can mod the provinces so they will generate more base income etc.. that will do for economy. Of course, it is just my opinion.

[kataphraktoi]

How bout a tribute system.

Make people pay you tribute to stop destroying their lands

Or pay the AI tribute to prevent them from attacking your lands, if they wish they could romp into ur land but tribute gives u time to rebuild and stick it to em once u have done it.

Tribute.

[Kristaps]

In my opinion, there are a few things that definitely need some adjustment:

I. AI economic behavior

a. Agriculture: make the AI "realize" it does not pay making +80% agricultural upgrades in provinces like Sinai...
b. Trade: tweak the AI to go for trade (and build strongers armies as a result of this); in the current version of the MTW the AI is really lagging in developing trade networks: then again, inter-AI sea wars might be part of the reason why none of the AI factions make it far with trade networks...
c. Sea wars: the AI would frequently attack my single ship trade routes while their faction has huge stacks of ships positioned somewhere far away (Gibraltar, for example) from their harbors. The result appears to be very cost damaging for the AI -- they have to maintain those far away fleets with no trade income since their trade is blockec by my remaining fleets. Seems like a bad judgement on the AI part.


II. General

a. Inland trade: as it stands now, the inland trade is miniscule. However, I believe there should be some considerable improvement in inland trade income if a faction owns adjacent province with a harbor, a merchant, and a developed trade network: some of those inland goods should make their way to the seas... Take vikings: they used riverways to trade inland goods all through Eastern Europe - from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. With such an inland trade improvement it would make sense to upgrade inland trading provinces with higher versions of merchants.
b. Tax from inland trade: in the history (and the present - VAT, for example), inland trade was taxed in a similar way as the export trade: one might expect the inland trade to generate more tax income than in the present version. On another note: economically inclined kings would actually tax imports more heavily than exports... In the current game version, imports are taxed much less than exports.

That's all for now...

[Beelzebub]

I'd like to see actual province population being a core faction for a province's value and production. Population should determine stuff like amount of troops available for recruit (also need to calculate province moral, zeal and loyalty as factors), all types of income (along with other stuff like fertility of land, abundance of natural resources).

[Quasi]

As far as inland trade goes I think that a provence should be able to trade with all adjacent provences. It doesn't make sense to just trade locally. Or, say for instance the first trade buildng just lets you trade locally, the second allows trade to neighbors, the third increases trade profits, etc.

My biggest complaint about overseas trade is only being able to trade with different factions. Why not allow trade with your own ports? Thats just silly. My people need corn and dye just like the Italians do. Also, increase the benefits you get from other factions trading with you. Historically trade made both sides very rich, not just the person who owns the trade route. Merchants bought just as much as they sold normally so if I have a chain of ships from Wessex to Constantinople, then my merchants should buy some of Constantinople's (now Istanbul, not Constantinople.....errr... sorry, funny song though) goods and give them some benefit to the trade, not the meagar pittance of 7 or 14 florins the other side gets currently.

[Foreign Devil]

I've always viewed the strategy mode as somewhat secondary to the tactical battle mode.

That said, these are all good suggestions. R:TW, perhups?

[Hakonarson]

Another problem with trade in MTW was that all trade was limited to the map.

Eg Tripoli (from memory) is a source of gems & other stuff - but in fact it was the end point of a huge off-map trade network that extended to China.

Many trading areas in the game are teh same - especially in the Eastern Med and east and south edges of the map - they are not the producer of the goods - they are just the outlet in the game.

So those provinces should be able to trade with all other provinces whether you own the other provinces or not. Also the provinces that lead to them (Syria for Tripoli??) should get a "cut", since the trade went through them too.

Sure this makes the Mid-East even more attractive, but then it was It's no accident that much of European "civlisation" comes from the influence of Arabia - via their conquest of Spain and later via returning Crusaders. Trade was anotehr way that Eastern influences made their way to Europe, and the Mid-east was for a long time a lot richer than Europe.

[econ21]

Interesting observation, Hakonarson - I had noticed the high wealth of the middle east in MTW and wondered whether it really was historical. That it is proxying trade routes further east makes sense.

By way, anyone know if it is true what environmentalists say about desertification and the Middle East? I heard one guy saying that in the Roman period, Egypt was described as the Empire's bread basket and arguing that over-cultivation, deforestation etc dramatically reduced the productivity of the land. Any truth to this or is it a myth? It's a rather dramatic illustration of the perils of environmental degradation if true.

[Hakonarson]

Grain from Egypt basically kept Rome fed for hundreds of years and any disruption of its supply cold and did spark riots among the lower classes in Rome who would be the ones to starve - it's where the "bread" in "bread and circuses" came from.

The situation with Athens and grain from the Black sea in the Peloponesian war is almsot exactly comparable.

I don't think the land is any less productive now tho - it's jsut got a tougher job to do feeding the Egytian masses rather than the Roman ones

However I did see something on TV last night - a Michael Palin travel thingie that I swtiched to briefly. Where-ever he was they had tribal memories (stories) of it beign forrested only 500 yrs before, and hunters were still a honoured class although essentially useless in hat was now a desert - one guy fired his ancient black-powder musket for Michael and almost blinded him with powder flash

From the colour and dress of the locals it looked like it might've been somewhere in Nth Africa.

[King James I]

Quote[/b] (Hakonarson @ Feb. 04 2003,17:14)]Grain from Egypt basically kept Rome fed for hundreds of years and any disruption of its supply cold and did spark riots among the lower classes in Rome who would be the ones to starve - it's where the "bread" in "bread and circuses" came from.

The situation with Athens and grain from the Black sea in the Peloponesian war is almsot exactly comparable.

I don't think the land is any less productive now tho - it's jsut got a tougher job to do feeding the Egytian masses rather than the Roman ones

However I did see something on TV last night - a Michael Palin travel thingie that I swtiched to briefly. Where-ever he was they had tribal memories (stories) of it beign forrested only 500 yrs before, and hunters were still a honoured class although essentially useless in hat was now a desert - one guy fired his ancient black-powder musket for Michael and almost blinded him with powder flash

From the colour and dress of the locals it looked like it might've been somewhere in Nth Africa.

I believe that was a documentry of Michael Palins tour through Saharan Africa. Its possible that that region was far more fertile than it is today, because I read this book once where they were saying that there are cave paintings in the region that show elephants, lions, gazelle, and other African wildlife, apperently those paintings aren't more than a couple of thousand years old.

[kataphraktoi]

Add more tradeable goods.

Make Constantinople the centre of international trade.

And Tribute

[Alrowan]

its all a joke... well i dont mind too much for now... but when i really want to sqeze the peasants dry, i cant.... makes me sad

[Asaji Shimazu]

There should be trade route units that are handled like crusades. You assign units to it, and goods from that province, and try and take it somewhere else. If it is attacked, the units associated with it fight. If it's not attacked and reaches its goal, you get an amount of money based on the needs of the province, and the units just become a standard army.

This would make in game trade perfect

[cugel]

[I]"By way, anyone know if it is true what environmentalists say about desertification and the Middle East? I heard one guy saying that in the Roman period, Egypt was described as the Empire's bread basket and arguing that over-cultivation, deforestation etc dramatically reduced the productivity of the land. Any truth to this or is it a myth? It's a rather dramatic illustration of the perils of environmental degradation if true."

This is true. The worst example is the environmental degredation of ancient mesopotamia (mostly modern Iraq & parts of Iran) where agriculture was first invented. Many historians believe salinization from overirrigation etc. was largely responsible. This region supported the earliest and highest civilization in the world for thousands of years before the Christian era. By the time of Rome, Babylon and the other ancient cities had fallen into such total ruins that they were completely forgotten until archeologists began excavating and decyphering their inscriptions in the 19th century. So forgotten were these cities that local peasants whose families had lived in the region for more than 1000 years were astonished when the ruins were uncovered by archeologists.

As for north africa, it was temperate during the last ice age which ended about 6,500 B.P. and the early bronze age, but not since before the Roman era. Those cave and rock paintings you're talking about are generally a lot older than the pyramids, especially the ones showing hippos wallowing in marshlands.

[Kristaps]

Quote[/b] ]As for north africa, it was temperate during the last ice age which ended about 6,500 B.P. and the early bronze age, but not since before the Roman era. Those cave and rock paintings you're talking about are generally a lot older than the pyramids, especially the ones showing hippos wallowing in marshlands.

You can look up a through description of ice age developments on the planet on the internet (do not have the exact link to one of the institutes handy right now and don't want to go to google). But, in general, the climate of the earth is much colder and more dry than now most of the time during the last couple million years or so. During the ice age, the forests disappear and instead of those: savannah and deserts come. As for north africa: it has been switching between relatively short humid periods (the last one might have been depicted in the cave paintings) and complete desert for quite some time: i.e., during the ice age and climate similar to today it's a desert; during warmer periods (one of them happened not so long ago and actually matches the time of the Roman empire) it's a rather humid place...

[ToranagaSama]

I TOTALLY agree, Trade needs to be "fully" developed. Afterall, it was wealth and richess that all this fighting is about anyway.

Total War is not a "wargame", but a Turn-based Strategy ("TBS") game like Civilization, but obviously better. It would seem that the Battle engine turned out so fantastic, that many have either forgotten this, or because they focus on the Battle part are totally unaware of this.

The CA, when bringing Total War to release focused upon the "Battles" cause that was the differentiator. What made it different than other TBS games. Given limited resources and time, this is why the "Strategy" portion was so weak with STW. With Medieval The CA have attempted to re-dress this situation, but they need to continue their efforts.

The single greatest achivement of The CA is in bringing CONTEXT to battles Even with the "improved" Strategy Medieval brings, the "CONTEXT" of Total War battles have not been significantly Enhanced from STW to MTW.

It would appear with Rome, there'll be Elephants, Fireballs, and more realistic Sieges and all, but will any of this increase the "CONTEXT" of battle???? I don't think so.

IMNSHO, the "consequences" and "stakes" of battle need to be GREATLY enhanced. Fully developing "Trade" is one aspect of accomplishing this.

When a Damiyo/Monarch went to battle, much was at stake. A loss in battle very often meant the loss of a Damiyo's life along with his families lives (often his "entire" family line); his General's lives and welfare; and, of course, everything that the Damiyo had achieved to that moment was at stake.

CA without achieving even greater "Context", then Total War will De-volve into much the same as your run of the mill FPS or RTS game---Mindless Fighting with little purpose/Context other than climbing some Clans Ladder.

End Game, End Company

IMNSHO.

ToranagaSama