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

[afrit]

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

[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.

[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.

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.)

[Odysseus]

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

[Armchair Athlete]

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.

[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.

[RTKLamorak]

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.

[afrit]

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

[ICantSpellDawg]

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

[Voigtkampf]

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

[USMCNJ]

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.

[The_Emperor]

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...

[Soulflame]

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.

[Omegamann]

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.

[Tamur]

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

[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.

[afrit]

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.

[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... At least i hope to got they won't be in!

[afrit]

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

[afrit]

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.

[afrit]

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

Thanks

[Louis VI the Fat]

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

[JR-]

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.

[A.Saturnus]

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.

[Steppe Merc]

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.

[Sir Robin]

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.

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...

[ICantSpellDawg]

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

[econ21]

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.

[Silver Rusher]

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.

[Patricius]

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.