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  1. #1
    I need to change my armor Member Sir Robin's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone else disappointed in the low number of cities in RTW?

    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...
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  2. #2
    Part-Time Polemic Senior Member ICantSpellDawg's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone else disappointed in the low number of cities in RTW?

    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
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  3. #3
    Senior Member Senior Member econ21's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone else disappointed in the low number of cities in RTW?

    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.
    Last edited by econ21; 09-09-2004 at 08:01.

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    Savior of Peasant Phill Member Silver Rusher's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone else disappointed in the low number of cities in RTW?

    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.
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    Default Re: Anyone else disappointed in the low number of cities in RTW?

    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.

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    Member Member d6veteran's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone else disappointed in the low number of cities in RTW?

    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.
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    Lord of the Kanto Senior Member ToranagaSama's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone else disappointed in the low number of cities in RTW?

    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!!
    Last edited by ToranagaSama; 10-10-2004 at 18:28.
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  8. #8
    Bureaucratically Efficient Senior Member TinCow's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone else disappointed in the low number of cities in RTW?

    Quote 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.


  9. #9
    Scruffy Looking Nerf Herder Member Steppe Merc's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone else disappointed in the low number of cities in RTW?

    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...

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  10. #10
    Member Member afrit's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone else disappointed in the low number of cities in RTW?

    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.

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  11. #11
    Guardian of the Fleet Senior Member Shahed's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone else disappointed in the low number of cities in RTW?

    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.
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  12. #12
    Research Shinobi Senior Member Tamur's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone else disappointed in the low number of cities in RTW?

    Quote 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!
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  13. #13
    Bureaucratically Efficient Senior Member TinCow's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone else disappointed in the low number of cities in RTW?

    Quote 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.

    Quote 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:

    Last edited by TinCow; 09-10-2004 at 14:37.


  14. #14
    Humanist Senior Member A.Saturnus's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone else disappointed in the low number of cities in RTW?

    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.

  15. #15
    Modder Member Encaitar's Avatar
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    Default Re: Anyone else disappointed in the low number of cities in RTW?

    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.
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