Geography in RTW

**CGS** · 11-13-2004, 15:00

Last night I was playing and I attacked Numantia, to destroy the Gauls. It was the first time I invaded Spain, so I supposed that the city would be in its actual position, but it wasn't!

I know very well were Numantia is because I live about 5 kilometers away from its ruins.

. Of course, how was the city in the battle map was not correct, but it didn't surprised me. It should be on an elevation, and there should be two rivers around it, but I understand that.

After that, I checked how Spain was made, its mountain and its rivers. It is not so bad, but there are some silly things such as rivers crossing mountains, and that city, Asturica, with only a small path to go into. I am sure that you can reach Astorga (the name of that city nowadays) from the south.

After realizing that Spanish geography was not very good, I suppose that the rest of the map is not very well made, and, if that is true, I think that CA should have spent some time looking maps.

I suppose someone has an opinion about this topic, and he could post it here. If I am mistaken, I would apologize.

**Silver Rusher** · 11-13-2004, 15:12

I don't know dude... I mean, the game is meant to have very very little to do with geography. In fact, the idea of the campaign map is just a rough outline for the game. Geography is far beside the point, which is actually that the game just uses it's brand new decent campaign map and I love it, much better than the old STW and MTW system IMO. I know they got the position of cities a little wrong, and you can't blame them really, but that should be as far as it goes for geographical scepticism.

I think we should give CA a break. If there's anything that needs to be made more accurate it's definately the history. However, put this issue forward in Europa Barbarorum and it may well be fixed in that mod.

**CGS** · 11-13-2004, 15:35

I suppose it has really little importance, but having the cities in their correct positions would be a nice little feature. The new campaing map has improved a lot, I know, but it may be better. Not really important, in fact.

**Silver Rusher** · 11-13-2004, 15:39

OK. But if Numantia is in the wrong place, then where exactly is it supposed to be? If you want I could quickly mod the game and give it to you, although it would not have an effect on a game which had already been saved...

**CGS** · 11-13-2004, 16:38

Thank you very much, but i think I can live without it. It would be just a nice thing in the game, but it doesn't need modding. Probably the position in the game is more accessible, and a better position for the city of the province, in terms of gameplay.

If you want to know where Numantia is, it is placed just at the end of the big river in the north of Spain that ends in the Atlantic ocean, the river Duero. The city is in the left side of the river. Quite near to the city in the campaign map, but IRL it would be about 250 kilometers.

**Sin Qua Non** · 11-13-2004, 22:13

When you look hard at many historically based games, it's funny how many little "errors" there are, which were actually made so for the sake of gameplay. I guess when they founded Numantia, the city planners really should have given more consideration to playability!

**Kaiser of Arabia** · 11-13-2004, 23:13

Mt. Etna, Syracusae, and Messena in Sicily are all in pretty much their correct locations.
I dunno about Lylebeum though, i have no clue where that is. I wish it was where Palermo is now though.

**Servius** · 11-14-2004, 00:37

I'm not sure if you noticed, but the castles in MTW were placed at the location of the regional capitals. So the castle in Wessex is where London is, etc.

**Oaty** · 11-15-2004, 06:47

Originally Posted by Servius1234

I'm not sure if you noticed, but the castles in MTW were placed at the location of the regional capitals. So the castle in Wessex is where London is, etc.

That old game!!!!!!!!!!!

They could only put so much into the campaign map. Look at the volcanos, if they were going for gegraphical correctness, you would not even be able to see the volcanoes unless you really zommed in. At that time there were only a few commonly used routes across the alps. So they made the Alps 1 big mountain and gave it a few passes. If you shrunk the size of th earth down to a basketball, Mt. everest would'nt even be as big as 1 of it's dimples and probably would be about as smooth as a lopsided beachball.

**Ellesthyan** · 11-15-2004, 08:44

Lylebaeum is placed correctly according to my historical atlas, and so is the majority of the Greek and Italian cities. A glaring mistake is the location of Sinope, and I'm not very fond of the 'swampiness' of the Netherlands... But all in all, I think they tried to reach accuracy everywhere, except for some 'obscure' barbarian parts of the map, where they went for gameplay instead.