The unwanted child: Campaign map

[drone]

I prefer Rome's campaign map. I just wish the AI knew how to use it properly.

The army speeds should be increased, but not too much. The logistics of moving a large force through possibly hostile territory would slow down the movement. Not sure how difficult it would be to program, but maybe add some stack size changes. The larger the stack, the slower it goes. And the larger the stack, the larger the visibility footprint, for both the stack and anyone searching for the stack.

Ship speed should be increased, but only if troop transport limitations are added.

[screwtype]

IThe army speeds should be increased, but not too much. The logistics of moving a large force through possibly hostile territory would slow down the movement.

Okay, but what about moving through friendly territory? Why should it take literally years of game time to move a couple of friendly provinces?

Like I said you could make it so that you could move, say six provinces a turn provided none of the provinces you entered or left were occupied by an enemy unit. In other words, rapid movement only through territory that is exclusively held by or allied to you. You'd still have to move and deploy normally when entering an enemy occupied or enemy controlled province.

With a bit of tweaking, a system like this could add a lot of dynamism and suprise to the game. As things stand, it's like World War I trench warfare. Your units creep along at a snail's pace and it all becomes very predictable. There must surely be a better way to simulate warfare than this.

[drone]

Okay, but what about moving through friendly territory? Why should it take literally years of game time to move a couple of friendly provinces?

Like I said you could make it so that you could move, say six provinces a turn provided none of the provinces you entered or left were occupied by an enemy unit. In other words, rapid movement only through territory that is exclusively held by or allied to you. You'd still have to move and deploy normally when entering an enemy occupied or enemy controlled province.

Maybe implement a zone system. "Friendly" territory would comprise of internal provinces, but once you near neutral/enemy territory, armies would need to worry about ambushes and scout more. Granted, you could ignore those and just take your chances.

It would also be nice if the movement was adjusted for the season/weather. Moving a army through snow and mud during the winter should be slower, even with roads.

Overall though, I like the map. Unfortunately, it presents the AI with too many options.

[screwtype]

It would also be nice if the movement was adjusted for the season/weather. Moving a army through snow and mud during the winter should be slower, even with roads.

That would be fine with me. And while we're at it, I'd prefer seasonal turns rather than biannual, as in Shogun.

Overall though, I like the map. Unfortunately, it presents the AI with too many options.

I *want* to like the map, but since it's made the game less rather than more challenging, I can't like it.

Something needs to be done to revamp the campaign and make it more unpredictable and hard to beat. And I don't mean more frickin' rebel armies popping out of the woods

[professorspatula]

I think the new campaign map was a good idea - but sadly the AI is intrinsically stupid and really struggles to get to grips with it. All too often it has little armies moving around with little to no cohesion, whilst other armies invade and slaughter the confused critters. With massively improved AI behaviour, I'd probably prefer the new map to the old system, but really it's a draw in its current state.

I'd have preferred to see a compremise until the AI coders have learnt how to improve the AI. Basically the provence/Risk based map, but with 3-4 mini-provences within each one. You'd still have lots more places to move than before (and lots more battlemaps), but it would be more linear and the AI would benefit greatly. Plus you could implement some kind of power-control system, whereby the more of these mini-areas in the provence you control, the more tax/trade and loyalty the current owner of the actual city would lose. You could therefore strangle the lifeline of the provence without having to lay siege to the city until much later. Sieges are so dire and poorly implemented that this would be a good thing in my opinion.

Another thing I'm not convinced about with the current map system is the battlemaps. They are generated and based on the landscape in the current square, giving thousands of individual maps to fight on. Sadly 99% are featureless, being nothing more than open ground with a few thickets of forest here and there, some hills etc, but seldom are the maps in any way interesting. MTW maps seemed to be a little more thought out, and typically the defender could scout for a good defensive position beforehand. The maps in RTW seldom have any natural defensive positions or chokepoints which ultimately makes battles very similiar.

In conclusion: new campaign map style was a nice idea, but needs improving or removing.

[screwtype]

I was just musing for a moment. It occurs to me that the Romans appeared to have a maximum number of legions they could raise at any one time. (This is probably true of other ancient civs as well). At the same time, they eventually found that there was a more or less ideal size of empire, corresponding roughly to Western Europe and the Mediterranean coast.

Now suppose that there was a maximum cap on the number of units you could field at any one time. It would mean that the bigger your empire got, the harder it would be to both conquer more territory AND maintain control of the empire you've already conquered with a sufficient garrison.

This could be a good simple method of halting the "steamroller" effect and prolonging the campaign challenge. In fact with an army cap, the game could actually get *harder* as you expand instead of easier, which is how a good game should really operate.

You could probably link it up with your finance in some way as well. As your empire expands, and your garrisons get diluted, corruption increases, and you begin to get a decreasing amount from each province. This could prevent you accumulating too much gold. At the same time, the wealth stolen through corruption could be used to fuel more rebellion, as the local leaders who stole it become more powerful and self-confident in their own right. So then you would have a mechanism for faction re-emergence, a la MTW.

It could also throw other aspects of the game into greater relief, such as the importance of maintaining good governors in major cities. Heck, you could even have family members defecting and trying to knock you off and become Caesar themselves...

[professorspatula]

Exactly, controlling your ever-expanding empire should become more of a chore as the game progresses. You really should find yourself stretched, up to a point anyway. Sadly you can pretty much leave large regions alone once you've wiped out the opposing neighbours, and then you're free to carry on streamrolling your way across the map until you either win, get bored and start-over, or give your entire empire away to someone else and attempt to take Rome using nothing more than a bunch of pitch-fork wielding peasants and a donkey.

By the way - what type of screw are you? Crosshead?

[Nelson]

God’s teeth, the Rome map is a colossal improvement beyond the earlier area movement!

Let us remember that CA has always maintained that Total War games are not sims. They are games with historic flavor. I’m an old wargamer myself. SPI, Avalon Hill, Origins conventions, all that stuff. I want Rome to be a war game just like I wanted Shogun and Medieval to be war games.

They ain’t war games, folks. They are tantalizingly close in some respects and this fact serves to stoke the grognard desires within some of us. Nevertheless, we can only criticize CA so much for not making exactly the game we want.