The unwanted child: Campaign map

[sunsmountain]

Compare all you Medieval TW fans, the old campaign map with the new campaign map.

Which, do you think is easier to use? Why the old one of course: it was much simpler.

Now pause, and think of the effect this has had on your game. Now you spend much more time than you used on the main map, trying to get everything in your favour, which doesnt really work:
- Traits appear randomly,
- Management has a marginal (and temporary) effect,
- Moving armies around, without action. Usually the action occurs around cities, leading to lots of siege battles. 2 siege battles for every 1 land battle, whereas in medieval it was more like 1 for 1.
- Ships take ages
- Spies have marginal effects
- Total war isnt about diplomacy, so why make it so in-depth. Who wanted this?

What are the advantages of all this?
- you can pick the battle spot, based on the 'real map'.
- command stars, influence, retainers and such give you extra stuff to do, sometimes rewarding, sometimes frustrating.

In conclusion, the good does not outweigh the bad for the campaign map. Add to this the difficulties the AI has with the new degrees of 3 dimensional freedom & path finding, as well as an attempt at a new hierarchy of AI decisions, and you can begin to see why old TW fans do not particularly like Rome TW...

(complaining about interface is a side effect. Rome looks stunning.)

If you know forgiveness, you can enjoy both games (campaign map and battle map) anew. Newbies to TW find this easier.

CA has willingly and knowingly sinned against Sid Meier's advice for game designer, and im paraphrasing (the interview was in 1991, when Sid became famouse with Civilization 1): "If you're going to make an action game, make a good action game. If you're making a strategy game, make a good strategy game.
Trying to make a game that offers both, but excels at neither, can be a good game, but never an all-time great."

Comments welcome.

[Atreides]

I see your problem. But I disagree. First of all; change of food does make you eat.

More in-depth, I disagree with.
· I really like siege battles here. This is one thing I did not have with MTW. Ending up in now playing really assaults.
· Spies are here more useful. They can open those annoying gates.
· Totalwar is about, strategy. Management, economics, diplomacy and WARFARE are the contence for me. Your negative point (diplomacy) is now a little more realistic (GOOD).
· Ships actually are less irritating. Transport and guarding your navy are import. Not to build a very large connection over 100 year.

My interesting points are:
· Moving around take's (more) time (more realism).
· Battles take's place according to the map. This is great! Once I looked a little 'stupid' and I had to fight the 'SPQR' army after crossing a (very tiny) river.
· You can use the map in your favour (mountain pass).
· You can ‘feel’ why nations came into existence.

At the end of the day. I liked both. The realism item with RTW I strongly prefer.

[Simetrical]

Moving around take's (more) time (more realism).

The RTW move rates are actually hideously unrealistic. It takes a year to get from the north of Italy to the south, for crying out loud! Even at a highly conservative 10 mi/day (16 km/day) average, that gives you over 1800 miles (3000 km) a turn. In other words, you could get from one end of the map to the other and back in a year, realistically speaking.

-Simetrical

[oompalumpa]

I never played medieval so I dunno if I can compare them, but I can try to rebuke some of your points about the RTW campaign map:

-Management increases tax income. I hardly comsider that a marginal and temporary effect, epsecially in big cities.
-Moving armies around without action. This is becuase of the movement system, IE armies going actual places, not just province to province like in medieval. In other words, in medieval you could get a field battle even if the your amry was at one end of the province and the enemy at the other. The movement system now is more realistic and fun (although, not that realistic, as simmetrical pointed out)
-Ships take ages. This is a very good thing. it discourages you from loading up an army, running into greece, Sacking Athens for like a billion denarri, and running back to your homeland all in one turn like you could in medieval (from what I hear)
-Total war is about diplomacy. If it wasnt they would have just made it all custom battle and not even bothereed with a campaign map. It is about, economics, management, diplomacy, etc.

In conclusion, The RTW campaign map owns. Dunno if medieval was better, but RTW is great.

[Ciciocle]

The RTW move rates are actually hideously unrealistic. It takes a year to get from the north of Italy to the south, for crying out loud! Even at a highly conservative 10 mi/day (16 km/day) average, that gives you over 1800 miles (3000 km) a turn. In other words, you could get from one end of the map to the other and back in a year, realistically speaking

yes, but in MTW it would have taken 4 or 5 years to get from Venice to Sicily.

[Kekvit Irae]

The RTW move rates are actually hideously unrealistic. It takes a year to get from the north of Italy to the south, for crying out loud! Even at a highly conservative 10 mi/day (16 km/day) average, that gives you over 1800 miles (3000 km) a turn. In other words, you could get from one end of the map to the other and back in a year, realistically speaking.

-Simetrical

He didnt say it was totally realistic. He just said there was more realism than MTW, where, as stated above, it takes a good number of years in MTW to get from Venice to Sicily if going via land route.

[The Stranger]

i think the load/save bug is worse, this is nothing. i like the map.

[Red Harvest]

I like the campaign map. The diplomacy actually works a lot better than in MTW, despite remaining quirks. The main problems are with the loadgame bugs. Traits are screwed up, but that is not the fault of the map. Instead, it is the result of ineffectual checking of the trait code to make sure traits are actually assigned properly. CA has been very sloppy about checking to make sure RTW features actually functioned as intended, and it is a real shame.

Linking upgrades to population has some serious drawbacks. AI depopulating low population growth regions is one of these drawbacks. Another is that the tech tree structure is showing its age, and I think it needs to be reworked. (Working more as a support structures to maintain X number of elite units, or determine army compositions etc.) Once you get teched up, you can build all elite forces, and that is a problem. However, you will fight most of the decisive battles with low tech units early on. There is really not much point in the higher end units at the moment.

The naval aspect needs work, mainly because it is not decisive enough, and naval transport is far too easy. There was a reason Hannibal took so long *marching* to Italy. Moving an army with a tiny fleet was not an option... Naval invasions should be a major undertaking as should blockades. Ports should play a bigger part in determining the size of navies, and effectiveness of blockades, etc. Navies were somewhat limited by friendly ports or an army land cooperation force as to how far afield they could operate. Storms should be a much larger factor for navies too far from friendly ports or friendly shore/or nearby friendly armies.

[screwtype]

The RTW move rates are actually hideously unrealistic. It takes a year to get from the north of Italy to the south, for crying out loud! Even at a highly conservative 10 mi/day (16 km/day) average, that gives you over 1800 miles (3000 km) a turn. In other words, you could get from one end of the map to the other and back in a year, realistically speaking.

-Simetrical

Yup. I've said numerous times I believe the movement system is in serious need of a complete overhaul. I've argued, for example, for the inclusion of a strategic movement ability, where units can move, say, up to six provinces per turn providing they neither enter or leave a province occupied by enemy forces.

It would even be possible to create a system that didn't use movement points at all, but which allowed you to move your units any distance on the map in a given turn, with movement limited only by the presence of enemy zones of control - or perhaps enemy units in the same province. So you would plot your moves, setting waypoints if required, hit the end turn button and then all factions would move simultaneously. If one of your moving armies collided with the moving army of another faction, that's when a battle would take place.

It would make the game far more dynamic and unpredictable, no province would be safe from attack and it would open the rest of the game up to all kinds of interesting possibilities. For instance, chokepoints and crossroads could become a lot more strategically vital to occupy and defend. You could also accelerate sieges (which are ahistorically long in the vanilla game) so that they would be resolved in weeks and months rather than years, with sieges progressing within a turn (depending on the distance your own units have moved) rather than from one turn to the next. Then if you didn't have a relieving force nearby, you could find yourself in a real race to relieve a siege before the city fell. And so on.

But I think CA is too timid to fiddle much with what they believe is a winning formula. And quite frankly, after seeing RTW I have my doubts that the knowhow for creating a seriously good strategy game is there.

[tai4ji2x]

again, the real problem is the stupid "one-patch" or "two-patch" policy or whatever it is. the RTW campaign map is a big step forward, but as with all such changes, there will be problems early on. a disgrace that CA's support is so pitiful, whoever's fault it may be.

[Shadar]

I dunno. I found the campaign map absolutely BRILLIANT. like how you can ambush armies marching past, how you can REALLY take advantage of terrain when considering your defences. At least this way its a lot more realistic compared to MTW. Yes, MTW was good in many ways, but RTW has not only got a lot better graphics but its got a new system of movement, of using ports, an improved diplomacy.. everything.

As some people have said before, new systems have inherently got bugs. and concerning the "two patch" policy, i would say blame Activision for it. After all, CA just wanted to create the game, and these games cost a LOT of money, and without support from larger companies you wouldn't even have had the game to play... Yes. many things can be improved, but some things you CAN fix yourself (yes, thats bad for a commercially released game, BUT at least you can fix it, and mod it to your hearts content up to a limit).

[tai4ji2x]

BUT at least you can fix it, and mod it to your hearts content up to a limit

yes, up to a VERY limited point. the siege-load bug is completely unfixable except by CA. same with the battle difficulty glitch. the infantry acting like cavalry has a workaround, but at the expense of testudo. AI behaviors in general are very limited in how much modders can "fix" them

[Jambo]

There is a workaround for the battle difficulty bug - just posted a separate topic on this.

On-topic though, I think the campaign map is a definite step in the right direction. Previously in STW and MTW, the "Risk" style of movement and conquering meant there was only ever a couple of decisive battles between neighbouring factions before a tedious mopping up process was instigated. The steamrollering effect was far too common and nations could be wiped out long before reaching the Middle period of the campaign. At least now territory takes longer to conquer (particularly in the barbarian lands) and losing a province or two doesn't always mean instant capitulation for the AI.

I don't think it's the map that's bad per sé, more that sometimes the way the AI is programmed to operate on it can be. For instance, leaving cities close to enemies poorly garrisoned. With the move to a more complicated strategy map, the AI also needs to be comparably better, which I don't think it is yet.

[Turbo]

Shadar,

Blaming Activision for the 2 patch policy is misguided at best. CA could release a 'developer' patch, something commonly used in the industry, to address issues that the publisher didn't want to fund.

CA could step forward and fund a developer patch but they have moved on to other things (Spartan Warrior for console). The people left holding the bag are the customers who bought the game and are now stuck with a game ruining bug.

[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.

[Oaty]

Shadar,

Blaming Activision for the 2 patch policy is misguided at best. CA could release a 'developer' patch, something commonly used in the industry, to address issues that the publisher didn't want to fund.

CA could step forward and fund a developer patch but they have moved on to other things (Spartan Warrior for console). The people left holding the bag are the customers who bought the game and are now stuck with a game ruining bug.

Well noone can be correct unless they see the actual contract. A patch is a modification to a game. In the contract it could state all modifications have to be approved by Activision first. So if that is the case CA can't release a developers patch. And now with CA changing affiliates/companies, makes a mess on who supports the patch.

Anyways back on topic:

IT'S A GAME

Armies have limited movement for game balance not for realism. I like the new campaign map much better. For 1 in MTW it was unbalanced I remember a game where Italy deployed 15000 troops early on in the game and abandoning every territory they had only leaving a few troops behind in each. Let me just say I lost the game due to total gayism

As far as movement in friendly territory well maybe a 10-20 percent movement bonus would be nice but nothing extensive

As far as diplomacy goes it works to a degree. If you want to keep good negotiations with a nation you have to have an occasion ceasefire, although ceasefires should have a lasting effect ESPECIALLY when tribute is involved and when the ceasefire is broken all tributes recieved should be cancelled.

What is the most buggering part of the campaign map is it's size but some modders are releasing mini campaigns

[Kekvit Irae]

IT'S A GAME

Armies have limited movement for game balance not for realism.

Exactly. What fun would it be if you could, as Simetrical says, march from Gaul to Parthia in a single turn. It wouldnt. There would be no tactical advantage for the defender. You would not be able to "pick your own fights" like you would in the campaign map. I'd rather have an unrealistic game that's fun than a game built solely on realism. If I wanted realism that wasnt fun, I'd buy the various civil war, napoleon, and (insert wargame genre here) games from those unknown developers.

[Rodion Romanovich]

I disagree. The R:TW campaign map is the best part of R:TW compared to M:TW. If only the bugs (particularly the siege bug) would be gone, it would be almost perfect. I'd also like narrower passes in some places to make them more important choke points just like rivers, but those are small details.