Suggestion on map

[King of Atlantis]

Though the campaign map is good i have a few small suggestions

*The map is a bit too big and goes to far in the south, i think the southern border should be the bottom of eygpt

*With the new provinces available add some cities in greece, around carthage, the near eastern coast, and other areas that were heavily populated in those times.

Anyways the map is good and regardless of if you listen to me this will still be the best mod so

[eadingas]

This should go into the FAQ, shouldn't it? :)
1) You haven't seen our latest map yet. All you base your opinions on are probably Mundus Magnus map and outdated screenshots in previews. So wait until release with comments and propostitions :)

2) If we did have any extra province space, adding more of them to Greece or Mediterranean area would be the last of our priorities. There's plenty of cities there already, and there's plenty of other areas that would use more regional diversification, if only we could spare anything.

[GoreBag]

I disagree. Expand the map as far as you see fit.

[Sheep]

I thought you were going to ask them to include Atlantis.

[jerby]

I thought you were going to ask them to include Atlantis.

dotn forget the little village on top of mount Olympus. and plz add troy.

[Ranika]

There are plenty of places that are far higher priority than Greece if we had the provinces; the steppe, the German regions, eastern Europe, Africa, Iberia, and Britain all have plenty of completely unrepresented, fairly large regions. Even the Italic peninsula has a number of major cities we don't have the space to show off. The Greeks and Macedonia are not fully represented, but no one actually is, and numerous regions are shown far less than we have for them. When you see and play the new map, though, I'm sure you'll be content with the number of provinces in Greece, and the gameplay it allows, which will offer a far better simulation of fighting in Greece.

[jerby]

well, i think greece/macedon and rome are full enough. i hate the miles and miles you walk in the East far more oif a pain. i sometimes hated it so much i cheated and typed toggle_fow with ~.
buy from the WIP map on the news-flashes is ee it is a lot denser populated

[King of Atlantis]

Sorry if this is the wrong place for this, but i thought there should be a place that the public can voice their opion about the map. I know i am looking at the old map, but i still believe the points are valid. I know greece alread has alot of places but the amount of provinces shuld be proportional to population(hence all the places i named)

anyways, i know it is an old map but my main point is the mm map just goes to far south and uses up valuable city slots that could be used to make heavy populated areas more realistic. P.S- Please add atlantis(just kidding)

[khelvan]

Sorry, why exactly should the amount of provinces be proportionate to population? What purpose does this serve?

[Sheep]

Sorry, why exactly should the amount of provinces be proportionate to population? What purpose does this serve?

Who cares, just add Atlantis and everyone will be happy.

[King of Atlantis]

Sorry, why exactly should the amount of provinces be proportionate to population? What purpose does this serve?

This serves a very big purpose. Heavy population=more cities and bigger cities.

For example a small region in greece might have a lot larger population and a big city while the whole southern part of the map below eygpt would have had almost no population and no major cities. So who should be represented with a province a place with no population or one with a large one?

I know greece has many cities i was just using it as an example. And people please stop spamming about atlantis i really didnt start this thread to get atlantis and though it is funny i am sure it is getting on peoples neveres.

[khelvan]

Reducing the size of the populated areas and increasing the size of less populated areas will do three things:

- Break the AI/trade routes in the large provinces, causing longer turn times, less movement in these areas, and trade that does not flow properly

- Make it very difficult, if not impossible, for us to recreate political realities outside of these populated areas. The world was not Rome & Greece, and everywhere else as an afterthought.

- Create Siege: Total War in the populated areas, making it tedious to take and hold territory there, not to mention unrealistic. There is no opportunity for the strategic holding of bridges and such - armies can take territory three cities behind enemy lines with the turn structure.

The first note was a dealbreaker for us, nevermind the next two.

[King of Atlantis]

Those all sound like good reasons and i see what your talking about, but the provinces in lower africa still seem pointless to me especially without numidia. In mm eygpt gets tied up in these areas. Anyways thanks for the responses and

[jerby]

I agree, with khelvan. making greece or Rome denser (with city's) wont help much.I'd be very please if they fill up the huge gaps in teh east that RTR left open ( no offense)

[Greek_fire19]

From the Ptolemaic preview it looks to me like the South-Eastern African provinces will be useful as they will probably contain all those interesting numidian axemen units that the Egyptians want. However they're probably quite difficult to take for the same reason.

Lets not forget that this is not the same all conquoring Egypt with the super-killer-pharoh's-terminators and infinite wealth (though Im sure theyre still gonna be pretty rich) of Vanilla RTW.

For all we know Ptolomeic Egypt may in fact be weak and underpowered in EB, and will need to take those Ethiopian provinces just to survive.

[Sarcasm]

For all we know Ptolomeic Egypt may in fact be weak and underpowered in EB, and will need to take those Ethiopian provinces just to survive.

Hmmm.....I don't think so. We try to balance our factions based on what really was the situation at that point in history. Ptolemaic Egypt was a rich and influential region, capable of supporting large quantities of mercenaries and military settlers...so they shouldn't be too poor...

[jerby]

so egypt will get more than 3 mefcs? great i was getting sick of numidan spearman arab cav, arab HA and nothing else. i was hoping for any hireable 'greek' mercs

[cunctator]

Probably he means that the ptolemasois economy can support large quantities of mercenaries, but more hireable mercs would be great as well.

[conon394]

On a different note, can the AI deal with excessive amounts on provinces away from Rome. Unless and until BI allows more varied victory conditions, concentrating provinces near Rome and the surrounding areas seems useful for driving the AI. With large number of province don't you run the risk of the AI getting sidetracked in the hinterlands...

[Praetorian Sejanus]

Reducing the size of the populated areas and increasing the size of less populated areas will do three things:

- Break the AI/trade routes in the large provinces, causing longer turn times, less movement in these areas, and trade that does not flow properly

- Make it very difficult, if not impossible, for us to recreate political realities outside of these populated areas. The world was not Rome & Greece, and everywhere else as an afterthought.

- Create Siege: Total War in the populated areas, making it tedious to take and hold territory there, not to mention unrealistic. There is no opportunity for the strategic holding of bridges and such - armies can take territory three cities behind enemy lines with the turn structure.

The first note was a dealbreaker for us, nevermind the next two.

On that note... Has anyone seen NTW 2's Campaign Map? Provinces are very much distributed along population criteria... Not saying either way is right or wrong. Just an observation.

As for conon's observation... I dunno if the EB guys have looked into this, but each province is assigned a point value in the data files. They're called 'glory points' or something vaguely similar... I wonder if, by adjusting this, we could give the AI enough incentive to pursue provinces that aren't backwaters?

[eadingas]

triumph values are useless.

[Simetrical]

Has anyone seen NTW 2's Campaign Map? Provinces are very much distributed along population criteria... Not saying either way is right or wrong. Just an observation.

RTR's, too. I don't know that it will cause any AI problems . . . the provinces aren't 50 tiles wide, I'm quite sure.

triumph values are useless.

I always suspected that. You've tested?

-Simetrical

[eadingas]

I think Jerome said something to that effect once.

[khelvan]

I think Jerome said something to that effect once.

Yes, he definitely did, and from our testing we saw real problems come from it. I wish the Lordz good luck in trying to work around these problems.

[Praetorian Sejanus]

From my conversations with the map team, they haven't had any problems...

There's more than one way to skin a cat Khelvan...

[khelvan]

Eh, true, but I didn't think anyone had cracked the game mechanics hard code yet.

[Epistolary Richard]

There's more than one way to skin a cat Khelvan...

I misread this at first and thought it said "There's more than one way to skin a Khelvan"!

[Praetorian Sejanus]

haha... how ironic, Rich.


The Lordz have no need to crack anything, Khel... their map simply isn't as big... nor does it need to be for the historical focus of the era.

[khelvan]

Well this is a different problem than what we face. With a smaller map you won't run into the same issues. :)

[Simetrical]

Eh, true, but I didn't think anyone had cracked the game mechanics hard code yet.

Technically, they have, at least for 1.1. No-CD hacks, of course, remove the encryption on the EXE and convert it to easily disassembled machine code; one person took advantage of this and removed the hardcoded limit on cheat usage. Unfortunately, the mod is rather hard to find, because it required a no-CD hack and therefore the major RTW sites rightfully refuse to allow discussion of it. In any case, 1.2 hasn't been cracked, to my knowledge.

The main problem with cracking the EXE is that CA will undoubtedly not take kindly to it, simply put. They don't want people looking at their code, even compiled, or modifying it. I don't think anyone's actually bothered to ask, but I'm pretty sure that's what their answer will be.

If we do get their blessing, of course, we could probably find someone who can crack the program easily enough, and then it's all assembly-code editing—enough to make relatively superficial changes, at least, that could prove quite valuable (e.g., maybe removing or raising the hardcoded limits). Stuff like AI will probably be out-of-bounds, except maybe for the most minor tweaks, but there'd be a lot we could do.

Too bad it's never going to happen.

-Simetrical