'building up' a city

[jerby]

In rtw i've always found it weird that a 300 year old city like athens, corinth, name it didnt have a port until you get control.
the way you play teh game in vannilla is that for teh first 10 turns you can barely build a 'varied' army.
your telling me those factions/tribes/whatever ( of wich most already existed for hundreds of years) could recruit skirmishers with the players help? :S

I know its too late, or probably mentioned/implemented. but why dont we use buildings for chronoligic purpuses in stead of building 40 turns to finnally get to build Thureophoroi (rtr) wich already were used for 50 years (at least)

any EB respons? any comforting EB response? any fan opinions? how about an EB update about the new building system?

[khelvan]

We have a great amount of information compiled as to the relative size and advancement of the various regions/settlements on the map. A final decision has yet to be made as to how exactly we will be scaling this. For historicity's sake we would make large, advanced cities large and advanced, but this removes some of the fun from the game system in which we must develop the mod.

There will be some advanced units available to everyone. The question we still have yet to answer is how far do we take it? Do we make every single unit available at the outset, or do we reserve some for the player to achieve as play progresses?

[tk-421]

I think that you should make the cities as developed as they were in 270 BC. From what I have seen you have made the factions as large or as small as they were in 270 BC. Why not do the same for cities? If a city was large and well developed in 270 BC then make it large and well-developed. If a city was a tiny little town in the middle of the desert then make it a tiny little town. At the very least you should make so that all of the nonbarbarian cities have a wall, a market, a port if it is by the sea, a religious building, roads, and military buildings that are capable of retraining all of the units that start out in that territory. For barbarian factions you should have all things listed above except maybe roads and docks. I really hated how at the beginning of the game you would start out with military units that you were incapable of retraining. Lack of roads, walls, and ports also disturbed me.

[Ranika]

I do believe we'll have settlements appropriately developed for the start period, at least, reasonably so. Our whole modicum is history first, but some places would be hard to determine just how developed they were at the time.

[Oaty]

Just my 2 cents but, I've hated all 3 series when it came to teched up units. Basically the game was already decided before you could train them.

Well teching up is part of the fun but all one needs is 1 high tech city or maybe making each city have a specialty high tech unit they can train.

So either each nations capital has a bunch of high tech buildings or 1 city specializes in each category.

If the A.I. was competent on wich cities were important, I'd say put them all in the capital.

Really because of overpowering cavalry, I'm fine with noone having stables from the start minus factions that historically relied or had them in high numbers.

[pezhetairoi]

Yes. It would reflect the fact that every faction had its own elite units. Maybe to prevent overpowering (though I am aware it is probably too late to suggest this) there could be a cap on how many units of elite level one could build--after all, Alexander did not have an army made up completely of hypaspistoi and hetairoi, and neither did Cyrus have an army completely made up of Immortals. So maybe there would be a cap on units, and these units could be retrained only in cities capable of building them as is the standard practice, but you could not build more than, say, one unit to every factioner, or something like that--a peg to prevent overpowering by, say, the Kart-hadashtim with the developed cities and unit capability, compared to the backward (I might be wrong, I don't know...) barbarian factions and their initial low-level unit capability.

[Geoffrey S]

Would a system work where the units which can be developed depends purely on settlement size or one barracks building? Basically this would mean no more archer ranges or cavalry stables, just one specific building (be it a fitting government building or built-up barracks) and all units of a tech level become available.
The major problem I see with this is that it still staggers the availability of 'elite' or more developed units, whereas this is not necessarily historically accurate.

[Copperhaired Berserker!]

Well, You won't be building up loads of elites. EB have made a system making anyone using a huge army of elite suffer extremely badly.

[tk-421]

Well, You won't be building up loads of elites. EB have made a system making anyone using a huge army of elite suffer extremely badly.

How will that work?

[KingOfTheIsles]

High upkeep, I would guess.

[Pycckuu]

Why just not have the biggest cities built up to "large town" or whatever it was, and have the player start with some advanced units already created?This way, there is still fun in building up your cities, and its somewhat historical because your faction already posseses the high quality units it had for years.

[Copperhaired Berserker!]

Why just not have the biggest cities built up to "large town" or whatever it was, and have the player start with some advanced units already created?This way, there is still fun in building up your cities, and its somewhat historical because your faction already posseses the high quality units it had for years.

Ahem, dude, that's the level that most cities start at! And you only get hastati and troops like that! in fact, in vanilla the biggest cities are bigger than that! It should be at level 3 for usual ones, and 4 for biggies!!

[jerby]

well, actually. i think it woudl be nice to change that ranking.
village-minor city- city- city ('era' 2) city(era 3)
at lvl 3 you get all teh untis the factions ahd for years. and after 'upgrades' you get the units the 'factions' used at that era ( each era could be 'calculated' by measuring how long it would take to build that city)

this way romans can train phalanx triarii from 'the start' but after 1/2 era's the loose formation triarrii will apear(, with better stats-> technological advances)

[Danest]

I don't think all coastal cities had ports, however. Long after our period, I seem to recall something about Emperor claudius building a new port - so towns were still being built up. And the colliseum didn't come about anywhere near the republic era, though I'm aware there were other large places such as the hippodrome. But yeah, in vanilla, I felt it was game-like to be building up the town, rather than realistic. I'd like the towns to be able to produce what they _should_ be able to produce, such as triarii.

[Greek_fire19]

I had understood that a player would be punished for using all elite units because elite units are generally small in number, for example those goidillic (sp?) hammermen for the casse. If a casse player had an army made entirely of hammermen not only would it be frighteningly expensive but it would easily be swamped by less experienced troops and destroyed. Every army will at least need some plentiful 'holding' troops to allow the elite units to charge into spaces or on the flank and turn the tide of the battle. The way I understand it elite units will be the ones you use (if they are offensive troops) to charge in and shatter units that were wavering, or if they are defensive troops, to anchor a line of otherwise flakey troops. I dunno though; thats just what I gathered from the previews.

Anyhow, yeah, the cities. My only thing about making cities big is that it has to be done proportionally and to a historical scale, like the troops.

For example, take Rome. Let's assume that a 'huge' city, with fully upgraded facilities represents Rome at the height of it's size, with fully developed sewage systems, aqueducts, excellent roads and a massive merchant population.
If we take that as our scale for what could reasonably be assumed as the 'maximum' a mediterranean city could grow to, is there any city in 285 bc that could equal that size? I don't think there is, so in that case no city should be 'maxed out' and probably only Rome, Carthage, Alexandria, Athens and possibly a couple of Seleucid cities such as Damascus should even be 'Cities', the rest being merely towns. (I understand that many of these places were in fact 'cities' in reality, but like I said, the important thing is scale)

I guess at the start some civilizations should have access to some elite units, but not their entire unit roster. Bear in mind that arms and formations did evolve considerably over the time period covered, as shown in the sauromatae preview - a progression from less effective to more effective troops over time is not entirely ahistorical.

Anyhow, *shrugs* thats what I reckon.

[econ21]

Greek_fire, your conjecture about elite units being small rather than just expensive sounds reasonable. Upkeep does not matter that much in SP - you can usually afford to buy the best. But it is hard to get around unit size. It also sounds historical - elite would seem to be mean relatively small, almost by definition.

[jerby]

greek_fire,
about your cities. Rome wasnt that enormously big in 200 BC. And what would be teh problem of having little Huge cities? maybe the scale shouldn't be linear

[Greek_fire19]

Yes, but the scale isnt limited to the start of the game, but by the end of the game. Rome was pretty huge by 14AD.

EDIT: Also, look at how much bigger than that Rome grew during Imperial times. Is it impossible to imagine that given the right circumstances, if the Ptolemeic Empire had crushed the Carthaginians and the Seleucids and built it's own massive empire then Alexandria could have become even bigger than Rome ever was?

What I'm saying is, imagine a city about as big as an ancient city could possibly be, if it was sustainable. That's a 'Huge' city. Nothing in 285 B.C comes close, really.

[jerby]

Yes, but the scale isnt limited to the start of the game, but by the end of the game. Rome was pretty huge by 14AD.

EDIT: Also, look at how much bigger than that Rome grew during Imperial times. Is it impossible to imagine that given the right circumstances, if the Ptolemeic Empire had crushed the Carthaginians and the Seleucids and built it's own massive empire then Alexandria could have become even bigger than Rome ever was?

What I'm saying is, imagine a city about as big as an ancient city could possibly be, if it was sustainable. That's a 'Huge' city. Nothing in 285 B.C comes close, really.

yes indeed, nothing comes close. but I'm not saying some city's should start at 'Huge' i'm just saying a player needs to have teh resources (economical/military/diplomatic) that the 'faction' had at that starting date

[Pycckuu]

Ahem, dude, that's the level that most cities start at! And you only get hastati and troops like that! in fact, in vanilla the biggest cities are bigger than that! It should be at level 3 for usual ones, and 4 for biggies!!

My mistake. I meant a city size that is somewhere there in the middle, but not the largest one, so we don't have the marian reforms trigger at the start of the game