Campaign map overview (picture)

[Phalaxar]

Still there are things such as Scania NOT part of Denmark. It wouldn't even have to be it's own province but part of the same province as the rest of Denmark if they have to have one province only, or having Croatia and Serbia in one province. That kind of errors that should have never been made had any basic research been done are the worst. I wish that it was only which province should be had by whom and what cities that it should be would be only thing to complain about (such as France should not have Provence, if any faction should have it it should be HRE, since it didn't become part of France until ~1480 IIRC), but alas it is not.

That's nice and such, but you missed the point of the guy you were quoting/replying to. He said that they were probably conscious choices made by CA to improve gameplay; you replied, "hey, look, they made these basic errors!".

Yes, there are historical errors, but as he was saying, they were most likely purposely put there to enhance gameplay.

No amount of pointing out flawed historical accuracy will change that.

[Kavhan Isbul]

I do not have any problem with total chaos whatsoever - after all, the period was characterized by it, wasn't it? I know the game is not about repeating exactly what happened in history, but with all these rebels I am getting the feeling that a good player might be able to win the game by 1200, simply bribing like crazy. One of the worst parts about MTW/VI was the rebel East - fighting weak rebels is great when you try to learn how to play the game, but it gets boring pretty quickly.

[Laman]

That's nice and such, but you missed the point of the guy you were quoting/replying to. He said that they were probably conscious choices made by CA to improve gameplay; you replied, "hey, look, they made these basic errors!".

Yes, there are historical errors, but as he was saying, they were most likely purposely put there to enhance gameplay.

No amount of pointing out flawed historical accuracy will change that.

Although they won't "enhance gameplay". What they do is kill whatever immersion this game could have had. With the Scania example it is something that doesn't even necessarily mean a new province! One might as well rename Novgorod to the Soviet Union to "enhance gameplay", or give the Mongols machine guns or the Papal States Roman Legionaries, it is essentialy the same thing (that is stupid things that shouldn't be that way).

[Ferret]

Has anyone noticed the mistakes in that map:
Bologna should belong to HRE
Nicosia should belong to the Byzantine Empire
Iraklion should belong to Venice
and not all of the Thesalonika region is shaded in (the island to the East)

I know this because of the screenshots the swedish guy posted.

[Burakius]

so weird that there is no malta... but palma is there :S... malta was even more important back then:S

[Phalaxar]

Although they won't "enhance gameplay". What they do is kill whatever immersion this game could have had. With the Scania example it is something that doesn't even necessarily mean a new province! One might as well rename Novgorod to the Soviet Union to "enhance gameplay", or give the Mongols machine guns or the Papal States Roman Legionaries, it is essentialy the same thing (that is stupid things that shouldn't be that way).

No, that's not the same thing. Changing who owns what province, what town is called what where etc. is to change minor details around so that they are historically inaccurate but make for a more fun game. Calling Novgorod Soviet Union doesn't make it any more fun. Mongols with machine guns would completely change the game mechanic, not just change a minor detail. That really does matter a lot to the outcome of the game, while a province here or there doesn't matter anywhere near as much. And again, Papal States with legionaries - how does that make it more fun at all?

No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

The immersion for me, in this game, is not in the fact that the starting map is exactly that what I thought it would be.

[Furious Mental]

Amazing though it may sound when I boot the game up and see that Scania, wherever that is, is not part of Denmark, I will not punch my monitor in frustration and then die of disappointment.

[satchef1]

imagine playing as French and being surrounded from Turn 1 by Catholic factions.

This is supposed to be the beauty of playing the french though. You have to fight off the English and HRE whilst Crusading against the infidels to secure more land!
Some Rome mods started off with this sort of campaign map and all were dull. All that happens is 2 or 3 factions grab most of the rebel provinces on the map and dominate for the rest of the game.

[Phalaxar]

FM, we'll miss ya.

This is supposed to be the beauty of playing the french though. You have to fight off the English and HRE whilst Crusading against the infidels to secure more land!
Some Rome mods started off with this sort of campaign map and all were dull. All that happens is 2 or 3 factions grab most of the rebel provinces on the map and dominate for the rest of the game.

So you're asking for a game where only a few factions have a real chance, and the rest you can play if you like your empire inevitably crumbling before you?
And then you complain that in this sort of game a few factions dominate.
Which is it?

[Miloshus]

Map is one big dissapointment
Half of the map are the rebels, why the hell are they rioting if they have their own countries.
What happened to other medieval kingdoms (Ireland,Serbia,Romania,Bulgaria,...).

We are lucky that we have mods.

[Zenicetus]

Map is one big dissapointment
Half of the map are the rebels, why the hell are they rioting if they have their own countries.

"Rebel" in this starting context doesn't mean the same thing it means later in the game, when you lose control of a city/province. It's just a way to provide buffer areas for separation and expansion, with a generic faction that doesn't try to expand and conquer.

These buffer zones really don't bother me, but that's just one person's opinion. What I see as the main advantage is that a player might have more possible options at the start of the game, instead of being thrown into immediate conflict with a major faction, or being railroaded into just one direction of expansion.

There may be other reasons for the rebel provinces that aren't immediately obvious. Maybe the AI just works better with these buffer zones, and we'll see more randomized and different conquest outcomes when re-playing the game (which would be good), instead of locking everything in at the start. I think we can assume this campaign map is the result of some fairly heavy play-testing.

What happened to other medieval kingdoms (Ireland,Serbia,Romania,Bulgaria,...).

The total number of named factions -- ones that can be played or unlocked, with expansionist goals and unique units, as opposed to generic "rebel" provinces -- has to be limited, or the game would take forever to finish. I want to play this thing now, not a year or two from now. Sure, I'd like to see every single province have its own faction AI, unique graphics and unique units, but that's just not practical.

What we get is CA's idea of the most prominent factions at that time, or the ones that they think offer the best contrast and matchups, and would be the most fun to play. For some people... me, at least... that's better than strict historical accuracy and completeness. They do have to sell this game to people other than history buffs.

We are lucky that we have mods.

Indeed, and I'm sure one of the first efforts will be to make a more accurate map, although it may not please a majority of players if it isn't as open-ended and playable as the official map is (we hope).

[Ferret]

Indeed, without these 'rebel' factions we could end up being excommunicated on turn one for hostility towards fellow chatholics. The rebels are also a great way to train armies/generals and quickly nab more land. Like Zenicitus said they also provide the availibility of different outcomes each time you play, surely this is good.

[Laman]

No, that's not the same thing. Changing who owns what province, what town is called what where etc. is to change minor details around so that they are historically inaccurate but make for a more fun game. Calling Novgorod Soviet Union doesn't make it any more fun. Mongols with machine guns would completely change the game mechanic, not just change a minor detail. That really does matter a lot to the outcome of the game, while a province here or there doesn't matter anywhere near as much. And again, Papal States with legionaries - how does that make it more fun at all?

No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

The immersion for me, in this game, is not in the fact that the starting map is exactly that what I thought it would be.

What I was complaining about was not who own's which province (since that is easily modded if one wants to) but the actual provinces which are an insult. I mean all they did was use the bad map from MTW and made it RTW style. There are some changes in provinces, but not large enough (and in the case of Serbia and Croatia the changes are actually much worse, having them in the same province makes no sense, it would make more sense to have all of France in a single province (and noone sensible wants that)). So these things are the same, moronic things without any sensible justification, but those things I wrote are actually preferable IMHO to the current map since they are atleast easily modded (that is only a text editor will be needed).

Amazing though it may sound when I boot the game up and see that Scania, wherever that is, is not part of Denmark, I will not punch my monitor in frustration and then die of disappointment.

Well Scania (together with Blekinge and Halland) was an integral part of Denmark throughout the middle ages. Nowadays it is just the southern part of Sweden but that is just because we conquered it in the 17th century.

[Kavhan Isbul]

The rebels are great if you want to build an empire in five turns (or even less). Just bribe one or two, conquer another one or two and there you go, you already are the biggest faction. If all you want is a quick victory, then there is nothing greater than plenty of rebels.
However, if you want a decent and realistic challenge, having more and bigger factions at the start of the game is key. In MTW in all the mods that had more factions and less rebels, the game was better balanced - it was harder to expand both for the AI and the human, and overall it took longer for superpowers to develop. Even in the vanilla version there were less rebels, than what seems to be the case in M2TW. And looking at the mods, noone seem to want more rebels, on the contrary, there was much improvement by adding more factions and improving the game's toughness and realism.
I do not mind rebels, but a only in a few provinces, which were not under the control of a ruler or a state. Valencia with El Cid might be a good example, and so are some of the Baltic lands. But to have York and Prague as rebel is ridiculous.

[johhny-turbo]

Why? EU2 has a lot more factions than MTW2 and it didn't end in major chaos. The problem is that the factions wouldn't be very diverse (a lot of them would share the same units for example), but I'd rather have 100 factions than 21...

I don't think that many factions will work in a turnbased game.
Anyone know the inbuilt mod that came with the Civ 3 Play the World Expansion that came with a huge amount of factions from Israel to the Malay to the Sokoto Caliphate? The turns were so long because of it was unplayable. EU2 worked because it was done in real time.

[Laman]

I don't think that many factions will work in a turnbased game.
Anyone know the inbuilt mod that came with the Civ 3 Play the World Expansion that came with a huge amount of factions from Israel to the Malay to the Sokoto Caliphate? The turns were so long because of it was unplayable. EU2 worked because it was done in real time.

OTOH we have Spartan. Turnbased and lots of factions and the ai-turns were very quick, and the strategy part of Total War are more similar to Spartan then Civ 3 so it could theoretically be done (many factions that is). However do be aware that the similiarities are on the surface, not necessarily in the actual code.

[Phalaxar]

What I was complaining about was not who own's which province (since that is easily modded if one wants to) but the actual provinces which are an insult. I mean all they did was use the bad map from MTW and made it RTW style. There are some changes in provinces, but not large enough (and in the case of Serbia and Croatia the changes are actually much worse, having them in the same province makes no sense, it would make more sense to have all of France in a single province (and noone sensible wants that)). So these things are the same, moronic things without any sensible justification, but those things I wrote are actually preferable IMHO to the current map since they are atleast easily modded (that is only a text editor will be needed).



Well Scania (together with Blekinge and Halland) was an integral part of Denmark throughout the middle ages. Nowadays it is just the southern part of Sweden but that is just because we conquered it in the 17th century.

You say that there's no actual reason/no sensible justification, but you're wrong.

It doesn't matter if CA don't defend every decision they make, if they don't justify every detail like the map. Just because they havne't doesn't mean they can't.

Purely speculating on my part, I'm willing to bet that the decision was made every time in the interests of gameplay. Stop attacking them for every little decision they make and realise that they aren't out to ruin the game, aren't out to confuse the general populace on important historical issues, but are just trying to make a fun game. Whether you think this incarnation is fun or not is, of course, irrelevant.

[Kavhan Isbul]

Phalaxar, you seem to live the role of a CA defender, which is completely unnecessary, as this is far from a CA bashing thread. I cannot understand why you need to feel so offended, when people point out the obvious mistakes CA made in naming cities to the East. For the most part, they simply chose whatever city is an important one today, and simply did not do their research. I do not see how putting cities in, which did not exist or were small insignificants settlements in 1080 makes the game more fun. I like the game because it allows me to recreate the Middle Ages to an extent, and anything that takes away from the realism diminishes the enjoyment, at least for me. For all practical purposes, lumping Croatia and Serbia together and putting in Helsinki and Bucharest would be the same as simply replacing Novgorod with St. Petersburg. It is simply out of context.
Cities names and provinces are small details, true. But they are very noticeable ones, as you stare at them on the strategic map, and correcting them should be extremely easy. Having proper names may not exactly enhance gameplay, but it will most deffinitely enhance the overall enjoyment from the game for most people.

[JR-]

how many eurasian provinces are there in M2 as compared to M1?

regards