Maps and Provinces

[ULC]

Speaking of maps, it's too bad we couldn't used the expanded one I have that reaches to about the same size as the RTW one - One could really include several new Factions and do them justice, and I would do this myself, but I fear I am horrible at doing maps by hand and I lost all my tools

[gollum]

Hi,
The main concise factual arguments are the ones you and YLC offer; that is that areas are badly misrepresented and highly abstracted and so are too well connected - the best example is jumping from Lorraine to Poland in two steps as YLC mentions.

I agree that the steppes are reasonably represented although Khazar could do with one more province.

What you mention about spliting Naples can be also applied to Morea its the same sort of argument and yet Appulia was equally significant and distinct to Naples when Aragon and the Siculo Normans conquered south Italy as Moreas during the death throes of the Byzantine.

Toulouse and Aquitaine are highly abstracted yes, but so is Provence (the northern part of it was Dauphin of the famed Dauphin Charles de Valois and the eastern Savoy an Italian-French border province that included the western Alpine crossing) - the choice of course is yours relative to what you want to achieve in the map.

The reason i mention the Alpine areas is that they are supposed to work as a Border something like the Pyrenees in which correctly you attributed tones of provinces (Catalonia, Aragon, Saragossa and Navarre). The Alps where an imoprtant barrier and its nice to have a gameplay representation of this in the game.

France is mentioned as the largest and richest medieval nation and this state of affairs lasted all the way up to the industrial revolution that the wheels of economy shifted to oether ways. The English with the small professional army had great difficulties garrisoning it in reality which became their ndoing over the 100 years war, and yet in the game France can be occupied very quickly.

Franconia is best cutoff from Silesia - Saxony and Bavaria should grow southwise and northwise respectively to limit Franconia in the west part of Germany.


Austria is also too large and abstracted as is Venice (Actually Venice was the Venice island plus little of the cost, the rest of the todays Venetto province was centred around Verona) and Croatia. The minimum that can be done is to add Carinthia that represents the Alpine passses from Austria into Italy.

Poland and Hungary are close to abominations, they deserve to be split. They were ok in the days of MTW v1.0 that Hungary was unplayable and the game was still close to *Crusader Total war* concept, but when the Hungarians appear as a faction its insufficient.


The reason i mention getting rid of the islands relates to the issue you mention (that is that they are badly connected and we see factions get trapped there or invade them when they are not worth it), but also because the Islands were somewhat insignificant duchies or provinces in ralation to other hugely important provinces of the map, that are lumped together in huge provinces that as you mention are misrepresented. In my mind its best to get rid of them altogether since the 109 limit cannot allow the moder to do too much, but with 5 more gratuit provinces, there is a lot that can be fixed.

!it burnsus!

[caravel]

Note: gollum I haven't passed over you last post, but it's now 1:30 here and I need to be getting to sleep as any reply I make at this time will probably consist of "yes" and "no" only.

[gollum]

Hi,
no worries, often i think that yes/no type of answers to my posts are the best

!it burnsus!

[western]

I'm sure it's not top of the agenda at the moment, but I agree with Gollum about at least some of the islands. Sicily and Cyprus had strategic importance in the sense of being valuable bases which were both the targets and launchpads for invasions. That was not the case for Corsica, Sardinia, Crete where the story from 11th to !4th centuries is pretty much just localised rebellion. So in the search for a better MTW, I'd regard those 3 provinces as available for re-use where there are better opportunities. There's no shortage of historically based candidates which would be good for gameplay - Southern France and either Dalmatia or Albania already mentioned; in addition the giant Flanders and Lorraine could profitably be split (add Artois and Brabant) to better represent this very active area; Moravia could be split off from Bohemia; and adding Samogitia (main battleground on the Baltic) would make Lithuania an inland province as it should be. Just some ideas

[ULC]

Hmmm...to me, one of the things that should decide provincial availability it the overall faction "presence" in an area. We could have a very active or province heavy place in one area or another, but history at some point gives way to game balance. Increasing the provinces in the Lorriane/Flanders area is not as needed as say splitting Hungary or Poland. Also, based on the number of a faction in an area, we should have a certain number of provinces - IHMO, the number of provinces in a given theater should be equal to (number of participants)x3(+1). So if we have 4 factions crammed into one area, then we should have 13 provinces they should be fighting over.

[western]

You make a good point YLC. There's no shortage of good, available choices for historical provinces - and the ones actually chosen should be linked to choices about factions, with more provinces where there are more factions.

[caravel]

I'm sure it's not top of the agenda at the moment, but I agree with Gollum about at least some of the islands. Sicily and Cyprus had strategic importance in the sense of being valuable bases which were both the targets and launchpads for invasions. That was not the case for Corsica, Sardinia, Crete where the story from 11th to !4th centuries is pretty much just localised rebellion. So in the search for a better MTW, I'd regard those 3 provinces as available for re-use where there are better opportunities. There's no shortage of historically based candidates which would be good for gameplay - Southern France and either Dalmatia or Albania already mentioned; in addition the giant Flanders and Lorraine could profitably be split (add Artois and Brabant) to better represent this very active area; Moravia could be split off from Bohemia; and adding Samogitia (main battleground on the Baltic) would make Lithuania an inland province as it should be. Just some ideas

We already have Albania in the form of Epirus.

[western]

Hi Cynewulf

I had in mind the area north of Epirus, centred on Dyrrachium (western end of the Via Egnatia), that formed the Angevin kingdom of Albania in the 13th century and was earlier fought over between the Normans and the Byz. It would mean Thessaly didn't have a border on the Adriatic, and it would be harder for the Sicilians to get to Constantinople - but it's just one of many candidates, depending on where you feel gameplay needs a bit of a boost.

[caravel]

I can see your point about the Steppes, But Khazar always felt...too much land for too little effort

If I have your permission, I wouldn't mind doing new factions for the pocket mod - with your approval first. To me, it's the funnest part of modding. Shall I post my suggestions in the correct thread then ?

You have my permission of course. Can you attempt just one faction first and get that faction working before moving on to the next? I cannot of course guarantee that any work you do will be added to the mod. I do appreciate your efforts and continued interest however.

Agreed. Aside from possibly splitting Aquitaine and Tolouse, I think most of Europe already has plenty of provinces. If we add more, it should probably be in the Poland/Lithuania region.

Yes I prefer to add provinces where they're needed - and tagging a province onto the end of another doesn't seem like a valid province as it provides little strategic value.

By the time the game starts, the Normans had almost completely conquered the region (save for the city itself, which remained under Byzantine control til 1137). Given that, Cynewulf and I decided to keep Naples as a single province.

Yes there's historical accuracy to think about, but in reality we cannot hope to do Italy justice anyway with the limited number of provinces available. At the end of the day it's down to "popular history". We know of Apulia and other provinces such as Morea, Athens and Scania, but there are many more that have been omitted and are rarely added by modders. I have added some of these instead of adding the same provinces that other modders have added. A matter of opinion? Perhaps, though I have also taken into account those areas that are very lacking. I found that the Muslim factions with their poor provinces layout and peasant armies were just there are the "crusade victims" rather than as viable factions. This is why I have tried to improve them and the regions of the near east.

Speaking of maps, it's too bad we couldn't used the expanded one I have that reaches to about the same size as the RTW one - One could really include several new Factions and do them justice, and I would do this myself, but I fear I am horrible at doing maps by hand and I lost all my tools

Again the hardcoded province limit makes larger maps useless. The current map is really stretching it as it is. The limit is optimal for Feudal Japan or Dark Ages Britain - not Medieval Europe and parts of the east.