Accurate Towns In Rome Total War Mod Suggestion!!!

[Lonely Soldier]

Hi all,

I just had a thought. Has anyone else noticed how none of the settlements in Rome: Total War are accurately recreated from historical evidence or texts?
I know I have! That is why I am suggesting that someone with the know-how and the spare time, could attempt to recreate some of the major cities of the ancient world as close to their original plans as possible. I am sick of seeing cities laid out on the same basic grid plan!

For example: the city of Carthage did in fact incorporate its port (a mighty structure which could dry dock 200 military ships and which also had an outer dock for merchant vessels, this could even be a Wonder!) into the city.
the city of Athens was built around the imposing fortified Acropolis. Rome was built on seven hills and Byzantium's wall systems were not breached until the Turks blew them down with cannon, some 1200 years after their cpnstruction!
It also seems ludicrous to me that cities are not built on high ground- as they always were when circumstance allowed- like Jerusalem. I would love to see a city worth taking purely for its defensive merits!!! Or even just for its picturesque location!!!!

Sorry for that rant but its something I would love to see implemented in the game! Perhaps anyone willing could incorporate with Rome: Total Realism? Also, though this is somewhat seperate, are the defences available to the European barbarians really accurate to their means? surely they could have dug ditches or erected walls of spikes or constructed some kind of bank around their towns??? And another thing: where are the MOATS??

Once again I got carried away. Anyway this mod could be very popular and add a lot to the game!

Over to you!

Lonely Soldier

[Trajen the 1st]

i Agree with you all the way! If only somone new how to model the buildings ive always felt a lack of true atmosphere in the towns of RTW, in other words. I didint feel like i was looking at a legit(sp?) city from the ancient world. They all looked the same!!

[SwordsMaster]

The problem is: The cities are 1 tile on the map. And as such MUST be represented in a unique battlefield. It is possible to alter the layouts of the capitals modifying the streets layout and such, and even add a few distinctive buildings for capitals, but the cities will still be represented by a single square on the map, and thus cant be shown in their full beauty.

Alternatively, what could be done is create a battlefield that would BE a city and thus having an urban warfare map, but then the "assault the walls" factor would be lost as armies would be placed straight "inside" the city.

I dont know if I explained well enough, but heh...

[metatron]

Constantinople's walls weren't started until the Romans seriously developed it after Constantine.

[Marshal Murat]

I couldn't agree more.
I would love to hold Jerusalem against a Selucid army, holding them down the hill.

I agree, that we should incorperate some form of historical basis.
Especially Carthage with its two harbors, Babylon with its hanging gardens, and otherwise. Heck I would enjoy just viewing the city.

[Myrddraal]

This could be done by implementing different town plans using custom maps...

[SwordsMaster]

This could be done by implementing different town plans using custom maps...

Correct, but apparently rivers or seas cannot be included unless you create an actual "water" model and put it on the map as you would do with a road. Which will lead to disastrous consequences as armies approaching from that side will start the battle literally walking on water Jesus Christ-like. Which raises a possible relation between Bible writing and videogaming that we won´t explore.

[Lonely Soldier]

Hello again!

In regards to my part in the mod I would be quite happy to do the research in terms of cities as they were in that era. Apart from this I can only offer suggestions and such towards the mod.

I just had a thought. Has anyone else thought that the lack of activity in cities (when viewed from the campaign menus) was really odd. I mean sure there are citizens wandering about, but I always thought it would be cool if there were sentries on the walls, people in the market place etc. Also, say if you were training archers, you could watch them practising at the Archery Range etc.

metatron - my bad

SwordsMaster - I've had some thoughts on this after reading your posts. Would it be possible to say have a town on four tiles and have the outer faces of the tiles walled? Hope I made myself clear!

Anyways, I'm off to research some of those major cities.

See Ya!

[Lonely Soldier]

This is a placeholder for maps and images of cities.

Jerusalem: http://jnul.huji.ac.il/dl/maps/jer/i...9/Jer379_a.jpg

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/histo..._jerusalem.jpg

Rome: http://myweb.lmu.edu/fjust/Rome/Plat...nt_rome-96.jpg

http://myweb.lmu.edu/fjust/Rome/Plat...-growth-96.jpg

Athens: http://plato-dialogues.org/tools/athens.htm

http://plato-dialogues.org/tools/athensim.htm

http://plato-dialogues.org/tools/acropol.htm

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/for..._of_Athens.jpg

Carthage: http://www.barca.fsnet.co.uk/carthage-city-layout.htm

Syracuse: http://www.aya.yale.edu/yet/sicily05/brochure.pdf (not great but interesting!)

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:A...syracuse&hl=en (Ancient Italy in general)

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:p...syracuse&hl=en (good text reference)

http://www.mcs.drexel.edu/~crorres/b...Syracuse3D.jpg (Interesting!)

Alesia: (these are mostly based on the siege of Alesia) http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jean-francoi...ges/alesia.jpg

http://www.cav-templarios.hpg.ig.com.br/Image67.gif

http://www.livius.org/a/battlefields/alesia/alesia4.jpg

http://www.livius.org/a/battlefields/alesia/alesia2.jpg

http://www.foto-reiseberichte.de/kel...ich/alesia.jpg

Londinium: http://www.londonhotelreservation.co.../Londinium.jpg

http://www.bskrommenhoek.nl/images/londinium.jpg

http://www.eastendtalking.org.uk/Our...dinium_sml.jpg

http://marikavel.org/londinium-sorrell2.jpg

http://www.collectbritain.co.uk/medi...%5BSVC2%5D.JPG

http://www.ancientworlds.net/aw/Group/73851

Thebes/Luxor: http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehisto...d_vicinity.gif

http://www.uwm.edu/Course/egypt/eeee/thebesold.jpg

Antioch: http://www.antiqueprints.com/images/ae/D8351.JPG

Seleucia/Babylonia: http://www.bible-history.com/babylon...bylon_city.gif

Hatra: http://whc.unesco.org/news/images/hatra_irak.jpg (make of that what you will!)

[General Carnage]

Hello again!

In regards to my part in the mod I would be quite happy to do the research in terms of cities as they were in that era. Apart from this I can only offer suggestions and such towards the mod.

I just had a thought. Has anyone else thought that the lack of activity in cities (when viewed from the campaign menus) was really odd. I mean sure there are citizens wandering about, but I always thought it would be cool if there were sentries on the walls, people in the market place etc. Also, say if you were training archers, you could watch them practising at the Archery Range etc.

metatron - my bad

SwordsMaster - I've had some thoughts on this after reading your posts. Would it be possible to say have a town on four tiles and have the outer faces of the tiles walled? Hope I made myself clear!

Anyways, I'm off to research some of those major cities.

See Ya!

Yes, but it would be very resource intensive for your PC.

[Lonely Soldier]

General Carnage - Which particular aspect?

Yet another post:

The main cities I will research early on are:

Athens
Rome
Syracuse
Carthage
Byzantium
Alesia
Seleucia
Memphis
Thebes
Alexandria
Olympia - Which would need to be added.
Jerusalem
Rhodes
Tarentum
And others if anyone can think of cities of note in the ancient world.

[SwordsMaster]

SwordsMaster - I've had some thoughts on this after reading your posts. Would it be possible to say have a town on four tiles and have the outer faces of the tiles walled? Hope I made myself clear!

Nope, 1 town=1 tile. thats it. Hence, any town has to fit in 1 battlefield map. Even Rome. I know thats kinda frustrating, but hey...

[Reverend Joe]

Lonely Soldier- if towns were on 4 tiles then an army would only be able to siege a quarter of the city at a time. With wierd, unpredictable effects on gameplay.

CA really did not think a lot of this game through- they must have been under serious pressure by Actvision.

[Lonely Soldier]

Swordmaster - so this 1 tile thing is hard-coded? Well might it still be possible to make a condensed form of a settlement? Or possibly use a plan of the city at its least developed stage - earliest available map of Rome etc. Also if you look at the websites I posted you will see that athens looks relatively small and that the plan of Rome in its less expanded forms may also fit onto one battle map. To this end does anyone know the dimensions of a tile/battlemap in miles/kilometres etc.

[Simetrical]

Well, I think the main problem here would be the implementation. We'd be happy to use your research, but we need someone to apply it. From what I understand, this is quite a tedious job, but I'm not entirely sure about that.

This could be done by implementing different town plans using custom maps...

Has it been done successfully yet, or is this just in theory?

Correct, but apparently rivers or seas cannot be included unless you create an actual "water" model and put it on the map as you would do with a road. Which will lead to disastrous consequences as armies approaching from that side will start the battle literally walking on water Jesus Christ-like.

You can't make the models impassable?

-Simetrical

[SwordsMaster]

Has it been done successfully yet, or is this just in theory?

It has been done.

You can't make the models impassible?

Havent actually tried that...

Well might it still be possible to make a condensed form of a settlement?

Sure. As long as the whole thing is in 1 battlefield you can do pretty much anything. The thing is, if you make the city too big, the assaulter will start too close to the walls, and thus get shot right from the beginning. Which is not a bad thing for the defender, but will definitely unbalance the game.

[Myrddraal]

Has it been done successfully yet, or is this just in theory?

I have successfully implemented a custom map onto the campaign map. I haven't tried with a settlement but I see no reason why it shouldn't so long as you place a settlement on the tile.

[Rodion Romanovich]

I think this sounds like a nice mod idea. However why so worried about only one map tile per settlement? It's a huge improvement even if you just build smaller versions of the real cities, anything in that direction is better than the standard cities they have now IMO. A question: will these modified cities also have buildings appear when you build them? For example in Athens, should parthenon be there even if you only have a shrine in the city? IMO the best way of implementing this mod would be to change what's in cities from start so that Athens for example starts with temple or large temple and so on.

I also wonder if it's possible when making Carthage to make that cool dry dock change as the port of the city is upgraded?

[Lonely Soldier]

Swordsmaster - I had another thought about the multiple tile settlements thing. Could you make a placeable (in the same way as a road) wall model and have it as an impassable campaign/battle map object, which would be developed as your settlements walls would be (obviously placing gatehouses where roads pass through etc.)? This is considering that roads change appearance as you upgrade them as do ports and settlements. This considered would it be possible to create several new campaign/battle map tiles which would appear as urban areas (using the models for the campaign and battle map settlements). You could then place the right shaped urban landscape tiles (which would be added as the settlement expanded) and develop your walls, road-like, around them (using the unwalled settlement model on the campaign map and designing the new tiles to fit into this)? Another benifit of this could be extra walls as at Jerusalem (around the royal precinct) etc. The main problem I can see in this is that the walls would have to change position in relation to the settlements expansion, and I'm not sure whether the walls/roads can be altered in terms of path "dynamically" per se.

LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix - I definately agree that any added realism is a huge improvement! But I am hesitant to give up on the multi-tile approach just yet. And regarding your other comments:

"A question: will these modified cities also have buildings appear when you build them? For example in Athens, should parthenon be there even if you only have a shrine in the city? IMO the best way of implementing this mod would be to change what's in cities from start so that Athens for example starts with temple or large temple and so on."

I agree with all you've said here and yes buildings will be added as you build them (unless the settlement has them at the start) just in the correct positions this time (see images of Athens layout - The Odeon, for example, when built, will appear in the position seen on these maps, or those that are most relevant anyway). Its just a matter of working out what should be there at the start! Which for the major cities (like Athens) shouldn't be too hard.

"I also wonder if it's possible when making Carthage to make that cool dry dock change as the port of the city is upgraded?"

Carthage may have its "uber-dock" from the start as the game begins after it was built. If we choose not to give Carthage the dock from the start it will most likely be an upgrade after Dockyard.

Please ask me to clarify if any of this is not clear!

Lastly, any modellers or other people with useful skills (who have nothing better to do!) please start applying whenever you wish!

[SwordsMaster]

Swordmaster - I had another thought about the multiple tile settlements thing. Could you make a placeable (in the same way as a road) wall model and have it as an impassable campaign/battle map object, which would be developed as your settlements walls would be (obviously placing gatehouses where roads pass through etc.)? This is considering that roads change appearance as you upgrade them as do ports and settlements.

You could do that, but then the walls would be undestructable.

This considered would it be possible to create several new campaign/battle map tiles which would appear as urban areas (using the models for the campaign and battle map settlements). You could then place the right shaped urban landscape tiles (which would be added as the settlement expanded) and develop your walls, road-like, around them (using the unwalled settlement model on the campaign map and designing the new tiles to fit into this)?

Let me see if I´m getting it right: You want to put several "cities" in the campmap, and make each represent a different part of the city, right?

I havent tried that, but it might be possible. I´m not sure if each city has to have a minimum distance from another city to be viable.

Then again, even if you managed to do that, you would have to develop each of the parts as a different city altogether which would be quite a mess.

It may be worth a try though

[Lonely Soldier]

Swordmaster - That's pretty much it regarding the urban areas. However they'd be more like the less dense kind of forests. For example armies can move in and out of them. The different urban tiles would not be settlements in their own right. The idea would be to have a cluster of these "urban tiles" surrounding an unwalled central town piece/tile (this would be the settlement that the player interacted with).

Also, pertaining to the indestructible walls: I agree this is a big issue! Thanks for pointing it out! Considering that campaign pieces can change their appearence (though not roads, I grant you), ports blockaded (but I don't think this has a battle map representation), volcanoes erupting etc. then theoretically you could have walls which could be destroyed and have another model for certain sections. Also, another dynamic effect on the campaign map which you may have nnoticed, is when an army is in a position for a long duration the ground around them becomes scorched, this could be another way to have walls destroyed (though I am now just clutching at straws).

On another matter - make sure to check back on my previous posts (particularly those on new models and settlement details!).

Anyway thanks for the continued interest Swordsmaster!

[Lonely Soldier]

This is a Placeholder for ideas on new structures etc.

There will probably be some new or altered models required. These MAY include:

Port of Carthage

Sea walls - as at Syracuse, Byzantium and others

Parthenon at Athens

Senate House at Rome

"Close-up" ship and port models - for when your soldiers are actually in a port or right on the coast etc.

Possible reskins of current buildings - Mainly Eastern factions, Carthage etc.

Walled cliffs - cliff faces which have been walled over and had battlements incorporated.

Possibly some new fortifications - mainly for barbarians may include:

Spike wall/ spikes set in ground/pits

Dry moats

Banks running up to walls

Multiple walls and terracing

This post will be periodically updated.

[Simetrical]

Was the port of Carthage particularly special?

-Simetrical

[metatron]

Was the port of Carthage particularly special?

-Simetrical

[Reverend Joe]

This is turning out better than I thought... however, in order to bring this mod to full fruition, I personally believe you should try to merge with Europa Barbarorum. I'm sure they will have no objection- those guys are realism junkies.

[Simetrical]

As far as I know, EB is only willing to share its material once it's incorporated into a released version of EB. Not an unreasonable policy, necessarily, but needless to say, I do think that it would be better if you released your info freely to any mod or individual that wanted it.

-Simetrical

[Lonely Soldier]

Simetrical - Was the port of Carthage particularly special?
Please check the links to Carthage in my image placeholder post, then you will see what I mean!

The primary goal for this mod is to recreate as many of the cities in the original campaign as possible (how many we can do is mainly dependant on available sources). To achieve this the mod will also eventually produce a new system under which settlements and their growth will function. This is the aspect which will be made available to other mod teams - they will probably just need to implement our code etc. and replace the original models with those suitable for their mod.

meatwad - As you will have read above, ideally we want to help (and be helped by) as many mod teams as are willing. That is why I am hesitant to incorporate with one team over (and to the exclusion of) another - we're going to need all the help we can get! thanks for the positive comments though!

[Simetrical]

Unfortunately, I just saw a post by eadingas saying that it will be impractical to implement these designs, since the method used to assign a settlement a given map can't allow the settlement to grow or change. I don't personally know if this is true, however. What does descr_settlement_plan.txt do?

-Simetrical

[Lonely Soldier]

Simetrical - I don't know if your comment was addressed to me, but if it was I suggest that you read the rest of the thread - to save you the trouble: I am only contributing research and the concept. I have no idea what the descr_settlement_plan.txt does. And where did you see this information claiming that the mod is unfeasible? Earlier in the thread at least two relatively experienced modders said that, with some changes, the mod could be implemented. One more thing: what is your role in the RTR team?


Also, to anyone reading this: Is anyone willing to help (or who knows anyone who may be interested in helping) on the technical side (this is not to dismiss the advice so kindly given - particularly by Swordsmaster and Myrddraal) who is not already commited to another team?

We really need to get interested people into the mod in a practical capacity!

[Epistolary Richard]

The conversation on the mechanics is happening on Putting features on the Campiagn map (custom tiles) (sic).
The resurrection of which, by the way, we're all grateful for.

eadingas didn't say it was unfeasible. It appears that customised cities can be implemented, however as they are a customised tile they lose their relationship to the strategic version of the city. So that if you build a temple on the strat map it won't appear on the battle map.

At this point it appears to be a trade-off, do you want your cities to be customised or do you want them to be generic but properly reflect the buildings built on the strat map.

I would imagine the best course of action would be a compromise. Generic, organic cities for most, customised cities for the more important, unique locations. Even people who wanted to keep their vanilla cities in the stratgeic would be interested in a custom tile of an ancient city (or even a section of one) as it could be used for new historical/custom battles.

A different problem, though, would be how to implement the siege rules (victory by holding the central plaza, defending units rout there and auto-rally) for the custom cities.