One major niggle I have with these is why the settlements in Britain, France, etc are all the major settlements from much later into the Imperial era... Londinium, Camulodunum, etc, all Roman foundations. So when the game starts they shouldn't really even have been founded yet.
I mean, it might be a fair bit of work I guess, but it might be a nice feature to actually have native settlements/settlement names. It's not like this mod is currently that short of researchers or manpower after all!
I believe Verlamium was a capital at that time
Okay here is my list of things:
Eburacum? Is there a better alternative?
Londinium - Verlamium
Mogontiacum? Alternative?
Argentorate? Alternative?
Arausio - Vienna
Lugdunum - Bibracte
Tarraco - Emporiae
Toletum - Segobriga?
Tigranocerta - Thospia
Okay dokay... again then:
If we want to keep Argentorate, it seems there was a Celtic settlement at Baden-Baden (the German city on the other side of the border), so we would only have to move it to the other side of the Rhine, 20 kms downstream. The Romans later called it Aquae, a Celtic name doesn't seem to be known, but we could still call it Aquae. And when someone complains that Aquae was only founded in 80 BC we'll tell him exactly that. For most pre-Roman settlements North of Italy we'll have this problem anyway.
As for Mogontiacum there was a Celtic town called Altiaia South of Mainz. Altiaia is today called Alzey (so you can see where it is). Altaia and Aquae are closer at each other than Mogontiacum and Argentorate, maybe that's a problem?
Thebes is too close to the mountains? If you mean the Egyptian one, you should just lower the mountains a bit, if you mean the Greek one we could replace it with another city perhaps.
By the way I have to applaud your friend for choosing Gortyn to represent Crete :D I always say everyone it was the most powerful polis on the island during this time frame, but RTR6, RTRVII, RTW, EB, RSII and Rome II have always fielded it's lesser rival Knossos or the rather unimportant Kydonia. I also like having Naxos and Mytilene, hopefully we can keep them ;D Considering the Nasiotic League was there we might give them to the Greek superfaction?
Did I? Where? ;D(http://gyazo.com/333608aa880c2f90947c480ea4ac89a4.png)
Yes true I saw it by now. It looks on google maps like they real mountains to the East are about 10 kms away so we could just extend the plain a bit.
Ahh... YES! ;D Are you also named Bercor on TWC?
Yeah, we need to see how it looks. I want to do it because of all the research that can be done to make everything balanced and historical. The frustrating part would be that we could only have 199 settlements, and one of those needs to represent the terra_incognita. So essentially we would have 198 regions/settlements to play with.
Yup. We need to be wise with each settlement but also try to be realistic. People want an equal amount of regions everywhere. Historically and realistically this is not how the map should be made. Anarchon has a good theory. The center part of the map should have the most cities, as you extend outwards there should be less cities.
So Germania, Britannia, the Steppes, India, Arabia, and the Sahara should not have a whole lot of cities.
Yeah so we just need to be smart with our city selection. HamilcarBarca was right in his Carthage report, Carthage should not be overly concerned with Western Africa, instead it should be concerned with it's islands. Actually this makes me want to make a new thread based off AI expansion, just so we have an idea when it comes to settlements.
Hah, that would be quite a long list :P I can do it, but it would take some time, not before the release of the Beta if you want to do it next week or so. I'll probably be in Munich on the weekend and then have an exam about the Cold War next week.
Regarding your changes:
Thospia has been discussed.
Emporia is certainly desireable, but I wouldn't replace Tarraco, because that was the capital of the entire region. During the empire it was replaced by Caesaraugusta. Well with two regions this area is really hard. It would be better with an additional region. Another viable choice would be making Emporia an exclave of Massilia. I'd like to try that, but I'm afraid it would interrupt the road to Narbo.
Taking out two regions in Germany seems too much. How do you fill the area?
Volubilis is marginal, but if you want it make it the capital and Tingis the port of Tingitana.
Heraclea or Amastris might be capital of Paphlagonia. Then I'd suggest that you add a small region named Helenopontus with Sinope as capital. Attention: Sinope has a single square in the Aral Sea. Without that the city won't work!
Vienna/Arausio is acceptable both. I chose Arausio because with that the Roman expansion into Gaul works better.
Bibracte is certainly desirable. If I may suggest, it should replace Alesia. How bout this:
Transalpina: Vienna
Haeduensis: Bibracte
Lugdunensis (or Biturigia): Avaricum
Like the Tarraco/Emporia area that region has a lot of compromise, but if you want to go for a 70 BC setup the above appears to be best. Earlier we do not know.
A second region in Sardinia appears as no good idea for several reasons:
1. The Carthaginians had their biggest problems in their homeland (view Mercenary War 240-238 BC).
2. I never even saw them expanding into Corsica (with land bridge), so why should they go against the Sardinians?.
3. The Nuragic fort might be represented by a fort. It shows clearly that you never played the Carthaginians in my mod, otherwise you would have reason to complain about those wicked Sardinian rebels hiding in the bushy center of the Island. If you like you can give them a fort, but that would destroy the surprise.
4. Zama is needed for road system.
In my opinion with this you're just making the usual error of people representing their home area better than all the rest (I know that one of your collaborators is from Sardinia).
A funny thing with the first RTR mod was that there were four or five regions in Cyprus. Though this may be historically exact for a previous time, it has no sense in this game.
There aren't any Sardinian hits on Exilian for the last month...
On which note, is it by any chance you who's responsible for the 5850% (yes, that is the correct figure) increase in visits from the Lisbon area in the last month? :PNah...
I suspect Philadelphos is right about not over-doing Sardinia... hard to know how to get Carthage to focus hard enough on the sea, perhaps give them slightly cheaper cut-price biremes or some such to make naval domination a more natural starting point?
Sent the document to him.
Thanks for the two studies of the Australian professor. They are really well done. It is funny that he comes to some results that are quite close to mine.
In Africa he has a region called Metagonia (Hippo Regius). I don't know where he got that name, can't find it. I called it Massylia and if you look at his third map it's exactly there around Hippo Regius. He reserves Massylia for what I have properly named Numidia. With my system that region doesn't even need to be landlocked.
Regarding Sicily I'm really satisfied to see that he, too, has five regions there. The name of Elymia is better reserved for Lilybaeum. In Panormus were the Sicani, but that's just a naming problem. I do not think however that the Carthaginians should hold Panormus at the start, because they didn't. The region was mostly independent and the Syracusans took more than a shot too (Pyrrhus briefly conquered it). They have to fight it out. In my experience the Carthaginians take it approximately 60%, the Syracusans (Epirus) about 25%, the Greek Cities (Agrigentum) about 10% and the Romans (directly from the Slave owner) 5%.
He also has Melite, as I did in the first place. But then I studied more about it and learned that it's not worth the slot. In antiquity it was never very important. I have it now with Elymia and placed a minor settlement there. This means it is a good advance post for the Carthaginians to spot Syracusan or Roman fleets. When the Romans conquer Lilybaeum this will end and Melite comes to Rome, and this is exactly what happened at the end of the First Punic War. After that Melite played no more role until Medieval times.
In Sardinia he has two regions, but as I turned out, in my opinion it's not worth the slot (although I'd like to have a Sardinian port at Olbia in the northeast to launch attacks on Italy, but Corsica can make up for that). I do however highly agree with what he writes on the AOR and therefore I had already included Sardinia, Corsica and Elymia in one Mercenary Pool. That allows the Carthaginians to have Sardinian and Balearic mercenaries in Sicily where they probably need them most (our prof cites one source from Diodor stating this). Regarding AORs, I have a different system which is even more articulate than theirs. Thus I can make Sardinia an AOR of its own.
In Spain I don't get all the details, but the study appears accurate. I have only one Carthaginian region there in the beginning, but usually they don't take long before conquering two more. So my game appears more realistic.
Regarding Emporia I'm thinking now about making it the port of Narbo and make Ilergetum landlocked, but that won't be due before version 1.4, because it breaks the compatibility with 1.2. Well I still have to think about it. If we only had 220 slots!
Finally I like what he writes about the necessity of a Magna Graecia faction led by Pyrrhus, because I think that I have put this into being and it works fine.
Actually we might be able to just go with that option. The map I am talking about is the Fortuna Orbis map. It's pretty realistic. Caligula Caesar sent a blank version of it to me a few years ago. We could use that one. OR we could clear everything off of the current map and start from scratch?
Wow it seems a lot happened here. Who is that Australian professor?
I'm not sure about the whole Sardinia thing, of course it was important, but then again many places on the map are/were, but we've only got those 199 settlements. Perhaps we can have the region more detailed in a later sub campaign. I'm also quite sure Panormos was part of the Epikrateia in 280 BC, since that was before Pyrrhos' invasion and if Carthage had been weak at this time the Greeks wouldn't have plead Pyrrhos to help I think.
Back on the main campaign, if ahowl would support a focus on Mediterrenean and naval warfare, I'd be all okay with that. Which other settlement on Sardinia would you propose, Tharros?
I don't know guys. I think we could make a Punic Wars mod for the grand campaign. That would represent everything better. The grand campaign needs to focus on all areas of the map. I know another settlement in Sardinia is wanted, if anything we could take out Themiskyra to do this.
I don't want to make too many edits because I if we did that, we might as well make a map from scratch.
We could simply put a fort there to simulate Nuragic Warriors, and we could make Caralis a more important city than what it already is.
This is what the area looks like at the moment, the picture size is way too big, but else I won't the details for the rivers. Resizing would be done at a later stage. This pic would be used for faction maps and the radar map - edited as required.
The problem with this projection will be the vast areas in the South West and North East which will be wasted play wise.
Simply mark the edges you would like to see and I'll see if I get some time next week to do some basic maps.
Been in talks with Gigantus from TWC about our map. He said he would make the base map, and be available for advice. He also listed certain tutorials that would help us make the map. Here is the outline of the map, it's a little big. He said to mark it so he could cut.
How can I mark this map?
I would rotate the map so as to eliminate those areas yet keep all the other 'important' areas. Who says you have to always be looking due north?
I marked it in paint, no worries.
Thanks cg, I never really thought of that. It looks 'realistic' now!
I sent it to Gigantus, just asked him to include the rest of the Aral sea area.
It would be the same as Mundus Magnus really, plus one region will be terra_incognita so we won't have to worry about huge regions.You decide.
You guys know I have no idea about the technical side... is the overall size of the map also restricted and does the current Beta map already use that? Because if that's the case a too large map would make Sicily or Greece extremely crowded. But after all, we want to have a detail on the Mediterrenean, so we need to be aware of the restrictions (if they are there, but I guess they are).My opinion exactly.
Mmmm, I still think for the grand campaign that the aral and caspian sea should be fully represented. I believe the map should extend as far east as Alexander traveled and as far north as where the Saka nomads resided. Remember, eventually the Saka will be a faction, as well as an Alexander campaign and the Mauryans. That's why I only cut it to a certain extent.
Just my usual piece of nitpicking...
Aren't there, like, way too many settlements in the campaign? Just because we can have 199 settlements doesn't mean we have to. Right now, the density of settlements in some areas is such that a general could visit four to five settlements in one turn. That leads to a number of problems:
- siege fest: From what I read, most players don't really like the huge number of siege battles they have to fight, and would rather fight open-field battles.
- repetitiveness: Having this many settlements pretty much means throwing the micromanagement aspect of the game out the window. Even someone like me, who usually autoresolve battles and spend my time watching my settlements develop and grooming my family tree would just set it all on automatic after 30 or 40 settlements. Also, the more settlements you have, the earlier you'll get the AI's inevitable stack spamming, where the player fights four or five identical battles per turn, none of which have any real meaning.
- balancing: I know it's historically accurate to have some areas with a much higher density, but this means that other areas have no chance whatsoever to keep up with the factions that own the more populated areas. Ahowl, you have played RTRPE, right? Remember the black death?
We should also revise the quality (as Sloth said)/ wealthiness of all cities in detail again later on. I'm convinced we should have a densely populated Greece for example, but regions like Aitolia, Epiros, Lakonia or Thessalia should at best be mediocre in terms of the income they provide.
As for the city models, as I said I could probably get a load of plans, but obviously we also need someone who can mod that into the game.
That'd be good.
@ Feanaro Aye we have to split this into mines, agriculture, trade etc. But if we are getting a new map for the final version anyway, it's a bit early to discuss this now.