Titanium - Campaign Map Preview

[+Marius+]

Lol 22.02 - 22.29 (Different campaign from above though)

[Melooo182]

LOL
I really thought that piece would take a full extra second at least

All right green light then, let adds them in groups and see how it goes

[+Marius+]

I have been scouring about land bridges and have come to a thought.

What if, instead of land bridges, we use the province border behavior of the AI instead?

Meaning;

Putting a small(as small as possible) patch of land on the area of a province, belonging to the province opposite(closest) across the sea separating them.


Basically, this;




Would this work?

Considering that the AI has shown itself to be fully capable of launching overseas invasions, would putting such land borders instead of every land bridge be a better option and still nitch the AI into invading the province?

[paleologos]

I am under the impression that to implement this even as an experiment would require a lot of work and then testing time.
And then only to find that it doesn't work, if that is the case.
Is this our priority?

[+Marius+]

Well, the map only has a dozen land crossings and merely a half of those would be candidates for this type of change.

It may not be an immediate priority, but the way the map functions is pretty important, especially whether you have land bridges all over the place or not.

[paleologos]

What's the problem with land bridges?

[+Marius+]

They allow armies to walk on water.

[paleologos]

Like river crossings or like an army being able to occupy- and stay there- the same map tile as a naval unit?

[+Marius+]

lol modders really do not play

No, an army cannot stay on map coordinates that are not land, land bridges merely allow armies to cross water to the land across.

[paleologos]

lol modders really do not play

I'm happy you are entertained but it's a bitter truth for me.
I have not played a campaign in five years, only custom battles to see how my models look in-game.

No, an army cannot stay on map coordinates that are not land, land bridges merely allow armies to cross water to the land across.

I can live with that if the crossing narrow enough.

[+Marius+]

I have not played a campaign in five years

Well, take my approach and just start a campaign with that "just 1 turn a day" thing.

I am a very busy bee but those 5-15 minutes a day don't mean jack.

I can live with that if the crossing narrow enough.

Not the point though.

Armies should have to use ships to cross water.

Besides, ships are already irrelevant in M2, but now, with land crossings everywhere, their irrelevance really goes on point.

[Melooo182]

Beermugcarl approched me a few days ago, suggesting a very similar thing for motivating the AI on conquering distant islands and stuff

I agreed to test although in a more elegant way, like hidding 1 pixel under some mountain or dense forest hehe

About the modders don't play, well I've been playing too much lately apparently, which equate in less modding from my part
EBII just got me hooked with a Koinon Hellenon campaign...there is an awesome thing with playing other peoples mods, it does refresh your mind and gives you a ton of ideas on how to improve your own.

BTW did I mentioned I had added some Muslim ethnicity traits, well just realized they kinda work like the Hellenes familly origin traits in EBII.

[paleologos]

Interesting thing, though if you run out of material for modding you might want to start with the graphics.
Remember how long it took me to finish the round shields?
I'd like to make some raindrop shaped shields for the sergeants and I can use the extra hands.

[Hellvard]

I'm happy you are entertained but it's a bitter truth for me.
I have not played a campaign in five years, only custom battles to see how my models look in-game.

I know that feeling bro

As for the topic, I never liked land-bridges system, solution proposed by Marius looks interesting, and it's easy to make

[Lord Caim]

I know the M2 navies suck, but I think you should give them their spot.
I'm in favor of no land bridges over 1 maybe 2 spaces.
I think this is one of those bits of the game where gameplay will trump history. Though, I don't think they had mass ferry services this early across things like the channel. Anyway, its not like its hard to cross without the landbridges, on most of the places you can recruit a merc ship and cross and disband it that or next turn.
If you wanted, you could take one of the ship types(i think there are plenty) and turn it into a dedicated ferry with no war value(attack and defense), making a high volume recruitable, like mercenaries, recruitable relativley cheaply(compaired to paying for the ships of war), and only in locations that would have had those kinds of ferries, Like accross the english channel or where you cross from Pisa to that island.
I don't know that the AI would have enough sense to use these or not, but if you make 'em cheap, I'm sure it'll get around to it, sometime.

[Knight of the Blue Rose]

Land bridges are useful, but they should be limited to crossings of maybe 3 tiles max? In my opinion some of the ones in-game at the moment should be removed in favour of Melooo182's suggestion, to promote the use of navies.

Current Land Bridges (off the top of my head):

• Orkney/Scotland Crossing - Keep
• Scotland/Isle of Man Crossing - Remove
• England/France Crossing - Remove
• Denmark Islands Crossing - Keep
• Denmark/Sweden Crossing - Keep
• Spain/Morocco Crossing - Keep
• Italy/Corsica Crossing - Remove
• Corsica/Sardinia Crossing - Keep
• Italy/Sicily Crossing - Keep
• Bosphorus Crossing - Keep
• Dardanelles Crossing - Keep
• Anatolia/Rhodes Crossing - Keep

Possible Land Bridges (off the top of my head):

• Scotland/Ireland Crossing
• Crimea/Caucasus Crossing
• Arabia/Persia Crossing

[Shadow_Imperator]

MAP UPDATED


I think this is the final version, included Marius' suggestions, now I have to test that everything is OK and then upload v0.85

This is very impressive work, and think you guys have done an amazing job. I must ask, are you willing to entertain any further alterations to the map? I think in fairness, some further alterations could be made to improve the balance of the map, or possibly allow for new factions to be introduced. Also, surely it isn't only my inkling, but Anatolia looks fairly bereft of minor settlements sans Philadelphia in the west and Tarsos in Cilicia; I have some ideas if you'd be happy to consider them?

[paleologos]

On behalf of Melooo182, let me thank you for your kind words and offer.

The thing is that there is a hard coded limit to how many settlements can be squeezed in the game's map.
We would need to merge existing settlements in order to make a slot available.
This would impoverish factions that are already in dire need of their settlements, while further strengthening the Byzantines who are already overpowered in the early game.
A very fine balance has been stricken and it is so much easier to disrupt it than to improve it.

In addition, Melooo our mapper, is no longer active in modding, or even visiting the site.
His last activity was in May 14, 2019 06:38 AM.
I'm afraid this map is here to stay for quite a while.

[Danya82]

Hello, i wanted to ask, may be someone know, what is problem here. There are the tool - TWMapReader, and it not read the settlement names and (it's not so important) regions ID, in all other mods i tried all is good. I asked already in the tool thread, but still not found the fix of this problem. Another thing, what's with the test patch, is it work correctly?

[paleologos]

I have asked Gigantus to look into your question for us.
I may be the "team leader" but my knowledge is limited to models.
Hopefully you will have an answer soon.