Thoughts on Buildings and Provinces

[krisslanza]

Sicily was governed as a separate province by the Romans because it had a huge population and hundreds of towns and cities in it and is a large island.

While true, I imagine, it still isn't false that in the region system, that island of Sicily is indeed part of Magna Gracea. That was just CA doing their research. It may have been governed by a separate body, due to its size, but within the context of an actual region, its correct. The system just doesn't split up the governing body.

That post after mine isn't another post by me - it's by 'Duncan III' different person, though i can see how you might glance at it and think it was me as it has the same first three letters to the username

Ah, you're correct, my apologies Dunadd. I just did a skim, and my brain must've filled in the end of the name based on the first three. The brain is a jerk like that sometimes.

[Dunadd]

While true, I imagine, it still isn't false that in the region system, that island of Sicily is indeed part of Magna Gracea. That was just CA doing their research. It may have been governed by a separate body, due to its size, but within the context of an actual region, its correct. The system just doesn't split up the governing body.

True, it was seen by the Greeks as all part of Magna Graecia (greater Greece), but then so were large parts of Asia Minor /Turkey and Yugoslavia which were full of Greek colonisers' cities - it doesn't mean they should be part of the same province. It looks a bit like CA did some casual historical research and then thought "you know what? Screw history - let's just make this game easier if you're playing as Rome to try to maximise sales".

Ah, you're correct, my apologies Dunadd. I just did a skim, and my brain must've filled in the end of the name based on the first three. The brain is a jerk like that sometimes.

No problem - easy mistake to make - i've done the same lots of times.

[TiagoJRToledo]

Sicily is the island with Syracuse and Lilybaeum, right? Because the reason it's in Magna Gracea, is because that's historically what they were part of. They didn't have their own 'region' they WERE part of the southern part of Italy.

Still, see this is a constructive post. It has ideas that make sense.

Though, then you have your second post directly at me, which is less so but... eh.

Actually, Sicily was a separate province from Italia ever since it was gained in the Punic Wars. It would make sense that in-game this should be reflected. If I'm not mistaken, the province system is supposed to mirror the provincial administration, and not geo-cultural regions.

[Akrotatos]

And having walls everywhere is silly, but I can see walls being built by taking up a building slot, and making them cost an obscene amount of money - say 10,000 talents. This would be realistic and encourage the decision of "Do I really need a wall, or do I need a building that helps me?"

Do I really need a wall

Do I really need a wall

Do I really need a wall

I just can't take it anymore!!! In what time period do you think you are playing???? ing hamlets in ing backwards Britain had a ing wall.


The people of freaking NEOLITHIC villages at 5000bC BUILT A ING WALL.



Sesklo village in Thessaly. ​5000 bC

[Modestus]

The same reason RPGs have party member limits. Letting people use everyone at once, eliminates the decision of how to build your party. The key to balance is offer enough choice, but not too much. Ideally, you want the player to always feel they have to make a imperfect decision. Given no city in Rome 2 can do everything, it pulls this off pretty well. If a settlement wants to produce powerful troops, you sacrifice its ability to produce food or have high income. You can't have it all.

I understand what your saying and I like the way you put it but the likelihood of making an imperfect choice is I think by having more choices not less, you want the player to feel that there is always something else they need to build but cannot do it right now.

And why not be able to build something you don’t really need, something that is of slight benefit but not really crucial, something that represents the greatness of your city.

But you cannot because the game play has been reduced to a series of limited choices, your never going to capture a great city, your never going to march into Babylon and be amazed by its magnificence , you will gain 5 more building slots same as all your other building slots.

Its easy to see why the game could become a bore even the units are copy and paste, everything has been reduced to the level of a light weight game, a game that is meant to be played in a casual manner.

I honestly believe that this is not what Total War fans ever wanted, first and foremost they want a world that is alive, of course they also want good game play but not at the cost of turning the world into a game of Knots and Crosses.

[Dunadd]

Krisslanza wrote

And having walls everywhere is silly, but I can see walls being built by taking up a building slot, and making them cost an obscene amount of money - say 10,000 talents. This would be realistic and encourage the decision of "Do I really need a wall, or do I need a building that helps me?

Walls for people who lived in ancient towns and cities were there because they stopped pirates, brigands, hostile or opportunistic raiding tribes and enemy armies coming in and stealing all their money and food, killing many of them, raping others or selling them all into slavery. For their rulers and armies they ensured enemy armies couldn't just walk in without besieging or assaulting a garrison which could hold the walls for a long time or cause them massive casualties if they tried an assault against the walls. It doesn't get much more essential than that.

Why wouldn't you have a wall around a major settlement, if losing that settlement is going to lose you an entire region and it's taxes, food income and recruits - and walls are going to make it much more likely you can get a relieving army there before it falls? It would be madness not have walls, which is why every significant settlement with the exception of Sparta had them. Britain is the only other place it's even debatable, but they at the least had massive hill-forts which they would withdraw all their people and food to if under threat.

Asking why you need walls round the most important settlement in each region is a bit like asking if you really need to give shields to your soldiers.

Rome II's army limit makes it even harder to understand why every settlement doesn't have walls. With limited field armies, you need more time for them to be able to get back to stop a settlement falling to the enemy - time that walls that would often force a siege could provide.

And it doesn't get much more silly than representing the most important settlement in an entire region (which would be one out of thousands) as an unwalled village or hamlet. What could be sillier than garrisons and armies fighting over unwalled hamlets and villages that would be of no strategic significance whatsoever?

So there should be stone walls on every settlement except Sparta, but one change that possibly could be made would be making it possible to destroy walls if you have an army present, as walls were sometimes destroyed by rulers or victors in wars to make it harder for the town or city to revolt against them in future, even sometimes as part of surrender terms.

I'm not sure about whether this should be in the game as i don't remember it happening to any major city except Athens as part of the surrender terms the Spartans imposed at the end of the Pelopponesian war - and then i think it was only the "long walls" that linked Athens to the Piraeus, not the city walls themselves. It's unlikely players would want to destroy walls in a settlement they'd taken unless they thought it might revolt again immediately, in which case they'd more likely enslave most of the population, bring in colonists, but leave the walls.

[Mr.IAmHere]

*sniff sniff* I want Walls! Especially in Syracuse, Jerusalem, and anywhere else where I think I'll need one (So, basically everywhere ). As others have said its accurate for the time-frame.

Also, Dunadd, Sparta built walls during the game's timeframe.

[Dunadd]

Mr.IAMHere wrote

Also, Dunadd, Sparta built walls during the game's timeframe.

Thanks for the info. Thought it might have, but wasn't sure.

[krisslanza]

*sniff sniff* I want Walls! Especially in Syracuse, Jerusalem, and anywhere else where I think I'll need one (So, basically everywhere ). As others have said its accurate for the time-frame.

Also, Dunadd, Sparta built walls during the game's timeframe.

It's really not accurate to the time period. It might be accurate to the wealthy Roman Empire - because again, wealthy - but some research showed in Britannia, about six settlements in the Roman era had walls. Six. Out of all of them. Most of them were built in the medieval ages.

But that'd also horribly unbalance the game it you just give walls to every Roman settlement. A worthy compromise is to make the walls a building, with a high cost to reflect the fact walls aren't just a casual thing. People didn't just wake up one day and go "Hey, I think we need a giant wall."

It's a significant investment of time, resources, and money. Not to mention, it directly inhibits the growth of your city, given you'd have to knock it down and re-work it when you wanted to expand outside its walls... or, of course, leave significant sections of your settlement undefended.

[TiagoJRToledo]

It's really not accurate to the time period. It might be accurate to the wealthy Roman Empire - because again, wealthy - but some research showed in Britannia, about six settlements in the Roman era had walls. Six. Out of all of them. Most of them were built in the medieval ages.

But that'd also horribly unbalance the game it you just give walls to every Roman settlement. A worthy compromise is to make the walls a building, with a high cost to reflect the fact walls aren't just a casual thing. People didn't just wake up one day and go "Hey, I think we need a giant wall."

It's a significant investment of time, resources, and money. Not to mention, it directly inhibits the growth of your city, given you'd have to knock it down and re-work it when you wanted to expand outside its walls... or, of course, leave significant sections of your settlement undefended.

I'd like to know what research is that that you consulted... maybe it's past its expiration date, no? And even if that was so in Britain, in the Mediterranean Basin, nothing could be farther from the truth: ever since the Calcolithic that medium/major settlements have walled themselves, way before the Romans. Heck, even before the Phoenicians.

[Akrotatos]

It's really not accurate to the time period. It might be accurate to the wealthy Roman Empire - because again, wealthy - but some research showed in Britannia, about six settlements in the Roman era had walls. Six. Out of all of them. Most of them were built in the medieval ages.

But that'd also horribly unbalance the game it you just give walls to every Roman settlement. A worthy compromise is to make the walls a building, with a high cost to reflect the fact walls aren't just a casual thing. People didn't just wake up one day and go "Hey, I think we need a giant wall."

It's a significant investment of time, resources, and money. Not to mention, it directly inhibits the growth of your city, given you'd have to knock it down and re-work it when you wanted to expand outside its walls... or, of course, leave significant sections of your settlement undefended.

You have been mocked by half the forum especially about these ridiculous claims about city walls yet continue unphased. I don't know which scenario ruins my faith in humanity more, that you are paid to post or actually believe this nonsense.

In the small chance of the second: ALL of ancient mediterannean towns were surrounded by walls. Sure, small towns like Platea would not have epic stone walls but they would have WALLS. THe Spartans besieged Platea for months. Syracuse had an island citadel and external walls and two ports. Iberia was dotted with small fortified towns like Numantia. Gaul was full of opidae. Britain had hill forts. Everybody had walls.

[Dunadd]

KrissLanza wrote

Originally Posted by Mr.IAmHere

*sniff sniff* I want Walls! Especially in Syracuse, Jerusalem, and anywhere else where I think I'll need one (So, basically everywhere ). As others have said its accurate for the time-frame.

Also, Dunadd, Sparta built walls during the game's timeframe.

It's really not accurate to the time period. It might be accurate to the wealthy Roman Empire - because again, wealthy - but some research showed in Britannia, about six settlements in the Roman era had walls. Six. Out of all of them. Most of them were built in the medieval ages.

It's entirely accurate. Every town and city in the Mediterannean with the exception of Sparta had had stone walls for hundreds of years - and every town was built with walls from the start because it was too risky not having any. Iberian towns had stone walls. Gallic towns had stone walls packed with earth between the inner and outer walls and with timber beams interlacing them when the romans invaded (Caesar called them 'murus gallicus').

Even in ancient Britain, which was the one partial exception apart from Sparta - and even before the Romans arrived - there were walled hill forts the size of towns for people to withdraw to if invaders arrived. And the Romans walled lots of towns and built lots of new walled towns after the invasion in the 1st century AD. They walled London and built walled colonies settled by former legionaries at Colchester, Chester, Wroxeter etc. See this site from the Association for Roman Archaeology, scrolling down to the sub-heading 'main towns' and this wikipedia page - note especially all the references to Roman gateways in towns - you don't have major gateways unless you have walls)

But that'd also horribly unbalance the game it you just give walls to every Roman settlement.

How? It'd mean every non-Roman settlement had them too - and it'd lead to more field battles as field armies would have time to return and fight battles against the besieging army and less crappy assaults on unwalled villages.

Historically this is how many field battles happened - and it led many towns to surrender to the victor after them - and in Rome 1 total war it was the commonest way of taking a town or city, without any assault on it - you'd besiege it, the AI would send an army to relieve it, you'd fight a field battle against the relieving AI army and the garrison and if you won, you'd have taken the settlement without any assault and without any further siege.

In what way are dull, annoying assaults on the weak garrisons of small unwalled villages more fun than taking them by winning a field battle in which the enemy attacks you from two directions at once with a full stack plus a garrison?

The game would be massively improved with more and bigger field battles and less assaults on towns if every settlement had walls.

A worthy compromise is to make the walls a building, with a high cost to reflect the fact walls aren't just a casual thing. People didn't just wake up one day and go "Hey, I think we need a giant wall."

Anyone who was founding a town though "first thing we need is a wall so we don't all get robbed, killed or enslaved by bandits, pirates, raiding tribes or enemy armies" - and they all built a wall. Sparta bizarrely decided to pull down its walls and was unique in this.

It's a significant investment of time, resources, and money.

And an essential one in the ancient world. People didn't think 'hey, building walls is expensive and hard work - i'll sleep better at night knowing i and my family could be raped, murdered, have our grain stores stolen so we starve, or be enslaved, so we'll just not bother".

Not to mention, it directly inhibits the growth of your city, given you'd have to knock it down and re-work it when you wanted to expand outside its walls... or, of course, leave significant sections of your settlement undefended.

No, it didn't. People built outside the walls when there was no room inside them, knowing they could at least retreat inside the city with some of their belongings and save those, their freedom and their lives if enemies, pirates, raiding tribes etc arrived. And they didn't have to knock down an existing wall to built a new one - they often built a new one and so had inner and outer walls, making the city even better fortified - as they could withdraw behind the inner walls even if the outer ones fell.

How is having no defences to your settlement better than having much of it defended. Why would people be more likely to go to live in a settlement with no defences to hide behind in emergencies than with some? Not only does nothing you say here have any basis in the history of the period, none of your arguments make sense either.

[Kasswok]

With Building I think we should take into consideration the end game... personally I'd love to have a lot more variety to the buildings that gives more variety of bonuses. There are a few resources that you need as an Empire, Food, Research, Public Order, Growth Rate, Money. Problem is, by the time you hit late game, you no longer need Research Growth Rate...? irrelevant, and most importantly, Money also becomes irrelevant due to high income.

The Province of Carthage is a rich land with 3 out of 4 towns having ports, but considering I'm Seleucid, by the time I conquer that region I'm already rolling in money, sure its fine to optimize and see how far I can bring the income to be, but in the grand scheme of things, whats an extra 10k income when my income is like 100k per turn? So I do the practical thing, I build farms and temples and move on, and thats pretty much the mode for the next 200 turns as you slowly conquer the land.. With Forced March, if you lose your army, you can get a fresh one and march into the front lines within 10 turns, so I don't even really worry about recruitment buildings anymore, just build for food and stability.

At least in Rome/Medieval, you can build every building and it becomes somewhat of a money sink, it'll delay the snowball effect but in the end when you're raking it in, you're just building them just to have them.

I think we need a resource or multiple resources that an empire needs and scales depending on your size, so we can build buildings that does stuff other than provide food and give public order...

[jamreal18]

Hope ca listens!

[Dunadd]

I think we need a resource or multiple resources that an empire needs and scales depending on your size, so we can build buildings that does stuff other than provide food and give public order...

In Rome 1 they could provide happiness, reduce squalor (basically improve hygiene), provide law (which reduced unrest and reduced corruption in settlements a long way from the capital), increase trade , provide new trade resources, provide more trade fleets, or even provide ancillaries (priests of a particular god etc) to governors of that settlement and other characters present theere -but that all got "streamlined" (i.e cut out with nothing replacing it) in Rome 2