DVK901's work on custom settlements,THE PICTURES

[Darth Bane1]

Hey dvk, when you had remade the roman settlements, did you looked into the public baths buildings? Those have this annoying problem that enemy units float through walls and areas where the baths are and you can't really block the street there, as the defenders wander through it and attack the blockading unit from the side. Something that shouldn't happen, which I noticed yesterday in a siege.

[dvk901]

I'll check it out.

[feetman]

In rome total war when you built sanitation the old building would replace the new one on the battle map, but this doesn't make any sense why would they demolish their sewer when they build their aqueduct or demolish the bath house so they can build urban plumbing? Would you be able to keep the previous improvements?

[ur-Lord Tedric]

In most cases things are often simply built on top of other things - it is a relatively modern thing to dig/excavate deeply for foundations and the like (hence the archaeology checks that are done).

Sewers are often left completely intact and sometimes only rediscovered when digging a new tunnel. All underground/sub-way systems under major cities include abandoned or even never used stations and services - and that's only in the last 150 or so years. Let alone 'things' excavated/built at the same time and not in the public domain.

But replacement/new buildings that people can see - yes.

[Shmanky]

In most cases things are often simply built on top of other things - it is a relatively modern thing to dig/excavate deeply for foundations and the like (hence the archaeology checks that are done).

Sewers are often left completely intact and sometimes only rediscovered when digging a new tunnel. All underground/sub-way systems under major cities include abandoned or even never used stations and services - and that's only in the last 150 or so years. Let alone 'things' excavated/built at the same time and not in the public domain.

But replacement/new buildings that people can see - yes.

I think he was asking from a gameplay perspective. can you keep previous buildings on the battle map after they've been upgraded instead of replacing them is what he meant.

[dvk901]

In rome total war when you built sanitation the old building would replace the new one on the battle map, but this doesn't make any sense why would they demolish their sewer when they build their aqueduct or demolish the bath house so they can build urban plumbing? Would you be able to keep the previous improvements?

I have never liked the way RTW...and certainly do not like the way Rome2 handles buildings in general. Far too often, you would conquer an AI city only to find that it has almost nothing in it...or a huge city with a shrine and a trader. It's just a matter of the AI in general needing to build less than the player to keep people happy, or to make money. We corrected that somewhat in RS2 by restricting income to 'home' areas...this making it beneficial, even necessary, for the AI to build economic buildings, but as you point out...the Romans, for example, built many markets and forums. They didn't necessarily tear down the old ones.

For these reasons, anyway, the next version of RS2 will have NO buildings placed by, or necessarily related to what you build on the Strat map. The battlefield towns and cities will completely independent of the strat buildings. Instead, the towns and cities I have built will have everything...or at least most everything, that a town or city will have. They may have a market AND a forum or agora. They may have shrines and temples. They may have baths, barracks, cavalry buildings or maybe not. But all of them will at least look like they have what is necessary for the people living there.

I know this is all going to be my personal perspective...but I get to do that. But anyway, the idea is that you will conquer something that actually looks like it was worth the effort (even if it doesn't seem so on the Strat map). Almost all of the monstrous 'governor's palaces' and imperial palaces are gone. I used only what I perceived were the best made and looking buildings in RTW...all the others got removed. Many of these took up a ton of space, thus forcing the use of large and huge city models, and by getting rid of them I was allowed to create nice looking cities that are smaller and have less tortured pathfinding.

I have to admit beforehand that in some cases I have been unable to prevent...in a few cases...situations where troops can run or walk through buildings. The problem there is the 'vague' and sloppy pathfinding that CA used in its settlement models, combined with missing 'collision' models for most of the new buildings that were added. I tried to use RTW collision info where it would work, but sometimes the collision info is oriented 90 degrees 'off'...and this would in many cases block streets where that building was on the edge of the street. So I deemed it better to see the AI units walk through a building than not be able to walk down a street at all.

[Darth Bane1]

Ah, well. That's something that came into my mind with those restrictions. But it's only one of those very tiny problems which we can happily forget. It really sounds awesome, these new city layouts.

[tungri_centurio]

hi dvk can i ask you to make a change in the city of roma?

by removing the amphitheater to a place outside the city walls?
like you did with the temples..
it was only in the later years that they had that inside the city.
it was build over nero's golden palace and the arteficial lake he build.
before the flavians the amphitheater stood outside on the field of mars.
in rome the circus and forums was used for the purpose of execusions and gladiatorial fights.

it frees up a lot of space to build another forum(markets) or a temple(maybe vesta with the eternal fire)
and romulus hut that was preserved for century's to come.

anyway it's just a though i liked to share.
hail Dvk

[Ovidius Empiricus]

For these reasons, anyway, the next version of RS2 will have NO buildings placed by, or necessarily related to what you build on the Strat map. The battlefield towns and cities will completely independent of the strat buildings. Instead, the towns and cities I have built will have everything...or at least most everything, that a town or city will have. They may have a market AND a forum or agora. They may have shrines and temples. They may have baths, barracks, cavalry buildings or maybe not. But all of them will at least look like they have what is necessary for the people living there.

I really like this idea. As you say, it just isn't realistic to think that even a fairly small settlement, if it's supposed to be an important one that represents your control over a whole region, would not have rudimentary things like barracks, forums or something like it, fresh water sources of some kind, etc. It's weird to think it would work somehow as basically just a walled-in residential neighborhood, with basically nothing else. They had most of what they needed right there to survive, or else you wouldn't have this sort of town existing there at all (not as a useful one on the campaign map). So, it seems to follow that many of the "buildings" the player can make (right from the beginning of any building tree) should for the most part be thought of as upgrades or improvements on whatever systems the town already had, not something it totally lacked as a semi-functioning and important settlement until you came along. If that's not represented on your building list at the bottom of the screen in campaign mode, so what? Some less-essential things (mines, temples, and so on) wouldn't have been like that I guess, and of course different cities already start with different kinds of infrastructure in place. But anyway, I'd say you're doing great work (as always!) if you can separate a lot of the improvements we make on things, which are often meant to be more abstract anyway (making systems more efficient, etc.) from the actual buildings that you see in a siege battle that don't need to directly correspond to things like that.

[proyecto117]

This work is AMAZING! Is this available for RSII? 'cause I would really love to have it!

[Rex Basiliscus]

Really nice work there dvk! Ofc I especially like the Greek and Hellenistic cities Nice shot of Amasia, with its long shape instead of a vanilla RTW square ... Keep up the good work

[Quintillius]

Moar pics wanted!

[Architect of Doom]

Did Carthaginian cities really have elements of Greek architecture like that? I always though Rome II to be painfully inaccurate when representing Carthage, as I though it would look more eastern in aesthetics.

[Quintillius]

In my opinion every city at that time was heavily influenced by Hellenistic culture. Even Carthage.

Roma Surrectum submod updated (new UI textures):

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...1#post14587194

[dvk901]

Did Carthaginian cities really have elements of Greek architecture like that? I always though Rome II to be painfully inaccurate when representing Carthage, as I though it would look more eastern in aesthetics.

I have had little nice to say about RomeII, but I do rather like the way they depicted Carthage. From what I have read and dug up, considering that not much exists to compile anything very accurate, Carthage was heavily influenced by the Greeks, just as all Mediterranean nations were in this era. Carthage was also very wealthy and advanced, so some speculate that Carthage would've been much more like a Greek city....say Syracuse...than it would be a far eastern 'dirt city'.

[Quintillius]

How has North-Africa become so poor... there is not even a shadow left of the mighty and rich empires of that time. Egypt, Cartage, Roman North-Africa...

[Quintillius]

How has North-Africa become so poor... there is not even a shadow left of the mighty and rich empires of that time. Egypt, Cartage, Roman North-Africa...

[_Tartaros_]

North africa lost it´s favoir very long time ago, but mostly because of less freedom, capitalism and accumulation of labour.
corruption and bad nobilities that favoir there own wealth and power above anything else.
first the islamic occupation with an cultural holocoust, later piratestates of the babary coast that are a completly inefficient, unproductive and destructive societystructures.
then france/brisitish and italian imperialism + after wwII the viral socialistic/religious/cooperatistic dictatorships.

[ur-Lord Tedric]

Do not also forget that there has been a significant amount of climate change over the last 3,000 years - it's not just a 'modern' issue. A review of the settlement mapping from antiquity shows a massive number all along the N African shores, which were much more fertile then than now. The Nile has continued to sustain Egypt, but desert encroachment all along the coastal regions Westwards has taken its toll.

As to the Carthage being 'Greekish' issue - 'Eastern influence' pretty much seems to have stopped at the desert fringe West of the Nile in Africa; although little remains. Everything West to the 'pillars of Hercules' near the Mediterranean coast was seemingly greatly influenced by Greece and many colonies founded - Greco - Etruscan - Punic et al. Equally all around the Eastern Med' too and the Black Sea coasts. The 'East' then perhaps 'finished' about halfway through modern Turkey.

[Quintillius]

Do you have any sources about that? I cannot really get convincing information from Google. I would happily see anything on this.