Roma Surrectum III preview: The campaign map environment

[20ninescene]

I said I was going to make a preview of the new campaign map environment too, so here it is. First of all I want to highlight a few new features:

Feature 1:
Realistic naval restrictions

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Explanation: historically ships in ancient times weren't very seaworthy so they only traveled along shores and they only crossed the shortest distances between islands.

Feature 2:
Dunes deserts ground type

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Explanation: I used an unused ground type to make dunes deserts. When you fight here you'll see a lot of dunes... and dunes... and also dunes... did I mentioned the word "dunes"??

Further I'm gonna show you some random screenshots I made from the campaignmap:

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What is I changed?
Well, I used the trees from Medieval 2 total war and I made different variants of some trees with different textures. I also edited the ground textures a bit.

edit: I further tweaked and fine tuned the whole environment so an update will come soon.

[Darth Bane1]

Really beautiful! The world map never looked so realistic.

[Grimbold]

Im not sure how i feel about naval movement restrictions

[dvk901]

Im not sure how i feel about naval movement restrictions

We'll make this optional. It will be the default, but the original files will also be provided for those who don't care for it.

[SD_Man]

I dune know how I feel about all this ...
srry I couldn't resist

These changes are beyond extraordinarii especially all the love given to the trees and I guess my only complaint would have to be how bland the shorelines look.
I don't know if the shores can be modified but in comparison to RomeII's massive cliffs they look the outlines of a stitching:

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I apollo-gize if I seem like a negative Nathan but I simply had to share how I felt about RTW's booty borders.

[Ciciro]

[ur-Lord Tedric]

We'll make this optional. It will be the default, but the original files will also be provided for those who don't care for it.

Probably a good idea. I like the restriction a lot and hope it's not mitigated by tweaking the movement ranges up either.

However, there could be an unintended consequence to the behaviour of the AI, especially in relation to its willingness to conduct seaborne invasions. That will only become apparent with a lot of subjective testing.

And again - outstanding work!

[ferike_2007]

However, there could be an unintended consequence to the behaviour of the AI, especially in relation to its willingness to conduct seaborne invasions. That will only become apparent with a lot of subjective testing.

I can't resist to quote from the Quotes: A collision at sea can ruin your entire day.

Spawning pirates could easily surprise the player in these narrow sea corridors... bye-bye 1 ship carried invading troops.
I also like the idea and also the challenge.

[romanius24]

If the AI works then those restrictions to fleets would be amazing.It focuses their movement more and hopefully more 1 ship fleets will die.

[Grimbold]

We'll make this optional. It will be the default, but the original files will also be provided for those who don't care for it.

Don't get me wrong, im not dissing the idea, it's just something that i'll have to try first before making my mind up.

Btw, how about putting storms in? If my memory serves me, RTW had sea storms back in the day.

[dvk901]

Storms are in RS2, but they rarely work in RTW\BI.....and will work in Alex.

[Shmanky]

Storms are in RS2, but they rarely work in RTW\BI.....and will work in Alex.

It's looking awesome, you guys are doing some great work. Any idea of when we can expect RSIII to be released?

[jermagon]

I really like the new details especially the desert and the dunes looks like a satellite picture, and I agree with you,ancient navigation heavily relied on port supplies, in other word sea route = ports

[Alavaria]

I can't resist to quote from the Quotes: A collision at sea can ruin your entire day.

Spawning pirates could easily surprise the player in these narrow sea corridors... bye-bye 1 ship carried invading troops.
I also like the idea and also the challenge.

Eh, don't people use these port-to-port? You have to be AI levels of bad to actually have your ship be catchable outside a port (which it will lose full stacks to, now and then)

I really like the new details especially the desert and the dunes looks like a satellite picture, and I agree with you,ancient navigation heavily relied on port supplies, in other word sea route = ports

Yeah.

[ferike_2007]

Eh, don't people use these port-to-port? You have to be AI levels of bad to actually have your ship be catchable outside a port (which it will lose full stacks to, now and then)

Not at all, or at least not me. In old RTW times I learned by bitter events to build powerful fleets to transport my troops through map where I want.

However I like this naval restriction idea, as Wraith said: historically ships in ancient times weren't very seaworthy so they only traveled along shores and they only crossed the shortest distances between islands.

[Grimbold]

Eh, don't people use these port-to-port? You have to be AI levels of bad to actually have your ship be catchable outside a port (which it will lose full stacks to, now and then)

Question is: why are you crossing the seas with weak fleets? If you're gonna troops across deep waters, then it's obvious you should do it with strong fleets.

[tungri_centurio]

i like the idea for naval restrictions,but the FOW on the sea should be gone then.that looks not so good.
and more pirates at sea please.

all the rest looks so pretty.verry nice work Wraith

[DeathtoEgo]

Not at all, or at least not me. In old RTW times I learned by bitter events to build powerful fleets to transport my troops through map where I want.

However I like this naval restriction idea, as Wraith said: historically ships in ancient times weren't very seaworthy so they only traveled along shores and they only crossed the shortest distances between islands.

Ancient sea vessels were very seaworthy, trade vessels could stay on the open sea for long periods of time. The problem was that the warships were built for speed and maneuverability, so there was very little room for food and water, which naturally would have required the ships to dock or land for the night, also the boats were open so there was no refuge from the sun or the weather which would also be very uncomfortable for a crew that was on the water for a prolonged length of time. I like the naval restrictions also, I just hope that there won't be any issues with too many ships bottlenecking up any narrow passages, I wouldn't want to have to engage a faction I was at peace with just because he was being stupid and won't move his ships.

[20ninescene]

I indeed confused two things with each other (ships at that time weren't sea worthy enough to cross an ocean but they were indeed sea worthy enough to cross the Mediterranean sea) and ships don't bottleneck because I added an edge of shallow sea at the border of the passable area now you have: 2 pixels shallow sea, two pixels deep sea and again 2 pixels shallow sea (movement is twice as fast on shallow sea and the AI prefers it).

[Sint]

I don't know if the shores can be modified but in comparison to RomeII's massive cliffs they look the outlines of a stitching:

Looks still better to be honest,the cliffs are just too huge and too unrealistic.