Campaign and Immersion

[dogukan]

Heyya, I am so glad to see the alpha of the campaign on youtube these days. Glad you guys have came so far. I had some questions that I wanted to discuss here.

So obviously, a huge problem with the game is the map. The inability to mod the map and the slot-system for buildings. This is a huge immersion-breaker that kills the sense of building an empire.
And since we are in the medieval era in the game, the fact that there is less connection to the campaign map is quiet sad. I kind of feel like the biggest challenge will be to make the campaign map feel alive, unique and immersive.

DEI did a great job with this in RTW2, but at least in that game the map still kind of felt okay due to era and the Roma-Centrism of the game.
Now imagine playing a European faction in this, and capturing 1-2 settlements changes the whole European map hugely.
The classic period was a time of empire building, so weird expansion options can be understandable.
Even in this mod, I'd say weird expansions of a faction in the eastern portion of the map will still be immersive. But what happens in Europe? You have to sit in 3-4 settlements for hundreds of turns to make the game immersive. And even there, there is little to do on the map
So you need to expand. How will it look like when Kingdom of France, Bohemia, duchy of Milan takes over Europe?

The fact is, in this game, expanding through the map is so easy and there is little opportunity to create means to have an immersive-empire building feeling. Like in MTW engine, you could, say, create building types that could "represent" different types of relating to conquered territory, sort of like in Europa Barbarorum.

I kind of feel like the biggest advantage to this mod would be to emphasize huge battles, large garrisons, large army slots and a way to make expansion slow and grindy. Also maybe make rebellions a bigger issue? I don't know.

I am looking very forward to the mod, but this is so unfortunate. The campaign map design is absolutely horrible by CA that destroys so much potential about depth to gameplay.

I'd like to hear your opinions and perhaps even solutions if you got any to this problem.
I have seen some scripts which looked real intriguing and can give life to the map.

[Vidovit]

I do understand this concert as taking 2-3 towns with any faction would complete it's historical reach so yes conquest should be hard - like in DeI and especially for big cities, the AI should camp with some forces in their capital.
You'll have the crusades option so making a crusader state is immersive for western powers. Italian states could get quests to conquer strategic ports along the road to the Holy Lands.

I'd also like that less buildings are made when the game starts so you choose the economy.
Hopefully the AI accepts peace after they lose a settlement, diplomacy in TW games is horrible so imagine being france and england doesn't want peace after losing 2-3 invasions.. you'd have to go to england and take it's lands which is not something i'd do in my play through.

Not a big fan of rebellions, especially in TW games when they can spawn each turn like they don't get tired of war.

[dogukan]

I know rebellions are not fun. But in this period, a lot more inner conflict with lords happened within kingdoms than with outside kingdoms no?

I just feel like conquering a province in Europe should be a lot more rewarding and difficult.

I also feel like there might be some scripts. I saw nicae turn into the Byzantine empire.

So maybe, European factions can get an even that changes their name to something more than a "kingdom" to represent an imperial identity. And the rest Europe can maybe stack up against the kingdom that expanded enough to turn into this "imperial entity"?

Italians can of course have creation of the Italian kingdom process. That geography can easily feel quiet dynamic.
But when it comes to HRE, Germany and Kingdoms of England, Scotland, Sweden, Denmark...etc It would feel weird.

[Slytacular]

We're working on name changes that will allow something like the County of Toulouse rename itself into an Empire, or a Kingdom depending on how much it makes sense for the pope to grant. We already have a large garrison force for each city. Number of armies are limited to reduce the spam of armies an AI could send towards a player. Its also a better design to the strategy of the game to have limitations, and cannon foddering large armies as a strategy would be tiring and redundant. As for the campaign modding scene... yeah, not much we can do.

[dogukan]

I see. I guess such name changes could help indeed. I just feel like european borders should be kept somewhat more rigid for longer.


Also, do you intend to make armies bigger? I saw on alpha, armies number around 2k.
Do you plan to do 4500-5000 per army or will that be for the submod scene?

One more question! Will there be a good amount of AOR units to represent local cultures?


Edit:
More questions: Is there any plausible way to represent Novgorod that you can think of?

And are there plans to add roaming tribes to steppes, iran and anatolia? Perhaps as disloyal vassals of factions there?

[Ltd.]

Making armies bigger will probably not be the standard, but a submod, if people want it,
Even though we try to make the mod run as best as possible, I can promise you that bigger armies would make the mod run less than desirable on sieges or 2v2s , etc, on , I dare say, any affordable computer.
Also, since we cannot make the battle maps larger, too many units would make the battlefiled look like a playground around the block.

Multiple AOR units as well as mercenaries will be added later.

I´ll let the colleagues in charge of the campaign answer your ather Questions.

[Beregond]

I'd also propose to lower armies' campaign movement, as currently it's a bit absurd seen in Milan campaign spotlight - you can march to 3 or 4 cities right off the start and lay siege to them. Having less movement points in general could help keep the borders varied longer.

[FrozenmenSS]

I'd also propose to lower armies' campaign movement, as currently it's a bit absurd seen in Milan campaign spotlight - you can march to 3 or 4 cities right off the start and lay siege to them. Having less movement points in general could help keep the borders varied longer.

But then you have factions like the Rus,Cumans and the Mongols who have to travel long distances in Modern Russia.

[Vidovit]

Yes that milan start is a bit funny, he can strike 4 towns from his starting town. If anything Bern shouldn't be attackable as you have to pass the alps.

[KingTutEgy]

Few observations, the limited building slot system is a hindrance on the realism and creativity for the mod. It is sad that you guys can't do much about it. Also, I really feel that Levant needs more cities especially the coast. Cities such as, Tripoli, Tyre, Tortosa, Gaza, Ascalon, Jaffa, and Beirut . All of those cities held significant value during the crusades. Also, in Egypt there is only Alexandria and Cairo from what I can see from the map, I think Arish and Damietta could be added. Damietta is very important considering the crusaders attempts to capture the city. Are there any chance of decreasing the sizes of settlements on the map to fit more settlements? I understand that the campaign is still under development and I wish the team good luck.

[KAM 2150]

You cant add new cities to the map.