Ways to enhance realism

[dvk901]

'Realism' and 'historical content' are very important to portray in altering the original concept of RTW as it came from CA. And I would like as much realism and history to be in RS as possible. However, I still believe that our focus has to be on helping the player have fun, and be challenged, in making 'new history' when they play this Mod.

So I'm starting this thread as a 'think tank' thread for ways to make the Mod more challenging, relaistic, and still fun.

The implemention of 'economic penalties' for expanding into areas outside your own nation is one way...the further you expand, the more you pay.

Implementing 'forced building' in order to keep your own citizens happy is another. In fact, I think this will help delay expansion a lot, because it's going to cost dearly in a number of ways if you DON'T please your citizens.

But what other ideas might people have? One I thought of would involve scripts, I suppose, and I wouldn't want to overdue this. But instead of wasting time on making 'historical things happen' (which are often meaningless in a game than never plays historically anyways), how about using them to make the game more challenging and fun.

For example, a 'national response' script section that has the single purpose of spawning several armies in response to losing one of your starting regions.
Nothing complicated or too specific....just a few good size 'mean' armies get raised because somebody invaded you.

[♔Jean-Luc Picard♔]

i suggest, if there isnt already, a population growth bonus when you go into a city with an army. if you look at it realistically, 1000+ men just walked into a city that havent seen a woman in months or years. there is going to be some... unexpected unions while the troops are in town. some of these will produce children. i think a + .5% population bonus would make it more realistic. and with each turn lasting 6 months, i think its safe to assume that there will be some offspring the turn after these visits.

just a thought

Skandranon Rakshae

[cherryfunk]

I'd like to do more with the map at the campaign start, by more accurately depicting these nation-states as being already developed to a certain degree, not something that just popped up overnight like a mushroom.

One element of this has been dvk's insistence on having the faction's capital city be fairly advanced. But we can take this further, for example we could:

- Simulate borders and frontiers with forts and watchtowers, in those places where two factions had a history of conflict. For example Rome's northern border with the Celts could have a couple of forts and watchtowers and a small field army; likewise the border between the Seleucids and their arch-enemies the Ptolemites.

- Give each faction a strong army with a number of elite units and a good commander.

- Give some factions strong navies, if they historically would have had them. For example Egypt and Rome.

- Place the 'towns' on the map in locations where significant towns or cities were really located, and connect them with roads so each province looks like a little network of towns and roads.

- Make sure that we recreate important geographical features like the pass at Thermopolae; the big scale of the map gives us an opportunity here that most mods don't have -- the more realistic we can make the terrain -- and the more beautiful -- the better the gameplay experience will be...

[dvk901]

I agree 100%, Cherry...which is why I'm anxious to get that map. But also, before we do this, we need to have it finalized. Messing around with regions...eliminating, adding....is why I've done nothing with even the map I have. Because you end up doing it all over again.

But once we get the map, maybe you can take it and get the co-ordinates for where forts and some of these armies should be? Do you know how to do that on the campaign map? And of course, city by city what needs what buildings. This has to be planned out beforehand. The map is one of the most important features in the game, and a lot of work to set up.

Also, in order to put the towns on roads, I will have to have a whole separate project, adding a road to every single settlement to see where they go, and then get the co-ords for every one of them so the towns actually sit on the roads.

But right now, I'm stuck by two things...no map, and trying to fix the economy of the existing mod. All the work I did on half the files adding the Boii and removing the senate is already down the tubes because I'v had to change so much. So right now, everything seems to moving backwords!

[cherryfunk]

Here are a couple of things that Rise of Persia does that I rather like:

-- General unit types vary by culture. In Greek cultures they're hoplites, in Mesopotamian/Egyptian they're chariots, in other cultures they're cavalry. This gives a nice flavor to each faction and helps make the campaigns play differently. Of course with Governors, we are letting the player mix things up (I now maintain a 'city assault' army led by a Governor with his heavy infantry) -- but it would be neat if we went further with this idea. What if we had a Governor but he had almost no troops, then a more expensive infantry general in some cultures, like Greek or Dacian, as well as a Cavalry general. The type of infantry used in the General unit would be faction-dependent. Perhaps a Skythian foot general has tough armored archers, while a Greek foot general commands hoplites, a Celtic foot general commands heavy infantry armed with javelins, etc. -- i.e. the 'top of the line' for that particular culture.

The fact that Roman generals did dismount and fight on foot at times means we could have an infantry Roman general with a Principes or infantry Extraordinarii bodyguard. This is all historically accurate, and will give the player the ability to tailor their armies more to their preferred play style -- and make each culture fight a little differently.

-- They have split the factions into two main types: those that expand by assimilation, which produce the local units in a newly captured region, and those that expand by colonization, which produce their own units in a captured region. Some factions use both methods, so you can choose which building-tree to build in each new city you capture.

But once we get the map, maybe you can take it and get the co-ordinates for where forts and some of these armies should be? Do you know how to do that on the campaign map?

I can figure that out, once we're up and beta testing I'll examine each faction's start and make suggestions.

[dvk901]

I like the concepts here, but there are a number of 'logistical' problems with a few.
First, the Generals MUST have a discernable number of units in order to tell the difference between a Governor and a General. And Squid believes he's found a way to actually 'choose a path' for a family member, by moving him out of a town after he comes of age if you want him to be a General, or leaving him there if you want to 'tailor' his upbringing to government rule.

Getting too many types of generals is only going to confuse matters a lot, because RTW doesn't allow you to visually see the difference unless you move the unit out of a town and look at his bodyguard. A 'foot' and 'cavalry' (or mounted, let's say) general is confusing enough.

BUT, varying the BODYGUARDS is easy enough...as you say...a Hoplite Guard, a Chariot Guard, Cavalry, etc.....you can make anything a General's guard...even an Onager! (hee hee)

As far as 'assimilation' or 'colonization'...well, doesn't the availability of Mercs in various areas allow this naturally? Wouldn't a greater variety, perhaps, accomplish the same 'choice'?

Or, perhaps just make local units available to cultures we decide would prefer assimilation, and let the player choose to build them or not. An 'assimilation' type culture might be...who? I really can't think of any.
Logically speaking, I can't see any culture conquering Rome and recruiting Legions. Or would Scythia or Sarmatia conquer Greece and field Hoplites and Phalanx units? Would they even know how to use them? I don't know....I'd be curious to see what ROP factions they thought would do this.

I know the Persians did this, because they marched on Greece with a nut-case army full of every weird unit they could pick up. But they're a century or two removed from our new start date, and we know that their 'successors'...Parthia and Seleucid, really wouldn't do this. Would they? Maybe if they were having to fight in Greece or Italy...I don't know.

[cherryfunk]

Getting too many types of generals is only going to confuse matters a lot, because RTW doesn't allow you to visually see the difference unless you move the unit out of a town and look at his bodyguard. A 'foot' and 'cavalry' (or mounted, let's say) general is confusing enough.

Oh I agree, I'm thinking of only 2 types of generals per faction, 1 foot and 1 cavalry. What each general's bodyguards would be, would be faction-specific. For example:

-- Greek cultures would have a hoplite general [foot] and a heavy cav. general [horse].

-- Parthians would have a heavy archer general [foot] and a heavy horse archer general.

-- Skythians would have a hoplite general and a heavy horse general.

-- Celts would have a berserker infantry general and a heavy horse general (how's that for neat, a general that goes berserk!)

Etc. and so on for each faction. So every faction would play a little differently, because you'd have to use your generals differently. And you could pick, infantry or cavalry, when you hire a new general. Your third option would be a Governor, who would be named such (and so easy to tell apart), who would be cheaper, but have very few men (as you had originally set it up); so he wouldn't be any good in a fight, just meant to govern your towns.

As far as 'assimilation' or 'colonization'...well, doesn't the availability of Mercs in various areas allow this naturally? Wouldn't a greater variety, perhaps, accomplish the same 'choice'?

Yes, it would recreate the recruitment of local troops -- and I can tell you from the change you made in the Crimean merc pool that having a good selection available really makes an impact. I recruited all the Sarmatian horse archers I could for several years and fielded a Bosporan horse archer army to raid enemy territory -- it gave me some great strategic options, but I had to plan for it and build it up.

But what this doesn't do is mimic the 'un-reproducable' nature of some units. Having a core group of units that can only be recruited in your home lands -- like the unique city holites, or Carthage's Sacred band -- makes your home provinces more valuable, and keeps you from 'blitzing' because your best troops must be brought up from the homelands.

So actually by using these two features -- mercs to represent a local pool of soldiery, and home AOR units to represent your most elite forces -- we can get a similar effect (with more variety if we tailor the merc pools and give them a good selection).

[Deus ret.]

Really interesting stuff you keep posting here guys...even though I'm not really fit for adding in something myself. Except that an onager general would be cool But keep on debating! RS might become even more great than it is now...

[dvk901]

Cherry, you hit on something that popped on a lightbulb in my head! A lot of factions are MISSING that 'special unit'....that 'Sacred Band, Praetorian Guard, Royal Guard'.......a unit available, as you say, 'near your homelands' that can come from your capitol city (or some special place of recruitment) and crush an opponent.

This is something that's been on my mind since reading a dialogue in the SPQR forum where someone was saying that having Auxilia available everywhere was 'unhistorical'...claiming that the Romans used 'local auxilia' up unti and probably even after the reforms.
A debate started about mercenaries....and one thing LT1956 said really struck me. He said he "didn't want SPQR to become Mercenary Total War like RTR and EB, which is essentially what they are". (that's a quote, folks)

What sort of filled my mind as I read this dialogue was the idea that it's nice to have a lot of mercenaries, and certainly historical in many, many aspects.
BUT, (and I think I know where LT is coming from here, only I'm going to expand on it) these nations and Kingdoms and tribes were no different THEN from nations now....they had 'National pride'. They had valor, values, things that inspired them, so when they took the battlefield they were inspired to fight and die for it.
How do you depict this in a game? Well, probably by having the player use an army that is 'MY ARMY, MY PEOPLE, MY UNIFORMS, MY FLAGS AND BANNERS'...even if that's a little kooky. It fills you with a sense of purpose and pride.....like I get watching a Legion marching to battle with it's own banners, gleaming metal and shields that say "This is who we are!!"

Sure, you COULD depict a Rome with an army full of different looking units and a kind of 'rag-tag' look about them...and it would more than likely be more historical for much of Rome's early history, and maybe throughout...I don't know. But you would be visually missing that sense of the 'spectacular us' against the 'decked out them'. A 'Spartans against the rabble of the Persians' sort of view, I guess. Who looks better? Who looks cooler, and would want to make you play them?

I realize we're talking about making things more real, but I wouldn't want to lose the sense of 'unity' that 'MY OWN ARMY' provides. That's why it struck me that some factions really don't have a really special unit that rocks like a Praetorian or a Sacred Band. Having these, in tandem with a variety of mercs would be a good thing.

But CA tended to make 'crap units' mercs...at least it seems that way to me. Middle of the road 'ho-hum' units I never even bother to look at, even if I NEED them! LOL. Maybe you could 'investigate' a number of 'area specific' mercs that would share a more 'elite' unit we have, and we could make them a little more interesting.

As far as the Generals, I like the varied bodyguard concept, but I must say I'm rather enjoying sometimes using a 'foot' General with a 'Cavalry General' in some of my armies...or even just a Foot General. The unit itself becomes a more valued asset, and Generals are FAR less likely to get 'unhistorically killed' in battles. It really pisses me off when I have a reinforcing army controlled by the AI, and my valuable dumbass Cavalry General in that army charges into a unit of Celtic (kill everything) Warriors like an idiot and gets killed!!
This has got to be an issue with CAVALRY, not the General. Put the same General in an Infantry unit, and he's less likely to go charging stupidly into the jaws of death!

[Drtad]

Cherry, you hit on something that popped on a lightbulb in my head! A lot of factions are MISSING that 'special unit'....that 'Sacred Band, Praetorian Guard, Royal Guard'.......a unit available, as you say, 'near your homelands' that can come from your capitol city (or some special place of recruitment) and crush an opponent.

Hmm... This has got me thinking... I like this... Brings me a ton of probably ahistorical but very cool unit ideas.

[cherryfunk]

Cherry, you hit on something that popped on a lightbulb in my head! A lot of factions are MISSING that 'special unit'....that 'Sacred Band, Praetorian Guard, Royal Guard'.......a unit available, as you say, 'near your homelands' that can come from your capitol city (or some special place of recruitment) and crush an opponent.

Exactly!

I realize we're talking about making things more real, but I wouldn't want to lose the sense of 'unity' that 'MY OWN ARMY' provides. That's why it struck me that some factions really don't have a really special unit that rocks like a Praetorian or a Sacred Band. Having these, in tandem with a variety of mercs would be a good thing.

Well this is what I was trying to convey earlier when I talked about the impact that the Bosporan Hoplite unit had on the Bosporan campaign. When we added that unit, it made the faction seem more like a 'nation-state' than just a collection of military units. Suddenly I HAd to have a core of Bosporan Hopites in all my armies -- not only because they looked cool, but because they were Bosporans! I tell ya, the faction became about 100% cooler just due to that one unit. Which is why I started pushing for 2 or 3 more unique Bosporan units -- even if they're a similar unit type to other factions, the unique name and skin give it a whole different feeling.

So I would suggest that every faction have 2 or 3 special units, recruitable only in their homeland, that are an elite around which you can build your armies. And these could be tailored a little even for similar factions -- Bosporan units might have more ranged weapons due to Skythian influence, Athenian/Spartan might have heavier armor, Belgae might have swimming ability (if we add it) -- we should consider every way that we can 'tailor' these units, to make each faction play a bit differently, even if they have similar rosters.

Which is also why I like the faction-specific General units, because they too will help tailor the factions. Let's give the Belgae a chariot general, for example -- wouldn't that be cool? Within the basic framework of historical plausibility, let's mix things up a bit...

[rory o'kane]

so, is the Emperor unit still in? just kidding! this sounds all well and good, but perhaps we should try and get the core of RS2 up and running first?

[dvk901]

so, is the Emperor unit still in? just kidding! this sounds all well and good, but perhaps we should try and get the core of RS2 up and running first?

Yes, it is..but it's just a General Unit, like any other.

[Angel]

I got some ideas.

How bout making Greek cities have foot generals? I never read anywhere where they had cavalry as their bodyguards. Same thing with carthage right?
Im sure other factions probably. But anyways I think this will very interesting.

Also I already doing an enhance in Realism by giving terrian a defantly bonus.

stat_ground. Is what I mean.

Now when you go to battle, the TERRIAN matters very much and if you choose not to use it, the AI will defenetly use and destroy you. So before battles in campaign map, Its best to choose your terrian if you can help it.

[removeduser_426582376423734]

Have you thought about my Magister Peditum/Equitum/General idea?

[dvk901]

Have you thought about my Magister Peditum/Equitum/General idea?

Yes, and I have been testing fighting with a mounted and foot General just to see how it works.

Drtad...no, not 'immobile', anyway. The only way you can 'immobilize' an army is with a named character with a 'nomove' trait of some kind. Once he dies or you change him...then they are free to move.


Regarding more issues of realism, I'm wondering if it's possible, with a script, to inflict every so many turns a 'mini-plague' that lasts just one turn but would reduce the numbers of units in armies just a bit...to simulate a kind of natural death rate. It is rather odd that you can have armies around in forts, or just guarding passes for 50 years and nobody but maybe the general dies.

Also, concerning the Free people armies all around, the realistic part of this comes from my theory that an enemy traveling army...or any army that comes into your territory...would be throwing up a lot of dust, causing a ruckous, looting the surrounding area for food and shelter, and that word of this would pass throughtout a region. This would cause a region\tribe\kingdom to raise an army to face this threat and try to stop them. This is why I placed the armies I did on the map...

[Deus ret.]

Regarding more issues of realism, I'm wondering if it's possible, with a script, to inflict every so many turns a 'mini-plague' that lasts just one turn but would reduce the numbers of units in armies just a bit...to simulate a kind of natural death rate. It is rather odd that you can have armies around in forts, or just guarding passes for 50 years and nobody but maybe the general dies.

You're touching a good point there. Attrition was a problem for most ancient (actually up to industrial times) armies, especially if they were in hostile territory where no regular food supplies would be available and, put euphemistically, the army had to rely on the surrounding countryside for food.
An interesting example stems from the time period just after the scope of RTW. When conducting the siege of Masada, a zealot fortress near the Dead Sea, the Romans somehow had to secure supplies for the 10,000 (!!) men who besieged the stronghold and, over time, managed to heap up a ramp leading to the gate.* Needless to say, losses were considerable in the Roman army camp even though the area was well secured by Roman forces.

In terms of the mod, would it be possible to implement some kind of minor attrition rate once own armies leave friendly territory? 'Friendly' would also mean countries with which there exists an alliance or military access.


*if anyone's interested: the ramp still exists today and all the Judaeans inside the fortress committed collective mass suicide once the ramp reached their gates. They hadn't suffered as the Romans did because they had access to fresh water, whereas supplies for the Romans had to be transported by mule for a considerable distance through really hostile territory (well, rock desert).

[dvk901]

Have you thought about my Magister Peditum/Equitum/General idea?

Could you re-post this idea in here, I can't seem to find it. I've actually observed that foot General's are much less likely to get killed, and their very effective in battles. So I've tried just using them.

[Drtad]

Would it be possible to have an elite of the elite unit (immobile) garrisoned in the capital of every faction, sort of like a Royal Guard? It would make it pretty hard to conquer capitals as it was historically.

[dvk901]

I know the story well...one of the Legions, or a couple I put in this mod were there. The Romans were a very stubborn people when it came to revolts. They crushed them ruthlessly.