Natural Events

[sirfiggin]

This has been troubling me for a while now... It was very pleasing to find in Rome Total War that CA tried to simulate the real world to some degree in their masterpiece by including plagues- random outbreaks of disease that limit population growth into the serious negative for several turns, in MD 2 they pleasingly took this insight further by including the Black Death, while it made a load of balls with my economy for a while, at least I knew that this was what really happened and that it had a major effect on the world and so was necessary. However, what made me rather miffed was that aside from earthquakes and the rare (really rare) flood, nothing happened. After 2 years or so of time to come up with new ideas I was disappointed by how sterile the campaign was, their wasn't even a real feeling of helplessness against the supernatural world, the atmosphere that was almost perfect in Medieval 1 was completely lost in the sequel, Medieval 2 just doesn't feel.....authentic, not only because it has the same setting as Rome but some of the features are just out of place or wrong, the Pope didn't have inquistors to send to all corners of Christendom, hunting down heretics and apostates like grim assassins from beyond, also the start date seems a bit strange. What happened in 1080 that made it the Middle Ages? The Middle Ages could technically begin when the Frankish Empire fragmented, or after Manzikert when the Roman Empire really hit the floor, or maybe even with the founding or Islam, or when the Normans conquered England and Sicily, your pick. Anyway..to make future games in the series more organic...I propose the inclusion of city fires, famines in the countryside, counter-factions(for all factions) triggered by specific events or conditions and revolutions, in government, technology and religion, all outside of the player's control. Any thoughts on this?

[Exarch]

they do simulate some realism in terms of the economy.
for eg. ur merchant trading in dyes in vienna region could find himself (with the same skill) trading for 32 florins to 40 florins in the next tur market economics is also out of our control.
secondly, if u look at ur settlement details, u'll see that a good or a bad harvest impacts on that city's economy and inevitably, on ur own treasury.

[sirfiggin]

by famine, I meant on the same scale as the Plague, in comparison to minor outbreaks of disease, their were several events of that scale, but they're not mentioned in the game at all, featuring them would highlight the importance of good farming for the welfare of the state rather than simply for economic/expansionist reasons, if the harvest fails, the people starve!