Grumpy Slow old Farts: Total War
I'm coming back to RTW after an extended vacation, after some time of having no gaming computer, and after that not being able to find the disc. I had been playing Civ 4 for a while, so, in comparison, a few things occurred to me about RTW:
-Civ 4 is a terribly abstract game. Learning Civ 4 is like learning chess; everything is so removed and symbolic of historical combat, that the rules seem completely arbitrary. Comparatively, RTW mechanics intuitively make sense and seem more "realistic". Anyone who's studied a bit of classical history is going to feel right at home.
-Civ 4 has so many more interconnected mechanics, brutally competent AI, and demands such absurd multitasking that the only reason the game is even playable is that it has such a slick, slick, slick interface. A great many features from the Civ 4 interface could be profitably placed in a TW game:
1) At the beginning of each turn, a Civ 4 player is automatically alerted to any enemy units that have wandered into their line of sight.
2) Diplomacy can be conducted without having to maneuver a diplomatic unit over to the other faction's territory. Presumably there is some sort of embassy. Note that in RTW, many factions often cluster their diplomats around one city, almost accomplishing the same thing.
3) The player will be informed of cities that are not building anything at the beginning of each turn.
4) Financial, Domestic, Military, and other relevant overviews of the player's empire can be brought up without having to navigate multiple, branching menus.
5) Movement through friendly territory is about twice as fast as movement through enemy territory, which makes shuffling garrisons less of a huge pain.
6) The player is automatically notified of non-garissoned spies and armies with movement points availible the next turn.
I could probably think of more things that would be fun to have, but it is my understanding that the code is somewhat inflexible with regards to most of these things and that they are probably not possible. Oh well; such is life.
Maybe I'm just getting old and slow, but it occurs to me that the reason that most of these things would be fun is because they would cut down on, or simplify a lot of the housework that makes maintaining a large, late-game empire such a chore.
I don't want to have to wait three turns for my home guard forces to get stationed in the appropriate locations. Why is it that merchant ships can make it from point a to point b instantaneously but these lard butts take one and a half years? I don't want to have to pull up the agents roster each time I want to make a trade proposal because my poor diplomat is lost on the enormous friggen screen somewhere. I don't want to worry about what's going to happen to public order in the city when my faction leader passes away. If he's such a bloody good administrator of public affairs that his mere presence can calm the masses, then why didn't he arrange his affairs better? The bloody point of a computer strategy game over a tabletop strategy game is that the computer can do lots of the housekeeping for you. Why, then, are we suffering through a thousand administrative tasks that don't remotely involve commanding huge armies to slaughter other huge armies? Let's face it; that's where the engine really shines.
So, with that rant out of my system, I (somewhat jokingly) propose Grumpy Slow old Farts: Total War; a mod for people who are cranky and just want to get on with it.
-You will not have to wait friggen centuries for your cities to grow large enough to get your entire roster of units.
-If there are any military reform events, they will apply to all factions equally and simultaneously. No old units will become unavailible; that's just silly.
-There will be no portions of the map where all the settlements are annoyingly far away from each other. If certain regions near the edges of the map must unavoidably be sparse, they will start the game with roads.
Corrolary: There will be no faction that can't see what's going on within their own borders at the beginning of the game. That's just silly. They will start with an appropriate number of watch towers to keep tabs on their own territory.
-All factions will be given copious, and roughly equal numbers of buildings that reduce squalor, unhappiness, et cetera.
-Trade and mining revenue will both be increased to the point where they actually matter compared to taxes. Are we to believe that the Romans attacked the strategic sources of tin in Iberia and Brittania to capture mines that could produce enough taxable income to support roughly two cohorts each? Even if that is historically accurate, that's just silly.
-While each faction will have "flavor" and certain types of units in which they specialize, no faction will be given ridiculously overpowering units like urban cohorts. That's just silly.
-Building temples to trade and fertillity deities will not make governors so irredeemably decadent and lecherous, respectively, that they simply aren't worth it and temples to dour law gods are the only game in town. In fact, no building will have such ridiculously negative effects upon ones governors that one would ever question building such a thing. That's just silly.
-With a very few exceptions, all buildings will be of the same "culture group"
so as to avoid the ridiculous tearing-down, rebuilding cycle when one captures a city. Historically inaccurate, I know, and how else will one re-live the great saga of the Romans capturing Alexandria, tearing down the Great Lighthouse, constructing a new one with a suitably Roman-themed exterior, et cetera et cetera. That's just silly.
-As one of their eight units, all factions will have one town watch unit that gets the maximum number of soldiers per squad, is dirt cheap, has low upkeep, moderate moral, and otherwise lame combat stats. This unit will be the same for all factions so that when one goes to the great expense and trouble of bribing a city, there's actually something there to make sure that it doesn't revert to barbarism or the original owner the next turn. That's just silly.
I know some mods have done some of these things to some degree or other, so I don't think I'm the only one who just doesn't have the attention span for the vanilla ratio of gameplay to homework late-campaign. Anyone else have ideas?
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