Cities that can/might begin with high level barracks

[Mulattothrasher]

Ok, time for some incoherent ramblings on this. My Greek/Hellenisitc/Sucessor books are long since returned to the campus library so I am going mainly from memory. This thread can deal with all factions, but the barbs and Hellenistic factions are the ones I am most familiar with. So here goes:

Cities that should begin with highest barracks

Gergovia: Capitol of the powerful Arverni, Gallic lords of the southern Gaul (Aedui were masters of the center, Belgae the north) and site of Caesar's first known defeat . Having this region with champions will provide the Arverni with at least on city that can crank out some powerful champions and heavy units.

Bibracte: Capitol of the Aedui. This region should have the highest barracks to check Arverni advance, or Belgic advance to the south. Perhaps the most popular oppida in Gaul Bibracte should certainly be tough with a strong garrison.

Bononia: Capitol of the Boii in Italy. High barracks here will help check both Roman and Carthaginian advance

Vindobona: Capitol of the Boii in Central Europe. Other than Dacia, they have no nearby enemies. Thus, a high level barracks should present no real advantage but to help the A.I. and player to break out of their isolation.

Mediolanum: Insubres capitol (sub tribe of the Aedui). Helps to further check Roman and Cartage's expansion in Italy and keep, along with Bononia, the action in southern and central Italy for the Roman and Carthage player

Camulodunum: Capitol of the Trinovntes. The Belgae in Britain can receive a check by giving this city a powerful garrison.

Numantia: Pretty much everyone knows this should be a Celtiberian fortress par excellence

Alexandria: *The* place to be in Egypt. Core center of Hellenistic power and should field all the best Ptolemaic troops.

Antiocheia: Western power center of the Seleucids. Should field all their elite troops easily

Seleucia: Eastern power center of the Seleucids and the whole region was a great fertile swath of civilization for Persia. Player/A.I. should need elites here to hope of facing down Parthian HA's that will sure to arrive.

Tavion: Center of the Trocmi Galatians. Galatians were beaten many times in battles against foreign armies and defeated those foreign armies many times as well. Never truly conquered by Rome, Pergamon, Armenia, Ptolemies, Seleudis, or anyone else. Think the Numantia of the Anatolian plain perhaps. Rome eventually annexed the region peacefully though around 25 B.C.

-I assume that the cities of Roma, Carthage, Pella, Athenia, Sparte, and Pergamon are already mapped out with what they need.

-There may be a need for ideas with Dacia, Sarmatia, and Scythia seeing how they are all very close geographically.

Anyway thats my 2 cents. Feel free to discuss...

[dvk901]

Thank you so much....I've already learned a bit from this, and I'm working on it.

[Mulattothrasher]

The Belgae and Cimbri could probably have their capitol at mid level barracks as they do not have nearby threats therefore the immediate need for elites is not as pressing as say, the Dacia, Scythia, Sarmatia competition around the Black Sea.

The more isolated factions (like the Cimbri, Belgae) might have less of a need for elites at game start while factions near other factions or surrounded by free peoples (Seleucids, Macedon, Arverni) would probably rely upon elites just to hold the others off and or expand.

[Mulattothrasher]

I mentioned it before but, as reminder, the city in southern Ptolemaic Egypt, Elephantine, should start with some kind of elephants to be recruited.

Also Dvk Thracians were known to have settled somewhat heavily in the region of Persepolis (or at least in that general vicinity) so they need an AOR in Persepolis and nearby Istakhr. Can't wait to see all the "OMG Thracians in Iran wtf!?!?" threads but yeah, its historical.

[dvk901]

Done...and....done!! Good stuff, thanks.

[tone]

DVK,
Before you do too much giving of higher level barracks it'd be good to see what the effects of improving the farming levels will be on unit recruitment and armies that end up being fielded

[dvk901]

I was going to change the farming levels, but then I realized there was a VERY good reason I did not want them as high as they were. The problem with 'farming level induced' population growth is that it becomes a static almost 'hardcoded' value in you campaigns. It will be that level no matter what you do. You cannot reduce it below that level only TO that level, which is sometimes just not enough. I wanted this configured so that I had some control over population levels...and realized that it was going to take some tinkering to get it to an acceptable\workable level. But I want the player to have some control over it as well...something I tried to do in RS1.5 that wasn't working (BECAUSE of the high farming levels). So, I have added some more population growth to the lower levels of the 'core_buildings'....trying to 'push' population growth until the city level, but then tapering off in the upper levels. Same goes for the factional barracks. Every time I do this, I then increase the values of negative population growth that building population control buildings grant so that the player always has an opportunity to cut the growth if they want to (or increase it, of course).

Farming levels are valued at 1\2% population growth per point of farming level. Before, some regions had farming levels of 10-14...which means that at the very least, all you could do is reduce pop. growth to 5-7%. That's really too much, IMHO...especially when you get a bunch of huge cities punching out 7% pop. growth every turn and have no way to pacify them. At 7%, that's 1680 people a turn...which is kinda much. So we'll have to just watch and tinker with settings until we arrive at a decent level where the AI has 'enough' population to grow, but not an avalanche of people.

[tone]

OK, you're the knowledge man here.

[dvk901]

Hmmmph! This is a whole new ballgame here Tone. I have done things so much differently in RS2 from RS1.5 that the two are night and day apart. But also, I've tried making it easier on myself by limiting WHERE I can make significant changes to things without having to scroll thru 11000 lines of code. What's really interesting is that the EDB.txt file for RS2 is 11,000 and change lines long. EB's file is 62,000 lines long!!

[tone]

BTW, I did have a look at the feasibility of doing a spreadsheet thing for the EDB, but it looked
a) very difficult
b) not that helpful as you are still adding buildings and the whole thing is much more fluid than the EDU

[dvk901]

I kinda figured that my friend. You have enough on your plate. I'm so used to doing this this way I'd be lost trying to figure it out anyway, most likely. I have a very 'set' way that I deal with this file, as it is very complicated and touchy, and it works fine for me. When I write the code for new buildings I don't do it IN the file. Instead, I write it all in another 'work' file where I put all the code for the building tree, export_buildings.txt, notes to self () about the building, descriptions in place.....then I make all the cards and plunk everything into the game at once after backing everything up. If something's wrong, I can easily go back to step 1, and then ponder the reasons why the stupid thing doesn't work without having a broken game.