Anyone annoyed that all settlements become huge cities and citadels?

**Gigan** · December 26, 2010, 11:35 AM

I just kinda find it unrealistic.

**Fred Putz** · December 26, 2010, 11:42 AM

I guess he - a few threads below thinks the same way:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=413414

**Tears of Destiny** · December 26, 2010, 11:49 AM

Originally Posted by Sematrix

I just kinda find it unrealistic.

The main problem is that all Players spam health and food and etc buildings that increase population growth.
I find that it is the player's fault for metagaming by usually ignoring other buildings for the sake of spamming population growth buildings. Look at how often players use the "Crusade" exploit for that extra 5% pop growth for getting ten chivalry (Five of which you can obtain via crusades by maxing the Saint trait, whoch is 2.5% pop growth all by itself).
The AI usually does a good balance.

Also, there are only a few dozen (Two dozen or so) settlements allowed to reach the highest city type (Such as Paris or Riga etc), the rest are restricted to the second highest, so I am not sure what problem you have that 199 settlements only 24 or so can reach the peak, the rest are stuck at second-place.
I do understand your concern about the citadels, but again, the AI does not hit these that fast. I can not tell you how many times I have seen an AI settlement capable of upgrading to a citadel, yet for some inexplicable reason never pays for it until decades later.

Secondly, I find the stupidly small populations to be unrealistic, and I am tempted to in HEC multiply the number of everything by 5 for each settlement (Both current pops and required pops for wall upgrades).

All in all, I am perfectly content with how it runs right now, as only The Player seems to viciously butcher game balance (And rightfully so, as it can be fun). If need be, one could always modify the population requirements yourself for higher numbers, or mimic the Metropolis Restriction that is currently in place, and also apply it to Citadels.

My two cents.

**Shaxx** · December 27, 2010, 12:50 PM

Originally Posted by Tears of Destiny

The main problem is that all Players spam health and food and etc buildings that increase population growth.I find that it is the player's fault for metagaming by usually ignoring other buildings for the sake of spamming population growth buildings. Look at how often players use the "Crusade" exploit for that extra 5% pop growth for getting ten chivalry (Five of which you can obtain via crusades by maxing the Saint trait, whoch is 2.5% pop growth all by itself).
The AI usually does a good balance.

I fix this by letting settlements 'auto-manage' themselves. It levels the playing field a bit and better represents medieval feudalism. All save for wherever my sovereign is of-course, where then I manage things by hand.

I set the auto-manage policy to fit the region. Border regions get military policies, the heartland gets cultural, historically superior trading/mining locations get financial and historically good agricultural regions get growth.

Originally Posted by Tears of Destiny

Secondly, I find the stupidly small populations to be unrealistic, and I am tempted to in HEC multiply the number of everything by 5 for each settlement (Both current pops and required pops for wall upgrades).

I just look at it as a world which is a near perfect mirror to our middle ages just with a lot less people, thus the smaller armies and less populated cities. Which the correlation to maximum/average army size capable on the engine is probably why the population centers have the limited numbers they have. So they do not appear so incomparable to the combat.

Originally Posted by gracul

Have to admit 6.3 is pretty easy on growing cities, but that will be changed with a patch.

Awesome.

Originally Posted by bane_tw

Not all of Europe was simplified into one single settlement to represent a whole region either The game has heavy brakes when it comes to realism imho. Not that I don't see your point - I recommend you try Battle for the Baltic as soon as it is released for 6.3.

Regions are 'simplified' into one single 'siegable' settlement because of engine limitations. You should also note that regions themselves are already frequent representatives of larger regions as a whole. Gallicia, Swabia and the Netherlands, one region with multiple settlements for just a few examples. If it was possible to have all the settlements, we would. Not to mention, really, that all national denominations like France, Russia, Germany and Italy are all 'regions' defined by multiple settlements as far as the engine allows.

Add into this that a lot of the 'smaller' parts of regions can with the advent of the Kingdoms expansion be better realized by permanent stone forts, representing minor castles and fiedoms (Rozanov's All Towns mod): The brakes come off.

Thus it would not be some foreign body to make cities and castles more realistic by stopping them from all having supermarkets and seven elevens by the stables.

The minimum on this is limiting citadels and huge cities in my opinion. Limiting fortresses and large cities will probably require some unit recruitment tweaking since it runs the risk of some more advanced units which were historically 'commonplace' not being easily made 'commonplace' by the year they were.

But to the original poster, to limit Huge Cities and Citadels just:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**Gigan** · December 27, 2010, 04:11 PM

Originally Posted by Shaxx

I fix this by letting settlements 'auto-manage' themselves. It levels the playing field a bit and better represents medieval feudalism. All save for wherever my sovereign is of-course, where then I manage things by hand.

I set the auto-manage policy to fit the region. Border regions get military policies, the heartland gets cultural, historically superior trading/mining locations get financial and historically good agricultural regions get growth.

I just look at it as a world which is a near perfect mirror to our middle ages just with a lot less people, thus the smaller armies and less populated cities. Which the correlation to maximum/average army size capable on the engine is probably why the population centers have the limited numbers they have. So they do not appear so incomparable to the combat.

Awesome.

Regions are 'simplified' into one single 'siegable' settlement because of engine limitations. You should also note that regions themselves are already frequent representatives of larger regions as a whole. Gallicia, Swabia and the Netherlands, one region with multiple settlements for just a few examples. If it was possible to have all the settlements, we would. Not to mention, really, that all national denominations like France, Russia, Germany and Italy are all 'regions' defined by multiple settlements as far as the engine allows.

Add into this that a lot of the 'smaller' parts of regions can with the advent of the Kingdoms expansion be better realized by permanent stone forts, representing minor castles and fiedoms (Rozanov's All Towns mod): The brakes come off.

Thus it would not be some foreign body to make cities and castles more realistic by stopping them from all having supermarkets and seven elevens by the stables.

The minimum on this is limiting citadels and huge cities in my opinion. Limiting fortresses and large cities will probably require some unit recruitment tweaking since it runs the risk of some more advanced units which were historically 'commonplace' not being easily made 'commonplace' by the year they were.

But to the original poster, to limit Huge Cities and Citadels just:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Thanks

**rockman4417** · December 27, 2010, 07:27 PM

Originally Posted by Shaxx

But to the original poster, to limit Huge Cities and Citadels just:

Do you have some recommendations as to which cities and castles ought to be allowed to max out from a historical(or even geographical) standpoint? Would be great to get a list.

Thanks!

**Shaxx** · December 28, 2010, 08:11 AM

Originally Posted by rockman4417

Do you have some recommendations as to which cities and castles ought to be allowed to max out from a historical(or even geographical) standpoint? Would be great to get a list.

Thanks!

Well, I would for balance reasons, give at least one huge city and citadel to every faction. Usually the capital and their most famous/upgraded castle at start.

I have a list from an old descr_regions file from a previous version of S.S. (before 6.0) that I have not gotten around to putting into 6.3 yet. Look up Citadel/HugeCity via CTRL+F in the spoiler below to see what I gave to be the top-tier points of interest and just place 'metropolis' in it's comparative stead in your descr_regions file.

The file itself was part of a larger sub-modification that also limited where Fortresses and Large Cities could be built also, so ignore that.

I have placed the text in a spoiler to dissuade anyone from trying to use this (other than as a point of research) descr_regions file in a S.S.6.1/2/3 install:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**gracul** · December 26, 2010, 11:56 AM

These restrictions are in place in the RR\RC ver, 6.3 doesn't limit cities like that.
Have to admit 6.3 is pretty easy on growing cities, but that will be changed with a patch.

**Tears of Destiny** · December 26, 2010, 12:12 PM

Originally Posted by gracul

These restrictions are in place in the RR\RC ver, 6.3 doesn't limit cities like that.
Have to admit 6.3 is pretty easy on growing cities, but that will be changed with a patch.

OK this 1/2 RR thing is starting to screw with me, considering I was a hardcore RR/RC player...
I need to brush up on what was taken, and what was not, gah...

**PaleBlueDot** · December 26, 2010, 11:59 AM

It is not unrealistic. If all cities had a great empire pumping money into it, such as sanitation etc, then they would grow big as well. The thing that is not realistic is an arbitrary rule saying a certain city cant grow faster just because thats what turned out to happen historically. I don' t want to have a gameplay copying historical events, only to have realistic rules to start off with. Besides, it would be another annoying thing to take into consideration when planning your empire. When deciding what cities to turn into castle, where to expand etc, I would fist have to go online somewhere and find out what cities will become large, and which ones will not. One of my main problems with this game are all the non-intuitive things I have to research before I get to play. If you want to keep your city small, it should be extremely easy for you to keep it that way.

**Gigan** · December 26, 2010, 12:15 PM

Originally Posted by PaleBlueDot

It is not unrealistic. If all cities had a great empire pumping money into it, such as sanitation etc, then they would grow big as well. The thing that is not realistic is an arbitrary rule saying a certain city cant grow faster just because thats what turned out to happen historically. I don' t want to have a gameplay copying historical events, only to have realistic rules to start off with. Besides, it would be another annoying thing to take into consideration when planning your empire. When deciding what cities to turn into castle, where to expand etc, I would fist have to go online somewhere and find out what cities will become large, and which ones will not. One of my main problems with this game are all the non-intuitive things I have to research before I get to play. If you want to keep your city small, it should be extremely easy for you to keep it that way.

It's unrealistic because not all of Europe was heavily fortified and a metropolis.

**bɑne** · December 26, 2010, 12:36 PM

Originally Posted by Sematrix

It's unrealistic because not all of Europe was heavily fortified and a metropolis.

Not all of Europe was simplified into one single settlement to represent a whole region either

The game has heavy brakes when it comes to realism imho. Not that I don't see your point - I recommend you try Battle for the Baltic as soon as it is released for 6.3.

**Bund weicher Birnen** · December 26, 2010, 01:40 PM

It should be more historical accurate because some castles/cities were never fortresses or large cities! If something like that would be integrated, it would increase the difficulty and will make some regions special for the faction(for example the homeregions)

**Fred Putz** · December 26, 2010, 02:03 PM

Originally Posted by Bund weicher Birnen

If something like that would be integrated, it would increase the difficulty and will make some regions special for the faction(for example the homeregions)

Will the AI ever know which ones are important and which not? I think it will just increase the difficulty for the AI - seen that in RR/RC when e.g. the Romans left Constantinople almost unprotected because they moved the capital elsewhere.

**Kolaris8472** · December 26, 2010, 02:48 PM

Population growth is my biggest complaint with SS in its current form. I understand it's a bit severe, given that it can only grow in increments of 0.5%.

But it does seem that everything, everywhere, is the largest possible city/castle after only a hundred years. I think it would be a lot more interesting if growth was more heavily restricted to historically/geographically significant trading/farming centers.

**Ferdiad** · December 26, 2010, 07:48 PM

That would kind of ruin SS for me tbh.

**PaleBlueDot** · December 26, 2010, 07:58 PM

The historically and geographically significant centers were to a large degree decided by the rulers themselves. Sure, the river Lena in russia never was or would be a huge international trade rout, but economic and social policies adapted by rulers of medieval empires had huge influence on their countries wealth. Let the user/AI choose where to grow large cities, rather than historical accident.

**Ichon** · December 26, 2010, 09:53 PM

I think the point is not that you can't choose to manipulate some cities into huge growth spurts but that even when you don't put a 10 chivalry general in a city or build the growth buildings that in a relatively short campaign most cities reach that level without any effort on players part.

I wouldn't mind if the 24 cap on metropolis was removed if it was much more difficult in game to achieve that but... for most people getting a 10 chivalry general might be easy or at least 6-8 ones is quite easy and then unless making growth everywhere max at .5% its still easy for player to manage empire into many metropolis cities.

**Roma_Victrix** · December 27, 2010, 12:29 AM

If one looks at things practically, huge cities and citadels are able to house the most advanced structures in the civic tree, which includes the military structures necessary to recruit better units, late units, and units with the best weapon and armor upgrades. One should want huge cities and citadels for this reason alone. Plus, it makes the AI more of a challenge.

**rockman4417** · December 27, 2010, 02:37 AM

I for one, would be in favor of a slower population growth as everything maxes out too quick for my taste. In fact such a thing probably isn't so difficult to mod.