SH's New Map And Slower Expansion For SS6.4 (VERSION 0.3 OUT)

[Serbian Hussar]

SH's New Map And Slower Expansion For SS6.4

Greatings.
I've noticed that many people on SS forum are not satisfied with the SS map and the rapid AI expansion and destruction of factions. I was one of those people, so I've made for me a new map that I am willing to share . The other thing, slower expansion, is partialy done.
Anyway, please try the map and the new adjustments and let me know what you think.
Both positive and negative critics are more then welcome
I plan this to be an open project until we get it perfectly right, so please share your ideas about both the map and how to slow down expansion in campaign

VERSION 0.3 AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD Fixed and more balanced! Enjoy, and thank you all for your suggestions (especially Ichon, Rus-Bey and Bund weicher Birnen)

CHANGES:

ADDED REGIONS:
-France: +5
-Germany: + 4
-Italy: +5
-Balkans: +4
-Anatolia: +1
-Caucasus: +1

SLOWER EXPANSION:
-King's purse significatly lowerd
-Stone walls and gates 2x stronger
-Rebel settlements armies strengthend
-Trebuchets more expencive and less available, build time increased
-Stone forts not done yet

OTHER CHANGES:
-Rebel names changed
-Various region shape changes
-Some settlements names and positions changed ( mostly Russian)
-Constantinople and Baghdad are now huge cities; Thessalonica and Cordoba are large cities; Pisa, Bologna and Florence are cities
-No borders
-New starting positions

IDEAS FOR THE NEXT VERSION:
- 3 NEW FACTIONS: Vladimir-Suzdal, Abbasid Caliphate, Sultanate of Rum
- Stone forts (permanent and buildable)
- Units costs increased 2X
- Byzantine professional units sizes reduced by 30-40%
- Some more map changes (Gaza to Crusaders)
- Serbian Hussar's Improved Textures implemented
- New pavise and kite shields
- Ancilaries for new settlements


NEW CONCEPT INTRODUCED: Sahara, Arabia, Steppes and Finland are now "Scarcely populated lands" and unconquerable!

NOTE: This is for Early campaign, Not BGR compatable. Loading time is longer due to new map; it's not broken, just wait.
If something is wrong, please post you log so I know what it is. (MTW2\mods\SS6.3\system.log.txt)


Here is the map. Added settlements are marked with the star, removed with the arrow.
Beige regions can not be conquered. Sahara, Arabia, Steppes and Finland were scarcely populated and thus not worth conquering.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And here are some sample pics:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And new starting positions:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Here is how the map looks after 70 turns in my Venice camaign (I play 2 years per turn).

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Not much has changed and all of the factions are still alive, so the improvements seem to be working

INSTALATION: Extract files in to your ...MTW2/mods/SS6.3 folder and overwright.

[Polycarpe]

Nice work mate, a rep is deserved

[Serbian Hussar]

Thank you Mr. Byzantine Guard, +rep to you too for beeing first

[Ichon]

It looks like you added Florence and Verona but what is in NW Italy there? Its a nice start... so many map projects going on all the sudden. Its nice but the only problem is alot of work to use them as base of a submod. I hope we get some good maps and then take a big vote on which should serve as the base of future SS so most submods can use it with less work.

Although I hope ToD finishes his 1370 submod- we have plenty of early maps. Need later campaign maps.

[Serbian Hussar]

It's Turin (Piedmont). Yeah, I've noticed new map projects too. When I was looking for new map, there were none . I totaly agree to the 1370 submod, and plan to add in map for Late campaign soon.

[Companion Cavalry]

I love your map Especially how it shifts settlements away from populationally overrepresented areas to underrepresented ones, like N. Italy and France. The only suggestion I have to suggest is cutting off the huge, unsightly desert area attached to Benghazi/Cairo and making it part of the Sahara region (which I presume is inconquerable).

[Serbian Hussar]

I love your map Especially how it shifts settlements away from populationally overrepresented areas to underrepresented ones, like N. Italy and France. The only suggestion I have to suggest is cutting off the huge, unsightly desert area attached to Benghazi/Cairo and making it part of the Sahara region (which I presume is inconquerable).

Yes I've thought of that, but there were quite some people living in south Cairo region. I'm not so shore about Benghazi

[Ichon]

Dorylaion? It exists but did you add it to give Anatolia a central region to contest or for some historical reasons like the battles fought around there? I think Bursa is more important and maybe some other places but there could be some other reasons.

[Serbian Hussar]

Well I've putted it in to have some buffer between Seljuks and Nicaea and Constantinople. Bursa is too close to Nicaea, it would not work.

[ironstatue]

Well I've putted it in to have some buffer between Seljuks and Nicaea and Constantinople. Bursa is too close to Nicaea, it would not work.

Dorylaion region is fantastic. When the Turks take it we can reenact the Byzantine doom.

Dorylaion is the main military base commanding the transition to the anatolian plateau.

Also, I'd like to be able to take Cyrenaica from the sea as a coastal settlement.

[el Cid]

Great map SH, though I have one small remark. Why add Turin? I would add Trieste instead, as it was a much more important city.

+rep anyway

[Serbian Hussar]

Thanks . Well I've added Turin because there was a lot of space there between Milan and Lyon, and I've gave it to the HRE to strengthen ther position in Northen Italy. Istead of Trieste (witch I considered) I gave a slot to Pola in Istria because of a better position and to give Venice a castle since I've made Ragusa rebel castle.

[ITC]

Good work!
As I've noticed, permanent forts do really make AI expansion much slower. Even if AI doesn't use them perfectly.

[Bund weicher Birnen]

Good work!!! I like it
I have some suggestions: It would be glad if you add 1-2 more regions to central europe, 1-2 to the Iberia Peninsula, 1-2 more in the Baltic area and delete some more regions from underpopulated regions like Kazan or Dublin(nobody needs Dublin...)
And maybe you can cut the province with Targoviste into 2 or something else so that the Donau will be a great border for both, the Roman Empire and Hungary. This will give the possibility to create a "rebel bulgarian faction" which slow down the expansion from the Empire. To simulate this, just put strong garrisons into the cities so that the AI and the player have to conquer every province with blood
The last thing that I can say is that you can split the Adana province into two and add 2 more cities near Baghdad with very strong garrisons to simulate the Abbasid Caliphate.
So give the rebels money and create such "minor factions" so that the player has to fear also the rebel faction
I like what you have done with the provinces below the Donau

[Ottheinrich]

I really like what you did with Africa

I'm not sure if I like the idea to double the strength of the walls, AI seldom uses siegeweapons against me (atleast in sieges ) and I myself do already have troubles to open a breach with catapults.

I would +rep you, but it seems like a already did...

@ Bund weicher Birnen:

Toitsche kauft nur toitsche Äpfel?

[Ichon]

Why not add another region like Sahara in the NE part of the map? Cumans power was centered much further south and west than on the current map. Adding Sarai, Sarkel, and Saqsin would be quite interesting and give Cumans a less spread out base of power. Would also funnel the Mongol invasion west instead of north. Volga Bulgar and Morum are probably the most north eastern cities that should be included on the map. Uninhabited region(in history there were several Turkic tribes there but not really united) on the NE of the map makes things more focused around Caucuses and Black Sea.

A small route around Caspian to allow east/west travel from Urgench and the Amu Darya basin with perhaps Urgench as furthest east and Konjikala or something closer to the Caspian with uninhabited to their north.

[Fair Prince]

Good work Hussar and also thanks for your ideas in the SSMAP thread!
In fact, I was a bit surprised when I noticed you launched this project considering that me and some helpful fellows are also working on improving the SS map at the moment, but since our mod won't be ready for a while our threads can surely co-exist together.

After all, my overall goal is to provide gracul and the SS Developer Team (of which I'm also a member) a better map when the work finishes, and I welcome everyone, including you, to take part in this glorious process!

[Serbian Hussar]

@ Fair Prince
Well I realy didn't see that your project was started until I've dicided to put my map in submods Youre project is more seriously taken, while this map reflects changes of my personal taste and of campaigns I mostly play. Those are Venice, Genoa, Romans, England... I have no aim that my map becomes next SS map, it's just something I have done primarily for me and then decided to share with people who have the similar taste. If you like some of the ideas you are completly free to incorporate them in your project. I'm not in this for competition
But map is only one thing, minor. My primary aim is to slow down the campaign with some simple solutions.

@ Bund weicher Birnen and Ichon
Good ideas guys. If youre ideas are combined, then it should be plausable.

@ Ottheinrich
I'm not so sure either.. But walls were historicly very very hard to breach. This will maybe make taking the settlement harder, because now you have to make lots of towers and rams and fight on the walls, and not easily conquer a city or castle with only one trebuchet.

What do you guys think about our friends Bund weicher Birnen idea to delete Ireland completly and maybe merge it to Wales or something?

[Ichon]

@ Bund weicher Birnen and Ichon
Good ideas guys. If youre ideas are combined, then it should be plausable.

@ Ottheinrich
I'm not so shore either.. But walls were historicly very very hard to breach. This will maybe make taking the settlement harder, because now you have to make lots of towers and rams and fight on the walls, and not easily conquer a city or castle with only one trebuchet.

I am not sure harder walls will work but I think more ideas we try is better. Even if you aren't trying to make this basis of SS at least we can try some ideas here and maybe somethings are used. Personally I wouldn't mind longer sieges being necessary but I just am not sure how hardcoded some of that is. If only trebuchets could be built on location and not hauled around and could still collapse walls like in RTW... but we can't do those so try to make the best of it.

Is it possible to increase time to build siege equipment? That combined with harder gates and walls but also shorter siege times until surrender might work well enough AI can handle it. Castle assaults being relatively more rare than surrender, treachery, or negotiation.

I'm leaning more in favor of permanent forts on some historical locations as well with maybe a nearby resource to simulate town and trade there. Even AI putting 1 unit into a fort will slow invaders down hugely. Even more if the time to build siege can be increased. No more than 2 turns of course... maybe just lower the amount of points infantry put towards building equipment? So a full army could still build at least 1 ram in 1 turn but more than that requires at least 2 turns and less than a full army might have trouble building even 1 ram without alot of ancillaries which could be more restricted as well since now there are 2-3 very frequent ancillaries that give +build points for siege equipment.

[Bund weicher Birnen]

@Serbian Hussar
If it helps you, combine Ichon and my ideas
Have you fixed the problem with the CTD? It crushes every time when I try to play as the Romans(the changes increase the fun to play this faction)

Edit: more suggestions :
1. Delete Medina and make it to one region(Mecca) because there's no fight and this makes the egypts weaker so that the crusader can hold out longer and it takes all of the concentration of the fight to the Gaza Strip.
2. Make the Timbuktu region bigger and let it take the most of Benghazi so that only the coast is owned by the Benghazi province.(Suggestion from Companion Cavalry)
3. Delete Luxor and make it one region with Cairo with the same reason above. I attacked in none of my games Luxor because in my opinion it is useless(egypt is without that still a very strong faction)
4. Delete the province in Finland and make it one with Novgorod with the reason that the population there is extremly rare.