Specific City Maps

[Viva Espana!]

Not sure if this topic has been broached before, or if it is in fact in SS and I never encountered it, but I've come back to TWCenter after a long hiatus and have noticed a lot of posts describing sub-mods, and integrated mods and modsapalooza.

I was wondering if specific battle-maps for cities were in production, or, in fact, even possible. Such as a Venice with canals, a Paris with the island at the center, a Constantinople straddling the strait, etc. Something that would show me when I entered battle that I was at -that- city, not simple some random, duplicated city. Hell, I'd be happy if Constantinople at least showed the ocean around it, rather than simply a square city in the middle of no where.

[Ichon]

That is a big project that so far no one has volunteered to do.

[Viva Espana!]

Oh. Well No One sounds like a pretty cool dude. But I think we need more people on this project! What makes it so difficult, if you don't mind my asking? There are historic battle-maps with unique bits, and the Teutonic Campaign had different city-maps than Vanilla, as far as I remember.

[wilddog]

What makes it so difficult, if you don't mind my asking?

Time and how pedantic you want to be about certain changes. Its relatively complicated but not too complicated once you get used to some fairly straight forward parts. However some things like canals and bridges and cities split by rivers cause problems with the AI so sometimes you need a bit of lateral thinking as well.

Also you need to plan how you handle cities that grow (ie change settlement model).

[Kabeloko]

Oh. Well No One sounds like a pretty cool dude. But I think we need more people on this project! What makes it so difficult, if you don't mind my asking? There are historic battle-maps with unique bits, and the Teutonic Campaign had different city-maps than Vanilla, as far as I remember.

No One is screwed mate...
please, take a look at the third age mod forums...
they are trying to make those movies cities, if u ask them, they will answer how tough and hard it is...
or u could use the scenario editor tool and see the difficulty by urself... and that tool cant handle what u suggested...
this project will have to wait, as i think its not a priority right now...

Edit: forgot to say what wilddog said...

[Pyres Δt Varanasi]

No One is screwed mate...
please, take a look at the third age mod forums...
they are trying to make those movies cities, if u ask them, they will answer how tough and hard it is...
or u could use the scenario editor tool and see the difficulty by urself... and that tool cant handle what u suggested...
this project will have to wait, as i think its not a priority right now...

Edit: forgot to say what wilddog said...

Third Age Have Manage to do Minas Tirith , Edoras , Helms Deep , Rivendell , The Black Gate , Moria and Dol Guldur

[Pyres Δt Varanasi]

Oh. Well No One sounds like a pretty cool dude. But I think we need more people on this project! What makes it so difficult, if you don't mind my asking? There are historic battle-maps with unique bits, and the Teutonic Campaign had different city-maps than Vanilla, as far as I remember.

It Can be Done if Third Age Total War did it SS can , just need ppl that can do the job but of course is not impossible

[Liandro]

The A.I. wouldn't even begin to know how to Siege Venice or Constantinople, however Constantinople should have the sea at one of it's angles and that cool bridge with the wall as it's main gate to attack in a siege, then again though, the A.I. would still obliviously walk to it's doom

[Andytheplatypus]

It is possible just requires a lot of work. It was in the plans for SS a while ago but I'm assuming it has been scratched.

[Lifthrasir]

...Anyone knows where to find the information about "the tool" they used in TATW mod to create their cities? I'm just curious to know how they managed that.

[Pyres Δt Varanasi]

...Anyone knows where to find the information about "the tool" they used in TATW mod to create their cities? I'm just curious to know how they managed that.

Sorry i dont know what they use but they are dam good.

SS team can ask for help to KK he was the former leader i bet he will help.

[wilddog]

I wonder if it's possible to take a vanilla settlement, make a copy it and then add some characteristics (like a river on the middle of the city) to every level and the use it to represent Paris? While the vanilla one keeps being used to represent "less" iconic cities.

as I said (and believe me I have some experience on this).

Time and how pedantic you want to be about certain changes. Its relatively complicated but not too complicated once you get used to some fairly straight forward parts. However some things like canals and bridges and cities split by rivers cause problems with the AI so sometimes you need a bit of lateral thinking as well.

Also you need to plan how you handle cities that grow (ie change settlement model).

...Anyone knows where to find the information about "the tool" they used in TATW mod to create their cities? I'm just curious to know how they managed that.

Yes, they used the tool I wrote for our mod. Its the Integrated world Terrain editor (IWTE tool) located at below URL

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=323503

[Lord Baal]

It would be cool, even if only employed on high profile cities and of course dumbed down versions of them.

I wonder if it's possible to take a vanilla settlement, make a copy it and then add some characteristics (like a river on the middle of the city) to every level and the use it to represent Paris? While the vanilla one keeps being used to represent "less" iconic cities.

[bɑne]

Of course it can be done. We just have to borrow the tatw dev team.

[Viva Espana!]

Pay them with internets. Or do what Cracked does for Photoplasty contests. "You win money." No check forthcoming.

Really, it's not that important. The gameplay's great, the accuracy wonderful (even if the Crusader states get a buff in the form of Jerusalem in the late era). The city-maps would just be another benefit.

[Homeros]

Would be a great addition to an already great mod. However, like others have mentioned already, the AI is rather poor during siege battles. That's why I try to avoid them like the plague (too easy, almost cheat-mode imo).

[Lifthrasir]

@ Wilddog, many thanks for the link. I've found that KK help you for your mod but couldn't find any info about the tool itself.

@ Homeros, is the AI that bad? I didn't find any info about that issue but I have to admit I just had a quick look on the TATW forums. So, if my understanding is right, some cities would be very easy to defend.
Basically, if we take Paris for instance, I guess the square should be on the Island of the City, meaning access would be only by bridges. So very easy to defend by a small amount of units. What about if we make the bridges larger that they usually are? Would it help to balance the AI "stupidity"?
2nd option: Move the square at the Town Hall present location. We still have the river crossing the town. So, if the AI attacks from the wrong side, the square is still easy to defend. If we increase the amount of bridges crossing the river inside the town? Will the AI concentrate its forces only on 1 bridge?

The other issue I see is how to keep the historical city look through all the upgrades? That means a huge research job.
I'm trying to understand all the issues involved for that kind of mod.

[wilddog]

@ Wilddog, many thanks for the link. I've found that KK help you for your mod but couldn't find any info about the tool itself.

Well that got lost in translation. So I wouldn't recommend trying the tool as its more complex.

The link I gave is to the tool not our mod. That first page contains links to the tool and some tutorials. Including the download tool itself.

KK hasn't helped with our mod that's just me and Makanyane at this time. KK helped as a major tester for the tool which was a great help to us as it tried out a lot of combinations we weren't using.

[Lifthrasir]

Well, actually my comment was for what I did before you gave me the link.
Thanks for the clarification and I'm sorry for the misunderstanding.

The main thing for me is that now, I know where to look for a lot of information and with your help.
I think it will take me a while to go through all these docs.

Once again, I thank you.

[wilddog]

@Lifthrasir - no problem but changing settlements does take a lot more planning than you think. Its not that hard relatively but there's just a lot more bits to it