The Province System - your thoughts?

[MagicCuboid]

"Rome 2 is about making your decisions more interesting, not just making more of them," says Russell, who doesn't believe there's much fun to be had in individually administering all your regions or precisely tweaking all your armies. As a Roman ruler, he explains, your mind should be on where your Tenth Legion is and if they can move to support the Eight Legion, not building another unit of 40 archers or altering a tax rate in eastern Gaul. To this end, there's a new Province system for quickly administering regions under your control, so that the game doesn't turn into an endless parade of paperwork." - Lead Designer, James Russell

And much more detailed info on provinces taken from a PCGamesn.com interview with James Russell:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The Provinces provide a bridge between the grand size of countries and the micro-management of regions. The campaign map can therefore be as large as you’d expect from Rome, but include the detail of Shogun without overwhelming you with detail.

“We want to take steps to reduce some of the management burden. So, for instant, we have a province system where you’ve got several regions making up one province. That means you have all the benefits of extending that map and making it huge, increasing the area for you to conquer with your armies, but at the same time you don’t have hundreds of regions to manage with your tax and development.”

The way they’re going to work is to have one ‘capital’ region at the centre of more agricultural and production-focused areas. Now, when invading a region, you can choose what you want to deny your opponent, rather than charging blindly at your opponent. The ultimate goal is to prevent the endless run of sieges of previous Total War games, and hopefully encourage more fighting in the open countryside.

“When you’ve got big regions what that means is that you tend to headshot the capital and suddenly get one big swathe of territory,” says James. “With provinces and provincial capitals, with quite a few surrounding regions, there’s territory to capture without just headshotting the capital. So you get more varied battles and more varied battle types over different terrain.

The way I see it, this system can be a source of great fun. I like that we will be able to control tax and recruitment policies over larger theaters, and I like that through raids we can goad big armies into the towns and fields for a fight.

However I don't want this "feature" to become an excuse for CA to limit map dynamism. A huge part of my fun in empire building is seeing my territory grow incrementally on the map. Even Russel's mention of "headshotting" a capital city to conquer "one big swathe of territory" makes me totally cringe .

I really don't like getting "big swathes of territory" from one battle in one somewhat arbitrary location. This is the classical period - territories were far from centralized at this point, and I don't want these capital cities to be anything other than useful strategic points on the map.

It is for this reason that I really hope these smaller regions around the capital city of provinces still function independently of the capital region. I want my little map to color in my region holdings. I want to receive some revenue from these regions. I want them to be beneficial to me and not merely a blow to my enemy.

Leave army recruitment and trade to the capital cities, but allow me to expand my empire organically!

[Andreius Pretorianus]

I hope we won t see Gaul concentrated in 3 cities like in Empire and Napoleon

[Patrizio]

The way I'm reading these statements about provinces and capitals, it sounds like they're trying to do exactly what you want: prevent the gain of large territories from just one city battle.

It seems to me this is an evolution of the system in Empire where your armies could actually "occupy" farms and buildings in hostile provinces, thus robbing the enemy of a resource and forcing them to come face you in the field if they wanted it back. The difference now being that each province resource is it's own territory, so it will color your map in as you take it.

[SonOfCrusader76]

The way I'm reading these statements about provinces and capitals, it sounds like they're trying to do exactly what you want: prevent the gain of large territories from just one city battle.

It seems to me this is an evolution of the system in Empire where your armies could actually "occupy" farms and buildings in hostile provinces, thus robbing the enemy of a resource and forcing them to come face you in the field if they wanted it back. The difference now being that each province resource is it's own territory, so it will color your map in as you take it.

Agreed. I like it.

[Otherdude]

Perhaps they are evolving the system we've seen since Empire in that instead of just raiding villages they now become more controllable? Or, making the repercussions of being raided more severe to encourage marching out from the safety of the walled capitol.

Ninja'd!

[Patrizio]

Perhaps they are evolving the system we've seen since Empire in that instead of just raiding villages they now become more controllable? Or, making the repercussions of being raided more severe to encourage marching out from the safety of the walled capitol.

Ninja'd!

Ha, mere seconds ahead! But yes, I liked that feature in Empire and hope they expand it to where if you take a farm territory, you have the option of burning it and moving on or occupying and taking the income from yourself. It certainly sounds like this is what they're planning, but time will tell.

[Jazx]

If France has 2 cities, Anatolia has 1 city, Spain has 2 cities like in Empire ,I will not buy this game. Also I dont think that many people will buy it also

[Maximus_54]

If France has 2 cities, Anatolia has 1 city, Spain has 2 cities like in Empire ,I will not buy this game. Also I dont think that many people will buy it also

According to this
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...-vision-of-war

The campaign map will be "much larger" than in Rome 1. There will be barbarian tribes in the northern forests, there will be "exotic" Eastern kingdoms in the deserts and there will of course be Rome itself.

Besides, they know we want more regions. Shogun 2 wasn't tiny afterall.

[MathiasOfAthens]

Well they've said it's a heavily, heavily modified form of the Warscape engine. One of the interviewees kept stumbling over his words, as I recall, trying to convey how much better the engine is without calling it new. He said it was a programming marvel, essentially.

That sounds about right. ETW was horrible in that there were so many towns but they were not actual regions. Perhaps they modified the code (modded) so that the towns we all hated so much would be actual regions this time around. Not that big of a change but huge in gameplay and for that we are grateful. Just hope there are a lot of these regions.

According to this
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...-vision-of-war

The campaign map will be "much larger" than in Rome 1. There will be barbarian tribes in the northern forests, there will be "exotic" Eastern kingdoms in the deserts and there will of course be Rome itself.

Besides, they know we want more regions. Shogun 2 wasn't tiny afterall.

I have been hammering away at that one feature and I think everyone else has as well so I hope CA got the mesg. We hated the ETW map design and we want more ing regions.

[The Juggernaut]

It REALLY sounds like they're trying to avoid headshotting a region, not promoting it. Large regions seem like they'd be harder to take, not easier, which makes me pretty dang happy.

[Jazx]

It REALLY sounds like they're trying to avoid headshotting a region, not promoting it. Large regions seem like they'd be harder to take, not easier, which makes me pretty dang happy.

Hope so

[Tim_Ward]

A huge part of my fun in empire building is seeing my territory grow incrementally on the map. Even Russel's mention of "headshotting" a capital city to conquer "one big swathe of territory" makes me totally cringe

The whole point of this system is that you *don't* take regions now by head shotting the capital.

That said, I hope there is fairly fine grained control of regions if only because in the early game you are unlikely to have more than one region, so there would be little to do on the management side of the game until you amass significant territory.

[-FrOzeN-]

I really hope that they will make for example Hispania (Spain) into the two Roman provinces (as it were historically), and you still have about 6-8 regions in each of these. The province thing should work just as "theatres" worked in Empire (you can manage taxes and other things relevant to that province).
I fear that they will simplify everything to much in this game (I'd rather see it as complex as a Paradox game than to simplified)

[MathiasOfAthens]

The way they’re going to work is to have one ‘capital’ region at the centre of more agricultural and production-focused areas. Now, when invading a region, you can choose what you want to deny your opponent, rather than charging blindly at your opponent. The ultimate goal is to prevent the endless run of sieges of previous Total War games, and hopefully encourage more fighting in the open countryside.

Sounds similar to Rome Total Realism 7 set up which is a good thing. Just hope you can honestly conquer all the minor settlements because like the Op said I like to see my empire expand incrementally not all of Northern Italy in one battle.

In real life you might of had a major battle or two that eliminated enemy resistance but the region wouldnt be taken until you seized control of the towns and cities.

Hopefully there are a lot of these smaller regions. Hopefully over 300 regions total for the whole map.

I dont want to see them simplify it for simplying sakes. If this is honestly just about reducing siege fests than rtr7 set-up would work. Minor towns and cities with only economic focus, no military. But unit costs have to increase as well. As well as upkeep costs. That way units become valuable. So if you lose a battle fighting Epirius in Southern Italy as rome you might of just lost the war for Magna Graecia if you have no other troops in the area.

[Princeps]

I'd definitely like to see province "paper work" reduced in exchange for government administration features "at top levels" so to speak. You should be making more decisions that affect your entire country, like making laws, minting coins, setting "research" priorities, etc. I don't care about building brothels or black smiths workshops in some back water village. Those were not decisions made by rulers. You'd make some construction decisions, but mostly at the strategic war-fighting level or big hero projects like Coliseum, huge port like Ostia or a huge weapon fabricae.

[MagicCuboid]

I'm happy - it sounds like we all basically want to the same things!

If we make the assumption that capitals are where you recruit armies and adjust/collect taxes, may we then further assume that the regions produce commodities and food for trading? I think this would present an incredibly organic view of provinces and really heighten the sense of strategic accomplishment in taking small towns, etc. Imagine if the Republic needed more food, so they decided on their own to seize a bunch of Gallish farms, provoking war!

edit: but I agree with other posters. I do not want this province system to provide an excuse for making all of Gaul a single province. That would just be awful - only one major city in all of Gaul, imagine! I really don't want to see Mediolanum reduced to an "iron works" or Narbo reduced to a "plantation"....

[Petroniu]

Well, one thing's for sure: We don't know anything yet! And it seems that the CA guys didn't do nothing but announce the game. It's like they are doing this on purpose. They keep us in the dark just to see our thoughts about how Rome should be so that they might use something from this. I know it sounds like a conspiracy theory but I think that they should've shown us something if they announced it.(hopefully they will in the next Rally Point episode) At least more than 4 screenshots and some confusing answers in some interviews. And the interviews, JR was something like, it's going to be new and revolutionary, but we haven't decided upon it yet. He said nothing for a fact. It's so annoying.

[Adufka]

Well, one thing's for sure: We don't know anything yet! And it seems that the CA guys didn't do nothing but announce the game. It's like they are doing this on purpose. They keep us in the dark just to see our thoughts about how Rome should be so that they might use something from this. I know it sounds like a conspiracy theory but I think that they should've shown us something if they announced it.(hopefully they will in the next Rally Point episode) At least more than 4 screenshots and some confusing answers in some interviews. And the interviews, JR was something like, it's going to be new and revolutionary, but we haven't decided upon it yet. He said nothing for a fact. It's so annoying.

CA have a good strategy...they know exactly what they doing

[Rhaegar1]

cissalpine gaul was mentioned in one article as one province consisting of 5 regions (1 of which owned by a gallic tribe, the other 4 by romans). I guess since that is one province we can assume that the Italian penninsula will consist of 3 or perhaps 4 provinces. I guess that makes gaul also something like that, 4 provinces, 4 regions per province is 16 sperately conquerable regions. I can live with that, and it seems pretty realistic.

If they now also make it that conquering outlying regions aren't settled by sieges but more by a field battle around a small village (like in empire) and coastal villages perhaps a bit different again. (perhaps by having to capture a harbour or something) and perhaps a third kind where you have to take a small fortress instead of a big city. That would result in a much larger variety of battles (Jippie!)

[MathiasOfAthens]

cissalpine gaul was mentioned in one article as one province consisting of 5 regions (1 of which owned by a gallic tribe, the other 4 by romans). I guess since that is one province we can assume that the Italian penninsula will consist of 3 or perhaps 4 provinces. I guess that makes gaul also something like that, 4 provinces, 4 regions per province is 16 sperately conquerable regions. I can live with that, and it seems pretty realistic.

If they now also make it that conquering outlying regions aren't settled by sieges but more by a field battle around a small village (like in empire) and coastal villages perhaps a bit different again. (perhaps by having to capture a harbour or something) and perhaps a third kind where you have to take a small fortress instead of a big city. That would result in a much larger variety of battles (Jippie!)

Thats good news but the only fact you have is that Cissalpine gaul is one province consisting of 5 regions. If that is true. Can you find the article. If everything else is right then I can live with that as well but it be nice to have more.

They might be naming the provinces based on Roman provincial maps so we might be able to get a general idea of how many provinces there will be from a basic roman map. Still if CA reads this the more regions the better. The more conquerable towns the better.