Most of the coastline is cliffs!

[SughdianWarrior]

I saw Jack saying that cliffs were an artistic decision to show impassable areas, but as far as I can see, it is more than that.
First of all, from the footage from E3 and the images of the campaign map, it seems that most of the length of the coastlines are made up off cliffs, with mostly areas near settlements having beaches. As if there are "dedicated" areas where one can land. Or, I also have a suspicion, that this could have been done to guide the AI, so it doesn't land where it shouldn't. Whatever the case, it seems quite restricting to me. For example, I cannot move an army quickly from the Red Sea through the "armpit" at the present day Suez and continue to the Mediterranean. The whole of the shore nearest to the Mediterranean is made up of damn cliffs! The only available beach is near the settlement Myos Hormos. WHY??? Why can I only land in southern Egypt? But this is just one example of movement restrictions. The bigger question is WHY most of the coastlines are cliffs??? I can understand the tiny islands, but why are the shores of the main land bodies made up of darn CLIFFS too?? Is it for the AI?
Forget the historican INauthenticity, this is just plainly restricting my options.

[PROMETHEUS ts]

Double.

[PROMETHEUS ts]

I saw Jack saying that cliffs were an artistic decision to show impassable areas, but as far as I can see, it is more than that.
First of all, from the footage from E3 and the images of the campaign map, it seems that most of the length of the coastlines are made up off cliffs, with mostly areas near settlements having beaches. As if there are "dedicated" areas where one can land. Or, I also have a suspicion, that this could have been done to guide the AI, so it doesn't land where it shouldn't. Whatever the case, it seems quite restricting to me. For example, I cannot move an army quickly from the Red Sea through the "armpit" at the present day Suez and continue to the Mediterranean. The whole of the shore nearest to the Mediterranean is made up of damn cliffs! The only available beach is near the settlement Myos Hormos. WHY??? Why can I only land in southern Egypt? But this is just one example of movement restrictions. The bigger question is WHY most of the coastlines are cliffs??? I can understand the tiny islands, but why are the shores of the main land bodies made up of darn CLIFFS too?? Is it for the AI?
Forget the historican INauthenticity, this is just plainly restricting my options.

Agree...

the truth cannot be ignored for long.

Its not for an artistic choice obviously is for forcing the player into a certain route and to mostly guidethe AIto properlandings.

[ashbery76]

The truth is they want effective A.I with larger campaign and I agree with that design choice.There are plenty enough invasion spots.

[SughdianWarrior]

Those cliffs are raised over water vertically, like Cliffs of Dover, suddenly turning into beaches. There aren't Cliffs of Dover all over Africa, Asia and Europe, that just doesn't work. And that's just from visual perspective. I already explained that they placed beaches mostly near settlements, with the rest of the coastline constituting cliffs. And I explained how this can be restrictive, with an example.

[PROMETHEUS ts]

Those cliffs are raised over water vertically, like Cliffs of Dover, suddenly turning into beaches. There aren't Cliffs of Dover all over Africa, Asia and Europe, that just doesn't work. And that's just from visual perspective. I already explained that they placed beaches mostly near settlements, with the rest of the coastline constituting cliffs. And I explained how this can be restrictive, with an example.

have ou noticed how the Nile looks like the grand canyon river now?

[Caesar15]

Have you noticed how the Nile looks like the Grand Canyon river now?

Grand canyon river, you mean the Colorado river? Anyway, it is a navigable river, it was scaled to the size of the real thing you couldn't even fit the ships campaign model in the river.

[Mortarion]

Yea, the cliffs looks good on the map. But it also restricts us alot :/

[Kinjo]

They could be toned down a bit, they do look pretty ridiculous on the little islands around Greece.

[August]

I really like the point about helping the AI with it's decision making. For that alone, I'll let CA have all the cliffs in the world.

[Sherm]

This is probably to melt gameplay reason with limit of the AI. So you have to study how landing and the AI need to land only in certain spot, and probably this made it more effective.

[Karnil Vark Khaitan]

Is a good idea. they know their limit.

[GrudgeNL]

I like the cliffs. I want CA to keep them the way they are.

[Spartacus041]

I like the cliffs. I want CA to keep them the way they are.

I second that.

It might not be geographically accurate. But I do like that they are forcing us to focus on attacking or defending specific pieces of strategic coastline rather than have the AI land in the middle of Libya and walk to Egypt.

[tomgrab100]

Cliffs have already appeared in Shogun 2, but really annoyed me only in FOTS, particularly the Hokkaido island. This solution reduces the offensive possibilities, and simplifies the defense. This is not a terrible thing for me, but if the cliffs were gone, I would not miss them too much

[SughdianWarrior]

have ou noticed how the Nile looks like the grand canyon river now?

Yes, and the small Greek islands look weird, as someone else has already mentioned.

Cliffs have already appeared in Shogun 2, but really annoyed me only in FOTS, particularly the Hokkaido island. This solution reduces the offensive possibilities, and simplifies the defense. This is not a terrible thing for me, but if the cliffs were gone, I would not miss them too much

I know the cliffs existed in Shogun2 and FOTS - I hated them. But neither in FOTS nor in Shogun2 you had the complicated land masses as you do in Rome 2.
But consider something else - this time, you don't need a fleet to move your army. So essentially in the example with crossing from Red Sea through Suez to Mediterranean, you don't need a fleet waiting on the other side. So basically you have a new route without having to go through land. BUT! Cliffs will become a real obstacle, restricting arrivals and departures of your armies to the beaches near settlements.

[LewisVee]

I feel this is to have more beach landing battles, so you or the ai know where to defend.

[pericles_plato]

It's hard to have a good AI. Those cliffs are there to say where we cannot land. That is fine with me. I would rather have a better AI anyways.
What he said was "That is an artistic choice to make it clear where players can and cannot land their armies. The tiny islands have nothing on them so have been made impassable."
A lot of other games have places where you cannot go and this is just one of them. It's a game cheer up. If you do not like it make a mod when it comes out. It'll be apart of the vanilla. Who knows you might actually like it come Sep 3!

[sobchack]

It is a somewhat realistic mechanic IMO. Most of europe doesn't meet the ocean as cliffs, but there are only a limited amount of natural harbors that large fleets could conduct fast/safe landings. if you could land troops anywhere from the sea, it would make the integrated land/sea mechanic somewhat useless.

[vietanh797]

which ever is good for AI will be good for us too