Brundisium or Syracuse

[Kinjo]

Anybody else wonder why Brundisium was chosen as the capital of Magna Graecia over Syracuse?

Syracuse was the most important city in Magna Graecia before it was taken by the Romans and it's population was 3 times larger than Brundisium at its peak during the period. However Brundisium does seem to have some important activity after the Punic Wars and becomes a major center of Roman naval power and maritime trade. Even Julius Caesar besieged the city at one point, but does that really justify making it that capital of the province?

I would say it might have to do with the wonder Mount Etna, but I'm fairly certain Capua is a capital city and it has Mount Vesuvius so I really don't know why it was picked.

So which city would you prefer as the capital and why?

[HinFoo]

it give more towns with walls in italy itself by having the capital there. and since sicily is split in 2 it would give rome a walled town while carthago would have a village only wich would make it a big advantage.

[Revan The Great]

The problem is that, at the start of the game, Sicily is important enough that it could be its own, 3-4 city province. But as time goes on, historically, Sicily waved immensely in importance, so having it be its own province would be overpowered - and probably make the Romans (or whoever owned it) have too significant a source of difficult to threaten wealth. Sort of the same argument they used for putting less cities in Greece.

So I guess that I would prefer they both be capitols, just to make Syracuse besiegable and make the Punic Wars/playing as Syracuse in a future DLC more interesting. But, I know that from a gameplay perspective, it's more important in 95% of games that Sicily is less valuable than more valuable, and this choice was probably done more to make the Romans have to expand out of Italy to begin with, rather than letting them become enormously powerful and wealthy before ever crossing a sea.

[HinFoo]

So I guess that I would prefer they both be capitols, just to make Syracuse besiegable and make the Punic Wars/playing as Syracuse in a future DLC more interesting. But, I know that from a gameplay perspective, it's more important in 95% of games that Sicily is less valuable than more valuable, and this choice was probably done more to make the Romans have to expand out of Italy to begin with, rather than letting them become enormously powerful and wealthy before ever crossing a sea.

sine they created this new system wtih 1 capital with 3-4 villages around it it would be weird if ther would be 2x capitals with nothing around it on sicily only. and it would be a cluster of towns if they had any more towns there.

[Revan The Great]

sine they created this new system wtih 1 capital with 3-4 villages around it it would be weird if ther would be 2x capitals with nothing around it on sicily only. and it would be a cluster of towns if they had any more towns there.

Well yes, the implicit argument here is that they'd have to make Sicily a little bigger (or at least less flooded with mountains and trees), and add more cities so that each capitol (Syracuse and Brundisium) would have the appropriate number of smaller cities. Hence why making each its own region would serve to imbalance the game, because necessarily you're adding 2+ cities that are pretty much guaranteed to be Roman 95% of the time.

[BunnyPoopCereal]

Syracuse should have been a playable faction imo.

[Aeneas Veneratio]

Both should have had walls at least.

[Kinjo]

Well if you look at Sardinia et Corsica and Caledonia et Hibernia they both only has 2 provinces with the capital having a walled city, they could have done the same with Sicily.

[HinFoo]

Well if you look at Sardinia et Corsica and Caledonia et Hibernia they both only has 2 provinces with the capital having a walled city, they could have done the same with Sicily.

they could, but sicily is split between 2 playable factions.

[Kinjo]

they could, but sicily is split between 2 playable factions.

Actually after looking at the map half is controlled by Carthage and the other half is controlled by the faction Syracuse. Only one of them is a playable faction.

[Kinjo]

That shouldn't matter, Corsica et Sardinia is divide between 2 factions one of which is playable.

[Serger989]

How about Upper and Lower Magna Graecia with Brundisium and Syracuse (independent) as the respective capitols. (I also wish Jerusalem and Petra were swapped)

[BlueSan]

Game balancing thing. I personally would prefer 3 cities on Sicily like in RTW I and in general like 40+ cities (regions) more on the entire map and that it would be perfect, but they made their "balanced" game this way and it will be up to the moders to change that and show that having an unbalanced factions is actually not a problem since some factions were historically more weak and is therefor not that painful if they get wiped out. If Rome and others do however... it kind of ruins the fun for me, if I am playing some faction and see that I cant take on some of the super-powers of the ancient world.

Europa Barbarorum was great for me. Size of the map was bigger than RTW II (at least to where it expanded) historically very well done, you actually had to plan how you will conquer and so on and on. Had the AI been better and diplomacy that game would be for me never ending play-ground

[Revan The Great]

You're technically right, but Caledonia et Hibernia and Corsica et Sardinia are kind of special cases because of their small size, and relative unimportance. You couldn't get away with making a 'Southern Italy' province with only two cities. You couldn't add Corsica et Sardinia to any other regions to make a larger province, but at the same time you can't imagine either of them being more than one region each. Caledonia et Hibernia are the way they are because they will be untouched by all factions except the Iceni, and played such a minor role in this the larger scheme of this period's history that you couldn't get away with making them more regions.

[Bethencourt]

The problem is absurd. While both cities belong to a historical reality called Magna Graecia they never where part of the same political region. Before Romans conquered Sicily they were different states, and once they conquered it, Sicily was a province by it self. This is a problem created by CA. Put a wall in every city.

[General David]

Maybe they wanted Brundisium to be a walled, major city because they didn't want other factions to easily conquer Southern Italy.

[Kinjo]

That or maybe they wanted Sicily to be a battleground that changes hands frequently.

[Revan The Great]

I think we both know that this probably isn't how it's going to work though. The Romans will likely sweep over Sicily very quickly, and I doubt the Carthaginians or anyone else will mount strong enough invasions of Sicily/Southern Italy for momentum be maintained.

[High Fist]

I would have thought there would be three cities in Sicily. Have a huge contest against the Carthaginians for the island. Two regions is a bit few, IMO, but whatever.

[Toho]

I think both provinces should be split into 2 and have both said cities a siege-able settlement.