Major Cities

[Kill_Devil]

Is it just me, or is anyone else kind of disappointed with the major cities? I've been playing the campaign as Rome recently and I took Carthage. I was expecting a huge, intricate city to fight in, but all I got was a walled city like any other. Granted, Carthage was not the owning faction at the time, but I was wondering if there was a patch fix or some setting I need to have enabled.

[krisslanza]

The size of Carthage when invaded depends on how much its actually been upgraded. I think for those iconic cities, even if the culture changes, it should still retain something... but maybe not. Who was owning it at the time? They probably rebuilt it which got rid of the unique map for Carthage.

[Kill_Devil]

I guess that makes sense. I think it would be nice for major cities to maintain it's size despite culture though. At the time I captured the city, the Gaetuli were owning it.

[krisslanza]

The special cities actually have a unique model, but the size of it depends on the actual level of it. The Carthage shown in early footage, is a max level Carthage. If you invade it sooner, it'll look smaller as its not as developed.

However, the main building switching cultures may have ruined the special map, since they rebuilt the city. I think the Gaetuli are Desert Nomadic, so they'd have to convert Carthago to build anything in it. Carthage has an issue of surviving the early game, due to its poor starting location, weak initial troops, and reliance on mercenaries.

[Dunadd]

I'm certainly disappointed that Syracuse is an unwalled "fishing village" in 280 BC when in reality it was the biggest city in Sicily by that time and had massive inner and outer fortifications plus an inner citadel and more than one fortified harbour long long before then. Liliybaeum, the Carthaginians' main base in Sicily, is similarly an unwalled hamlet in Rome II. Bizarre and silly. Destroys the atmosphere - they should be a large walled city and a walled town respectively.

Carthage has an issue of surviving the early game, due to its poor starting location, weak initial troops, and reliance on mercenaries.

Which is just massively historically inaccurate and annoying, whichever faction you're playing as. The Garamantines were not a significant power at all in 280 BC - not even a minor one. Nor were the Nasamones. The Gaetuli weren't capable of conquering Numidia let alone Carthage. There shouldn't be any Garamantines or Nasamones in the game at all. If those settlements are in at all they should be rebel held.

Dresden's Qart Hadasht Fully Expanded mod does help a bit if you're playing as Carthage as it gives you the option of getting Libya and/or Carthago Nova to join Carthage rather than be client states.

[krisslanza]

I'm certainly disappointed that Syracuse is an unwalled "fishing village" in 280 BC when in reality it was the biggest city in Sicily by that time and had massive inner and outer fortifications plus an inner citadel and more than one fortified harbour long long before then. Liliybaeum, the Carthaginians' main base in Sicily, is similarly an unwalled hamlet in Rome II. Bizarre and silly. Destroys the atmosphere - they should be a large walled city and a walled town respectively.

They have to make compromises with the Region system. Just the way it is. I still say a good compromise is let walls take up a building slot in a minor settlement - they only get two, after all. It'd really force the decision of how important a wall is.

Which is just massively historically inaccurate and annoying, whichever faction you're playing as. The Garamantines were not a significant power at all in 280 BC - not even a minor one. Nor were the Nasamones. The Gaetuli weren't capable of conquering Numidia let alone Carthage. There shouldn't be any Garamantines or Nasamones in the game at all. If those settlements are in at all they should be rebel held.

Dresden's Qart Hadasht Fully Expanded mod does help a bit if you're playing as Carthage as it gives you the option of getting Libya and/or Carthago Nova to join Carthage rather than be client states.

Well people didn't like the 99% of the world owned by Rebels thing either. The minor factions make the campaign far more unpredictable and random. They wanted a living, breathing world, rather then just a world that was static aside from the major players.

[Dunadd]

They have to make compromises with the Region system. Just the way it is. I still say a good compromise is let walls take up a building slot in a minor settlement - they only get two, after all. It'd really force the decision of how important a wall is.

Since every significant settlement in the ancient world from the smallest town to the largest city had stone walls, with the exception of Sparta, that would make no sense.

and my problem is not only with them being unwalled - though that is bad - but making major cities like Syracuse into tiny villages - it's plain historically inaccurate and wrong.

And why would the region and province system require some settlements to be villages or hamlets? It doesn't. There's no reason for it.

Compromises are certainly necessary when representing vast numbers of cities in a computer game by only showing a minority of them - that just makes it more essential that the one settlement included for each region is the largest and most significant in that region - which would always be a town at the least and a walled one, again with the sole exception of Sparta.

[krisslanza]

Since every significant settlement in the ancient world from the smallest town to the largest city had stone walls, with the exception of Sparta, that would make no sense.

and my problem is not only with them being unwalled - though that is bad - but making major cities like Syracuse into tiny villages - it's plain historically inaccurate and wrong.

And why would the region and province system require some settlements to be villages or hamlets? It doesn't. There's no reason for it.

Compromises are certainly necessary when representing vast numbers of cities in a computer game by only showing a minority of them - that just makes it more essential that the one settlement included for each region is the largest and most significant in that region - which would always be a town at the least and a walled one, again with the sole exception of Sparta.

I doubt nearly that many settlements had walls. Maybe around the Mediterranian, but this presents a gameplay issue. My friend did some research for UK, and found of all the settlements in it during the ancient era about 8 of them had walls of any significance. Walls built by the Romans, that is.

And because the region system means every region has one capital - which is the major settlement. It doesn't work if there's more then 1 major. It would kind of defeat the purpose if everything was a major settlement as well (it would also make Rome have severe food issues).

[Dunadd]

Well, every settlement in the Mediterranean, North Africa and the Middle East significant enough to be included in a computer game - which is the vast majority. Britain may have had unwalled settlements when the Romans first arrived and Gaul may have had some unwalled settlements - but even in Gaul there was the Murus Gallicus (stone walls built around wooden timbers). If Alesia hadn't had walls Caesar wouldn't have had to besiege it.

(edit seems Alesia was a town with hill fort fortifications - so not stone walls - but still had defences)

However where there's historical evidence that the major settlements weren't walled in 280 BC i'm fine with them being that way in the game - just don't have major cities like Syracuse put in as unwalled villages, or walled, Punic military colonies like Lilybaeum put in as unwalled hamlets with a Greek population.

[dvk901]

It's sadly apparent that CA took no interest in any factual representation of the era. They just slammed out a game with things in it that just pure nonsense. There is no defending this, and no real reason for it other than total ignorance and/or laziness. My Grandfather always said: "Ignorance can be fixed. Stupidity is forever."

[krisslanza]

It's sadly apparent that CA took no interest in any factual representation of the era. They just slammed out a game with things in it that just pure nonsense. There is no defending this, and no real reason for it other than total ignorance and/or laziness. My Grandfather always said: "Ignorance can be fixed. Stupidity is forever."

Or that Total War is a game first, not a historical simulator. CA never once claimed to set out to make the most historically accurate game ever - just a game with a historical backdrop. They have admitted to ignoring history if it interferes with gameplay. In this case, reducing the number of walled siege battles the player has to fight.

It'd get pretty tiresome to play some 150+ walled sieges per campaign.

[amelius]

Or that Total War is a game first, not a historical simulator. CA never once claimed to set out to make the most historically accurate game ever - just a game with a historical backdrop. They have admitted to ignoring history if it interferes with gameplay. In this case, reducing the number of walled siege battles the player has to fight.

It'd get pretty tiresome to play some 150+ walled sieges per campaign.

And despite all these "comprises" they had to make with the historical setting, the gameplay still ended up being bland.

[Modestus]

Or that Total War is a game first, not a historical simulator. CA never once claimed to set out to make the most historically accurate game ever - just a game with a historical backdrop. They have admitted to ignoring history if it interferes with gameplay. In this case, reducing the number of walled siege battles the player has to fight.

It'd get pretty tiresome to play some 150+ walled sieges per campaign.

Don’t you mean no historical backdrop, like a wall.

[dvk901]

But really......could they not have used this excuse to at least make sense? If that were the case, then why not make Rome a silly village, Athens, Antioch, Alexandria, etc. etc. Syracuse, at least, was one of the most famous of ancient cities. Good Lord. I give up. You're probably right. They just tossed out a game with little thought to it having much relationship to the era it is supposed to represent!!

[krisslanza]

But really......could they not have used this excuse to at least make sense? If that were the case, then why not make Rome a silly village, Athens, Antioch, Alexandria, etc. etc. Syracuse, at least, was one of the most famous of ancient cities. Good Lord. I give up. You're probably right. They just tossed out a game with little thought to it having much relationship to the era it is supposed to represent!!

Because the regional system says every region has 1 major settlement, and up to 3 minor settlements. They just picked the biggest, most important city per region to be the capital. Everything else is a minor settlement.

They can't make every city major, because then nothing is major.

[Unwelcome Guest]

Because the regional system says every region has 1 major settlement, and up to 3 minor settlements. They just picked the biggest, most important city per region to be the capital. Everything else is a minor settlement.

They can't make every city major, because then nothing is major.

I'm not exactly a scholar on this time period, but by that argument shouldn't Syracuse be the major settlement in Magna Graecia and not Brundisium? And on that note where is Capua?

[krisslanza]

I'm not exactly a scholar on this time period, but by that argument shouldn't Syracuse be the major settlement in Magna Graecia and not Brundisium? And on that note where is Capua?

Brundisium was probably made the capital because its on the Italian peninsula and starts in Roman control. I don't think many people even knew Syracuse to be that major a city. Heck, I didn't know at all (not that his is a surprise, the ancient era is not something I'm overly fond of).

Capua was replaced with Neapolis, maybe because of the zoomed in scale the tutorial takes place in, Capua would've literally been down the road from Roma, so they picked a settlement further down the road... also Neapolis is a port, so Roma starts with a direct port connection. (I don't think Capua was a port, correct me if I'm wrong).

[Dunadd]

I'm not exactly a scholar on this time period, but by that argument shouldn't Syracuse be the major settlement in Magna Graecia and not Brundisium? And on that note where is Capua?

Exactly. Syracuse was a far larger and more militarily and politically important than any of the southern Italian cities. Magna Graecia shouldn't be a province at all in any case. Historically the Romans governed Sicily as a separate province because it had hundreds of cities in it and a huge population.

Krisslanza wrote

I don't think many people even knew Syracuse to be that major a city. Heck, I didn't know at all (not that his is a surprise, the ancient era is not something I'm overly fond of).

Anyone who knows anything about the punic wars between Rome and Carthage or the Peloponnesian wars between Athens and Sparta knows Syracuse was a major city and important in both wars.

If we're basing everything on the lowest common denominator of who is most ignorant of the history why have anything historically accurate at all? Why not have the Romans in chariots and all wearing lion skins and equipped as gladiators? ; after all most people who know nothing about the period won't know the difference.

Having such basic things so wrong destroys the atmosphere of the game for anyone who knows anything about the period (which includes a lot of people).

And if you're not fond of the period why bother arguing against making it historically accurate? If you're not fond of the period why are you playing a game set in it at all?

Also Capua was more than far enough from Rome to go in on the same map on Total War map scale and the second largest city in Italy - with manpower of 30,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalry. It was important in the Samnite War, the Second Punic War and the Republican civil wars. It should have been in.

[krisslanza]

Krisslanza wrote

Anyone who knows anything about the punic wars between Rome and Carthage or the Peloponnesian wars between Athens and Sparta knows Syracuse was a major city and important in both wars.

If we're basing everything on the lowest common denominator of who is most ignorant of the history why have anything historically accurate at all? Why not have the Romans in chariots and all wearing lion skins and equipped as gladiators? ; after all most people who know nothing about the period won't know the difference.

Having such basic things so wrong destroys the atmosphere of the game for anyone who knows anything about the period (which includes a lot of people).

And if you're not fond of the period why bother arguing against making it historically accurate? If you're not fond of the period why are you playing a game set in it at all?

I don't think many people are familiar with the Punic Wars - its not exactly taught in school.

And because everyone has a general idea of what Rome looks like, based on popular media. They've seen the Legions in movies and stuff. Even I have a general idea of what Rome looks like based upon that.

Because I like Total War games. And I do not DISLIKE the time period - I like Total War, but I can't play Empire or Napoleon, as the era is just utterly uninteresting for combat.

[kronpas]

Exactly. Syracuse was a far larger and more militarily and politically important than any of the southern Italian cities. Magna Graecia shouldn't be a province at all in any case. Historically the Romans governed Sicily as a separate province because it had hundreds of cities in it and a huge population.

Krisslanza wrote

Anyone who knows anything about the punic wars between Rome and Carthage or the Peloponnesian wars between Athens and Sparta knows Syracuse was a major city and important in both wars.

If we're basing everything on the lowest common denominator of who is most ignorant of the history why have anything historically accurate at all? Why not have the Romans in chariots and all wearing lion skins and equipped as gladiators? ; after all most people who know nothing about the period won't know the difference.

Having such basic things so wrong destroys the atmosphere of the game for anyone who knows anything about the period (which includes a lot of people).

And if you're not fond of the period why bother arguing against making it historically accurate? If you're not fond of the period why are you playing a game set in it at all?

Also Capua was more than far enough from Rome to go in on the same map on Total War map scale and the second largest city in Italy - with manpower of 30,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalry. It was important in the Samnite War, the Second Punic War and the Republican civil wars. It should have been in.

I do know about them, hell, I can even quote Hannibal's battles and the year 2nd Punic war end, 201. But my understanding of ancient history means nothing since the game aint made to render history onto screen, and I'm fed up with the constant siege warfare since Rome I, so any change to alleviate that issue is welcome by me.