Is a mod like this possible?

**Orthrus** · February 22, 2015, 12:31 AM

Hello everyone, I was doing a little window shopping here on the mod forum when I suddenly had an idea for a mod; one that seems straight forward enough, but far exceeds my very basic modding experience.

I was thinking of making a fleshed out, elaborate post with all the what if's thought out already, but those topics rarely get any traction, so I'll be short and sweet.

Is there any way to limit the growth of an empire by a province cap that is directly effected by Imperium?

More thought in the next post, please discuss though! I honestly think this could be something worth looking into.

**internalmemory** · February 22, 2015, 12:39 AM

Interesting. Take the terms "Total War" out of the game and see what happens? Having it so you can't occupy every settlement you defeat without having a high enough Imperium? I mean... it sounds interesting, but how to gain Imperium without growing the empire?

**Orthrus** · February 22, 2015, 01:23 AM

Originally Posted by internalmemory

Interesting. Take the terms "Total War" out of the game and see what happens? Having it so you can't occupy every settlement you defeat without having a high enough Imperium? I mean... it sounds interesting, but how to gain Imperium without growing the empire?

Yeah I suppose that aspect of "Total War" would then be negated, but it doesn't limit you to attacking though, think of it as disabling the "Occupy" option after attacking a settlement. This way half of the games factions don't drop at the sound of the end turn button, adding some more variety, and possibly more interesting end games. Not to mention this puts more of an emphasis on liberating provinces, actually needing to utilize satrapies/tributaries and actually makes raiding more interesting. You go off through enemy territory with the intention of raiding settlements, the thought of occupying yourself was far in the back of your mind. This would just make that mindset more prevalent. I think.

**Orthrus** · February 22, 2015, 01:14 AM

Personally I think this would have more of a game changing effect on R2:TW instead of A:TW.

Don your imagination caps for a quick moment; We all are familiar with how the game works during the campaign mid to late stage ( an assumption of course, but considering were we are, one I feel isn't too bold

), especially those first empires that were more-or-less poorly managed and planned to some degree. Usually this stems from rapid expansion, mismanaging settlements, having too much happening all at once, so on and so forth. Often one would find themselves in a bind, to many borders to protect, too few armies to do so, not enough money to keep up with your growing demand for civil structures/new units/replenishing old units... I think you get the idea. Sounds familiar though, right?

Sure it's a natural step in the learning process; I feel though the game is missing out on an opportunity though. Here we can link empirical growth with imperical ( Is this a word?.... sure why not ) growth.

Off the top of my head, I can imagine this giving the player incentive to build their already owned settlements first so they advance enough to were the need to expand is prevalent, not only that but the actual means to do so is then available. I can't imagine, short of life or death situations, a tribe, empire, or whatever decided to expand it's border just for the hell of it, right? There is always a reason, I would think. That's not a major point though, and somewhat derails what I'm getting to.

Now, more experienced players might not have much of an issue with managing their empire, or often find themselves not having to worry about it, because they found the perfect formula of what they need/don't need to advance to the next stage of the game, and then they use the next formula. Makes sense though, why invest in something were the cons outweigh the pros? "X amount of squalor here, or expand rapidly and make up for what I'd miss out on from lower tiers of the same thing." Not a perfect example, but I think it gets the idea across. It makes the game much more linear and shallow unfortunately. In my experience, campaigns start to play out the same regardless of the faction and whatever it's quirks are.

Now one glaring issue is how Imperium itself is greatly reliant on territory owned. Well, again off the top of my head, I imagine one way to fix that completely is... well, for lack of a better phrase, "Quality over Quantity". Hell, that's even a perfect name for the mod, "XXX's Quality over Quantity Mod for A:TW". Simple concept really, instead of how much territory you own, while still having an effect and being greatly important, is sidelined by how great that territory actually is. I can go and cherry pick the crappiest territories on the map, claim them all, ( I have no clue if this is accurate ) and my Imperical growth probably wouldn't be much less then if I went and conquered the same amount of the best territories. Higher tier building, fertility, for a few examples, could be some of the factors into a provinces Imperical worth. You have 10 territories over populated with half diseased starving inhabitants, on poor farmland, with no strategic advantage, how should that be worth more then my 5 territories of happy, well fed citizens, with highly fertile farmland, more technologically advanced with *insert anything here*, located on a part of the map that provides natural barriers ( The Alps for example ).

Anyhow this is much longer then I wanted it to be, the ideas kept coming as I was typing it out

. Anyway, after writing out that essay, I was getting so enthusiastically excited I forgot my original question, and figured I should restate it. Is this theoretically possible? Or a variation of the idea with the same basic premise, limiting how many provinces you can own until you are logically capable of owning more.