Campaign map, weird design

[Wregghhh]

Is it just me, or does the campaign map not feel like it was thoroughly thought out?
The biggest gripe I have with it is the city placements, it feels like they just plotted cities everywhere with a ruler measuring the number of pixels between the cites.
The city placements aren't really based on geographical locations but just distance, with little features added to the map to add flavor, just like the placement of Tyal in a mountain. The central and western parts of the map are more or less okay, but the map design for the south, and north are just horrendous.

The biggest problem is the Sturgian geography and city placements. Why is there a giant sea? what purpose does it serve? why are there 4 cities completely isolated. Who would even live there, its winter all year.
From a gameplay perspective the geographical locations of Revyl, Balgard, Sibir, Varnovapol and Tyal are completely redundant. Why are they built in the middle of nowhere?. Instead of giant seas there should be rivers that are cross-able and the cities built on the rivers. The entire faction of Sturgia is a giant stick, making the gathering of armies for anything take too long and ends before it can even begin. You could remove all those cities and that part of the map and it wouldn't remove anything that adds anything to the game.

The 2nd biggest offender is Aserai, they made it so you can only access the desert in two locations? Makes going through their territory an absolute chore (same with Sturgia) all the cities between the two on the edges are completely redundant unless you REALLY want desert horses. They are also one big stick, this is also because of the geography that was designed.

Then you have the Khuzaits, why are there vertical mountains everywhere? its meant to be plains with lots of horses. Whats stopping the cold from the north east to come there if they are so continental? Where are the mountains stopping the cold? Then the city placements are just ehhhh. Also needs a rework, but no where near as bad as Aserai and Sturgia.

They added a lot of cities to the game without much substance. Why in gods name would you ever go and take Revyl, Sibir, Sanala, or Askar? They add nothing to the game.

The central and west part of the map has rivers everywhere and they more or less feel like they could and should be there, but the east side of the map could use a little redesign while you could remove the north and south and it wouldn't feel like anything is lost.

Warband map design was just much better, had issues but overall much better. Most cities placed on rivers, taking most cities felt like you now have control of unique and relevant territory, the South in Warband was the worst offender but no where near as bad as it is in Bannerlord.

Remove the giant seas, add rivers, move the northern cities down and condense them, do the same for the south but move them north. Then remove the mountains from the east, put a mountain from the east to the west cutting off the north from Khuzaits with some kind of walk though. Remove all the snow and ****ty geography from the north. leave a few places for sea raider infestations.

They defiantly took Europe as a model for the map, without taking into account as to why the cities are placed where they are in Europe.

 

[Shrugging Khan]

Good post!

I also found the city orientations weird, with the only gate often pointing in completely nonsensical directions.

 

[Koshkasa]

Who would even live there, its winter all year.

Cough, Greenland, couigh Barrow, Alaska, cough, Murmansk, Russia. There are more reasons to settle in a specific place other than enjoyable climate.

Sturgian design is a bit weird, I agree. There is little to no reason NOT to settle near the sea, and Sturgians have access to a pretty big one. I get the position of Tyal somewhat (it's supposed to be more defendable?), but other cities - not so much.

That said, however, there might be other factors the map just isn't demonstrating graphically. Maybe there's an ore deposit nearby, or a forest particularly rich with game, so that a nearby settlement just happened to grow large by exploiting it and selling furs. Who knows.

As for the climate weirdness you've also adressed, I guess it has something to do with the fact that Bannerlord is a videogame. You can get from tundras of Sturgia to deserts of Aserai with an army on foot in much less than 10 days. That makes it, what, 200 kilometers away&

If at some point in the future a hint is given on WHY the cities are where they are, it won't be much of a problem. Sturgia is still ridiculous though.

 

[Wregghhh]

Good post!

I also found the city orientations weird, with the only gate often pointing in completely nonsensical directions.

Thanks, I just hope this isn't the final iteration of the world map. Fixing unit rosters and balance shouldn't be too difficult as you could even do it with mods with relative ease but the map in its current form is just kind of disappointing for three of the factions, making playing them not really enjoyable. All the fun and action takes place between the the Empire, Battania and Valandia.

I saw the previous maps for Bannerlord and they looked better, weren't idea but better.

 

[Wregghhh]

Cough, Greenland, couigh Barrow, Alaska, cough, Murmansk, Russia. There are more reasons to settle in a specific place other than enjoyable climate.

Huge islands with tiny populations the size of small European towns aren't in the game, Barrow in Alaska is a tiny town that was for whale hunting and Murmansk was built in 1914 only because Russia as an Empire needed access to the Atlantic. Not because there were historical settlements there with significant populations.
No significant populations gather in settlements where it is constantly winter.

That said, however, there might be other factors the map just isn't demonstrating graphically. Maybe there's an ore deposit nearby, or a forest particularly rich with game, so that a nearby settlement just happened to grow large by exploiting it and selling furs. Who knows.

As for the climate weirdness you've also adressed, I guess it has something to do with the fact that Bannerlord is a videogame. You can get from tundras of Sturgia to deserts of Aserai with an army on foot in much less than 10 days. That makes it, what, 200 kilometers away&

If at some point in the future a hint is given on WHY the cities are where they are, it won't be much of a problem. Sturgia is still ridiculous though.

It is a video game, but look at the Warband map, much better design. A game where the campaign map is what you're are looking at and walking around for most of the time needs to be up to scratch. Its one of the biggest parts of the game.

 

[blackbellamy]

Personally I'm annoyed when me and my two companions can't take a ship from an obvious port city to another one and I have travel all the way around this nonsensical body of water that these civilizations had to live around for thousand of years yet no one figured out a way to get across except to go through a bandit-infested forest that surrounds it.

 

[Wregghhh]

Personally I'm annoyed when me and my two companions can't take a ship from an obvious port city to another one and I have travel all the way around this nonsensical body of water that these civilizations had to live around for thousand of years yet no one figured out a way to get across except to go through a bandit-infested forest that surrounds it.

Yeah it just makes these bodies of water non nonsensical. Ships could be an answer, but then the city placements would still be bad. I kind of wish they kept the general layout of Warband and expanded on it. Castles in mountain choke points, cities on rivers and next to bodies of water.

 

[Askorti]

"Who would live in Sturgia, in the cold, separated from the rest of the continent by a sea"... Do you even Scandinavia bruh? (I know they're technically Kievan Rus by the way)
By the same token, Aserai are only accessible from two points because that's a stand-in for north Africa. You get an access point through the Levant and the Strait of Gibraltar.
Edit: But I agree that otherwise some settlement, and especially castle placements are off. Especially the fact that most often than not, the castles arent actually protecting anything like chokepoints or bridges.

 

[Wregghhh]

"Who would live in Sturgia, in the cold, separated from the rest of the continent by a sea"... Do you even Scandinavia bruh? (I know they're technically Kievan Rus by the way)
By the same token, Aserai are only accessible from two points because that's a stand-in for north Africa. You get an access point through the Levant and the Strait of Gibraltar.
Edit: But I agree that otherwise some settlement, and especially castle placements are off. Especially the fact that most often than not, the castles arent actually protecting anything like chokepoints or bridges.

Yeah but even Scandinavians live in the south of their countries where its mostly warm . Nobody really lives up north. The northern most city would be something like Oulu but its on a river with sea access. Even then its minus temperature for only half the year.

Yeah I get what they did with Aserai, but its just bad design. If they wanted to include the desert factions they should have included them geographically. As it stands, you could remove the entire faction and land south of the Empire and you wouldn't lose anything.

With castles I wish they were placed in choke points and strategic locations. Also would be great if castles had some kind of defense mechanic. Where you couldn't cross some bridge if you were not friendly with said faction if they controlled the castle guarding the bridge, you would first need to take it. The same with mountain passes. Otherwise they serve no real purpose apart for storing troops.

 

[Gremgoblin]

"Who would live in Sturgia, in the cold, separated from the rest of the continent by a sea"... Do you even Scandinavia bruh? (I know they're technically Kievan Rus by the way)

Even the Scandi's do not live in permanent winter, because the further north you go, the fewer people you find. OP seems to understand perfectly well that by modern standards there are plenty of permanent winter settlements, but his point is that historically this would not happen (often) and almost certainly never for large cities that are meant to represent important cities in the game.

Why the hell would some dude decide to build his settlement in the middle of bum**** nowhere in the middle of an open field with no river nearby and oceans surrounding him? The villages certainly don't give these towns a strategical edge/reason for being there.

 

[ironiccookies]

I agree with OP. There's way too many choke points with no real purpose. The only real choke point I've seen so far is Dunustica blocking the Aserai. But this does absolutely nothing because the Aserai army can just march past Dunustica or around Khuzait territory. I'd like to see something similar to the zone of control from Imperator Rome and EU4.

When the English invaded France in 1415, they could have merely marched past Harfleur but they took the castle for strategic reasons. Without it, all the reinforcements and supplies from England would not have reached their army. In Bannerlord, the AI doesn't really care about choke points and will merely march right past a castle or town to take another one across the map whilst recruiting enemy units.

If TW adds ships to the game, this would change the gameplay. No more walking across the stick of Sturgia just to defend Tyal or Omor, or Aseria to defend Quyaz or Husn Fulq.

 

[ar181]

I agree with OP. There's way too many choke points with no real purpose. The only real choke point I've seen so far is Dunustica blocking the Aserai. But this does absolutely nothing because the Aserai army can just march past Dunustica or around Khuzait territory. I'd like to see something similar to the zone of control from Imperator Rome and EU4.

When the English invaded France in 1415, they could have merely marched past Harfleur but they took the castle for strategic reasons. Without it, all the reinforcements and supplies from England would not have reached their army. In Bannerlord, the AI doesn't really care about choke points and will merely march right past a castle or town to take another one across the map whilst recruiting enemy units.

If TW adds ships to the game, this would change the gameplay. No more walking across the stick of Sturgia just to defend Tyal or Omor, or Aseria to defend Quyaz or Husn Fulq.

I think this map was designed with ships in mind though. If they added ships later and these features weren't in the map then ships would be a lot more boring (I know there are rivers, but that's not really the same). While ship combat and deep ship features etc could take a while to implement and probably aren't a focus of EA, hopefully they have plans to at least add some simple transport ships in the interim so people can get a bit more use out of those areas.

 

[Ichon]

Yep, the design for Sturgia was basically- they are a northern based faction, what should their culture bonus be? Oh, walking faster through the snow- that means the entire land HAS to be snow...

The map does bother me with the somewhat random mountains, no sea/ports, and presumably decent sized cities scattered haphazardly. It is like the map was randomly generated than somewhat adjusted to fit in a few more towns and add mountain/water checkpoints.

 

[peenerz]

Some of my biggest gripes are:
1) Sturgia is always winter when in real life even Russia and Alaska have periods of time where no snow covers the ground.
2) A lot of trade goods are in weird places. Why are there so many grapes growing in the cold highlands of Battania, shouldn't they be in the Empire?
Why are there so many cows in the frozen wastes of Sturgia? So many olives and cotton growing in the North when they should be in the Southern parts of the map.
3) The land bridges connecting some peninsulas so you could cross bodies of water look weird, I rather have your party turn into boats and then back into yourself as your cross like in some mods in Warband

I agree with OP. There's way too many choke points with no real purpose. The only real choke point I've seen so far is Dunustica blocking the Aserai. But this does absolutely nothing because the Aserai army can just march past Dunustica or around Khuzait territory. I'd like to see something similar to the zone of control from Imperator Rome and EU4.

+10000 This would also help limit the bordergore I see late game with the Aserai taking Sturgian land for whatever reason

 

[Bannerman Man]

I think you're right that the world map is meant to be analogous to Europe, Northern Africa, the Middle East, and the Eurasian Steppe (the Steppe has mountains in it by the way). The sea between the Empire and the Aserai would be the Mediterranean analog, the one in the east would be the Black or Caspian analog, and the northern one would be the Baltic analog.

The way some towns are placed on the water (for instance around the Southern Empire and Aserai) indicates to me that they are "ports," and that features will be added that allow you to travel across the water (maybe even up rivers), or even full blown naval mechanics a la Viking Conquest. I predict in due time we will at see at least "ferries" that will take you from coastal town to coastal town, cutting out the walk around (If not, mods will add this). I wouldn't worry about the layout so early into EA just yet.

The constant winter may just be a flavor thing. Maybe they will change it if enough people raise an objection to it.