Are there any plans to 'declutter' the campaign map?

[Pensaci]

Not only does this map makes more sense, the lore was written when they used it still, look how Pendraic castle is in the border of the empire instead of the other side of the map or how settlements are in their rightful place (sargot coof coof), even the lorebits in the villages were written for this map and only recently they addressed it in a patch.

That is some interesting information.
I head by to check a bit more, it seems this map is the version at around Feb,2019. (thanks to Vesper for making the map btw)
Hopefully they will address this in their 'Polish phase'.

A thing about Bannerlord is this weird sentiment around it. And if you look at the map of Warband, it would make perfect sense that Bannerlord's looks like something similar to that early version. Give you a feeling that something changed, something big.

 

[Arkyll]

I was just going to make a post about this.

The Rovalt pass was one of the places that were on my mind for sure.

One sieging party can bring an entire country to a standstill because there are often not enough routes around.

I personally like the mountaineous terrain, Battania feels pretty unique personally, it being so high up with only so many entries.

But I do agree that there are too many to a degree of monotony.

Sturgia also needs to be mentioned. Its terrain is an absolute disaster. I made a post a year ago about how Sturgian lords cannot traverse the loooong horizontal foresty snow in time to defend a town. There needs to be more pathways and less forestry.

 

[Pensaci]

I was just going to make a post about this.

The Rovalt pass was one of the places that were on my mind for sure.

One sieging party can bring an entire country to a standstill because there are often not enough routes around.

I personally like the mountaineous terrain, Battania feels pretty unique personally, it being so high up with only so many entries.

But I do agree that there are too many to a degree of monotony.

Sturgia also needs to be mentioned. Its terrain is an absolute disaster. I made a post a year ago about how Sturgian lords cannot traverse the loooong horizontal foresty snow in time to defend a town. There needs to be more pathways and less forestry.

Exactly, one or few narrow narrow passage from one area to another, that is how it feels like to me.
The northern empire is mostly consisted by mountains and valleys, which makes it very obvious.
Saneopa for example, it's locale is so bizarre. I imagine it was supposed to be a lake-view valley.

 

[AxiosXiphos]

It is worth mentioning that geographically calradia is shaped on Turkey; and turkey has quite the mountain ranges...

Though I do agree; there are certain parts of the map that could use opening up.

 

[Apocal]

I've always thought it was to support the ambushing feature: try to get a party to just blunder into a hidden party lying in wait otherwise. It would be very difficult.

It is worth mentioning that geographically calradia is shaped on Turkey; and turkey has quite the mountain ranges...

Though I do agree; there are certain parts of the map that could use opening up.

Turkey looks like that on a map but it isn't nearly impassible on the ground level. It just isn't a pool-table like eastern Syria/western Iraq and has the occasional bits of rolling terrain, broad hills and some other bits of elevation.

 

[Warlord123123]

Forget about it.
They just created new battle terrain system. That's months of work. They wont scrap it now and redo the map again.

 

[AxiosXiphos]

I've always thought it was to support the ambushing feature: try to get a party to just blunder into a hidden party lying in wait otherwise. It would be very difficult.

Turkey looks like that on a map but it isn't nearly impassible on the ground level. It just isn't a pool-table like eastern Syria/western Iraq and has the occasional bits of rolling terrain, broad hills and some other bits of elevation.

Well it probably helps with A.I pathing calculations and A.I war calculations as well. I don't disagree that it could use opening up a little but I don't think it ever harmed my gameplay.

 

[Spinozart1]

Forget about it.
They just created new battle terrain system. That's months of work. They wont scrap it now and redo the map again.

+1

 

[niekdegrijze]

Oh yes dont get me wrong I like the icons too. They really breathe life into the map! Retrospectively I think a comparison to Rome 2 icons was a bit unfortunate, as I do like those in Bannerlord. My point was just that they sometimes make the countryside feel small.

i hated the big cities in Rome 2. I have no problems with the current Bannerlord icons.
I would like a bitt less choke points and less restrictive mountain roads all over the map, Rhodok lands where unique and memorable this way.

I'd rather the developers work on bugs and core functionality. If they were going to do anything to maps, I'd like zones of control where you can't pass castles without risking being attacked by them - that way they would have purpose. Otherwise I think the map is great.

I would like a to see a zone of control function around castles.
I am not for a complete overhaul of the campaign map, that would be something for a overhaul mod or DLC. But I hope a separate part of the developer team can make minor adjustments to the current map: less mountains, more open plain, roads?

But as Warlord 123123 said: because of the new (exciting) battle terrain system only minor adjustments seems reasonable.

 

[Akka]

Forget about it.
They just created new battle terrain system. That's months of work. They wont scrap it now and redo the map again.

That's another reason why this new battle terrain system was a deep mistake. They should have spent all these hours on making a good procedural generation rather than paint themselves in a corner and lock this garbage map in.

 

[Warlord123123]

That's another reason why this new battle terrain system was a deep mistake. They should have spent all these hours on making a good procedural generation rather than paint themselves in a corner and lock this garbage map in.

Map is fine.

You guys are just inventing problems here. More mountains, less mountains, more plains, less trees, more lakes and flowers, some cabbage fields.... Why should one care.

Players use it to get from point a to point b.

Battles are where the fun begins and thus battle terrain system comes into play.

 

[Akka]

Map is fine.

No, it isn't. The whole thread explains why.

You guys are just inventing problems here. More mountains, less mountains, more plains, less trees, more lakes and flowers, some cabbage fields.... Why should one care.

Just play on Excel then.

 

[Spinozart1]

No, it isn't. The whole thread explains why.

Just play on Excel then.

No, the whole thread is not explaining it at all. It is just one point of view. Map is fine.

Actually excel may also be a really creative thing if you change the way you look at it...

 

[vonbalt]

That's another reason why this new battle terrain system was a deep mistake. They should have spent all these hours on making a good procedural generation rather than paint themselves in a corner and lock this garbage map in.

I really like the new battle terrain system, it looks awesome and immersive but i get what you are saying, this may be a hindrance to total conversion mods since they would have to generate a new layer of battle maps bassed on their campaign map to use the new system (so more work indeed).

Maybe there will be a way to "easily" generate these battle maps? maybe using the campaign height map to auto generate the entire continent worth of battle maps then dividing then into sections, filling it with trees etc and then giving some finishing handmade touches to make each more interesting?

Right now it's a pain to create battlemaps because there is too many handmade details like spawn points, places the AI can use to have an advantage like high ground or chokepoints that need to be marked by the map maker instead of being generated automatically with the map, maybe their new system of generating maps takes this into consideration and generate these parts automatically? it's the best hope i have to help modders really.

Not ideal i know but TW seems to want to keep handmade maps at all costs so no procedural generation like classic/warband back, we'll just have to live with it.

 

[Warlord123123]

No, it isn't. The whole thread explains why.

Just play on Excel then.

The whole thread is a collection of personal opinions that are not tied together with the common reality.

Metaphorically speaking: Development train has already moved on, but dogs keep barking behind it.

Fun fact is that everyone is excited about battle terrain system, easily 99% of players.
(how do I know it? Youtube video like to dislike ratio).

 

[Pensaci]

I really like the new battle terrain system.

There are many points you can take from the new battle terrain system, just as many had discussed in other more related threads, with detailed and well even fierce exchanges already.

My reception is positive overall as well. The main point of this new system is we can finally get rid of random selected map pool, this is a great progress, the rest we will have to see how they do it. It doesn't necessarily lock-in with hand made maps, and more obviously so does with specific maps.

In fact, with the new system in place, the topics around map are more meaningful as the main/world map is more relevant.

 

[AndrewArt]

Also add roads

 

[Apocal]

They should have spent all these hours on making a good procedural generation rather than paint themselves in a corner and lock this garbage map in.

What gave you the impression it wasn't locked in before? Early on (maybe summer?) mexxico mentioned he was unlikely to get permission to make any changes to the map.

edit: it was here

 

[Bannerman Man]

I actually don't mind all of the choke points around the map. It makes venturing into enemy territory feel more dangerous, since there's a chance your exit will get cut off and you'll get boxed in. The player is usually faster than most other parties that can pose a threat to you, and if there's a straight line out of every region it makes it feel like there's not much risk of overextending.

I really like the new battle terrain system, it looks awesome and immersive but i get what you are saying, this may be a hindrance to total conversion mods since they would have to generate a new layer of battle maps bassed on their campaign map to use the new system (so more work indeed).

I don't consider myself a modder, so feel free to disagree, but IMO this new system seems like it will actually be a great feature for modders. I imagine the way it will work is that the game will check if there is a map patch corresponding to a certain area first, in which case it will use the new patch system, and if there isn't a patch it will just use the old system of randomly selecting a map based on terrain type.

It wouldn't really be a hinderance, since they can utilize it as much or as little as they want, and they don't have to have patches for the entire campaign map. They can create unique maps around certain landmarks in their worlds, and leave the less interesting regions up to the old system if they want to.

 

[Pensaci]

I actually don't mind all of the choke points around the map. It makes venturing into enemy territory feel more dangerous, since there's a chance your exit will get cut off and you'll get boxed in. The player is usually faster than most other parties that can pose a threat to you, and if there's a straight line out of every region it makes it feel like there's not much risk of overextending.

The thing about it is almost everywhere is some sort of a choke point. I understand the potential strategic value and encounter opportunity they can provide, but there is way too many of them. And many of these choke points is too blatantly extreme.

For example the stone way connecting two parts of Strugia, the same stone way connecting Western Empire and Aserai. These can only hold 1 party to pass in width, visually they are just a pile of few pieces of big rock. While there are also these long narrow passage that close in by length, acting as a whole session of choke points itself.

I disagree natural terrain, world map should be cater to other problems such as 'balance' or specific purpose, unless itself is causing the problem.

Well it probably helps with A.I pathing calculations and A.I war calculations as well. I don't disagree that it could use opening up a little but I don't think it ever harmed my gameplay.

Interestingly I actually find ai having trouble with pathing, and the terrain often severely influence the world. For example, I witnessed many times an army or single/few stronger party block a passage, but the opponent's ai decide they must pass, end up with a situation you have one side can essentially push-straight and the other side is repeating flee-engage-flee-engage, and so the war is decided. And these situation of narrow passage not only influence war, but the city even the whole economy, the caravans and the villagers got blocked too. Sometimes if just a bandit hideout happens to spawn in the narrow passage, the bandit grow in strength and the city start to starve, because the suppliers got blocked.

These situation is very blatant at the places with narrow passage. Especially Northern Empire with it's west part mostly consist of passages-valleys.