If the devs wanted to make changes to the campaign map, are you ok with that? POLL

[durbal]

I think they'll have to change the map to get the terrain effects to work right anyway. There are snow, desert, etc. terrain effects on food consumption and movement speed which aren't detectable in the game at the moment so they do nothing (and also the Sturgian cultural feat doesn't work because of this).

 

[ZydrateTheSmoothCriminal]

for example Constantinople, Byzantion and Istanbul, they are not close to each other at all.

Byzantium -> Constantinople -> Konstantiniyye -> Istanbul*

Edit: But these changes took place in spans of at least 2 milennia, not 200 years like in M&B

 

[eddiemccandless]

The same dev also said in the same thread that changes to the map are very unlikely to happen so... Kind of pointless to talk about it isn't it?

 

[TheChewieShow]

They should add sea travel and sea trade and even at sea battles. If they need to change the map to do that, then so be it

 

[Lord Irontoe]

Is it really such a huge deal for them to change the map in early access? If altering the world map is too much work for the actual game devs, how hard will it be for modders?

I'd love it if the map bore a bit more relation to warband's calradia. It feels completely foreign to me as it is now.

 

[ZydrateTheSmoothCriminal]

Is it really such a huge deal for them to change the map in early access? If altering the world map is too much work for the actual game devs, how hard will it be for modders?

I'd love it if the map bore a bit more relation to warband's calradia. It feels completely foreign to me as it is now.

Yes, and maybe make it a little larger? Add more villages and towns instead of uncultivated wasteland in fertile / strategically important lands? More castles? And where are the famous Rhodok mountains? And why is basically every river and lake basically locked from the ocean?

 

[Blood Gryphon]

Is it really such a huge deal for them to change the map in early access? If altering the world map is too much work for the actual game devs, how hard will it be for modders?

I'd love it if the map bore a bit more relation to warband's calradia. It feels completely foreign to me as it is now.

I don't think if there is a hesitation its coming from it being too much work, but rather upsetting the community after we get use to the current one. Hopefully the results of the polling will show them it will not upset a "majority" of players(obviously this is a small subset of players).

 

[Midnitewolf]

Sturgia suffers from a poor economy start a game and compare the prosperity of their towns compared with the rest.
And Aserai i have never seen do badly in all honesty due to their location but would benefit from some slight buffs to their infantry.
Before making changes to the map they should address these two issues imo.

On the other hand, it was obvious from day 1, at least to me, that there was severe problems with the map in regards to the Sturgia and Aserai areas. There just isn't enough access to either of them and because of that neither of them seem to try to expand that way other factions do. I think with both of those factions they get bogged down at the choke points.

This is not to mention how inconvenient it is for the player. It is a real chore to visit either Sturgia or Aseria. Also Sturgia appears to be a fairly large piece of land but it seems like 70% or more of it is unaccessable with only a couple narrow strips of land, call them valleys, that you or they can traverse. Aseria needs at least one more entry/exit point and Sturgia needs that as well and needs to be opened up quite a bit with more than one tiny little passage being all that is available to travel upon.

 

[110951667]

Byzantium -> Constantinople -> Konstantiniyye -> Istanbul*

Edit: But these changes took place in spans of at least 2 milennia, not 200 years like in M&B

Didn't mean the order was the one I wrote, neither the change was in a "sudden". But to list an example of that the name of a city can be changed regardless of its pronounciation pronounced by different speakers. Since you know that the city was called "Konstantiniyye", then you should know that this change from Constantinople to Konstantiniyye was quite fast, and you don't need 2 milennia to do it, 200 years sounds suficient enough.

It could be many reasons that changed the name, maybe a fire burned the old city of Sargot, so the people had to rebuild it, a dude called Zendar put a lot of money to help the rebuild so they renamed the rebuilt city after this dude to memorize him. Or a king called Zendar was crowned in Sargot and make the city as his capital city, so later on the people started to use the king's name to refer the city.

200 years is long enough to change a lot of things that would left a mark in the history, especially the name of a city, and even the location of the city could be changed. What we know is that Calradia is a land of constant wars. And constant wars make such change quite possible.

 

[icelty]

Sturgians doo poorly because the strongest drink in the game is beer! Enough said! Add some vodka to that cold climate, and those man will have 100 morale!

 

[Jagati Khan]

On the other hand, it was obvious from day 1, at least to me, that there was severe problems with the map in regards to the Sturgia and Aserai areas. There just isn't enough access to either of them and because of that neither of them seem to try to expand that way other factions do. I think with both of those factions they get bogged down at the choke points.

This is not to mention how inconvenient it is for the player. It is a real chore to visit either Sturgia or Aseria. Also Sturgia appears to be a fairly large piece of land but it seems like 70% or more of it is unaccessable with only a couple narrow strips of land, call them valleys, that you or they can traverse. Aseria needs at least one more entry/exit point and Sturgia needs that as well and needs to be opened up quite a bit with more than one tiny little passage being all that is available to travel upon.

Some valid points but those same points can also work in their favour as i have said i have never seen Aserai do badly in any of my playthroughs Sturgia on the other hand gets trashcanned very often.
And i don't think the map has anything at all to do with it -
Sturgian towns are all trash as far as prosperity goes
Sturgian troops did get some buffs recently i would like to see how they perform with a better economy.
Aserai economy is good but their troops are lacklustre and need some tweaks.
These things should be tested first before changing the map around unnecessarily.

 

[dealman]

This poll seems really redundant. If the map is deemed unbalanced and needs to go through some changes, why on earth would anyone be against that?

 

[Seleucid]

It to some degree does make sense that these factions are weaker because their environments are so inhospitable so they find it harder to grow food. This however could be turned into an advantage if attrition was added for foreign armies that attack them. However for the Aserai Qasira and Husn Fulq would need to be further in for that to take effect. Or it could be a sort of, find you can take our outer territories but if you want to further you'll lose all your men to attrition and we can retake our lands.

 

[Pejot]

Some valid points but those same points can also work in their favour as i have said i have never seen Aserai do badly in any of my playthroughs Sturgia on the other hand gets trashcanned very often.
And i don't think the map has anything at all to do with it -
Sturgian towns are all trash as far as prosperity goes
Sturgian troops did get some buffs recently i would like to see how they perform with a better economy.
Aserai economy is good but their troops are lacklustre and need some tweaks.
These things should be tested first before changing the map around unnecessarily.

Sturgians got buffed but only as long as player is involved. In case of AI autocalculated battles they still suck in comparison to Khuzait and Empire (if army composed of more cavalry arrives).
The only factors taken into account in autocalc battles are Tier and horse. Tier is the base and horse gives 30% flat buff.
T3 cav mops down up to T4 units in autocalc and Sturgians are composed mostly of infantry.

 

[Jagati Khan]

Sturgians got buffed but only as long as player is involved. In case of AI autocalculated battles they still suck in comparison to Khuzait and Empire (if army composed of more cavalry arrives).
The only factors taken into account in autocalc battles are Tier and horse. Tier is the base and horse gives 30% flat buff.
T3 cav mops down up to T4 units in autocalc and Sturgians are composed mostly of infantry.

I never use auto calc myself because i know it is poor so it would seem fixing auto calc would also be far more fruitful than map changes.

 

[thehunteryeah]

Instead of doing the easy thing why not implement boats? Historically sailing was a major boon to Arabian lands and the Vikings were very well know for their profitable raids and conquest across vast distances.

 

[Blood Gryphon]

Sturgians got buffed but only as long as player is involved. In case of AI autocalculated battles they still suck in comparison to Khuzait and Empire (if army composed of more cavalry arrives).
The only factors taken into account in autocalc battles are Tier and horse. Tier is the base and horse gives 30% flat buff.
T3 cav mops down up to T4 units in autocalc and Sturgians are composed mostly of infantry.

Id like to see some more sound statistics on Sturgian army compositions having less cav. I've been playing a sturgian campaign in 1.3 and in all my army fights Sturgians typically have as many cav (Sturgian hardened brigand and horse raider). One of the big issues in my campaign was sturgians didnt take Council of the Commons until i joined so their influences were extremely low so their army counts were smaller (ended up benefiting me as now i had the opportunity to take back varcheg and revyl for myself). Right now i get 40 influence a turn and 27 of it comes from Council of the Commons, thats literally 68% of the total and a percent change of 208% (from 13 to 40). I feel like any kingdom that doesnt have that policy is at a massive disadvantage in trying to create and keep armies together.

 

[Pejot]

Id like to see some more sound statistics on Sturgian army compositions having less cav. I've been playing a sturgian campaign in 1.3 and in all my army fights Sturgians typically have as many cav (Sturgian hardened brigand and horse raider). One of the big issues in my campaign was sturgians didnt take Council of the Commons until i joined so their influences were extremely low so their army counts were smaller. Right now i get 40 influence a turn and 27 of it comes from Council of the Commons, thats literally 68% of the total and a percent change of 208% (from 13 to 40). I feel like any kingdom that doesnt have that policy is at a massive disadvantage in trying to create and keep armies together.

In my tests in 1.3 campaign average % of cavalry:
Sturgia 12%
WE 15%
SE 17%
NE 16%
Khuzait 40%

This may vary between different players cause many factors can affect it but from my observation they have less % cavalry in army than their neighbours (except Battania which is close to them in this). Biggest problem are Khuzaits. They have big number of HA and cav and they literally chop most Sturgian armies as long as they don't have 4:1 number advantage.

I'm fully avare that it might be just my situation but i still think it's something worth looking into for the devs. Probably best way to lower the odds would be different autoresolve calculation.

Edit:
I need to observe it for longer period to have better examples.

 

[giltirn]

I actually really like how these balance issues are related to the deep economy simulation and not just some badly tuned numbers. Makes me very excited about the possibilities of this game.

 

[wookdaddy]

Like others have mentioned, Sturgia always loses AI vs. AI in even battles. They have a low amount of cavalry and their cavalry is terrible. Their infantry also sucks until you get to their most elite unit, which most lords don't have many of. Their tier 3 units, which are supposed to be their bread and butter (spearmen), have weak leather armor. Other factions infantry have way better armor, at the 3rd/4th tier, so they don't even have an infantry advantage. Their troop tree needs a rework. All of my workshops in their territories are about half as productive as other parts.