Development Diary #8 - 5th of December 2007

[Raczynski]

Lmao, why not just call the game Johan's Civilization:Rome, RTS!!

Definitely do not like the path paradox games have taken. First no history, now total sid meier's civilization fanatasy. To where we have fallen . Why not make the starting province for each country random? That would finish up your work
Anyways, if that is the future that awaits EU serie,vicky and hoi I guess EUIII is and will be the last product I buy from paradox.
good riddance.

WTH are you talking about

[Guillaume HJ]

Each province may then have a variable amount of trade routes connecting it to other provinces, where they mutually give the benefit of their goods to each other

If Province X has Iron and can therefore produce big fat units, it can spread the Iron love (via roads) around to some (but not all) other provinces.

Which is a fairly sensible system as far as simulations go (and better than the Civ system, where ONE iron source = enough for the whole of the planet). A single iron mine can't arm the entire empire.

[Swamp Rat]

If Province X has Iron and can therefore produce big fat units, it can spread the Iron love (via roads) around to some (but not all) other provinces.

Which is a fairly sensible system as far as simulations go (and better than the Civ system, where ONE iron source = enough for the whole of the planet). A single iron mine can't arm the entire empire.

Also taking into account the discussions about Roman trade this system seems to take the primitivist view that almost all resources was only traded and transported locally on a large scale and the long distance transportations and trades was only with small cargoes, so there wasnt a steady supply of all goods and resources in every major city of the Empire, but only in the local towns of the areas where that resource was gathered or that good manufactured. This had a few exceptions (like the grain supply for Rome, and probably also the supply of resources for the army).

And all this is of course opposed by the view of the modernists, that claims that the Roman Empire had a free market and a relatively modern supply of goods and long distance transportation of practically everything produced within the empire

So its not like its totally unrealistic and compared with the trade system where it seems a steady income of money can be had in the game from trade good, it seems the devs are taking the sensible middle road of this discussion (an outlook on this question that it seems to me the most sensible scholars are also taking).

Also i notice the graphics in the boxes are also getting less fantasy-like and more classic. This game just keeps looking better and better.

[Piggy]

Today I will talk a little bit about how the trade-system works in Rome. Each province has one type of goods that they produce. Each type of goods gives a certain benefit. For example, iron allows the recruitment of heavy infantry in that province. Each province may then have a variable amount of trade routes connecting it to other provinces, where they mutually give the benefit of their goods to each other. The amount of trade routes a province can have depends on several factors, such as national ideas, buildings, and technological advances. Traderoutes can be of three different categories, first of all, every province can always trade with a neighbour province if both can have at least 1 more trade route.

The way I read this means that a province with iron will pass on the benefits of that resource to neighbouring provinces, and in the case of rome with the road building advance this could possibly be applied to many provinces, at least core ones?

Of coarse I could be way off but I think a few people are jumping the gun on trade & resources here. If one core roman province has iron I think you'll be able to recruit heavy infantry in several of the adjacent provinces, possibly more.

I think it would rather silly to think that only one or two iron producing provinces are the only places you could recruit romes heavy infantry? I hope thats not the case, after all isnt manpower directly tied to a provinces population and not the country as a whole?

Looking good if you ask me, seems like its progressing fairly fast. Does this mean a possible early release, or at least an "on time" release?

[Molleby]

Ahh, the trade system sounds perfect for my little mod. Will be very useful to mimic the importance of timber to say a city like Athens and the importance of naval supremacy in strategic waters Good stuff, Johan. Now, just make sure that the AI knows how to take advantage of this or let us have the opportunity to tell the AI to do so. (another plea for modable AI files!)

[billy bob]

My mouth is drooling about the mulitplayer options. It also is drooling about the SP options, and the Economy, and the Barbarians, and the map, and just about everything else.

This game looks awesome.

[Radamanthus]

I think this system sounds like a pretty good method of giving strategic significance to provinces, besides just some extra tax income or manpower. My interpretation is that any province connected by a trade route to an iron producing province can recruit heavy infantry.

This has some nice gameplay implications. First, you'll want to increase the infrastructure in your iron-producing provinces, so that they can support more trade routes. Thus, increasing your ability to simultaneously recruit heavy infantry. Second, you'll need to make sure your free-men heavy provinces have trade links with iron. Third, you'll have to heavily fortify these iron provinces to prevent your trade links from being severed. Last, if you don't have internal access to iron, you better not piss everyone else off, as no one will want to trade iron to you then. You'd have to rely on mercenaries for your heavy infantry, in such a situation.

It sounds like foreign trade will be very lucrative and since most nations are fairly small, it will probably make up a significant portion of their income. This should prevent the Civ situation, where you would never trade iron because trading it wasn't going to help your bottom line much and had strategic consequences.

Also, I don't think its terribly historically inaccurate. You need wagon loads of iron to outfit a cohort or century (whatever the base unit is). You can't just melt everyone's silverware and have enough iron to do it. So, you have to trade something in return for your access to wagon loads of iron.

[Secret Master]

My assumption about the province resource = certain kind of troop types was that it would work in a fashion similar to troop types and core provinces in EU3. In EU3, if nation X has a core on a province, then whoever owns that province and recruit the same unit types as nation X in that province, as modified by the owner's tech level. So, for example, if the Aztecs own a province with a Spanish core, they could recruit Tercio infantry or Arme Blanche cavalry (assuming Spain has those unit types), but they fight at the Aztecs tech level.

The limitation is that a single province can only recruit so many regiments over a period of time. So, if you want to arm 50 regiments of cavalry as the Aztecs, its going to take a long damn time if you only have one province with the capability of producing those cavalry units. (Not to mention that Spain will likely use that core they have on you as an excuse to invade and wipe you out...)

In Rome, I'm guessing that if you own one iron province, you can only produce heavy infantry in that one province. If you want hordes of heavy infantry, it will take you awhile to recruit them using just that one province. If the trade system works the way I suspect, you may be able to use trade to expand that capability to other provinces via trade.

[Duuk]

Ahh, the trade system sounds perfect for my little mod. Will be very useful to mimic the importance of timber to say a city like Athens and the importance of naval supremacy in strategic waters Good stuff, Johan. Now, just make sure that the AI knows how to take advantage of this or let us have the opportunity to tell the AI to do so. (another plea for modable AI files!)

That's what I got out of the post. It sounds like the best trade system ever, and I can't wait to see it apply to EU4

[TeutonicKnight]

Lmao, why not just call the game Johan's Civilization:Rome, RTS!!

Definitely do not like the path paradox games have taken. First no history, now total sid meier's civilization fanatasy. To where we have fallen . Why not make the starting province for each country random? That would finish up your work
Anyways, if that is the future that awaits EU serie,vicky and hoi I guess EUIII is and will be the last product I buy from paradox.
good riddance.

You been hitting the cronic lately?

[TeutonicKnight]

That's what I got out of the post. It sounds like the best trade system ever, and I can't wait to see it apply to EU4

Yes, the trade system will not only be a source of income, but also a dependable diplomatic weapon.

[TeutonicKnight]

My mouth is drooling about the mulitplayer options. It also is drooling about the SP options, and the Economy, and the Barbarians, and the map, and just about everything else.

This game looks awesome.

Same with me my friend, same with me. I hope and pray that M-player will be a huge asset to this game.

[Hollywood]

As quoted by Mr. Burns (from the Simpsons)

"Excellent...."

[barrabas]

What do you mean? According to the quote, there are at least two consuls. Isn't that enough? And every 2nd year you change them.


He does not say "where you elect a new consul"

The problem is that the two consuls should be elected each year. The concept of the consuls holding power only one year was as important as the the fact that there were two of them (shared office, veto-right against each other, etc). You could be elected to a second term, but that was unusual and you would have to wait many years for it. Until the political system started to crash in the first century BC, that is.

Using AUB as the year system seem rather 'hard-core' to me, so I'm surprised if they get this wrong. Perhaps it was just a miss-type by Johan...

[Raczynski]

The problem is that the two consuls should be elected each year. The concept of the consuls holding power only one year was as important as the the fact that there were two of them (shared office, veto-right against each other, etc). You could be elected to a second term, but that was unusual and you would have to wait many years for it. Until the political system started to crash in the first century BC, that is.

Using AUB as the year system seem rather 'hard-core' to me, so I'm surprised if they get this wrong. Perhaps it was just a miss-type by Johan...

They didn't "got it wrong"
They probably haven't found a way to implement the Roman politicial system into a "universal" game where you can play by practically all countries.

[Harle]

On the one hand, playing as a nation while having your two consuls elected each year seems a tad pointless. I mean, you're going to be in charge regardless, so constantly switching up the two consuls would become kind of a meaningless nod to historical accuracy. I mean, I think it'd be neat if they did it, but unless there was some kind of political game going on at the same time, it's really just an aesthetic that has little impact on how you play the game until you add some meaning to it, something the player would want to watch and take a part of, as part of the gameplay.

On the other hand... if the game played like CK and went full out, and you could play as a political family and vie for positions in the senate, that would just be amazingly fun. But that sort of thing would mean not being able to make serious decisions for the nation without the support of the AI co-consul and the senate. And you'd have to deal with the co-consul and the senate doing things you really never intended.

Which, while I think would be totally awesome for a CK-styled game, is just a totally different manner of beast from Europa, and I hardly expect that level of detail. Honestly I don't know how they could implement a convincing Roman political landscape and have it still play like Europa, but I am interested to see what they'll do with it.

As a simple solution, I kind of like the idea of having two annually elected consuls, each of which with a series of locked 'ideals' sliders(sort of like the national/political sliders in Europa) that depict how they feel about a variety of national issues.

If the slider is on the same side of the center for both consuls, they agree on that issue. Whatever bonuses toward military or economy that ideal gives, would be measured by the average of the two.

If they are on opposing sides of the center, they disagree, and penalties and conflict events arise as a result. The bonus determined is still the average of the two differing opinions(a more enthusiastic offensive-minded consul would still better convince the senate of his ideal, than a moderately defensive-minded consul, but the latter's protests would mitigate the effect).

I suppose to complicate it further, you could have the player note his preferred consul at the beginning of each year(or perhaps allow you to choose your preferred character from the character list, who would automatically be elected as one of the consuls), essentially rooting for the consul that best reflects what bonuses he wants to benefit from. And for the rest of that year, any consul/senate events that come up, are played out from the perspective of that consul. So you could still have political conflicts and choices to make with a character that the player feels they have some stake in, without actually forcing the player to play an incredibly in-depth CK-style game.

Just some randomish ideas. I like brainstorming.

There's really a lot of potential for making the roman senate interesting despite the whole Player Rules All theme. So I hope they don't just settle for one consul, or a consul for life or something(that should come later. Heh.)

[DSMyers1]

Today I will talk a little bit about how the trade-system works in Rome. Each province has one type of goods that they produce. Each type of goods gives a certain benefit. For example, iron allows the recruitment of heavy infantry in that province. Each province may then have a variable amount of trade routes connecting it to other provinces, where they mutually give the benefit of their goods to each other. The amount of trade routes a province can have depends on several factors, such as national ideas, buildings, and technological advances. Traderoutes can be of three different categories, first of all, every province can always trade with a neighbour province if both can have at least 1 more trade route. Secondly, a province with a harbour building can trade overseas with another province with a harbour. This trade is of course very vulnerable to pirates or blockades when in wars. The third way to get a traderoute going is by tracing one overland, but then you need to have trade access negotiated through any potential countries between, and each province needs a road-network built up. Trade routes also provide income in gold to the countries, with foreign trade much more profitable than internal trade.

I really like this system. It sounds a lot like that used by Knights of Honor. What it really did was make some provinces more appealing than others--it made the provinces different from one another. In most of these games, the differences between the provinces have been insignificant and behind the scenes. This way gives a more immersive feel. I do hope (like others have mentioned) that there can be more than one type of goods in a province (like KoH) but that there doesn't HAVE to be more than one.

The trade network system is an improvement over the system used in KoH, however. I look forward to seeing its implementation! Good work.

[Jinnai]

Lmao, why not just call the game Johan's Civilization:Rome, RTS!!

Definitely do not like the path paradox games have taken. First no history, now total sid meier's civilization fanatasy. To where we have fallen . Why not make the starting province for each country random? That would finish up your work
Anyways, if that is the future that awaits EU serie,vicky and hoi I guess EUIII is and will be the last product I buy from paradox.
good riddance.

Tell me how you produce war elephants without elephants? or how you produce heavy infrantry reinforced with iron without iron? How do you produce bows and arrows without wood? This isn't the age where you could just go down to you local store and buy that stuff if it wasn't nearby or had a good trade route through there.

[barrabas]

They didn't "got it wrong"
They probably haven't found a way to implement the Roman politicial system into a "universal" game where you can play by practically all countries.

No, I don't think that either. If they go for two-year terms, that will have to be a conscious a-historical design decision on their part.

However, as Harle points out above, the complex and problematic part in play here is the fact that we have two consuls (as indicated by Johan's quote), not the frequency of their election. If they have implemented that into this "universal" game, why stop short?

[TheLand]

It's not like the Germans were famous for thier war elephants. To get those bad boys you definately need Elephants from somewhere.

I'm in two minds about this.

I think the idea of limited trade routes is relatively realistic in the Rome time-period - there was only so much infrastructure to go around. Certainly in Civ 3 and 4 I found the resources issue less galling in this time period than I did later on.

However, I don't know of any civilization which had a shortage of (say) iron in this period. The 'iron age' started when iron became commonplace, through production or trade, everywhere. Is there really a chance for Phoenicia or the Gauls to be entirely cut off from iron?