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There are now 39 replies and nearly 2000 Views to this depressing topic/thread alone.
This is indeed a depressing topic. Especially considering that, as it is now (first one and most replied visible topic), being like a welcome card to FtG...

...and also started by a banned user.
 
My issue: Didn't really exploit scale

It would have been nice if this game took advantage of the fact that computers now have the hardware to deal with absolutely massive 2D maps, and made a scenario that played out on one.

The hundred years war would be awesome if you could have a map where England was over 30 provinces and France was around 100. And to be honest you can probably do that if you make the world map around 10000 provinces which the hardware could easily handle (although software might be an issue depending on how the engine is written). Games on that kind of scale would be absolutely EPIC. As it was It felt like you weren't getting some sort of value add for playing on the less intensive 2d instead of the heavier 3d, although I'm not a fan of the 3d graphics in EU3 and preferred FtG to it by far.

I also think the fact that the game wasn't very hyped up limited things in terms of mods. Personally I love buying games that have modding communities because when they stay active you never run out of content. I still prefer Rome:Total War to any other title in that series for instance, and the modding content in later Civs is the biggest thing that is improved from earlier versions for me.
 
It would have been nice if this game took advantage of the fact that computers now have the hardware to deal with absolutely massive 2D maps, and made a scenario that played out on one.

2D maps can't offload graphics processing as easily to the graphics card (hence the move to 3D for EU3). Thus, if you massively increase the # of provinces, you massively increase both the graphics requirements and the game's processing requirements, both of which are intensive on the CPU. Thus, I'm not so sure that you wouldn't run into problems trying to do that.

Also, again, the 2D map is a pain in the ass to mod.
 
It's nice to see that the old canards don't go away. :D

Come on, Garbon. Even if I never was one of the "caw caw, me wants MAP" - and I won't start now, it is true that the new map was one of the many "blank checks" that would have separated FtG, as a game, from EU2.

Was it the ONLY reason? Of course not, but it is there. Among with this list, I'd say.
 
2D maps can't offload graphics processing as easily to the graphics card (hence the move to 3D for EU3). Thus, if you massively increase the # of provinces, you massively increase both the graphics requirements and the game's processing requirements, both of which are intensive on the CPU. Thus, I'm not so sure that you wouldn't run into problems trying to do that.
This.
 
I'm not a specialist, but, AFAIK, the engine itself is limited to 2020 provinces. There's no walkaround. And so you have, as an example, MyMap for FTG if you want 2020 provinces. If you want 10.000 provinces, ok, ask Paradox for a new engine and a new game. I don't see any means FTG team could have released something like that with their licenced engine. Anyway, it will be much easier to handle with a 3D engine able to rotate and zoom, as even with 2020 provinces, I know there are people complaining that some provinces are too tiny.
 
I'm not a specialist, but, AFAIK, the engine itself is limited to 2020 provinces. There's no walkaround. And so you have, as an example, MyMap for FTG if you want 2020 provinces. If you want 10.000 provinces, ok, ask Paradox for a new engine and a new game. I don't see any means FTG team could have released something like that with their licenced engine. Anyway, it will be much easier to handle with a 3D engine able to rotate and zoom, as even with 2020 provinces, I know there are people complaining that some provinces are too tiny.

Actually.. There is no limit of 2020 provinces if you have access to the sourcecode.
 
2D maps can't offload graphics processing as easily to the graphics card (hence the move to 3D for EU3). Thus, if you massively increase the # of provinces, you massively increase both the graphics requirements and the game's processing requirements, both of which are intensive on the CPU. Thus, I'm not so sure that you wouldn't run into problems trying to do that.

Also, again, the 2D map is a pain in the ass to mod.

While i agree with you on the 2D map for programming, the interface of EU3 was a major issue, it is far more difficult and unfriendly , to the player to handle .


As for map, to implement a new map should always have meant that the old one ( vanilla) to disappear for good....no concensus was ever reached. Other maps, as in mymap etc etc where basically addon my modders. ( I did use all other huge maps)
I for one would have preferred to keep original map , But halved some provinces ...as an example, in the balkans , split/half, istria, dalmatia, albania and hellas plus other areas, italy, france , netherlands etc .......also, do not touch seazones and that would have surficed as a new standard map to replace the original
 
While i agree with you on the 2D map for programming, the interface of EU3 was a major issue, it is far more difficult and unfriendly , to the player to handle

I think EU3 w/ HTTT's interface is just fine (esp the outliner). While I see this claim beaten to death in this thread, I think it's just that some people don't like the interface, not that it's truly unfriendly or more difficult. The EU3 forum is certainly not inundated with complaints about the interface.
 
While i agree with you on the 2D map for programming, the interface of EU3 was a major issue, it is far more difficult and unfriendly , to the player to handle .


As for map, to implement a new map should always have meant that the old one ( vanilla) to disappear for good....no concensus was ever reached. Other maps, as in mymap etc etc where basically addon my modders. ( I did use all other huge maps)
I for one would have preferred to keep original map , But halved some provinces ...as an example, in the balkans , split/half, istria, dalmatia, albania and hellas plus other areas, italy, france , netherlands etc .......also, do not touch seazones and that would have surficed as a new standard map to replace the original

No.

A good map combines historicity with gameplay. :) While you may be specifically interested in the mediterranean, there are other things horribly wrong on the vanilla map. Holy Roman Empire, Bohemia, Poland, Persia, Caucasus, Siberia, Muscovy had vast room for improvement - not always only adding provinces. Japan and Korea were boring in standard EU. I personally wouldn't care about a split Albania, but would love a Caspian Sea moved to where it belongs, to add historically important Perm/Ural region to Russia, to obscure northern Skandinavia and the white sea with PTI (to avoid ludicrous french landings in Kola and Archangelsk), f.e.
 
No.

A good map combines historicity with gameplay. :) While you may be specifically interested in the mediterranean, there are other things horribly wrong on the vanilla map. Holy Roman Empire, Bohemia, Poland, Persia, Caucasus, Siberia, Muscovy had vast room for improvement - not always only adding provinces. Japan and Korea were boring in standard EU. I personally wouldn't care about a split Albania, but would love a Caspian Sea moved to where it belongs, to add historically important Perm/Ural region to Russia, to obscure northern Skandinavia and the white sea with PTI (to avoid ludicrous french landings in Kola and Archangelsk), f.e.

I also wouldn't mind a higher province density in France and England.. it feels really weird when you can capture something like 1/10th of France in one unit move, and in some cases you can simultaneously attack 3 provinces, not far from 1/3rd of France, in reality these battles involved besieging many fortifications and a lot more incremental creeping. It's just way too easy to turn a hundred years of pitched battles into one swift takeover, and its not just because the AI isn't that strong (not blaming programmers, this is a universal problem for the genre), it's at least in part that there aren't enough places to fight and maneuver in. Even when humans play out this scenario as a 2 player game, something similar happens, an early big clash and usually a mop-up effort by the winner of the clash.
 
I personally wouldn't care about a split Albania, but would love a Caspian Sea moved to where it belongs, to add historically important Perm/Ural region to Russia, to obscure northern Skandinavia and the white sea with PTI (to avoid ludicrous french landings in Kola and Archangelsk), f.e.

Actually most of that is done in the WATk map.
 
What does it really matter now? FTG is what it is and EU3 is what it is.

For me EU1/2 was a fantastic ride (Johan really did an awesome job with it), EU3 was just a blip on the radar and FTG was an EU2 rerun good for a dozen games.

Like was already said here, so much was promised for FTG, so much hype about the possibilities, wish lists etc... all turned out to be a crock of shit. Thats just the way things go sometimes. FTG was needed years ago when there was still a strong EU2 following.
 
And i was so excited about this game last year :(
PD:I love the game for what it is, yet i still dream of what would have been.
 
Actually most of that is done in the WATk map.

I know. We were presenting ideas some 5 yrs ago in various AGCEEP threads. Most of them were good. Most of the new maps are very good. Either Kasperus or MyMap could have been a fine base to create a new AGCEEP on. Yet the HC decided against it and for some mythical map Garbon would be "doing" for 5 years, with no status updates or anything. :(

So saying "vanilla map" would be okay is silly. They should have licensed a Kasperus map for the vanilla game and spend the 15 workhours to adopt the other 5 scenarios for it. Adopting AGCEEP would be more difficult - that's some 50 work-hours and a some patching/debugging later on - but still possible for a commercial project, I'd guess. 70 workhours = 1500$ of generous payment. These added costs could have lead to added sales.

Instead, they improved the engine and hoped the community would fill it with content, as was with EU2. Didn't work out. How comes HoI projects all could design new maps, while FTG utterly failed, making the project just a big final patch with vastly improved AI and modability?
 
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No.

A good map combines historicity with gameplay. :) While you may be specifically interested in the mediterranean, there are other things horribly wrong on the vanilla map. Holy Roman Empire, Bohemia, Poland, Persia, Caucasus, Siberia, Muscovy had vast room for improvement - not always only adding provinces. Japan and Korea were boring in standard EU. I personally wouldn't care about a split Albania, but would love a Caspian Sea moved to where it belongs, to add historically important Perm/Ural region to Russia, to obscure northern Skandinavia and the white sea with PTI (to avoid ludicrous french landings in Kola and Archangelsk), f.e.

you fail to understand, my post where examples of changes.
The real problem is the support for a larger map and more important....the removal of the vanilla map. To have a community you only require 1 map. You can see what happened with FTG ...there where IIRC 5 different mods as well as the vanilla ALL using different maps.

Why was it necessary to make a full new map when imo splitting some lands seemed faster and easier to do. granted I do not now anything about map design

for my 2 cents worth...the best of the big maps i played was WATK-LITE .............and I was the balkans tested for mymap, so I did use mymap a lot
 
And i was so excited about this game last year :(
PD:I love the game for what it is, yet i still dream of what would have been.

FTG v1.2 was the beginning of greatness...the hump was reached in 1.2 ...it was all gravy from there............but we will never know
 
I know this might sound ludicrous but when I buy a game I expect it to be a complete package straight away and to not have to wait for patches. That's what I found with FTG. FTG was and is a great product (for me) regardless of recent, current and future work.