Give back old terrain system!

[magnusvejby]

I really miss the old system where there was a % to what terrain you should fight in.
It was more realistic because in big provinces it is not all the same terrain, and that time maneuver generals were more important.

So I would like to hear your thoughts. If you dislike the idea please write why and vice versa.

Sorry for any bad english i am not english

 

[grommile]

This whole topic has been thrashed out pretty thoroughly several times on the forums. I'm afraid it's unlikely any useful insights will be unearthed by doing so again.

 

[Krajzen]

...not to mention the fact that my 'statistical research'* in the Great Anti-New-Terrain Thread proved ~70% of people support change, and since AOW was released I haven't seen anybody complaining.

One terrain > terrain percentages because it actually allows on some strategical positioning instead of random die roll 'I lost war because 5% mountain'

*-sample of ~100 users

 

[Freudia]

Old system sucked. I hate speaking in that kind of absolutism, but it really did. I don't think anybody made an argument successfully for having RNG percentages terrain system, especially since nobody outside the developers could even tell you how percentages were modified (as we had been told leader maneuver affected the odds of getting certain terrain rolls), so it was a bunch of hidden mechanics that the player had no knowingly-meaningful way of interacting with. Fixed terrain at least allows the player strategic choices in that they know what terrain they'll get if they fight on any given province, so they can plan accordingly.

 

[Karnak]

Well, i sorta liked it. What i didn't like was the unpredictability of the terrain. Nobody did.
If it was implemented again with a pre-determined terrain based on the maneuver values of the leading general, i'd be fine to see it back.
The terrain in the event of combat could show up for an army just like how the army weight would show up and and whether attrition will be had when looking with a specific army.

So for a province that has 5% grassland, 50% hills and 45% mountains would always be in hills. Adding a point of maneuver could add 5% to the best terrain, and remove 5% from the worst, so such a general would modify the terrain to 50% hills and 50% mountains, and would therefore always defend in mountain. Just use the old values, and let the biggest percentage or the best terrain in the event of a tie be the battlefield.
That rough implementation would of course mean that those 5% of grassland would never ever ever(except if you had like a -10 maneuver general) see combat.

 

[Krajzen]

So for a province that has 5% grassland, 50% hills and 45% mountains would always be in hills. Adding a point of maneuver could add 5% to the best terrain, and remove 5% from the worst, so such a general would modify the terrain to 50% hills and 50% mountains, and would therefore always defend in mountain. Just use the old values, and let the biggest percentage or the best terrain in the event of a tie be the battlefield.
That rough implementation would of course mean that those 5% of grassland would never ever ever(except if you had like a -10 maneuver general) see combat.

Imagine big war between two alliances, you send troops in very diverisified terrain, like in Balkans. Grasslands, woods, hills, mountains, marshes, rivers, everything mixed in every province, nearby wandering eight armies of 11 various nations with 6 generals, each of them with different maneuver value. Good luck planning your campaign and strategical placement.

 

[Karnak]

Imagine big war between two alliances, you send troops in very diverisified terrain, like in Balkans. Grasslands, woods, hills, mountains, marshes, rivers, everything mixed in every province, nearby wandering eight armies of 11 various nations with 6 generals, each of them with different maneuver value. Good luck planning your campaign and strategical placement.

I'd only apply the terrain bonus based on the defending general's maneuver value. Otherwise it'd micromanagement hell if the attacking general also influenced the terrain.
I'd let the best general's maneuver in a given province decide the terrain, so that a zero-maneuver butthole of an allied general doesn't come along and turns the defense from mountains into plains.

 

[forrseti]

Certain areas that have mountaines are hardcoded to have a different terrain which means a loss of defender bonus.

 

[Karnak]

Certain areas that have mountaines are hardcoded to have a different terrain which means a loss of defender bonus.

Can you elaborate?

 

[Stelix]

How did general's maneuver effect the battle in the old system?
Without a clear understanding of this yet, I think that the new system makes strategic positioning of one's army more direct/obvious...

 

[grommile]

Can you elaborate?

By default, a province has its most-common-on-the-terrain-map terrain type as its simplified terrain type.

This can be overridden by a certain file in the map directory.

 

[Krajzen]

I'd only apply the terrain bonus based on the defending general's maneuver value. Otherwise it'd micromanagement hell if the attacking general also influenced the terrain.
I'd let the best general's maneuver in a given province decide the terrain, so that a zero-maneuver butthole of an allied general doesn't come along and turns the defense from mountains into plains.

Attacking general's maneuver being useless would be strange. In current simple terrain system if attacking general has more maneuver he ignores -1 river penalty or -2 naval landing/crossing strait penalty (I have to admit, I rotated generals to apply proper one in such situation not once and not twice)

 

[WeissRaben]

While the new system, in general, works, some regions need waaaay finer provinces. The Alps, as of now, jump from reaching down to the Po River to not existing up to the watershed.

 

[Karnak]

Attacking general's maneuver being useless would be strange.

We can still use the attacking general's maneuver to mitigate penalties from crossing rivers, straits and naval landings as with the current system.
What we want to avoid is getting attacked in terrain that is supposed to be mountains, but the attacking general turns it into grasslands.

 

[Karnak]

By default, a province has its most-common-on-the-terrain-map terrain type as its simplified terrain type.

This can be overridden by a certain file in the map directory.

Thanks.

 

[Aemilius XXIII]

The simplification of this game rule has as negative consequence that the terrain map mode looks less naturally now. Further, refinement instead of simplifiation, should be the rule when changing a game rule. A better solution would be i.m.o. to restore the landscape variation in a province.. and to prevent unpredictability in what landscape type a battle takes place, let the game engine determine the landscape by looking from what direction (specific neighbouring province) the first attacking force comes. Both issues are solved then, and.. a new tactical feature, on what location inside a province and to what direction is in a give situation the defence organized, is introduced too. This can also introduce issues as flanking attacks from other directions, and how much this has negative results for the defending force based on tactical and manoeuvre insight of the eventual defending commander.

Think about a situation as 200 years ago, Napoleon was on its way from France to Brussels, resulting the Waterloo campaign. The Anglo-Dutch defence was organized facing to the south in a landscape south of Brussels and the Prussian army came from the east (in the game from the Liege province) to the right flank of the French army. If Napoleon came from lets say the north (the direction of Antwerp) the defence would be organized facing north at another spot in another local landscape situation, but still in the same game province.

 

[Karnak]

Oh boy, that is an okay suggestion but it would lead to armies circling fortified provinces and attacking from the best possible angle every time. I already do this with rivers, and in the end the defenders who are defending because they are on the losing side will lose even more.

 

[net.split]

-1, it was a horrible system and the game has been strictly improved by changing it.

It doesn't work because EU games consist purely of nodes. Meaning, if you have multiple possible terrains per node, it essentially becomes a game of randomness (and, because of the impact of things like Maneuver, one impenetrable to most players in terms of being able to predict what will happen).

If you want to broaden terrains more to make things more detailed, then the map has to change from a series of distinct nodes to a map with nodes connected with paths. Armies move along those paths, and terrain can change depending on where on the path the army is located. Now you can choose to plant your army at the spot in the field where the terrain is most advantageous to you (though, being in the field instead of in a city / fort node would mean eating supply / attrition and maybe losing out on some defensive bonuses from the fortifications).

But that's a super significant change.

 

[Krajzen]

The simplification of this game rule has as negative consequence that the terrain map mode looks less naturally now.

Wait, what is terrain map mode? Is this something different from political map mode which I see on 99,9% of all screenshoots posted on this forum?

Further, refinement instead of simplifiation, should be the rule when changing a game rule. A better solution would be i.m.o. to restore the landscape variation in a province.. and to prevent unpredictability in what landscape type a battle takes place, let the game engine determine the landscape by looking from what direction (specific neighbouring province) the first attacking force comes.

This is one of these game design ideas who sound awesome from utopian point of view ('I'd love to play strategy game when you can command 100 000 soldiers in one moment and turn into one and play shooter in another!') a and would be the most horribly ridiculously impossible stuff to put in a computer game.

The first problem would be taking 2000 provinces and for each single one of them establishing a 'connection' with neighboring province and decide which terrain it gets when attack is conducted and vice versa, then include naval invasions, rivers and maneuver, good luck you spent weeks on doing this ridiculously convoluted programming task you could spent on designing Greatly Enhanced Governments DLC, next weeks on balancing it and then you would face inevitable crash because...

Both issues are solved then, and.. a new tactical feature, on what location inside a province and to what direction is in a give situation the defence organized, is introduced too. This can also introduce issues as flanking attacks from other directions, and how much this has negative results for the defending force based on tactical and manoeuvre insight of the eventual defending commander.

Read this slowly again. Now imagine yourself, sitting in front of computer, in front of a map of 2000 provinces, each of these provinces having few terrains, each of these provinces neighboring few other provinces, each of these provinces having few possible defensive positions.

Let's assume there are 2000 provinces, on average 4 various terrain types in each province, on average 4 neighboring provinces, 7 levels of maneuver of one general and 7 of another (0-6), on average 4 defensive positions possible to take. Now I'll do some awkward math but that isn't important, general rules and scale is important. Essentially each province has on average 4x4x4 terrain scenarios possible to emerge in battle, 2 possible scenarios of maneuver comparision (offense-bigger maneuver or defense bigger). So here we go, in this theoretical scenario there are 128 possible scenarios including all simplified variables; for each average province. I didn't include flanking and other cute variables you could include, I don't even know what the hell is happening to rivers. So there are 2000 provinces and for each province there are 128 possible results of variable calculations, so there are 256 000 results of battle terrain calculations, and somehow each of them should be calculated in the background, presented on UI and processed by player's brain.

So essentially you sitting in front of all those possible outcomes, in real time, being engaged in a great coalition war where 600 000 soldiers of 23 armies of 14 nations and 11 generals coming from different directions with variosu maneuver values are engaged in sieges and battles in Balkans, among rivers, straits, woods, hills, mountains, marshes, grasslands and maneuver modifiers, coming from multiple provinces at once, from many distances at once, among sieges sorties attrition shattered retreat artillery and cavalry. You are fighting 4 battles on three fronts: one naval landing, one major battle, one counter siege and one minor sortie. Now imagine yourself sitting in front of that clusterfuck and sitting with a pen and paper and calculator, switching from political mode to terrain mode every 5 seconds, to try to predict what the hell will be the terrain the battle will be happening on, with UI overcrowded with tooltips showing potential terrains, neighboring provinces, flanking, defensive directions, only to lose because, surprise, 74th reinforcment force of 11th enemy from X province from Y direction of Z terrain with L maneuver change calculation R and gave you negative modifier F to terrain which made you lose a battle, a war, a country, an ironman save and a sanity.

I don't know who you are, I don't know how high IQ and computing abilities your brain has, but I bet nobody ever would be able to turn such insanely convoluted design into something being enjoyable in a computer game.

Hell, I am pretty sure a few tweaks here and here, two more variables and predicting outcomes of similar system would be impossible with computing power of modern computers (non - quantum).

Think about a situation as 200 years ago, Napoleon was on its way from France to Brussels, resulting the Waterloo campaign. The Anglo-Dutch defence was organized facing to the south in a landscape south of Brussels and the Prussian army came from the east (in the game from the Liege province) to the right flank of the French army. If Napoleon came from lets say the north (the direction of Antwerp) the defence would be organized facing north at another spot in another local landscape situation, but still in the same game province.

Think about a situation on real historical battlefield: soldier can suffer from chronic diarrhorea. We will reflect this in our game, this will be fun because realism is awesome. The player will have to predict the strategical countermeasures against this challenge, including proper medicine, healthy food and filtered water. If diarrhorea happens he has to invent a way to fight while having it, like English archers on Agincourt [historical fact]. It will be hard to have a decent, average accuracy of 3% [historical accuracy of casualty inflicting archer arrows vs all arrows shot on Azincourt, basing on estimates] with digestive challenge and our physic system of dust particles messing with sight range.

 

[Aemilius XXIII]

Wait, what is terrain map mode? Is this something different from political map mode which I see on 99,9% of all screenshoots posted on this forum?

Yes indeed. You come in the terrain map mode by left clicking on the most left selection button direct above the minimap, or by pressing shortcut q, being the q key on your keyboard.