Horrible geography (representing the French-Italian border)

[Evans]

In the most part I agree, many people are making some pretty OCD claims, but this is a very strange design decision - to blow open the Italian-French border. If it's a difficult one to model with one province, why not simply add a province of mountains between the existing ones to represent both the fertile land and the defensible border? What we fear is that northern Italy will be easily absorbed by the big blue blob who no longer has to worry about the logistical or tactical difficulties of going over a mountain range.

 

[ComradeOm]

Personally, that's what I'm wanting. There seems to be a handful of you still fighting hard for v2 to become a predominantly military wargame. Heaven forbid! That's HOI. Vicky is nothing like HOI and never should be. Just as she should never be another copy of EU or CK. The base engine might be the same, but the resultant games are all entirely different. That's the way it was with the older game engine, and that's the way it should be with the newer game engine

Please RE, I expected more than a simple strawman and accusations of OCD/tantrums. A funny picture at least

If posters can't give feedback on possible mistakes or deliberate design decisions then there's absolutely no point in having this forum. Apart from threads on what our first AAR will be of course. Some people, including myself, feel that the absence of a strategic barrier in this area will negatively affect the game. I see no reason why we cannot air this concern. If Paradox listen then that's great (and I still see no reason why an additional province cannot be added) if they don't, and this is the most likely scenario, it goes on the ever-lengthening mod list

Now if you don't care about this particular feature then that's good for you. There is however little need for a post that unjustly accuses people of behaving like children. Honestly, you'd think we'd demanded an in-depth logistical model instead of asking for the rational behind a terrain choice...

 

[Alexander Seil]

I predict the following - France will overrun Italy for the first 2 patches, then Paradox will finally realize this design decision was absurd, and put in a mountain range.

Something similar happened quite a few times in the past...

 

[Baneslave]

In the most part I agree, many people are making some pretty OCD claims, but this is a very strange design decision - to blow open the Italian-French border. If it's a difficult one to model with one province, why not simply add a province of mountains between the existing ones to represent both the fertile land and the defensible border? What we fear is that northern Italy will be easily absorbed by the big blue blob who no longer has to worry about the logistical or tactical difficulties of going over a mountain range.

Well, in Victoria you only have to worry when you pass the mountain range first time, so I guess the Alps aren't that much of deterrent in either case.

 

[Colon]

Uh yeah, that sounds like bit of a weird concern. Then you might as well turn all of Belgium's provinces that border France into mountains. And even then, I've regularily seen Italy or Sardinia-Piedmont taking chunkes out of Switzerland in spite of the mountain border provinces. Moreover, Italy has quite a few coastal provinces France can land troops in.

The real issue is plain and simple immersion. It just feels weird to see the mountain range stop in Chambery/Annency.

 

[unmerged(150564)]

Anyone saying those mountains would stop france from invading italy are being somewhat short sighted, in reality you have a point but for this game... HA.

France as a human player will always win, mountains or non. France as the AI will either land troops, throw 10000000000 troops into the so called mountains anyway and defeat piermonts tiny army or simply not invade at all.

As i said given that paradox have made this game to be a political and economic game and not a military one means there first decision should always be based on what makes more economical sense in a province over the military.

I mean TBH north italy has more problems from austria then France anyway....:wacko:

 

[Andrelvis]

France as a human player will always win, mountains or non.

That's not true. Plenty of players are bad and will lose, mountains or not.

 

[Alexander Seil]

Anyone saying those mountains would stop france from invading italy are being somewhat short sighted, in reality you have a point but for this game... HA.

Yes, I'm sure people will find a way to do a WC as Tibet, so let's just make the entire world farmland, and create land-connections to everything so enterprising Tibetan players don't even have to bother with a navy

 

[unmerged(150564)]

That's not true. Plenty of players are bad and will lose, mountains or not.

Ok i will rephrase, 99.99% of human players will win / come off better off then the north italians.

Yes, I'm sure people will find a way to do a WC as Tibet, so let's just make the entire world farmland, and create land-connections to everything so enterprising Tibetan players don't even have to bother with a navy

If that is sarcasim then cool, if not then meh.

The fact is those mountains will make little impact even if they were there, in FACT the person who said that it ruins immersion in the region has more of a solid point then arguing the military side of it :wacko:

 

[Andrelvis]

Ok i will rephrase, 99.99% of human players will win / come off better off then the north italians.

No need to rephrase, as I did address their quantity with my "plenty"

It's just that people that are bad aren't very vocal about it.

 

[Alexander Seil]

If that is sarcasim then cool, if not then meh.

The fact is those mountains will make little impact even if they were there, in FACT the person who said that it ruins immersion in the region has more of a solid point then arguing the military side of it :wacko:

So? How much of an impact does the terrain of one province (and does it even affect output? Or just maximum size of the RGO?) make on the worldwide supply of wine, or furniture, or whatever?

Either way the decision is arbitrary. Then the fellow with the immersion argument can come in as a tie-breaker.

 

[Aeon221]

As to whether us masses consider this a MAJOR MAPPING FAUX PAS, no, not particularly. Not that that's a reason to dismiss the complaint. I'd probably not notice if New York was in Virginia, but I'd prefer it be in the right place!

But I am kind of curious as to how fine the balance must be that a single province must be made into grass or the whole game goes KABOOMSKI.

@RELee: You Johnny Come Lately! I was a fan back in '01, when I found EU1 on the shelves and promptly failed my next test. Luckily history got a good deal simpler!

 

[telesien]

As I understand it, it is not about WM balance, but local balance. S-P can get mountains or not, but the first choice will hurt their economy and the second military. And since Vicky 2 (luckily) isn't wargame, the choice went to second option.
Now the obvious problem here is quite high chance, that northern Italy will become french playground with little to no chance for others ti prevent it. Just looking at the map is like party invitation for my soldiers and AFAIK every decent written AI will exploit that too. Now I'm in wait-and-see mode, but I also stored I-told-you-so message for further use.

 

[alvaro]

I don't think this is such a big deal that deserves 3 pages. honestly.

 

[Grubnessul]

I don't think this is such a big deal that deserves 3 pages. honestly.

On the paradox forums, Bismarck's moustache is enough to spawn a 100 page monster thread.

 

[telesien]

On the paradox forums, Bismarck's moustache is enough to spawn a 100 page monster thread.

And that's why we all love it so much

 

[Baneslave]

From the other thread:

That's because you don't understand game design. We decided to make each province a single terrian so that you as the player could clearly see exactly which terrian would be in each province. The net result is something like this. This is a case were game design outcomes effect asthetics. Such is the way of things.

Just dividing this specific province is problematic too, as that opens can of worms that will split all provinces in the world into million pieces.

 

[ComradeOm]

Just dividing this specific province is problematic too, as that opens can of worms that will split all provinces in the world into million pieces.

How? Why must adding an extra province to this corner of the world, which is currently not modelled accurately enough, suddenly mean adding hundreds/thousands of new provinces?

I can understand Paradox's decisions (on having to balance economic/military or only one type of terrain) but I really can't see the problem with adding one more province to the map

 

[Sute]{h]

I can understand Paradox's decisions (on having to balance economic/military or only one type of terrain) but I really can't see the problem with adding one more province to the map

I guess you answered your own question. Because people will always ask for just one more province...

I agree that the lack of mountains does seem strange though.

 

[unmerged(150564)]

How? Why must adding an extra province to this corner of the world, which is currently not modelled accurately enough, suddenly mean adding hundreds/thousands of new provinces?

I can understand Paradox's decisions (on having to balance economic/military or only one type of terrain) but I really can't see the problem with adding one more province to the map

Because provinces in the Vicky series have always been alot bigger and that rings doubly true for V2.

This aint HOI3 where provinces server 1 purpose and that is warfare. You need to cram a population into every province followed by economic, factorys, RGO's and god only knows what else now so provinces are larger which unfortuantly limits how many can be placed in certain zones.

In a perfect world the mountains would be there and we would all be happ but they chose to balance the area and stay with the RGO's and economic side of it instead of the warfare side which last time i checked in the entire point of this game...