Map Matters

[Darthvegeta800]

Then why are there so many other playable factions? Are they just a con, a last minute after-thought that we aren't actually supposed to play? A Universalis game should cover it all, otherwise it needs to be called something else. For example, there's a little known game called Pax Romana which, according to the blurb on the back of the box, is 'by the creator of the best-selling Europa Universalis series' that was almost purely Roman-centric. Unfortunately I can't recommend it because it was too unstable on my system to play for any length of time (although, in many repects, there seemed to be better game than EUR trapped inside the bad programming).

A game that has the kind of map that I'd love to see in EUR is Spartan. The game is generally regarded as a poor man's Rome Total War because the tactical battles are much less involving but the large map of Greece and the Aegian is gloriously detailed, far superior to RTW and it puts EUR's map to shame. Apart from the lack of a naval tech tree (a bizarre design decision!), I thought that it was a better strategy game than RTW (ignoring the tactical battles aspect).

Yeah i played Spartan. At one side i loved it's massiveness.
But it had a very generic edge in many regards which annoyed me a bit.
Overall i prefer RTW as i found the gameplay more fluid. Spartan should have dropped the tactical battles and improved its strategic level.

 

[Darthvegeta800]

Also. That is what EUR is all about. What ifs. An Alexander age expansion would be great. Because Alexander actually had plans on invading the Arabian Penn., carthage, Spain, and Italy. He would have basically built the Roman Empire long before it truly was. I wish he hadn't have died. The thing is, he could have really done it! Anyways... Adding China and India and the Arabian Penn. Would add to that what if. And adding more obstacles would make the game less fun.

I doubt it actually. Alexander was a good strategist but it looks like he'd have made a bad ruler. He would not have been able to maintain his Empire. Not to mention he never faced a truly competent adversary. In my eyes Alexander is not that great. He was good but not what he's hyped up to be.
But that's something to discuss elsewhere.

I can agree with the east border prob though. It may be interesting to use events or so to give the Seleucids some problems later on there as when i play them, they basically only have problems early on if their surroudning nations pile up. (Seleucids start out at war) but as soon as one front stabilizes and the other one isn't superlucky, Seleucids win, reform and in the hands of a human player are nigh unstoppable. They're i think possibly the strongest faction in the game. Only problem they may have is easier civil wars than a Republic. (and that's perhaps open to debate)

 

[erthul]

I doubt it actually. Alexander was a good strategist but it looks like he'd have made a bad ruler. He would not have been able to maintain his Empire. Not to mention he never faced a truly competent adversary. In my eyes Alexander is not that great. He was good but not what he's hyped up to be.
But that's something to discuss elsewhere.

Alexander ruled for 13 years and left an empire with solid enough foundations to last nearly 300 years until the last element, Ptolemaic Egypt, was conquered by Rome: it didn't simply disappear because it had fragmented into several major factions shortly after his death. He excelled at sieges, set piece battles, forcing defended passes, against guerilla horse archers in Scythia - the sort of enemies that destroyed whole Roman armies, he defeated Indian armies with hundreds of more elephants the than the mere handful that caused a Roman army to panic at their first encounter with the beasts and had an effective logistics system that allowed him to campaign in high mountains, deserts and monsoon sub-tropics without suffering the sort of attrition you'd see in a typical EU game. He's called 'the Great' for a reason.

 

[vanin]

Of course Alexander the Great is great for a reason. But I think that his father, Philip II, is the one who should be attributed these successes: He reformed Macedonian military and the whole country, brought Greece under his control and even began the war against Persia, only to be assassinated. Alexander's military prowess is something none can take away from him; Yet he didn't build up an empire of his own, since he more often than not kept the Achaemenid Persian systems, such as the satraps and even the satrapies' borders. Obviously when you are on your way conquering for the most part you can't establish a solid system to govern the reaches of an empire, and it seemed as if Alexander wouldn't stop expanding it any time soon and consolidate what he already had.

Saying that the Diadochi ruined what Alexander had built up isn't really feesible either. Sure, opportunistic and ambitious as they were, they probably ruined the chances of keeping the Hellenistic World together, but they also enhanced all those parts that Alexander never had time to lay his eye upon. Especially Antigonus the One-eyed and Seleucus built great cities and colonized various places with greeks and macedonians, ie Hellenizing to a great extent.

But meh, this isn't the topic of this thread. I agree that we need a bigger map ala Europa Barbarorum, but expanding the map all the way to India will take a long time and is a tedious work: Just getting the topography to work seems hard enough.

 

[Darthvegeta800]

Of course Alexander the Great is great for a reason. But I think that his father, Philip II, is the one who should be attributed these successes: He reformed Macedonian military and the whole country, brought Greece under his control and even began the war against Persia, only to be assassinated. Alexander's military prowess is something none can take away from him; Yet he didn't build up an empire of his own, since he more often than not kept the Achaemenid Persian systems, such as the satraps and even the satrapies' borders. Obviously when you are on your way conquering for the most part you can't establish a solid system to govern the reaches of an empire, and it seemed as if Alexander wouldn't stop expanding it any time soon and consolidate what he already had.

Saying that the Diadochi ruined what Alexander had built up isn't really feesible either. Sure, opportunistic and ambitious as they were, they probably ruined the chances of keeping the Hellenistic World together, but they also enhanced all those parts that Alexander never had time to lay his eye upon. Especially Antigonus the One-eyed and Seleucus built great cities and colonized various places with greeks and macedonians, ie Hellenizing to a great extent.

But meh, this isn't the topic of this thread. I agree that we need a bigger map ala Europa Barbarorum, but expanding the map all the way to India will take a long time and is a tedious work: Just getting the topography to work seems hard enough.

Agreed. I'm not saying Alexander is irrelevant or bad.
But he is overglorified.

As for 'the Great'. Let's not forget that Pompeijus was called 'Magnus' too.
Even my Prof Antiquity who is specialized in the Hellenistic Kingdoms and absolutely adores Alexander the Great had to admit his political and statesmanship quality are to be severely questioned. He seemed to have some insight on what was needed but most likely the problems in execution and consolidation spawned from his flawed psyche and rising erraticness.
If it comes to insightful Empirebuilding i'm afraid i have far more respect for Caesar, Augustus etc.
Reform-wise Alexander's father is the one who gets my respect.
Though when it comes to managing supplyline, intuition/martial instinc and the likes he's on par with Caesar, Hannibal, Scipio,... arguably the lesser in some areas compared in some military facets and their superior in others.

And -___- i did it again.
Back to topic... a bigger map is not to be underestimated.
In truth i'd rather see the regions currently depicted expanded stabily like GIMP does than more new regions of the globe added.
If ever it gets that far, fine but it might be best to put the house in order before one looks at the garden.

 

[erthul]

Of course Alexander the Great is great for a reason. But I think that his father, Philip II, is the one who should be attributed these successes: He reformed Macedonian military and the whole country, brought Greece under his control and even began the war against Persia, only to be assassinated.

Philip was a great king but many credit Alexander for the victory at Chaeronea which subjugated Greece. In any case Greece revolted immediately after Philip's death and Alexander conquered it again in his own right (in a fraction of the time that it had taken Philip to do so). Alexander inherited the best army in the world, yes, but used it differently from Philip by emphasising the cavalry and light troops over the phalanx, the latter more often than not being used as swordsmen in the frequent sieges and non-setpiece battle warfare. Furthermore, Alexander was an army reformer himself and by the end of his reign his 'imperial' army was markedly different from the Macedonian force that he started with as it included horse archers, elephants, more light troops and cavalry and he was even in the process of converting the phalanx into a mixed unit of pike/bow. Caesar was not in Alexander's league and lost several battles, including to Pompey.

 

[Darthvegeta800]

Philip was a great king but many credit Alexander for the victory at Chaeronea which subjugated Greece. In any case Greece revolted immediately after Philip's death and Alexander conquered it again in his own right (in a fraction of the time that it had taken Philip to do so). Alexander inherited the best army in the world, yes, but used it differently from Philip by emphasising the cavalry and light troops over the phalanx, the latter more often than not being used as swordsmen in the frequent sieges and non-setpiece battle warfare. Furthermore, Alexander was an army reformer himself and by the end of his reign his 'imperial' army was markedly different from the Macedonian force that he started with as it included horse archers, elephants, more light troops and cavalry and he was even in the process of converting the phalanx into a mixed unit of pike/bow. Caesar was not in Alexander's league and lost several battles, including to Pompey.

Actually loosing a battle does not make one a lesser general than the other.
In fact a good leader needs to be able to handle defeat and recover from it.
Something Caesar and Napoleon can.
Alexander is much like Pompey, unchallenged by a worthy opponent. (in the case of Pompey that obvious happened later on)
The Persian Empire had no good leader to put against Alexander. Had that been the case i remain adamant in my belief he would have failed.

 

[erthul]

In fact a good leader needs to be able to handle defeat and recover from it.
Something Caesar and Napoleon can.

Napoleon was good at running away and abandoning his army. He did so in Egypt, Spain, Russia and Waterloo. Caesar was a strategic clown who invariably managed to get himself trapped: in Britain, at Alesia, Pharsalus, Alexandria, Numidia, Spain and finally the Senate. Both of them were amongst the luckiest generals that ever lived (Napoleon tended to promote 'lucky' men in fact) and had better armies than they deserved.

Actually loosing a battle does not make one a lesser general than the other.

I agree, which is why I think that Darius was a decent general. He showed strategic ability at Issus to sneak behind Alexander (using a mountain range as cover) and captured the latter's camp prior to the battle, he used terrain well defending behind rivers, fortifying mountain passes and citadels, flattening the ground at Arbela to give his chariots and cavalry every advantage and so on and would almost certainly have defeated a lesser general than Alexander: in other words, proving your own point! Similarly, Spitamenes fought a guerilla war against Alexander and managed to destroy a Macedonian 'division' when Alexander was elsewhere while Porus showed great competence defending his Kingdom. In fact it took so much effort to defeat the latter that the Macedonian army's nerve finally cracked so that shortly after Alexander had to give in to their demands to return home.

 

[Darthvegeta800]

I disagree with you about Darius's abilities and Alexander's but this is not the place to discuss it. There is already a thread going on about it a few pages back.
-> Let's focus on the topic of the thread.

 

[erthul]

Let's focus on the topic of the thread

A thread goes where it goes regardless of the topic.

 

[Darthvegeta800]

A thread goes where it goes regardless of the topic.

LOL i know a lot of fora you can get a kick in the *beep* for not sticking to a given topic.

 

[RomanGuy]

I have to strongly agree with the map issues in this post, they could have done a much better job at accuracy. It's not epic enough and it makes for some serious balance issues for some countries.

The game is Rome centered, yes, but that doesn't mean the rest of the world Rome interacted with should be ignored or minimized in importance.

Not going to get in the Alexander debate.

 

[unmerged(117434)]

__________________
"Veni, vidi, vici"
"I came, I saw, I conquered"
-Gaius Julius Caesar

Like ur signiture...

 

[erthul]

"Veni, vidi, vici"
"I came, I saw, I conquered"

I think Caesar was talking about in the bed chamber on that occasion.

 

[unmerged(119342)]

I would hope Caesar would say," I saw, I conquered, and then I came!" if it is the bedroom. Maybe premature ejaculation trouble is why he had to adopt a son?

 

[erthul]

I would hope Caesar would say," I saw, I conquered, and then I came!" if it is the bedroom. Maybe premature ejaculation trouble is why he had to adopt a son?

It's probably down to the translation as English talks in a back to front sort of way compared to many other languages.

 

[unmerged(117434)]

Actually, he supposedly fathered a son, Caesarion.

 

[Darthvegeta800]

Unproven of course. Not to mention there is the rumor of his little 'bastards'.

 

[unmerged(117434)]

ya. like brutus. ha

 

[Darthvegeta800]

ya. like brutus. ha

Oh wasn't even talking about him.