Separate cities/rural areas and an idea about income

[Hallsten]

I think it'd be good if city and province were made separate.
With the present system there's no way of knowing wether or not a province had a rich city with a poor countryside or the other way around.
A system where the two are made separate would make it easier to model the effects of warefare and sieges.
Since the enemy supportlimit would be derived from the wealth of the rural areas of the province, a siege on a wealthy city with a poor rural area would prove to be very costly.
To me it also seems logical that a poor city should be able to withstand a siege for a shorter time than a wealthy city with the same fortress size and amount of men.

Having an army in a province was a huge strain on both its resources and its wealth during the EU3 period, both for the enemy and yourself.
With this in mind I propose that each province should have a maximum troop support limit.
When said limit is exceeded the present troops should suffer attrition and the province income should decrease as well, this should happen for both friendly and enemy troops
The decrease in income should be related to the size of the occupying army.
When said army has left the income should slowly increase again.
Putting armies other countries that you have military access to should, if the support limit is reached, cause a steady decrease in relations with that country.

Any comments?

 

[KaRei]

I think it'd be good if city and province were made separate.
With the present system there's no way of knowing wether or not a province had a rich city with a poor countryside or the other way around.
A system where the two are made separate would make it easier to model the effects of warefare and sieges.
Since the enemy supportlimit would be derived from the wealth of the rural areas of the province, a siege on a wealthy city with a poor rural area would prove to be very costly.
To me it also seems logical that a poor city should be able to withstand a siege for a shorter time than a wealthy city with the same fortress size and amount of men.

Having an army in a province was a huge strain on both its resources and its wealth during the EU3 period, both for the enemy and yourself.
With this in mind I propose that each province should have a maximum troop support limit.
When said limit is exceeded the present troops should suffer attrition and the province income should decrease as well, this should happen for both friendly and enemy troops
The decrease in income should be related to the size of the occupying army.
When said army has left the income should slowly increase again.
Putting armies other countries that you have military access to should, if the support limit is reached, cause a steady decrease in relations with that country.

Any comments?

Sounds good and it will be realistic. In history the teritorry could fall to enemy, but cities itself could resist for several month.
I have only one comment. If this deviding will be used, then building fortresses in territories not representing city will be a little bit strange. It will look like the whole territory is surrounded by fortress (like Great China Wall ).
Oh, this give me an idea: territories (not cities) could be fortified as well as cities, but with a higher cost. So you'll be able to make great walls like the China one. And to make it working properly, enemies must be unable to cross over territory with fortification without defeating it before. They will be able only to go to this territory and return to that one from which they come. After defeating the fortification, they'll be able to continue.

 

[Stingray]

In peacetime, shouldn't the supportlimit be higher, representing that the city can import food from overseas?

 

[unmerged(28894)]

The trouble is that the Great Wall of China is more or less unique and was not (so I've always been told) intended as a defensible barrier anyway, but merely an obstruction so the local militia could gather to hit the raiders.

I very much like the idea (and it'd make sticking in a Napoleon expansion that much easier) although it'd probably be hell to balance and work out when they can annex and the like.

 

[NitramDatsgnos]

Any comments?

Good point.

Also, a lot of provinces should not have cites at all, at least up to a certain point. In EU2, this is represented with the TP. However, the TP is too easy to burn, and the concept that the production in the province would just disappear, and the ownership of it with that, is flawed.

A province such as, say, Jemtand, should not have a city in it until late in the game, if ever, but it still serves a purpose on the map, as a defensive position for whoever owns it, as a transit zone during wars, as a place where one could burn a few farms and eat the sheep while moving in either direction. It shouldn't have a flag telling who is in control - since noone really controls a rural area - but if looted the province income should go to the looter rather than the owner. Moving through it should not give war score, so you would have to fight the owner for it if you want it permanently.

Also, it should be possible to raid and loot your enemys countryside without declaring war. It would of course give him a CB on you. And maybe some free peasant armies... I'd better stop now

 

[joriandrake]

The trouble is that the Great Wall of China is more or less unique and was not (so I've always been told) intended as a defensible barrier anyway, but merely an obstruction so the local militia could gather to hit the raiders.

IT WAS intended as defence. Against mongols and other nomads as...huns

 

[Stingray]

The trouble is that the Great Wall of China is more or less unique and was not (so I've always been told) intended as a defensible barrier anyway, but merely an obstruction so the local militia could gather to hit the raiders.

I heard it was to make it harder to haul a lot of loot on the way back to mongolia.

 

[KaRei]

The trouble is that the Great Wall of China is more or less unique and was not (so I've always been told) intended as a defensible barrier anyway.

Primary role af China wall was defence against mongols.
Primary role of Hadrians wall was defence against brittons.
Large walls weren't something for a parade.
Their construction was abnormal expensive so they were not constructed in time of EU very frequently. But why don't give players the choice if they want them to build if they will have enough money?

Note: I agree with the proposed system of separate cities and countryside.

 

[Spricar]

Primary role was the defence and while earlier china walls were used to delay the enemy (like Hadrian's wall) and were, in military terms, more like frontier demarcations than defensive fortifications of worth, the today's great wall was in fact able to fend off the invaders by itself. At least while it was maintained and manned. (Which took enormous funding so the money the Ming spent on the wall could have been spent on other military capabilities such as European style artillery or muskets. The fact remains that the great wall was of no help at all in the Ming dynasty's fall.)

The secondary role was a creation of some sort of customs barrier (again like Hadrian's). Merchants could've entered/exited China only through gates in the wall allowing the state to efficiently tax them.

 

[Emre Yigit]

If Byzantium were alive I'd have voted for this idea, but otherwise no. For the civilised (meaning would of course change with time) world since about 3000BC, it was all about cities, and rarely about provinces. One didn't go after Rome because it had drained swampland close by that was good for growing grain, one went for Rome because, er, well, it was ROME. The province, peopled by bumpkins, was a bonus.

 

[unmerged(21523)]

The Great Wall was designed to stop the nomads from ever crossing the border in the first place. Along most of its length, it was quite short as it only had to be high enough that the nomads' sheep couldn't cross, as nomads carried everything with them on long campaigns. On the city/hinterland split, is that really such a good idea? It would effectively double the amount of provinces in the game with half of those provinces rich, populous and fortified and the rest poor, empty, and undefended. Historically such a division makes sense, but it just adds unecessary detail from a game point of view, as players will no doubt just march their armies striaght through the rural areas and grab the cities while the AI will attempt to a seige against a cornfield and leave a perfectly wealthy city unmolested. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Innocent]

Any comments?

This is an interesting idea, and could effect how a province is captured. A province without a powerful city would make seiging the city less important, while occupying the countryside would have more impact. Still, not something we're like to see, though perhaps the trade system will shed some light on this. Typically speaking provinces with high trade incomes likely have highly developed and wealthy cities while those with high production incomes most likely have more highly developed countrysides.

 

[unmerged(10574)]

Lets not forget about what happens in Victoria when AI nations become too rich. They start dumping huge fortifications everywhere hindering gameplay and making the game rather unrealistic. If it were implemented properly such a concept would work, but given the rarity of such actions why bother including it in the first place.

As for seperating City and Territory within the province as seperate influencing entities i believe that would work.

 

[Tyrberg]

If you split up cities and provinces you can ad the oportunity to found cities. Many kings founded cities to get the economy and trade better and many cities have allso been founded under this period as defence och as a navalbase. as an example, here in Sweden we have karlskrona, founded in the 17th century to get a for the naval so you pretty near but not to close to Denmark. Then the city was on it´s top of power it was the second or third biggest citie in Sweden. That was a city that diden´t existed in the beggining of the period but was pretty big in the middle of it.
To found cities like karlskrona woud be very intresting and much historically realistic.
Allso colonies do i think coud be founded in that way. The european country place a city/fortress in a province that am totaly european and later also conquer the province.

/
Tyrberg

 

[unmerged(10574)]

If you split up cities and provinces you can ad the oportunity to found cities. Many kings founded cities to get the economy and trade better and many cities have allso been founded under this period as defence och as a navalbase. as an example, here in Sweden we have karlskrona, founded in the 17th century to get a for the naval so you pretty near but not to close to Denmark. Then the city was on it´s top of power it was the second or third biggest citie in Sweden. That was a city that diden´t existed in the beggining of the period but was pretty big in the middle of it.
To found cities like karlskrona woud be very intresting and much historically realistic.
Allso colonies do i think coud be founded in that way. The european country place a city/fortress in a province that am totaly european and later also conquer the province.

/
Tyrberg

Good idea and excellent first post. This should, however, be Extremely expensive and cost Money as well as MP. Think St. Petersburg.

 

[Sleepyhead]

If you split up cities and provinces you can ad the oportunity to found cities. Many kings founded cities to get the economy and trade better and many cities have allso been founded under this period as defence och as a navalbase. as an example, here in Sweden we have karlskrona, founded in the 17th century to get a for the naval so you pretty near but not to close to Denmark. Then the city was on it´s top of power it was the second or third biggest citie in Sweden. That was a city that diden´t existed in the beggining of the period but was pretty big in the middle of it.
To found cities like karlskrona woud be very intresting and much historically realistic.
Allso colonies do i think coud be founded in that way. The european country place a city/fortress in a province that am totaly european and later also conquer the province.

/
Tyrberg

I'd like this, especially if you get to name the city yourself ingame, that would be so cool

 

[Hallsten]

Thank you for your comments.

I just thought about an extention to this:

Having an army in a province was a huge strain on both its resources and its wealth during the EU3 period, both for the enemy and yourself.
With this in mind I propose that each province should have a maximum troop support limit.
When said limit is exceeded the present troops should suffer attrition and the province income should decrease as well, this should happen for both friendly and enemy troops
The decrease in income should be related to the size of the occupying army.
When said army has left the income should slowly increase again.
Putting armies other countries that you have military access to should, if the support limit is reached, cause a steady decrease in relations with that country.

Historically, an army got a fair share of its wartime pay from looting, and this made it very costly to keep your armies at home.
Bearing this in mind the monthly supply cost of an army in enemy territory should be less than if it had stayed at home.

Also, when mercenary forces were disbanded each soldier got a cash payment for his service. This was an important part of many peacetreaties e.g. the peace of Westphalia, should it be modelled here in some way?

 

[Nikolai]

I'm not sure I understand the idea? Splitting the cities and the provinces? Like making each city a separate province a la Danzig?

 

[Hallsten]

I'm not sure I understand the idea? Splitting the cities and the provinces? Like making each city a separate province a la Danzig?

No. Each province consists of a rural area and a city, pretty much like in Rome: Total War.

 

[Avernite]

I don't really see how it's usefull for gameplay.

What are the gameplay advantages of splitting cities and provinces? All I see is the possibility to model rich cities in worthless terrain, but I doubt that is enough justification for such a huge change.