The map?

[Peter Ebbesen]

and you must add that doubling the provinces might multiply the time required to perform all tests for the events, and if you thought EU3 was slow...

Nah, I won't go into such sophistry. I have no idea whether the focus will be on province or character events CK style, and even if the game is billed to have the same minimum requirements, I wouldn't be surprised to see a game scheduled for release Q2 2008 to, on average, require a bit more computing power than one for Q1 2007. Then again, perhaps further code optimizations are possible as the engine matures. There are so many things that can impact performance that pulling the "more provinces must be slower" card would be an act of utter desperation.

 

[DominusNovus]

Okay, I did a little counting...

In EUR (at the current screenshots), there's about 15 provinces in Italy (inclusive of the Alps, south). In EU3 (I don't have it, but judging from screenshots), there's about 24 provinces in Italy (inclusive of the Alps, south).

There's more Italian provinces north of Rome in EU3 then there are in the entirety of Italy in EUR.

Personally, I think this is a good thing. Because it means that this current map is very unlikely to be the finished thing. Either that, or Italy in Europa Universalis: Rome is less important than Italy in Europa Universalis 3.

 

[Namm]

Seeing as the map doesn't include the far north of Europe, the New World and only small parts of Asia and Africa (what is all that, 3/4 of the world or more?) I don't see why the provinces can't be smaller and more numerous. The current representation of Greece for instance is laughable.

 

[maartos]

I really thought EU3 had too many provinces. It may please some cartography enthousiasts, but to me it just makes things unnecessarily cluttered. It's one of the reasons I liked Diplomacy, such an elegant map I think the current map shown for EU:R strikes a nice balance in this. Enough provinces to be realistic, yet not cluttered. Bravo paradox.

 

[hildoceras]

checkers... 32 land provinces, 2 unit types

Well, more seriously Peter, what I meant is CK already had some performances problems linked to the number of characters and the resolution of events. I only hope that the use of characters in EU:R does not lead us to the same problem And of course, less provinces and less kingdoms give us less characters

 

[crusaderknight]

I agree completely with the OP's "two grains". I would love to see this implemented, especially the extra provs in Greece and the rivers/mountains affecting borders.

 

[DarthJF]

I don't so much care about the number of provinces as long as game is properly balanced, but I do think that natural borders for provinces are a must. Espescially in roman era borders were mostly drawn between rivers and mountains, so having a province that has river in the middle off it and half a mountain feels a bit silly.

 

[ComradeOm]

Dev Diary #3 revealed that each province will be assigned a governor. It is quite possible that the province number has deliberately been kept low to reduce the degree of micromanagement associated with this feature.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

Well, more seriously Peter, what I meant is CK already had some performances problems linked to the number of characters and the resolution of events. I only hope that the use of characters in EU:R does not lead us to the same problem And of course, less provinces and less kingdoms give us less characters

Part of that was due to the ever increasing health and fertility of each generation. DV gets rid of that atleast.

 

[unmerged(59881)]

I totally agree with the demand for "natural" borders. The Romans were the only ones in Europe at that time (or better said a little bit later than the end point of the game) who created "artificial" borders i.e. the limes and Hadrian's wall. But mostly, the borders were rivers, mountains etc. I'd like to see this represented in the game.
For the question whether we need more or less provinces: as long as the ones we get are well balanced I don't see the need for more provinces than there are on the screenies at the moment...

 

[Strager]

I find the focus on smaller and more provinces to be, on balance, something that is undesirable. A key mistake in EU3, from my point of view, was giving in to public pressure and the capabilities of new PCs and making too many provinces in some areas of the world (France and Ethiopia are good examples): The game could easily stand to lose one or two hundred provinces.

From a "realism" perspective, players will always ask for more, often citing either tactical concerns, geographical concerns, or the wish to feature some particular historical entity they want in the game, but I vastly prefer having provinces that are pretty large and easy to click on at any zoom level.

Additionally, since Rome is built on the EU engine, we will have strategically important aspects of the game with regards to the economy/resource gathering that scale with the number of provinces. The typical examples in the EU series are base taxes, good production, buildings, simultaneous ship building/recruitment capability, and stability costs. We'll no doubt see some of our old friends in Rome as well.

The size of the provinces shown on the alpha map in post #1 look about right to me. About a score provinces in Italy in total - large enough to allow diversification while still low enough to allow novice players to feel comfortable with it - and most provinces outside Italy being of the same size as Italian provinces or slightly larger.

It may not be the right scale of provinces for people interested in a deep Hellenic game wanting to portray the Greek cities, and it is certainly not the right scale to portray Roman expansion based around the (over time) major Roman cities, but then, that appears not to be the focus of the game, which is (as far as we know) on the character/family/faction and province/region level. Doubling their number would be, from my point of view, which is in this respect all about having "fairly easy to manage strategic game play, complexity to be kept mostly hidden under the hood", a strategic mistake of the first order.

Uhhh.... EU3 had about half the proviences it should have. They cut back big time to make way for the insignifigant minority (who make up a larger number of EU players than other genres) of people who have lower end machines. Most gamers rigs can handle waaaaay more.

Personally I hope the provinces there are just placeholder for them to get the engine in order before they add boatloads more. Only time will tell.

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

EU3 should have had twice the number of provinces it had, Strager? Assuming a more or less equal distribution, which nations larger than minors would remain fun to play if that were the case?

 

[Zuckergußgebäck]

I agree - you should be able to draw borders along mountains and rivers, anything else doesn´t really make sense.

 

[Dietmar1982]

EU3 should have had twice the number of provinces it had, Strager? Assuming a more or less equal distribution, which nations larger than minors would remain fun to play if that were the case?

It's just to easy with the majors, so you shouldn't play anything but minors anyway.

Edit: When you think about it, this would be just what we needed to make the majors harder(more fun). An overwelming number of provinces.

 

[Rommel22]

Many have said it and I will too, there need to be more provinces or many of them split into two or more, especially Greece, Italy, Turkey, Syria, Iberia and North Africa (Carthage). Basically areas which are of great importance and high population compared to other location, like the steppes which can have few provinces.

And the natural borders need to be taken into consideration when mapping out the provincial or national borders. I really hope Paradox revises what they have so far on the map with these 2 points..

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Edit: When you think about it, this would be just what we needed to make the majors harder(more fun). An overwelming number of provinces.

Forum sentiments from EU1, EU2, and EU3 indicate that most people do not consider managing an overwhelming number of provinces harder, more challenging, or more fun - in general, the sentiment is that it detracts from the game-play experience.

Arguing for fewer provinces and the un-fun nature of having to deal with a huge number of provinces may sound a bit weird coming from one such as me with a known preference for playing extraordinarily large nations in any and all Paradox games, but it does seem to be opinion most often expressed viz. actually playing large nations: from a certain step (differing somewhat between posters) having to manage more provinces adds nothing to the challenge or difficulty, it only adds to the tedium. Having heard this time and time again in all the EU games, the HoI games, Victoria, and even CK (though more often expressed concerning scaling courts), I've become an ardent believer.

As such, the number of provinces should be determined such that an average player playing a major doing fairly well, but not spectacularly, should, in achieving this, end up managing just enough provinces to feel he has his hands full and no more. Making provinces smaller and more numerous than needed to support this paradigm will only enhance the gaming experience of players playing minors and players focused on realism and history over gameplay, while it will harm the gaming experience of those playing the major nations the game is designed for.

 

[dharper]

I don't so much care about the number of provinces as long as game is properly balanced, but I do think that natural borders for provinces are a must. Espescially in roman era borders were mostly drawn between rivers and mountains, so having a province that has river in the middle off it and half a mountain feels a bit silly.

Same here. In CK more provinces was not always a good thing; it led to more micromanagement and less control. Even in EU3 I find it tiresome to have a large empire and tend to neglect individual provinces. However, having natural borders is a real plus in my books.

 

[dharper]

Now, a fun (but unrealistic) idea would be to have many small provinces to start with, but once your empire became large enough you'd see same-culture provinces merging together to make larger administrative units.

Not gonna happen, but a cheery thought.

 

[Tayran]

I dont know how possible it would be to say make a "lite" version, and a "vetaran" version of the map. With x and 2x amount of provinces.
That would satisfy the more province demanding crowd, while keeping the newer players, or the lazier ones happy.

Just a thought.

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

I dont know how possible it would be to say make a "lite" version, and a "vetaran" version of the map. With x and 2x amount of provinces.
That would satisfy the more province demanding crowd, while keeping the newer players, or the lazier ones happy.

Just a thought.

That would mean that they will have to make and test two games, so I don't think we will see this option