The Role of Map Topology

[Emperor Basil]

The dev diaries have reveiled some exciting new features of the map; the visible topography being one. I just hope that this topography plays an important role in the game aside from looks. You just have to match a map of medieval europe to a topographical map to see there is a clear relation between the two. Just look at the campaigns of the English in Wales and Scotland, or the troubles of the HRE in Italy because of the alps.
In CK1 mountainous regions or rivers only really resulted in slowing armies' progression down. I'd like to see a bigger impact on military operations, trade and governance. Mountainous regions should be hard to conquer and harder to govern and rivers should be difficult for armies to cross. Obviously the nature of this in the game would depend on the systems they implement in the game but I'd like to see something in place.

A few examples to help my case:
- It's no surprise that Turkish horse-archers were so successful on the Anatolian plateau.
- Byzantium and, later, Bulgaria found a natural border in the River Danube.
- In order for King Edward I of England to conquer the Welsh he virtually had to besiege the whole Snowdonian mountain range.
- One of the greatest challenges to the chevauches of Edward III and Henry V in Normandy during the Hundred Years' War were crossing the rivers Seine and the Somme.
- (A bit earlier than CK2 but still relevant I feel was) the strategy of Byzantium in the C7th and C8th was to let Muslim armies into the Anatolian plateau and then capturing the passes of the Taurus mountains therefore cutting off communications, supplies and the exit route of the invading army.

 

[Logos88]

Don't forget the predominance of the desert in the holy land, a big logistic factor for the failure of the crusaders so many times. I would also love to see a bigger prominence of the terrain factor in the game, aside for a very abstracted dice roll penalty. I would love also to see something like supplies lines. when you start talking about this subjects people say "hey paradox games are no total wars" but I never wanted a total war game. just a good war time strategic, not tactical map, where you as a leader can see the theater of war and then choose to act with strategy, like for example: I should pillage those villages before the enemy gets there first, or I should conquer this castle first or I'm gonna leave a garrison behind my back that can cut my supply line, so I need a base of operations, or like you said, raise this bridge, then the enemy will have to cross up river, thus facing me in higher ground. Or I'm going to set my cavalry hidden behind this hills so later I can harass the enemy flank. Don't say to my that strategy didn't matter in Medieval warfare, what happened with Agincourt, Crecy or the troop deployment of Harold in Hastings, or when Saladin ignored a small Templar force in the outskirts of Jerusalem and divided is army for the Templars to butcher the small groups of soldiers (the Templars besides their Elite training and equipment were considered master strategist).
If the strategy wasn't very important in Middle Ages why did chess became so popular?
This kind of stuff would be really nice to see.

of course if the player didn't want to get involved in the warfare prefering just to select a stack and click on a province he could always delegate on is Marshall whom would act according to is martial skill.

I don't want Paradox to spend millions to make something like total war battles, I want a chess game instead, where you choose what to do at war in the province you want to conquer, if you should divide your troops and secure strategic points or if you should keep them united and face the enemy in a favorable ground in a massive battle.
You can also say, is a character driven game, and I just ask if war was not a big part of a Medieval Noble life.

Sadly I know something like this will not be in Crusader Kings II, I'm just giving my perspective for what the next engine should be able to do.

 

[TempestDK]

Sadly I know something like this will not be in Crusader Kings II, I'm just giving my perspective for what the next engine should be able to do.

Really?? .. has this been officially stated somewhere??

I think you might be a bit pessimistic about that ... no, PI will never make a Total war combat simulator ... but I am sure that the battle engine will be more sophisticated than in CK1. Have you tried EU:Rome?? ... there the skill and traits of your commanders had greater effects and could trigger battle events. As well as terrain and army composition had greater meaning too.

 

[Logos88]

Really?? .. has this been officially stated somewhere??

I think you might be a bit pessimistic about that ... no, PI will never make a Total war combat simulator ... but I am sure that the battle engine will be more sophisticated than in CK1. Have you tried EU:Rome?? ... there the skill and traits of your commanders had greater effects and could trigger battle events. As well as terrain and army composition had greater meaning too.

Don't get me wrong, I'm really excited about CKII, I think the game is going to have a lot of good and ambitious new features, the baronies/cities/bishoprics; the character plots, the missions of your court position, the new character portraits and DNA system (more cosmetic but still very important) etc. All are examples of how the producers are committed to the game, love the game, and are going to work hard to make the game much better then is predecessor.
But still regarding warfare in CKII two things get me a little disappointed:

- The game engine will still be Clausewitz, so basically we will not see any major improvement of what has been done since EUIII
- I've read in the Sengoku forum, they will mainly stick to the EUIII warfare system, with some changes but nothing radical.

So being Sengoku a prelude to CKII, I doubt some major changes will be made. One thing made me happy, they already talked about you choosing 3 commanders to each flank of your army in battle. this is good I guess but still some major areas are still in dire need of improvement.

like I said, I'm pessimistic because I would like to see a better interaction with the provinces you want to conquer, not just select stack/ click the province you want to siege, see if it as a terrain defensive bonus/ wait for the enemy army to arrive/ watch the morale, and the dice roll/ win the battle/ siege/ do it all again.
Also on the other hand I don't want a massive TW battle system, witch in my opinion is just eye candy, and boring. like I said I just wanted a province were you could choose what to do, the castle you conquer first, the terrain you want to fight in, the village you want to loot. the skirmish. my idea is, you would not be controlling the battle formation etc, thats for your subordinates to do. But you would coordinate the theater of operations, strategically (not tactically, like in TW) thinking of how would your generals win battles, what strategical points to secure first in the province, how the best way for the enemy to fight in your terms, who to cause the enemy attrition, make camp in this place and wait for the enemy etc etc.

like I said not a tactical eye candy battlefield like TW but a strategical province map with logistic and key points and many settlements, would bring a new dimension of depth. (baronies/bishoprics/cities) for you to siege, before the province is yours. Forget the TW, that would ad nothing to PI games, think about Civilization, with terrain, troop division, key points, various cities in a province, but in real time, like paradox games with the historical accuracy of PI . that is closer to my vision.

I know this is a major and very ambitious improvement. and we will have to wait for a new engine and for third or Fourth cycle of PI games/engines to have something like this, in that way, I'm not pessimistic, I'm certain we won't have something like this, not in CKII, not in any PI game soon.

 

[RedRooster81]

I think under the Clausewitz engine, there will be terrain considerations for battle. I'm not sure how it works precisely in EU3 even, but in earlier EU games terrain did matter quite a lot. Cavalry were useless in mountains or swampland for example. Travel time and the support limit should be calculated based on terrain and climate, with some reality checks that EU3 and CK1 do not take into consideration. For example, from reading about the US intervention in Tripoli during Thomas Jefferson's administration, I learned of the obvious difficulty of moving across North Africa by foot or on horse. During this expedition, US marines and Arab mercenaries crossed from Egypt to what is now western Libya and found the crossing almost impossible: all food and most of their water had to be brought with them, so my campaigns of conquest in CK1 that in a few years went from southern Spain to Cairo now seem rather silly.

 

[TempestDK]

I think under the Clausewitz engine, there will be terrain considerations for battle. I'm not sure how it works precisely in EU3 even, but in earlier EU games terrain did matter quite a lot. Cavalry were useless in mountains or swampland for example. Travel time and the support limit should be calculated based on terrain and climate, with some reality checks that EU3 and CK1 do not take into consideration. For example, from reading about the US intervention in Tripoli during Thomas Jefferson's administration, I learned of the obvious difficulty of moving across North Africa by foot or on horse. During this expedition, US marines and Arab mercenaries crossed from Egypt to what is now western Libya and found the crossing almost impossible: all food and most of their water had to be brought with them, so my campaigns of conquest in CK1 that in a few years went from southern Spain to Cairo now seem rather silly.

Most of this is usually handled in various PI games with supply limits and attrition modifiers. So moving 40.000 troops through Sinai desert will usually kill of half the force before you get to the other side .. and even more if you stop to siege the province. So low supply limits, special attrition modifiers for certain terrain types (like desert and mountains) as well as movement modifiers can simulate the problems of logistics and supply in difficult terrain. And I am sure there will be battle modifiers for terrain too ... whether it works like in Rome or EU3 who knows.

At least these kind of things worked very well in EU3 games ...

 

[RedRooster81]

Most of this is usually handled in various PI games with supply limits and attrition modifiers. So moving 40.000 troops through Sinai desert will usually kill of half the force before you get to the other side .. and even more if you stop to siege the province. So low supply limits, special attrition modifiers for certain terrain types (like desert and mountains) as well as movement modifiers can simulate the problems of logistics and supply in difficult terrain. And I am sure there will be battle modifiers for terrain too ... whether it works like in Rome or EU3 who knows.

At least these kind of things worked very well in EU3 games ...

I hope it is applied to CK2 as well. I remember trying to conquer Switzerland as Austria in EU2; that still gives me the shivers. The battle modifiers for terrain should be interesting, or at least I hope so. Heavy cavalry did not do so well in swampy areas, and so forth. Defending your alpine county from aggressive neighbors should be a better prospect, and assembling the proper kind of army for the intended job should throw in some good strategy, especially because the composition of levies are less within the player's control that EU armies.

 

[Winchester]

Wouldn't it be great if Doomdark's wish becomes reality and the topographical map is the one we actually use when playing the game.

Like many players, I spend about 90% of my time in political mode. So while I like the new topographical map a lot, I'm really curious/anxious/excited to see some more screenies of the political map, since that's what I'll likely be staring at for hours on end. Please?

Yes, most players (including me) tend to use the political map mode all the time. That is a shame and not really the way forward, IMO. The ambition is to make the terrain mode more useful, with enough political information that a separate map mode is not really needed.

I admit that in EU3 in particular that I have been caught out by attrition, particularly Winter, because I spend all my time looking at the political mapmode.

 

[RedRooster81]

Wouldn't it be great if Doomdark's wish becomes reality and the topographical map is the one we actually use when playing the game.
I admit that in EU3 in particular that I have been caught out by attrition, particularly Winter, because I spend all my time looking at the political mapmode.

On that topic, sort of, how should terrain change how baronies and counties are laid out. What I am talking about is the Middle East and North Africa in particular, where much of the landform is "desert." Except in certain enclaves, I'm not so sure how much control you should be able to assert over these regions, as well as areas like the steppes, where most people live a nomadic existence.

 

[unmerged(99452)]

On that topic, sort of, how should terrain change how baronies and counties are laid out. What I am talking about is the Middle East and North Africa in particular, where much of the landform is "desert." Except in certain enclaves, I'm not so sure how much control you should be able to assert over these regions, as well as areas like the steppes, where most people live a nomadic existence.

Yeah it would be great if some baronies in some desolate provinces were "blocked" by a native settlement. These native settlements must then be dealt with in way or or another in order for you province to advance. For example 2 possible options could be, integrate the natives into your barony or expel them with force, each option having its pros and cons etc.

 

[RedRooster81]

Yeah it would be great if some baronies in some desolate provinces were "blocked" by a native settlement. These native settlements must then be dealt with in way or or another in order for you province to advance. For example 2 possible options could be, integrate the natives into your barony or expel them with force, each option having its pros and cons etc.

I guess that would work. I am thinking that desert and steppe provinces should have fewer baronies per province than those in forest, hilly, or plains terrain (say 2 or 3 out of the eight possible per province). The rest of the province would be occupied with nomadic peoples, similar to EU3: DW hordes, and you would have to maintain good relations with these nomads or else face fairly regular raids. If you can win them over, you could pay for them as mercenaries and/or caravaners.