Too many provinces - lack of individuality

[Akim]

One of my issues with the game is, that I feel the world map has WAY too many provinces. If I think of CK2 and EU4, regions like Italy for example seem to have three times as many provinces. I mean, who is going to "identify" with them? When I have provinces in EU4 and CK2, they mean something. I connect some idea, maybe because of their name. But their size gives them a meaning. Here, there are so many, that soon I dont have any "feeling for any of them", so to speak.

Same goes for many aspects, as most of you know and many highlighted, but the nodescript rulers. I wonder how far the Pompei Update has developed this. But I just wanted to comment, that I feel this game is shattered into way too many super tiny provinces.

[Spud]

As wide as an ocean, as shallow as a puddle.

[Apohavnosis]

I strongly disagree with you OP. I think Imperator: Rome, has the best map of all the Paradox grand strategy games, simply because provinces have more cities in them.

Not only it gives more strategic options for army positioning and fort building, but it also makes each province more unique by having more resources, famous city-states, or special geographical features (Thermopylae for example) that you can see or read about from media. It also gives a better sense of how big the world actually is.

See Crete for example (my home irl), in every other strategy game with "accurate" maps, it's divided in 3 areas, maybe 4 tops. So anyone would think that Crete is a small and insignificant place, which is not the case at all. In Imperator, Crete has 8 cities/areas, which is not only realistic, but it also makes Crete a very strong, self sustained province, that can be effectively used as a capital stronghold, in contrast to other strategy games.

Same goes for the Aegean islands, or Sicily for example. In other games: insignificant areas, in Imperator, you can actually start empires from them, just because they are divided by so many cities.


Also I don't understand how can you have an issue with identifying with these areas, I have to assume and correct me if I'm wrong (not trying to be an arse) that you don't read much history trivia. But I can tell you, as a modern Greek citizen (our schools taught us about these places) and ancient history enthusiast (I've read too much of that stuff), this is the most accurate map of ancient Greece that I have seen in a video game, ever, so I assume the same goes for the rest of the map. It's just so satisfying to be able to see all those places that I've read about, or saw in a documentary about ancient Rome, actually be there, on the game map. If the provinces were like in CK2, I would be greatly disappointed, that another generic map of ancient Europe was used in a video game.

Let's not forget that during this era, city-states were the standard, so feudal areas like in CK2 or states like in EUIV would be inaccurate, to say the least and make the game be just like any other poorly made, strategy game focused on ancient times.

If you can't "identify" with the smaller city-states, surely you must be able to identify with the provinces themselves, look at the cities as detailed parts of the things you know about.

Paradox need to improve on a lot of things, but the map is something they should be very proud of, in my opinion.

[Siegfriedfr]

The map is perfect. Can't play those maps with big ass provinces any longer.

However the necessity to carpet siege it all is just horrible.

[David McMurdo]

The map itself is great, but the problem is that the rate of conquest has not been adjusted for its greater size. Conquering provinces is less a matter of skill than it is a matter of time, and this makes the experience get repetitive very quickly. Even as Rome, it should require a player of great skill to achieve the top score. There are several simple ways that the game could be made more challenging, the most obvious of which is to make the AI more opportunistic.

As Rome I've just found a prolonged war against my allied neighbours to the south. I eventually ground them down and claimed all of their territory, but now my manpower is low, and my Aggressive Expansion and Tyranny are pretty high, so I need to rest before I repeat the process on my northern neighbours, which I certainly will. But it's at this point that nations close to me should say "hey, Rome's military is weakened just now, and their empire is unstable in many ways. Now is the time to act against them."

The fact that they don't seem to think that way is why it's easy to eventually steamroll everyone. If they did think that way, you'd have to be more modest in your ambitions and account for the AI's opportunism. As it is, there's no reason for me to not put all my eggs in one basket, focus my entire military on a single war, and then claim every last piece of land after the war, taking the Aggressive Expansion hit, which is ultimately pretty insignificant.

[fuzzywuzzy lonely capybara]

You know how a state has counties?

I don't know if i'm in Goring or Toring but i'm there. I do remember, however, that Rhodope is where I import fur so I can build experienced heavy infantry and horses. To the north of that, I don't recall their names because I haven't played in a couple weeks, but those two provinces west of Scythia (my corridor into Bosporan Ukraine/Crimea) is my breadbasket. I send food from there to feed my citizens and manpower in Europa and Rhodope.


... my point is, you'll connect with the provinces you decide are important to your nation.

If you truly are diving into the game as the Seleukid Empire or Egypt or Phrygia, they have three THOUSAND citizens. The greek kingdom I start with has 150 pops at most.

[fuzzywuzzy lonely capybara]

Originally posted by David McMurdo:

The map itself is great, but the problem is that the rate of conquest has not been adjusted for its greater size. Conquering provinces is less a matter of skill than it is a matter of time, and this makes the experience get repetitive very quickly. Even as Rome, it should require a player of great skill to achieve the top score. There are several simple ways that the game could be made more challenging, the most obvious of which is to make the AI more opportunistic.

As Rome I've just found a prolonged war against my allied neighbours to the south. I eventually ground them down and claimed all of their territory, but now my manpower is low, and my Aggressive Expansion and Tyranny are pretty high, so I need to rest before I repeat the process on my northern neighbours, which I certainly will. But it's at this point that nations close to me should say "hey, Rome's military is weakened just now, and their empire is unstable in many ways. Now is the time to act against them."

The fact that they don't seem to think that way is why it's easy to eventually steamroll everyone. If they did think that way, you'd have to be more modest in your ambitions and account for the AI's opportunism. As it is, there's no reason for me to not put all my eggs in one basket, focus my entire military on a single war, and then claim every last piece of land after the war, taking the Aggressive Expansion hit, which is ultimately pretty insignificant.

Epirus will, actually, invade you if you occupy greek territory in southern italy and kill freemen/citizens. The defensive pacts will ratchet up against you and they will not dissolve short of internecine warfare, something they sometimes indulge in when their powerful neighbor is low on manpower.

Rome churns out tech level 2 in the same time my Thracian, hellenic kingdom with research-boost reaches 3/4ths of tech 1. Rome is at tech 7 when I reach tech 3. On top of that they have twice as many military disciplines unlocked, putting just about everyone in the game low on the totem pole.

What Rome needs is a research kneecap and the mod that adds about 100 nations to the map. It forces Rome into being a subjective country instead of a conquesting country in the first 25 years of the game. Rome had many, many allied tribes and it took generations for those tribes to think of themselves as Latin or even "Roman" as Rome directly annexed those territories around her and gave land-owners citizenship.

[fuzzywuzzy lonely capybara]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1723160766

This is what I like to see. Many of Rome's neighbors are subject states instead of being defacto Roman cities, which they were not at game start. Like Carthage, Rome can use them or absorb them while the absolute power over the senate expands more slowly, represented by direct Red Roman control.

[Z3R0]

Originally posted by Akim:

One of my issues with the game is, that I feel the world map has WAY too many provinces. If I think of CK2 and EU4, regions like Italy for example seem to have three times as many provinces. I mean, who is going to "identify" with them? When I have provinces in EU4 and CK2, they mean something. I connect some idea, maybe because of their name. But their size gives them a meaning. Here, there are so many, that soon I dont have any "feeling for any of them", so to speak.

Same goes for many aspects, as most of you know and many highlighted, but the nodescript rulers. I wonder how far the Pompei Update has developed this. But I just wanted to comment, that I feel this game is shattered into way too many super tiny provinces.

Clearly you know VERY little about history.

[Z3R0]

Originally posted by Cobra Commando:

Originally posted by David McMurdo:

The map itself is great, but the problem is that the rate of conquest has not been adjusted for its greater size. Conquering provinces is less a matter of skill than it is a matter of time, and this makes the experience get repetitive very quickly. Even as Rome, it should require a player of great skill to achieve the top score. There are several simple ways that the game could be made more challenging, the most obvious of which is to make the AI more opportunistic.

As Rome I've just found a prolonged war against my allied neighbours to the south. I eventually ground them down and claimed all of their territory, but now my manpower is low, and my Aggressive Expansion and Tyranny are pretty high, so I need to rest before I repeat the process on my northern neighbours, which I certainly will. But it's at this point that nations close to me should say "hey, Rome's military is weakened just now, and their empire is unstable in many ways. Now is the time to act against them."

The fact that they don't seem to think that way is why it's easy to eventually steamroll everyone. If they did think that way, you'd have to be more modest in your ambitions and account for the AI's opportunism. As it is, there's no reason for me to not put all my eggs in one basket, focus my entire military on a single war, and then claim every last piece of land after the war, taking the Aggressive Expansion hit, which is ultimately pretty insignificant.

Epirus will, actually, invade you if you occupy greek territory in southern italy and kill freemen/citizens. The defensive pacts will ratchet up against you and they will not dissolve short of internecine warfare, something they sometimes indulge in when their powerful neighbor is low on manpower.

Rome churns out tech level 2 in the same time my Thracian, hellenic kingdom with research-boost reaches 3/4ths of tech 1. Rome is at tech 7 when I reach tech 3. On top of that they have twice as many military disciplines unlocked, putting just about everyone in the game low on the totem pole.

What Rome needs is a research kneecap and the mod that adds about 100 nations to the map. It forces Rome into being a subjective country instead of a conquesting country in the first 25 years of the game. Rome had many, many allied tribes and it took generations for those tribes to think of themselves as Latin or even "Roman" as Rome directly annexed those territories around her and gave land-owners citizenship.

No Roman has ever considered themselves Latin. Get the ♥♥♥♥ outta here fool. Go back to school.

[Mundzuk]

Well of course there are many provinces. Hello! It's set in the Ancient World. Did you read the title?

[Landstander]

lol its a historical rts. they did good by aiming for realism with the numbers of cities. other games had way too few

[Apohavnosis]

If you enable the "Provinces" map mode, the provinces themselves are very much like in CK2 or EUIV, by the way.

Having them divided further into smaller city-states, is just amazing and something that I've never experienced in another "historic" strategy game, so I'm very glad they did this.

[Thomasking]

They're not provinces, they're cities. It's one of the most amazing grand strategy maps i've ever seen. It's great. I'll show myself out.

[Menkerot]

Originally posted by Spud:

As wide as an ocean, as shallow as a puddle.

not really tho

[Licarious Fenrir]

Originally posted by Menkerot:

Originally posted by Spud:

As wide as an ocean, as shallow as a puddle.

not really tho

Dude way to necro a 5 year old thread.