Westeros M2:TW mod- Alpha Map

[Bazzlebane]

I agree with you Marcus -- the Mountain Clans should not have a city/castle. They should only exist as Rebel Stacks and hireable mercenary units in the Mountains of the Moons regions.

[Marcus]

Okay, I think we need to organize this in a similar fashion to the other topic, go through region by region to finalise locations, then go back through for resources. Everyone okay with that?

May as well start with Dorne. Any issues with it? Settlements needing to be added/dropped, any places that should be passable/impassable, etc?

[Merentha]

Is Sunspear the only Dornish city?

[Marcus]

I see Sunspear is a castle on our map, I believe that will have to be changed. Any other issues?

[Werthead]

Just a couple of general observations:

Harrenhal should be right on the lakefront, right? And Stoney Sept should be closer to the river. Coldmoat should definitely be on the map (between Goldengrove and the sea), perhaps with a ruined watchtower off to the east which would be Standfast? That would be a nice nod to The Sworn Sword. There's also a relatively major port town called Dosk on the coast of the Sunset Sea west of Goldengrove and Coldmoat/Standfast, belonging to the Tyrell faction.

I agree that the castle/town imbalance could be a problem. You need (roughly) equal numbers of them in Medieval 2 to keep the funds flowing and the troops building up. Having vastly more castles than cities could be a difficulty. You wouldn't be able to afford to build anything in half of your own castles, unless the way the economy works is radically changed (and btw, I'm guessing we're going with 'stags' as the unit of currency?).

For the North, White Harbour is definitely a town. For the Vale, Gulltown. For the Riverlands, Stoney Sept is definitely a town. I would also suggesting ensuring that Saltpans should also be a town, possibly Fairmarket as well. For the Reach, Dosk and Oldtown are towns. For the Crownlands, Duskendale. King's Landing is a headache. It should be a town/city, but its supreme defensibility may make it work better as a castle. The Stormlands are a problem as there are no real cities or towns mentioned. Maybe Wendwater would be a town/city? It's on the junction of two trade routes (the Kingsroad and presumably the river of the same name), so it would be a candidate. For the Westerlands, Lannisport. Frankly, however, I think we are going to have to go with some of the castles being converted to towns even if it's not entirely true to the books.

As for Dorne:

How about having Ghaston Grey as a stronghold in the game? It would be on an island just off the north coast of Dorne, and would be tricky to assault. Perhaps having the Planky Town as a Dornish city/town would be an idea to give Dorne an economic boost? Otherwise, good job. I don't see too much wrong there.

[Marcus]

He does have a point. However we're already pushing 136 provinces. If we add a bunch of small towns for economic purposes, it'll take hundreds of turns to take over the map. I think perhaps leaving things as they are in the books would be a good way to start. That way players can decide which settlements they wish to convert. I mean the key factions (Tyrell, Renly, Lannister, Tully, Stark) Will have large standing armies already built. Lannister should have no problems with gold, and the rest should be able to switch to cities at will. Thoughts?

[Maester Yobjascz]

Delayed comment on the crannogmen (out of the office on lunch):

I think it makes more sense to have only crannogmen units gain the bonuses to movement and combat... we shouldn't have pikemen and horses running through the swamp simply because they've got a crannogman guide.

The primary goal with the Neck is that regular troops should get really bogged down (noting Catelyn's description of how an attack on Moat Cailin would fail). They would eventually make their way through, but would be seriously weakened by the crannogmen's ability to fight in the swamp. So I'd suggest that regular troops have serious penalties to movement, attack, and defense in the swamp, while Crannogmen have serious bonuses to the same... a small number of Crannogmen (probably lightly armored ranged units) should be able to, over time, decimate a much larger force.

If we can have crannogmen escort normal troops (reducing the penalties somewhat), then Robb's plan to attack Moat Cailin from the north becomes feasible... if not, no real loss.

On a similar tangent, I'm assuming that we're going to also ignore Robb's ability to have Grey Wind 'sniff out' a path to avoid the Golden Tooth on his way to attack Lannister lands in ACoK, yes?

[Merentha]

...City/Citadel thoughts...

If each faction has one large city and a fair amount of small keeps, with one or two large castles as well, how would that work economically?

For instance, how would the North suffer economically if White Harbor was a large city, Winterfell a large citadel, the Dreadfort a medium citadel, and the rest fairly small?

Likewise for the Lannisters, with the only major city being Lannisport, the major keep being Casterly Rock, and so forth?

[Bazzlebane]

Bear in mind that small cities and castles can become big ones as you build out the Land Clearance, Communal Farming, wall upgrades and so on...by the end of the game, a savvy Dornish player could have Planky Town bigger than King's Landing.

[Maester Yobjascz]

I haven't played the M2TW game, so I'm unfamiliar with how the economics break down... differences between cities and towns, how towns/cities and castles generate and spend revenue, etc...

If it's an important issue (and it seems like it would be), I'd appreciate someone giving a run-down of the dynamic so that those of us new to the game could comment...

Not to be pushy... I'm just otherwise sitting on the sidelines here... Put me in Coach!

[Merentha]

True, but at the start of the game, at least, it makes sense for some factions to actually have a city. As far as I can tell, there is at least one potential place for a major city in every faction except for the Baratheons and Tullys.

[Ran]

For the North, White Harbour is definitely a town. For the Vale, Gulltown. For the Riverlands, Stoney Sept is definitely a town. I would also suggesting ensuring that Saltpans should also be a town, possibly Fairmarket as well. For the Reach, Dosk and Oldtown are towns. For the Crownlands, Duskendale. King's Landing is a headache. It should be a town/city, but its supreme defensibility may make it work better as a castle. The Stormlands are a problem as there are no real cities or towns mentioned. Maybe Wendwater would be a town/city? It's on the junction of two trade routes (the Kingsroad and presumably the river of the same name), so it would be a candidate. For the Westerlands, Lannisport. Frankly, however, I think we are going to have to go with some of the castles being converted to towns even if it's not entirely true to the books.

Just some updates to this:

White Harbor is a small city (by Westeros standards), and Gulltown is either a small city or a large town -- I'd say go with city. In Dorne, you have the planky town, the Shadow City (it's probably best to just make Sunspear a city to represent this), and I strongly suspect Godsgrace is a town.

I agree on Fairmarket, Stoney Sept, Saltpans -- all towns. Maidenpool, too. The number of towns that we know of, or at least suspect, could perhaps make up for the fact that they don't have a city?

For the crownlands, yeah, Duskendale would be a town.

Westerlands, Kayce could be a town, and I suspect that Feastfires and perhaps Faircastle are towns. Maybe have Silverhill be a town too... hrm.

The Reach, Oldtown is a city -- second largest in Westeros. Ashford is described as a town. Lord Hewett's Town, as well. There's certainly towns on the Arbor.

There's only five cities, properly speaking, in Westeros -- or six, if the shadow city properly counts (it's a town by Free Cities standards, but the Free Cities are larger than King's Landing), and if George doesn't add any more cities. But there's probably quite a lot of towns we haven't heard of, and I think Wert's right that the way to deal with it is to basically turn some of the indeterminate sites into towns rather than castles.

[Maester Yobjascz]

I seem to recall a Harroway's Town, or something like that... dredged up from the murky depths of memory. Any chance that someone can translate that to something actual? The name suggested that it might be a town (possible city site) near Harrenhall, which would be in Tully lands...

Ack... never mind... mooted by Ran and Werthead.

[Marcus]

Yes, it's called Lord Harroway's Town, I believe the ferryboat is there. It's a castle on our map....thta'll have to be fixed. Thanks.

[Ran]

Lord Harroway's Town, indeed. We even have a pretty good sense of its location, thanks to ASoS, as Sandor takes Arya there.

[Werthead]

Lord Harroway's Town, indeed. We even have a pretty good sense of its location, thanks to ASoS, as Sandor takes Arya there.

And the fact that it is on the ASoS map helps as well

How castles/towns work in Med 2:

Towns can only generate basic militia units: peasents, militia, levies etc. They cannot train the heavily armoured or armed units such as heavy cavalry, heavy infantry etc. You can only build economic buildings in towns (markets, fairs, etc), and higher-level religious buildings (churches, cathedrals and large cathedrals). You can build chapels in both castles and towns. You can thus recruit priests in both castles and towns, but you can only recruit other agents (assassins, spies and merchants) in towns. IIRC, you can only recruit gunpowder artillery in towns, as only they have the forges large enough to build them (not a problem in the mod, obviously). Both castles and towns can build large ports and shipyards though.

Thus towns generate cash, whilst castles build armies. And you can transform one into the other, for a hefty price.

[Gorn]

Well, you can solve the cash problem by increasing income from the cities. For example, income from Lannisport should be big enough to pay upkeep for two large armies; if Lannister faction loses Lannisport, they need to get it back quickly, or they'll go bankrupt.

[Ran]

See, I knew the map had something about LHT, but had too many tabs open to bother checking. Well, there you are, another town.

Do cities allow the larger units, or when you say 'towns', do you mean basically all settlements?

And, of course, can what settlements/castles produce be modded as well, if it proves necessary to trying to be more realistic to a few cities/a number of towns/lots of castles model?

[chewietobbacca]

What castles/cities can produce and build can all be modded easily in this game. In fact, many things can be changed, including economics and money generating. Furthermore, unit costs and upkeep can be changed to accomodate the city/castle balance.

Please keep in mind that the city/castles are no where near completion - i only made a few obvious places such as KL, Oldtown etc. as cities.

Ill make a list of all the settlements and we can choose which ones are city/castles.

[Bazzlebane]

One thing to note, Ran, is that the player can convert castles to cities and visa-versa based on strategy. Playing in Vanilla, I'll usually have my settlements near the front lines be castles and the ones further from the front be cities. As I press forward, some of those castles will be converted to cities.

If I'm Russia, for instance, Moscow and Novgorod will be cities and Thorn, which I've conquered from Poland, is a castle. I change them again after pushing forward. My city-castle ratio is usually 3:1. That makes for an akward situation in Westeros, where castles outnumber the cities 3:1 if not by more.

Plus, a player could convert Harrenhal and Casterly Rock to cities if they want, and Oldtown to a Castle...and that's kind of odd.

Is it possible to code out the ability to switch back and forth, and then make the limited numbers of cities worth a higher amount of gold in order to rebalance that? It would make holding the cities - KL, Oldtown, etc...very valuable, which is in fact quite realistic to the setting. Otherwise, is Oldtown with fighting for when I can just take Horn Hill and convert it to a city and grow the population with farms?