10-12-2004 18:31									#1
	Mods of Mesopotamia & Fall of Rome Conquests Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Just sounding this out: I tried playing the Mess o' Potamia Conquest with deserts unable to have cities. I then played Egypt. (Floodplains were still good) The result was dramatically more active than any Mess o' Potamia game I've played before.

Likewise - though I haven't tried it yet - I'm considering marking forests as unable to host cities in the Fall of Rome scenario. My hope is that it will force the Vandals, Gothics and Huns out of their home territories and into conflict with Rome and each other.

Has anyone else tried this yet? Pleasant or disappointing results?

	10-12-2004 21:02									#2
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On the "Mess o' Potamia", I wouldn't expect the AI to be that much more agressive just with the cities in desert flag turned off. It's really Egypt and to a lesser degree Sumeria that has desert around them, and in both cases far flung cities adjoning desert can be founded. So it sounds more to me like the AI agressiveness levels were increased.

On making forest unable to host cities: The dumb AI won't chop forest tiles for the purpose of founding cities, so it would eliminate AI founding cities in the heavilly forested areas.

Still, most of Europe can be described at the start of that conquest as a mix of forest and grassland, so it's probably just going to slightly shift city locations more than anything else.
It's more effective to first raise all barb tribe agressiveness civs to the most agressive setting.

	18-12-2004 20:46									#3
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I'll give that a try.

But what bugs me, particularly in FoR, is that the Barbarian nations, instead of elbowing one another for the chance to overthrow Rome, expand into the endless forests of Eastern Europe.

My goal is to keep them from doing this and forcing them to see Rome and Byzantium as their 'frontiers'.

All of this, however, is a bit moot, because of that 8 city rule. While it makes sense for Rome (sorta) and provides a mechanism for the player to 'overthrow' the Empire, it also makes the Barbarian nations highly unflexible. The whole point of that time in history was that the nations migrated all across Europe.

How can the Vandals wander from Poland, to Gaul, to Iberia and finally to Africa when they can't sacrifice a single city along the way?

	18-12-2004 22:58									#4
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quote: Originally posted by CarnalCanaan I'll give that a try.

If you do this with aggression levels, please let us know how it works out.
I recently replayed this scenario as Vandals, and after peace for many years with barbs, they eventually turned on me (both visigoths and then ostrogoths with multiple SOD) I guess when they thought I was too strong.

quote: Originally posted by CarnalCanaan But what bugs me, particularly in FoR, is that the Barbarian nations, instead of elbowing one another for the chance to overthrow Rome, expand into the endless forests of Eastern Europe. How can the Vandals wander from Poland, to Gaul, to Iberia and finally to Africa when they can't sacrifice a single city along the way?

I thought if I played the Vandals that I could block everyone from expanding eastward into the Urals. Seemed to work a bit.

I read some about the Vandals and their migration as you point out, and I'm not sure if there is a way to simulate this. Maybe some thing with chained VP positions where each civ has to have a city/guard at certain spots. That might be too rigid though.

I think the key is the Huns. It was them pressing everyone westward that motivated all the barbs toward mass migration. Maybe we need to really do something with them, like super aggression, can't found cities, or something. Kind of like the Mongols in MTW, when they appear they just start rolling westward and everyone falls back.

	19-12-2004 01:42									#5
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Apprently there wasn't a way to place into the game that these two civs would fall upon losing 8 cities, but the rest of the civs could lose as many as they want.