Did CA just introduce "tall empire" concept into the game?

#940261

In grand strategy there is a concept of a "tall empire" and "wide empire":
Wide empire - a large number of adequately developed cities.
Tall empire - a handfull of exceptionally developed cities, whose economic/military potentional, can rival a wide empire.
In recent TW games you were pretty much stuck with "wide empire", because cities are hard capped in their development. A single province can't provide you both economic and military superiority. You always go for more and eventually end up with an empire of equally developed cities. Yes, there are some recruitment provinces and some unique upgrades, but overall the cities have pretty much the same level of development.
Now, the upcoming "Realm of the Wood elves" DLC features something, that is very similar to a "tall empire". Wood elves have just Athel Loren, but it has more room to grow, than any other province. Forest dwellers don't acquire new provinces, but erect outpost, which will fuel their economy and military in Athel Loren. That might be the first legit "tall empire" in TW game, because now you can actually win Campaign with just 1 province and even rival wide empires. The question is - to what extent? Is max capped Athel Loren on par with wide empires Empire/Vampires/Dwarves, who have occupied every possible territory?
Anyway, I am very happy to see that kind of empire building finally making it's way into TW series. Not only it will do a good job for Wood Elves, but also for Chaos Dwarves (if they ever make it into the game it is). They have pretty much similar approach to the state, where they hoard all the manpower and wealth inside - Mingol-Zharr-Naggrund, while the rest of the land is pretty much fortresses or slaver camps.

VlKlNG

This is a very long and complicated way of saying "oh look athel loren has more building slots".

RikRiorik#9890

Will be interesting to see, like you wrote, if a fully developed Athel Loren is a beastly few provinces. Would definetly make for something different. Not only for the Wood Elfs but also for thos opposing them trying to take them down (ie larger garrisons inside Athel Loren when fully developed?).

#940261

VlKNG said:

This is a very long and complicated way of saying "oh look athel loren has more building slots".

I sincerely hope, that there is more to Athel Loren, than just more building slots. Maybe more tiers to buildings, greater bonuses from buildings and wonder. Otherwise, Wood Elves don't scale that well agaisnt other factions.

Bel_Isar

Guess it depends on what you can do in those provinces. With the current campaign mechanics "tall" or "Wide" is rather "not very tall" and "not quite wide"

But i like the idea to have Wood elves play out somewhat differend

FifthOfSpaghetti

Honestly, this sounds how it feels to play Vampire counts. Their buildings are so expensive and Sylvania is always being attacked, by turn 100 my most powerful cities are the ones inside Sylvania and Bachafen, maybe even Akendorf as I like to take and fortify that city as an early warning to the green skin mob of 20 stacks. Then the rest of my provinces are solidly have not provinces with nothing but Vampiric corruption and money making buildings.

mw51630#6772

Technically WE are tall and wide, as Athel Loren will have super developed cities while everything else will be pretty terrible.

I assume WE will be hard to beat Chaos with from a campaign perspective, as the best way to beat their armies is pinning them on a city with walls. But if the WE outposts can't build walls, Chaos may be able to blitz through your conquered lands easily.

DwarfMasterRace#1332

Hmm, a 'tall' Chaos Dwarf empire could work. Most of their population living in their crater provinces, with taken cities being turned into military bases surrounded by industrial works, all fueling Zharr Naggrund. Good idea.

hendo#1695

I'm thinking chaos dwarfs and ogre kingdoms are going to have a similar mechanic as wood elves.. have a concentrated "base camp" and able to expand everywhere but with limited building options outside of "base camp"

Orkfaeller

Building slots used to be hard coded, right? Like, modders weren't able to go beyond six(?) in previous games. I wonder if its gonna be possible to convert other provinces into a tenner now aswell. Could open up interessting overhaul mods.

Arcani_4_Ever#4489

I think they made this change for future races as well.

High Elves and Dark Elves, will definitely benefit way more from this Outpost mechanic than the Wood Elves, since they are the Elves with an actual global presence.

Tomb Kings and Skaven would definitely benefit from more building slots per settlement. And it would make sense.

The Tomb Kings live on cities of hundreds of generations of kings, so their cities stack over each other with pyramids.

And the Skaven are know for overpopulation and their cities are massive in size. So extra buildings will help them too, specially because they rely on a lot of different type of units that are produced by different buildings. And their units are mostly cannon fodder.

#940261

mw51630 said:

Technically WE are tall and wide, as Athel Loren will have super developed cities while everything else will be pretty terrible.

The thing is that outposts are hardly legit cities. That's I why believe, that "tall" is an appropriate term for Wood Elves' empire.
For example, in "Endless legend" there is a "Cultist" faction, who can own just 1 city. You can't capture cities of rival factions - you raze them and buff your capital with salvaged resources. With special actions you can obtain minor villages, who provide you some resources, vision and occasionaly spawn troops, but that's it. All economic and military power is concentrated in one enormous city, surrounded by numerous not-cities. That's an expansionists tall empire. I may be wrong about upcoming DLC, but some of the Wood Elves mechanics sound similar.

Dalakh

For the future I hope they reuse this one-region province system with ten slots for the Dark Elven cities. It would fit perfectly.

cornishr

For some reason i don't fully understand, it's the only way i ever play the campaign. I like to have one base. In this current game, i've just had Reikland. Usually it's Britain. I don't enjoy having loads of places to watch over, i just like to guard my little kingdom. Thankfully, the 4 tier mod made it more or less possible. I'm pleased to see more slots in this.

I never got that tiny building slot. I thought it absurd that you could not be just Marienburg, for example. There isn't room for a barracks and an armoury in a city of that size? Not unless i forego city walls? Huh? Ridiculous. Altdorf doesn't have room for a building to recruit Reiksguard. How cr@p is that?

#940261

cornishr said:

For some reason i don't fully understand, it's the only way i ever play the campaign. I like to have one base. In this current game, i've just had Reikland. Usually it's Britain. I don't enjoy having loads of places to watch over, i just like to guard my little kingdom. Thankfully, the 4 tier mod made it more or less possible. I'm pleased to see more slots in this.

I never got that tiny building slot. I thought it absurd that you could not be just Marienburg, for example. There isn't room for a barracks and an armoury in a city of that size? Not unless i forego city walls? Huh? Ridiculous. Altdorf doesn't have room for a building to recruit Reiksguard. How cr@p is that?

I believe, that you have just answered your own question, by stating that Reikland does not have room for Reiksguard. You can probably pull that "1 province" thing on lower difficulties, but, you will be basically, gimping your own economy/military/agent power. Now the Wood Elves are actually designed to be "tall". You can rival vast kingdoms and be №1 power in the world, while owning just 1 super-developed province. Moreover, this will doable on high difficulty settings.
P.S. we are talking about vanilla game - no mods.

Wargol2

What about vampire counts ?
"It suits the Vampire Counts to focus their investments in certain key provinces, working their way up to the highest tier buildings as quickly as possible while leaving other provinces neglected. This way they have access to their top units in strategic locations, while relying on Raise Dead elsewhere."
(from Eva Jobse)

It sound neither like a tall empire or a wide empire

Machacasaurio

Wargol2 said:

What about vampire counts ?
"It suits the Vampire Counts to focus their investments in certain key provinces, working their way up to the highest tier buildings as quickly as possible while leaving other provinces neglected. This way they have access to their top units in strategic locations, while relying on Raise Dead elsewhere."
(from Eva Jobse)

It sound neither like a tall empire or a wide empire

vampire counts have a tall empire,the trick is,silvania is the only province divided in 2 for no other reason than to give vamps a 2 x 1. all other provinces of the empire have bigger cities,bigger population and the same if not more size,yet only silvanya is divided in 2.


athel loren will prolly work the same way,divided on 2/3 provinces "artificially"

there will be no new features i guess,it worked already with vamps.

EarlEssex

Machacasaurio said:

Wargol2 said:

What about vampire counts ?
"It suits the Vampire Counts to focus their investments in certain key provinces, working their way up to the highest tier buildings as quickly as possible while leaving other provinces neglected. This way they have access to their top units in strategic locations, while relying on Raise Dead elsewhere."
(from Eva Jobse)

It sound neither like a tall empire or a wide empire

vampire counts have a tall empire,the trick is,silvania is the only province divided in 2 for no other reason than to give vamps a 2 x 1. all other provinces of the empire have bigger cities,bigger population and the same if not more size,yet only silvanya is divided in 2.


athel loren will prolly work the same way,divided on 2/3 provinces "artificially"

there will be no new features i guess,it worked already with vamps.

In human terms the division of Sylvania in to two looks strange - but if you think of Sylvania as a locus of dark magic, then the two-province approach simply reflects the super-productivity of the undead in this delightful corner of the Old World.