Rome, the "eternal" city...

Boicote

This is Rome…




…Carthage…




…and Alexandria….



These cities were some of the most important settlements in the world and now they are nothing more than an agglomerate of tents. If you fight a battle in those cities, the game uses a "generic" barbarian city model.
The developers made a great effort in creating unique cities for the campaign map and it’s frustrating not being able to fight in those battle maps just because a faction with a different culture conquered them before of you.
So, I suggest that the unique cities of the campaign (Rome, Carthage, Alexandria, Athens, Seleucia and Pergamon) should never change culture, even if they are conquered by a faction from a different culture.

An extended version of this idea could be applied to Barbarians. Why would barbarians want to destroy houses made of stone to live in a tent? Historically, when barbarians invaded the Roman Empire, they adopted some elements of Roman culture. So, barbarians could have an option that would allow them to ”civilize” themselves when they conquer civilized factions. This option should, at least, allow them to improve the main building chain of civilized factions, without converting it into a city of tents. Further features could be included, such as the recruitment of units from the civilized nation previously conquered or even the possibility for barbarians to change culture (barbarians factions become hybrid factions)

Aegeus#5775

Doesn't look like that on my game, either your settings are to low or your gpu driver needs updating, or the gpu doesn't support those features at all. If you post your basic system specs it might help us see what the problem is.

RonBurgundy#6586

Aegeus said:

Doesn't look like that on my game, either your settings are to low or your gpu driver needs updating, or the gpu doesn't support those features at all. If you post your basic system specs it might help us see what the problem is.

He’s saying that when a barbarian faction conquers those cities, they lose their unique battle maps and defaults to generic ones.

I agree with OP, though

Benjin

Yeah, I agree as well. These locations should have unique, un-demolishable / un-convertable building branches like the "Dam of Marib" for the Saba in Desert Kingdoms. Maybe they can have some factors that make it difficult for a conquering faction to hold the province in the long-term, making it more likely to rebel (e.g. Roma permanently adds +10 "Latin" culture to the province of Italia, making it much harder to convert).

MorticiaIuniaBruti#8997

Honestly i prefer the current state. I don´t want to be forced to be unable to change the cities, if i play a barbarian or nomadic or eastern faction.

If i play Brennus, i want to destroy Rome and build my own new city there.

So sadly i can´t agree.

epic_159733062650ipC6PXf

MarcusIuniusBrutus said:

Honestly i prefer the current state. I don´t want to be forced to be unable to change the cities, if i play a barbarian or nomadic or eastern faction.

If i play Brennus, i want to destroy Rome and build my own new city there.

So sadly i can´t agree.

I agree with Marcus here.

Benjin

The reason I agree with making them un-demolishable / un-convertable with their own building branch is because the game states that they're wonders, and their battlefield map tile I think should always represent them as such to add to their special status (e.g. in Alexandria, the Great Lighthouse is represented in the battle map. If the city is converted on the campaign map it will be gone on the battle map, but still represented on the campaign map?). How can they still be labelled as "wonders" if what made them so was completely destroyed?

Also, I don't think it's a bad thing to have some permanent settlement variety on the campaign map by making just a few cities visually unchangeable. It would help keep the game more interesting in the later stages of the campaign, when most cities will be looking the same or playing out the exact same way.

By the way, in the Rise of the Republic, you will be able to completely destroy Roma without converting it. Once a siege battle has been won against it, its settlement battlefield map tile will be replaced with a variant representing a smoking ruin with most of its walls demolished.

MorticiaIuniaBruti#8997

Pharos was still visible after the Islamic conquest till the earthquake of 1303 AD. And i doubt, that Alexandria would have looked like the ptolemaic city of 3 century BC at this time. Even, if i´m the wildest germanic chieftain with a big club i wouldn´t destroy a gigantic lightfire or the pyramids as sign of the gods.

But i wouldn´t settle in a greek city, if i´m used to live in open villages or a noble hill fortress.

Even the celts in my region (Rhineland) built their own oppida, which showed clearly mediterranean influence, but have their unique style and techniques.

And if you don´t want city converting, you can mod roman and hellenic city main building chain to barbarian, eastern and nomadic culture, then the AI won´t convert the city main building.

Benjin

MarcusIuniusBrutus said:

Pharos was still visible after the Islamic conquest till the earthquake of 1303 AD. And i doubt, that Alexandria would have looked like the ptolemaic city of 3 century BC at this time.

That's a completely different time period and is not comparable to the situation we're talking about here. I don't think any city has looked the same after a thousand years.

MarcusIuniusBrutus said:

Even, if i´m the wildest germanic chieftain with a big club i wouldn´t destroy a gigantic lightfire or the pyramids as sign of the gods.

Exactly - if you convert Alexandria to a different settlement culture, the Pharos will no longer be visible in the battlefield because it is no longer using the Alexandria map tile where it was shown anymore - so it's basically destroyed. Instead, it will be replaced with yet another generic fortified settlement version of the culture that occupies it, with no visual differentiation to show that what you're fighting in is supposed to be a unique, special city worth defending due to said wonders / landmarks. It's the same thing with all the other cities that have these wonder-style traits added to them:

• Carthago - The converted versions don't show the Cothon on the battlefield which represents increased commerce in the province.
  
• Roma - The converted versions do not show off how massive a population it is supposed to hold which represents increases recruitment points in the province.
  
• Babylon - The converted versions have no resemblance to the "Great City of Babylon" as described in the trait - any converted version looks significantly smaller.
  

MarcusIuniusBrutus said:

But i wouldn´t settle in a greek city, if i´m used to live in open villages or a noble hill fortress.

Are you sure about that? Many conquering cultures have left their conquered cities mostly the way they were and lived in them without completely destroying them. Did Alexander burn Babylon to the ground and erect Peristyle Greek Temples in the places where their palaces were? Did the Vandals replace all Roman marble / stone buildings with wood + straw huts, replace the stone walls with wooden ones etc?

MarcusIuniusBrutus said:

And if you don´t want city converting, you can mod roman and hellenic city main building chain to barbarian, eastern and nomadic culture, then the AI won´t convert the city main building.

I think you misunderstand us Marcus. We're just talking about removing conversions for settlements that are considered to be "wonders" (e.g. Roma, Carthago, Babylon etc), have landmarks in them (e.g. Alexandria, Athens) or just simply having unique battlefield map tiles (e.g. Pergamon) to preserve their special status - not all cities. If I were to follow your suggestion and add all of the city settlement building chains to every culture, no city would be able to convert - which I do not want either.

MorticiaIuniaBruti#8997

Alexander burned Persepolis and Tyrus to the ground und founded new hellenistic Alexandreia´s in Asia.

The Seleukids founded Seleukia near Babylon, which replaced the decaying Babylon.

The Franks conquered the roman cities in Germania Minor, but settled outside.

The population decreased in these cities till middle ages.

The Romans burned Carthago to the ground, so a roman Carthago with Cothon is really immersion breaking.

And there are some good boian/suebian city battle maps, which disappear, when a generic roman city is founded.

I fear, we have different preferences here.

Boicote

The perfect solution would be to have an hybrid model for these cities when they are conquered by another culture (ex. If you conquer Rome as a barbarian faction, then you would see in the battlefield a barbarian city with some roman temples destroyed, the coliseum in ruins, etc. ).
However, I admit that it's very unlikely to see this implemented in a 5 years-old game.
Perhaps CA could simply add some of those elemets outside the city. Just like we can see farms, trees, stones, etc, ouside the city walls, the game could also load some models of ruined temples/houses from the previous faction.

MorticiaIuniaBruti#8997

This would be a perfect compromise.