and the ability to destroy watch towers...come on now

When on enemy territory, they could plunder the country side as well as cities

This was in RTW. It was called devastation, and made those unsightly black marks

Watch towers in Roman antiquity held a six-eight man detail, often auxiliaries. I would not want to waste one of my 160-man units manning a single tower. Sorry, mate.

I agree about the spy bit. There were indeed many other sorts of intelligence gatherers than Jamius Bondus. It would be nice if merchant caravans moving along the roads provided a limited recon of the area they traverse, like the Diplomat's line-of-sight.

Watch towers were often burned if abandoned. I like the suggestion of being able to destroy one (if owned by oneself or another).

I have played a game where logisitics were an integral part of armies. I beat a huge horde with but a handful of men once, due to the fact that my cavalry was capturing their supply wagons and bringing them to their fort. The barbarian horde was starving by the time they finally realized what was going on and attacked. Starving men fight for shit. My well-fed army ripped through the horde (outnumbered like five-to-one) with hardly any casualties worth noting. It would indeed add a new dimension to warfare to have to consider supplies.

[This message has been edited by Terikel Grayhair (edited 09-15-2012 @ 08:47 AM).]

Of course, Junya, and the ability to destroy watch towers, that's for sure. Something Medieval II should already have!
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To Terikel Grayhair :
- LOL , of course 160 man in a Watch Tower would be laughable! So, let's stick with the ability to destroy them. Looks more reasonable.
- I know there's already devastation, but what I meant was that this devastation should increase enemy provisions and/or gold pillage, and decresase the city provisions/population growth. As well as create some unrest, maybe. Remember that many sieges were often called off because of the lack of provisions brought and even after extensive pillage of the country side.

Devastation in the game does cause some unrest, and lowers the income of the province as well.

It does not touch logisitics or supplies, but that is because the game does not count supplies. I am quite sure if logistics were to play a part, devastation would add to the local occupant's supplies- but not drain the city being besieged, as its food and grain are already stored inside.

Ah yes logistics, a gameplay system I would indeed like to see modeled in future Total War games. It doesn't necessarily have to be complex either, as shown by games like Hegemony: Wars of Ancient Greece. I guess it is more a matter of implementing a system which gameplay mechanics resembling logistics which fits in with all the other without being unclear and complicated to learn.

EASTERN MAP
Game Map should extend itself more to the east. So that Persia and other factions could have stronger empires in the east.
Syria, Palestine, Armenia, the Caucasus and Mesoptamia were all hight density regions. So there should be more cities in these areas. Maybe that's one of the reasons why war between Rome and Persia never meant big areas of permanent conquests.
REBELS
Why not have 2 types of rebels. Brigants and Barbarians. To simplify the game , they would be part of the same Faction: Rebels.
Brigants would behave like in Rome Total War. Usually standing still, and disrupting road traffic and trade.
Barbarians would move much more freely and be more agressive. Usually coming from forests, steppes and deserts. Their main objective would be to attack cities and ports, pillage them and then retreat. This way, the game could recreate those marauding Arab and Berber tribes, those Germanic and Britannic tribes.

They sort-of did that last bit in BI- the horde.

But hordes were different. They were more of a super group of Barbarian tribes looking for a new place to settle.
I was thinking of other situations:
- Berber raids in Africa and Tripolitania
- Arab raids in Syria
- Heruli/Goth raids in Asia Minor/Greece/Moesia
- Frank/Alamani raids in Gaul
etc, etc.
They would plunder and retreat. And vanish back to the forest and deserts.