To me we already had this discussion like 20 different times . Ultimately, we wanted a short tutorial that was stand alone and historically ambiguous. We wanted it short so if campaigns weren’t someone’s cup of tea, they could get in , learn the basics, and then do multiplayer. The historical ambiguity was so that we had freedom to prioritize teaching game mechanics without justifying every little thing. Also the simple fact is that @Vantha has already started on the maps. He’s willing to put in most of the work (unlike me who while I say I’m willing to work honestly is kinda busy /lazy and don’t) so he does get final say. The last thing is honestly those other campaigns should be separate , they could be beginner campaigns or sequels to the tutorial , but I honestly think it does the great commanders a bit of a disservice if you scale them back for a beginners tutorial (face it , Petra has a steep learning curve and it’s need to be set on very easy or sandbox so that beginners aren’t steamrolled. Not very fun for Alexander the Great or Hannibal then I think.)

I will try to be as open about how I feel about the situation as I can: For me the die is cast. There are of course several ways to go about structuring and designing a tutorial and connecting it to a story. For me, though, the focus and primary goal of the tutorial campaign is teach how to play, the story is secondary. Following this mindset, a while ago (easy to miss in this long thread), I first put together quite a detailed plan for the campaign's structure, what to teach in each of the individual matches. And only afterwards did I search for a piece of history in which this preexisting plan could be embedded. We did a lot of brainstorming and I eventually came to the conclusion that the founding of a colony (and then also the story around Carthago Nova and Hasdrubal the Fair) aligned best with what I envisioned. Also, it was something new and interesting for me personally -- unlike Hannibal or Alexander, whose stories I've heard and dealt with dozens of times in the past. I am well aware that this might not be the case for many players and that a classic Hannibal or Alexander campaign might have been more appealing to some. However, considering the size of this project and that I'm essentially the only one implementing it, motivation and personal interest are important resources for me. I was deliberately trying to aim for something that also excites me personally, even if that comes at a slight cost of appeal for others, simply to help myself stay motivated to work on it. Keep in mind that I am still doing all of this in my free time. The main thing is not to make the tutorial campaign absolutely perfect in every single aspect, but to eventually finish it and get it into the game, to help new players learn the game, and along the way to provide better storytelling features for future campaigns. And again, in my opinion the idea with Carthago Nova still fits really well and elegantly onto the learning and teaching process I had in mind. And it's also historically fairly relevant. For these reasons, I want to make the story of the campaign self-contained and only revolve around Hasdrubal.   @Thalatta@Genava55 These are good concepts and I can definitely see how they would make for great campaigns, but for this one, I want to go in a different direction. However, making some usual story-focused campaigns as well for more experienced players is still a big goal, and ideas are always welcome. It could make sense to open a designated thread for campaign concepts like this.

Indeed I think this will be a problem if implemented as proposed, and that there are solutions that could be also applied to other things (I've proposed a base garrison that can't be controlled for ships, siege engines and buildings), but maybe people complaining that the feature is broken will need to happen first.

Come share your thoughts in how to troll players with a personality trolling AI, be it describing ways to annoy them whilst also enjoyable to play with. This is just the idea, feel free to make it a reality. Ally AI - Some ally units will idle/walk randomly for 1-10 min at the start because they want to view how good of a weather it is(snow biome). - Sometimes doesn't contribute in helping you in any way, just becomes economy playthrough and is ignored by enemy until player is dead. Enemy AI - This was my first thought if ship capture was a thing, Imagine me building my first arrow ship and out of nowhere an enemy ai's ramming ship stocked with champions stole my ship and return to fog of war waiting for more oppurtunistic booty and I'm now officially landless for all eternity. - Send a minimum of any unit of 1 to scout the outer edge of the base, they sometimes attack one time and returns back to scouting. - When needed will request resources in synonym of each type from you and call you uncle, old man, old fart, long lost cousin, prince of the garden of Eden(Africa), servant. - Build buildings in your area periodically every minute for free mostly houses and sometimes wonder to assert dominance. - Make corral to produce animals that patrols in your field of vision, if their health falls below 50% they vanish to thin air. And many more~

Former, I gave out how the AI behaves currently and wanted to share where to improve upon its logic so they focus more on efficiency and churn out plethora of basic gatherer units early on then transition to late game with non-gatherer units. VE is fine as it is since they were put a limit. VH is where they become a bit of a nightmare to fight if they can reach their max 15PPM in 25 minutes. If still don't understand its fine~ I'm quite tired.