The Road Between Cities

Ave, Frits again. I think this was the bane of my existence. How hard can it be to make the entire Roman Empire navigable through the input of the user, and have a map with destinations, in addition to a villa you can claim and property you can own? Oh, and also naval travel between Corsica and Malta. The Roman Empire was famous for its roads, which are still used even today, whether from Rome to Brundisium or from London to York. In those days, the road from bella Roma to Brundisium would take two weeks on foot. You would pass through a dozen towns, a few shrines, and if you were unfortunate, some uncivilised hill people. You would rest your weary head at roadside inns. There you would meet people. The journey was alive, and those people probably didn't even realise it. I guess I'm saying this with hindsight. If I were able to take a traveller from back then and ask him what he thought, for him it would be the equivalent of me taking the train to Heathrow airport. Another journey with random people, minus the highwaymen, robbery, starvation, disease, and festivals to random gods. Back to travelling in the game. When you set out from one city to another, the game calculates the real distance using actual Roman road network data: 5,000+ nodes, mapped from historical sources. There is this amazing open-source project called Pleiades, and you can visit it at pleiades.stoa.org. I also added a link to it in the map. Every place you see on the map you should be able to travel to. In theory. I really hope I fixed all the oddballs I got every now and then. Most places had a tavern, taverna, etc. But did you know there is a place called Taverny in France, which sits in Gaul in our game? The funny thing is, if you typed "I head out to the tavern to rest" and you were in Hispania, guess what, now you are in Taverny, Gaul. This isn't even a game master problem. The fact that tavern and taverny are near identical means that, the way the code works, the preference goes to the place name rather than the in-city location. This is to prevent unrealistic places from being used as a source. It's fixed now, but by Jupiter that was annoying. At least I know that Taverny exists now. Please visit in-game if you have a chance. Another thing I wanted was not to travel from city to city but "between" cities as well. This happens halfway between each city, at a specific geographic point on the actual road. Your map marker moves to that point. The terrain description matches what's really there. Crossing the Alps, you get mountain encounters. On the coast road to Massilia, you get Mediterranean scenery. And while you are travelling the roads, you might encounter interesting individuals. The road might be your home for a while, given everything that goes on. A philosophical debate escalating over the interpretations of Achilles, who was famously wrong about everything. A toll that needs paying, or the classic highwayman looking for an easy denarius. Just be prepared, is all. But Rome wasn't just roads. Imagine you're travelling from Lugdunum in Gallia to Olympia in Graecia. That's a cross-sea route, so the game first takes you overland to the nearest port, offers a sea voyage if you can afford it, and handles the final overland leg on the other side. Can't afford the passage? You poor soul, enjoy walking all the way. Next diary: combat, and why "click Attack, read the result" was never going to cut it.