The Rhyse and Fall historical goals are too based on luck, frustratingly so.

I tried first as India and could not get Monotheism before the computer autogot it. No realistic chance at Confucionism or Taoism either. Luck may have made it possible along with the oracle... but luck still rules that out most of the time for me.

Then I tried as Babylon. Not a chance. Try to get writing first? HOW? Luck seems the only way. It is too early to get with a prophet or the oracle.

:mad: Frustrating. :cry:

well, I did not play them in bts but only with warlords and there it works: the historical victories are sometimes tricky - for India the only way to win is to go first directly for monotheism and only afterwards for meditation ( I tried it with level monarch and it works)
Otherwise you never get it even with a lot of luck :)

I also finished the babylonian one but I do not remember how exactly. There is a WIKI to Ryes and Fall with Strategy Hints. I think the link is in the mod section.

My major frustration with this scenario was not the historical victories (I'm well on my way to winning as Spain--got the first colony in America thing, but am still keeping the rest of Europe away from it), but the Plague. And not the plague killing your population or adding unhealthiness, but the destruction of your military units. I lost all but three units in Spain, guarding a total of 4 cities.

The only thing that prevented my untimely loss of the game was the fact that I controlled the AP and forced all Christians to stay peaceful with me. Otherwise, an invasion by either Portugal or France, whose armies were seemingly...existing, I suppose, would be the best word, would have ended my Spanish Empire.

I'm trying a game with Germany and am wondering, I have just defeated France and it is one of my goals to control France+Rome+Greece, I am unsure if I control France as Holland's cultural borders come into France.

when it says control (insert empire here) i think they mean the fat cross of the capital at least, but im not sure, having only beaten the Japan UHV.

still figuring it all out. But I think you need to be dominant in the area with your culture, and capture the french cities. Lots of things in the game that has to do with cities, is tile specific.

I think there are some specific cities that you need to control in those countries. I don't think culture matters. That's what I got from the civilopedia anyway.

I think there are some specific cities that you need to control in those countries. I don't think culture matters. That's what I got from the civilopedia anyway.

Your guess is about as good as mine.:lol: :lol:
Still experimenting and figuring out how everything works. And to keep my empire from collapsing after an golden age.

My favourite was when I started a game as Greece and after waiting for the mandatory 50 turns I discovered that I wasn't going to get the Historical Victory because India had built the oracle while I was waiting to emerge into existence.

Trayed to playing with smart maps as sugestion. Its work. It is possible to play with India. First you make two discoveres. Fisrt two regilions as Budhisme and Hindu. Than make one wonder in your capital. Seek to a wonder as pyramides of some times. Have more soldiers and make a discoverie to a thirdt regilion as Judisme. It works but in later time is India a reel strong natie. Only you most have enough soldiers to defend these. Forgot religion as Confusime. These are al discovered by China. Good Luck.

I did not mind so much areas breaking free of your control and becoming a country again but i very much mind the fact that my entire empire went into anarchy and I lost 99% of all my military units along with every single city but my capital. I mean damn..

I got tired of those #@$% turncoats--okay, so I didn't want Portugal to take Lisboa from me, but does every single unit I send over there have to turn green and betray me? For Christ's sake (and I mean that in-character, playing as Catholic Spain), I just formed those units in Madrid! They should have a little more loyalty than that!

I just quit playing a game as the English. I had just entered the 1820's and I had, more or less, created a replica of the British Empire. I was slightly ahead of the Germans and Americans with respect to the in game score. Then all of a sudden, a very long pause occurred in between turns and my empire was gone. All that remained under my control were the cities in the home islands.

I expected to lose my empire at some point, but not before the 20th century. Needless to say, I was shocked and stunned. Does anyone know what prompts an empire in this game to up and collapse overnight essentially?

Most of those questions have been adressed in the RFC subforum in CIVIV projects and mods.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=204
RFC is a tough and challenging mod, but victory being harder, it is sweeter.
The plague is meant to kill most outdated units so that the game is faster.
Stability causes empires to collapse overnight and is somewhat tricky to understand and manage.

The Indian UHV is one of the easiest. Basically you just live on with two cities and 2 warriors, pursuing the religion techs and building the priestly wonders.
The religions you want are Hindu-Budh-Christ-Tao and islam!(with one or two prophets). In the meantime you lick Persia's ass to avoid being overrun and after the religion goals have been fulfilled (hello, victory arch!) you just spam settlers and emphasize population growth. Eventually you go to war with Persia and/or Arabia.
The UHV all require a very specific strategy that you have to follow. Luck is involved, but not that much. You have to think of the UHV as a puzzle or a brain-teaser.
For a real challenge, try Persia or America...

Good luck.

I have achieved the Egyptian Historical Victory on Monarch. The hardest part of Egypt is getting the culture. Here's how I did it.

In the capital I started a worker immediately. I researched mysticism and masonry, then started a quarry on the stone. I started building the Pyramids once masonry was done. I researched Granary and Animal Husbandry and writing next. when the borders expanded I farmed the wheat tile to get some health and quarried the marble, then pastured the horses. By this time the Pyramids completed and I whipped out a granary, libarary and a settler to found city #2 on the mediterranean, due north of the oasis square (3 squares NW of the capitol). The culture from the Palace, Pyramids, and Library is sufficient to get you to 400 culture, the first breakpoint.

You then need to get fishing & sailing and start the great lighthouse on the coastal city. You also need to get bronze working to build axes and spears to defend against the barbarians, who can be quite nasty. But your primary goal is to get polytheism and aesthetics so you can finish the Parthenon before Pericles. Why? For the Great Artist! At 4000 culture, the "culture bomb" is ftw!

Essentially you end up with the Pyramids and Parthenon in the capitol, the Great Lighthouse on the coastal city, and the Great Library as you see fit. I would use the great engineer to finish the Great Library and do it in the Coastal city if you haven't gotten your great artist yet, so you don't dilute the GPP pool in the capitol.

If you don't get the Parthenon or don't pop a great artist, I think you're out of luck. In one failed attempt I built about 10 wonders (seriously) in the capitol and still missed out on the 5000 culture by year X goal. Grr.

My only beef with the victory was that it was anticlimactic. After all that careful building, I wanted to go kick Ethiopian butt.

I'm going to win all the UHVs, it looks, as Spain...the key to victory is to not fight anyone in Europe, take over Italy from the Independents, and build up your commerce; it's not the greatest challenge I've faced. Suffer the plague, and shoot for the New World. I got the first colony, now I just have to keep others away. :)

The key to victory is to conquer England and France, easier than keeping then away. They boost your score and give nice land too

when it says control (insert empire here) i think they mean the fat cross of the capital at least, but im not sure, having only beaten the Japan UHV.

It doesnt, check out the Rhye's and Fall Wiki, it contains details for what you need to accomplish etc.

Rhyes and fall is a challenging game, it is meant to be so.

@the OP, beeline to writing-wheres the difficulty in that:confused: Babylon didnt survive that long in real life so it is obviously meant to be a challenge playing as them!

I think as your skill at the game increases so will your ability to achieve the historical points, you can also win the game in other ways it doesnt just have to be the completion of them!

Is it really that important to have the historic victories? I know that every once and a while I get one (and it does make my day) but I generally play for well... an alt-history experience.

I must agree, though, that more than a few goals are a test of luck rather than skill.

Is it really that important to have the historic victories? I know that every once and a while I get one (and it does make my day) but I generally play for well... an alt-history experience.

I must agree, though, that more than a few goals are a test of luck rather than skill.

If you get two you get a GA.

If you get two you get a GA.
'

Two? GA? What?

I would say that Rhye's is exactly the opposite of "too based on luck"..... actually, if I were to raise a complaint about it, it would be that it is too formulaic..... if you do every x action by y turn, you will win a large number of the historical victories (a few of them are still practically impossible)..... but if you are going for the historical victories, you have to focus solely on those and not mess about with other stuff.

Rhye's is fantastic for countless reasons, but it is meant to be difficult and it is tweaked mercilessly to force requirements for the player to achieve if they want to attain the UHV's.

If you complete two UHV-goals succesfully, you receive a Triomph Arch in your Capital giving you a Golden Age and some other bonusses (more unit production afair?)

France has one of the easiest victories. The hardest part is getting the wonders and the culture since Paris has no production. The trick is to use one of your starting settlers to found Frankfurt or Stuttgart east of the iron - a huge production center. When it tries to flip to Germany, use the army you start with to hold them off. You can destroy Germany later, when their culture starts to enroach on Stuttgart. Build the NotreDame in Stuttgart, then settle the GA from that in Paris. Then build a theatre in Paris, and crank out GAs. Settle Quebec and Louisiana, and build the rest of the wonders in Stuttgart.

This scenario is completely NOT based on luck. You have to plan EVERYTHING out from the very beginning.

Or just beeline to Music straight and Culture Bomb Paris... Should be sufficient... ;)

it is great to watch the old RFC hands talk about this mod....

The Rhyse and Fall historical goals are too based on luck, frustratingly so.

I tried first as India and could not get Monotheism before the computer autogot it. No realistic chance at Confucionism or Taoism either. Luck may have made it possible along with the oracle... but luck still rules that out most of the time for me.

Then I tried as Babylon. Not a chance. Try to get writing first? HOW? Luck seems the only way. It is too early to get with a prophet or the oracle.

:mad: Frustrating. :cry:

Some UHVs are harder than others. Even though I aim for the UHV's I don't try to win them but go for the more standard victories.

Playing as Babylon on the default difficulty (monarch) gives about no chance of success unless you get pottery from a hut.
Roman victory requires you to guess where the designer will put cities for you to take when they weren't there before, which is less luck than playing the game twice.

I was confused when all those undefended cities started popping up...I was building settlers as Rome. Foolish; should have focused more on the military.

I played with the romans and managed to reconquer my european cities, but falled to stability problems. When you accept peacefully the spawn of the civsw, you loose city and unit.ç dclare war

I don't like the UHV much personally. It's a smart idea, for sure, but from a practical standpoint many of the goals seem artificial or unreasonably hard.

I wish the system was revamped to make the UHVs less "epic" but more numerous. After all, from an historical standpoint, civilizations' goals in real life were not based upon an arbitrary "victory" but upon practical needs. The Dutch did not colonize the world so it could brag, necessarily, but because of the resources on other continents. Turkey did not invade Egypt just because it gave them a chip on their shoulder, but for political and economic reasons. England did not circumnavigate the globe because they'd win a prize, but as a result of exploration, etc.

I envision 6 or more UHV per civ, but 4 are needed to win, and all of them can be achieved within the bounds of a standard civ game, instead of making the civ game REVOLVE around the UHV. See?

For example, for England (fulfill any 4):

-Be the first to circumnavigate the globe
-Found 5 cities of 5 or more population in the Americas
-Found 5 cities of 5 or more population in Africa
-Found 5 cities of 5 or more population in Asia
-First to enter Industrial Era
-First to enter Modern Era
-Control a city of greater than XXX culture.

I don't like the UHV much personally. It's a smart idea, for sure, but from a practical standpoint many of the goals seem artificial or unreasonably hard.

I wish the system was revamped to make the UHVs less "epic" but more numerous. After all, from an historical standpoint, civilizations' goals in real life were not based upon an arbitrary "victory" but upon practical needs. The Dutch did not colonize the world so it could brag, necessarily, but because of the resources on other continents. Turkey did not invade Egypt just because it gave them a chip on their shoulder, but for political and economic reasons. England did not circumnavigate the globe because they'd win a prize, but as a result of exploration, etc.

I envision 6 or more UHV per civ, but 4 are needed to win, and all of them can be achieved within the bounds of a standard civ game, instead of making the civ game REVOLVE around the UHV. See?

For example, for England (fulfill any 4):

-Be the first to circumnavigate the globe
-Found 5 cities of 5 or more population in the Americas
-Found 5 cities of 5 or more population in Africa
-Found 5 cities of 5 or more population in Asia
-First to enter Industrial Era
-First to enter Modern Era
-Control a city of greater than XXX culture.



I think thats quite a good idea but why win a game with UHV's. Why not have 20 UHV's open to all civs and if you complete one you get a golden age or some other prize.

probably i dont know something, but imo this is the most frustating mod i have ever played...

i played grecee and everything was perfect. I had 6 cities, 2 biggest were in europe: capitol and apulen (or sth like that) located somewhere in today's hungary. About 600-700 AD i started war against arabs. Everything still was perfect until i tried to switch my civics. My all cities (expect capitol) went independent. k, i checked here on forum that there is "stability". Great idea Civilization always missed that feature. I reloaded game and started to care about my stability. I was winning easily with arabs and suddenly i got message that new civilizations rised and my 2nd biggest city (apulen) wants to join them. I clicked "no" and noticed germans' capitol 3-4 squares away from apulon. I quickly regrouped and conquered them but from that time each turn i was losing one unit "joining liberation". It was quite painfull but worse was that rusia civilization borned 3 squares from my other cities and each turn i was losing 2-3 units for those damned rusians every time when i tried to beat them... for me that was game over...

is there any way to prevent so anoying and masive "joining liberation"? its ridiculous that u cannot conquer new civilizations... k i know that grecee wasnt ever powerfull country, but you should be able to change history. If i play grecee do i have to be conquered by new small civilizations that would apear in future?

The "joining liberation" was introduced in one version because beforehand, it was way too easy to crush the new civs. See it the other way around. You play Germany and when you have awaited the autoturns and want to start to play, you see that Greece owns culturally all your land, you have nowhere to go (because your homeland is Greek) and you don't have the necessary units to liberate "Germany" from the Greeks. That would be very frustrating too.

Nevertheless, you were asking what you can do against it:

- Don't build cities there... (build where they won't flip! For the civs homelands/regions, check the Rhyes and Fall map and wiki, you'll find it over at the RFC-forum (civ4->Creation&Customization->Mods->Rhyes&Fall Subforum)). In short you can build cities in Greece (and Constantinopolis), the Balkans and maybe Lybia if you really want. Mesopotamia (with the Exception of Ninua and Babili) is going to flip to the Arabs and then afterwards (with Anatolia and certain parts of the black sea coast) to the Turks. Everything in a horizontal line from "Venice" will flip to Germany and "Russia" will flip to Russia, as you have noticed.
If your stability rating is stable, you can also without problem conquer any civilization that won't be overspawned (Egypt, Rome), as they won't rise again. Every civilization has further a homeland and a historic region. Owning land in this part of the world won't give you further stability hits, while otherwise will. For Greece: Homeland (Greece+Constantinople) and Historic Region (Everything from Egypt to Persia, not sure about the Mediterranean Coast). (England: homeland (Britain), historic region (All the British Commonwealth)).

- Don't keep much military in the region. The Flipping will stop after ten turns.

- Let the city flip and attack the new civ after 10 (or 20? rather 20) turns to reconquer your lost territory.

mfG mick

k thx a lot. But still its quite anoying. History is "hard coded" in the game... Imo better solution would be to asign spawning points dynamicly. In my game, whole eastern europe and asia (except india and japan, china has collapsed) were empty :/

Yes, but then it wouldn't be Rhyes anymore. The goal of Rhye is to a point to recreate history, it has a heavy bias towards simulation. What you are suggesting is kinda what the real game does, (with the addition of a random match).

m

its a bit off topic, but imo u should still be able to change history. Those hard coded events should have smaller influance on gameplay. Like in Europa Universalis series, where on highest dificult level its dificult to conquer whole europe playing venice, but with some luck its possible.

But you can change history. For instance, in my game as the Mayans, China and Japan both got annihilated by the Mongols and Rome was in first place by the time I met Europe. (As you can imagine, I felt a little disappointed that I'd missed all that while cowering over in Mesoamerica).

The way that history can change while still keeping certain starting conditions in play is one of the best features of this mod. (And the mod is just chockablock with great features.) My most recent game I'm playing the Japanese. It's AD 1650, and (I never thought I'd see this) Babylon is still alive and thriving over in the Mideast.

Basically, yeah, you just have to know which neighborhoods to stay out of and for how long. After you know that, you can really start grooving to the "alternate history" the game is generating while you play.

My only complaint, still, is the treachery of my soldiers when a new civilization spawned. Even units I had just produced in my capital a turn before flipped away...you would think that I could find some more loyal soldiers somewhere in my empire.

I understand its purpose, it is just highly aggravating to see half my army wiped out by a plague and the other half betray me for some upstart.

For some civ like carthage its true. You need 5 mediterrean cities (not that tough), three dyes:mad: and circumnavigate the world:cool: . So the main objective will be to justget three dyes.

After my third time playing Carthage, I realised exactly what i had to do.

First settle Qart-Hadasht.

Second you settle next to the Egypt dye.

Asap, you take Athens, which should be (if you are lucky, but that's what this topic is aabout:) ) protected by two warriors. So for the circumnavigation you got no competition problem.

You must get all the mercenaries you can. Because to get the three dyes, you need to destroy babylonia. :eek: Well, not entirely, if you're very lucky, the dyes area could be unsettled but this is nearly impossible as the Babylon objective is to get most culture. If there's a city there destroy it. Sur and Jerusalem must be taken. It does your 5 cities objectives. If you aint got any city destroyed.

You must take care of the babylon culture. Well, just research music. (or get a great artist. You must work those dyes fast, as I got 2 turns away from not having that objective done.

Then, you must do circumnavigation. Beeline optics thats all.

You need no additional units. Just mercenaries. You might need cothons to get all that gold. All the gold comes only from trade or the palace (8 gold is not alot). So you need to lick Caesar's butt and Egypt's one too.

'

Two? GA? What?

Sorry only just noticed this reply, if you get two historical objectives completed you get a golden Age.

I love Rhye's but playing as England at the moment I have the world (from england's POV) as follow:

Japan+areas of mainland China are under direct Imperial rule (mine)
Aztec''s are my vassals
Inca's my vassals

and I have a couple of cities in America just to keep an eye on things.
One of the cities being a pass-through city which I named Panama Canal :-P So i don't have to round the tip anymore.

Anywho Aztecs and Inca's as vassals, america spawns, I resist aztecs and incas'declare war on america.
I notice that the vassal's don't do anything...america doesn't really do anything either.

I have serious suspicions that Rhye's mod doesn't take full advantage of the supposed new AI I mean when i've not been playing Rhye's the AI can launch intercontinental sea invasions, conduct war effectively etc.
But the North American and South American civs in Rhye's just seem completely incapable of doing anything.
Hell the aztecs had ALL of N.America to themselves once I vassalised them but they never expanded at all.

Thoughts?

I love Rhye's but playing as England at the moment I have the world (from england's POV) as follow:

Japan+areas of mainland China are under direct Imperial rule (mine)
Aztec''s are my vassals
Inca's my vassals

and I have a couple of cities in America just to keep an eye on things.
One of the cities being a pass-through city which I named Panama Canal :-P So i don't have to round the tip anymore.

Anywho Aztecs and Inca's as vassals, america spawns, I resist aztecs and incas'declare war on america.
I notice that the vassal's don't do anything...america doesn't really do anything either.

I have serious suspicions that Rhye's mod doesn't take full advantage of the supposed new AI I mean when i've not been playing Rhye's the AI can launch intercontinental sea invasions, conduct war effectively etc.
But the North American and South American civs in Rhye's just seem completely incapable of doing anything.
Hell the aztecs had ALL of N.America to themselves once I vassalised them but they never expanded at all.

Thoughts?


RFC takes advantage of the new AI but still obeys my orders of not expanding in certain areas :spank:

Thanks Rhye.

I don't consider this to be a great modpack/scenario because it is so imcomplete and unfinished. Like otheres here I agree that its biggest weakness is that it is too formulaic and bland and to that end it deemphasizes strategic play. There are great features in it like historical victories and stability which keeps a player honest about their expansion i.e. you'd better get your historical goals done instead of further unnecessary expansion. But the limits of stability and the inherent anti-expansionist bias of the scenario designers make it all but impossible to hold together a large and realistic colonial empire as one of the various great colonial powers ie the French Spanish or English. Because of that it is a far better strategic play to do "just enough" to satisfy the conditions of victory without expanding unecessarily. Anything more than a dozen cities is pointless. This was no doubt done to reflect the militaristic anti-expansionistic line of play but to that end Civilization IV does that to a great extent anyway so why amplify it. But because of this it also undermines the militaristic avenue of play since one will never be able to control enough territory to "dominate the world" or eliminate all rivals. Essentially, outside of the historical victories the only Civ victories to be gotten are diplomatic, space and cultural(which should be turned off anyway because it is too easy). Talk about a boring set of options.


To sum up this scenario is not very strategic and not historical but only for in the most superfical of ways. In virtually every game I have played there were large tracts of territory unclaimed late into the 20th century, not reflecting historical reality. The AIs almost never get close to achieving their historical goals and many of them are anti-climatic. For example Germany must conquer France, Italy, Scandanavia, Russia as 2 of theirs but after doing this why continue the game is over no one is strong enough to resist you.

My solution is this first the historical victories must be more blended to reflect cultural, expansionistic as well as military aims. For example, France has to control Quebec, build some wonders and make Paris #1 in cultural. Secondly, the game should revolve around a colonial/anti-colonial or revisionist axis. Historically, the colonial powers worked together against the non colonials or indigenous powers and that should be true in this scenario as well. Thirdly, stability needs to be modified so as to make it possible to hold together a large cohesive empire. My suggestion is that rather than instability leading to civil war and collapse it should lead to insurrection in colonial outposts but leave the metropole unaffected. These were quite common in the history of colonial empires. Finally, Tech brokering needs to be turned off as this all but makes it impossible for a large colonial power to keep pace with smaller states which collaborate on advances. Seriously was it Germany or Russia which industrialized first or was it the Dutch British or French?

As far as the opinion offered that Rhyse is meant to be hard I found it anything but. The key is to lower your expectations and modify how you play Civ. Instead of trying to win you just go for the historical victories alone and nothing else. Build enough cities to do that and never go beyond safety. If you do that you can't not win but it makes the game very boring and very un-Civ because the fun of Civ is in the "what ifs" e.g. what if the French had dominated North America instead of the British and what if the French had won the colonial wars for India? In Rhyse these are irrelevent because there is no point to even try for them just do the bare minimum to get by. In other words BORING!!!!

i have found out that Ryth is the best senerio in the entire game my only complaint is the fact that i cant be a couple civs
i with they make an update for it

About my only complaint with Rhye's following on from above is that I've consistenly found that making friends in RFC is usually close to useless.

I mean it is useful but i've noticed that the option to get other civs to declare war on others is almost always Redded out.

The reason if I were to guess is because each civ is usually at war with 2-3 independants natives so by their estimation they are already at war with more than they can cope with and don't want to war others.

Also i've found the desire to wipe out natives/independants its pretty low.
All of scandanavia went independant after the vikings collapsed.
They sat there half the game untouched by anybody.

Even the incans who funnly enough made it to scandanavia captured one city and sat there and refused to take the rest of the peninsula.

But I generally dislike not being able to get others to got to war with others. Plus 2 posts above is correct, allowing colonials powers to conspire is perhaps a good idea but in the game its the colonial powers that tend to have massive tech leads for some time. If the colonial powers buddied up the game would be a cinch.

I rarely go for the UHV's... I just play alternate history. And I agree that UHV's are too deterministic sometimes.

But the limits of stability and the inherent anti-expansionist bias of the scenario designers make it all but impossible to hold together a large and realistic colonial empire as one of the various great colonial powers ie the French Spanish or English.

In my recent English game I controlled South Africa, Namibia, India, Australia, Vancouver, eastern Canada, Nigeria, Singapore, Hong Kong, and controlled southern Scandinavia at one point. And I was "Stable". Not bad, eh?

The Rhyse and Fall historical goals are too based on luck, frustratingly so.


Actually I find it easier to win with Historical victories than any other victory condition :rolleyes:
Aggressive leaders, stability, plague and unstoppable barbarians in certain areas make certain civs close to impossible to play until the end. At the point that I started playing Egypt with the goal to win by space race. And I've yet to succeed.

I don't consider this to be a great modpack/scenario because it is so imcomplete and unfinished.

But because of this it also undermines the militaristic avenue of play since one will never be able to control enough territory to "dominate the world" or eliminate all rivals.

In virtually every game I have played there were large tracts of territory unclaimed late into the 20th century, not reflecting historical reality.

Seriously was it Germany or Russia which industrialized first or was it the Dutch British or French?

To each his own. For my part, I'm grateful to find that a terrifically talented mod maker like Rhye shares my dislike of expansion for the sake of expansion, with all the pointless aggression and settler spamming that entails. This mod has more or less cured me of wanting to play the regular game.

In my recent English game I controlled South Africa, Namibia, India, Australia, Vancouver, eastern Canada, Nigeria, Singapore, Hong Kong, and controlled southern Scandinavia at one point. And I was "Stable". Not bad, eh?

No its not bad but try to play as the Spanish and recreate their empire. To do that you need to build/control Cuba, Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Yucatan, Texas, California, the Phillipines and Naples/Rome. My opinion is that this is impossible. I've tried and not been successful.

If you look at history great empires tend to fall apart more from external pressures e.g. the Spanish Imperial Empire when Spain was conquered by Napoleon, the Portugese Empire during the Spanish Captivity etc etc. I'd like to see instability far more the product of culture and relative cultural strength of neighbors or political military events. For example Italy could not unify so long as it was surrounded by strong neighbors e.g. Austria and France but when their cultural influence wanned relative to other great powers in the region Russia and Prussia then Italy was unified.

To each his own. For my part, I'm grateful to find that a terrifically talented mod maker like Rhye shares my dislike of expansion for the sake of expansion, with all the pointless aggression and settler spamming that entails. This mod has more or less cured me of wanting to play the regular game.

But thats also the problem because as I elucidated personal biases tend to undermine the overall strategic conceptualizations of the game. Why expand at all if there is no point to it? I guess the question is whether you want civilization to be more of a strategy game or more of a sim. I've felt for a long time that Civ has been becoming more a sim than a strategy game and Rhyse is just continuing that trend. I mean I like the sim aspect of Civ but there is already a game like that its called SimCity. Indeed this is how Rhyse scenarios play out as I have seen thus far the peripherys like the Americas and Asia are almost totally irrelevent to the grand scheme of balance of power...Every game is merely a struggle to dominate Europe and for that reason Rhyse would be better served to make European scenarios not global expansion ones. In fact a scenario which is based on a global view is itself demanding an expansionistic mentality otherwise much of the map will be under utilized and barren which again is contrary to the basic principles of Civ.

I do agree that settler spamming and pointless expansion did need to be reduced in effectiveness but I also consider a certain degree of settler spamming to be part of the game since it is best to gobble up most of the land that could be strategically used by your rivals, and Rhyse doesn't decrease this it AMPLIFIES it. Wasn't much of the history of the Americas defined by settler spamming whether it was between England/France in the North and Portugal/Spain in the South. The easiest powers to play as are the continental powers of Russia and Germany precisely because due to the quirks of stability they can expand much more than can anyone else and because their expansion early in the game via settler spamming comes at the price of their greatest rival...the other. For example, when ever I play as Russia I make a bee line for Warsaw to found it, filling in the gaps only later, but once I hold it Germany is limited to a mere 4-5 cities of which some are likely to be lost. If Russia controls over time all of historic Russia up to the Urals as well as Poland then they will have anywhere between 9-12 strong cities with expansion possible to the east when it is prudent and they will maintain easily a 2-3X city number advantage over the Geramns and thus a production advantage as well. The French, English, Dutch etc are no real threat because they become colonial and dilute their strength. Eventually Russia should conquer Germany and central Europe and dominate the continent from there on. As Germany its just the opposite establish cities near present day Smolensk, St Petersburg, Kiev, Archangel etc and Russia will be so hemmed in and much weaker than Germany that they will never win.
This is the same kind of problem as encountered with colonial settler spamming.

I'd just like to see some tweeks made to stability because I think it is probably one of the best new ideas I've seen for Civ in a long time, but I do think that expansion in Europe ought to be more difficult than expansion in the colonies would be. Colonies tended to be easier to control than did those contentious Euros. Just look at how little land exchanged hands in many of those wars Silesia, Alsace/Lorraine on the Civ map these are tiny specks no bigger than one square and harder to incorporate than was Canada which still has a strong affinity to the British Isles even to this day. But in Rhyse Canada is a dead zone because no one will ever be able to control it without falling apart its simply too big.

No its not bad but try to play as the Spanish and recreate their empire. To do that you need to build/control Cuba, Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Yucatan, Texas, California, the Phillipines and Naples/Rome. My opinion is that this is impossible. I've tried and not been successful.

Hey, good variant! I'll try it. Thanks!

1. You say "the Americas and Asia are almost totally irrelevent to the grand scheme of balance of power...Every game is merely a struggle to dominate Europe" and "I do think that expansion in Europe ought to be more difficult than expansion in the colonies would be." Sounds like you aren't aware of how it works. There are different kind of penalties for overexpansion in Europe and in the colonies.

2. The brake to settlers spam is a matter of scale. A game with 20+ civs, in a 124x68 map is slow and unplayable if every civ builds 20 cities easily. If you liked that, switch back to civ3 giga maps, where 31 civs would fill the whole world by 500 AD.

3. The consequence of this is that you can't conquer all rivals. You could do that with a 6-7 opponents world, not 20. The scale here is much bigger and the mechanics must be reworked somehow.

4. Recreating the Spanish Empire, as well as other civ's one, is definitely possible. The AI for sure is able to do that.

5. Not being able to attack the natives is a AI weakness, partially improved in BTS. I did everything possible to encourage them

But thats also the problem because as I elucidated personal biases tend to undermine the overall strategic conceptualizations of the game. Why expand at all if there is no point to it? I guess the question is whether you want civilization to be more of a strategy game or more of a sim.

Two things:

1- the most important conceptualization of the game is enjoyment, not strategy.
2- ROC is a mod for Civilization, not Civilization. Hence Rhye's intent is not to make Civ more of a strategy or a sim, since Civilization is something else. You play this mod when you don't want to play that. It's not a patch, an expansion, an improvement, nothing of all this, it's a mod, and as such it's something different. Or did you want ROC to be the same as Civ ?

1- the most important conceptualization of the game is enjoyment, not strategy.

Ahh but is an easy game fun? Or if a scenario is too easy is it worth playing again and again. I happen to like a lot about this mod/scenario except that some of weaknesses I described make it excessively easy. The easiest maybe the Arabs who need only control 3 holy cities, expand Islam to 40% of the cities and subdue North Africa, Egypt and Spain. Spain is the hardest to take on but the rest are all quite managable. I've found the best way to do it is get really strong, take India develop it, develop the Middle East so that they will accept a vassalage agreement, but taking enough cities to force that isn't any harder.

I personally want a game that requires good strategy to win even if some are easier to win with than others simply because it will always make the scenario infinately replayable.

ROC is a mod for Civilization, not Civilization. Hence Rhye's intent is not to make Civ more of a strategy or a sim, since Civilization is something else. You play this mod when you don't want to play that. It's not a patch, an expansion, an improvement, nothing of all this, it's a mod, and as such it's something different. Or did you want ROC to be the same as Civ

Well to be fair I think Rhyse is better than Civ IV because Civ4 is too biased towards an overtly militaristic approach over a developmental one. And by that I mean people tend to few Civ as a contrast between the strategies of militarism i.e. building almost exclusively military with limited development or expansion and settler spam. Id like to see development employed as a third strategy, one where the player uses military along with expansion to out play his opponents and by that I mean there are clear advantages for developing your cities to their maximum potential. Too often it seems quite easy to neglect building all the improvements for your cities if you can get other things like resources so that ultimately there is little to gain by doing so. I would like to see a more intrinsic advantage for doing so than I have thus far seen.

The brake to settlers spam is a matter of scale. A game with 20+ civs, in a 124x68 map is slow and unplayable if every civ builds 20 cities easily. If you liked that, switch back to civ3 giga maps, where 31 civs would fill the whole world by 500 AD.

But here is where I think you are wrong. First settler spam was never the problem people made it out to be in Civ3. The problem had far more to do with the weaknesses of the AI, the lack of culture boundaries(i.e. national boundaries) terrain problems i.e. grasslands were so inherently productive and abundant that there was no reason to not go bananas with settlers. Civ4 has solved some of these already and as for the last with the terrain your map has it dealt with that by using large amounts of unarable land(which was a great feature I might add, so no cities in the heart of the Amazon jungle). In fact by my count South America can support a maximum of only about 24 cities with far less than that being likely. North America around 26. Austrailia probably more than it should because it is not as barren as it should be, but after that there really isn't a lot of free land, and what there is in the Americas, Africa and Austrialia will probably be consumed by a few opportunistic powers. This playout which seems very common to this scenario was extremely well done since in every game I've played its always the Dutch, British, French, Spanish and Portugese that become the colonials and if you figure there are only about 50-60 cities to be built by 5 powers it figures that only a few would get the bulk of it and afterwards fight with every one else to preserve to take it away from them. Again this part was well done the problem that I have is not that stability is a bad idea but that it is too restrictive at present and undermines the full fruition of the colonial ambitions of these powers in the New World, Asia and Africa. Afterall, why be a colonial power and do it half way?

Again my suggestion is to ease up the stability some or modify it to make it more adaptable. You mentioned there are other penalties for over expansion in Europe what are they? The only ones that seem to matter are foreign opinion, the loss of your cities and the maintanence cost. The maintenance cost doesn't seem to be a problem, maybe it could be higher so that in order for colonies to pay for themselves they would have to develop a great deal and build banks and markets. But again it seems there is an upward limit on how big you can get and Spain could never, or should I say would never want to actually build an empire as large as it did in the New world as it would kill its research and ultimately collapse.

I'd just like to see instability due to empire size and city number as a more controllable feature e.g. you can build 40 cities but to stop from them breaking off or your empire collapsing you would need to build a giantic army to be maintained in the cities of the colonies so as to keep them down. This has the ancillary benefit of making a colonial power in a strategic weakness to a more centrally located empire since their army must remain spread out in order to hold the thing together. And historically this drain of manpower was exactly what happened.

Does that mean 30 civs with 30 cities each...NO!!! It means that the AI might pay attention to California more than they do because it would be worth it to do so and more importantly once all the free and is grabbed up the pressure intensifies to focus on minor powers to take them down i.e. the game becomes more competitive when the big sharks start gobbling up the smaller ones and or restorign destroyed civs.

4. Recreating the Spanish Empire, as well as other civ's one, is definitely possible. The AI for sure is able to do that.

I have never seen this! The Spanish usually build some cities in SAmerica but totally neglect Mexico, Texas and California. In fact the only time the Aztecs have been conquered is when I've done it but that may be more due to AI stupidity. If the Spanish ever do creat to fruition their empire in LAmerica then its only in the mid to late 20th century by which time I've quite playing because I've already won. Again maybe the problem is that I haven't played deep enough into the 19th century because I've never had to but that again would suggest its a bit easy.

1. You say "the Americas and Asia are almost totally irrelevent to the grand scheme of balance of power...Every game is merely a struggle to dominate Europe" and "I do think that expansion in Europe ought to be more difficult than expansion in the colonies would be." Sounds like you aren't aware of how it works. There are different kind of penalties for overexpansion in Europe and in the colonies.

Uh yeah I understand it, its just not that hard to get. The first time I played I tried to build a large empire and failed because it collapsed, but I ultimately still won because my culture boundaries restored to me the metropole but I realized what the heck was the point of founding all those cities all it did was waste time to build the settlers and slow down my research. In every subsequent game I've played the same modified strategy. I always focus on Europe looking to weaken early what is likely to be my strongest neighbor(basic tactics really). If I'm France its Germany, Spain its France, Germany its Russia but regardless because it is "cheaper" to expand in Europe than abroad it is a better strategic move to concentrate on Europe. Also maybe you aren't aware that the reason this is true is because such expansion is Zero Sum i.e. if France expands in Europe because it takes Mainz, Hamburg and Berlin from Germany even if this costs France some stability it is still worthwhile because the expansion weakens the strongest rival. Ultimately, for the various minor powers like Portugal, Holland Spain etc who can't are undermaned against the Germans or Frence and likely to lose in the European struggle it is necessary to take early North Africa since it is unoccupied since these are close enough to the metropole they are effectively considered the "homeland" and are easy to manage.

Ahh but is an easy game fun? Or if a scenario is too easy is it worth playing again and again. I happen to like a lot about this mod/scenario except that some of weaknesses I described make it excessively easy.

Well, then you're way off topic, since the OP is saying the contrary. Also, easy or hard is such a subjective word, not to mention levels of difficulty of the mod. You wasted so many bits to answer stating so many personal opinions (that btw regard more the game than the mod) that I really don't have the strength or time to answer to anything else but this.

First, for those complaining about stability being unrealistic, what history book are you reading? I really like this scenario. One of the most unrealistic things about regular Civ, by far, is that no civilizations ever go into decline except by direct conquest. Unchallenged, each one just keeps getting bigger and bigger expanding and advancing along very linear and predictable lines. When has this ever occurred in history? When has ANY large empire ever lasted more than a thousand years or so? It just doesn't happen. I love the new Civs popping up in the middle of things to stir things up, the plagues, everything.. adds considerably more realism to the game.

Stability does present a unique challenge, but if you pay attention to what's going on in the game you should be able to figure out how to keep your empire together. I played as the Babylonians and successfully held my empire together through the whole game, and they've got one of the most hotly contested pieces of earth on the map. It wasn't easy, but it was possible.

Plague, also, presents an interesting and unique challenge, but it's far from unbeatable. Keep your cities healthy. If you see plague break out in a neighboring culture, immediately cancel open borders agreements with them and stay away. When I was invading India with my army, plague broke out there and I had to pull back as all of my units were dying. I lost many units this way, but that's not a weakness of the scenario IMO.

As for cities and units flipping, when I played as the Persians I was well on my way to achieving a historical victory but I still needed some more land in my empire.. then the Arabians showed up and I knew I was screwed. They stopped my HV, but that's cool.. the game shouldn't be so easy. I wouldn't give Jerusalem to the Arabs so they attacked me, and since my army was mostly tied up in Ethiopia it was difficult mustering up a good defense. I had lots of units desert and go to the other side... but I just kept churning out more and eventually conquered the entire Arabian peninsula. It was a lot more difficult than it would have been in normal Civ... but that's the point. I just completely rewrote history by containing Islam before it ever had a chance to spread. That *should* be difficult to pull off.

Anyway, I think the people who dislike this scenario the most are the ones who play like my cousin, and don't really enjoy a challenge so much as they enjoy mindlessly going through every turn, methodically perfecting everything. My cousin will continue playing after he's achieved victory until he's maxed out every city on the map and is making 6000 gold a turn or something ridiculous like that. I find that boring. I quit playing any game myself immediately after it has become clear that there's no chance I'll lose.


To answer the OP, I just played another game as India and won my historical victory. I messed up the first game because I went for the obvious buddhism and hinduism first. I think if you do this it becomes literally impossible to complete a HV.
So... first go for Judaism. Explore with your warrior, there are huts to the south and northwest, and several more over in Europe. I got a free worker, free warrior, and a free tech out of these so it's worth looking.
In your capital city, I built a barracks first.
After I was at two population, I started building a worker.
Once I had Judaism, I immediately went for hinduism and buddhism. At this point I had 3 religions.
I resisted adopting a state religion because you get more culture and it gives you no bonus early on anyway.
I reasearched roads and agriculture so my worker would have something to do.
After I finished the worker, I believe I built one warrior for defense and then a monastery to speed up my research.
I had the worker get me marble first, and build a route, then focus on improving the tiles close to the city.
Once I had access to marble, I started building The Oracle. With Organized religion you can build it faster.
The Chinese beat me to Confucianism, but only by a few turns.
I researched writing so that when the oracle was finished I could get Theology and found Christianity.
The next thing I went for in research was Taoism, which I got easily.
After I finished up the Oracle, I think I built one more worker and then a settler and settled on the east coast where I had several resources and that city grew rapidly.
The Persians showed up and I knew I had to make friends with them or they would crush me easily, so I was careful not to offend them in any way.
Christianity and Taoism both gave me missionaries, so I arbitrarily picked one and sent it to the Persian capital. Once my religion spread there, they adopted it and I switched religions myself so they would be more friendly toward me.
I researched alphabet next to enable technology trading.
I had one warrior sitting on the Roman/Greek border to permanently keep contact with them and another sitting on the Babylonian/Egpytian border for the same. This way I could trade technologies quickly.
I traded something to the Romans for Iron Working and mined the Iron ore in India so I could build spearmen to defend against barbarian elephants.
At this point I had completed 2/3 goals and was only worried about possible invasion and making my population grow. So I tried to stay friends with everyone and grow as much as I could, churning out settlers, and having my workers build farms and plantations and pastures.
I used a great prophet to build the great building for the religion shared by myself and my neighors.
I used a great engineer to build Notre Dame.
I got vassalage as soon as I could to build up some longbowmen and worry a bit less about being overrun.
I built a Chinese embassy and traded with them for pigs and silk.
I used missionaries to spread the true faith and combat the rise of Islam in Arabia.
Then I built the AP to give myself even more security.
I researched liberalism to get a free tech (Nationalism)
After that it was pretty easy breezy... My cities were built up, I had 6 in all on the Indian subcontinent. My only rival at that point in terms of population were the Chinese, and they were having problems with barbarians. I built some cannons and musketeers when I could and expanded westward. Victory achieved.

I think that RFC is one of the best mods for CIV 4... probably the best and I play it alot. Still I wouldn't say it's perfect, but what is perfect for everyone? ;)

The one thing that gets me annoyed is UHV. UHV is a very good feature but IMHO it's implemented wrong. Now it is an absolute value... you HAVE to accomplish this AND that to achieve a UHV. As I really like to go for the UHV my games plays more like a giant jigsaw puzzle where I try to puzzle everything together to accomplish an UHV for that specific civilization. And once that is done you have "broke" that civilization and it's never the same playing them again cause you know what you have to do to be able to achieve the UHV.

I still think UHV is an awsome concept however I wish the whole UHV system could be changed. First of all I would like to see a totally revamped victory points system. Victory points should partly be awarded for the basic thingies like how big your empire is, how culturally it is etc. But mostly victory points is awarded from what that specific civilization has to do to gain extra bonus points. For example India would get plenty of bonus part for every religion they found while Ethiopians would get extra bonus points for every turn the europeans doesn't have any colonies in Africa and the Arabs gets bonus points in regards to how big Islam is etc etc.

I think using VP (victory points) in this manner would lead to a much more free way to play the game while still trying to achieve the historical goals for that civilziation.

Just my two cents anyway. :D

I think using VP (victory points) in this manner would lead to a much more free way to play the game while still trying to achieve the historical goals for that civilziation.

Just my two cents anyway. :D

That would be really interesting, but also very difficult to balance with all the different Civs.

After playing this scenario many many times with many different Civs I think I have to revise my position on the original post's point. The Historical Victory conditions can be too based on luck, but it depends on which Civ you are playing as. Some HVs are tweaked so much that they are not based on luck at all. There is a very exact order of things you have to do to achieve these victories. If you do those things in the correct order, you are practically guaranteed to succeed. If you make one mistake or do something out of order, then you are practically guaranteed to fail. Luck doesn't factor in. The Indian civilization is one like this.

On the other hand, certain other Civilizations are IMPOSSIBLE to win with unless you get lucky. For one example, the Greeks. Greece has to build the Oracle, but often the Oracle is already completed or well on its way to completion by the time your Civ even has its starting point. You may have already failed one of your three victory conditions as the Greeks before the game even begins. Obviously no amount of good strategy or planning will fix that.
As the Americans, one of your three victory conditions is to build the Statue of Liberty, The Pentagon, and the UN. The last time I played as them I researched Democracy first to try to build the Statue of Liberty and Germany completed the wonder the same turn that I finished researching Democracy. I don't think I could have possibly beaten them if I did something different, just got unlucky in what happened during the auto-play turns.

yea, UHVs may require some luck. I think it's impossible to gather a good choice of goal types without considering the ones that involve luck too.

I really like this mod a lot, but I think things are rigged too strongly to keep history on track. It's not alternate history if its not history at all, but neither is is alternate history if it hardly varies. History should be favored, not inevitable.

Yes exactly! Stability is a good idea so that first to a virgin land is important but not the only thing that matters. But as it is now the game is so slavish to stability that the games rarely deviate and that inherently favors certain sides probably accidently and in some cases in ways which aren't historically accurate. Britain for example is one of the weakest powers because its "historical culture" areas are restricted to SAfrica, parts of India, NAmerica and Austrailia. This might sound like a lot but in this game SAmerica is of far greater importance than perhaps it should be and Africa too little since much of West Africa(one of the more densely populated areas on Earth in 1492) is mostly a barren desert. India too which is about 2/3 the size of the US can support only a fraction of the cities that can the US. Some of the problem is the UHV and some of it is the distortion of the map but in the end this mod while fun goes stale very fast because there is little variance and the "history" doesn't allow for much contingency since everyone will have to stay confined to their culture areas anyway there isn't too much reason to compete, but in Europe

I really like this mod a lot, but I think things are rigged too strongly to keep history on track. It's not alternate history if its not history at all, but neither is is alternate history if it hardly varies. History should be favored, not inevitable.

Human influence creates a unique game every time.

A lot of the things people complain about in the mod are actually what makes it great. In the first few games I played I failed miserably, coz I followed the general civ strategy of expand as much as possible as fast as possible. I've always thought this was tedious and the impulse has cost me more than a few games through overexpansion (trying to block off a far too big piece of real estate with one too many cities...also why I might be the only person who LIKES an isolated island start).

In this mod however, a small empire of a few big, well-developed cities is just as good (if not better) than a big one. I played as India and only ran into trouble in the mid-game (when I tried like hell to cross the jungles of SE Asia to build a city, only to have it flip to the Khmer) and in the end game when I tried to build a colonial empire and watched my hitherto fantastic economy sink like a stone. I love being able to build a successful country in it's historical area and not have to make the Netherlands the size of Russia just to be competitive. The balance between big empires and small ones is something sorely lacking in the vanilla game. People don't seem to realise that IRL big empires are inherently unstable and come with their own set of problems but Rhye's reflects this. Now expansion is a choice, something that has to be thought out and planned, not just a dire imperative like building military units.
It's a good thing :-)

I also love having independent states around to add a bit of flavour to the proceedings. And of course the strongly, but not strictly historical focus. My last game, Rome survived but China collapsed. Gotta love it

The only things I don't like are the game speed (I do love the leisurely marathon speed of vanilla, but understand the limitations). And the fact that resources and tribal huts are in the same place all the time....that and the diplo spamming. But all in all it's worth it. I like the mod almost as much, if not more than the actual game. And Civ 5 would do well to incorporate some elements, esp. staggered civ spawning and stability.

Diplo spamming is gone in the next patch!

Diplo spamming is gone in the next patch!

You are my new favourite person Rhye. Well you and Vishaing. (Epic RFC was like a birthday and christmas present all in one :-)

People don't seem to realise that IRL big empires are inherently unstable and come with their own set of problems

Yes but IRL despite this big empires were incredibly common prior to the last 50 years and one could in fact argue an informal Euro/American Empire still stretches across the globe so in actuality there must have been some pretty darn good incentives for doing it.

As I have consistantly said...the problem is not stability, it is a good idea but it must be tweaked so as to not limit what can be done. The game is far too much of pursuing only your historical boundaries and far too little of "what if"

And you seem to forget that even the Dutch had a large colonial empire at one time which included Indonesia, South Africa, New York, parts of the Carribean, and Northern Brazil.

Oh by the way there are numerous historical inaccuracies in Rhys including that the Portugese first settled the Cape Town settlement, Lagos Nigeria et al


I like Rhys but I have always felt that scenario building is too much for one person to do and every great designer must get an outside and objective viewpoint of their ideas.

Yes but IRL despite this big empires were incredibly common prior to the last 50 years and one could in fact argue an informal Euro/American Empire still stretches across the globe so in actuality there must have been some pretty darn good incentives for doing it.

As I have consistantly said...the problem is not stability, it is a good idea but it must be tweaked so as to not limit what can be done. The game is far too much of pursuing only your historical boundaries and far too little of "what if"

And you seem to forget that even the Dutch had a large colonial empire at one time which included Indonesia, South Africa, New York, parts of the Carribean, and Northern Brazil.

Oh by the way there are numerous historical inaccuracies in Rhys including that the Portugese first settled the Cape Town settlement, Lagos Nigeria et al


I like Rhys but I have always felt that scenario building is too much for one person to do and every great designer must get an outside and objective viewpoint of their ideas.

Well that depends on how you define big empire. Up until the sixteenth century, big empires were ephemeral and didn't last. The thing is tho, the vanilla game is totally unbalanced towards larger empires. Bigger is always better. IRL (at least until maybe the 19th or 20th century) small states could be just as wealthy/dynamic/successful as big ones and it would be nice if that was reflected in the game.

Yes but IRL despite this big empires were incredibly common prior to the last 50 years and one could in fact argue an informal Euro/American Empire still stretches across the globe so in actuality there must have been some pretty darn good incentives for doing it.

As I have consistantly said...the problem is not stability, it is a good idea but it must be tweaked so as to not limit what can be done. The game is far too much of pursuing only your historical boundaries and far too little of "what if"

And you seem to forget that even the Dutch had a large colonial empire at one time which included Indonesia, South Africa, New York, parts of the Carribean, and Northern Brazil.

Oh by the way there are numerous historical inaccuracies in Rhys including that the Portugese first settled the Cape Town settlement, Lagos Nigeria et al


I like Rhys but I have always felt that scenario building is too much for one person to do and every great designer must get an outside and objective viewpoint of their ideas.

the Dutch had a large colonial empire...
isn't it possible in RFC? It definitely is.
Probably in the normal game it wouldn't, because the tiny size of Netherlands compared to the rest of the European powers would make them lag behind and lose the colonisazion race.

And where are the inaccuracies? The portuguese have their own city and settlers area, including Africa

Delete this post.

The thing is tho, the vanilla game is totally unbalanced towards larger empires. Bigger is always better.

Which IMO shows the problem here as evidenced in the designers and supporters of the flaws of this mod....THEY DO NOT UNDERSTAND EVEN THE MOST BASIC OF STRATEGY.

Yes I would agree that larger in Civ 4 has benefits, but it also has enormous drawbacks...even before Rhys. First of all large empires almost always brings one into conflict with others...especially in this modpack which makes you unpopular and more likely to have to go to war to defend said empire, and if you are large enough, or the vaguely defined "too big" that people bandy about here it will be difficult to defend said empire. But aside from that there are other disadvantages some of which Rhys expands(very wisely) as with increased tech costs. So size was never really so much of a problem in Civ 4 as it was in Civ 3.

What is actually happening is that inferior tacticians like those who defend the modpack and rhye cannot win with their subpar tactics and thus must change the rules to give themselves and advantage. I for one have never had a problem winning this modpack because I know how to win regardless of the variables presented me as in regular Civ 4. Some of the things people complain about here are examples of poor strategy and poor play such as not being able to build a wonder fast enough to beat out an opponent is an easily solved problem for a good tactican if you merely stockpile engineering great people to rush build as needed.
In an ongoing game with this Mod as the French I have managed to build every wonder available to me and I am only in the late renaissance by doing such things.

If you were to ask me I would say that in reg Civ 4 small empires have too much power, or perhaps a balance already in that they can alter how they play in order to gain other victory conditions. That is the primary assumption of Rhye is that every game must end in domination/conquest and therefore everything else is without purpose. But in fact one of the common victories I have gotten via online play...especially with a poor starting location is to 1)build as many wonders of the world as possible 2)really try to build the Parthenon so that I can 3)crank out great people with a combination of the Parthenon/Statue of Liberty, Mercantilism etc to try to get artists. If you culture bomb enough times in 3 cities you will get a win and you do not need to be huge.

The problem with this mod it is that it is still not hard.

Well that depends on how you define big empire. Up until the sixteenth century, big empires were ephemeral and didn't last. The thing is tho, the vanilla game is totally unbalanced towards larger empires.

Yes this is actually quite true, but if we are going to split hairs like this then what's to say that a 30 city empire is excessively large, unfair, and imbalanced? What I have seen with Rhys is that every empire gets a chance to expand some make poor choices and expand where they cannot defend but overall just about everyone including the Dutch end up with at least 6-8 cities. So why is 30 too large? In fact historically the Dutch by being minor on the European stage but signficant abroad where a major pawn by the larger powers of France, Spain and England. What I dislike about Rhys is that unlike IRL there is no power imbalance as in between Britain, France and everybody else. Historically the power dynamic of Western Europe was driven by 2-3 major powers which doesn't really happen in Rhys because "everyone becomes equal"

The thing is tho, the vanilla game is totally unbalanced towards larger empires.

Well I will agree with you on onething here in regards to city spacing. IMO the reason why the perception exists that "bigger is always better" in Civ 4 is because there is absolutely no reason to space your cities close together...That is you try to hav as little overlap as possible because there is no reason to do otherwise. Extrapolate that a bit and empires get very very large quickly. What I do like about Rhys is that he has found a very clever way around that problem by 1)building in a lot of historical players especially in Europe which makes even the Dutch a viable option 2)amping up resource effect as with wheat so as to make it possible to achieve a large population even with cities tightly spaced. Because of this as France I tend to have 5 cities in "historic France" including Brest, Cherbourg, Paris, Bordeaux, and Marseilles eventhough only 3 would be needed to use all the territory. That said with stability as it is I also will exploit the weakness of the stability concept as presently used to "cluster" in another 4 for max effect. So that while Rhys intent is to deter large 30+ city empires in some ways he amplifies it since my metropole can consist of as many as 10 cities. This still distorts the difference between France and Holland who has only 1-2 cities.

the Dutch had a large colonial empire...

During the captivity of the Portugese monarchy by the Spanish crown the Dutch seized control from the Portugese of Northern Brazil, the East Indes(Indonesia) and especially the Cape Town settlement which was the origin of the Dutch presence in South Africa. But yes at one time the Dutch obstensively controlled a very large empire.

isn't it possible in RFC? It definitely is.
Probably in the normal game it wouldn't, because the tiny size of Netherlands compared to the rest of the European powers would make them lag behind and lose the colonisazion race.

Well obstensively your reasoning for stability as it is now is essentially to protect countries like the Dutch as per the assumption that in the reg game they woud not built a large colonial empire yada yada. But a better analysis would be that if there was no stability would they be able to with your other innovations...I say yes. First off the Dutch start with a very large navy and this alone is a big advantage since even a galley can be upgraded into a Galleon when that tech is discovered. Secondly, the tech brokering the computer does ensures there is actually very little tech disparity between AIs. And Thirdly they also start with settlers with which there is no ground to build new cities meaning that when America is discovered and galleons made they should be one of the first to colonize. If the concern is that "tiny" little holland can't keep up then start them later in the game say after 1000AD and or increase the technology size penalty for city #. That seems to be a very effective means to deter excessive expansion. If I thought expanding would slow down my tech so that rivals could jump ahead of me and gain a tech lead I would be very afraid of overexpansion...and in fact that already happens to some degree with this mod. In my very first game as France I built a very large bulky empire in America which slowed my tech pace down and because of this Germany got a huge tech lead and took over enough of homeland for me to get the point.


Overall what I would like to stress with you is that the stability concept is a good idea but that its implementation is a bit of as it is right now. I really can't say how much it needs to be tweaked but I hope you consider doing it. I've found that sometimes even just minor changes can be enough. That said you seem uncomfortable with "large" empires, and that is in scare quotes because I don't really know what "large" or too large is, but something to consider is that a game where every side is created equally is very boring and this mod treads too far in that direction. I have found upon playing this mod several times as differing powers that some of the minor powers like the Dutch and the Portugese can be very powerful allies, but ultimately there needs to be greater powers and minor powers. Perfectly symmetrical play is extremely boring. Its seems to me that one of the major limitations on the minor powers like the Dutch and Portugese is stability because they can't due to their size expand to quickly or too far out of their safety zones so if you can preclude them from them you neuter them. For example, the Dutch really need New Amsterdam, and Cape Town because after them there isn't a lot of other places to go, so part of my strategy is to expand into some of those areas just to keep them from them. With only 1 city out of safety zone I can deprive them of 2 and without colonies the dutch or any other minor power becomes irrelevent. On the otherhand I would argue that IRL had the French deprived the Dutch of New Amsterdam because the culture of Montreal ate up the land needed the Dutch could have just gone somewhere else. That is you seem to assume that the Dutch or anybody else where married to the lands they conquered which they weren't i.e. IRL there was a lot of contingency involved which this mod doesn't take into account







And where are the inaccuracies? The portuguese have their own city and settlers area, including Africa

Well I may be wrong but I seem to recall that the last time I tried to found a city on the site of Lagos with the Portugese it called it outside of my culture area. Also I would point out that West Africa was more densely populated that much of Western Europe especially Iberia in 1400 but in this mod it is mostly scrub and desert without any real value. Lagos is under a jungle. India is about the size of France when in actuality it is the size of all of Western Europe. Most of India lies outside of Englands culture areas which behooves common sense since India was the most important colony there was. Indonesia lies within the Khmer culture zone but not the Indians or the Arabo-muslims. The site for Cape Town lies outside of the Portugese culture area eventhough it was founded by them. Germanys "historic" capital was Berlin eventhough Berlin as far as German cities are concerned was a latecommer having been founded in 800AD? and not really important until 1700AD and was on land taken by crusader knights(teutons) during the middle ages so its questionable if its ethnically "German". Vienna would be a better but equally problematic choice. Sogut as the capital of the Ottoman Empire is questionable. In fact Sogut was never really a city, Izmir would be a better name for a city near that site but problematic as the capital. The Vikings should be late comers in Civilization since the first major Viking raid is considered to be Lyndesfarne in 780AD but they start at 600AD. Thebes has the Pyramids eventhough the Pyramids are closer to Cairo and that Cairo is a major city of the "Arab" Civilization. The Arabs never seem to take Egypt for that matter, and Tunis aka Carthage in antiquity was already in existance and a major city. There should be a power in between Germany and Russia such as Poland/Lithuania which was actually quite important for a long time and lasted until the late 18th century. On the Rhys map it would be about the size of Germany.

What is actually happening is that inferior tacticians like those who defend the modpack and rhye cannot win with their subpar tactics and thus must change the rules to give themselves and advantage. I for one have never had a problem winning this modpack because I know how to win regardless of the variables presented me as in regular Civ 4.

If winning at vanilla Civ is just and easy and formulaic as RFC, how is RFC sub-par, assuming the baseline is vanilla civ? And if you think Civ is sub par in general, why are you posting on a fan site for the game?

To sum up this scenario is not very strategic and not historical but only for in the most superfical of ways. In virtually every game I have played there were large tracts of territory unclaimed late into the 20th century, not reflecting historical reality. The AIs almost never get close to achieving their historical goals and many of them are anti-climatic. For example Germany must conquer France, Italy, Scandanavia, Russia as 2 of theirs but after doing this why continue the game is over no one is strong enough to resist you.

The lack of colonization is the fault of the AI. It likes to build units before sending settlers overseas and, at a certain point, the number of units make war more platable than overseas expansion. Also, the AI in incapable of understanding the UHVs. That might be fixable, but with limited time and resources, AI tweaking is not on the list.

UHVs are designed to give a different playstyle for every civ. Some are purely militaristic, some are pure builder, most are a combination. The variety is what makes the mod enjoyable. You might say the UHVs are to formulaic, but it gives you 20 plus formulas you have to try and devise on your own. How many mods have provided over 20 new victory conditions? Outside of that, stability, plague, tech penalties and a host of other minor tweaks make playing a normal conquest/space/domination game much more difficult and inspiring.

That said you seem uncomfortable with "large" empires, and that is in scare quotes because I don't really know what "large" or too large is, but something to consider is that a game where every side is created equally is very boring and this mod treads too far in that direction.

Large empires are steamrollers. Basically, they get a lead and the gap widens as time goes on because 1) They research faster and 2) They have better units. If you dislike this restriction, play vanilla civ. We hashed this out for months and your condescending opinion will not change our minds.

If you look at history great empires tend to fall apart more from external pressures e.g. the Spanish Imperial Empire when Spain was conquered by Napoleon, the Portugese Empire during the Spanish Captivity etc etc. I'd like to see instability far more the product of culture and relative cultural strength of neighbors or political military events. For example Italy could not unify so long as it was surrounded by strong neighbors e.g. Austria and France but when their cultural influence wanned relative to other great powers in the region Russia and Prussia then Italy was unified.

None of your examples exhibit external cultural pressure. Rather, they all show the power of military might to cow smaller, weaker states or vassalize large ones. Civs are already more prone to fall if you take core cities. Politics is already in place with the world congress, where you can ask for cities. And, FYI, Italy (and Germany) was united because Napoleon reorganized the independent states into a single governance. The wane of Austria and France's power let the state stay together. Which, again, has nothing to do with culture.

Other Historical stuff

It's impossible to create an accurate world mod with the limited resources - both computer and time - players have available. Compromises were made and if you disagree with them, more power to you. Your opinions will be placed in line right behind Ukraine.

None of your examples exhibit external cultural pressure. Rather, they all show the power of military might to cow smaller, weaker states or vassalize large ones. Civs are already more prone to fall if you take core cities. Politics is already in place with the world congress, where you can ask for cities. And, FYI, Italy (and Germany) was united because Napoleon reorganized the independent states into a single governance. The wane of Austria and France's power let the state stay together. Which, again, has nothing to do with culture.


Right Napoleonic reorganization did aid in the unification of Germany and Italy but it wasn't the only reason. If it was then these countries would have unified in 1820, 1830 or 1850 and not 1870. The deciding factor was the relative strength or weakness of the neighboring powers. France had historically tried to keep Germany and Northern Italy disorganized for obvious reasons. In fact as proof of my point it was the unification of Germany which destabilized the balance of power in Europe and weakened France enough to drive them into an alliance of the British. So from that point of view one could say that strong German influence posed a great threat to France, and once could argue that the wars of the 20th century in Europe were about a reallignment of power towards emerging anti-colonial powers.

On a side note the IRL example of Germany as a late developing European power shows the flaws with stability. In Rhyse even if "unification" did happen as IRL Germany would still be a minor power whereas IRL its unification tended to weaken France.

It's impossible to create an accurate world mod with the limited resources - both computer and time - players have available. Compromises were made and if you disagree with them, more power to you. Your opinions will be placed in line right behind Ukraine.

In otherwords "When we are pointed out to be in error rather than make changes we will attempt to call on pity for our human weaknesses"

Isn't that an appeal to pity I forget what its called in latin but there's some term to decribe this kind of logical fallacy. Regardless Aristotle your are not. Here's an idea rather than fighting with people on this why not enlist people to help you? In fact as a result of playing this modpack I have already modified the map somewhat to better reflect the way I think it should be. It might not be perfect but "better" is always a start.

In otherwords "When we are pointed out to be in error rather than make changes we will attempt to call on pity for our human weaknesses"

What? Did you read what I said or do you just want to post whatever you think of? The mod has to be playable above all else. It already slows down considerably after 1300 AD, and quickly gets worse. By adding to the mod you make it more unplayable because the players lack the computational resources to run it at a decent sped and the spare time to wait 3+ minutes between each turn.

Prob. is, but have won 2 good games. A historical victory as the Turks in 1960
on Viceroy was easy. A time victory at 2050 as the English on Monarch was harder but the key was controlling all of North and Central America, with the Aztecs, Incas, Malinese, and Americans as vassals, which certainly helped.
Having the Yanks as vassals was cool as I'm a Canadian expat living in the
UK. Very satisfying.Agree with you about the plague though. Tired of hearing that bloody bell!

well my problem with plague isn't that it hurts the human players too much but that it all but cripples the AI. As Im sure you found out through experience once you get to 1900 and beyond the AI ceases to be any real threat largely because they have to that point neglected their internal development. I just don't find this mod to be that hard. Its true you can purposely make it harder as someone suggested by doing things not intended to happen like getting a domination victory with Japan, but I always say the best gauge for any mod is the easiest/simplist means to win anything else is superflous

On a side note the IRL example of Germany as a late developing European power shows the flaws with stability. In Rhyse even if "unification" did happen as IRL Germany would still be a minor power whereas IRL its unification tended to weaken France.


Very unlinkely. How can you prove that? I've seen often France and Rome collapsing as a result of German unification and hegemony.



Well I may be wrong but I seem to recall that the last time I tried to found a city on the site of Lagos with the Portugese it called it outside of my culture area. Also I would point out that West Africa was more densely populated that much of Western Europe especially Iberia in 1400 but in this mod it is mostly scrub and desert without any real value. Lagos is under a jungle. India is about the size of France when in actuality it is the size of all of Western Europe. Most of India lies outside of Englands culture areas which behooves common sense since India was the most important colony there was. Indonesia lies within the Khmer culture zone but not the Indians or the Arabo-muslims. The site for Cape Town lies outside of the Portugese culture area eventhough it was founded by them. Germanys "historic" capital was Berlin eventhough Berlin as far as German cities are concerned was a latecommer having been founded in 800AD? and not really important until 1700AD and was on land taken by crusader knights(teutons) during the middle ages so its questionable if its ethnically "German". Vienna would be a better but equally problematic choice. Sogut as the capital of the Ottoman Empire is questionable. In fact Sogut was never really a city, Izmir would be a better name for a city near that site but problematic as the capital. The Vikings should be late comers in Civilization since the first major Viking raid is considered to be Lyndesfarne in 780AD but they start at 600AD. Thebes has the Pyramids eventhough the Pyramids are closer to Cairo and that Cairo is a major city of the "Arab" Civilization. The Arabs never seem to take Egypt for that matter, and Tunis aka Carthage in antiquity was already in existance and a major city. There should be a power in between Germany and Russia such as Poland/Lithuania which was actually quite important for a long time and lasted until the late 18th century. On the Rhys map it would be about the size of Germany.

OK as I've got a bit of time this morning, let's answer one by one:

- Lagos is coded under Portuguese AI maps. Same with Cape Town and most of Africa. The fact that many of these spots are not settleable is another matter and has its own reasons.

- Europe is surely bigger than RL. Good point. It's made that way, on purpose, to make it playable. So, got ahead and revert it to its original size, so that you can play with a 2-tiles big Italy. HINT: you can directly play my original Earth map shipping with the game.

- What would you propose then for German capital? Aachen? Bonn? Vienna?

- For Turkish capital? Istanbul can't be because it was Byzantine already and later conquered. Same with Bursa and Edirne. Oh wait Izmir wasn't even a capital ever. Sogut at least is the place of origin of the Ottomans. The alternative is stretching the timeline to include the Seljuks and use an eastern city for that purpose.

- Viking late comers?? The first raid doens't correspond to the enstablishment. In fact they were known by Romans (mentioned by Tacitus around 100AD)

- Memphis is too close to the coast to allow one more good city (Alexandria)

- Carthage isn't Tunis. If I add Carthage in the late start, then the late start would make no sense.

- The Arabs don't always take Egypt for the AI's fault, not for mine. I tried by all means to make them more aggressive

- Poland?? Yeah, a 1 city civ, very useful to cripple Germany and weaken Russia.



You can go on moaning as long as you want, I doubt you'll find something I don't have an answer.

- For Turkish capital? Istanbul can't be because it was Byzantine already and later conquered. Same with Bursa and Edirne. Oh wait Izmir wasn't even a capital ever. Sogut at least is the place of origin of the Ottomans. The alternative is stretching the timeline to include the Seljuks and use an eastern city for that purpose.

You understand the problem with this right? There is difference between Ottoman and Turk. Sogut as a capital isn't a sure things some consider it merely a myth along the lines of Osman. Yes there was a Sogut but was Sogut ever a capital of anything of import is another matter. And what you suggest is a problem but I would be far more comfortable with Izmir or Konya being a capital and then it being automatically transfered to Istanbul than I am with some minor Anatolian village dominating the area until the 20th century.

- What would you propose then for German capital? Aachen? Bonn? Vienna?

Yes this is a dilemma but I think I would be more comfortable with that than wth it being in Berlin.

- Viking late comers?? The first raid doens't correspond to the enstablishment. In fact they were known by Romans (mentioned by Tacitus around 100AD)

Yes thats true but the same could be said about the Franks, Visogoths, etc so shouldn't the French start in 300 or something? There is a big difference between historical existance which goes back even before the Romans were recording things, afterall its not as if the people of Scandanavia didn't exist before 300BCE, and a peoples ascendency as a "national" body. For France, Spain the time is roughly correct as it is with Germany, but Scandanavia really coelesce as a polity until the well into the age of the Vikings. Additionally, I find it personally offensive that they are called "Vikings" and not Scandanavians for the same reason. There is a big difference between a cultural group and a segment of that group like the Vikings. Plus the term Viking has a rather negative connotation along the lings of ". .. .. .. .. .. ." to me.

- Carthage isn't Tunis. If I add Carthage in the late start, then the late start would make no sense.

This is not entirely true. If you knew your Arab history you'd know that Tunis is very close to Carthage for the same reason that Cairo is close to Fustat and Baghdad is close to Csetisphon. It is true that Tunis is not exactly Tunis but for all intents purposes it is. When the muslims arrived in new areas they used established population centers since they were trying to preserve existing economic/social arrangments. However they wanted to keep the muslims seperate from the native populations and thus founded camp towns outside of town which for Carthage was Tunis. Over time Tunis became the seat of government power and asscended in importance at the expense of Carthage. So in the case of all these places mentioned Bagdhad, Tunis and Cairo they are all about 20-40 miles from the historic center. The reason why Carthage is a bit farther from Tunis than Fustat was from Cairo is because by the 7th century the center of Carthage life had drifted away from where the phonecian city was more towards where Tunis is today. So while there is a some difference between Carthage and Tunis this is most arbitrary and emblematic of the Islamophobia Europeans have towards muslims and their need to cling to the idea that muslims destroyed the mediterranean world rather than resurrecting it.

- Memphis is too close to the coast to allow one more good city (Alexandria)

Okay but Memphis wasn't even around anymore by Roman times the Roman city in the area was called Fustat and it would probably be 1 space north of Thebes. IMO Thebes should be 1 space south and Fustat should be 1 space to the North so that Egypt could have 3 cities, and then change all the terrain around the Nile to flood plains, and around Fustat/Cairo or slightly to the North Egypt is all green in the Delta valley and should probably be grassland floodplains since Egypt was the a major producer of food for much of history. Also the Nile above Aswan needs to be straightened it does not bend that much.

- The Arabs don't always take Egypt for the AI's fault, not for mine. I tried by all means to make them more aggressive

I would suggest city flipping from Barbarian/Byzantine to the Arabs like is done with France and Gemrany once they capture Jerusalem since that is pretty much true to history to what happened. The myth of the Arab conquest is that they conquered! They were peacemakers as much as they were warriors

- Poland?? Yeah, a 1 city civ, very useful to cripple Germany and weaken Russia.

Actually, historically Poland Lithuania consisted up to Smolensk and included that city for a little while. I think Kiev was also part of that Kingdom for a while too. So in fact it would be about as large as Germany and France.

- Lagos is coded under Portuguese AI maps. Same with Cape Town and most of Africa. The fact that many of these spots are not settleable is another matter and has its own reasons.

Right because you are anti-Expansion to the point that you completely overreact about it. You don't really think people should expand outside of Europe unless you are either France or Spain and therefore doesn't reflect reality. There was nothing inevitable that the Spanish Empire would inevitably ecclipse the Portugese Empire. In fact early on people would have thought the opposite but given that Portugal can't really do in Africa what they did in real life they are locked into an inferior position in South America.

Europe is surely bigger than RL. Good point. It's made that way, on purpose, to make it playable. So, got ahead and revert it to its original size, so that you can play with a 2-tiles big Italy. HINT: you can directly play my original Earth map shipping with the game.

Right well what I would suggest is that you distort India and the East Indies a bit to compensate. Make Australia a little more barren(all of Australia is only about as agriculturally productive as New Zealand!), make the jungles of Guiana stretch almost all the way to the coast, seriously around there and the Amazon mouth there should only be 1-2 squares which are not jungle. As for West Africa I would suggest turning some of the areas around Dakar to Plains just along the coast with desert stretching all the way to the coast just south of Casablanca.

You can go on moaning as long as you want, I doubt you'll find something I don't have an answer.

Yeah but all your answers come from Wikipedia...thats the problem ;)

Get real, both of you.! What do you want? Total historical accuracy? So
what's your source, Hakim? Not Wikpediedia. Then what? Have you ever
heard 2 historians agree? Would you prefer "our usually reliable sources?
As far as the esteemed Rhyse is concerned (Blessed be his name), you've
created a decent playable mod with lots of flaws, esp. the bloody plague.
What else matters? I'm just a poor player, like thousands out there, who
don't need to wade through your endless bickering about angels dancing
on a bloody pin, no matter how precious you both think you are!!!!

You both have misunderstood my post.

I said that I have an answer for anything regarding the mod, not regarding history

Sorry about that. Not really directed at you. You're entitled to defend your
mod's features and playability. You don't have to justify it's historical
accuracy except in the most general terms. It's only a game, dammit!
I somebody is so obsessed with historical "truth" to the extent that he feels
compelled to alter your mod to suit himself, then why not design his own?
Then he'd be guaranteed an attentive mass audience (of one!)
That being said, can I point out one feature that bugs me?
Whenever a new civilization emerges at it's appointed time, it seems to
just appear like a rabbit out of a hat. Sometimes it coincides with an existing
barbarian city. Fair enough. But people like the Mongols, Aztecs and the
Turks actually came from somewhere else, so why not make them arrive as a
nomadic invasion, which is what they were. The spectacle of the Ottomans
suddenly appearing in Sogut, complete with Napoleonic cannons, in 1200AD,
breaks me up every time. Obviously, when a new people arrive, somebody
already lives there. In the Turks' case it was the Kurds, who were in the
forefront of the fight against the European Crusedes. Ever heard of Saladin?
Who was it in the case of Moses and the "Promised Land" ? So what really
happened to the Caananites anyway?
Joking aside, I like your mod, warts and all. Thanks for your efforts

Now, how would you display or program these arriving nomadic cultures? (see... ;-))

I wanted to do that, and did one an attempt of moving German starting date back to germanic tribes, and assign some more axemen to them, and no settlers.
They didn't behave as expected (signing peace and not attacking cities), and the whole system was messed up because there wasn't a clear starting date anymore

Take your point. Love the concept of lots of Germanic axemen unable to
found a city, just standing around, making peace. Playing cards, singing songs and drinking beer too, I'll bet.
Seriously, though. Think about the Turks coming in from Central Asia, masses
of horse archers and a maybe a couple of settlers. They could invade
eastern Anatolia, sack one city, occupy it and found one or two more. And
definitely no cannons. (Where'd they get cannons before 1350?) If you
say China, that'll be simple bombards, right. Not those tasty-looking
Napoleonic models, which nobody else has got yet.
Just a suggestion anyway. Thanks.

Well, I can't say rhye's mod is based on luck because Riker and I finish some of the most difficult UHVs ever.

What else matters? I'm just a poor player, like thousands out there

Exactly why should we listen to what you have to say ;)

I somebody is so obsessed with historical "truth" to the extent that he feels
compelled to alter your mod to suit himself

Yes well that isn't my point at all so given your lack of ability to comprehend thought why are we listening to you?

then why not design his own?
Then he'd be guaranteed an attentive mass audience (of one!)

Typical hypocrisy of the from the yankee collaborators as you go on to say....

That being said, can I point out one feature that bugs me?

So what you are saying is that all the opinions of anyone whos head isn't in the sand are the ones we should listen to?

How about this I made suggestions to Rhys about both the playability and accuracy of his mod of which very little has actually been answered instead there have been vague ad hominems by those like you because you cannot directly answer my critiques. I stand by my critique the mod is too easy and the maps/historical accuracy could be improved. That said the issue of historical accuracy is less of one than the playability but is the easiest to fix perhaps.

Now to answer your fallacies...
The spectacle of the Ottomans
suddenly appearing in Sogut, complete with Napoleonic cannons, in 1200AD,
breaks me up every time.

Actually this is part of the reason why I tried to employ reason with Rhy because he seems to know enough to be quite accurate and I thought perhaps I could add some knowledge to that to improve on what was there. And nobody has yet claimed this mod is close enough to perfection to be defended as not being worthy of improvement. When the point comes that the returns on change are not greater than the cost of making them then I'll concede but we aren't there yet.

As for cannons in Sogut...actually the Ottomans were one of the first in the region to use cannons in warfare and it was among the reasons for their ascendency. The bone I have to pick with Rhy here is the lack of distinction between "Ottoman" and "Turk" given that they are not the same thing and that one is a modern creation just like the Kurdish example you incidently stepped in.

Ever heard of Saladin?

This just proves that you don't know of what you speak...

Saladin in Civilization is listed as an Arab leader which while inaccurate is moderately acceptable given that the best choices of the Prophet or one of any number of Caliphs could spark religious issues for muslims. But in actuallity Saladin was a turk, but thats turk with a small t and it highlights the problems of describing the Ottomans as Turks.

Now, how would you display or program these arriving nomadic cultures? (see... ;-))

I agree totally impractical and more importantly what would be the point of all these units existing without any impetus to do anything? They're barbarians so why not keep them as barbarians. Any way I like how Rhy handled civ spawning the only issue here was not the "Dates" when this happened because I could really care less and is very open to debate but rather the order in which they go. I think Spain and France being the first successor states to the Roman empire are logical. I would suggest the Vikings get bumped back a bit so they are at least more in the middle and perhaps the "Germans" get go a little later as well. In general however the order in which they spawned seemed to work pretty well.

Think about the Turks coming in from Central Asia, masses
of horse archers and a maybe a couple of settlers. They could invade
eastern Anatolia, sack one city, occupy it and found one or two more. And
definitely no cannons. (Where'd they get cannons before 1350?) If you
say China, that'll be simple bombards, right.

Except this highlights the problems of calling the ottomans turks etc etc. The ottomans were as much a revivial of byzantine/roman power as they were a "foreign" invasion.

I wanted to do that, and did one an attempt of moving German starting date back to germanic tribes, and assign some more axemen to them, and no settlers.
They didn't behave as expected (signing peace and not attacking cities), and the whole system was messed up because there wasn't a clear starting date anymore

Well one thing I would suggest is perhaps creating their start point to correspond with the beginning of the Holy Roman Empire under Otto I. This is more accurate, represents a proto-state that scholars say could have become a state, and still places Germany about at the same time for a start they are at now.

IMO the start order in Western Europe for 600AD should roughly be Spain,France....England, Vikings, Germany. Again I don't think the dates are as important as the order and I left the elipses to indicate where I think there is some room for artistic license and where I think some time gap should exist. Obviously since France starts around 660?? and England/Vikings should begin around 800 there isn't a huge gap.

I'll ignore your petty insults as they're not worthy of someone who I regard as an intelligent poster, I actually agree with many of your comments but side with Rhye on other points. Any suggestions I've made are just that. As far as "easy" goes, that's relative to the individual. I do stand on my comments about the Turks though, while agreeing with you that the Ottomans, Seljuks and others comprised what we now regard as Turks. The Kurds were there first, however, by thousands of years. And Saladin was a Kurd, grandson of Nur e Din (forgive my spelling), the "Old Man of the Mountains". Finally your obscure reference to "Yankee collaborators" makes
no sense to me as neither of us are Americans, are we? End of post, don't
need the hassle, anyway.

yeah european starting dates are debateable but they must all be kept close (if you postpose Germany so much, France will settle there first)

yeah european starting dates are debateable but they must all be kept close (if you postpose Germany so much, France will settle there first)

I've never found that to be a problem at all. Cities built by France in German territory "flip" to the Germans anyway, and if I recall there is right now about a 6-8 turn gap and I would propose extending that only a few more turns.

I do stand on my comments about the Turks though, while agreeing with you that the Ottomans, Seljuks and others comprised what we now regard as Turks.

No this is not my point at all... the problem is that these identities are imagined as much as anything, and nationalist discourses always seem legitimacy in history and the ancient. However, the actual definition of Ottomans as Turks is inaccurate since being Turkish was not essential to being Ottoman and the Seljuks while "turkish" were not uniformly Turkish and were not Turkish in the same sense of the term that peoples in Central Asia were and thats the point. Therefore the same problem exists for Kurds etc. Yes there are people in Kurdistan whom claim ancient rights but the problem in this lies in deciding what makes one a Kurd, or more Kurdish than Turkish, more Kurdish than indigenous because in this case all these overlap ontop of one another. The Kurds in modern times who claim ancient ancestory in Anatolia can do so not withstanding their Kurdish identity, the "Kurds" who did migrate into the region did not have to be their for the same amount of time, and those people whom today or in the near past who are frequently called "Kurds" can also be called turks as is the case with Saladin.

For example as a Briton you don't identify yourself as only a Saxon do you? In fact Anglo identity features the same things as above since you can be "English" and identify with a group of Germanic invaders who settled there in the centuries following the death of Christ but you also refer to yourself as a Briton implying an ancient ancestral connection to a celtic past. At the same time the Plantagenates ruled England but weren't necessarily "English" in that they were as connected to France as England.

OK. truce! (10 turns at least). Point about relativity of cultural identity well taken. So, as someone born in Canada with an English mother, who has chosen to live in Europe for over 30 years, what does that me? Anything I like, I guess.

I've never found that to be a problem at all. Cities built by France in German territory "flip" to the Germans anyway, and if I recall there is right now about a 6-8 turn gap and I would propose extending that only a few more turns.

would be a big stability hit