This thread is for discussing Civs in Rhye's of Europe. For the moment, we're still hammering out a Civ list. I will try to update this page 1/page of discussion to keep it current. Once this list is semi-finalized discussion about UUs, UBs, and UHVs can commence.

Current Civ List:
Western Europe (4)
Kingdom of Neustria (500 AD) -> West Francia (840 AD) -> France (990 AD)
England (500 AD) -> Great Britain (1700 AD or by cities held?)
Netherlands (1050 AD)
Burgundy (500 AD)

Iberian Peninsula (3)
Kingdom of Asturias (720 AD) -> Leon (920 AD) -> Crown of Castile (1230 AD)
-> Empire of Spain (1520 AD)
Portugal (1100 AD)
Al-Andalus (700 AD)

North & Central Europe (5)
Norse: Danes (500 AD) -> Calmar (?) -> Sweden (?)
Kingdom of Austrasia (500 AD) -> East Francia (840 AD) -> Kingdom of Germany
(920 AD) -> Germanic States (1260 AD)
Lechia (970 AD) -> Poland (???) -> Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1570 AD)
Austria/House of Habsburg (1160 AD or 1280 AD)
Old Swiss Confederacy (1290 AD) -> Switzerland (1650 AD?)

Eastern Europe (6)
Eastern Roman Empire (500 AD)
Kievan Rus (860 AD) -> Principality of Chernigov (1080 AD) -> Zaporozhian
Host? (1650 AD) -> Russian Empire (By Cities Held)
Vladimir-Suzdal (1090 AD) -> Grand Duchy of Moscow (1320 AD) -> Tsardom of
Russia (1547 AD) -> Russian Empire (By cities held)
Magyars (900 AD) -> Kingdom of Hungary (1000 AD)
Ottoman Empire (1300 AD)
Umayyad Caliphate (660 AD) -> Abbasid Caliphate (750 AD) -> Fatimid
Caliphate (970 AD) -> Ayyubid Dynasty (1170 AD) -> Mamluk Sultanate (
1250 AD)

Italy (3)
Papal States (500 AD)
Republic of Venetia (800 AD)
Republic of Genoa (1000 AD)

Additional Candidates:
Kingdom of Sicily (1000 AD)

Total: 21 + (1) independents, room for 1 more

Cities Belonging to Independents: not complete
*Novgorod
*Dublin
*Belfast
*Edinburough
*Gdansk
*Firenze/Florence (Italy)
*Milan (Italy)
*Burdigala -> Bordeaux (Occitania)
*Tolosa (Occitania)
*Massilia/Marseilles
*Narbo -> Narbonne or Barcino -> Barcelona
*Smolensk (Russia)
*Halicz/Halych (Galicia)
*Konigsberg or Memel? Reval?

Input most definitely appreciated.

Other serious proposals on table:
* Normans (replace Kingdom of Sicily, start with armies in Normandy and S. Italy)?
* Something where Prussia is? (Teutonic Order -> Prussia?)
* Split Norse into Sweden and Denmark?

Note: HRE is not a civ (and we have civs for Germany and Austria) but a title which can be earned in game, possibly awarded by the AP.

There are numerous notes in the RoE Development Thread on page 4 regarding countries included in the list.

Thoughts or comments appreciated. Also mention if you *like* something or the list as a whole. Keep in mind that our estimate on the number of civs we can have is ~23, including Independent. (If you have suggestions for civ name transitions, please make them. I don't pretend to know your country's history better than you do).

Something else to keep in mind is dynamic names and name transition dates are less important right now than the content of the list as a whole. Ie, if you want to read Austrasia -> East Francia -> German Kingdom... as "Germany", that's fine for now. (It just seems pointless to lose all that data and list it without it).

Reserved for Future Use

Reserved for future use

some things:
1) is this list "official" ?
2) "the HRE is only a title" is your own opinion, I have been providing you historical maps (and not only) proving otherwise but you refuse to accept it. You only seem to consider HRE in the 17th century or around this date but the Empire has a much longer history.
3) the start date is also not finalized but until now a post-Charlemagne start seemed the most plausible (and IMO better suited), yet for you it seems to be officially 500 AD, which is a quite messy start IMO with still barbarian kingdoms raising and falling everywhere... for example where are the Longobards ?
4) what do arrows represent ? Are these civs changing names and if yes on what basis ?

some things:
1) is this list "official" ?
2) "the HRE is only a title" is your own opinion, I have been providing you historical maps (and not only) proving otherwise but you refuse to accept it. You only seem to consider HRE in the 17th century or around this date but the Empire has a much longer history.
3) the start date is also not finalized but until now a post-Charlemagne start seemed the most plausible (and IMO better suited), yet for you it seems to be officially 500 AD, which is a quite messy start IMO with still barbarian kingdoms raising and falling everywhere... for example where are the Longobards ?
4) what do arrows represent ? Are these civs changing names and if yes on what basis ?

1) How can any list be official? No one has seen Vince-G in that thread in ages, who was perhaps the only arbiter of official. This list is the most recent, has been modified in response to feedback from other interested participants, and is the result of the fusion of my initial list with the only other complete civ list provided. As such, its the closest thing to a consensus list we have.

2) Actually, I'm considering the early history of the "HRE" as a reason to exclude it from being a civ. But more relevantly, it really was a title awarded by the Pope, and the holder always had another temporal title, which means its not a title associated with *land* or a *people*.

Why do you feel the need to have an HRE civ when we have a "German" civ and an Austrian civ? What advantages would there be? Wouldn't it be far more interesting to have a historical simulation where West Francia managed to hold the title of HRE instead of getting passed to the Ottonians of the German Kingdom? Also consider that in its early years the "Holy Roman Empire" was West Francia, or various dukedoms in N. Italy. And in later years it was actually in Spain! An English King was considered for HRE-elect by the German electors at one point, and Louis XIV almost let Alsaace maintain its "German" status so he could be a candidate for the HRE-elect title. Finally, there were Kings of Germany who weren't HREmperor concurrent with HREs who weren't King of Germany. Trying to make a civ out of that is like trying to grab air.

Finally, there was specifically a discussion on the nomenclature of the 'German' civ, and expressed consensus at the time was against HRE.

3) Based on what? Since about the 3rd page of the original thread just about everyone seems to have been onboard with a 500AD start. All that "mess" can be Independent cities or Barbarians, and there are something like 7 starting civs, with more than half the civs starting before 870. Since RFC starts with *4*, that seems to be perfectly reasonable. It also makes far more sense to start at or before the rising of most of the civs (Eastern Roman Empire being obviously impossible to do so with), not after they've already become established.

If nothing else, giving earlier start dates just means they'll start at the beginning of the mod if we choose a later start date. No harm done. Choosing an earlier start date is problematic if we don't have dates for civ starts. (I consider a pre-500 start unrealistic).

4) Arrows represent dynamic names based (at least loosely, and sometimes rather precisely) upon historical name changes (rounded to the nearest 10 generally).

Squirreloid,

When I proposed the inclusion of Kiev, I did it with three objectives in mind: providing a legitimate southern counter to Russian expansion and influence; historically representing a principality/city/area which remained historically important, despite frequently changing hands, for most of the scope of the mod; and enabling us to work the Mongol influence on Europe (in particular, Russia, Poland, and the Turks) into gameplay without having them as a horde of rampaging barbarian units or as an out-of-place civ transported to a remote corner of the map.

I think that all three of these objectives are important, possibly in the opposite order that I listed them - and the dynamic civs function allows us to implement a shift from a powerful Rus trading center to the westernmost khanate of the Pax Mongolica. Having UHVs that reflect this shift would make for interesting gameplay - the first goal would perhaps involve securing fur and grain resources; the second might involve controlling certain historical areas or razing cities in Russia and Lithuania; the third might be to create a Russian empire centered on Kiev rather than Moscow - which might very well have happened if not for the arrival of the Mongols, as Kiev was stronger and larger than Novgorod or Moscow at the time.


In other thoughts, I'd rather have the Teutonic order as a corporation replacement, as we discussed earlier, than as a civ. I'm in favor of having Gdansk/Danzig as an independent with high desirability for both Poland and proto-Germany, but I'm against including Prussia - there's enough going on there that I don't think we should use a precious civ slot on another Germanic principality.

More later.

Squirreloid,

When I proposed the inclusion of Kiev, I did it with three objectives in mind: providing a legitimate southern counter to Russian expansion and influence; historically representing a principality/city/area which remained historically important, despite frequently changing hands, for most of the scope of the mod; and enabling us to work the Mongol influence on Europe (in particular, Russia, Poland, and the Turks) into gameplay without having them as a horde of rampaging barbarian units or as an out-of-place civ transported to a remote corner of the map.

I think that all three of these objectives are important, possibly in the opposite order that I listed them - and the dynamic civs function allows us to implement a shift from a powerful Rus trading center to the westernmost khanate of the Pax Mongolica. Having UHVs that reflect this shift would make for interesting gameplay - the first goal would perhaps involve securing fur and grain resources; the second might involve controlling certain historical areas or razing cities in Russia and Lithuania; the third might be to create a Russian empire centered on Kiev rather than Moscow - which might very well have happened if not for the arrival of the Mongols, as Kiev was stronger and larger than Novgorod or Moscow at the time.

I agree completely. And that sounds like an interesting basis for an UHV certainly. I suppose exactly what we do with Kiev will depend on what story we want to tell with them.

In a way, Kiev has the same problem as England. (Hugely important historical conquest by an outside group who became the rulers). Its really hard to represent this in CivIV, even RFC. And Kiev arguably has it worse insofar as the Mongols are arguably more different from the Kievan Rus than the Normans were from the Anglo-Saxons. And of course, being at the far eastern edge of the map, the Mongol conquest is really more tied into events outside of Europe than into Europe itself.


In other thoughts, I'd rather have the Teutonic order as a corporation replacement, as we discussed earlier, than as a civ. I'm in favor of having Gdansk/Danzig as an independent with high desirability for both Poland and proto-Germany, but I'm against including Prussia - there's enough going on there that I don't think we should use a precious civ slot on another Germanic principality.

More later.

I was thinking both (corp = knightly order and civ) might be possible, though that would require some thinking about. As it stands, I'd rather add civs elsewhere too, but if people really want more civs in the area of Germany, its the logical candidate.

About Italy: I think it's better to avoid Venice (make it independent but strong) and put Kingdom of Sardinia. It was the heart of the unification of Italy, after all. Obviously, if we can have both it would be perfect.
Genova may be a good choice too

In a way, Kiev has the same problem as England. (Hugely important historical conquest by an outside group who became the rulers). Its really hard to represent this in CivIV, even RFC. And Kiev arguably has it worse insofar as the Mongols are arguably more different from the Kievan Rus than the Normans were from the Anglo-Saxons. And of course, being at the far eastern edge of the map, the Mongol conquest is really more tied into events outside of Europe than into Europe itself.

Good comparison - the Mongols definitely weren't absorbed into Russia in quite the same way that the Normans were into England. However, there were long-lasting Mongol/Turkic influences in the Ukraine/Crimean area even after reabsorption into Russia; the Cossacks (fr. Kazakhs) fought much like Keshiks with firearms (and inspired the same sort of fear in their opponents). One way that I had thought of representing the conquest, given the utter destruction that the Mongols left behind them, was having an event that reduces all cities to size 1 and destroys 80% of infrastructure - but also provides the Kievan civ with a substantial force of Keshiks or Keshik-type units to go after Novgorod, Moscow, Lithuania, Poland, and Hungary - essentially what the Mongols did. This would represent a shift from a more peaceful/economic society into a purely militarized one - and if we put city-razing into the UHV, we end up re-creating the historical power vacuum in Eastern Europe in the late Middle Ages and preventing the Kiev-centered civ (now the Khanate of Kiev, or Zaporhozian Host, or whatever) from growing geographically huge, as it won't have the infrastructure to avoid collapse. A real challenge to play, and possibly to code - but sounds reasonable, right?

I was thinking both (corp = knightly order and civ) might be possible, though that would require some thinking about. As it stands, I'd rather add civs elsewhere too, but if people really want more civs in the area of Germany, its the logical candidate.

The reason I've leaned towards knightly order rather than civ has to do with the origins of the Teutonic Order - they were a crusading order that was invited to Germany to Christianize Lithuania and the Baltic regions, and they ended up being the dominant power in the neighborhood for a few hundred years. If we're going to have Poland/Lithuania and Austrasia, I think that they end up squeezed for land - and there's a great way to incorporate them historically by making a German UHV 'spread Teutonic Order to 3 Baltic cities (Gdansk, Konigsberg, Vilnius/Wilno, Strahlsund, Riga, etc) by ____'. 'Keep the Teutonic Order out of your cities' would also make a decent goal for Poland/Lithuania.

But as you said, arguments can be made for both.

Sounds like Europa Universalis III (fun game :goodjob: ) would be a good model to base your names on (including the HRE title)...

About Italy: I think it's better to avoid Venice (make it independent but strong) and put Kingdom of Sardinia. It was the heart of the unification of Italy, after all. Obviously, if we can have both it would be perfect.
Genova may be a good choice too

The current theory I (and others) are operating under is the mod will end by or before 1800. At which point Italy doesn't become unified within the timespan of the mod.

Really, if the mod went to 1900, there would be a couple of other civs (Prussia for example) that would have to be included, but would spawn *really late* and have little time to play. I think Sardinia falls into the same category.

Venetia is far more important as an independent entity than Sardinia in the grand scheme of things, especially over the timespan being considered. AFAIK, Genoa controlled the island of Sardinia for much of this time period.

The current theory I (and others) are operating under is the mod will end by or before 1800. At which point Italy doesn't become unified within the timespan of the mod.

Really, if the mod went to 1900, there would be a couple of other civs (Prussia for example) that would have to be included, but would spawn *really late* and have little time to play. I think Sardinia falls into the same category.

Venetia is far more important as an independent entity than Sardinia in the grand scheme of things, especially over the timespan being considered. AFAIK, Genoa controlled the island of Sardinia for much of this time period.

Yeah, Sardinia was Genoan for much of the era of the mod, and we may want to represent that (and possibly other territorial goals?) as one of their UHVs. As Venice and Genoa frequently competed for island territory in the Mediterranean, it might be good to give them a competing UHV for control of Crete, Cyprus, Rhodes, and Sardinia for Genoa/Dalmatia for Venice.

I think that the Kingdom of Nuestria should be the Kingdom of Austrasia, as that was Charlemagnes kingdom, and his kingdom was the 'modern' French. Also, the Eastern Roman Empire should become the Byzantine Empire around 570 AD because Justinian is refered to as 'The Last Roman Emperor' by some sources.
Lastly, how are you going to be showing revolts and uprisings? Your own units shouldnt randomly go to the other side, that is the least fun of aspect of RFC, the deserter effect.

I think that the Kingdom of Nuestria should be the Kingdom of Austrasia, as that was Charlemagnes kingdom, and his kingdom was the 'modern' French.

Clovis's kingdom (First Merovingian King) comprised Neustria (N. France, centered on Paris), Austrasia (Eastern France and Western Germany, including the low countries, centered on the Rhine), Aquitaine (Southern France), and eventually Burgundy (SEastern France). Charlemagne's kingdom would include all this (in Carolignian hands because of Charles Martel) + N. Italy and additional parts of Germany (such as Saxony after much warfare). Where did you hear Austrasia was Charlemagne's kingdom - it was a small part of it, and he was never "King of Austrasia" - he was King of All Franks.

Further, Charlemagne's kingdom is the precursor to both France and Germany, and spun off a number of Italian city-states. To call it France is inappropriate. France was somewhere between 1/2 and 1/3 Charlemagne's kingdom, and most of it wouldn't be France until near the modern period. Ie, Occitania (incl Aquitaine) wasn't a french possession for quite awhile, and Burgundy was a separate powerful Dukedom with no allegiance to France until the 16th or 17th century. The immediate precursor to France is West Francia, which is ~1/3 of Charlemagne's kingdom.


Also, the Eastern Roman Empire should become the Byzantine Empire around 570 AD because Justinian is refered to as 'The Last Roman Emperor' by some sources.

Byzantine is a term used by western Europeans to describe the Eastern Roman Empire, as is "Greek". They continued to refer to themselves as Romans throughout their history.


Lastly, how are you going to be showing revolts and uprisings? Your own units shouldnt randomly go to the other side, that is the least fun of aspect of RFC, the deserter effect.

That is part of RFC and will not be changed. New civs need a chance to get started. It may be less of a problem than in normal RFC because there will be fewer civs wanting to occupy the exact same territory, and possibly fewer chances to claim someone else's territory before they spawn. Regardless, where it happens is predictable in RFC, and will be in this - don't take territory you know will flip!

Other independent cities:

From start:
Firenze/Florence (Italy)
Milan (Italy)
Burdigala -> Bordeaux (Occitania)
Massilia/Marseilles
Narbo -> Narbonne or Barcino -> Barcelona
Caralis (Sardinia): minor. worth having?
Rhodes? Or should that be part of the ERE/Byzantine empire?

Appearance around 1000 AD:
Smolensk (Russia) ~
Halicz/Halych (Galicia)
Konigsberg or Memel? Reval?

Note: there really aren't that many candidates for independent cities in Eastern Europe during this era, unless we want to force Russia to conquer all of its cities rather than founding them - there were many small (one-city) principalities, such as Tver, Yarolslavl, Rostov, Pskov, etc, but this would force Russian expansion to be military rather than settlement-based.

Cities Belonging to Independents: not complete
*Novgorod
*Dublin
*Belfast
*Edinburough
*Gdansk

Input most definitely appreciated. I know I'm missing Occitania (which will need at least one), Wales, and huge tracts of Eastern Europe. Not to mention Italy (which? Milan and Pava (spelling?) come to mind).


I am surprised and pleased to see you mention Occitania. I would suggest Toulouse (Tolosa in Occitan) for Occitania, maybe push it a bit SE if the Spanish get too close...

Is there a way to tone down the spread of culture? I'm too tired to explain why right now... But I thought it was an interesting idea...

Oh, about Tolosa... Both it and Barcelona would be an interesting choice for indies... as vestiges of the Visigoths that thrived in SW France and E Spain. Charlemagne treated that area as a unit when he divided the empire.

Anyway, I'm gonna stop rumbling and go to bed...

Bravo everyone on the work you're doing on a Europe mod/scenario, the only (perhaps unsolicited) advice that I would give: is it really necessary for so many name changes? Sure, it's historically accurate if you happen to believe that there is a direct lineage through these different states (example: Neustria to West Francia), but it's going to be pretty confusing and frankly off-putting to players who are interested in your game. And is it really necessary for name changes to occur so often and in quick succession (example: Magyars in 900, then the Kingdom of Hungary only 100 years later)? I know you've all put A LOT of thought into all this, and Lord knows that I'll play it either way, but I just think you might be limiting the amount of people who are going to download and enjoy your work. Just my two cents, I hope that I haven't caused any offense.

1) How can any list be official? No one has seen Vince-G in that thread in ages, who was perhaps the only arbiter of official. This list is the most recent, has been modified in response to feedback from other interested participants, and is the result of the fusion of my initial list with the only other complete civ list provided. As such, its the closest thing to a consensus list we have.

Vince is missing from about a week I think. If now I open a new thread with my own list as you did, that will be the most recent. Do you think it makes sense, because it doesn't to me.


3) Based on what? Since about the 3rd page of the original thread just about everyone seems to have been onboard with a 500AD start. All that "mess" can be Independent cities or Barbarians, and there are something like 7 starting civs, with more than half the civs starting before 870. Since RFC starts with *4*, that seems to be perfectly reasonable. It also makes far more sense to start at or before the rising of most of the civs (Eastern Roman Empire being obviously impossible to do so with), not after they've already become established.

I think it was only 3 people to agree and even with some reserves. It's much better to start after the death of Charlemagne, when the Barbarian Kingdoms become more stable. In the other case considering Longobards independent but Danes a civ is pure arbitrary discrimination. Choices should follow a scheme and make sense, the reason why I think starting atleast after Charlemagne is better is because the Frankish civ is notably missing and split into provinces of this very civ, which should start with vast possessions, not to mention the Arabs; a post Charlemagne start would be more balanced. Lastly, 500-900 is what is commonly referred to as the Dark Ages, meaning we know very little about this period.


4) Arrows represent dynamic names based (at least loosely, and sometimes rather precisely) upon historical name changes (rounded to the nearest 10 generally).

Ok but on what basis will the name change. I mean why would Neustria become France if for example it expands east into Germany but looses land (in France) in favor of the spanish or english ?

Vince is missing from about a week I think. If now I open a new thread with my own list as you did, that will be the most recent. Do you think it makes sense, because it doesn't to me.

This list has received substantial feedback and has been altered to accomodate a number of viewpoints, which lends it some legitimacy. If you have *constructive* suggestions to make, please do so. Arguing that the civ list should be set in stone based on the first proposed civ list in the other thread is not a productive way to move the project forward, rather that's a good way for the project to die because we won't be able to do *anything*.

This thread was created because multiple issues were getting jumbled in the previous thread and it was losing focus. Similarly, the new map thread is an attempt to separate out map discussion. The existence of that thread doesn't guarantee that will be *the* map, only that its the current contender. Likewise, this is not *the* civ list, but is the best rough draft currently available.

Edit: Vince-G's last post in the main thread was on Oct 30th, about 1.5 weeks ago, and 5 pages ago.


I think it was only 3 people to agree and even with some reserves. It's much better to start after the death of Charlemagne, when the Barbarian Kingdoms become more stable. In the other case considering Longobards independent but Danes a civ is pure arbitrary discrimination. Choices should follow a scheme and make sense, the reason why I think starting atleast after Charlemagne is better is because the Frankish civ is notably missing and split into provinces of this very civ, which should start with vast possessions, not to mention the Arabs; a post Charlemagne start would be more balanced. Lastly, 500-900 is what is commonly referred to as the Dark Ages, meaning we know very little about this period.

Those are also the people who are actually making productive comments and doing anything to move the project forward. And the one objection was conceeded quickly. They were also the only people to respond in a timely manner. (In particular, Mitsho originally was envisioning a 750 AD start, but conceeded the point. All those commenting at the time approved of the list. As the list went without substantive comment for a week after that, it seemed reasonable to assume it was a good starting point and move on).

If you would like to make a case for the Lombards as a civ, please do so. I myself strongly favor a pan-Norse civ, but arguments can (and have) been made for multiple Norse civs, and should not be dismissed out of hand, especially as some of those have been made from a balance standpoint.

A unified Frankish civ is like saying France/Germany/Netherlands should all be one civ. In terms of its people and the continuity of ruling title, there is a strong case for Neustria -> West Francia -> France. (I'll note that the Kings of France continued to call themselves Rex Francorum, literally King of the Franks, until the 14th century). Similarly, Austrasia -> East Francia can be supported, and East Francia -> Germany can be strongly supported. I've already proposed an idea of how Charlemagne can be handled with a timed event that effects politics in the area which was his empire (see main thread).

I'm curious how you think a post-charlemagne start would be any differently balanced than this? Instead of Neustria and Austrasia we have West and East Francia in virtually identical geographic positions. We still have Burgundy (possibly titled Middle Francia). The only differences I can see are (1) the "arab" civ is now starting, as are the Venetians, the Spanish (as Kingdom of Asturias), and the al-andalusians. This doesn't change the balance of power in Western Europe at all, and doesn't really change the balance of power for anyone else as they'd spawn with appropriate forces in a 500AD start. We've also skipped some of the defining events for the middle ages, like the Battle of Poitiers.

Finally, they're called the Dark Ages because the 'light' of greek and roman philosophy and education was lost from western europe, not because we're lacking knowledge of them. We actually have reasonably good information starting in at least the 6th century, especially in terms of politics and military conflict. Certainly no worse than the early centuries of the middle ages. We may know less about the role of personalities in those decisions, but that's totally irrelevant to a civ style game.


Ok but on what basis will the name change. I mean why would Neustria become France if for example it expands east into Germany but looses land (in France) in favor of the spanish or english ?

What does the name have to do with that? If we call them France from the beginning they could still expand into Germany and lose lands to the Spanish or English. Nothing about the name of the civ dictates that they will unfailingly control something within the boundaries of modern france. We can motivate players to do so by structuring an appropriate UHV, and motivate the AI to do so by giving it a strong preference and cultural advantage within French territory, just like the RFC AI's behavior is controlled. Dynamic civ names is an attempt to assign historically appropriate names to civilizations, not to ensure that they necessarily settle their historical territory without fail. I mean, in RFC if you wanted to be really silly you could have Carthage found its capital at Rome - nothing is stopping you. And you'd still be Carthage and not Rome.

I have updated the civ list, notably adding suggestions for independent cities to it.

I have also moved Kiev and Genoa to full civs, in an attempt to try to reach a fully-enumerated (22+independents) version of the civ list. Most importantly, there is still room for 1 civ if anyone has any suggestions. Kingdom of Sicily is currently the best of those seriously proposed (Alternately, the Normans).

Let me emphasize that civs included is the far more important topic of discussion than name transition dates, the names themselves, and starting dates.

For an early Eastern European civ, why not Great Moravia? Or would it be gone too quickly?

If bulgaria or hungary isnt added, either should be added. There could also be the dynamic name change between. And I know that they are two separate and different civs, but they could probably be the same.

Based on the states and cities already slated to be included, I think the only glaring absence would be Prussia.

This list has received substantial feedback and has been altered to accomodate a number of viewpoints, which lends it some legitimacy. If you have *constructive* suggestions to make, please do so. Arguing that the civ list should be set in stone based on the first proposed civ list in the other thread is not a productive way to move the project forward, rather that's a good way for the project to die because we won't be able to do *anything*.

It has been commented by less than 5 people and I made valid and constructive arguments about a post Charlemagne start.

This thread was created because multiple issues were getting jumbled in the previous thread and it was losing focus. Similarly, the new map thread is an attempt to separate out map discussion. The existence of that thread doesn't guarantee that will be *the* map, only that its the current contender. Likewise, this is not *the* civ list, but is the best rough draft currently available.

Unlike YOUR proposed civ list, none argued about St Lucifer's proposed map, though.

Those are also the people who are actually making productive comments and doing anything to move the project forward. And the one objection was conceeded quickly. They were also the only people to respond in a timely manner. (In particular, Mitsho originally was envisioning a 750 AD start, but conceeded the point. All those commenting at the time approved of the list. As the list went without substantive comment for a week after that, it seemed reasonable to assume it was a good starting point and move on).

So if I say I don't agree with your proposal I am not beeing constructive and slowing the project, all right. I started commenting on the civ list later because I was waiting to see the reaction of Vince, a behavior that stands much more correct than just deciding stuff without the project starter, in my eyes, you have absolutely no right to blame me for this reason.

If you would like to make a case for the Lombards as a civ, please do so. I myself strongly favor a pan-Norse civ, but arguments can (and have) been made for multiple Norse civs, and should not be dismissed out of hand, especially as some of those have been made from a balance standpoint.

No, I don't want to make a case for the Longobards, I want to make a case for 843 AD. Longobards are very important in italian history btw, and italian history is important in european history, apparently more than the danish one, with all due respect of course.

A unified Frankish civ is like saying France/Germany/Netherlands should all be one civ.

But the Frankish civ was one civ, so it would be more correct historically. That's the main reason why the mod should start after Charlemagne

I'm curious how you think a post-charlemagne start would be any differently balanced than this? Instead of Neustria and Austrasia we have West and East Francia in virtually identical geographic positions. We still have Burgundy (possibly titled Middle Francia). The only differences I can see are (1) the "arab" civ is now starting, as are the Venetians, the Spanish (as Kingdom of Asturias), and the al-andalusians.

This is ONLY ? How will you deal with Italy for example, which was almost entirely in the hands of Longobards and Byzantines ?

This doesn't change the balance of power in Western Europe at all

Man, you are so stubborn in your points that you can't even read what I write. I was saying that a post Charlemagne start is more balanced than having the Frankish civ and the Arabs launching incursions in Occitania, both things though should be due in your proposed start if you want this mod to be historical.

Finally, they're called the Dark Ages because the 'light' of greek and roman philosophy and education was lost from western europe, not because we're lacking knowledge of them.

Who told you ? Do you see light in Europe in the following centuries ? This is a period of subsequent barbarian invasions throughout all Europe, kingdoms rise and fall and we know very little about them, since these people didn't appreciate written history as much as the Romans.

Dynamic civ names is an attempt to assign historically appropriate names to civilizations, not to ensure that they necessarily settle their historical territory without fail. I mean, in RFC if you wanted to be really silly you could have Carthage found its capital at Rome - nothing is stopping you. And you'd still be Carthage and not Rome.

You wouldn't have time :P
These countries changed names for historical reasons that may not recreate in the game, that's what I meant. Plus, having France called West Francia (half latin half english name btw) and Germany East Francia is confusing for the average player which is not so knowledgeable as you.

It has been commented by less than 5 people and I made valid and constructive arguments about a post Charlemagne start.

For the sake of delaying the inevitable, I am far more interested in the civ list than the start time at the moment. I don't think a 500 or 840 AD start will actually change the civ list at all.


So if I say I don't agree with your proposal I am not beeing constructive and slowing the project, all right. I started commenting on the civ list later because I was waiting to see the reaction of Vince, a behavior that stands much more correct than just deciding stuff without the project starter, in my eyes, you have absolutely no right to blame me for this reason.

All I'm saying is denying the legitimacy of continuing discussion is not being constructive.


No, I don't want to make a case for the Longobards, I want to make a case for 843 AD. Longobards are very important in italian history btw, and italian history is important in european history, apparently more than the danish one, with all due respect of course.

But the Frankish civ was one civ, so it would be more correct historically. That's the main reason why the mod should start after Charlemagne

Except within the Frankish civ are proto-french and proto-german civs. Neustria and Austrasia were politically separate more often than united. And Burgundy was even more frequently a distinct political entity in this time period.

Now, it would be a perfectly reasonable position that they could all start as "Franks", and have civs spawn from within them. The Franks would morph into another civ (presumably french, although Burgundy could also make sense). Examing that against a more standard multi-civ option would be an interesting discussion.


This is ONLY ? How will you deal with Italy for example, which was almost entirely in the hands of Longobards and Byzantines ?

Cities under 'Byzantine' control will start under Eastern Roman control. Others will be Independents. Possibly some cities will revolt from Eastern Roman control to Independent at pre-defined times.


Man, you are so stubborn in your points that you can't even read what I write. I was saying that a post Charlemagne start is more balanced than having the Frankish civ and the Arabs launching incursions in Occitania, both things though should be due in your proposed start if you want this mod to be historical.

I think we can start with multiple "Frankish" civs, as that will better capture the political dynamics of the period. Those civs will eventually become france and germany (and Burgundy - but it also starts called that), but they were infrequently unified even when nominally the same cultural group. (And I say nominally because you do have the split between Salian and Ripurian Franks, mostly mirrored in the Neustria-Austrasia split.)

And I want to see the "arabs" (Actually Al-Andalusians) launch an incursion into Occitania. Why do you think I keep mentioning the Battle of Poitiers? If you saw my trial suggestion for a "french" UHV, I wanted them to take Barcelona from the Al-Andalusians. Arab-Frankish conflict would be interesting.


Who told you ? Do you see light in Europe in the following centuries ? This is a period of subsequent barbarian invasions throughout all Europe, kingdoms rise and fall and we know very little about them, since these people didn't appreciate written history as much as the Romans.

The term was coined by Petrarch in the 1330s as an indictment of the post-Roman period for a cultural failure. It was used metaphorically, and made the Classical period an era of light because of its wealth of cultural achievements, and the one that followed (which he believed he was still living in) an era of darkness due to cultural pauperism.


You wouldn't have time :P

Ok, now I just *have* to try. You could certainly do it as Greece (but why would you want to?) My point is that non-historical boundaries happen - we can only attempt to discourage them. (Whoever heard of India attacking China with War Elephants?)


These countries changed names for historical reasons that may not recreate in the game, that's what I meant. Plus, having France called West Francia (half latin half english name btw) and Germany East Francia is confusing for the average player which is not so knowledgeable as you.

With the possible exception of Ukraine, I don't think any of them have name changes we would really be able to simulate the reasons for in CivIV. I suppose some (like Crown of Castile) we could do by cities held if such a thing is possible.

I wouldn't object to entirely Latin names. That's actually what they're called in English though, even if the second half is verbatim latin. (Heck, I wouldn't object to all countries being named in their own language and alphabet, but I would imagine that would confuse the heck out of a lot of people - myself included if i ended up playing, say, Russia).

Regardless, treat the name transitions and dates as merely data for now.

Priority 1: civs included
Priority 2: start time
Priority 3: Name transitions
...
Priority N: UHVs/UUs/UBs (need to discuss novel game features first)

So I guess my primary question to you is: Are you happy with the civs included (Don't think of them as Neustria or Austrasia, for example, think of them as France and Germany. The early incarnation is tied in with start time). Is there any civ you think deserves to be included and is not? Is there any civ (in the broad scope) included who you think doesn't deserve to be?

Based on the states and cities already slated to be included, I think the only glaring absence would be Prussia.

Prussia would be a mere blip at the end of the scenario. Not enough play time to make them worthwhile.

The term was coined by Petrarch in the 1330s as an indictment of the post-Roman period for a cultural failure. It was used metaphorically, and made the Classical period an era of light because of its wealth of cultural achievements, and the one that followed (which he believed he was still living in) an era of darkness due to cultural pauperism.

I believe your source is the English Wikipedia, from which you can take this:
"When the term Dark Ages is used by historians today, it is intended to be neutral, namely to express the idea that the events of the period often seem "dark" to us only because of the paucity of historical records compared with later times".

The point on name change is why do it ? If it has no meaning in the game it's pointless, it's meaningful in a History book, but we're not replaying history, we're playing a game, so if there is a well implemented mechanism for name change such as "event > name change", it makes sense, but changing name only becaues in that date in the real History this happened... looks a bit pointless first, and confusing to the average player who sees the name of civs changed and doesn't know why.

I believe your source is the English Wikipedia, from which you can take this:
"When the term Dark Ages is used by historians today, it is intended to be neutral, namely to express the idea that the events of the period often seem "dark" to us only because of the paucity of historical records compared with later times".

The point on name change is why do it ? If it has no meaning in the game it's pointless, it's meaningful in a History book, but we're not replaying history, we're playing a game, so if there is a well implemented mechanism for name change such as "event > name change", it makes sense, but changing name only becaues in that date in the real History this happened... looks a bit pointless first, and confusing to the average player who sees the name of civs changed and doesn't know why.

I only actually needed Wikipedia for the year. And besides, as the article goes on to say, we actually know quite a lot about that time period now.

The point is to be an historical simulator. And some of them may very well be tied to events (for example, if we do use a series of Charlemagne events to mimic the unification of europe under Charlemagne, then the change to West Francia would come about by the "Death of Louis the Pious" event, or something similar). We've barely discussed gameplay features, it seems ridiculous to object to extra data being listed solely because it isn't clear yet how or why that data should come into effect.

On a more general note, and to keep the project from horribly stalling, I propose we run with the civ list as is. Which brings us to the debate on what timespan.

I still stand by 500-1750, and no later than 1800. My reasoning has already been explained elsewhere, and as a quick glance at the proposed start dates reveals its perfectly plausible to start in 500 from a number of civs standpoint.

Call it the Migration Era. Technicly the term 'Dark Age' is obsolete. One thing I would do is look at the civs chosen for the European Middle Ages Mod scenerio. I have played the mod many times and it has good civ choices. I would have it start a 800 Christmas Day, when Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor. This way the Byzantines wont be to strong, it cuts down on all the 'barbarian' civs like the Vandals and Visigoths, and it shuts up this whole Dark Ages debate. Although if you need still additional help, look at MTW2 for civs and timeline. It is very accurate.

Double Post

I'm for using the current civ list, with the possibility of adding the Normans in Sicily and Normandy (with a UP appropriate to the geographic split).

I'll second the 500 start date, and suggest that we run it until 1800. I think it's important to simulate the dynamism and chaos of that time, and I think we'd lose some of that with a later start. It might be interesting to run the scenario into the industrial era and to the first world war, but that's enough of a shift that I think we're better off leaving it alone.

I've been playing a game on the current map, after cleaning it and reorganizing the starting plots to those we had agreed on. Standard/BTS civ won't let me put all of the civs on the map at once - but I've been amazed at how, starting from their intended starting points, the AI civs have largely expanded into their historical areas. Now, they all started at the same time, which isn't what we're going for - but the outcome was remarkable. The Americans, playing as Switzerland, expanded briefly, lost a couple of cities, and went pacifist/neutral; India, playing as Venice, took the Adriatic coast, Sicily, and Crete; Japan as Genoa took the Piedmont region and Carthage - after several world wars, the map isn't as pretty as it once was, but it seems to work pretty well.

I think that I'm going to end up making the Maghrib and Scandinavia less city-friendly - as things currently stand, Sweden can support four powerful cities without much threat of foreign invasion, and that gives them a substantial advantage. I'd like to preserve the geography faithfully, but I think that gameplay will probably win out.

England needs company on the British Isles. Is there scope for a separate Scots and / or Irish 'civ'?

'Netherlands' and 'England' seem a bit anachronistic from first appearance. I don't know what to suggest for Netherlands, Flanders being elsewhere than Holland. England should be 'Anglo-Saxons' until about 930AD.

We've barely discussed gameplay features, it seems ridiculous to object to extra data being listed solely because it isn't clear yet how or why that data should come into effect.

What is ridiculous is proposing a gameplay feature (in this case name change to Civs) but not accepting any question with the excuse that it hasn't been explained how will it work yet. Go on and don't answer my question about how will it work. In my probably silly mind, when I think of feature I also think how to implement it, because it's simply a waste of time to propose a feature if then it is not practically and efficiently implementable in the game.

On a more general note, and to keep the project from horribly stalling, I propose we run with the civ list as is. Which brings us to the debate on what timespan.

I still stand by 500-1750, and no later than 1800. My reasoning has already been explained elsewhere, and as a quick glance at the proposed start dates reveals its perfectly plausible to start in 500 from a number of civs standpoint.

Yeah, I suggest you take this civ list and go on with whatever you wish for your mod. I'll eagerly wait for its completion in order to test it (assuming I will be allowed to at least do that).

Well i think we can change the civs list later after testing and then have a look once more at the historical correctness. I think its now more important to get some things done so we have a base we can build this mod on. ;)

So lets see what we have to write and what we got. I put this in a spoiler to make this posting a little shorter. :D


Current Civ List:
Western Europe (4)
Kingdom of Neustria (500 AD) -> West Francia (840 AD) -> France (990 AD)
England (500 AD) -> Great Britain (1700 AD or by cities held?)
Netherlands (1050 AD)
Burgundy (500 AD) Copy from Charlesmagne

Iberian Peninsula (3)
Kingdom of Asturias (720 AD) -> Leon (920 AD) -> Crown of Castile (1230 AD)
-> Empire of Spain (1520 AD)
Portugal (1100 AD)
Al-Andalus (700 AD)Copy of Arabs?

North & Central Europe (5)
Norse: Danes (500 AD) -> Calmar (?) -> Sweden (?) Take this one? (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=7282)
Kingdom of Austrasia (500 AD) -> East Francia (840 AD) -> Kingdom of Germany
(920 AD) -> Germanic States (1260 AD) I sugest for the first tests we take HRE and redo it later
Lechia (970 AD) -> Poland (???) -> Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1570 AD) Take this one? (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=6837)
Austria/House of Habsburg (1160 AD or 1280 AD) Take this one? (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=6915)
Old Swiss Confederacy (1290 AD) -> Switzerland (1650 AD?) Take this one? (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=6263)

Eastern Europe (6)
Eastern Roman Empire (500 AD) Its Byzantium, isnt it?
Kievan Rus (860 AD) -> Principality of Chernigov (1080 AD) -> Zaporozhian
Host? (1650 AD) -> Russian Empire (By Cities Held)
Vladimir-Suzdal (1090 AD) -> Grand Duchy of Moscow (1320 AD) -> Tsardom of
Russia (1547 AD) -> Russian Empire (By cities held)
Magyars (900 AD) -> Kingdom of Hungary (1000 AD) Take this one? (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=6949)
Ottoman Empire (1300 AD)
Umayyad Caliphate (660 AD) -> Abbasid Caliphate (750 AD) -> Fatimid
Caliphate (970 AD) -> Ayyubid Dynasty (1170 AD) -> Mamluk Sultanate (
1250 AD) Take this as Arabs?

Italy (3)
Papal States (500 AD) Take it from Charlesmagne?
Republic of Venetia (800 AD)
Republic of Genoa (1000 AD)

Additional Candidates:
Kingdom of Sicily (1000 AD)

So we have to do at least Venetia, Genoa and the additional Sicily. Of course only if we take the civs from other mods/moders. Otherwise we have to do Burgundy, Al-Andalus, Norse, Poland, Austria, Hungary, Switzerland too.

What is ridiculous is proposing a gameplay feature (in this case name change to Civs) but not accepting any question with the excuse that it hasn't been explained how will it work yet. Go on and don't answer my question about how will it work. In my probably silly mind, when I think of feature I also think how to implement it, because it's simply a waste of time to propose a feature if then it is not practically and efficiently implementable in the game.

Hold on a second, I thought that this feature was implemented in the next RFC update? Nobody is accusing you of being silly - implementation issues are going to be a big part of this, and we're going to have to figure out what's workable and what isn't. If the coding involved to implement a feature basically involves rewriting the whole game, clearly that's not workable. If it involves adapting an existing feature, which is what I think we're all trying for, why not keep it under consideration?

Yeah, I suggest you take this civ list and go on with whatever you wish for your mod. I'll eagerly wait for its completion in order to test it (assuming I will be allowed to at least do that).

I can understand why you feel marginalized here, but please try not to take things so personally. At this point, all we're trying to do is move things forward - I don't think that anything is completely set in stone, but we have to make some assumptions in order to be able to get anywhere from where we currently stand. One of the first sets of assumptions we're going to have to make is based on the map; a second on the civ list. Are either of those final? I view them both as subject to change, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be working to develop the ideas that we currently have. If we have to scrap some of that work, that's perfectly acceptable. I mean, I spent probably 12-15 hours tediously translating the map 12 squares east - and I don't have any guarantee that we're even going to use it. If we have to scrap it and start over, I'll be frustrated, but it might not work out. Rather than have an argument that runs for weeks over what to do about the HRE, why don't you come up with a leader/city/title list for a proposed HRE, a UHV, UB, UP, and UU? If it seems like a better plan than what we have going for 'Germany', or if the HRE title being an AP function winds up being unimplementable, I'd be willing to look at the HRE issue again.

I mostly don't want to get stuck on any one thing. I think that there's enough planning and enough work to be done (and enough lack of formal guidance/leadership) that we're better off planning out as much as we can - we're still pretty far from putting it into code, and even then, how many times to do you have to code something before you get a final version?

I value your input, and hope that you keep contributing. I believe that this statement holds true for everyone else working on the mod - otherwise, the obvious interpretation is that a couple of Americans showed up, cut off debate, announced that they were in charge, and proceeded to run things as they thought they should be done - and that's not going too well in other parts of the world, so it probably shouldn't be encouraged here.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=2821

Some nice (ans some lees nice) generic leaderheads for medieval (and ancient) civs. Could be used for the leaders of Neustria and Austrasia, old Engish, Celtic,...

I realy hope this MOD will come out. Your ideas all seem nice. Good luck.
I do hope you make a nice civic system. As Modern and ancient Civics need to be removed, you get the chance of differentiating the Medieval and exploration age civic real nice.

Hold on a second, I thought that this feature was implemented in the next RFC update?

A feature of name change has been implemented but to my understanding it's based on actual ingame events and not on historical dates.

Nobody is accusing you of being silly - implementation issues are going to be a big part of this, and we're going to have to figure out what's workable and what isn't. If the coding involved to implement a feature basically involves rewriting the whole game, clearly that's not workable. If it involves adapting an existing feature, which is what I think we're all trying for, why not keep it under consideration?

True, in general, but I'm not talking in general but on the specific feature of name change based on historical dates rather than on actual gameplay.


I can understand why you feel marginalized here, but please try not to take things so personally.

I'm not really taking it personal but I saw that my interventions are useless. The state of things is that those who launched this project are seldom commenting on other civfanatics ideas/proposals, and the (maybe obvious) result is that someone, who's very excited about it, is taking all of his proposals as granted and universally accepted, if I object or comment on something I'm either too late or too wrong, we even end up discussing on the meaning of the word Dark Ages. Given all this, it became pretty obvious to me that this project is now in the hands of Squirrelloid, and since I don't share his ideas and can't promote mine, I wish the project all the luck... I honestly have better stuff to do than look up what meaning did Petrarch give to the words Dark Ages some 700 years ago: I live in the present, where words can and usually have different meanings.

Bulgaria and Great Moravia both have more historical significance than the Kingdom of Sicily. Both can be like Babylonia in the original RFC... a quick UHV, and if you want to go further, you have a lot of adversity. Sort of like Burgundy.

Otherwise, from what I've seen in the civ list, unless it's Russian, it only seems to be added if it affected what today is modern, western industrialized Europe militarily somehow (namely France, England, Italy, Spain, and Germany). Yes, these countries today are important, but don't neglect the East too much; the Mongols can show up as a late civ (The Golden Horde); before falling apart later. They are also more important than Sicily. I would even argue against Genoa being more than an independent state. Same with the Normans.

uhm, how and why would they have more historical significance ?
Bulgaria was much less an independent state than the Kingdom of Sicily (or Genoa) during the scenario's timeframe, and Genoa was more influential in the Black Sea than Bulgaria was. England's flag is the same of Genoa (St. George's cross) because the English King asked and obtained to pay for this privilege so that English fleets would be protected by Genoans in those waters.

In regards to starting civilizations, this may be the wrong place to put this, but there is a very good map of Europe in 500 AD that you all might find useful:

http://www.euratlas.com/history_europe/europe_map_0500.html#%20here (http://www.euratlas.com/history_europe/europe_map_0500.html#%20here)

Would have posted it if it hadn't been so big.

In regards to starting civilizations, this may be the wrong place to put this, but there is a very good map of Europe in 500 AD that you all might find useful:

http://www.euratlas.com/history_europe/europe_map_0500.html#%20here (http://www.euratlas.com/history_europe/europe_map_0500.html#%20here)

Would have posted it if it hadn't been so big.

I've been using those maps for independent cities - they really are great. Thanks for sharing - I feel bad that I didn't think to.

uhm, how and why would they have more historical significance ?
Bulgaria was much less an independent state than the Kingdom of Sicily (or Genoa) during the scenario's timeframe, and Genoa was more influential in the Black Sea than Bulgaria was. England's flag is the same of Genoa (St. George's cross) because the English King asked and obtained to pay for this privilege so that English fleets would be protected by Genoans in those waters.


Bulgaria was independent for far longer (690 to 1400; granted, they were under Byzantine rule for 100 of those years - Genoa was independent from 1100-1394), and was much more important to the Black Sea trade than Genoa. The Bulgarians ended the Arab seige of Constantinople in the 800s. They brought the Orthodox faith to the Russians. They even threatened the Byzantine Empire for a time, and warred against the Crusader states, as well as Hungary. Bulgaria covered most of the Balkans at one point, which only the Ottomans and later Austria have been able to do since.
BTW, the St. George's cross comes from The Byzantine Empire and Georgia, with whom Genoa were trading partners with. England adopted it when they went on the Crusades, and having a St. George's Cross helps, when the most powerful navy in the Eastern Mediteranean (Greek fire) has the same flag.

Great Moravia was powerful enough that the Pope let them conduct their Church services in Slavic (only Latin, Greek, and Jewish were allowed for any other nation - Latin for Western Europe, Greek and Jewish for the East). They slowed German (East Francian) expansion to the east, and converted the Western Slavs to Roman Catholicism (which is why Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic isn't Orthodox, and there is a large Catholic minority in Ukraine). It was the first unified Slavic state, and was powerful enough that the East Francians had to ally with the Magyars to defeat them, so they could settle the Slavic lands.

I only counted the period when the Bulgars actually settled in Bulgaria and were not a migrating barbarian people like many others around. That means the Bulgarian Empire from (rough dates) around 700 to 1000 and again from 1200 to 1400. Genoa has been a Republic from 1096 to 1797.
It's true that St. George's cross comes from Byzantium (that had been occupying Genoa) but the King of England asked GENOA the permission to adopt it. I won't answer on Moravia and the rest, what I think is clear is that Bulgaria hasn't been any more influential in Europe than Genoa and your claims of the contrary are lacking any real foundation. Now if you want to make an argument pro-inclusion of Bulgaria it's perfectly fine, but saying it was far more important than Genoa as a support argument is just plain wrong, and I proposed Sicily not because it could have ruled the whole world, but because of the lack of anything in that area and because it could be fun to play with. You know, you can propose some civ without necessarily scorn others.

Genoa was a republic until 1797, but was basically a vassal from 1394 onwards. I do apologize if it looked as if I was trying to scorn the Republic; it wasn't intended. I was hoping to have some discussion on other countries. Otherwise, I was trying to bring in civs others wouldn't see because
(a) they didn't exist after the 1500's, which means they weren't around in the last 250 of a 1000-1200 year timeline (Burgundy notwithstanding),
(b) they were from Eastern Europe, which seems to be an area that, from the postings I've read, was either settled late, was barbarian, or wasn't recognized as an important part of Europe (Russia notwithstanding),
(c) unless they actually beat a Western European power at some point, they would be automatically overlooked, which seems to be a basic tenet amongst many (not all, and I stress this) posters.

That being said, I find it a little disconcerting that the one poster who commented on modders not taking other suggestions and using only their ideas is the only one who posted a counterpoint to my suggestions. It seems your point was proven, and the list was finalized as soon as it was put up on this post, no matter what other posters may have suggested.

Genoa was a republic until 1797, but was basically a vassal from 1394 onwards. I do apologize if it looked as if I was trying to scorn the Republic; it wasn't intended. I was hoping to have some discussion on other countries. Otherwise, I was trying to bring in civs others wouldn't see because
(a) they didn't exist after the 1500's, which means they weren't around in the last 250 of a 1000-1200 year timeline (Burgundy notwithstanding),
(b) they were from Eastern Europe, which seems to be an area that, from the postings I've read, was either settled late, was barbarian, or wasn't recognized as an important part of Europe (Russia notwithstanding),
(c) unless they actually beat a Western European power at some point, they would be automatically overlooked, which seems to be a basic tenet amongst many (not all, and I stress this) posters.

That being said, I find it a little disconcerting that the one poster who commented on modders not taking other suggestions and using only their ideas is the only one who posted a counterpoint to my suggestions. It seems your point was proven, and the list was finalized as soon as it was put up on this post, no matter what other posters may have suggested.

I'm sorry for not offering an opinion earlier - I've been in and out the last few days with a funeral and Thanksgiving holidays - the same may hold true for other American posters.

I thought Onedreamer articulated the concerns I had with Bulgaria pretty well - specifically the amount of time spent as a Byzantine or Turkish province, and the late end to the Bulgars' nomadic period. However, your points about control of the Balkans and importance in the Crusades (not to mention the importance of Bulgarian auxillaries as mercenaries and as parts of the Turkish army) are valid.

I'm a little less sold on Moravia, except perhaps as a precursor to Poland. Can you articulate your case in more detail? My main concerns with Moravia are that they weren't around for very long and that they occupy roughly the same historical territory as the Austria/Hapsburg homeland.

Eastern Europe could use more representation, and there's a fair amount of open space in the Balkans/Black Sea area. Rather than doing somersaults to code in the Normans, Bulgaria makes a lot of sense. UHVs: conquer/settle Balkans; take Constantinople, ?

I'm more into Bulgaria than Moravia, personally - Moravia would be more like a "Babylon" option, settle two or three cities and have a quick UHV before most other nations spawn. I was just trying to highlight a couple of ideas farther toward the old Eastern Bloc area. I do feel even the Mongols could have a place, though their UHV would probably be almost exactly like the one in RFC.

The last Bulgarian UHV could include the spread of Orthodox Christianity (if the Great Schism is going to be represented somehow), since they did actually bring it to many of the Eastern Slavs.

If your not sold on Bulgaria, they could be represented by either barbs or independents, and their invaisions to Byzantium could be represented with barb spawing.
And if you dont think Bulgaria was that powerful, for roughtly 100 years Byzantium was paying them tribute, and came within 1 day of taking Constantinople but then Khan Krum had a seziure and died of blood hemmorage. And if you still dont think they were that powerful, you need to read the either Byzantium: The Apogee, or Byzantium: The Decline and Fall.

NOTE: I am not a natonalistic Bulgarian or Hungarian, and I will accept it if there is a not room for them or they would be to short. If I remember correctly, they would spaw 770, fall to Basil II conquests ( i forget the year) and then respawn as Hungary, using the respawning of old civs mechanic in RFC.

I'm a little less sold on Moravia, except perhaps as a precursor to Poland. Can you articulate your case in more detail? My main concerns with Moravia are that they weren't around for very long and that they occupy roughly the same historical territory as the Austria/Hapsburg homeland.



The Hapsburg homeland occupy roughly the same historical territory as the Switzerland.

And the Great Moravia should be precrusor to Bohemie, if any. Poland have a very different roots, like the Hungaria, and Slovakia was state for first in the XX century.

I don't want to make the czech poles of RE, but there is something bleeding inside me when the Swithzerland is placed before Bohemia in historical signification.

I'm sure that many people here can argue that their city was a great site of learning/culture/religion/comerce. Well, can anyone else say that they managed to pass through a schizm-driven war (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hussite_Wars), one hundred years before all cool kids started doing the same?

This could make a nice UHV for Bohemia. Found a religion before 1450, spread it to xx% of Europe before 1650, profit (perhaps Prague with the largest culture in 1xyz)

I'm not fond of Bohemia making it into the mod, but....Switzerland?

PS: And Bavoria should be at least independent Civ, they alwyas had little in common with rest of Prussia.

If we are to have 'the Habsburgs', and I don't know whether it's ever good practice to name a civilization after a dynasty, it makes little sense to have them start where their ancestral lands were but where they eventually took hold in Austria.

I'm not sure if the house of Hapsburg is good choice for civ either. I don't want to object ot their signaficance in European history, I'm just not sure that current civ system can handle the fedual dynastic system. There was a little of Austrian identity till post WWII world. They consider themself "German" or "HRE"

kicking around some ideas on the current civ list. I'm also coming to think Sweden is fractionally better deserving of a slot than Sicily :mischief: due to greater impact in the time period the Mod is planning to cover (since sicily is under the control of so many different states, it would be better as an independent).


Current Civ List:
Western Europe (4)
Kingdom of Neustria (500 AD) -> West Francia (840 AD) -> France (990 AD)
UP: The power of the Seigneur (Farms give +2 gold till discovery of nationalism)
UB: Salon
UU: Musketeer
UHV: Unite historical France/France to the Rhine, Largest population in 1600, Paris the most cultured city in 1800
England (500 AD) -> Great Britain (Cities held)
UP: Either keep the current UP or The Power of Cottage Industry (Cottages give +1 Hammer)
UB: Stock Exchange
UU: Redcoat
UHV: Build the HEIC and 2 other colonial wonders, first to industrial age, highest GDP and Production in 1820.
Netherlands (1050 AD)
UP: The Power of the Polders (can build improvements on marshes as of they were grass lands)
UB: Dike (maybe move this and levees to engineering?)
UU: East Indiaman/Swiss Pikeman
UHV: Never lose a city, first to discover economics, corporation and constitution, build the VOC and 1 other colonial wonder.
Burgundy (500 AD) (Is this meant to be more the kingdom or Duchy?)
UP: The power of Dynastic alliance (similar but different to the Hapsburg one): vassals, military alliances, etc grant extra stability.
UB: Burgundian Monastery (more expensive christian monastery gives and extra 10% sci and +1 happy from wine and wheat, Richard the Justiciar (really the first Burgundian Duke) often gave refuge to persecuted monks – best I could think of, also could be said to represent later Trappist monks in Belgium ;))
UU: Some sort of heavier knight.
UHV: Control land from the North Sea to the Med (i.e having control of a tile at every longitude between X and Y) by 1400, Make France and the Netherlands vassals (or destroy them) by 1500, control X wine resources by 1300.


Iberian Peninsula (3)
Kingdom of Asturias (720 AD) -> Leon (920 AD) -> Crown of Castile (1230 AD)
-> Empire of Spain (1520 AD)
UP: The power of the Conquista (x3 money on city conquest, removal of non-State religions)
UB: Citadel
UU: Conquistador
UHV: Unite Spain by 1450, Conquer/vassalise Portugal, Italy and North Africa by 1650, Spread Roman Catholic Christianity to 50%/Build Mexican and Incan Conquests
Portugal (1100 AD)
UP: The power of Indian Trade (Spices, Sugar, Silks, other colonial resources, all give +50% Trade route income in the Portuguese capital).
UB: Feitoria
UU: Carrack
UHV: Build 3 Colonial Wonders before 1600, have X gold in 1600, don’t lose a city before 1700
Al-Andalus (700 AD)
UP: The power of the (find Arabic word for farm): Can build farms without irrigation
UB: Madrassah (different from normal one, this one is an early and cheaper university that comes with Theology)
UU: Berber Cavalry (no movement costs on plains or deserts hills? Greater Withdrawal chance?)
UHV: Be the most scientifically advanced in 1000, Córdoba number one city in size and culture in 1000, never lose a city before 1400.

North & Central Europe (5)
Norse (500 AD) -> Union of Kalmar (1350) -> Denmark-Norway (1530).
UP: The power of Raid (same as the RFC one).
UB: Berserker
UU: Trading Post
UHV: Have X gold by 1500, conquer Britain by 1000, sink X ships
Kingdom of Austrasia (500 AD) -> East Francia (840 AD) -> Kingdom of Germany
(920 AD) -> Germanic States (1260 AD)
UP: The Power of the Marches (other cultures assimilate to the germans faster?)
UB: Rathaus
UU: Landsknecht
UHV: control X% of the map by 1000 (Otto the Great’s lands), have 6 cities east of the Vistula by 1400, build 6 cathedrals by 1600.
Lechia (970 AD) -> Poland (???) -> Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1570 AD)
UP: The Power of Golden Liberty: Reduced distance corruption.
UB: Folwark (‘Farmhouse before the city’) Grocer which gives 10% extra gold and +1 health from wheat and corn.
UU: Hussar (Cavalry with greater withdrawal chance).
UHV: Largest land area and population in 1600, first to discover Constitution and Liberalism, No Polish-Lithuanian population under foreign control in 1800
Austria/House of Habsburg (1160 AD or 1280 AD)
UP: The power of inheritance (Independent cities much more likely to flip to Austria)
UB: The Schloss (castle in German, better name probably needed): Castle with an extra +5 culture.
UU: Landesschützen (Musketmen with free guerilla promotions)
UHV: Become Holy Roman Empire, Control Hungary, Bohemia, Southern Germany and northern Italy by 1620, Vienna as the most cultured city in 1800.
Old Swiss Confederacy (1290 AD) -> Switzerland (1650 AD?)
UP: Power of the Cantons: starts with Representation and Nationhood enabled.
UB: Landsgemeinden: Courthouse that gives +2 XP to melee and gunpowder units (‘provincal assembly’ where the canton meets and votes, in the olden days a Swiss male only needed to show his ceremonial sword or bayonet (hence the xp boost, representing Swiss militia service) to enter).
UU: Swiss Pikemen (Pikeman with Shock and Drill 2)
UHV: Conquer 6 cities before 1500, Never lose a city before 1800, have X gold in 1800

Eastern Europe (6)
Eastern Roman Empire (500 AD)
UP: I liked Ajidica’s ‘The Power of the Theodesian Walls’ give +100% defense to Constantinople that cannot be bombarded before gunpowder.
UB: Hippodrome
UU: Cataphract
UHV: Control Anatolia, The Balkans and Italy in 700 AD, Control Anatolia, The Balkans and Italy in 1200 AD, have X gold in 1200 AD
Kievan Rus (860 AD) -> Principality of Chernigov (1080 AD) -> Zaporozhian
Host? (1650 AD) -> Russian Empire (By Cities Held)
UP: The power of the Breadbasket: irrigated Farms give +1 Food (probably too powerful)
UB: Zernoskhovysche (Ukrainian for Granary): Replaces Granary, gives +1 trade route to show Ukrainian food exports.
UU: Cossack
UHV: Largest land area in 1000, all cities over size 4 have a monastery, aqueduct and courthouse in 1100, Survive to 1800
Vladimir-Suzdal (1090 AD) -> Grand Duchy of Moscow (1320 AD) -> Tsardom of
Russia (1547 AD) -> Russian Empire (By cities held)
UP: The power of general winter (same as RFC)
UB: ??
UU: Dvoryanin (a knight UU of some type ;))
UHV: Conquer Russia by 1600, Conquer the Russian empire (inc. Poland, Finland, Ukraine and the Causcuas) by 1850, Spread Orthodox Christianity to x%.
Magyars (900 AD) -> Kingdom of Hungary (1000 AD)
UP: Power of migration: Mounted units built with food prior to Theology.
UB: Magyar Stable (rip of the Mongolian Ger)
UU: Ungri Horsemen (rip of the Keshik)
UHV: Raze 6 cities by 1100, Control all the Lands of the Crown of St. Stephen in 1200, have 2 vassals by 1400
Ottoman Empire (1300 AD)
UP: Assimilation
UB: Hammam
UU: Janissary
UHV: All the ones from RFC work fine.
Umayyad Caliphate (660 AD) -> Abbasid Caliphate (750 AD) -> Fatimid
Caliphate (970 AD) -> Ayyubid Dynasty (1170 AD) -> Mamluk Sultanate (
1250 AD)
UP: Religion
UB: ‘Arab Courthouse’ gives extra gold depending on how much of the city is non-arab and the city size. Shows the tax on non-arabs and one of the drivign forces for expansion.
UU: Camel Archer
UHV: Spread Islam to 30%, Conquer North Africa, Spain and Italy by 1100 AD, Control 3 holy shrine cities in 1300 AD.

Italy (3)
Papal States (500 AD)
UP: The power of Papal Authority: +3 Relation with Roman Catholic States, +25 War weariness for Roman Catholics at war with the Pope.
UB: Seminary (university with 2 free priest specialists)
UU: Swiss Guard (Better macemen in some way)
UHV: Spread Roman Catholicism to 50%, X gold in X, Rome the most cultured city in 1800.
Republic of Venetia (800 AD)
UP: The power of Trade: 1 extra trade route in each city
UB: Venetian Arsenal (Drydock that comes with Guilds)
UU: Venetian Bireme (trireme with extra move and strength)
UHV: Control Northern Italy, Dalmatia, Greece and the Aegean by 1600 AD, have access to X different happiness resources by 1400 AD, have X gold by 1700 AD
Republic of Genoa (1000 AD)
UP: The power of Bargaining: Trade routes can go through enemy territory.
UB: Merchant House (Cheaper Bank that comes with Guilds)
UU: Genoan Galley (Galley with extra strength that can travel can travel rival territory
UHV: Control Northern Italy, Corsica, Sardinia, and Crimea by 1600 AD, have access to X different happiness resources by 1400 AD, have X gold by 1700 AD

The proposals aren' bad, but Portugal definetly needs a new UU, better ship deeply suck in this map.

I aslo don't see a protestant-based religion victory, so I will suggest adding bohemia as a playeble civ.

And the UHV for france are very...monarchistic. Why don't forcing x% of other civs to republic and free religion.

This also bring a good question. Have the civis been designed already?

Nice Work Disenfrancised. :)
Here some comments from me to some points:

Portugal (1100 AD)
UHV: Build 3 Colonial Wonders before 1600, have X gold in 1600, don’t lose a city before 1700
If we take the proposed map from st.lucifer it would be possible to add "Bring X Sugar resources under your control" (colonization of the azores and canary islands). And i agree to the point of Algeroth about the carrack.

Kingdom of Austrasia ...
UP: The Power of the Marches (other cultures assimilate to the germans faster?)
UB: Rathaus
UU: Landsknecht
UHV: control X% of the map by 1000 (Otto the Great’s lands), have 6 cities east of the Vistula by 1400, build 6 cathedrals by 1600.
UP isnt really fitting in my opinion but i dont know any better by now. And 6 catholic cathedrals would be many or did you think of the reformation?

Kievan Rus (860 AD) ...
UHV: Largest land area in 1000, all cities over size 4 have a monastery, aqueduct and courthouse in 1100, Survive to 1800
I would change it to "have x cities over size 4 with monastery etc." because otherwise everyone is whipping his cities down to size 3.

Papal States (500 AD)
UP: The power of Papal Authority: +3 Relation with Roman Catholic States, +25 War weariness for Roman Catholics at war with the Pope.
UB: Seminary (university with 2 free priest specialists)
UU: Swiss Guard (Better macemen in some way)
UHV: Spread Roman Catholicism to 50%, X gold in X, Rome the most cultured city in 1800.
Thought the Papals State is non-playable because its to mighty with the shrine of catholism.

Interesting work so far, but I think the Iberia list and dates of the Reqonquista need some expansion. For instance:
By 790, Asturias and Princ. of Barcelona in the North (30% of Iberia)
Al Andalus comprising 70%
By 900, Asturias, Galicia, Leon, Aragon, Navarre and Barcelona
Al Andalus still comprising about 60%
900-1150, as above plus Portugal
Al Andalus ( Golden age of the Caliphate of Cordoba)
still nearly 50%
by 1300, as above but Portugal expanded to present boundaries(roughly)
Al Andalus reduced to Kingdom of Granada (10%?)
1492 - capture of Granada by Ferdinand and Isabella
Unification of Spain by above (Aragon and Castile)
The points I'm trying to make are these;
The period of the Reqonquista (750-1492?) is long and complicated.
The major players in that were Asturias and Leon in the beginning
and later Aragon And Castille (Why haven't you mentioned Aragon?
For much of this period the Christian states were minor backwaters
in European terms while Al Andalus (esp the Cordoban Caliphate) had
an enormous influence on European culture and science. It's they who
should be emphasized in the game, culturally rather than the primitive
Christian mini-states. Cordoba was the 2nd largest city in the known
world (after Constantinople) in 1000AD with science, medicine and the
arts unrivalled anywhere in Europe. The game should reflect it's
importance at least up to about 1100AD.:) :goodjob:

I don't think Spain's goals should overlap so much with Portugal's. Historically they got on most of the time, and forcing them to fight each other for the win will be greatly to Portugal's disadvantage.

kicking around some ideas on the current civ list. I'm also coming to think Sweden is fractionally better deserving of a slot than Sicily :mischief: due to greater impact in the time period the Mod is planning to cover (since sicily is under the control of so many different states, it would be better as an independent).


Current Civ List:
Western Europe (4)
Kingdom of Neustria (500 AD) -> West Francia (840 AD) -> France (990 AD)
UP: The power of the Seigneur (Farms give +2 gold till discovery of nationalism)
UB: Salon
UU: Musketeer
UHV: Unite historical France/France to the Rhine, Largest population in 1600, Paris the most cultured city in 1800
England (500 AD) -> Great Britain (Cities held)
UP: Either keep the current UP or The Power of Cottage Industry (Cottages give +1 Hammer)
UB: Stock Exchange
UU: Redcoat
UHV: Build the HEIC and 2 other colonial wonders, first to industrial age, highest GDP and Production in 1820.
Netherlands (1050 AD)
UP: The Power of the Polders (can build improvements on marshes as of they were grass lands)
UB: Dike (maybe move this and levees to engineering?)
UU: East Indiaman/Swiss Pikeman
UHV: Never lose a city, first to discover economics, corporation and constitution, build the VOC and 1 other colonial wonder.
Burgundy (500 AD) (Is this meant to be more the kingdom or Duchy?)
UP: The power of Dynastic alliance (similar but different to the Hapsburg one): vassals, military alliances, etc grant extra stability.
UB: Burgundian Monastery (more expensive christian monastery gives and extra 10% sci and +1 happy from wine and wheat, Richard the Justiciar (really the first Burgundian Duke) often gave refuge to persecuted monks – best I could think of, also could be said to represent later Trappist monks in Belgium ;))
UU: Some sort of heavier knight.
UHV: Control land from the North Sea to the Med (i.e having control of a tile at every longitude between X and Y) by 1400, Make France and the Netherlands vassals (or destroy them) by 1500, control X wine resources by 1300.


Iberian Peninsula (3)
Kingdom of Asturias (720 AD) -> Leon (920 AD) -> Crown of Castile (1230 AD)
-> Empire of Spain (1520 AD)
UP: The power of the Conquista (x3 money on city conquest, removal of non-State religions)
UB: Citadel
UU: Conquistador
UHV: Unite Spain by 1450, Conquer/vassalise Portugal, Italy and North Africa by 1650, Spread Roman Catholic Christianity to 50%/Build Mexican and Incan Conquests
Portugal (1100 AD)
UP: The power of Indian Trade (Spices, Sugar, Silks, other colonial resources, all give +50% Trade route income in the Portuguese capital).
UB: Feitoria
UU: Carrack
UHV: Build 3 Colonial Wonders before 1600, have X gold in 1600, don’t lose a city before 1700
Al-Andalus (700 AD)
UP: The power of the (find Arabic word for farm): Can build farms without irrigation
UB: Madrassah (different from normal one, this one is an early and cheaper university that comes with Theology)
UU: Berber Cavalry (no movement costs on plains or deserts hills? Greater Withdrawal chance?)
UHV: Be the most scientifically advanced in 1000, Córdoba number one city in size and culture in 1000, never lose a city before 1400.

North & Central Europe (5)
Norse (500 AD) -> Union of Kalmar (1350) -> Denmark-Norway (1530).
UP: The power of Raid (same as the RFC one).
UB: Berserker
UU: Trading Post
UHV: Have X gold by 1500, conquer Britain by 1000, sink X ships
Kingdom of Austrasia (500 AD) -> East Francia (840 AD) -> Kingdom of Germany
(920 AD) -> Germanic States (1260 AD)
UP: The Power of the Marches (other cultures assimilate to the germans faster?)
UB: Rathaus
UU: Landsknecht
UHV: control X% of the map by 1000 (Otto the Great’s lands), have 6 cities east of the Vistula by 1400, build 6 cathedrals by 1600.
Lechia (970 AD) -> Poland (???) -> Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1570 AD)
UP: The Power of Golden Liberty: Reduced distance corruption.
UB: Folwark (‘Farmhouse before the city’) Grocer which gives 10% extra gold and +1 health from wheat and corn.
UU: Hussar (Cavalry with greater withdrawal chance).
UHV: Largest land area and population in 1600, first to discover Constitution and Liberalism, No Polish-Lithuanian population under foreign control in 1800
Austria/House of Habsburg (1160 AD or 1280 AD)
UP: The power of inheritance (Independent cities much more likely to flip to Austria)
UB: The Schloss (castle in German, better name probably needed): Castle with an extra +5 culture.
UU: Landesschützen (Musketmen with free guerilla promotions)
UHV: Become Holy Roman Empire, Control Hungary, Bohemia, Southern Germany and northern Italy by 1620, Vienna as the most cultured city in 1800.
Old Swiss Confederacy (1290 AD) -> Switzerland (1650 AD?)
UP: Power of the Cantons: starts with Representation and Nationhood enabled.
UB: Landsgemeinden: Courthouse that gives +2 XP to melee and gunpowder units (‘provincal assembly’ where the canton meets and votes, in the olden days a Swiss male only needed to show his ceremonial sword or bayonet (hence the xp boost, representing Swiss militia service) to enter).
UU: Swiss Pikemen (Pikeman with Shock and Drill 2)
UHV: Conquer 6 cities before 1500, Never lose a city before 1800, have X gold in 1800

Eastern Europe (6)
Eastern Roman Empire (500 AD)
UP: I liked Ajidica’s ‘The Power of the Theodesian Walls’ give +100% defense to Constantinople that cannot be bombarded before gunpowder.
UB: Hippodrome
UU: Cataphract
UHV: Control Anatolia, The Balkans and Italy in 700 AD, Control Anatolia, The Balkans and Italy in 1200 AD, have X gold in 1200 AD
Kievan Rus (860 AD) -> Principality of Chernigov (1080 AD) -> Zaporozhian
Host? (1650 AD) -> Russian Empire (By Cities Held)
UP: The power of the Breadbasket: irrigated Farms give +1 Food (probably too powerful)
UB: Zernoskhovysche (Ukrainian for Granary): Replaces Granary, gives +1 trade route to show Ukrainian food exports.
UU: Cossack
UHV: Largest land area in 1000, all cities over size 4 have a monastery, aqueduct and courthouse in 1100, Survive to 1800
Vladimir-Suzdal (1090 AD) -> Grand Duchy of Moscow (1320 AD) -> Tsardom of
Russia (1547 AD) -> Russian Empire (By cities held)
UP: The power of general winter (same as RFC)
UB: ??
UU: Dvoryanin (a knight UU of some type ;))
UHV: Conquer Russia by 1600, Conquer the Russian empire (inc. Poland, Finland, Ukraine and the Causcuas) by 1850, Spread Orthodox Christianity to x%.
Magyars (900 AD) -> Kingdom of Hungary (1000 AD)
UP: Power of migration: Mounted units built with food prior to Theology.
UB: Magyar Stable (rip of the Mongolian Ger)
UU: Ungri Horsemen (rip of the Keshik)
UHV: Raze 6 cities by 1100, Control all the Lands of the Crown of St. Stephen in 1200, have 2 vassals by 1400
Ottoman Empire (1300 AD)
UP: Assimilation
UB: Hammam
UU: Janissary
UHV: All the ones from RFC work fine.
Umayyad Caliphate (660 AD) -> Abbasid Caliphate (750 AD) -> Fatimid
Caliphate (970 AD) -> Ayyubid Dynasty (1170 AD) -> Mamluk Sultanate (
1250 AD)
UP: Religion
UB: ‘Arab Courthouse’ gives extra gold depending on how much of the city is non-arab and the city size. Shows the tax on non-arabs and one of the drivign forces for expansion.
UU: Camel Archer
UHV: Spread Islam to 30%, Conquer North Africa, Spain and Italy by 1100 AD, Control 3 holy shrine cities in 1300 AD.

Italy (3)
Papal States (500 AD)
UP: The power of Papal Authority: +3 Relation with Roman Catholic States, +25 War weariness for Roman Catholics at war with the Pope.
UB: Seminary (university with 2 free priest specialists)
UU: Swiss Guard (Better macemen in some way)
UHV: Spread Roman Catholicism to 50%, X gold in X, Rome the most cultured city in 1800.
Republic of Venetia (800 AD)
UP: The power of Trade: 1 extra trade route in each city
UB: Venetian Arsenal (Drydock that comes with Guilds)
UU: Venetian Bireme (trireme with extra move and strength)
UHV: Control Northern Italy, Dalmatia, Greece and the Aegean by 1600 AD, have access to X different happiness resources by 1400 AD, have X gold by 1700 AD
Republic of Genoa (1000 AD)
UP: The power of Bargaining: Trade routes can go through enemy territory.
UB: Merchant House (Cheaper Bank that comes with Guilds)
UU: Genoan Galley (Galley with extra strength that can travel can travel rival territory
UHV: Control Northern Italy, Corsica, Sardinia, and Crimea by 1600 AD, have access to X different happiness resources by 1400 AD, have X gold by 1700 AD


Man. That's a fantastic list. If we're doing monastic orders in place of corporations, what do you think of replacing 'build x cathedrals' with 'found teutonic knights in gdansk' for germany?

I wonder if we should go with making the papal states unplayable. The UHV goals and UU are playable (that UB may be too powerful, although they probably won't be able to build many of them) - but that'll be a weird one to play.

What did you think of the Bulgaria idea proposed earlier?

For the Kievan Rus - what about making each grain resource produce an extra food? Same basic principle, but less powerful - still enough to generate a few extra specialists. If one of the goals is survival, are we planning on having the Mongols show up in some way? You've transfered Mongol powers to the Magyars, which seems workable (as I don't know what they'd do as Hungary to differentiate themselves) - should we alter a Hungarian UHV goal to get them to go for the Kiev region?

We may want to de-emphasize some of the naval powers for those civs outside of the Mediterranean - the Portuguese UU and the British, Spanish, and Portuguese UP's aren't going to be very useful on the current map. For the cottage industry thing - is it just for cottages, rather than hamlets, villages, and towns? If so, that would be a neat power, providing a small boost in production for a limited number of turns. If that's the case, I approve wholeheartedly - if it's the whole chain from cottage to town, that's probably a bit too powerful.

I'm fine with leaving Sicily independent. The Norman experiment would be interesting, but seems like it would be difficult to code. I'd rather use the slot on a civ like Bulgaria or Sweden.

And 6 catholic cathedrals would be many or did you think of the reformation?


I was thinking of any type of cathedral, and 6 probably is a bit much.

Man. That's a fantastic list. If we're doing monastic orders in place of corporations, what do you think of replacing 'build x cathedrals' with 'found teutonic knights in gdansk' for germany?


Possibly could work. What are the proposed benefits of monastic orders?


I wonder if we should go with making the papal states unplayable. The UHV goals and UU are playable (that UB may be too powerful, although they probably won't be able to build many of them) - but that'll be a weird one to play.


It'd be a fun OCC if it was playable, and rather different game style from most of the other nations ;).


For the Kievan Rus - what about making each grain resource produce an extra food? Same basic principle, but less powerful - still enough to generate a few extra specialists. If one of the goals is survival, are we planning on having the Mongols show up in some way? You've transfered Mongol powers to the Magyars, which seems workable (as I don't know what they'd do as Hungary to differentiate themselves) - should we alter a Hungarian UHV goal to get them to go for the Kiev region?


I assumed the mongols were going to show up as a massive barbarian spawn at least, but also having the powerful nations Moscovy, P-L, Hungary, Austria, and Sweden all have territorial preferences to Kiev's lands should do the trick also ;). As regards the Magyars, the UHV is basically what they did - raid (those razed cities should be in germany and italy if they want to stay historical ;)), then settle down (and the full crown lands are quite large - its Croatia, Serbia, slovakia and most of Romania) and try to play power politics. I like the Kiev UP idea.


We may want to de-emphasize some of the naval powers for those civs outside of the Mediterranean - the Portuguese UU and the British, Spanish, and Portuguese UP's aren't going to be very useful on the current map. For the cottage industry thing - is it just for cottages, rather than hamlets, villages, and towns? If so, that would be a neat power, providing a small boost in production for a limited number of turns. If that's the case, I approve wholeheartedly - if it's the whole chain from cottage to town, that's probably a bit too powerful.


I agree (hence proposing different UPs), though Cottages and Hamlets would probably be better than a 10 turn boost.


I'm fine with leaving Sicily independent. The Norman experiment would be interesting, but seems like it would be difficult to code. I'd rather use the slot on a civ like Bulgaria or Sweden.

Ah, but which would get in?

Sweden
Kingdom of Sweden (1500, we should have at least some late spawning civs) ->Swedish Empire (1700)->Sweden-Norway (Cities held).
UP: The power of Stormaktstiden (50% Less Unit Maintence, as Imperial sweden did so much with so little).
UB: Swedish toll-house (Castle that gives an extra Trade route if water is in the city radius (like the Dike))
UU: Landsfänika (10% Cheaper Musketman with Drill 2)
UHV: Control Norway and every tile adjacent to the Baltic east of Malmo in 1700, Spread Protestantism/Lutherism to 15%, Defeat 150 units.

OR

Bulgaria
Old Great Bulgaria (630) -> Bulgarian Empire (800) -> Kingdom of Bulgaria (1840)
UP: The power of the Khan: No unrest in conquered cities.
UB: A stable that give happiness perhaps?
UU: Bulgar Horseman (Mounted Archer with bonus verses mounted units)
UHV: Control The Balkans, Greece and Thrace in 1000, Make the Eastern Roman Empire and 2 other nations vassals, build 2 Orthodox Cathedrals before 1100.

I'd of course like Sweden in, but maybe the UP name could be changed to Power of Indelningsverket. It was a system where normal people had to maintain an army by feeding and giving shelter to the soldiers. Local farms and houses maintained the soldiers health in group of 2-4 houses. The effect is correct already.

And for the UU may I suggest Hakkapeliittas(replaces maybe Curaissier(spelling?)). They were Finnish cavalry who fought in the 30 years war. Their bonus could be some bonus that makes attacks more effective.

The celts or ireland should be included. Possible victory condition to control ireland? or have no foreign control in ireland

I posted a UP list on the main thread, page 9 I belive. Ill try and think up more of them. i have a great idea for kevian rus that needs a little more work.

Possibly could work. What are the proposed benefits of monastic orders?


(reviews notes) The operative idea was to replace corporations with monastic and military orders - the Templars, Hospitallers, Teutonic Knights; and any four of the Benedictines, Franciscans, Dominicans, Jesuits, and Cistercians.

proposed ideas for the military orders: (all competing with each other)
-Templars: barracks and stables give +15% gold (to represent the Templar's role in banking
-Hospitalers: free medic 1 promotion for all units built in the city, units heal an additional 10%/turn in cities w/Hospitalers
-Teutonic Order: free shock promotion for all mounted units, +1 xp from barracks or stables?

for monastic orders: nobody has currently proposed anything beyond their inclusion. I'd argue that all should give a science bonus, due to the importance of monasteries as institutions of higher learning in Medieval Europe, and they might then be specialized to give other bonuses as well - Jesuits give an espionage bonus, Franciscans a happiness bonus, Dominicans a gold% bonus, etc. I'd like other people's ideas on this.


Ah, but which would get in?

Sweden
Kingdom of Sweden (1500, we should have at least some late spawning civs) ->Swedish Empire (1700)->Sweden-Norway (Cities held).
UP: The power of Stormaktstiden (50% Less Unit Maintence, as Imperial sweden did so much with so little).
UB: Swedish toll-house (Castle that gives an extra Trade route if water is in the city radius (like the Dike))
UU: Landsfänika (10% Cheaper Musketman with Drill 2)
UHV: Control Norway and every tile adjacent to the Baltic east of Malmo in 1700, Spread Protestantism/Lutherism to 15%, Defeat 150 units.

OR

Bulgaria
Old Great Bulgaria (630) -> Bulgarian Empire (800) -> Kingdom of Bulgaria (1840)
UP: The power of the Khan: No unrest in conquered cities.
UB: A stable that give happiness perhaps?
UU: Bulgar Horseman (Mounted Archer with bonus verses mounted units)
UHV: Control The Balkans, Greece and Thrace in 1000, Make the Eastern Roman Empire and 2 other nations vassals, build 2 Orthodox Cathedrals before 1100.


Can we add both and drop Switzerland? :D

Can we add both and drop Switzerland? :D

Sounds good.

Genoa was a republic until 1797, but was basically a vassal from 1394 onwards.

A vassal still got a mechanic to be a civ ingame and makes more sense as one than being a province, though.

That being said, I find it a little disconcerting that the one poster who commented on modders not taking other suggestions and using only their ideas is the only one who posted a counterpoint to my suggestions. It seems your point was proven, and the list was finalized as soon as it was put up on this post, no matter what other posters may have suggested.

?
I didn't speak against the inclusion of Bulgaria, I spoke against the exclusion of Genoa in favor of Bulgaria. Because in fact, you proposed to include Bulgaria and Moravia ( :confused: ) instead of "for example" Genoa and Sicily. Like I already said it's perfectly fine to propose civs as long as you give reasons that aren't "it was more important than Civ X", and that are even incorrect claims, or not backed up by some more informations. If you read the main thread about the mod you will see in one post (#125) I wrote to not underestimate the importance of eastern europe.

[Papal States]


It'd be a fun OCC if it was playable, and rather different game style from most of the other nations ;).



I think it would be better to make them unplayable for 3 reasons:
1) Having some interesting game mechanic that most civs have to deal with and that would make the mod more interesting overall.
2) the UHV and gameplay in general would be inevitably boring, unless you go on a conquest path, quite unhistorical.
3) opens up a slot for other civs (since we're apparently short of).

[Genoa / Venice]

I'd rather have the first control Tuscany and the second North Italy than both North Italy.

[Independent Sicily]

Would inevitably make someone unhistorically too strong in the mediterranean (its strategical importance is huge on the map) once they conquer it. Unless Spain has big advantages in conquering it ?

[Netherlands and Burgundy]

I don't know what is Netherland's spawn date in 1050 based on (could someone explain ?), it should be the end of XVI century AFAIK... until that date it should be Burgundy's goal to control it (I'd include a bit more than one coastal tile in the UHV, in fact). If France succeeds in its UHV goal to control Bourgogne, the spawn of Netherlands will most likely make Burgundy collapse, quite historical :) Making Netherlands spawn before, on the other hand, would probably make France's goal a bit too easy ?

kicking around some ideas on the current civ list. I'm also coming to think Sweden is fractionally better deserving of a slot than Sicily :mischief: due to greater impact in the time period the Mod is planning to cover (since sicily is under the control of so many different states, it would be better as an independent).


Current Civ List:
Western Europe (4)
Kingdom of Neustria (500 AD) -> West Francia (840 AD) -> France (990 AD)
UP: The power of the Seigneur (Farms give +2 gold till discovery of nationalism)
UB: Salon
UU: Musketeer
UHV: Unite historical France/France to the Rhine, Largest population in 1600, Paris the most cultured city in 1800
England (500 AD) -> Great Britain (Cities held)
UP: Either keep the current UP or The Power of Cottage Industry (Cottages give +1 Hammer)
UB: Stock Exchange
UU: Redcoat
UHV: Build the HEIC and 2 other colonial wonders, first to industrial age, highest GDP and Production in 1820.
Netherlands (1050 AD)
UP: The Power of the Polders (can build improvements on marshes as of they were grass lands)
UB: Dike (maybe move this and levees to engineering?)
UU: East Indiaman/Swiss Pikeman
UHV: Never lose a city, first to discover economics, corporation and constitution, build the VOC and 1 other colonial wonder.
Burgundy (500 AD) (Is this meant to be more the kingdom or Duchy?)
UP: The power of Dynastic alliance (similar but different to the Hapsburg one): vassals, military alliances, etc grant extra stability.
UB: Burgundian Monastery (more expensive christian monastery gives and extra 10% sci and +1 happy from wine and wheat, Richard the Justiciar (really the first Burgundian Duke) often gave refuge to persecuted monks – best I could think of, also could be said to represent later Trappist monks in Belgium ;))
UU: Some sort of heavier knight.
UHV: Control land from the North Sea to the Med (i.e having control of a tile at every longitude between X and Y) by 1400, Make France and the Netherlands vassals (or destroy them) by 1500, control X wine resources by 1300.


Iberian Peninsula (3)
Kingdom of Asturias (720 AD) -> Leon (920 AD) -> Crown of Castile (1230 AD)
-> Empire of Spain (1520 AD)
UP: The power of the Conquista (x3 money on city conquest, removal of non-State religions)
UB: Citadel
UU: Conquistador
UHV: Unite Spain by 1450, Conquer/vassalise Portugal, Italy and North Africa by 1650, Spread Roman Catholic Christianity to 50%/Build Mexican and Incan Conquests
Portugal (1100 AD)
UP: The power of Indian Trade (Spices, Sugar, Silks, other colonial resources, all give +50% Trade route income in the Portuguese capital).
UB: Feitoria
UU: Carrack
UHV: Build 3 Colonial Wonders before 1600, have X gold in 1600, don’t lose a city before 1700
Al-Andalus (700 AD)
UP: The power of the (find Arabic word for farm): Can build farms without irrigation
UB: Madrassah (different from normal one, this one is an early and cheaper university that comes with Theology)
UU: Berber Cavalry (no movement costs on plains or deserts hills? Greater Withdrawal chance?)
UHV: Be the most scientifically advanced in 1000, Córdoba number one city in size and culture in 1000, never lose a city before 1400.

North & Central Europe (5)
Norse (500 AD) -> Union of Kalmar (1350) -> Denmark-Norway (1530).
UP: The power of Raid (same as the RFC one).
UB: Berserker
UU: Trading Post
UHV: Have X gold by 1500, conquer Britain by 1000, sink X ships
Kingdom of Austrasia (500 AD) -> East Francia (840 AD) -> Kingdom of Germany
(920 AD) -> Germanic States (1260 AD)
UP: The Power of the Marches (other cultures assimilate to the germans faster?)
UB: Rathaus
UU: Landsknecht
UHV: control X% of the map by 1000 (Otto the Great’s lands), have 6 cities east of the Vistula by 1400, build 6 cathedrals by 1600.
Lechia (970 AD) -> Poland (???) -> Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1570 AD)
UP: The Power of Golden Liberty: Reduced distance corruption.
UB: Folwark (‘Farmhouse before the city’) Grocer which gives 10% extra gold and +1 health from wheat and corn.
UU: Hussar (Cavalry with greater withdrawal chance).
UHV: Largest land area and population in 1600, first to discover Constitution and Liberalism, No Polish-Lithuanian population under foreign control in 1800
Austria/House of Habsburg (1160 AD or 1280 AD)
UP: The power of inheritance (Independent cities much more likely to flip to Austria)
UB: The Schloss (castle in German, better name probably needed): Castle with an extra +5 culture.
UU: Landesschützen (Musketmen with free guerilla promotions)
UHV: Become Holy Roman Empire, Control Hungary, Bohemia, Southern Germany and northern Italy by 1620, Vienna as the most cultured city in 1800.
Old Swiss Confederacy (1290 AD) -> Switzerland (1650 AD?)
UP: Power of the Cantons: starts with Representation and Nationhood enabled.
UB: Landsgemeinden: Courthouse that gives +2 XP to melee and gunpowder units (‘provincal assembly’ where the canton meets and votes, in the olden days a Swiss male only needed to show his ceremonial sword or bayonet (hence the xp boost, representing Swiss militia service) to enter).
UU: Swiss Pikemen (Pikeman with Shock and Drill 2)
UHV: Conquer 6 cities before 1500, Never lose a city before 1800, have X gold in 1800

Eastern Europe (6)
Eastern Roman Empire (500 AD)
UP: I liked Ajidica’s ‘The Power of the Theodesian Walls’ give +100% defense to Constantinople that cannot be bombarded before gunpowder.
UB: Hippodrome
UU: Cataphract
UHV: Control Anatolia, The Balkans and Italy in 700 AD, Control Anatolia, The Balkans and Italy in 1200 AD, have X gold in 1200 AD
Kievan Rus (860 AD) -> Principality of Chernigov (1080 AD) -> Zaporozhian
Host? (1650 AD) -> Russian Empire (By Cities Held)
UP: The power of the Breadbasket: irrigated Farms give +1 Food (probably too powerful)
UB: Zernoskhovysche (Ukrainian for Granary): Replaces Granary, gives +1 trade route to show Ukrainian food exports.
UU: Cossack
UHV: Largest land area in 1000, all cities over size 4 have a monastery, aqueduct and courthouse in 1100, Survive to 1800
Vladimir-Suzdal (1090 AD) -> Grand Duchy of Moscow (1320 AD) -> Tsardom of
Russia (1547 AD) -> Russian Empire (By cities held)
UP: The power of general winter (same as RFC)
UB: ??
UU: Dvoryanin (a knight UU of some type ;))
UHV: Conquer Russia by 1600, Conquer the Russian empire (inc. Poland, Finland, Ukraine and the Causcuas) by 1850, Spread Orthodox Christianity to x%.
Magyars (900 AD) -> Kingdom of Hungary (1000 AD)
UP: Power of migration: Mounted units built with food prior to Theology.
UB: Magyar Stable (rip of the Mongolian Ger)
UU: Ungri Horsemen (rip of the Keshik)
UHV: Raze 6 cities by 1100, Control all the Lands of the Crown of St. Stephen in 1200, have 2 vassals by 1400
Ottoman Empire (1300 AD)
UP: Assimilation
UB: Hammam
UU: Janissary
UHV: All the ones from RFC work fine.
Umayyad Caliphate (660 AD) -> Abbasid Caliphate (750 AD) -> Fatimid
Caliphate (970 AD) -> Ayyubid Dynasty (1170 AD) -> Mamluk Sultanate (
1250 AD)
UP: Religion
UB: ‘Arab Courthouse’ gives extra gold depending on how much of the city is non-arab and the city size. Shows the tax on non-arabs and one of the drivign forces for expansion.
UU: Camel Archer
UHV: Spread Islam to 30%, Conquer North Africa, Spain and Italy by 1100 AD, Control 3 holy shrine cities in 1300 AD.

Italy (3)
Papal States (500 AD)
UP: The power of Papal Authority: +3 Relation with Roman Catholic States, +25 War weariness for Roman Catholics at war with the Pope.
UB: Seminary (university with 2 free priest specialists)
UU: Swiss Guard (Better macemen in some way)
UHV: Spread Roman Catholicism to 50%, X gold in X, Rome the most cultured city in 1800.
Republic of Venetia (800 AD)
UP: The power of Trade: 1 extra trade route in each city
UB: Venetian Arsenal (Drydock that comes with Guilds)
UU: Venetian Bireme (trireme with extra move and strength)
UHV: Control Northern Italy, Dalmatia, Greece and the Aegean by 1600 AD, have access to X different happiness resources by 1400 AD, have X gold by 1700 AD
Republic of Genoa (1000 AD)
UP: The power of Bargaining: Trade routes can go through enemy territory.
UB: Merchant House (Cheaper Bank that comes with Guilds)
UU: Genoan Galley (Galley with extra strength that can travel can travel rival territory
UHV: Control Northern Italy, Corsica, Sardinia, and Crimea by 1600 AD, have access to X different happiness resources by 1400 AD, have X gold by 1700 AD


Still hoping you'll respond to my ideas on Iberia (post 55) Al Andalus and
the Caliphate of Cordoba are FAR more important than the Christian kingdoms up to about 1100. And Aragon should be included too, just as important as Castille. And Valencia as an independent. Don't you agree?;)

Still hoping you'll respond to my ideas on Iberia (post 55) Al Andalus and
the Caliphate of Cordoba are FAR more important than the Christian kingdoms up to about 1100. And Aragon should be included too, just as important as Castille. And Valencia as an independent. Don't you agree?;)

Al Andalus is on the list and always has been, plus I proposed science and culture related UUs, literally exactly what you mentioned in the comments :confused:.

Aragons apogee was quite short, and although it was a med player it didn't really have super uniqueness or vast influence (though it should probably get the nod over Genoa).

A vassal still got a mechanic to be a civ ingame and makes more sense as one than being a province, though..

Vassal, province, satrapy... basically the same thing. Genoa was never independent again...


?
I didn't speak against the inclusion of Bulgaria, I spoke against the exclusion of Genoa in favor of Bulgaria. Because in fact, you proposed to include Bulgaria and Moravia ( :confused: ) instead of "for example" Genoa and Sicily. Like I already said it's perfectly fine to propose civs as long as you give reasons that aren't "it was more important than Civ X", and that are even incorrect claims, or not backed up by some more informations. If you read the main thread about the mod you will see in one post (#125) I wrote to not underestimate the importance of eastern europe.

I was agreeing with an earlier post of yours where you commented to another poster that it seemed the list was already finalized and it wasn't going to change, even with other people providing ideas. I was with you on that. I was just mentioning that your point was proved, since you were the only one who challenged my civ ideas. Since then, there has been a lot more feedback on all points, which I'm happy about.
I also did give reasons why they might be included (posts 43 and 48). I was trying to ignite debate about other Eastern European civs I felt may be overloooked.

I am on your side here. Really. I feel I may have got off the wrong foot with you because I wrote that Bulgaria or Moravia were "more worthy" than Sicily and Genoa. I did apologize, since that wasn't my intention. It was merely to ignite debate and try to throw other ideas out.

Al Andalus is on the list and always has been, plus I proposed science and culture related UUs, literally exactly what you mentioned in the comments :confused:.

Aragons apogee was quite short, and although it was a med player it didn't really have super uniqueness or vast influence (though it should probably get the nod over Genoa).

OK, Sorry I missed your proposals about U.U.s. You're probably right
about Aragon though it did impact on European history after 1300.
There seem to be two threads going on here. Maybe missed your post.

And in response to somebody's mention of Morocco and the Maghreb;
The original invasion of Iberia in 711 (8000 Berbers and 1500 Arab
horsemen) was led by Tarik (Governor of Tangier). Where he landed, west
of Algeciras is called Tarifa now and has given us the name for taxes as
"tariff" as it became the customs port for Andalusian trade with North Africa.
As far as I understand it, Cordoba held soveriegnty over the western part
of North Africa right up until the 1080's until the rise of the Almoravids.
The Cordoban Caliphate of course originated when local leaders of Al Andalus
invited an exiled prince of the overthrown Ummayad Caliphate to unite the
various emirates under a single ruler.
It became such a powerful Caliphate in its own right that it was totally independent from Baghdad or Cairo. It's importance in the period of 900-1050 cannot be overemphasied in culture, science, the arts etc. Its power and wealth, in my mind, made joint action by the Christian mini-states against it inevitable, as they were quite weak and impotent, militarily and economically.
One odd fact about the Caliphate is that it had no regular standing army.
It was so rich that it could hire all the mercenaries it needed, mostly Berbers
and Arab horsemen but many Christian professional soldiers too.(like El Cid?)
As anyone who has visited Cordoba recently will tell you, it must have been a remarkable city, at least in its "Golden Age". Sorry if i'm a bit of a geek
about this. But I've been a few times and just love the place.:)

BTW. What U.U's and U.B.s have you proposed?
As a U.B. I'd suggest the advanced irrigation methods as in the great waterwheels at Cordoba which provided full running water and sewage system for over a million people. Maybe like levees in BTS? The legacy of their irrigation is still evident today all over Southern Spain.
Hard to pick a military U.U. unless it's a special mercenary similiar to the
Christian maceman or crossbowman. But maybe a scientific one. Who knows?
As for it's Great Wonder, the Great Mosque (la Mesquita) completed in 956,
the 3rd most holy shrine in Islam at the time. (have you ever been in it?
It is breathtaking esp. when you remember that most of Europe
was still living in mud huts at the time):)

Sorry for such a long post, everybody. Read or ignore at your leisure.;)

I did apologize, since that wasn't my intention. It was merely to ignite debate and try to throw other ideas out.

Allright, sorry for not accepting your apology before, you didn't really need to, I sometimes sound too harsh on the forum, esp. because english is not my motherlanguage and sometimes I can't "refine" my sentences as well as I would like. Anyways, I don't agree that vassal is the same as province. For example, a province of a Monarchy can't be a Republic ;)
I know that the italian minors are... minors, but rather than implementing them as independents, which would make them meaningless, I suggest to implement some mechanics to make them economically and culturally meaningful but not militarily powerful. Now it seems that even Aragon could be enlisted instead of Genoa. I'd agree with Aragòn if at least it took over a possible Sicily's candidation, but not Genoa. It seems that the only italian minor most players are interested in is the Papal State. A "civ" that in the M.A. did little more than trying to keep Europe in the Dark Ages, while from the minors around it came a significant technological and cultural contribution to humanity.

Allright, sorry for not accepting your apology before, you didn't really need to, I sometimes sound too harsh on the forum, esp. because english is not my motherlanguage and sometimes I can't "refine" my sentences as well as I would like. Anyways, I don't agree that vassal is the same as province. For example, a province of a Monarchy can't be a Republic ;)
I know that the italian minors are... minors, but rather than implementing them as independents, which would make them meaningless, I suggest to implement some mechanics to make them economically and culturally meaningful but not militarily powerful. Now it seems that even Aragon could be enlisted instead of Genoa. I'd agree with Aragòn if at least it took over a possible Sicily's candidation, but not Genoa. It seems that the only italian minor most players are interested in is the Papal State. A "civ" that in the M.A. did little more than trying to keep Europe in the Dark Ages, while from the minors around it came a significant technological and cultural contribution to humanity.

Hope you didn't think I was promoting Aragon at the expense of Genoa.
I wasn't. I think Venice, Pisa and Genoa all have good claims as powerful
trading cities in their time. You also correctly point out the cultural importance of the Italian city-states in the Renaissance. So you are justified for suggesting all of these if they fit logically into the mod.
As something interested in Spain, I suggested Aragon as it was equally as
important ,with Castille, in the final unification of Spain in 1492.
I'm even more interested in making sure that Muslim Spain gets the full recognition in the game it deserves to. Cordoba, in it's day, was far more important and influential than any of the little Christian kingdoms in Spain, or in Europe as a whole.
In fact, many historians believe it played an important role in kick-starting the Renaissance in Italy by introducing Greek and Roman knowledge to Europe, previously banned by the Christian Church. The game should reflect this.:)

Allright, sorry for not accepting your apology before, you didn't really need to, I sometimes sound too harsh on the forum, esp. because english is not my motherlanguage and sometimes I can't "refine" my sentences as well as I would like. Anyways, I don't agree that vassal is the same as province. For example, a province of a Monarchy can't be a Republic ;)
I know that the italian minors are... minors, but rather than implementing them as independents, which would make them meaningless, I suggest to implement some mechanics to make them economically and culturally meaningful but not militarily powerful. Now it seems that even Aragon could be enlisted instead of Genoa. I'd agree with Aragòn if at least it took over a possible Sicily's candidation, but not Genoa. It seems that the only italian minor most players are interested in is the Papal State. A "civ" that in the M.A. did little more than trying to keep Europe in the Dark Ages, while from the minors around it came a significant technological and cultural contribution to humanity.

Personally I think a northern Italian playable civ should be in there, but Aragon, Venice and Genoa occupy very similar 'design space' as Mediterranean naval powers and having all three isn't the best in IMHO. I'd much prefer Aragon, Venice and a Tuscany/Milan style Civ (Possible UHVs: First to Renaissance, Produce 5 great artist specialists before 1400, unite Italy before 1850*).

As to the papal states Civ's are included due to the magnitude of their influence, not if it was positive or negative (see, Mongols ;)). I for one would be perfectly happy with them not being playable though.

*Such a state could also have the UU of the Condottieri (Macemen with 30% Withdraw chance), UB of Basilica (or something else appropriate) Observatory that allows two artists specialists, UP The Power of Patronage: Specialists produce +1 Gold

Personally I think a northern Italian playable civ should be in there, but Aragon, Venice and Genoa occupy very similar 'design space' as Mediterranean naval powers and having all three isn't the best in IMHO. I'd much prefer Aragon, Venice and a Tuscany/Milan style Civ (Possible UHVs: First to Renaissance, Produce 5 great artist specialists before 1400, unite Italy before 1850*).

As to the papal states Civ's are included due to the magnitude of their influence, not if it was positive or negative (see, Mongols ;)). I for one would be perfectly happy with them not being playable though.

*Such a state could also have the UU of the Condottieri (Macemen with 30% Withdraw chance), UB of Basilica (or something else appropriate) Observatory that allows two artists specialists, UP The Power of Patronage: Specialists produce +1 Gold

Sorry to seem a nuisance, but you've asked for input and I've tried to do
that, in an area where I feel i could contribute. I've made suggestions, as
you've asked, and hoped that you might find the time to respond in some
detail. Too much to ask?:confused::sad:

OK, Sorry I missed your proposals about U.U.s. You're probably right
about Aragon though it did impact on European history after 1300.
There seem to be two threads going on here. Maybe missed your post.

And in response to somebody's mention of Morocco and the Maghreb;
The original invasion of Iberia in 711 (8000 Berbers and 1500 Arab
horsemen) was led by Tarik (Governor of Tangier). Where he landed, west
of Algeciras is called Tarifa now and has given us the name for taxes as
"tariff" as it became the customs port for Andalusian trade with North Africa.
As far as I understand it, Cordoba held soveriegnty over the western part
of North Africa right up until the 1080's until the rise of the Almoravids.
The Cordoban Caliphate of course originated when local leaders of Al Andalus
invited an exiled prince of the overthrown Ummayad Caliphate to unite the
various emirates under a single ruler.
It became such a powerful Caliphate in its own right that it was totally independent from Baghdad or Cairo. It's importance in the period of 900-1050 cannot be overemphasied in culture, science, the arts etc. Its power and wealth, in my mind, made joint action by the Christian mini-states against it inevitable, as they were quite weak and impotent, militarily and economically.
One odd fact about the Caliphate is that it had no regular standing army.
It was so rich that it could hire all the mercenaries it needed, mostly Berbers
and Arab horsemen but many Christian professional soldiers too.(like El Cid?)
As anyone who has visited Cordoba recently will tell you, it must have been a remarkable city, at least in its "Golden Age". Sorry if i'm a bit of a geek
about this. But I've been a few times and just love the place.:)

BTW. What U.U's and U.B.s have you proposed?
As a U.B. I'd suggest the advanced irrigation methods as in the great waterwheels at Cordoba which provided full running water and sewage system for over a million people. Maybe like levees in BTS? The legacy of their irrigation is still evident today all over Southern Spain.
Hard to pick a military U.U. unless it's a special mercenary similiar to the
Christian maceman or crossbowman. But maybe a scientific one. Who knows?
As for it's Great Wonder, the Great Mosque (la Mesquita) completed in 956,
the 3rd most holy shrine in Islam at the time. (have you ever been in it?
It is breathtaking esp. when you remember that most of Europe
was still living in mud huts at the time):)

Sorry for such a long post, everybody. Read or ignore at your leisure.;)

To respond in more detail to your post (as nobody is officially 'in charge' here - various people have taken the lead at different times) - I'd personally be more comfortable with a tarifa-based UB (some empowerment of the customs house - maybe 2 additional trade routes, or 25% gold) than with a substitute levee, given how powerful the levee is and how long the Andalus/Maghreb civ is likely to be around. It might also be practical to make the UB a combination customs house/courthouse - perhaps the customs house could provide -25% maintenance, as the distance between cities in the Maghreb is likely to be considerable. I'm planning on making the area a little less city-friendly on the map; this might also help to offset that a bit.

For a UU, Moorish Cavalry (a slightly heavier knight) might work. As there are no scientific units or nation-specific wonders, that suggestion seems sort of out of place; it might be worth considering the Mosque of Cordoba as a WW, but I can't think of a specific purpose for it, and the list of potential WWs is going to be large.

We're not denying the importance of the Cordoban caliphate - that's why we're making it independent from Baghdad and Cairo. But we're not building the mod specifically around any one civ - balance requires us to look at everything.

Thanks for the input, and please keep offering ideas.

No prussia??

No prussia??

Read the thread, check the timeline, etc.

To respond in more detail to your post (as nobody is officially 'in charge' here - various people have taken the lead at different times) - I'd personally be more comfortable with a tarifa-based UB (some empowerment of the customs house - maybe 2 additional trade routes, or 25% gold) than with a substitute levee, given how powerful the levee is and how long the Andalus/Maghreb civ is likely to be around. It might also be practical to make the UB a combination customs house/courthouse - perhaps the customs house could provide -25% maintenance, as the distance between cities in the Maghreb is likely to be considerable. I'm planning on making the area a little less city-friendly on the map; this might also help to offset that a bit.

For a UU, Moorish Cavalry (a slightly heavier knight) might work. As there are no scientific units or nation-specific wonders, that suggestion seems sort of out of place; it might be worth considering the Mosque of Cordoba as a WW, but I can't think of a specific purpose for it, and the list of potential WWs is going to be large.

We're not denying the importance of the Cordoban caliphate - that's why we're making it independent from Baghdad and Cairo. But we're not building the mod specifically around any one civ - balance requires us to look at everything.

Thanks for the input, and please keep offering ideas.

Thanks for answering. Just a couple of quick thoughts on your suggestions.

The irrigation thing might seem overpowered but the system played a
huge role ensuring agricultural surpluses/wealth. The customs house idea
is good too as a U.B, though. One or the other, I guess.
The U.U. could be a fast Berber light cavalryman (extra move over all
terrain?) or a Christian mercenary sergeant/crossbowmen maybe.
I think that the Great Mosque should be included, for it's importance to
Islam, esp. in the West, as a place of pilgrimage, and science.
Note your comments about the Maghreb. Very few key cities except in
northern Morocco. Totally different to Andalusia where there were lots of
cities, supported by huge agricultural surpluses, as I've mentioned.

Thanks again for your comments. Just trying to help.:)

(reviews notes) The operative idea was to replace corporations with monastic and military orders - the Templars, Hospitallers, Teutonic Knights; and any four of the Benedictines, Franciscans, Dominicans, Jesuits, and Cistercians.

proposed ideas for the military orders: (all competing with each other)
-Templars: barracks and stables give +15% gold (to represent the Templar's role in banking
-Hospitalers: free medic 1 promotion for all units built in the city, units heal an additional 10%/turn in cities w/Hospitalers
-Teutonic Order: free shock promotion for all mounted units, +1 xp from barracks or stables?

for monastic orders: nobody has currently proposed anything beyond their inclusion. I'd argue that all should give a science bonus, due to the importance of monasteries as institutions of higher learning in Medieval Europe, and they might then be specialized to give other bonuses as well - Jesuits give an espionage bonus, Franciscans a happiness bonus, Dominicans a gold% bonus, etc. I'd like other people's ideas on this.


Response (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6201862&postcount=183) in the other thread, since this one is about Civs

Can we add both and drop Switzerland? :D

But Switzerland is cool :(.

Personally I think a northern Italian playable civ should be in there, but Aragon, Venice and Genoa occupy very similar 'design space' as Mediterranean naval powers and having all three isn't the best in IMHO. I'd much prefer Aragon, Venice and a Tuscany/Milan style Civ (Possible UHVs: First to Renaissance, Produce 5 great artist specialists before 1400, unite Italy before 1850*).

But Genoa's and Venice influence in the Meditteranean continued far longer than Aragon's, since the latter joined Castilla into Spain.

As to the papal states Civ's are included due to the magnitude of their influence, not if it was positive or negative (see, Mongols ;)). I for one would be perfectly happy with them not being playable though.

I don't see the Mongols having this great influence over Europe overall. I wasn't speaking of Papal States being positive or negative, I was saying that it gave almost no contribution in most popular values, and the effective power of its influence depended upon the other civs, this can be implemented by a game mechanism (like the apostolic palace in BtS), as I've been saying from the beginning. This would make much more sense because in game terms, a single city civ will never be "influential", unless it goes on conquering, which shouldn't be what we aim for the Papal States.

*Such a state could also have the UU of the Condottieri (Macemen with 30% Withdraw chance), UB of Basilica (or something else appropriate) Observatory that allows two artists specialists, UP The Power of Patronage: Specialists produce +1 Gold

Condottiere means leader, precisely they were leaders of mercenary armies used by the italian Republics. They didn't have the manpower of Empires, but they had more funds to dedicate to paying mercenary armies. This concept is already in RFC, what I think we should do is make the Republics economically strong (as suggested in the previous post), plus maybe Venice's UP could be the same of Carthaginian in RFC, although I like your proposed Patronage UP for the economic benefits, but it really fits more Tuscany/Milan than Venice/Genoa. Tuscany/Milan makes sense as a civ, though a colonization race in the mediterranean between Venice and Genoa would have been interesting, although I suppose it can be between Venice and Aragon, but the latter doesn't strike as a long lasting civ, historically speaking.

edit: Genoa and Venice could have additional commerce/gold from trade routes and/or controlled/traded resources.

nobody is officially 'in charge' here - various people have taken the lead at different times

/Sarcasm on
I hope none will open a new thread because Squirrelloid hasn't been posting for 15 days now, although he would have done it...
/Sarcasm off

While I think Democracy is cool, there should be someone or some way to collect ideas and take decisions or the project won't go anywhere.

I don't see the Mongols having this great influence over Europe overall.

I meant Mongols in the normal game.

While I think Democracy is cool, there should be someone or some way to collect ideas and take decisions or the project won't go anywhere.
I don't see why you or st.lucifer can't take control, you're right we do need someone to just coordinate things and say what will and will not be included. I think there are tons of great ideas being discussed on the various threads, and I'd really like to help out with code. But that won't happen until we move forward.

How about we implement some representative democracy? Decide who has made regular contributions to the process and have them vote on a "leader".

I can't take control, I'm not diplomatic enough (I'm not at all :P).
St. Lucifer looks like the man. And he is the one who actively did something (map). I vote him.

I don't see why you or st.lucifer can't take control, you're right we do need someone to just coordinate things and say what will and will not be included. I think there are tons of great ideas being discussed on the various threads, and I'd really like to help out with code. But that won't happen until we move forward.

How about we implement some representative democracy? Decide who has made regular contributions to the process and have them vote on a "leader".

The coding issue is why I'm reluctant to take more of a leadership role; my skills are very limited. But if I'm being nominated, and people are comfortable with it, I'd be happy to take nominal control. I think that most of us (the regular contributors) are on the same page on most things; getting a settled version shouldn't be too hard.

The coding issue is why I'm reluctant to take more of a leadership role; my skills are very limited. But if I'm being nominated, and people are comfortable with it, I'd be happy to take nominal control. I think that most of us (the regular contributors) are on the same page on most things; getting a settled version shouldn't be too hard.

If I get a vote, I'll vote for you, esp. if you include
the Great Mosque of Cordoba :rolleyes:
BTW. Have you finished the basic map/Is there a screenshot?

I'm wondering why you needed that much time to actually vote someone to leader or chief developer or whatever. I proposed it about half a month ago, but noone respond to it. Anyways, i would like to see st.lucifer as the leader of this project too. Also i think it isn't a problem, when you are not very familiar with coding, cause i guess we have many people here, which want to contribute something and have average coding skills (like me). ;)

St. Lucifer appears good. As long as he has a clear idea of what different people can and can't accomplish, thats fine. Because if I remember correctly, Kael is not as skilled in projraming as some other people on his team.
Also, St. Lucifer appears to have a real interest in this project and has a rudimentary timetable.
If you need anyhelp reasearching, looking for XML spelling errors, or other things, I can do that. My XML skills arn't much above adding a unit though..

Some UPs:
Spain-Power of the Reconquista: All units get combat 1 and 2 while fighting a muslim civ. (Too overpowerd or lame?)
France-Power of the Princes: Every city get 1 cavalry of the best type. Example-If you only have HBR and archery, you have a free horse archer in every city. one you reasearch guilds and have horse and iron, all horse archers upgrade to knights.
Germany-Power of the Empire: Units can't be bribed.(Only used if a 'bribery' mechanic is added, otherwise, use the french one)
Ummayad Caliphate(If added)- Power of the Jihad: All units have an extra move and heal at double rate.
Saxons(If Added)-The Power of the Tribe: If there is more than 75% Saxon Culture in a Conquered city, the city has an increased chance of undergoing a revolt and/or flipping.

Any comments? Also, where is there a difinitive civ list? They have gone through so many different ones, I think the main list is out of date.

I'm wondering why you needed that much time to actually vote someone to leader or chief developer or whatever. I proposed it about half a month ago, but noone respond to it. Anyways, i would like to see st.lucifer as the leader of this project too. Also i think it isn't a problem, when you are not very familiar with coding, cause i guess we have many people here, which want to contribute something and have average coding skills (like me). ;)

Again, with nobody in charge, who would respond? ;)

I've been afraid of stepping on other people's toes (particularly VinceG, who is still at least theoretically in charge of this project, and Whitefire, who may have had the original idea/blessing of Rhye. I was hoping that Rhye would weigh in on it at some point, but that's fine. I think that we're far enough along that we can start making some concrete decisions - and if we end up having to change things down the line, that's part of the development process.

On that note, I'm going to try to write up a timeline, a revised/definitive civ list, and a resource list over this weekend. Most of this will be compiled/recycled from existing lists, and some of it will remain open to debate - I'll do my best to indicate what we seem to have full consensus on, general agreement, and some disagreement. I'll probably open a new thread for all of this, so there won't be quite as much clutter - it might be worthwhile to move all of this stuff to a new subfolder, if any of the civfanatics editors are reading this.

I should also mention here that I'm in the process of writing a textbook and working ~60 hours a week for my real job, so I may not respond as promptly to some things as everyone would like. I'll do my best to stay on top of things, but if someone else (onedreamer? :D) would like to take charge of smacking down queries about the absence of Prussia and the like, I'd be happy to let someone else handle it.

I'm excited about this project - it'll be good to work on something with people older and wiser than 14-year olds for a change.

St. Lucifer appears good. As long as he has a clear idea of what different people can and can't accomplish, thats fine. Because if I remember correctly, Kael is not as skilled in projraming as some other people on his team.
Also, St. Lucifer appears to have a real interest in this project and has a rudimentary timetable.
If you need anyhelp reasearching, looking for XML spelling errors, or other things, I can do that. My XML skills arn't much above adding a unit though..

Some UPs:
Spain-Power of the Reconquista: All units get combat 1 and 2 while fighting a muslim civ. (Too overpowerd or lame?)
France-Power of the Princes: Every city get 1 cavalry of the best type. Example-If you only have HBR and archery, you have a free horse archer in every city. one you reasearch guilds and have horse and iron, all horse archers upgrade to knights.
Germany-Power of the Empire: Units can't be bribed.(Only used if a 'bribery' mechanic is added, otherwise, use the french one)
Ummayad Caliphate(If added)- Power of the Jihad: All units have an extra move and heal at double rate.
Saxons(If Added)-The Power of the Tribe: If there is more than 75% Saxon Culture in a Conquered city, the city has an increased chance of undergoing a revolt and/or flipping.

Any comments? Also, where is there a difinitive civ list? They have gone through so many different ones, I think the main list is out of date.

Heard of U.U.s and U.B.s, but whats a unique power (U.P.?):confused:

As far as the Reconquista goes, once the Christians finally got their act together and actually fought the Muslims instead of each other, they were always going to win. With the breakup of the Caliphate into city states, the Almoravid invasion in 1085 and the Crusades, Muslim Spain was doomed in the end. So why would you give the Christian states any help at all?
As far as jihad goes, this has been covered already as a tech in the Middle
Ages scenario giving the extra fast Ansar warrior to all Muslim civs. And a healing tech called Arab Medicine. These should both be in this scenario as well.:)

P.S. I too would like to see a definitive civ list when it's finished. And the map as well.

In RFC there are UPs instead of traits. I thought Jihad to show there fast conquest under the Caliphs Umar and Abu Bakr. For the Reconquista, I had no other idea except for something really lame. Something about the conquistadors, but I dont belive the aztecs are in.

For Spain's UP, what about the Power of the Inquisition? I believe there's a mod somewhere that has inquisition and this would be a historical trait of Spain during some of this time period.

For Spain's UP, what about the Power of the Inquisition? I believe there's a mod somewhere that has inquisition and this would be a historical trait of Spain during some of this time period.

Couldn't be just a Spanish trait. Every Catholic country had it.
It originated from the Vatican itself as way of enforcing doctrinal discipline and rooting out heresy. Spain's was just probably a little more bloody than most. In fact the Pope still has a dept. something like it, though can't remember it's name.
The mod your'e talking about has inquisitors as a unit that can eliminate non -Christian religions from any city. Not a bad idea for some of the Christian civs.:)

Glad to hear it, st.lucifer. When you post the civ list I'll have a go at putting them into the xml/python.

Again, with nobody in charge, who would respond? ;)

I've been afraid of stepping on other people's toes (particularly VinceG, who is still at least theoretically in charge of this project, and Whitefire, who may have had the original idea/blessing of Rhye. I was hoping that Rhye would weigh in on it at some point, but that's fine. I think that we're far enough along that we can start making some concrete decisions - and if we end up having to change things down the line, that's part of the development process.

On that note, I'm going to try to write up a timeline, a revised/definitive civ list, and a resource list over this weekend. Most of this will be compiled/recycled from existing lists, and some of it will remain open to debate - I'll do my best to indicate what we seem to have full consensus on, general agreement, and some disagreement. I'll probably open a new thread for all of this, so there won't be quite as much clutter - it might be worthwhile to move all of this stuff to a new subfolder, if any of the civfanatics editors are reading this.

I should also mention here that I'm in the process of writing a textbook and working ~60 hours a week for my real job, so I may not respond as promptly to some things as everyone would like. I'll do my best to stay on top of things, but if someone else (onedreamer? :D) would like to take charge of smacking down queries about the absence of Prussia and the like, I'd be happy to let someone else handle it.

I'm excited about this project - it'll be good to work on something with people older and wiser than 14-year olds for a change.

Just to add to my contribution on Muslim Spain, I've just been reading two
excellent articles in Wikpedia i'd recommend to you. One has an very good
description of the Ummayad Caliphate of Cordoba and the other on the
"taifa" emirates following the breakup of the Caliphate in 1031. Both include
excellent maps covering the period 1000 to 1031 and description of the
Muslim emirates relations with the Christian knigdoms. These should be of
some help in the mod and the map, i think. Anything I can do to support
the project, please ask. I've still got a lot of reseach on this period from
my days as a tabletop/ model soldiers wargamer.:)

All right, here goes. I'm tempted to start a new thread, but that would likely be more confusing than helpful - so here's my current version of the civ list, with dates and dynamic names. I'll do proposed UUs, UPs, and UBs in the next post, and probably another after that for UHVs. While none of this is completely set, I'm going to be operating under the assumption that the 22 civs that we've picked here will be the final list. This list will not be perfect, and it will not include all of the important civs in Europe - but it will be the best that we've managed to come up with in a few months of debate. At this point, we're not going to be considering any new ones, and you're going to have to make a really convincing argument for why one of the proposed and rejected civs should be included over one of the ones that's in there. If you intend to make such an argument, please read the earlier posts in the thread (and the other related threads) to see which arguments have been put forward already and the counters raised to them.

I've streamlined the dynamic civ names somewhat, which will detract somewhat from accuracy but make the game easier to follow. If I've taken too much out, it might be worth re-adding - but I'd rather stay away from the more obscure epochs.

The list:


Western Europe - 4
England (500 AD) --> Great Britain (upon control of Scotland, Wales, N. Ireland)
Neustria (500 AD) --> France (1000 AD)
Burgundy (500 AD)
Netherlands (1580 AD) ? I'm not sure what to use for the starting date on the Netherlands. They were a culturally distinct area long before they were independent. My feeling is that they should appear late, but with a strong base.

Iberia - 3
Léon (720 AD) --> Castile (1230 AD) --> Spain (1520 AD)
Portugal (1100 AD)
Al-Andalus (700 AD) --> Caliphate of Cordoba (950 AD)

Northern Europe - 3
Norsemen (Danes) (500 AD) (Initially start with one settler in Denmark and one in Norway?)
Sweden (1500 AD)
Austrasia (500 AD) --> Germany (920 AD)

Italy - 3
Genoa (1000 AD)
Venice (800 AD)
Papal States (500 AD)

Eastern Europe - 6
Poland (970 AD) --> Poland-Lithuania (1570 AD)
Austria (1160 AD)
Magyars (900 AD) --> Hungarian Crown (1000 AD)
Kievan Rus (860 AD) --> Khanate of the Golden Horde (1200 AD) --> Greater Russia (by territory controlled)
Duchy of Moscow (1000 AD) --> Russia (1550 AD) --> Greater Russia (by territory controlled)
Bulgaria (630 AD)

Anatolia and Middle East - 3
Eastern Roman Empire (500 AD) (Might it be better to call this the Byzantine empire for the purposes of diplomacy, at least? I'm thinking of how 'Eastern Roman Empire' is going to look on the stability/diplomacy meter.)
Ottoman Empire (1300 AD)
Umayyad Caliphate (660 AD) --> Abbassid Caliphate (750 AD) --> Fatimid Caliphate (970 AD) (after the Fatimids, I'd rather not transition to the Ayyubids or the Mamluks - neither of those held the title of Caliphate, and I'd rather maintain continuity than perfect historical accuracy)

Dropped from the list:
-Switzerland (geographic balance, fairly passive goals, historical importance/influence on neighbors)

Others previously considered and rejected:
-HRE (to be handled as a title; lands and powers divided among several civs)
-Various UK Celts (minor)
-Moravia (brevity)
-Prussia (time scale, redundancy)
-Aragon (overlap, time scale)



A crude timeline:

Start (500 AD):
England France Germany Papal States E.R.E. Burgundy Danes


630 AD: Bulgaria
660 AD: Umayyad Caliphate

700 AD: Al-Andalus
720 AD: Léon


800 AD: Venice

860 AD: Kiev

900 AD: Magyars


970 AD: Poland
1000 AD: Russia Genoa



1100 AD: Portugal

1160 AD: Austria




1300 AD: Ottoman Empire



1500 AD: Sweden

1580 AD: Netherlands







1800 AD: Mod ends

Thoughts? Should we start a new thread?

Sounds good. But i think its not possible to let two civs raise at the same time because of coding issues so either Russia or Genoa has to spawn a bit later or earlier. And didnt we say the mod ends in 1900 or did i just not get it?

Also i think its not easy to rename civs by certain date. Futhermore i think the player should have influence on the renaming like GB or Russia, so it should base on ingame events (easy with a defined amount of cities or researching a certain tech, i guess).

My first thought is that we shouldn't start yet another thread ^^
Can I comment some stuff ?

- Arabs/Moors. I'd drop Al Andalus and put in something in north africa instead, if the map allows that. Umayyad should start with a settler and a decent army in Cordoba or Granada.
- Some start dates are a bit puzzling. First, as a general consideration, in 500 AD there will be 7 civs, of which the easternmost and southernmost is ERE, the rest is very very western. This creates a too high concentration in western europe, these civs will meet soon and trade soon, etc. I think it is strategically a bad choice, and even historically. The Papal States should start in 752, or eventually in 728. Both England and Germany can and should start later. I would do this and try and find someone else to start earlier. Kiev is a good candidate. Speaking of Kiev, why should it become a mongolian Khanate when it was called the Mother of Russian Cities ? It should only happen for actual ingame events.
- Like I said I would make one of Umayyad and Al Andalus and make them start at the same time of a spanish kingdom (Asturias ?) if we want to see a balanced conflict in Iberia.
- What about Vikings and Mongols ? They can be represented by huge barbarian waves. It would also be nice to see some Berber incursions especially sea-based. However I think that Mongols should be a civ if we want to see any mongolian Khanate (thanks to the new superb feature of dynamic names).
- Bulgaria: I would make it start in 800 AD to prevent it from having a lot of time to expand in central Europe (ahistorical).
- Byzantium makes more sense of ERE since there is no WRE.

All right, here goes. I'm tempted to start a new thread, but that would likely be more confusing than helpful - so here's my current version of the civ list, with dates and dynamic names. I'll do proposed UUs, UPs, and UBs in the next post, and probably another after that for UHVs. While none of this is completely set, I'm going to be operating under the assumption that the 22 civs that we've picked here will be the final list. This list will not be perfect, and it will not include all of the important civs in Europe - but it will be the best that we've managed to come up with in a few months of debate. At this point, we're not going to be considering any new ones, and you're going to have to make a really convincing argument for why one of the proposed and rejected civs should be included over one of the ones that's in there. If you intend to make such an argument, please read the earlier posts in the thread (and the other related threads) to see which arguments have been put forward already and the counters raised to them.

I've streamlined the dynamic civ names somewhat, which will detract somewhat from accuracy but make the game easier to follow. If I've taken too much out, it might be worth re-adding - but I'd rather stay away from the more obscure epochs.

The list:


Western Europe - 4
England (500 AD) --> Great Britain (upon control of Scotland, Wales, N. Ireland)
Neustria (500 AD) --> France (1000 AD)
Burgundy (500 AD)
Netherlands (1580 AD) ? I'm not sure what to use for the starting date on the Netherlands. They were a culturally distinct area long before they were independent. My feeling is that they should appear late, but with a strong base.

Iberia - 3
Léon (720 AD) --> Castile (1230 AD) --> Spain (1520 AD)
Portugal (1100 AD)
Al-Andalus (700 AD) --> Caliphate of Cordoba (950 AD)

Northern Europe - 3
Norsemen (Danes) (500 AD) (Initially start with one settler in Denmark and one in Norway?)
Sweden (1500 AD)
Austrasia (500 AD) --> Germany (920 AD)

Italy - 3
Genoa (1000 AD)
Venice (800 AD)
Papal States (500 AD)

Eastern Europe - 6
Poland (970 AD) --> Poland-Lithuania (1570 AD)
Austria (1160 AD)
Magyars (900 AD) --> Hungarian Crown (1000 AD)
Kievan Rus (860 AD) --> Khanate of the Golden Horde (1200 AD) --> Greater Russia (by territory controlled)
Duchy of Moscow (1000 AD) --> Russia (1550 AD) --> Greater Russia (by territory controlled)
Bulgaria (630 AD)

Anatolia and Middle East - 3
Eastern Roman Empire (500 AD) (Might it be better to call this the Byzantine empire for the purposes of diplomacy, at least? I'm thinking of how 'Eastern Roman Empire' is going to look on the stability/diplomacy meter.)
Ottoman Empire (1300 AD)
Umayyad Caliphate (660 AD) --> Abbassid Caliphate (750 AD) --> Fatimid Caliphate (970 AD) (after the Fatimids, I'd rather not transition to the Ayyubids or the Mamluks - neither of those held the title of Caliphate, and I'd rather maintain continuity than perfect historical accuracy)

Dropped from the list:
-Switzerland (geographic balance, fairly passive goals, historical importance/influence on neighbors)

Others previously considered and rejected:
-HRE (to be handled as a title; lands and powers divided among several civs)
-Various UK Celts (minor)
-Moravia (brevity)
-Prussia (time scale, redundancy)
-Aragon (overlap, time scale)



A crude timeline:

Start (500 AD):
England France Germany Papal States E.R.E. Burgundy Danes


630 AD: Bulgaria
660 AD: Umayyad Caliphate

700 AD: Al-Andalus
720 AD: Léon


800 AD: Venice

860 AD: Kiev

900 AD: Magyars


970 AD: Poland
1000 AD: Russia Genoa



1100 AD: Portugal

1160 AD: Austria




1300 AD: Ottoman Empire



1500 AD: Sweden

1580 AD: Netherlands







1800 AD: Mod ends

Thoughts? Should we start a new thread?

Thanks for work. List looks pretty good to me. Couple of thoughts though
about your dates vs. historic dates.

Kingdom of Asturias founded- 718
Kingdom of Leon founded -924 (incorporates Asturias and Galicia)
Kingdom of Castile incorporates Leon, etc. -1072

So, in the game you should really start with Asturias in 720
to take in Leon and Castille later on.

Al Andalus replaces Visigothic Spain - 720
( becomes the Umayyad Emirate of Cordoba)
Umayyads overthrown, replaced by Abbasids (Baghdad)
and Fatimids (Cairo). Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba -750

My response to One Dreamer to starting Al Andalus in Morocco is OK
in 700, but somehow you've got to have an invasion
of Visigothic Spain on or about 711.
In 700 Visigoth cities like Toledo could be independents, I guess?

Anyway, thanks again, St. Lucifer, for your hard work. Look forward to see the
proposed map with cities.:) :goodjob:

well I proposed to start something ELSE in Morocco because Al Andalus is a Umayyad colony that later became independent since the Umayyad were overthrown. But I don't think this makes sense in game terms, so my proposal was to start with Umayyad in 2 locations: Arabia and south Iberia. Or would this cripple them because of maintenance costs ? Yeah, probably a bad idea ^^

My first thought is that we shouldn't start yet another thread ^^
Can I comment some stuff ?

- Arabs/Moors. I'd drop Al Andalus and put in something in north africa instead, if the map allows that. Umayyad should start with a settler and a decent army in Cordoba or Granada.
- Some start dates are a bit puzzling. First, as a general consideration, in 500 AD there will be 7 civs, of which the easternmost and southernmost is ERE, the rest is very very western. This creates a too high concentration in western europe, these civs will meet soon and trade soon, etc. I think it is strategically a bad choice, and even historically. The Papal States should start in 752, or eventually in 728. Both England and Germany can and should start later. I would do this and try and find someone else to start earlier. Kiev is a good candidate. Speaking of Kiev, why should it become a mongolian Khanate when it was called the Mother of Russian Cities ? It should only happen for actual ingame events.
- Like I said I would make one of Umayyad and Al Andalus and make them start at the same time of a spanish kingdom (Asturias ?) if we want to see a balanced conflict in Iberia.
- What about Vikings and Mongols ? They can be represented by huge barbarian waves. It would also be nice to see some Berber incursions especially sea-based. However I think that Mongols should be a civ if we want to see any mongolian Khanate (thanks to the new superb feature of dynamic names).
- Bulgaria: I would make it start in 800 AD to prevent it from having a lot of time to expand in central Europe (ahistorical).
- Byzantium makes more sense of ERE since there is no WRE.

As I've just posted to St. Lucifer, I agree. The Christians should start with Asturias not Leon in 720. Better then to have Al Andalus start at the same time for balance but with 80% of the land area (historically accurate).

As far as starting in Morocco, that would put the date back 50-100 years,
esp. for the start of the Umayyads in the Middle East (660?)
Better to start Al Andalus in place in 720.
Morocco would be ruled by the Umayyads up to 750,
then by Cordoba until the invasion by the Almoravids in 1086.

So Andalus and Asturias both starting in 720. Nice and simple and accurate.
That'd prob. work OK. Do you agree?:)

I wonder is it possible to have city names defined by tile AND date? It would be cool to have English cities named in the Saxon fashion before the national catastrophe... and it would work for other civs whose cities went through periodic resiting and renaming, frx in Scandinavia.

I wonder is it possible to have city names defined by tile AND date? It would be cool to have English cities named in the Saxon fashion before the national catastrophe... and it would work for other civs whose cities went through periodic resiting and renaming, frx in Scandinavia.

What do mean by "tile AND date"?
And just what do you regard as the "national catastrophe"?;)

A) Kiev changing to the Golden Horde doesn't really make sense, considering the Khanates power base was further east, and they invaded and destroyed kiev rather than taking it over. Chernigov, or even Ukraine makes more sense.
B) 'Greater Russia' actually already has a meaning - what we currently think of as 'Russia' (ukraine being Little Russia and Belarus being White Russia), 'Empire of all Russias' makes a lot more sense for territory based names (and was one of the actual titles).

I'd still prefer Aragon or northern italian civ over Bulgaria though ;).

We should probably concurrently decide on the spawning of independent cities and barbarian waves with when the main civs spawn so that it fits together more.


Something in the middle of ireland (as Dublin et al should be founded by the Vikings and British) - Game Start.
Stirling/Edinburgh - Game Start
Brest/Renne - Game Start
Durham/Something more appropriate for Northumbra - 600 AD
Caen -
Toulouse -
Poitiers -
Marseille -
Zaragoza -
Pamplona -
Valencia -
Bern -
Something in Saxony -
Prague -
Brno (Representing Great Moravia) -
Danzig -
Novgorod -
Kazan (if the map goes that far) -
Tver -
Milan -
Florence -
Naples -

Barbarian Cities
Astrakhan -
2 Baltic cities



Avars - 600 AD, large force of Horse Archers on the Hungarian plains
Viking Raids? - Possibly just before the Danes spawn, several galleys and berserkers appear on the British, Irish and French coasts to wreck havoc.
Varangians - 840 AD Berserkers appear along the great russian rivers.
Saracen and Barbary Pirates - Ship spawnings in the western med from 800AD onwards.
Berber Revolt - 750 Force of Camel Archers spawn in north africa
Pechenegs - 900 AD, large spawning of Keshiks east of the Don
Turks in Anatolia - 1000 AD, small forces of barbarian Knights appearing.
Mongols - 1240 AD, Huge spawning of Keshiks and seige weapons east of the Don.
Swiss Uprising - 1300 AD, A number of pikemen with drill and Guerilla promotions appear around Bern.

So Andalus and Asturias both starting in 720. Nice and simple and accurate.
That'd prob. work OK. Do you agree?:)

My concern is that the Arab state must be strong. Otherwise we will have a standard RFC situation with Arabia. With the current setup, it's highly unlikely that the AI will expand from Arabia to Morocco. Arabia will be a nuisance for Byzantium only, Al Andalus for Spain only. IMHO it would be better to find a solution to have either a unique and strong Arabian state, or to have an arabian state starting in north-northwest Africa.

Indipendents:
Disenfrancised, it is a good list but maybe you're creating a bit too many "ready cities" especially in western europe ? I would place indipendents in Switzerland, Scandinavia, Scotland and Ireland, Crimea (Bulgar Tribes in case Bulgaria starts in 800 AD instead of 600 as I hope), North and South Italy for Longobards (Milan and Benevento ?), Moravia, Turkey, Egypt (with weak defenses to encourage Arabian expansion there) and in the Middle East at least Jerusalem (which should probably flip to Arabs). Maybe Tripoli too. I don't understand the reason to have indipendent cities in France and Iberia since there are Civs there spawning quite early.

My concern is that the Arab state must be strong. Otherwise we will have a standard RFC situation with Arabia. With the current setup, it's highly unlikely that the AI will expand from Arabia to Morocco. Arabia will be a nuisance for Byzantium only, Al Andalus for Spain only. IMHO it would be better to find a solution to have either a unique and strong Arabian state, or to have an arabian state starting in north-northwest Africa.

I think there is a solution to that problem. Take the example of the CIV4
Middle Ages scenario that starts in 843. All you would have to do is to start
the Arabs as The Umayyad Caliphate in 700 and have it break up into three
parts in 750. Or start them all off together in 750. So you end up with;

the Abbasids - Baghdad, Mecca and Damascus
the Fatimids - Tunis and Cairo
the Umayyads -Cordoba and Tangier
the Christian Spanish -Asturias/Leon
plus a couple of Berber independents in Morocco

Historically, the Fatimids and the Cordovans
fought over Morocco anyway. The three Arabian Caliphates
would then all be fairly strong in their own right.:)

sounds good actually, but we also need
-1 something to prevent other civs from settling those areas for 250 years
-2 one more civ slot :D

What do mean by "tile AND date"?
And just what do you regard as the "national catastrophe"?;)

I mean have it so Lundenwic (500) -> Lunden (c.900) -> London (c.1100) etc.

I was being hyperbolic about 1066.

I mean have it so Lundenwic (500) -> Lunden (c.900) -> London (c.1100) etc.

I was being hyperbolic about 1066.

Thought so. Round here folks would put the catastrophe a bit earler.
Like the Saxons or English (whatever they're called) Still going on too,
some might say.;)

guys I've tried to find a thread whihc indicated the origin of RFC europe, but cant, can anyone tell me is there an ETA on this Mod?

I think we can do that later if its not to difficult to realize. First we shall put the focus on the civs, their spawn und their UP, UU, UB and UHV.

I don't understand the reason to have indipendent cities in France and Iberia since there are Civs there spawning quite early.

The question is in how far the civs can settle new cities, because historically most of the cities on which the western states build their empire on were cities which were founded much earlier by the romans or some tribes. They just flipped to them. So either you have many independents at the beginning or the whole landmass is empty (which isnt that historically correct i guess) until the settlers of the civs which spawn capture the land. On the other hand if you are deploying many cities the games are less variable and more and more the same because the AI allways owns cities on the same spots.

So its a matter of the focus, either gameplay or historic correctness. Both will be very hard.

Edit: Whats ETA?

Estimated Time of Arrival

Indipendents:
Disenfrancised, it is a good list but maybe you're creating a bit too many "ready cities" especially in western europe ? I would place indipendents in Switzerland, Scandinavia, Scotland and Ireland, Crimea (Bulgar Tribes in case Bulgaria starts in 800 AD instead of 600 as I hope), North and South Italy for Longobards (Milan and Benevento ?), Moravia, Turkey, Egypt (with weak defenses to encourage Arabian expansion there) and in the Middle East at least Jerusalem (which should probably flip to Arabs). Maybe Tripoli too. I don't understand the reason to have indipendent cities in France and Iberia since there are Civs there spawning quite early.

France won't start out with all of modern france under its control, Neustria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neustria) and the medevil French state should only have a smallish region around paris - the south and west should have several independents that need to be brought under control like in real life (indeed I'd see uniting france before X to be one of the historical goals).

Likewise in Iberia, the christian civs will start off with tiny (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:791px-Hispania4c.jpg) areas, the independents showing the other christian kingdoms to be conquered (Pamplona for Navarre and Zaragossa for Aragon).


n the other hand if you are deploying many cities the games are less variable and more and more the same because the AI allways owns cities on the same spots.

Eh? if anything a settler based model would be more predictable (the AIs tending to choose the same good spots), whilst the random dynamics of city capture might produce some interesting results. Plus this would better represent the constant warfare medeveal states had to engage in.

sounds good actually, but we also need
-1 something to prevent other civs from settling those areas for 250 years
-2 one more civ slot :D

Well, Iberia and Morocco were loosely ruled by the Visigoths for most of that time, so it could be an independent civ. The first 250 years is not so long.
Same thing happened in RFC, didn't it?:)

A) Kiev changing to the Golden Horde doesn't really make sense, considering the Khanates power base was further east, and they invaded and destroyed kiev rather than taking it over. Chernigov, or even Ukraine makes more sense.
B) 'Greater Russia' actually already has a meaning - what we currently think of as 'Russia' (ukraine being Little Russia and Belarus being White Russia), 'Empire of all Russias' makes a lot more sense for territory based names (and was one of the actual titles).

I'd still prefer Aragon or northern italian civ over Bulgaria though ;).


Sounds fine to me. Empire of all Russias and Ukraine it is. I'm open to the possibility of removing Bulgaria, but I'd rather not add Aragon or anything in northern Italy - those areas are going to be really crowded as is, and the historical roles of the civs in question can largely be filled by others. I did like the UHV goals for your proposed Italian civ, but I think that having Bulgaria in for gameplay balance is probably better.



We should probably concurrently decide on the spawning of independent cities and barbarian waves with when the main civs spawn so that it fits together more.


Something in the middle of ireland (as Dublin et al should be founded by the Vikings and British) - Game Start.
Stirling/Edinburgh - Game Start
Brest/Renne - Game Start
Durham/Something more appropriate for Northumbra - 600 AD
Caen -
Toulouse -
Poitiers -
Marseille -
Zaragoza -
Pamplona -
Valencia -
Bern -
Something in Saxony -
Prague -
Brno (Representing Great Moravia) -
Danzig -
Novgorod -
Kazan (if the map goes that far) -
Tver -
Milan -
Florence -
Naples -

Barbarian Cities
Astrakhan -
2 Baltic cities


Thoughts here: good list. I think I originally put Toulon, Narbonne, and Burdigala on the map, but I'm ok with dropping them for these. Leipzig seems to be the oldest city in Saxony (at around 1000 AD). I don't think the map goes as far east as Kazan or Astrakhan - in moving the map west to eliminate Mesopotamia, I had to take out the Caucasus and Caspian regions.



Avars - 600 AD, large force of Horse Archers on the Hungarian plains
Viking Raids? - Possibly just before the Danes spawn, several galleys and berserkers appear on the British, Irish and French coasts to wreck havoc.
Varangians - 840 AD Berserkers appear along the great russian rivers.
Saracen and Barbary Pirates - Ship spawnings in the western med from 800AD onwards.
Berber Revolt - 750 Force of Camel Archers spawn in north africa
Pechenegs - 900 AD, large spawning of Keshiks east of the Don
Turks in Anatolia - 1000 AD, small forces of barbarian Knights appearing.
Mongols - 1240 AD, Huge spawning of Keshiks and seige weapons east of the Don.
Swiss Uprising - 1300 AD, A number of pikemen with drill and Guerilla promotions appear around Bern.



Man, I'm not going to want to play this as Kiev....:D

Eh? if anything a settler based model would be more predictable (the AIs tending to choose the same good spots), whilst the random dynamics of city capture might produce some interesting results. Plus this would better represent the constant warfare medeveal states had to engage in.

Sure thats right, but if the cities are going to flip to the spawning civ then this civ will start normally every time with the same cities in the same situation (except someone raised the cities before).

My first thought is that we shouldn't start yet another thread ^^
Can I comment some stuff ?

- Arabs/Moors. I'd drop Al Andalus and put in something in north africa instead, if the map allows that. Umayyad should start with a settler and a decent army in Cordoba or Granada.
- Some start dates are a bit puzzling. First, as a general consideration, in 500 AD there will be 7 civs, of which the easternmost and southernmost is ERE, the rest is very very western. This creates a too high concentration in western europe, these civs will meet soon and trade soon, etc. I think it is strategically a bad choice, and even historically. The Papal States should start in 752, or eventually in 728. Both England and Germany can and should start later. I would do this and try and find someone else to start earlier. Kiev is a good candidate. Speaking of Kiev, why should it become a mongolian Khanate when it was called the Mother of Russian Cities ? It should only happen for actual ingame events.
- Like I said I would make one of Umayyad and Al Andalus and make them start at the same time of a spanish kingdom (Asturias ?) if we want to see a balanced conflict in Iberia.
- What about Vikings and Mongols ? They can be represented by huge barbarian waves. It would also be nice to see some Berber incursions especially sea-based. However I think that Mongols should be a civ if we want to see any mongolian Khanate (thanks to the new superb feature of dynamic names).
- Bulgaria: I would make it start in 800 AD to prevent it from having a lot of time to expand in central Europe (ahistorical).
- Byzantium makes more sense of ERE since there is no WRE.

I had planned to give Al-Andalus cities or settlers in both Morocco and Iberia, so no conflict there. I'm not sure how to best handle the maintenance issues; it may be worthwhile to have a UP or UB centered on this. It might be interesting to put the bulk of the army in Iberia, while putting most of the cities in Morocco... there'd have to be a balancing act to keep the African cities from being overrun by Berbers. I am convinced that there need to be two Muslim civs rather than one - one concentrated in the Maghreb, the other in the eastern end of the Mediterranean.

You're right about the imbalance in the early start. Germany probably should start later, as should Burgundy - I'd think that England should start early, but I'd be fine with moving them to 700 or so. Papal States in 750 is also fine.

The Kiev situation is historically complicated, and was further complicated by my initial ideas for how to handle the civ in the mod - my original thought was to have the first UHV or two based on commerce and city development, and then to have them take a hard right turn into conquest and pillage to represent the arrival and takeover of the Mongols, who controlled the area (after razing the city in about 1200) for hundreds of years after the initial conquest. Now, we've got the Magyars for that sort of thing, and if we're going to have the Mongols and others show up as barbarian invasions, there's no need for it.

No objections to moving the Bulgarian start date to 800. The idea was to prevent Byzantine expansion, but the Bulgars didn't get big until later.

As I've just posted to St. Lucifer, I agree. The Christians should start with Asturias not Leon in 720. Better then to have Al Andalus start at the same time for balance but with 80% of the land area (historically accurate).

As far as starting in Morocco, that would put the date back 50-100 years,
esp. for the start of the Umayyads in the Middle East (660?)
Better to start Al Andalus in place in 720.
Morocco would be ruled by the Umayyads up to 750,
then by Cordoba until the invasion by the Almoravids in 1086.

So Andalus and Asturias both starting in 720. Nice and simple and accurate.
That'd prob. work OK. Do you agree?:)

I simplified it to Leon because I felt that Asturias was confusing (and it would give proto-Spain three name changes). If you'd rather do it Asturias -> Castile -> Spain, that's another possibility.

I think that both proto-Spain and al-Andalus will start out with fairly large armies in Iberia and few settlers - with independent cities to conquer before they start fighting each other. Al-Andalus may start out with settlers in north Africa; either way, they'll have sort of a joint power base.

The map is available in the map thread, by the way. It's not completely done (resources, city-unfriendliness tweaks), but it's pretty close. Last I checked, the RFC map thread was still on the most recent page of the forum, if you're looking for it.

I had planned to give Al-Andalus cities or settlers in both Morocco and Iberia, so no conflict there. I'm not sure how to best handle the maintenance issues; it may be worthwhile to have a UP or UB centered on this. It might be interesting to put the bulk of the army in Iberia, while putting most of the cities in Morocco... there'd have to be a balancing act to keep the African cities from being overrun by Berbers. I am convinced that there need to be two Muslim civs rather than one - one concentrated in the Maghreb, the other in the eastern end of the Mediterranean.

You're right about the imbalance in the early start. Germany probably should start later, as should Burgundy - I'd think that England should start early, but I'd be fine with moving them to 700 or so. Papal States in 750 is also fine.

The Kiev situation is historically complicated, and was further complicated by my initial ideas for how to handle the civ in the mod - my original thought was to have the first UHV or two based on commerce and city development, and then to have them take a hard right turn into conquest and pillage to represent the arrival and takeover of the Mongols, who controlled the area (after razing the city in about 1200) for hundreds of years after the initial conquest. Now, we've got the Magyars for that sort of thing, and if we're going to have the Mongols and others show up as barbarian invasions, there's no need for it.

No objections to moving the Bulgarian start date to 800. The idea was to prevent Byzantine expansion, but the Bulgars didn't get big until later.

Any comments on my post (106) regarding 750 as start date for 3 Arab
states splitting from the Umayyads. Solves the Morocco problem as well?:)

Sure thats right, but if the cities are going to flip to the spawning civ then this civ will start normally every time with the same cities in the same situation (except someone raised the cities before).

But all these independents will be outside the small spawn areas of the civs - Neustria should only have a spawn zone around paris, England only the south etc.

Any comments on my post (106) regarding 750 as start date for 3 Arab
states splitting from the Umayyads. Solves the Morocco problem as well?:)

I think what Onedreamer said was right - we don't have the open civ slots to have something like that happen. For the purposes of the mod, we're going to have the Maghreb/Iberia separate from the rest of the Middle East; while it won't always be historically accurate, the Spanish/North African caliphates were usually separate from the Middle Eastern ones.

Guys I'm not completely sold on all these indipendent cities, especially if they are there to prevent early expansion. In fact I suspect the contrary. Especially for the human player indipendents are no match. What about ravaging barbarian stacks to prevent early expansion ? It also makes sense historically. In 500 AD there were still migrations.

@St.Lucifer: I think Burgundy is ok as one of the starting civs. The reason is that the Burgundi were a "barbaric" civ already settled in the Bourgogne area at the time the mod starts. On the other side, "England" did not exist in 500 AD (I know that we can call it another name and have the goal of unification, but in the end it would mean everyone would have this goal, and if I had to choose between one civ that already existed in its core and one that didn't yet I would of course choose the first).

On Kiev. It seems it was built even prior to the V Century, so it could work as one of the starting civs IMO.

Guys I'm not completely sold on all these indipendent cities, especially if they are there to prevent early expansion. In fact I suspect the contrary. Especially for the human player indipendents are no match. What about ravaging barbarian stacks to prevent early expansion ? It also makes sense historically. In 500 AD there were still migrations.


Well while the independents could be said to be there to prevent expansion (give them nice defensive units at the start), a more important facet of their existence IMO is to better represent the early middle ages - nations didn't* grow by sending people out into empty terrain as western Europe had been populated since roman times and the migration age - you built your kingdom with fire, sword and diplomacy.

*Exceptions being the Slavs in the east, the Scandinavian push north and east, and the Drang nach Osten of the Germans and Liths (which only happened after the Mongol depopulations)

Also Barbarians a) wander all over the place and can end up doing silly things and b) make cutting the path between too easy and too hard more troublesome than the static independents (a tough independent means the player has to put more effort &time, a tough barbarian horde will wipe the player out) and c) lets have barbarian hordes as well :evil:

Also if my suggestion for the Austrian/Hapsburg UP is taken up then we need some independents about ;)

Good good, i think we have a base now we can work with. In my opinion we can start coding first things now, can't we? Since it is a community project i would propose that we share the work. First things we shall do is creating the civs and then let them spawn on the proposed map from st. lucifer. Guess then we can have a look at the UHVs in detail ( most parts must be easy to code thanks to rhye's work [copy and paste ;) ] )

Good good, i think we have a base now we can work with. In my opinion we can start coding first things now, can't we? Since it is a community project i would propose that we share the work. First things we shall do is creating the civs and then let them spawn on the proposed map from st. lucifer. Guess then we can have a look at the UHVs in detail ( most parts must be easy to code thanks to rhye's work [copy and paste ;) ] )

Do you need me to finish changes to the map before doing that? Also, might it be better to put in the new resources and take out the old ones before continuing?

Ehm no not really. I think the most of the landmass won't change, we just need the coordinates of the spawning areas. Futhermore we have to edit the map anyway to balance the gameplay.

Just to coordinate it a bit, i will now go for the phyton files which let the civs spawn. If anyone wants to help me, just contact me. And yes someone has to go for the civs (which is quiet easy when you take allready existing ones, just have a look at the download area, otherwise if we want them completly newly-created its more work).

Perhaps we can organize any other way to communicate between the persons which want to work on this project, because it will be very time-consuming if we discuss every little issue in this thread.

What about Bavaria?

What about Bavaria?

Nice place. Lots of forests. Good creme.

What about it? Read the thread. Read the list. Read the rest of the work that people have put into the mod so far. Then, if you'd like to actually put forth an argument about why Bavaria should be included over any of the other civs listed here, please do so.

I did read the thread. I saw no mention of Bavaria. Unlike Prussia, Bavaria existed in one form or another throughout the entire period proposed for this Mod. Not to mention numerous buildings and wonders that could be made from Bavarian landmarks.

it's too small and too near to Austria Mesix. And honestly, I am not very knowledgeable in german history, but I think that Bavaria was like most other HRE member state though among the biggest, most cultural and politically important. But it still was "only" a HRE member state, and seeing that it was an important one, I do think it should belong to Germany as a civ.

Well while the independents could be said to be there to prevent expansion (give them nice defensive units at the start), a more important facet of their existence IMO is to better represent the early middle ages - nations didn't* grow by sending people out into empty terrain as western Europe had been populated since roman times and the migration age - you built your kingdom with fire, sword and diplomacy.


Ok, I'm pretty much sold to the indipendent cities now ;)
Would be nice if they have strong defenses but weak culture, so that they may eventually flip ?

To answer to your proposed list, 2 baltic cities could be
Riga - 1200
Koenigsberg - 1250

I would also like to see:

Lyon instead of Poitiers
Pisa instead of Firenze (I know, Florence is nice and all, but having Pisa would allow a better settled Romagna, and the historical war between Pisa and Genoa, plus I would finally build the Tower of Pisa in Pisa :rolleyes: )
I added possible dates (based on foundation, which means most are at game start... or do we want them to appear in a more controlled way ?) and more indipendent cities


Something in the middle of ireland (as Dublin et al should be founded by the Vikings and British) - Game Start. I couldn't find any city worth keeping in the whole timeline that wasn't founded by Vikings, actually. Can't we just leave it unsettled ?
Edinburgh/Stirling - 1000/1100
Rennes - 500
Durham - 600
Caen - 1000 (sounds a bit too late, the French civ will settle here before anyways. What about Rouen, residence of the Duke of Normandy ? 500)
Toulouse - 500
Poitiers - 500 (or Lyon, or Nimes ? 500)
Marseille - 500
Zaragoza - 500
Pamplona - 500. Or Burgos (880) ?
Valencia - 500
Bern - 1200
Something in Saxony - do you mean modern day Saxony, or the Duchy of Saxony of about 700 AD ? Because they are in completely different areas.
Prague - end of IX Century
Brno (Representing Great Moravia) - about 1100, but it was only a castle still
Danzig - 980
Novgorod - 600 ?
Kazan (if the map goes that far) - 1000
Tver - 1000 ?
Riga - 1200
Koenigsberg - 1250
Milan - 500
Pisa - 500
Naples - 500

Cherson - 500
Messina - 500
Alexandria - 500
Jerusalem - 500 (should flip to Umayyad)
Trapezus - 500
Tripoli - 500

Ok, I'm pretty much sold to the indipendent cities now ;)
Would be nice if they have strong defenses but weak culture, so that they may eventually flip ?

To answer to your proposed list, 2 baltic cities could be
Riga - 1200
Koenigsberg - 1250

I would also like to see:

Lyon instead of Poitiers
Pisa instead of Firenze (I know, Florence is nice and all, but having Pisa would allow a better settled Romagna, and the historical war between Pisa and Genoa, plus I would finally build the Tower of Pisa in Pisa :rolleyes: )
I added possible dates (based on foundation, which means most are at game start... or do we want them to appear in a more controlled way ?) and more indipendent cities


Something in the middle of ireland (as Dublin et al should be founded by the Vikings and British) - Game Start. I couldn't find any city worth keeping in the whole timeline that wasn't founded by Vikings, actually. Can't we just leave it unsettled ?
Edinburgh/Stirling - 1000/1100
Rennes - 500
Durham - 600
Caen - 1000 (sounds a bit too late, the French civ will settle here before anyways. What about Rouen, residence of the Duke of Normandy ? 500)
Toulouse - 500
Poitiers - 500 (or Lyon, or Nimes ? 500)
Marseille - 500
Zaragoza - 500
Pamplona - 500. Or Burgos (880) ?
Valencia - 500
Bern - 1200
Something in Saxony - do you mean modern day Saxony, or the Duchy of Saxony of about 700 AD ? Because they are in completely different areas.
Prague - end of IX Century
Brno (Representing Great Moravia) - about 1100, but it was only a castle still
Danzig - 980
Novgorod - 600 ?
Kazan (if the map goes that far) - 1000
Tver - 1000 ?
Riga - 1200
Koenigsberg - 1250
Milan - 500
Pisa - 500
Naples - 500

Cherson - 500
Messina - 500
Alexandria - 500
Jerusalem - 500 (should flip to Umayyad)
Trapezus - 500
Tripoli - 500


Assuming this includes a list of independent Iberian cities in 500AD,
I think they should include:
Pamplona
Toledo(Visigoth capitol)
Zaragoza
Badajoz
Lisbon
Valencia
Cordoba
Cartagena
Seville
Malaga
Cadiz

All of these were present in 500 and were basically ruled
by the Visigoths and all were conquered by the Arabs between
711 and 720. Only Pamplona would flip to the Christians after 720.
OK?:)

Hm if we are going to include that much independents i think we have to create one or two more independent civs, because otherwise they will be to mighty in the beginning.

Hm if we are going to include that much independents i think we have to create one or two more independent civs, because otherwise they will be to mighty in the beginning.

Take your point, but an area the size of Spain and Portugal (bigger than
France) is going to need ten cities at least to take account of Christian
states in the north becoming Leon, (poss. 2 or 3), Portugal (2?) and enough
in the rest of the peninsula to guarantee the start of Al Andalus early on.
It's not as if there weren't cities already there in the Roman and Visigothic
period. There were even more than that. I haven't even mentioned
Barcelona and Tarragona becoming independant after the collapse of
Charlemagne's empire, either. Counting them, 10 or 12 is minimum.:)

BTW Your point about independent civs is a good one. Most of those mentioned
were ruled by the Visigoths from 500 to 711. There's one ind. civ. right?

The problem is that the independents as they exist in rfc are normal civs with research, production and culture, so if they own many cities it will be very hard for the playable civs to beat them. So we have to split the cities up to more independent civs so they dont become to mighty. On the other hand its also possible to include the visigothic as a minor civ like its done with the celts in rfc.

btw in rfc we have 27 civs, in rfc europe we have only 23 by now. ;)

Edit: One more thing, can you please have a look at the map and tell me where to put all those cities?

The problem is that the independents as they exist in rfc are normal civs with research, production and culture, so if they own many cities it will be very hard for the playable civs to beat them. So we have to split the cities up to more independent civs so they dont become to mighty. On the other hand its also possible to include the visigothic as a minor civ like its done with the celts in rfc.

btw in rfc we have 27 civs, in rfc europe we have only 23 by now. ;)

Edit: One more thing, can you please have a look at the map and tell me where to put all those cities?

Western European Independents, Central European Independents, and Eastern Independents perhaps? (Would also allow different tech stages for the three - which could be nice)

The problem is that the independents as they exist in rfc are normal civs with research, production and culture, so if they own many cities it will be very hard for the playable civs to beat them. So we have to split the cities up to more independent civs so they dont become to mighty. On the other hand its also possible to include the visigothic as a minor civ like its done with the celts in rfc.

btw in rfc we have 27 civs, in rfc europe we have only 23 by now. ;)

Edit: One more thing, can you please have a look at the map and tell me where to put all those cities?

Where's the map? Didn't know it was done. Can you post a screenshot?
With zoom if poss.?:)

:)Western European Independents, Central European Independents, and Eastern Independents perhaps? (Would also allow different tech stages for the three - which could be nice)

When you say "independents", do you mean independent cities or independent
civs or both, as in RFC? If so, the Visigoths could start in Iberia as an
independent civ., while Berber indep. cities in Morocco be conquered by the
arrival of an Arab army, just like what happens with the Ottomans in RFC.

I remember something similiar happening in the Civ2 scenario "The Crescent
and the Sword"?. At the start you've this mass of horsemen swarming westward
through the independent(barbarian) cities of North Africa right up to Tangier.
So, after conquering Morocco, in this mod, they'd consolidate before taking
on independent Visigoth Spain. Would that work?:)

If it's to start in 500, you could have a Gothic non-player civ controlling most of Spain, Italy and southern France, analagous to RFC's Celts.

Where's the map? Didn't know it was done. Can you post a screenshot?
With zoom if poss.?:)

Once again, the map has its own thread - there's an attached file which unzips into a WorldBuilderSave. Open it up, start a game, open worldbuilder, and that'll show you everything - including tags for civ starting locations and possible independents (although many of those will have to be redone now, which is fine.)

11 independent cities in Iberia is a lot. Granted, there were lots of existing cities in Iberia at the time, but the same can be said of many areas of Europe, and some of the ones that you mention are relatively minor. Can we eliminate Badajoz, Malaga, Cartagena, and Cadiz, at least, and possibly Pamplona or Zaragosa? I'm ok with having that many cities if we're disabling settlers, but that idea has not been received well. I'd rather we focus on a few strong independent cities than a constellation of smaller and weaker ones which leave no open space.

I'd also favor adding Barcelona and possibly Narbonne. That crescent of land between the Pyrenees and Central Massif was generally independent.

Is the Mongol Invaision going to be included? Also, what muslim civs are going to be added? I know that the turks and moors/berbers are going to be added, but is the Fatimid Caliphate, the Ummayyad Caliphate, or the Abbassid Caliphate going to be added? The muslim world has to be added and made strong, but divided.

:)Once again, the map has its own thread - there's an attached file which unzips into a WorldBuilderSave. Open it up, start a game, open worldbuilder, and that'll show you everything - including tags for civ starting locations and possible independents (although many of those will have to be redone now, which is fine.)

11 independent cities in Iberia is a lot. Granted, there were lots of existing cities in Iberia at the time, but the same can be said of many areas of Europe, and some of the ones that you mention are relatively minor. Can we eliminate Badajoz, Malaga, Cartagena, and Cadiz, at least, and possibly Pamplona or Zaragosa? I'm ok with having that many cities if we're disabling settlers, but that idea has not been received well. I'd rather we focus on a few strong independent cities than a constellation of smaller and weaker ones which leave no open space.

I'd also favor adding Barcelona and possibly Narbonne. That crescent of land between the Pyrenees and Central Massif was generally independent.
Looked for the map in the other thread. Couldn't find one with cities.
And I'm having problems with zip right now, so somebody please post a screenshot version please?:)
As I said, we have to distinguish between independent cities and independent civs.
You may be right about numbers but I'm not sure about disabling settlers
completely for over 200 years.
But, to simplify things I suggest, to start in 500AD:

Kingdom of the Visigoths;(non-playable civ.)
Toledo (Capitol)
Zaragoza
Valencia
Seville
Cordoba

Independent Cities;
Leon (where Christians start in 720?)
Pamplona (Basques -flip to Christians)
Lisbon (Portugal to spawn here)
Barcelona (orig Frankish then independent city.)

and for the Berber independent civ.-non-playable)
Fez
Meknes
Tangier
Marrakesh
Arabs to arrive about 670 and capture these 4 before
invading Iberia in 720?

How's that? One independent civ. and 4 independent cities in Iberia.
Trying to simplify, but you can only reduce it so much.:)

Is the Mongol Invaision going to be included? Also, what muslim civs are going to be added? I know that the turks and moors/berbers are going to be added, but is the Fatimid Caliphate, the Ummayyad Caliphate, or the Abbassid Caliphate going to be added? The muslim world has to be added and made strong, but divided.

I think the Mongols are included already. As far as the Muslim civs are
concerned, I guess they'll be two. One starting in Arabia, becoming the
Umayyads, then splitting into the Abbasids and Fatimids about 750. The
other would start as an Arab invasion of Morocco about 670 then invading
Spain in 720 and becoming the Cordoban Caliphate. More than two would
make it hard to mod, I guess? I agree that both should be strong, however,
as I've suggested already.:)

I don't think there was ever a Cordoban Caliphate. If I remember correctly, it was called Ummayad Spain. Although if I am wrong, please correct me.
As long as there is both the Fatimids and the Abbasid Caliphate it is realistic. Once or twice, the Fatimids were tenetive allies with Byzantium. Jessiecat, how far east does the map go? I have horrible internet downlod speeds, so I can't look at the map. If it doesn't go to Baghdad, I think the Abbasid Caliphate can be scrapped and just have it be a re-name of the Umayyad Caliphate.

I don't think there was ever a Cordoban Caliphate. If I remember correctly, it was called Ummayad Spain. Although if I am wrong, please correct me.
As long as there is both the Fatimids and the Abbasid Caliphate it is realistic. Once or twice, the Fatimids were tenetive allies with Byzantium. Jessiecat, how far east does the map go? I have horrible internet downlod speeds, so I can't look at the map. If it doesn't go to Baghdad, I think the Abbasid Caliphate can be scrapped and just have it be a re-name of the Umayyad Caliphate.

Basically, there are three Muslim civs - the names-keep-changing Caliphate in the east and al-Andalus in the west, and then the Turks come in late. There should also be about a 50/50 chance that Bulgaria ends up Islamic, and a smaller chance (~10-20%?) that France, Spain, Kiev, Portugal, Venice, Genoa, and Hungary do.

There was a Caliphate of Cordoba for a while (929-1031, according to wikipedia (I don't want to dig through books atm)), but if I remember right, there were serious objections to it being referred to as a Caliphate. Prior to that, it was the Emirate of Cordoba, which seems more resonable.

The map goes to the eastern edge of the Black Sea, which cuts out the Caucasus, Mesopotamia, and the Urals. While those regions are certainly important to Europe, it was generally agreed that they would shift the focus of the mod too far eastward and add another 1000 or so tiles of forestland in Russia that the AI would be irrationally desperate to settle. Baghdad is not on the map - Damascus or Aleppo is the easternmost city.

We've discussed representing the Mongol invasion as a change in the appearance/character of the Kievan civ, or as a massive barbarian uprising. Currently, I think the barbarian plan has more support.



jessicat, I like your revised list of independent cities with a couple of caveats. First, I'm not sure that we have room to do the Visigoths as an independent/nonplayable civ separate from the other independents. While there's certainly an argument for doing that, in that the Visigothic kingdom actually functioned more or less like a unified country, I'm not sure how many slots we want to fill or have active at a given time. If the game runs at a decent speed with the Visigoths in, that's fine. If not, I'd favor putting them under Independent-W. Europe. We're also not going to have Basque or Frankish civs, playable or not, so I'm not sure where that's going, and I'd argue strongly against having a Berber NPCiv. The operative idea for Iberia currently is that al-Andalus or whatever we're initially calling it shows up with armies in both N. Africa and Iberia. If we want to flip them a couple of independents in either place, that's fine, but there's a difference between making them strong and starting them out in ~700 AD with 8 medium-sized partially developed cities.

Basically, there are three Muslim civs - the names-keep-changing Caliphate in the east and al-Andalus in the west, and then the Turks come in late. There should also be about a 50/50 chance that Bulgaria ends up Islamic, and a smaller chance (~10-20%?) that France, Spain, Kiev, Portugal, Venice, Genoa, and Hungary do.

There was a Caliphate of Cordoba for a while (929-1031, according to wikipedia (I don't want to dig through books atm)), but if I remember right, there were serious objections to it being referred to as a Caliphate. Prior to that, it was the Emirate of Cordoba, which seems more resonable.

The map goes to the eastern edge of the Black Sea, which cuts out the Caucasus, Mesopotamia, and the Urals. While those regions are certainly important to Europe, it was generally agreed that they would shift the focus of the mod too far eastward and add another 1000 or so tiles of forestland in Russia that the AI would be irrationally desperate to settle. Baghdad is not on the map - Damascus or Aleppo is the easternmost city.

We've discussed representing the Mongol invasion as a change in the appearance/character of the Kievan civ, or as a massive barbarian uprising. Currently, I think the barbarian plan has more support.



jessicat, I like your revised list of independent cities with a couple of caveats. First, I'm not sure that we have room to do the Visigoths as an independent/nonplayable civ separate from the other independents. While there's certainly an argument for doing that, in that the Visigothic kingdom actually functioned more or less like a unified country, I'm not sure how many slots we want to fill or have active at a given time. If the game runs at a decent speed with the Visigoths in, that's fine. If not, I'd favor putting them under Independent-W. Europe. We're also not going to have Basque or Frankish civs, playable or not, so I'm not sure where that's going, and I'd argue strongly against having a Berber NPCiv. The operative idea for Iberia currently is that al-Andalus or whatever we're initially calling it shows up with armies in both N. Africa and Iberia. If we want to flip them a couple of independents in either place, that's fine, but there's a difference between making them strong and starting them out in ~700 AD with 8 medium-sized partially developed cities.

Thanks for answering his question. was just about to do that.
As far as your comments, we're 95% agreed.
I didn't mean a Basque civ., just one independent city
which flips to the Christians anyway.
And of course the Berber cities could just be independents.
The question of Barcelona is difficult because it became a
very strong County of Barcelona and a big Med player
that has to remain independent until absorbed by Aragon.
Is there some way we could make it strong enough
not to be swamped either by Cordoba or the Christians?

Mabey it could just be gotten rid of. One thing I have noticed when making my 300-AD mod is that, if it is creating a headache trying to make it work, drop it untill the mod is more finished. Or it could also be given to spain like in the 1000-AD scenerio that shipped with the game.

Mabey it could just be gotten rid of. One thing I have noticed when making my 300-AD mod is that, if it is creating a headache trying to make it work, drop it untill the mod is more finished. Or it could also be given to spain like in the 1000-AD scenerio that shipped with the game.

Sorry? What could just be gotten rid of?:confused:

Adding Barcelona. If it is giving that much trouble, it might be easier to get rid of it.

Adding Barcelona. If it is giving that much trouble, it might be easier to get rid of it.

I think it's too important, historically. But if it started as a strong indep.
city from the start with good defences but settlers disabled that might
preserve for it for awhile. Though if the playable Christian or Cordoban
civs. do capture it in the end, then no problem. Just part of the game.:)

I think it's too important, historically. But if it started as a strong indep.
city from the start with good defences but settlers disabled that might
preserve for it for awhile. Though if the playable Christian or Cordoban
civs. do capture it in the end, then no problem. Just part of the game.:)

Honestly, starting it with a bunch of longbows and a castle in 500 AD should do the trick - it'll take a while before any AI or human player will get the tech to overcome that, particularly as we're going to be expanding the tech tree to remove some of its more egregious unit imbalances (muskets with gunpowder, etc.) I'm pretty sure that settlers are disabled for the independents (or should be) as a matter of course.

Okay, thats good. Dors anyone know when we sill start working on a beta release? Weve done alot of talking and not alot of doing.

Honestly, starting it with a bunch of longbows and a castle in 500 AD should do the trick - it'll take a while before any AI or human player will get the tech to overcome that, particularly as we're going to be expanding the tech tree to remove some of its more egregious unit imbalances (muskets with gunpowder, etc.) I'm pretty sure that settlers are disabled for the independents (or should be) as a matter of course.

I'm satisfied with that solution. I take it we're now all in agreement on Iberia
and Morocco, with the start and the independents, etc.?

I'd echo Ajitica's concerns about the Abbasid/Fatimid split in 750 though.
Based on a 500+ start at Mecca, how could we be sure that Damascus,
Jerusalem, Cairo, Tripoli and Tunis all be conquered by the Arabs in time
so the 750 split could happen as it should, historically?

I think they'd have to be captured pretty quickly from the Byzantines after
650, have some time to consolidate before Tunis and Tripoli then revolt from
the main civ in 750. How would a human player manage that?
Maybe recapture them, so the Fatimids don't really happen in the game?:confused:

It's a fair point. How much historical reality do you sacrifice for game
playibility? I'm sure issues of this kind could be brought up everywhere
on the map. I'll bet there'll be people reading this who have their own
concerns. Like One Dreamer with the Italians, for example.
What's your take on this?:)

Sorry bout that. Just double-posted.:crazyeye:

Okay, thats good. Dors anyone know when we sill start working on a beta release? Weve done alot of talking and not alot of doing.

Guess we can make a first beta version, when we have the civs spawning. I'm currently working on that, but its more difficult then i thought one or two weeks are realistic i think.

But in this time, someone can actually start working on the civs themselves. Anyone how is willing to do that?

Is the map itself finalised then?

Is the map itself finalised then?

more or less. there are some tweaks that need to be made to make scandinavia and north africa less city-friendly, and we're going to be adding new resources in (and balancing the ones we have a bit), but it's basically done.

Great. I seem to have lost the link though - can you help?

Great. I seem to have lost the link though - can you help?

Me too! As I said, I can't do zip right now. How about a screenshot (like,
with zoom?? Come on, you've got the technology.!:)

more or less. there are some tweaks that need to be made to make scandinavia and north africa less city-friendly, and we're going to be adding new resources in (and balancing the ones we have a bit), but it's basically done.

I still don't think a through-game united Scandinavian civ is a neat solution. How fun will it be for the human player to mess around with a of tundra, really? And the AI will just be like Mali in the big RFC, which I don't think works. Of course, there has to be someone there, but it's still not optimal. Who will own Denmark? In big RFC, german/viking culture usually takes the place without cities. The Dutch sometimes found Gröningen in Schlezwig. In this scenario, this won't quite work (IMO).
My solution would be something that I think someone said earlier, kinda. Make the viking spawn in Denmark, and let them evolve into "Danish Kingdom - Kingdom of Denmark/Norway" (if they have Norway that is) and so on. And make an individual Swedish civ. C'mon, you know it's the best way. Let'em spawn around 1300, or later, around 1500. Either way, making one civ span most of the baltic isn't good.
I know I said Scandinavia should be more barren. But I think they might be worth a bit more. Idonnu.

And also, be careful with North Africa. Don't overkill the desert, remember desertification hadn't gone as far as today back then. =)

Please read the thread, we have allready two civs in Scandinavia, the norsemen/danish civs and sweden.

Link to Map is here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=163917&d=1194847276). I'm too busy right now to make a screenshot, but why you dont use winrar? ^^

Please read the thread, we have allready two civs in Scandinavia, the norsemen/danish civs and sweden.

Link to Map is here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=163917&d=1194847276). I'm too busy right now to make a screenshot, but why you dont use winrar? ^^

Cause I'd have to buy it, wouldn't I? Please, when you DO have time,
post a screenshot please so everybody can see it.:)

I don't believe that's the definitive version: St Lucifer said he was going to make some adjustments.

Cause I'd have to buy it, wouldn't I? Please, when you DO have time,
post a screenshot please so everybody can see it.:)

No, you wouldn't. While it's not freeware, there is a free trial period, and it doesn't stop functioning after that. I'm pretty sure that I've passed my 40-day trial period on it, and I have only my conscience to deal with. On the other hand, I'm not sure how to post a functioning screenshot of a 40x100 map, so I will continue to refer people to the larger, more interactive WBS.

I don't believe that's the definitive version: St Lucifer said he was going to make some adjustments.

It's close. I'm going to make some small adjustments, but go with that for now.

I still don't think a through-game united Scandinavian civ is a neat solution. How fun will it be for the human player to mess around with a of tundra, really? And the AI will just be like Mali in the big RFC, which I don't think works. Of course, there has to be someone there, but it's still not optimal. Who will own Denmark? In big RFC, german/viking culture usually takes the place without cities. The Dutch sometimes found Gröningen in Schlezwig. In this scenario, this won't quite work (IMO).
My solution would be something that I think someone said earlier, kinda. Make the viking spawn in Denmark, and let them evolve into "Danish Kingdom - Kingdom of Denmark/Norway" (if they have Norway that is) and so on. And make an individual Swedish civ. C'mon, you know it's the best way. Let'em spawn around 1300, or later, around 1500. Either way, making one civ span most of the baltic isn't good.
I know I said Scandinavia should be more barren. But I think they might be worth a bit more. Idonnu.

And also, be careful with North Africa. Don't overkill the desert, remember desertification hadn't gone as far as today back then. =)

Messing around with tundra isn't any fun, you're right. However, in the games I've played through on the current map, the AI develops 4 size-20 cities in Sweden and outtechs everybody. We're splitting Scandinavia up between the Norse (Denmark, Norway) and the Swedes (show up late in Sweden), but it's still got to lose some food production to keep it from being a historically incorrect superpower.

And yeah, you're right about North Africa - I've already exaggerated the desertification beyond the point that I'm comfortable with. Unfortunately, the same issue is at stake here - an extremely productive area without much threat of invasion is likely to overpower the game balance.

Schtinks doesn't it. =)

I just didn't think the whole sweden-thing was definite. Neaty neat I spouse.
Will the Norse spawn in Norway or Denmark? I would check in on the map if I was on the right computer. If they spawn in Norway (which I suppose would be more realistic, somehow) I kinda doubt they'll get to Denmark in time before Germany or someone else. But idonnu. Maybe that stuff can get fixed by area-prefs.

Schtinks doesn't it. =)

I just didn't think the whole sweden-thing was definite. Neaty neat I spouse.
Will the Norse spawn in Norway or Denmark? I would check in on the map if I was on the right computer. If they spawn in Norway (which I suppose would be more realistic, somehow) I kinda doubt they'll get to Denmark in time before Germany or someone else. But idonnu. Maybe that stuff can get fixed by area-prefs.

Probably both. Al-Andalus will have settlers in N. Africa and an army in Iberia (with independents flipping to them - maybe one settler); the Norse will probably start with a settler in Denmark and one in Norway - and anything south of Denmark will be extremely flip-prone to the Dutch or Germans to prevent a rapid expansion into central Europe.

the Norse will probably start with a settler in Denmark and one in Norway

Settler in Denmark and a barb city that flips in Norway? Ensures the capital is in denmark at least, which was the centre of power post viking age.

4 size twenties? How :lol:? The Scandinavian peninsula should be mostly tundra-hills-forest and mountain tiles with the odd grassland tile near Stockholm and the south coast (the terrain on RFC map is a tad off).

Mountains, forest and farmland
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8a/Sweden_Land.png/200px-Sweden_Land.png

No, you wouldn't. While it's not freeware, there is a free trial period, and it doesn't stop functioning after that. I'm pretty sure that I've passed my 40-day trial period on it, and I have only my conscience to deal with. On the other hand, I'm not sure how to post a functioning screenshot of a 40x100 map, so I will continue to refer people to the larger, more interactive WBS.

No disrespect to you. But I have passed the free period on winrar and it
won't let me use it. And my machine with XP will not let me extract Winzip
files into Civ files except as unzipped readme files.
Maybe i'm just dumb about this, but I don't understand. I'm not a modder.
I just wish mods and scenarios could be downloaded as easily as patches can.
It would make everything so much easier.
I've seen lots of map screenshots with zoom in the forums, so somebody
can do it. I thought you guys were technical enough cause I sure as hell
am not. If somebody can do this, then please try, for the sake of all of us
techno-dummies who just want to see the map.Too much to ask?:confused:

No disrespect to you. But I have passed the free period on winrar and it
won't let me use it. And my machine with XP will not let me extract Winzip
files into Civ files except as unzipped readme files.
Maybe i'm just dumb about this, but I don't understand. I'm not a modder.
I just wish mods and scenarios could be downloaded as easily as patches can.
It would make everything so much easier.
I've seen lots of map screenshots with zoom in the forums, so somebody
can do it. I thought you guys were technical enough cause I sure as hell
am not. If somebody can do this, then please try, for the sake of all of us
techno-dummies who just want to see the map.Too much to ask?:confused:

I'm sorry, I meant no offense. I've tried taking screenshots and can't get anything like the whole map in there - I'm not sure how that's done. This is the first time I've tried to do anything more ambitious than creating or modifying maps, so it's never really come up before for me. Sorry that I can't help.

Settler in Denmark and a barb city that flips in Norway? Ensures the capital is in denmark at least, which was the centre of power post viking age.

4 size twenties? How :lol:? The Scandinavian peninsula should be mostly tundra-hills-forest and mountain tiles with the odd grassland tile near Stockholm and the south coast (the terrain on RFC map is a tad off).

Mountains, forest and farmland
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8a/Sweden_Land.png/200px-Sweden_Land.png

Cows, pigs, fish, and the AI's irrational habit of irrigating every last grassland. I didn't say that they were good cities - their production sucked - but they were certainly big. I've toyed with the idea of changing some of the grass to plains, but everything close to the mountains is already tundra.

What independent cities could we put up there that would flip? I like the idea, but is there anything that really fits?

Cows, pigs, fish, and the AI's irrational habit of irrigating every last grassland. I didn't say that they were good cities - their production sucked - but they were certainly big. I've toyed with the idea of changing some of the grass to plains, but everything close to the mountains is already tundra.

What independent cities could we put up there that would flip? I like the idea, but is there anything that really fits?

I'm suggesting that everything on that map not in yellow should be tundra-forests ;).

As for early cites in norway how about Kaupang (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaupang) or Tønsberg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%B8nsberg), possibly the oldest towns in norway, and in are Vestfold (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestfold) (Where Harald Fairhair, who was most likely the first king of the whole of Norway was from)

The problem is that the independents as they exist in rfc are normal civs with research, production and culture, so if they own many cities it will be very hard for the playable civs to beat them. So we have to split the cities up to more independent civs so they dont become to mighty. On the other hand its also possible to include the visigothic as a minor civ like its done with the celts in rfc.

btw in rfc we have 27 civs, in rfc europe we have only 23 by now. ;)

Edit: One more thing, can you please have a look at the map and tell me where to put all those cities?

Not sure that so many undeveloped cities at start help with research. I rather think the contrary.

I'm suggesting that everything on that map not in yellow should be tundra-forests . ;)

Man, I hate that smiley. Are you serious or not? Could go either way with that one. ;)
What we have in Sweden isn't really tundra, but rather Taiga (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiga). Since tundra covers a really small part of the world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:800px-Map-Tundra.png) IRL, it's quite understandable that some of the taiga should be regarded as the civ-terrain tundra.
But I really can't quite think of a neat solution for this one. You could make something like a "heavy forest" or something which can't be chopped until Biology. You would do this by replacing the jungle with another texture, like in TAM. There won't be jungle on this map, no?
If you'd go with that one, maybe the two first tiles from the coast would be grassland, then you'd have this thick forest. Some seafood would be advised too. Get what I mean? Though maybe that would overpower Sweden post-biology, which is really really not intended...

Man, I hate that smiley. Are you serious or not? Could go either way with that one. ;)
What we have in Sweden isn't really tundra, but rather Taiga (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiga). Since tundra covers a really small part of the world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:800px-Map-Tundra.png) IRL, it's quite understandable that some of the taiga should be regarded as the civ-terrain tundra.
But I really can't quite think of a neat solution for this one. You could make something like a "heavy forest" or something which can't be chopped until Biology. You would do this by replacing the jungle with another texture, like in TAM. There won't be jungle on this map, no?
If you'd go with that one, maybe the two first tiles from the coast would be grassland, then you'd have this thick forest. Some seafood would be advised too. Get what I mean? Though maybe that would overpower Sweden post-biology, which is really really not intended...

That was sort of the problem I ran into, although I really like the taiga solution. That actually would solve much of Russia, as well. I don't think we'll actually get to biology in the mod (stopping at 1800 and all) - but we might make it clearable with a later tech related to lumber production (also making lumber mills and heavier ships possible - replacable parts might still fit, although it will be moved to later in the tech tree). I'm still not sure that the taiga should represent grassland, though. I'll probably make some of it tundra and some grass. Sweden's has to have some seafood, cows, at least one pig, and barley - I'll just try to spread them out enough that one city can't use them all.

Anyone else want to weigh in on taiga? Jaja, will you add that to the map thread?

Anyone else want to weigh in on taiga? Jaja, will you add that to the map thread?

I'm liking unchoppable Boreal forests - what kind of stats would they have? 1f 2h, 1f 1h? Clearing them sounds like something to go with replaceable parts.

That was sort of the problem I ran into, although I really like the taiga solution. That actually would solve much of Russia, as well. I don't think we'll actually get to biology in the mod (stopping at 1800 and all) - but we might make it clearable with a later tech related to lumber production (also making lumber mills and heavier ships possible - replacable parts might still fit, although it will be moved to later in the tech tree). I'm still not sure that the taiga should represent grassland, though. I'll probably make some of it tundra and some grass. Sweden's has to have some seafood, cows, at least one pig, and barley - I'll just try to spread them out enough that one city can't use them all.

Anyone else want to weigh in on taiga? Jaja, will you add that to the map thread?

My view of taiga is that of dense coniferous forest thinning to sparser forest as the permafrost takes over, pretty much as it's done in the RFC map of Russia, half forest /half marshland. That's how I've seen it in Canada. Interestingly on the Wiki map of taiga, it shows it as far south as Michigan and Southern Ontario where i'm from, which I know isn't right as it's largely temperate deciduous woodland there. Still, you can't trust Wiki for everything can you?
BTW, I managed to open the map into Worldbuilder using winzip. Not many cities so far. Couple of questions though. What's that alt. Spain start that it shows? If that's Madrid, it shouldn't be there till the mid 17th. century as Seville was the capitol, later Toledo. If it's Toledo, then it should move 1 tile SW. Also, I think Barcino/Barcelona is placed 2 squares east of where really it should be.
Should be on the hill east of those cows.
Just my opinion.Any thoughts?:)

My view of taiga is that of dense coniferous forest thinning to sparser forest as the permafrost takes over, pretty much as it's done in the RFC map of Russia, half forest /half marshland. That's how I've seen it in Canada. Interestingly on the Wiki map of taiga, it shows it as far south as Michigan and Southern Ontario where i'm from, which I know isn't right as it's largely temperate deciduous woodland there. Still, you can't trust Wiki for everything can you?
BTW, I managed to open the map into Worldbuilder using winzip. Not many cities so far. Couple of questions though. What's that alt. Spain start that it shows? If that's Madrid, it shouldn't be there till the mid 17th. century as Seville was the capitol, later Toledo. If it's Toledo, then it should move 1 tile SW. Also, I think Barcino/Barcelona is placed 2 squares east of where really it should be.
Should be on the hill east of those cows.
Just my opinion.Any thoughts?:)

Glad you got it to work. Feel free to make those changes and post your version of the map. I'm not an expert on Iberia - I had the alternate start to give proto-Spain a better chance at controlling the middle; I know that Madrid's a late arrival to the Spanish landscape.

I think that some of the North Woods of Minnesota/Wisconsin/Michigan's UP are considered taiga, and I'm not sure that's a misclassification. I like the taiga idea for Scandinavia/Russia for two reasons - first, it allows us to more accurately represent the food potential of those areas and the terrain, and second, we've already got artwork if we just reassign the arctic conifer forest art to taiga. I'm going to add marsh to parts of Finland, Karelia, and Russia, but Sweden's not muskeg country like much of Siberia is, and I'm much more comfortable with this solution.

Proposed stats on taiga: +1 hammer, unchoppable until replacable parts. Let the terrain below dictate the food - that way, areas with game will produce a moderate amount, and tundra/taiga hills won't produce much at all (as it should be). I'd also be fine with having lumber mills give an extra +1 h bonus for taiga, as the old-growth trees would be more valuable (especially in shipbuilding). Thoughts?

Just found this interesting map of SW Europe 700 AD. thought i'd share it.:)

www. euratlas. com has a lot of regional historical maps of Europe for every 100 year period
which might prove very useful for reference. The site is worth checking out, I think.
The names seem to be in the original latin.The cities shown on this one should be just about the minimum for pre-Arab Iberia, with maybe the addition of Pamplona, Granada and Valencia.
What do you think?:)

Legio is the Roman name for Leon, the capital of, well, Leon during the Reconquista. Another early capital was Burgos in Castille.

Legio is the Roman name for Leon, the capital of, well, Leon during the Reconquista. Another early capital was Burgos in Castille.

Yes, the map is from a French site and uses Latin names in the early period.
Burgos was the capitol of Castille and later of the Crown of Castille, uniting
Castille and Leon about 1250. Later it moved to Toledo and briefly Seville,
until Madrid was established in the mid 1600's.

I'm liking unchoppable Boreal forests - what kind of stats would they have? 1f 2h, 1f 1h? Clearing them sounds like something to go with replaceable parts.

unchoppable forests are perfect. They are already present in TAM to prevent the Germanic Tribes from chopping too much forests (called Dense Forest). They have the same stats as the others and replaceable parts makes sense.

Right, I've started attempting to put the civ list back on page 5 into the XML. It's a lot of work, to be sure, but everything seems quite straightforward. The one problem I've run into is the dynamic names system - does anybody know whereabouts in the python that's handled?

Its written in the dll. I can do that, but i've problems to compile the modified dll right now. Anyone knows how i can compile dll files? I tried it with codeblocks, but it didnt work yet. However, i get holidays on thursday and then have more time to work on it. And perhaps i receive some help from Rhye which would be very helpful cos its not to easy. :D

Ahh damn, I was hoping that I wouldn't run into anything in the dll so soon, if it all. Well, I'll be glad of any help... I don't have any experience with civ 4 specifically and nobody else seems to have volunteered to help with the code.

Its written in the dll. I can do that, but i've problems to compile the modified dll right now. Anyone knows how i can compile dll files? I tried it with codeblocks, but it didnt work yet. However, i get holidays on thursday and then have more time to work on it. And perhaps i receive some help from Rhye which would be very helpful cos its not to easy. :D

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=196283

a tutorial for compiling with ms virtual c++ 2005 express. its free. although you might need a different make file. there are different ones linked in the thread. works fine for me.

edit
you have the source for rhyes dll?! :)

Oh thanks. I'll try that.

Yeah, i got the source files to modify them for this project but i'm not allowed to give them to someone else.

Sorry that i have to post twice in a row, but i noticed that i'm to stupid to compile dll-files, someone else has to do that. I'll do the python work.

Anyone has c++ and compiling knowledge?

Surely the one that goes for the dll-work will get the source files, if Rhye agrees and if he doesnt give them to someone else or post it here.

If you're helping Zipzapzup we should coordinate, I'll make a new thread.

Just been browsing the 10 pages of posts here so forgive me if this was already mentioned but has religions been discussed? I don't think the Asian religions would make much sense in a European-only mod so here is the list of 7 that might suffice:

Roman Catholicism
Protestantism
Islam
Judaism
Eastern Orthodox
Anglicanism

and finally I thought about including Secularism/Agnosticism/Atheism as a possible 7th choice for 2 reasons
1. Running out of other religious options that make sense
2. Europe has the highest density of agnostics and atheists in the world, and especially in the modern era this might be good to represent.

Judaism is far too minor to be included, were there any predominantly Jewish cities in Europe? Anglicanism I think should be included with Protestantism, because I'm assuming the Reformation will be a big part of the game and that will amplify the Catholic-Protestant conflict. Atheism is a bad idea, first off because its not a religion, second because secularism is already covered with the "free religion" civic but mainly because for the majority of this mods timespan describing yourself as either an atheist or an agnostic was a death sentence.

I think it's better to focus on the different sects of Christianity, so my suggestion would be:

Paganism (to make the conversion to Christianity an issue in the early game)
Catholicism/Nicene (which is 'killed off' in the Great Schism)
Roman Catholicism
Eastern Orthodox (all catholic states in 1050 are auto-converted to either of these two, based on geography perhaps)
Protestantism (which would spawn, based on date most likely, then have a heavy advantage to spread for a few years)
Islam

Here is a quick list of possible Unique Powers. Just wanted to jot their main ideas down, will come back to add in the details later if interested:

Arabia: Power of Faith (yea same as the original Power, if it ain't broke don't fix it sort of thing... Also for practical ones; Islam is unlikely to spread peacefully given that virtually all the other civs will be a Christian denomination of some sort)

Spain: Power of the Reconquista
Altenative one: Power of Devotion (Option to remove certain religions)

France: Power of Culture (or Sophistication)

England: Power of the Navy

Germany: Power of Nationalism

Moscow: Power of Russian Winter

Kiev: Power of Resilience

Papal States: (easy!) Power of the Pope

Milan: Power of Trade

Ottomans: Power of Management

Switzerland: (another easy one) Power of Neutrality

Netherlands: Power of Tolerance

Al-Andalus: Power of Synthesis (3 major religions coming together)

Eastern Roman Empire: Power of Legacy

Portugal: (hmm, trickiest one without its colonies, I came up with this)
Power of Foreign Treasure (perhaps over-reaching but I thought about having some random events occur every so often where Portugal gets a temporary boost in its gold supply thanks to "foreign treasures" captured overseas. A little how the American Dream works for the US.)

Venice - Power of Strongholds

Austria: Power of the Emperor

Judaism is far too minor to be included, were there any predominantly Jewish cities in Europe? Anglicanism I think should be included with Protestantism, because I'm assuming the Reformation will be a big part of the game and that will amplify the Catholic-Protestant conflict. Atheism is a bad idea, first off because its not a religion, second because secularism is already covered with the "free religion" civic but mainly because for the majority of this mods timespan describing yourself as either an atheist or an agnostic was a death sentence.

I think it's better to focus on the different sects of Christianity, so my suggestion would be:

Paganism (to make the conversion to Christianity an issue in the early game)
Catholicism/Nicene (which is 'killed off' in the Great Schism)
Roman Catholicism
Eastern Orthodox (all catholic states in 1050 are auto-converted to either of these two, based on geography perhaps)
Protestantism (which would spawn, based on date most likely, then have a heavy advantage to spread for a few years)
Islam


That's only 6; we need 7. And I hate the word Paganism, it's an offensive word used by Christians to attack non-believers, it's not an actual set of beliefs....maybe Ancient Polytheism if you want to have the pre-Christian era represented?

Well my non-religious option would only come into the modern era anyway. How do you plan on marking the dramatic shift from religious wars in the middle ages to a largely secular, non-religious Europe in the 20th and 21st centuries?

Today, theism is losing prevalence in Europe in favour of secularism. European countries have experienced a decline in church attendance, as well as a decline in the number of people professing a belief in a God. The Eurobarometer Poll 2005found that, on average, 52% of the citizens of EU member states state that they believe in a God,

Judaism would fit in well with the game I think, there were certain towns in Eastern Europe where Judaism was strong. I mean, if it's strong enough to be included in the main game (yes that's debatable I know) then certainly there's room for in a European only game? After all, there were a number of powerful world events that severly lowered Judaism's total number; as well as forcing or pressuring Jews to convert to another religion as well. I personally think it would be difficult to totally erase its influence on European history.

Why we need exactly 7 religions?

The timespan of this mod is only from 500 to 1800 or 1850, so there is no 20th or 21th century in the mod.

I would also included Judaism, because we have Jerusalem and the holy land on the map, so it would be very curious not to have Judaism in "Israel".

Judaism has to be added. One thing that I liked about EMA is that some wonders require certain religions to be in that city. And also, it would just feel weird not having Judaism.

I agree with Judaism being in for the same reasons mentioned: Jerusalem and European Jews.

I also think Paganism as a name is not really pejorative. It's just an umbrella term for old folk religions...

@the guys who are gonna do the dirty job: how is the religion switch gonna be implemented?

When we had talked about this before, this was our religion list:

-Islam
-Roman Catholicism
-Protestantism (includes Anglicans, Lutherans, etc)
-Eastern Orthodox
-Calvinism

We didn't have Judaism for the reasons given earlier, and we didn't differentiate between Anglicans or Lutherans or other Protestant denominations. I believe that we had discussed the possibility of having some sort of Celtic religion, but it was rejected as being relatively unimportant.

Calvinism was considerably more important when the Swiss were on the civ list. It's probably minor with our current civs, and I'd be fine with taking it out. I don't think we need 7 religions, unless we're going to radically rework the way in which religion spreads (religions may spread to cities with religions already established), which has been proposed. Under those circumstances, it makes theoretical sense to add Judaism, Calvinism, and possibly differentiate Anglicanism - but I'm not sure that's a viable or desirable option.

I'd be most comfortable with using the big four, and just leaving it at that. If we're making big changes to the religion code (and why not, if we're altering everything else? ;)), add Judaism and the others.

Actually, thinking about it, it would make sense to have a Celtic/pagan religion for the initial start, especially since several civs will have 'spread _____ religion to _____ region' UHV goals. Go ahead and add that to the first four.

Why we need exactly 7 religions?

The timespan of this mod is only from 500 to 1800 or 1850, so there is no 20th or 21th century in the mod.

I would also included Judaism, because we have Jerusalem and the holy land on the map, so it would be very curious not to have Judaism in "Israel".

I'm not sure you need 7 either. But I do wonder how you would deal with
heresies like Catharism (France, 11th to 13thC), where the Inquisition really
came into it's own. The Pope launched the Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229)
to wipe them out in S. France (200,000killed). I guess you could have cities
like Toulouse, Carcassone, Narbonne go into revolt due to heresy. Other
heresies were put down very cruelly in Eastern Europe as well.:)

BTW "St. Lucifer. Is the map thread still working? How's the work going?

I'm not sure you need 7 either. But I do wonder how you would deal with
heresies like Catharism (France, 11th to 13thC), where the Inquisition really
came into it's own. The Pope launched the Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229)
to wipe them out in S. France (200,000killed). I guess you could have cities
like Toulouse, Carcassone, Narbonne go into revolt due to heresy. Other
heresies were put down very cruelly in Eastern Europe as well.:)

BTW "St. Lucifer. Is the map thread still working? How's the work going?

I thought we'd do heresies as events (baaaaad events!) - seems to make more sense than having Catharism or Anabaptism as full-blown religions.

The map is semi-stalled at the moment. I'm going to have to sit down with it for several hours to work it out, and I don't have that time just yet - I should start to have it next week. Sorry for the delay.

I thought we'd do heresies as events (baaaaad events!) - seems to make more sense than having Catharism or Anabaptism as full-blown religions.

The map is semi-stalled at the moment. I'm going to have to sit down with it for several hours to work it out, and I don't have that time just yet - I should start to have it next week. Sorry for the delay.

OK, it's just that Disenfranchised asked for input on England/Wales, which i posted, though he hasn't got back.

BTW just a thought. How about representing the Ummayyad split-up in 750, by a flip of cities from Cairo west to Tunis to independent, like the Fatimids did. The east would remain Abbasid based on Baghdad, and would be forced to recapture the western cities. Bit of a challenge for the human player?:)

Theologically I think the most important heresy was Arianism.
About the Civ list, I'm a bit disappointed that the Papal States are in as a playable Civ instead of some neat game mechanic. That could have been a nice spot for some other civ *shrug*

As i said at the moment we have 21 playable nations + 2-4 independent ones + 1 barbarian civ (i think Natives dont make much sense in the middleages of Europe). RFC has a total number of 27 playable civs + 2 independent + 3 barbarian civs. Surely they are not on the map at the same time, but what i want to say RFC has far more civs then we got so far. ;)

Theologically I think the most important heresy was Arianism.
About the Civ list, I'm a bit disappointed that the Papal States are in as a playable Civ instead of some neat game mechanic. That could have been a nice spot for some other civ *shrug*

Arianisms bolt was shot by the 700s, making mostly outside the time frame of this mod.

Regarding Judaism, here's a suggestion: Holy cities have very different effects depending on the religion - the Jewish holy city gives pretty much diddly squat for its owner, and you can't select Judasim as a state religion. Thus you get happiness benefit from its buildings when you spread it around, but little else.

I would recommend having all 7 religion slots filled - if only to make cultural victories more feasible.

@Zipzapzup: Well we probably should get the basic thing working, and can always add more civs (Aragon, Prussia, and an extra Italian, Russian and Muslim civ spring to mind ;)) later.

How about this for Judaism?

As Judaism filled a very important niche role in Medieval cities, specifically that of commerce, I propose a very different system.

Jewish monasteries and missionaries cannot be built by any player. Instead, Judaism spreads automatically to cities of size 10 or more, and any city with a market, grocer, and bank. In those cities, Jewish temples and synagogues can be built: a temple gives culture, -1 happiness (to represent ghettoization, an easily demonized populace, increased inquisitorial activity, and the occasional pogrom), and +10% gold or commerce in the city. A synagogue gives 20% and -2 happiness; same cultural bonus as before. The spread of Judaism to a city grants 1 extra trade route, to represent Jewish trading and banking networks.

Thoughts?

How about this for Judaism?

As Judaism filled a very important niche role in Medieval cities, specifically that of commerce, I propose a very different system.

Jewish monasteries and missionaries cannot be built by any player. Instead, Judaism spreads automatically to cities of size 10 or more, and any city with a market, grocer, and bank. In those cities, Jewish temples and synagogues can be built: a temple gives culture, -1 happiness (to represent ghettoization, an easily demonized populace, increased inquisitorial activity, and the occasional pogrom), and +10% gold or commerce in the city. A synagogue gives 20% and -2 happiness; same cultural bonus as before. The spread of Judaism to a city grants 1 extra trade route, to represent Jewish trading and banking networks.

Thoughts?

I like it, but instead of automatically spreading to size 10 cities how about an event driven model:

Event 1 (common): "Sire, Jewish merchents have asked to establish a community in our nation, what should we say?"
Option 1: "Let them settle", judaism spreads in one of your cities, you can build the three buildings and cities with Judaism have 1 more trade route.
Option 2: "They may set up shops, but insitute a tax and watch on them": juadism spreads in one of your cities, but you can't build any of the buildings or spread it youself, but that city gets +25% gold (no extra trade routes). There is a chance of this event occuring again.
Option 3: "Drive the Christkillers off!", +1 Happiness in every state religion city for a while. This event may reoccur.

Event 2 (uncommon): "Sire, the people grow angry at the jewish presence poisening city X"
Option 1: "Protect the merchents from prosecution": Get a cash reward, a jewish missionary in that city, +3 unhappy in all state religion cities (so obviously do it under free religion eh ;)).
Option 2: "Use our offices to cool tensions", costs money, +1 unhappy in the city.
Option 3: "Do nothing", +1 unhappy in state religion cities for a while.
Option 4: "Drive this scourge from the city!", +2 Happy in the city, cash bonus, judaism and the buildings removed, -1 happy in all other cities with judaism and diplo negative with free reglion civs.
Option 5: "Forbid this scourge from our empire!", +2 happy in all cities with state religion for a while (1 of which lingers), cash bonus, - 1 trade route in every city, diplo negative with free religion civs, removes all judaism from your empire.

The seventh religion could be Kharijite Islam. Much of North Africa was of that sect during the early 1000's (especially Morocco).

I like it, but instead of automatically spreading to size 10 cities how about an event driven model:

Event 1 (common): "Sire, Jewish merchents have asked to establish a community in our nation, what should we say?"
Option 1: "Let them settle", judaism spreads in one of your cities, you can build the three buildings and cities with Judaism have 1 more trade route.
Option 2: "They may set up shops, but insitute a tax and watch on them": juadism spreads in one of your cities, but you can't build any of the buildings or spread it youself, but that city gets +25% gold (no extra trade routes). There is a chance of this event occuring again.
Option 3: "Drive the Christkillers off!", +1 Happiness in every state religion city for a while. This event may reoccur.

Event 2 (uncommon): "Sire, the people grow angry at the jewish presence poisening city X"
Option 1: "Protect the merchents from prosecution": Get a cash reward, a jewish missionary in that city, +3 unhappy in all state religion cities (so obviously do it under free religion eh ;)).
Option 2: "Use our offices to cool tensions", costs money, +1 unhappy in the city.
Option 3: "Do nothing", +1 unhappy in state religion cities for a while.
Option 4: "Drive this scourge from the city!", +2 Happy in the city, cash bonus, judaism and the buildings removed, -1 happy in all other cities with judaism and diplo negative with free reglion civs.
Option 5: "Forbid this scourge from our empire!", +2 happy in all cities with state religion for a while (1 of which lingers), cash bonus, - 1 trade route in every city, diplo negative with free religion civs, removes all judaism from your empire.

I like it. Could we require that the city in which the event would take place has a population of 8 or more? I'd rather that the event not be common, as it's pretty powerful. I'd also change option 2 in the first to 15% - 25% is a pretty big reward for something that incurs only a small penalty, where the event is likely to recur in other cities.

I like Disenfranchised's list too.

I also think that Judaism should bring a commerce building with it (instead of the way around) AND -1/-2 unhappiness...

I like Disenfranchised's list too.

I also think that Judaism should bring a commerce building with it (instead of the way around) AND -1/-2 unhappiness...

Like an optional commerce building available only in cities where Judaism has spread? That's a possibility - do you have anything in mind? I think I prefer the idea of having Jewish holy buildings (temple/synagogue) giving a commerce bonus AND negative happiness (that was my original suggestion). Disenfrancised's suggested events would implement the happiness penalty upon the spread of Judaism to a city, also.

Interesting idea. Maybe the unhappiness penalty could end with free religion, or mitigated somewhat, as they would be now more tolerated.

Interesting idea. Maybe the unhappiness penalty could end with free religion, or mitigated somewhat, as they would be now more tolerated.

Yeah. Free religion is going to be a pretty late tech, though - I want religion issues to retain their historical importance, and I want benefits like those proposed for Judaism to have some serious offsets. The game is less fun when one system is appropriate for every civ at every time - rather than have religions be unmitigated blessings, I want to make sure that there are costs to go with the benefits. The benefits that we're proposing for Judaism are substantial, but if our map is initially short on luxury resources (before colonies), the happiness penalty is a serious handicap.

Yeah. Free religion is going to be a pretty late tech, though - I want religion issues to retain their historical importance, and I want benefits like those proposed for Judaism to have some serious offsets. The game is less fun when one system is appropriate for every civ at every time - rather than have religions be unmitigated blessings, I want to make sure that there are costs to go with the benefits. The benefits that we're proposing for Judaism are substantial, but if our map is initially short on luxury resources (before colonies), the happiness penalty is a serious handicap.

If you're still planning on an 1800 finish, I don't think free religion will need to
come into the game at all. Any real challenge to organised or state religions
only arose post-Enlightenment or post-Napoleonic anyway. Better to leave
Organised Religion or Theocracy as the only options. Your views on Judaism
look interesting though I don't think any civ should adopt it as their own.:)

Arianisms bolt was shot by the 700s, making mostly outside the time frame of this mod.


The mod starts in 500 AD, as you know, so how would it be outside the time frame of the mod. At least this is a real heresy, most of the later heresy were just political escamotage to be able to excommunicate some Lord and take their lands.

Arianism IMO might be interesting, as many of the new arrivals (Germanic tribes - but not the Franks -, Visigoths, Goths) professed the Arian faith and helped - politically - cement the division between the Eastern and the Western of the empire...

they do disappear early though (8th century, as someone mentioned)

The mod starts in 500 AD, as you know, so how would it be outside the time frame of the mod. At least this is a real heresy, most of the later heresy were just political escamotage to be able to excommunicate some Lord and take their lands.

Because by AD 500, most of the population was Nicene (with only the Ruling class being Arianist),

If we look at the main Arianist kingdoms
Visigoths -> converted to catholicism in 580s
Lombards -> king converted to catholicism 603, arianism removed mid 750s
Vandals -> destroyed 530
Burgundians -> Conquered by the Catholic Franks in 530
Ostrogoths -> ended 550s

So all the arianist kingdoms will be gone after at most 20 or so turns into the mod, and all traces of Arianism a few turns after that. Is there really any point using a religon spot (as remember in CIV religions don't go away) to cover that short time period?

Like an optional commerce building available only in cities where Judaism has spread? That's a possibility - do you have anything in mind? I think I prefer the idea of having Jewish holy buildings (temple/synagogue) giving a commerce bonus AND negative happiness (that was my original suggestion). Disenfrancised's suggested events would implement the happiness penalty upon the spread of Judaism to a city, also.

You're right. I didn't have a specific idea in mind, just thought somehow it should bring extra commerce and unhappiness. Your temple idea is just fine.

I'd like to get a quick word in, but 500 AD sounds like it was generically flicked out of the sky. The end date, 1800 AD, makes a bit more sense, but it is also unrefined.

Why do I dislike the 500 AD start date? Well it's obvious. So much happens at that date, and so many civilizations vanish and appear within the few years afterwards, as well as even religions, that it's a very poor date to start at. Arianism is one such example.

The 620's would be a better time to start this. That's when Islam was founded--and a decade later, the conquests began--and most of the Germanic tribes that conquered the Roman empire were dying out.

I'd think if you were going to include the initial remnants of the conquests on the Roman Empire, as the 500 AD start would include, then you might as well start in 300AD, with the Roman Empire split and the western part on its last legs, so the conquests can be played out.

Don't you think that since the British isles are bigger, Scotland can be included, or Ireland? I mean, Scotland's talking about becoming independent again at the moment, and Ireland *is* independent. Plus Scotland has not been a part of England for most of history. England could be named the United Kingdom if it had Scotland as a vassal or conqured their territory.

Just to be clear, Scotland isn't part of England. They are equal partners in a union.

I live here too, I know it isn't part of England, I used that term because that's how it's named in Civ at the moment. I can't think of a better way to represent the union in civ than that though. :(

And you have to be honest, England is very much the "dominant partner".

From the Map thread, thought it was more relevant here.

So far so good, i'll push this thread up cuz i still need the exact order in which the civs spawn. :(

The latest version i got is this one:

Start (500 AD):
France
Germany
Papacy
Byzantium
Burgundy
Norse
630 AD: Bulgaria
660 AD: Arabia
700 AD: Cordoba
720 AD: Spain
800 AD: Venice
860 AD: Kiev
900 AD: Hungary
970 AD: Poland
1000 AD: Moscow
10x0 AD: Genoa
1060 AD: England
1100 AD: Portugal
1160 AD: Austria
1300 AD: Ottomans
1500 AD: Sweden
1580 AD: Netherlands

These are the names i'll going to use for coding, not the names which are going to be visible ingame.

If noone disagree i'll use this version. ;)

If you could use the same names I listed in the the code coordination thread it would be a great help, since the XML and the reference files I've created use those names too. Just to avoid confusion.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6269917&postcount=9

How is the coding going, by the way?

Since this is the civ thread i'm going to answer in coding thread to avoid the one discussion about one topic in two threads. xD

I'll replace the my names and will use your identifiers. ;)

So far so good, i'll push this thread up cuz i still need the exact order in which the civs spawn. :(

The latest version i got is this one:

Start (500 AD):
France
Germany
Papacy
Byzantium
Burgundy
Norse
630 AD: Bulgaria
660 AD: Arabia
700 AD: Cordoba
720 AD: Spain
800 AD: Venice
860 AD: Kiev
900 AD: Hungary
970 AD: Poland
1000 AD: Moscow
10x0 AD: Genoa
1060 AD: England
1100 AD: Portugal
1160 AD: Austria
1300 AD: Ottomans
1500 AD: Sweden
1580 AD: Netherlands

These are the names i'll going to use for coding, not the names which are going to be visible ingame.

If noone disagree i'll use this version. ;)

That order list looks pretty good to me, but I wonder if we can spawn six
civs all in 500AD. Possible dates which coincide with history could be:

Norse -840

Burgundy -880

The other four could start in 500AD if it's possible to do them together.:)

^^

But then it could be a problem, that France would leave no space to expand for Burgundy.

And does the Swedish start date mean that only Norse are in Scandinavia before Sweden?

As far as i know its possible, but i can change this if its not working.

Why you would put the starting dates of the norse to 840 and the one of burgundy to 880? I'm not familiar with the history of these two nations so a reason would be nice.

About norse and sweden, yes. Some independents perhaps but no other civ.

Then could we make the name "Norse" change to Union of Kalmar when it conquers whole Scandinavia? Or Sweden-Norway if it conquers just them? Or Denmark-Norway if only those are conquered?

I'll replace the my names and will use your identifiers.
Okay, thanks.

The other four could start in 500AD if it's possible to do them together.
It isn't, actually. Only one civ can spawn per turn.

Byzantium must of course spawn when the game begins. But I'm just wondering if part of the crowding around 500AD is because of a lack of clarity on how we're treating Charlemagne's empire.

If France, or rather Francia spawns the very next turn with a small territory in northern France ("Austrasia" on this map: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Frankish_Empire_481_to_814-en.svg), they should then expand fairly rapidly (conquering cities in urbanised Roman France, settling in Germany so we reduce the sheer volume of independent cities we have to spawn) to represent the Frankish Empire under the Carolingian dynasty.

The Germans, or Holy Roman Empire, can then spawn in 840 AD (the death of Louis the Pious and the partition of Charlemagne's empire) in the western part of modern Germany and perhaps northern Italy followed by Burgundy in 880.

The Papal States should be 750 imo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donation_of_Pepin). This would stop Francia and the HRE extending too far into Italy (I think it was discussed giving a huge relations bonus between the Papacy and Christian civs as a UP so people would hardly ever declare war?) too.

Sorry i come with coding in this thread, but its not correct what Úmarth said.

Civs can only spawn at the same turn, when they spawn on gamestart. 500AD is our gamestart, so of coUrse its possible. If it wouldn't work, how do you explain that china, india, egypt and babylonia spawn at the same turn in the original RFC?

England should spawn c.860.

Sorry i come with coding in this thread, but its not correct what Úmarth said.

Civs can only spawn at the same turn, when they spawn on gamestart. 500AD is our gamestart, so of coUrse its possible. If it wouldn't work, how do you explain that china, india, egypt and babylonia spawn at the same turn in the original RFC?

Obviously! Ah yes, sorry about that. In that case there's no reason why Byzantium and Francia shouldn't spawn in 500 AD. Though I still think there's a case to be made for my altered German and Papal starts and jessiecat's altered Norse and Burgundian starts.

England should spawn c.860.

We have discussed this fairly extensively, it's not that we think England wasn't unified until 1066. Just that there was a clear political and cultural change in 1066, and this start is much more convenient from a game play perspective.

You can see the full discussion starting round about here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=250261&page=6#110

Obviously! Ah yes, sorry about that. In that case there's no reason why Byzantium and Francia shouldn't spawn in 500 AD. Though I still think there's a case to be made for my altered German and Papal starts and jessiecat's altered Norse and Burgundian starts.



We have discussed this fairly extensively, it's not that we think England wasn't unified until 1066. Just that there was a clear political and cultural change in 1066, and this start is much more convenient from a game play perspective.

You can see the full discussion starting round about here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=250261&page=6#110

I thought the consensus after the last set of start dates was proposed involved making the Papal states start later, too. I'll go back and check. I'm ok with starting Germany a little later, but I worry that if France and Burgundy don't start at the same time, France will be gutted by subsequent spawns as it chooses to expand eastward into more productive regions, rather than into the more open but less productive west. Burgundy risks a similar fate by having Germany spawn so close to their core area, but if the German spawn is also fairly early and Burgundy has a strong preference for the area south and west of their spawn area, we should be able to circumvent this somewhat.

I think at this point we've got near-consensus that England should spawn in 1060. Arguments can and have been made for starting it earlier, but I like the late start better for balance.

Could we not have France spawn as the Frankian Empire (Francia) in 500 AD ( Merovingian -> Caroligian). And let Germany (holy Roman Empire, East-Francia,...,?)spwan in 843 (Verdun treaty) from eastern French cities?

As far as i know its possible, but i can change this if its not working.

Why you would put the starting dates of the norse to 840 and the one of burgundy to 880? I'm not familiar with the history of these two nations so a reason would be nice.

About norse and sweden, yes. Some independents perhaps but no other civ.

I've probably put the Norse a little too late. A century before would be
more workable, say roughly 750AD, which would allow the earliest Viking
raids on Britain, ie. Lindesfarne 793AD.
As far as Wiki says, the Dukes of Burgundy ruled a fairly unified state from
843 to 1477, though smaller kingdoms like Upper Burgundy and Lower
Burgundy have their roots in the breakup of the Frankish kingdom about
500AD. So you could revise Burgundy to earlier, maybe 800AD? .:)

In response to st. lucifer's suggestion, can we resume discussion about
civ starting dates on this thread. As discussed elsewhere, I'm now suggesting
an 820 start for the Norse and a 840 start for Burgundy. These seem to fit
in OK with the list made by zipzapzup so far. Are these acceptable to everybody?:)

It is to me :)

No Hussites here? Sad, but GL with mod, it looks good.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=7914

This would make a great leaderhead for the Vikings

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=7914

This would make a great leaderhead for the Vikings

Cool. With a soundtrack from Amon Amarth :cool:

No Hussites here? Sad, but GL with mod, it looks good.

A Hussite event in certainly possible (Bohemian cities flips to independent, spawn lots of rebel units) but in terms of time.space.impact they are to low down on the significance ladder to get a playable civ slot.

In response to st. lucifer's suggestion, can we resume discussion about
civ starting dates on this thread. As discussed elsewhere, I'm now suggesting
an 820 start for the Norse and a 840 start for Burgundy. These seem to fit
in OK with the list made by zipzapzup so far. Are these acceptable to everybody?:)

Fine by me.

An important point perhaps which I haven't seen addressed yet is what the turn/year intervals are going to be, as well as the total turns of the game.

I'd suggest 500-550 turns in total (esp as many civs will spawn a lot later)
100 Turns at 4yrs/t (500-900)
200 Turns at 3yrs/t (900-1500)
100 Turns at 2yrs/t (1500-1700)
100/150 Turns at 1yrs/t (1700-1800/1850)

Using the most recent list that will put
Turn 0
France
Germany
Papacy
Byzantium
630 AD: Bulgaria ~ 632AD, turn 33
660 AD: Arabia ~ 640AD, turn 40
700 AD: Cordoba ~ 700 AD, turn 50
720 AD: Spain ~ 720 AD, turn 55
800 AD: Venice ~ 800 AD, turn 75
820 AD: Norse ~ 820 AD, turn 80
840 AD: Burgundy ~ 840 AD, turn 85
860 AD: Kiev ~ 860 AD, turn 90
900 AD: Hungary ~ 900 AD, turn 100
970 AD: Poland ~ 969 AD, turn 123
1000 AD: Moscow ~ 999 AD, turn 133
1020 AD: Genoa ~ 1020 AD, turn 140
1060 AD: England ~ 1065 AD, turn 155
1100 AD: Portugal ~ 1101 AD, turn 167
1160 AD: Austria ~ 1161 AD, turn 187
1300 AD: Ottomans ~ 1399 AD, turn 233
1500 AD: Sweden ~ 1500 AD, turn 300
1580 AD: Netherlands ~ 1580 AD, turn 340

Thus even the late spawning civs still have 250 and 210 turns to play with (or we could shift to 1yr/t earlier like the mid 17th century). It also looks like a roughly equal distribution of start times.

Oh thats nice, real nice, Disenfrancised!

Thats exactly what i'm needing for the python files. :lol:

But i think we have to discuss the spawndate of the Ottomans, Burgundy and Norse.

Turks should start in 1071 (Manzikert) or if your talking about the Ottomans, whatever Rhye used is good.
For Burgundy, I belive Burgundy was established before 500AD in southern France and conquered by Charlemagne, but came around again later.
For the Norse, would the raid on Lindisfarne, (That monastary) in 793. Historians consider that the beginning of the Viking Age.

ZZZ - Were you thinking of the Seljuks era to start for the Turks, or another? What about the Norse and Burgundy?

Besides the aforementioned proposals, Ajidica has a couple of good ideas. Were you thinking of those?

I really don't think Germany should spawn in 600AD, there's just no historical justification and I think it gives them too much of a head-start. I also think the Rome should remain part of the Byzantine Empire until a later Papal States spawn.

I think the most recent plan was to start Burgundy and the Norse earlier than 820/840. Not sure if we had discussed Germany's start time extensively - I'd be open to pushing it back a bit. I wonder if it's appropriate to start with the Papal states - we may want to rethink that start date.

Giving the Byzantines Rome pushes them into superpower status from the beginning - they'll already control Constantinople, Athens, Adrianople, Ephesus, and a couple of other good cities - and unless they have absolutely crippling research penalties, they'll run away with the game.

For the Ottomans, 1280 or 1300 is probably most appropriate - if we're just doing Turks, we could do 1080. One possible option is to have a massive barbarian uprising spawn in Anatolia (representing the Turks/Ghuzz(Ghazi) invastions) around 1100, and have any units remaining in the spawn area flip to the Ottomans when they show up. There should still be some barbarians floating around on the edges which will not be Ottoman, and much of Anatolia will be torn up from years of barbarian raids (as it was when the Ottomans took over). Just a thought.

Turks should start in 1071 (Manzikert) or if your talking about the Ottomans, whatever Rhye used is good.
For Burgundy, I belive Burgundy was established before 500AD in southern France and conquered by Charlemagne, but came around again later.
For the Norse, would the raid on Lindisfarne, (That monastary) in 793. Historians consider that the beginning of the Viking Age.

Not sure why you're now sugesting the Ottoman start to be linked with the
Seljuks. Different people, different arrival times. What's wrong with the RFC
start anyway? As you admit, it works,
For Burgundy, there was only Burgundian tribes circa 500AD and they broke
away into tiny groups after death of Charlemagne, thus no civ possible until
the Duchy of Burgundy in 840, as I've already described.
If you've read these threads I've already suggested an earlier Norse spawn
and mentioned Lindisfarne specifically. So I've always been open to an
earler spawn date, maybe before 700AD. But what seems to have been
decided is 820AD as a compromise which should cover early raids but not
interefere too much with early German and English development.
As you've read, the list seems fairly decided and I think people are now
moving on to develop further refinements. OK?:)

I think the most recent plan was to start Burgundy and the Norse earlier than 820/840. Not sure if we had discussed Germany's start time extensively - I'd be open to pushing it back a bit. I wonder if it's appropriate to start with the Papal states - we may want to rethink that start date.

Giving the Byzantines Rome pushes them into superpower status from the beginning - they'll already control Constantinople, Athens, Adrianople, Ephesus, and a couple of other good cities - and unless they have absolutely crippling research penalties, they'll run away with the game.

For the Ottomans, 1280 or 1300 is probably most appropriate - if we're just doing Turks, we could do 1080. One possible option is to have a massive barbarian uprising spawn in Anatolia (representing the Turks/Ghuzz(Ghazi) invastions) around 1100, and have any units remaining in the spawn area flip to the Ottomans when they show up. There should still be some barbarians floating around on the edges which will not be Ottoman, and much of Anatolia will be torn up from years of barbarian raids (as it was when the Ottomans took over). Just a thought.

Sorry, Am I missing something? As Disenfranchised's list was just posted
less than 4 hours ago, how is it that you say we have a more recent plan
to push the Norse and Burgundy starts back from 820/840.
Must be really recent if it's not even been posted yet?:confused:
I'm open to discussions on anything, so I just hope people aren't making
assumptions without consultation. That's not the way we do things, is it?
BTW just how far would you like Germany's start date to be pushed back?
It's 500AD already, like turn 0?

Sorry, Am I missing something? As Disenfranchised's list was just posted
less than 4 hours ago, how is it that you say we have a more recent plan
to push the Norse and Burgundy starts back from 820/840.
Must be really recent if it's not even been posted yet?:confused:
I'm open to discussions on anything, so I just hope people aren't making
assumptions without consultation. That's not the way we do things, is it?
BTW just how far would you like Germany's start date to be pushed back?
It's 500AD already, like turn 0?

Blah, I think the rest of the discussion was done in the other thread. I'll go find it and post it here.

Nobody is discussing pushing Germany's starting date back. Umarth is suggesting that it be moved to a later date.

Umarth has suggested making the Papal states start later, rather than at the very beginning. This seems like a reasonable idea to me, as the Papacy wasn't really an independent state until around 760 AD. Obviously, Rome should be around from the beginning, but we might be better off pushing the start of the Papal civ back.


_________PREVIOUSLY POSTED TEXT FROM OTHER THREAD____________

(jessiecat to depravo, 1/5):
Originally Posted by Depravo
Burgundians c.880, Norse c.900-950 I would say.

I'm OK with the first, though prefer the 840 date to cooincide with the start
of the Duchy of Burgundy.
As for the Vikings it would be hard to start so late, as they need time to
develop as a civ in their spawn locations, ie Denmark and Sweden, as
they'd be under pressure from the start from the earlier spawning Germans
who might expand into Denmark before they do. They'd have to start early
enough to found Normandy (ie 911) and earlier than the Kievan Rus as well.
We've already got 860 for Kiev and it was they who founded it.
So maybe about 800-820 for the Norse as I've suggested..

(st. lucifer to jessiecat, 1/9)

Returning to civ start dates, I would once again like to express reservations about having Burgundy start late, and I'd like to have the Norse around from the beginning. There's a little bit of flexibility there, depending on UHV goals, but our early landscape is not going to be very populated if all of our civs start in the 800s.

(jessiecat to st. lucifer, 1/9)

As far as the Norse goes, I originally proposed 700 but people objected and
said it should be 900. So if you want it early, that's fine with me.

(virdrago, 1/9)

I think Burgundy should be later, though there may be issues with France and Germany's sandwiching them. The Vikings should start earlier - just because they didn't leave Scandinavia until the late 800s doesn't mean they didn't have a culture there that grew into the raiding, trading, colonizing group of people later.

(st. lucifer to jessiecat, 1/10)

It's not the history that I have an issue with - it's that the spawn and flip is going to tear the guts out of either France or Germany every single time, probably collapsing one of them - which would be bad in 840. We could move the spawn area further south, but that's getting away from the historical side of things as well, and there's no logical capital - they'd probably end up in Switzerland with a couple of fairly weak cities, or fighting independents in Provence (which might not be so bad.)

I vote for having the Vikings around from the beginning. They'll start out fairly weak - Tonsberg and probably Aarhus, depending on where they found the city in Denmark - but we can reduce their preferences for Germany and the Netherlands to drive them north, which should spur normal development.

(jessiecat to st. lucifer, 1/10)

OK, I do take your point about the later Burgundy spawn, so for the sake of
balance I'll vote for an earlier date.
Same for the Vikings as long as they don't muck up the Germany start or
start raiding Britain too early.

(discussion ends, is overwhelmed by city placement discussion)

_______________________________NEW________________ _________________

It was pointed out before that the Norse developed on their own before they started raiding; the beginning of the 'Viking age' marked the beginning of the time period where you had to worry about longboats full of armed Scandinavians showing up on your coastline, but it didn't herald the first existence of armed Scandinavians. Aarhus seems to have been around as a city since 770 or so; Tonsberg shows up shortly thereafter. I'd be happier starting the Vikings earlier rather than later, but if everyone else feels like it should be 820, I don't have a strong objection to it.

840 is a better historical spawn for Burgundy than an earlier date, but their spawning location is a big problem if France and Germany establish themselves in the area (which they really should.) If we start Germany later, it's not quite as big of a problem as they'll have less time to expand westward, but having Burgundy spawn late is likely to cripple or collapse AI France. While I agree that the scattered Burgundians are not civ-worthy, or directly attached to the later Duchy of Burgundy, I proposed their early inclusion for this issue of balance. Whenever they spawn, they're going to have a rough game based on their historical area; hopefully there's a way to make this work without making any of the 3 civs in question unviable.

Where is Burgundy supposed to spawn exactly? Will they spawn in southern France/western Switzerland only, or will they also start in the Netherlands? I know a 500 and 840 starting spawn area would be roughly the same, but depending on the spawning area, that may help with the date. Maybe figuring out what the UHV will be (but only in this case) will help the spawn date.

Where is Burgundy supposed to spawn exactly? Will they spawn in southern France/western Switzerland only, or will they also start in the Netherlands? I know a 500 and 840 starting spawn area would be roughly the same, but depending on the spawning area, that may help with the date. Maybe figuring out what the UHV will be (but only in this case) will help the spawn date.

The proposed spawn area is around Dijon. Disenfrancised drew up a box/screenshot that explained it pretty well - it starts around there and runs south. No Netherlands to start out with; NW Switzerland. Room to expand S and N; France directly to the west (Paris is ~5 tiles away?); Germany directly to the east (Frankfurt is ~5 tiles away.)

The proposed spawn area is around Dijon. Disenfrancised drew up a box/screenshot that explained it pretty well - it starts around there and runs south. No Netherlands to start out with; NW Switzerland. Room to expand S and N; France directly to the west (Paris is ~5 tiles away?); Germany directly to the east (Frankfurt is ~5 tiles away.)

I stand corrected, I did agree to earlier dates in our discussion, My apology.
When i saw the list posted I thought that meant that it was final.
Just had got home from the pub as well. Sorry.;)
So of course, if you want to alter them for game balance, it's OK with me.
The earlier the better for the Norse, IMHO:)

BTW Have you got a good remedy for a hangover?;)