As two months have passed, I wonder what's now your opinion on this piece of work, given the very different expectations you had.
Before the release, someone called it "a kind of civ5", someone else considered it not worth playing; I always thinked of it as a "spin-off".
So, having played it (1.1 hopefully) for quite some time, what do you think?

Rhye,

RAND is great. The amount of complicated coding involved to transfer all of the great parts of RFC over to RAND must have been astounding. I still play a lot of RFC, but RAND gives you something cool in that you don't know what's going to happen. Some people like surprise, some don't.

That said, there are a number of bugs that still seem to pop up, and some minor tweaks that can still be done. I won't make this a thread about them, as I think they're all over this forum already.

The one advantage that RAND has over regular RFC is its unpredictability. I enjoy not knowing my surroundings and the randomness of civ and resource placement. Of course having a rival spawn on your doorstep and claiming 1/2 your cities in flip is not too fun, but that is part of the game.

A few things i have noticed that aren't bugs, but are certainly interesting are as follows. I think there are not nearly enough resources on the map. Since trading is a large part of stability, I fear that there is not enough sources of food and luxuries for the AI to trade to the human and amongst itself. I have also found that there is a lot of ice and tundra. Many times I have seen European ice ages (which is cool in and of itself), where the civs have nowhere to grow, or a continent landlocked due to ice and there being no north or south circumnavigation passage.

Overall, I think that RAND is a new adventure, certainly not replacing the original RFC, but adding to the fun!

For me it's somewhere between a mod to Civ4 itself and the earth-simulator that regular RFC is.

Either way, I find it way more fun than plain ole Civ4 (no matter the expansion).

1.1 is certainly much more playable, and more aesthetically pleasing. (who won't be frustrated with corn in the old world?)

The bugs are there, but they do not take away the greatness of the game.

RFC is one of the rare games that I actually feel that I have learned something from playing it.

I would much rather play RAND than a normal game of Civ. Stability is absolutely crucial to keeping a game from becoming boring later on, and UHVs provide for a much broader range of play styles. At the moment, though, the lack of polish makes it less compelling than RFC.

I also like the unpredictability of RAND but dislike the maps ... seems as if they're too often one big asia with all the early civs too fast apart from each other and not able to expand early on.
I like to play it on but am hoping for further improvement.

I'm thoroughly enjoying RAND. I love the unpredictability paired with the systems from RFC.

It is true that it was pretty rough in 1.0, and even now it certainly has some room for improvement. Having said that, though, I'd like to assert that RAND is in better shape than the new Colonization game. The systems in Colonization are completely broken (see the turn 40 win at the hardest level that someone posted), and I've already stopped playing that, despite its recent release. RAND, on the other hand, I still find enjoyable.

In short, I'm basically in the "a kind of Civ 5" camp. Or, at least, I can see RAND reaching that level at some point in the future.

For me, RAND is deniniterly preferable to both Civ 4 and old RFC, even as is, though it can be improved. I didn't play Colonization yet.

I guess I should have answered this question in the RFC forum, because this one is browsed only by those who play and like RAND, not the others...

Okay, well I'll admit I haven't played RAND very much at all since I played with it when it came out, and I've only finished one game.

However, I'm as excited about RAND's prospects as I was when it first came out. The game I did play to its conclusion (which was 1.0, I haven't had time to try 1.1, been busy moving) was one of the most enjoyable games of civ I've had. The problem as I see it is rolling a balanced start. That one was, most aren't. And there are quite a few things that contribute to that: sometimes the maps just look to much of a vanilla-style messy blob (even on high earth likeness), sometimes you find yourself too isolated, sometimes too crowded, sometimes you hit with some very punishing city flips and a lot of the time your starting terrain is just plain bad. I guess listing a lot of things like that doesn't really help... basically what I'd like to see is RAND move a bit closer to RFC in terms of focus and predictability.

Then again, I haven't played 1.1 yet, so my ramblings may be completely irrelevant.

I like it more than RFC, it does have some things needing improvement but then again, so did RFC until some time ago. Honestly, I haven't played a single game of RFC since July ^^

didn't have much opportunity to play it, but from what I saw I definately liked it. the retounised pattern of normal rfc always did put me off a bit. of course a few things need to be done, but its quite playable currently.

what I also really like about it is that it gets right into the action, no long build up phases, but without the constructed feel of a quick start. it not only gives you more units, but throws you into an existing geopolitical situation and that really rocks. and with the relatively near scope of historic uhvs, games are a bit shorter than vanilla civ without sacrificing depth for it.

I've enjoyed this Mod, and it has given me a reason to play civ again... and now I can't go back to the original game because RAND is so much more interesting to play! Well done, and I hope you continue your mods and tweaks, I for one have greatly enjoyed them. I signed up for a forum account just to write this. :-)

I didn't have big expectations about that mod and, although I think it's very well done, I still have a lot more fun with RFC than with RAND. However I'd much rather play RAND than vanilla. Still I'm quite looking forward to RFC Europe (shame it's not developped but the master himself) or even a proper RFC Epic, as there's nothing better IMO than playing on a real world map to simulate alternative history.
By the way, what's your next project, Rhye?

I love it, Rhye, it is your best effort yet.

I beg you, please keep your focus on this most excellent thing... there are still issues, as I know you are aware from this forum... I will keep playing even if none of this is fixed / changed, but I would love to see the busier, fuller world that we see in normal RFC.

busier, fuller world?
I thought that proportions of landmass were the same as in classic RFC


By the way, what's your next project, Rhye?

There is no "next" project...
I think that keeping fixing RFC for vanilla, RFC for Warlords, RFC for BTS, RFCMP and RFCRAND is enough!!!

There is no "next" project...
I think that keeping fixing RFC for vanilla, RFC for Warlords, RFC for BTS, RFCMP and RFCRAND is enough!!!

Sorry if I made you believe I made some sort of complain or demand, that's not the case at all. I just thought you considered RFC as a finished project. I didn't know you planned to keep improving it (which is hard to imagine as it is as close to perfection as any other mod I've ever played), as I haven't checked CFC much lately.

I agree Dionysos: from Game dynamics is just the best mod in CIV! Hopefully, they'll hire Rhye when it comes to Ci-V. The idea of dynamic rise and fall, stability, historical quests was the one thing I missed throughout Civ since starting with Civ2 in 1997. It keeps the game interesting even in the late game. If they won't incorporate in Ci-V I'll not buy it.

RFC RAND was (is?) too buggy for me to play it. I gave it about 5 tries and went back to playing RFC instead.

I would certainly say that CivIV << RFC Rand << RFC

Also, I much prefer the randomness in my games to be due to events and player (even AI player) decisions rather than the map script. Some starting positions are just so much better than others in RFC RAND that it really skews the game and that isn't what makes the game enjoyable for me.

I don't think I would ever really play RFC RAND even if all bugs were totally ironed out. But that's not to say that it doesn't have a place still, just that it's not for me.

RAND is one of the best Civ IV mods I have played so far (and I have played a lot) beaten only by RFC and FFH.

The only reason I prefer RFC to RAND is the lack of polish on RAND (weird landmasses, odd bugs and crashes, odd resource placement or lack of certain resources, quest size issues etc) but this is something that isnt a big deal to me or likely to ruin my enjoyment of the mod.

The main thing for me is such a small thing like stability adds so much to the game. I could write tons about that but I wont. I really like RAND although havent played it much for the last month due to Warhammer Online being out and Colonisation (wich is big smelly underpants and should not be played by anyone!) but im hoping to give it another through bashing at the end off the month when I have time off work.

I've just noticed that RAND is rated 3 stars (B-) in the downloads page
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=10152
I guess it answers my question

i wouldn´t overestimate the voting, you have no idea how many votes and opinions were the base of the of the presented mean, and i would say for sure that this number was very low so far compared to the number of downloads ;)

And so i would stick more to the opinions written here, even if they could be biased. Imo you could add more flavour graphic wise, eg adding chuggis terrain grafik or add some of the custom unit grafiks [if there is something out doing this already, ignore this comment], but the basic princip behind RFC (and Rand) is genius.

IMO getting an evaluation is better.

I don't like RAND as much as others because of RFC giving a playable start position to all civs, and easily defined boundaries (eg as dutch everyone's borders). I know that if I get to America first I can get some awesome cities, and some vassals.

My favourite civs (Inca, Maya, Khmer) are hosed start position wise and I don't know if I can ever have some good land...

And Europe isn't as fun and active as in RFC either. It just... eh. I'm not sure if it CAN improve in the way I would want the RAND experience- but I have RFC, and people who want a game where they know nothing from the start have RAND.

So.. what blizzrd said + my views why.

Well it's now 4 stars, because most people who play it never rate it, but your mention of it is going to make people vote and I think the rating will deservedly improve.

Well it's now 4 stars, because most people who play it never rate it, but your mention of it is going to make people vote and I think the rating will deservedly improve.

I just want to second that... now that I understand that this is meaningful to you, Rhye, please accept my A+ vote :)

I am too busy playing this fascinating thing to be looking for places to vote on the Internet.

I had hoped that RFC RAND would be like RFC with random maps. Sadly, every time I've tried it my start position was either impossible, crappy, miles away from any resources or all three. The starts seem rally cramped and the maps too full of desert, mountains or swamp. Maybe I should try it more but I much prefer the RFC world map and the alt-history feel of civs with their historic starting positions.
Anyway I'm too busy right now with the development work on our RFC Europe mod which we hope will be an improved RFC in a European setting. Lots of work to go on that still. More contributions would be welcome from everybody esp. Rhye if he's listening:)

@ jessiecat

I had a different impression: there were always aboundant ressources nearby, either playing as an ancient civ, in that case stone or marble. Only food was missing sometimes. In medieval civs food ressources are generated automatically.

My problem with RAND was that there is TOO LESS desert and so on. In my impression there was way too much good grasslands so that rivaling for space was no issue.

Overall I appreciate RAND very much and hope, that's improved bit by bit (of course, the Indian start)!

are these terrain problems still there with 1.1?

@ the green grassland thing, yes. I've started to play about 5-6 games (not all finished). About 4 or so had this.

I've just noticed that RAND is rated 3 stars (B-) in the downloads page
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=10152
I guess it answers my question

Well, now its an A-.

Clearly there is a lot of variability in these ratings.

I'm getting back into CIV and was delighted to find Rhye's Rand. It makes for fascinating game play.
One of the few things I would change about your mods is that it seems to me that high culture ought to help your stability. Instead it hurts you on the expansion category. (At least as I understand it.)
E.

Hello, ive been playing for a while - i like to take my forum times in "spurts" because i don't like to come off as a troll - absence can make the heart warm. RFC RAND, my thoughts:
(the newer version)

Comments:

Please include an icon - i have ones for the other RFC's, but not this one. i can only get to it through the civ menu which means loading it twice.

FIX that diplo bug, its just so annoying! Not only does it give extra loading time between rounds, but you can deny someone for 30 turns (or give) and it won't change their views. so 30 turns later (i probably should have been asked about twice) they are still pleased.

Thanks for the better starts! Please include a way to control which civ's will appear. if not possible, make some more starting options in regards to indy city's (weather or not they spawn), colonies (should have option to liberate into a legit civ OR indy - could you make it read who all is NOT in the game, and make it possible?) Number of "rebirths" - let the player choose from menu how many times they can change civ's.

Would love to see a victory condition to play from the begining to the end getting as many UHV's as you can. if you score a UHV, you may change to the next-born civ, and aim for another.

Civ re-births: should be an option to turn ON or OFF a "dead" civilization's chances of being reborn at a later time. example: babylon dies, other civ's overtake, and in the 18th century, they respawn with 2 cities, collapsing arabia - then the next turn getting destroyed by turkey, who collapses for taking the former arabia cities.

Civ/indy feature: would be nice if there was an option to turn on tiles "color-shaded" by expansion friendliness. like the "grid" the feature would be optional, and it would highlight in green the healthy places, in red the bad places, and in blue the "neutral" places (that wont help or harm stability).

Resource stability: sometimes i get a large area of nice land with a lot of resources and get punished for not trading - when either everyone is in mercantilism, or nobody wants my "one copy" of almost everything, and sometimes when i am forced to sell an excess good for SOMETHING even though its just 2 gpt. Maybe each resource should have a "value" listed on the foreign advisor? this would give a value of what everything is worth.

Gold-Bug: i have yet to be able to offer or request gold or GPT in any game.


All in all, ive seen very different games. one had a north-american owned aztec which destroyed the americans fast. Inca/Maya were also big, and almost everywhere else had collapsed. in another, i played as india, then in one turn, i saw all my area revolt to indy and i get a popup to take Ethiopia. DUH, i take it. i spawn right next to india, wipe it out, build westward - and i don't have to even really think about war, because im secluded. oromo warrior's for the win! in another, i had Japan get the conquerer event! they took over the incans, and while i was fighting the british another suprise: Mayans conquer a british city (in england, i guess tech-gifts to them impacted it), then 2 turns later in congress, i voted YES and they took another british city. then i made them end the war, and the mayans conquered the indy cities that occured from english collapse.

Some nice new optional features to enable/disable different elements (like remove stability, or make it harsher) would be nice but besides that and fixing the gold-bug and diplo-bug i think its great. i love it, and hope to see it continue.

I like it a lot. I've always loved the first few turns of a civ game, scouting a new world, that first contact with another civ...
One aspect that doesn't translate well is the expansion stability factor. Especially in med-low likeness worlds, your civ's historical expansion may be totally off based on how the map has turned out. In my last game, I was playing with portugal and had the whole Europe pretty much empty but just couldn't expand due to stability. In RFC, this makes sense as historical but in RAND it sometimes feels too arbitrary and absurd.

I hate it. Because I can't play it. I set it up, and then it CtD's whenever I start a game. No clue why.

On the up side, I'm sure if I could play it I'd love it.

Edit: Haha. Just realized I don't have the latest patch. Silly me.

I was hoping that we could play Hot seat in this version.

I was hoping that we could play Hot seat in this version.

you can actually play hotseat

I love the idea. It's exactly what I've been wanting to play since I first tried RFC and found it to be too deterministic.

My one main gripe is that the historical victories for the ancient civilizations seem to be almost impossible to achieve now. With RFC each civilization was like a carefully crafted puzzle. If you did your homework on the lay of the land, chose the perfect city locations, build and research paths and crossed your fingers there was a chance - sometimes a small one, but always a chance - that you would achieve all three goals and get that victory.

With RAND the situation is completely different. You should be able to play without knowing all the terrain and civ flipping beforehand, making every decision based on your limited knowledge of your random surroundings. Given that you might not even have, for instance, stone near Egypt, your historical victory may be impossible. But even if you do have a reasonable start there are some conditions you just will not make for each civ: 5 religions for India, most of Babylon's, 5000 culture for Egypt, Christianity for Ethiopia. When the game was a puzzle such conditions were challenges, but in RAND they seem ridiculous.

I really think that RAND should be playable without a single reload and without prior knowledge of terrain. Of course I could just give up on historical victories, but that wouldn't be as much fun.

Hi べんきょう, welcome here. Which city are you from?

As you've said, it's hard for me to ensure the factibility of a historical victory, with such a random context. It's like being blind.
It would help if some of you listed exactly all the prerequisites that usually those civs need (like, Stone for Egypt).

Hi, thanks for the welcome. I live in Hakodate, Hokkaido (函館、北海道) Have you been to Japan before? I couldn't help noticing the flag and 外人 tag!

Actually, I don't mind that sometimes the historical victory will be impossible... that's part of the appeal of RAND. RAND doesn't really need to be a carefully crafted puzzle with guaranteed prerequisites. However, I do think that in allowing for the random setup all the historical victory conditions should be loosened up and made more achievable for RAND. Knowing nothing about the lay of the land, having no ability to predict city flipping and all the rest is really a HUGE improvement, but it makes things infinitely harder for the early civilizations (especially early European ones, I guess) and loosening up the historical victory requirements would be my preferred means of balancing that.

I realise that I'm speaking from a single-player's perspective only. I hadn't realised RAND could be multiplayer, and easier victory conditions could break multiplayer.

Anyway, thanks for reading and best of luck with RAND development! I really hope it shapes up to be the Civ mod I've always wanted to play.

Hi, thanks for the welcome. I live in Hakodate, Hokkaido (函館、北海道) Have you been to Japan before? I couldn't help noticing the flag and 外人 tag!

He came here this summer; did not even visit me, was so sad :sad: I was unable to meet the god of Rhyeism !

Oh well, perhaps next time :mischief:

I gave this another shot after burning out on the Earth map (I wonder if real world leaders ever feel that way sometimes?) and it was such a delight to actually feel like I was building a dutch colonial empire instead of following a scripted path.

Thank you for RAND! :goodjob: RAND MP would be awesome too :mischief:

I'd give it a 4/5. It is definitely my favorite game to play in Civ IV.
I love how it incorporates my favorite parts of reg RFC and I don't feel obligated to follow history in it since it is a random generated map.
The things I would change would be just to add more Independent, Celtic, and Native cities. It would add more flavor IMO and I like to use them as buffers between major empires and imagine them as minor countries that didn't make the Civ title. And I know that sounds weird:D.

It is an over all great game and I'm glad it was added.

My rating of RFC RAND is 4.5/5, if that's all you wanted to know, skip the (long) review which follows. :)

Here's a quote from Benkyo that sums up pretty much all that follows...
I really think that RAND should be playable without a single reload and without prior knowledge of terrain.

This mod is so great, I wouldn't call it Civ5, but it sure is the next best thing. I've been playing RFC mods exclusively for a while now and I can't imagine myself reverting back to "plain" Civ4. I don't know what you do for a living, but Firaxis should hire you, or try to anyways... :goodjob:

There are a few minor bugs and oddities, but nothing that would make RAND unplayable (to me).

I know there are other threads for bug reports, but I feel the following observations are closely related to my global appreciation of the mod.

UHVs: I haven't tested them all, but I have no problem with the fact that some UHVs might not be possible to achieve in every game, for me, a UHV is a goal, not achieving it only means I'll have to win another way. The only improvement I'd like to see would be some scaling of some requirements, depending on the size of the map being played or the availability of a particular ressource. (IE.: Founding 15 overseas cities as England on a standard sized (smaller) map...)

Ressources: Also closely related to the UHVs, but applicable to the mod in general is the fact that some civs don't always have access to some ressources they historically should have access to. Again, it's not that much of a problem to me, but since I've noticed that some civs spawn 3 cows when they appear, I guess you could similarly have 1 or 2 "historical" ressource linked to each civ so they have access to it as they spawn. Let's face it, Egypt needs stone, Greece needs marble, Rome needs iron (or copper), etc... As far as UHVs only are concerned, I can deal with playing these civs anyways, but spawning Japan without fish or crab or clam to work with their 2 work boats feels wrong, but then again, that gives me an opportunity to explore the coast earlier...

Player spawn zone: No problem there, except for the ressources issue mentionned earlier, but I've read a suggestion from a player asking if it was possible to have a larger area revealed upon spawning (IE.: 10 square radius). In most of the games I play, I either enter the map editor to see what my surroundings look like, or, since I hate "cheating" (and can't control myself once I'm in editor mode) and usually roll using the custom "lock modified assets" setting, I explore the area to find the best places for my cities, then reload the game and settle "for real"... There again, it's not much of an issue, since there are many ways around, for those who really need it. Also, clear barbarians units from the spawn area, if that's at all possible... Sometimes, they'll flip under my control at the begining of the next turns (I just spawned a Spain civ with 6 camel archers and 4 axemen in addition to the "usual" units...), but more often than not, they'll kill that Settler+Archer group looking for suitable ground to found my 2nd city...

Computer spawn zones: Now, I have an issue, perhaps the biggest of all, to me. I hate to say this, as I truly enjoy the randomness, but sometimes it's just plain annoying to have no clue whatsoever as to where a new civ might pop... An easy solution I see, but that I know wouldn't be ideal for everyone would be to have "Independants" spawn cities where future civ will spawn their own capital when their time comes. Kind of like, in "normal" RFC, I know if I capture Lutetia (Paris) with the Romans that it will later revolt against me and become France's capital. I think it would help to prevent having half of your civ revolt against you... Knowing an area is inhabited by independants would mean a larger surrounding of that independant city will likely (not necessarily...) flip sooner or later when the appropriate civ spawns. But as for "impossible" UHVs, it's part of the game, despite our best efforts, we just can't win them all, can we?

I could probably go on with other even more unsignificant issues, but I think I've said enough already. Besides, I really like at least 95% (probably more like 99%) of what's been done in this mod and every little flaw I can think of can be quickly corrected using the map editor, I simply have to learn to control myself when I have the almighty power in my hands... :cool:

So all in all, it's not perfect, but as far as I know, it's better than anything else out there, very well done, thanks a lot for taking the time to make those mods, keep up the good work. And I'm sorry if my criticism isn't too constructive, but I think most of the issues have already been discussed in other threads anyways, I simply felt like explaining what's missing to make this the perfect mod, for me.

I really think that RAND should be playable without a single reload and without prior knowledge of terrain... or using the map editor!

welcome here and thanks for the constructive criticism.
I would like to know in detail which UHVs are problematic, so that I can do something about it.

What, instead, I fail to understand, is the necessity of a bigger revealed area to better found cities. Why isn't this a problem with standard civ?

Because then the player start with one settler and a scout unit. Often, the first city doesn't really matter a lot (at least not on the difficulty I'm playing), and the second and third city are in a scouted area. In RFC, the core cities have to be either founded without any map knowledge and on the best possible location in order to get a good start to complete the UHV. I assume this is why Firaxis has done a similar thing in the "Advanced Start" modus, to give the player the option to found at least three optimal placed cities.

I haven't played RAND enough to be sure about the map-related goals, though I think it's pretty safe to divide the number for each task by the scale of the map. A map that is twice as big as another map could have 1.8 times as many cities (as it will be hard enough to build the settlers), in case of England. Goals that require a distance, may simply have doubled values, divided by the number of civs, so that in all cases things could be ensured (at least, if it will be possible in future versions to play with 27 players on a smaller map).

Regarding UHVs, I'm not a big Egypt fan, but I'll have to agree that you can't really expect to win a egyptian UHV without having a stone ressource. That's the most obvious one, but in my mind, ancient civs (babylon, egypt, greece, rome) should have access to the particular ressource that's "required" to build their historical wonders. And concerning Japan, it has nothing to do with it's UHV, but I don't get why they always get 2 fishing boats while fishing ressources seem rarer (more rare?). Like I said in my OP, all this is not really a serious issue to me, more often than not those needed ressources are simply a couple of tiles away, but when it comes to Egypt, a couple of tiles away often makes the difference between failure and success, especially on higher difficulty levels. England's UHV seems kind of hard to do on a smaller, more crowded map, since you have to found 15 cities, not conquer them, but then again, I guess nothing prevents me from conquering, razing and re-settling an area.

As for the larger revealed area, I don't know, I only feel it would be normal for a civ starting with 4 settlers (which is the main difference when you compare this to "standard civ") to have a bigger revealed area than a civ starting with a single settler, so I don't have to use my settlers as explorers (who get sacked by barbarians...), I'm not saying they should have a 20x20 revealed area around their initial starting point... I don't know, the more I think about it, the more I think it's better the way it is now than any other way...

Anyhow, the lack of needed ressources and the lack of knowledge of my surroundings are the two usual reasons why I keep reloading the game, so I figured I'd mention it, but like I said in the OP, it's not really a serious issue in any way.

And concerning the AI civ's spawn area and cultural flips, it can get frustrating on smaller maps, especially when you play the earlier civs, but then again, that feature is probably what made RFC so fun to play, I just have to learn to deal with the fact that I don't know what I'm used to knowing when I play regular RFC...

To be honest, I discovered RFC RAND just last week, so I guess I'm still getting used to not knowing stuff, besides, I don't think I should be asking you to change anything without having played the game more extensively, let's say my OP was to be filed into the "first impressions" category...

I'll give it some more time and come back with more detailed examples, if that's ok with you.

Cheers.

What if every civ that starts with 3 or more settlers got a free explorer, regardless of whether they had Compass?

I'm just going to throw this out there as a "wish list" item for the next update. I think it has been said before, but I would like a map option with a smaller size-civ ratio so that civilizations are slightly more clustered together. I know in many of the games I play there are large unsettled areas for most or all of the game. I know that's consistent with the normal Rhye's but occasionally I want to play a game with a slightly smaller scope, especially if I'm going for a Domination victory, and would appreciate a more concentrated map.

I've slightly reduced map sizes

Walliard's suggestion would be a nice compromise between "How it is now" and "What I was talking about earlier", maybe give 1 scout by "extra" settler for earlier civs and 1 explorer by "extra" settler for later civs, but to be honest and after thinking it through, I think Rhye is right that having a "normal (small) revealed spawn area" is not really much of a problem, although the two main differences between a "regular (non-RFC)" start and a RFC start are:

1) we get more settlers, but without knowledge of the land to settle..., imho, you need to explore before you want to settle...
2) barbarians/independants are often roaming the maps as soon as classical civs begin to spawn, while in "normal civ", it's not the case (since everyone starts in 3000BC)

Another idea I've had (and it's only an idea, not a suggestion) would be to have the "extra" settlers spawn later, maybe at the same time the free workers spawn, that way, we can found the capital on first or second turn and use extra units to explore some before having to think about founding a second city, but then again, I guess I could simply have those "extra" settlers wait in my capital until I have good (and safe) places to settle them in. (I'm not the most patient person... I know... :P)

I still think the best idea would be to have the "reserved spawn area" (the area which has foreign units and cities flip to me in the first couple of turns) be revealed as my civ spawns, that way, I know what's supposed to be my "homeland" and so I don't risk funding my second and third city on eventual foreign land... having 2 newly founded spanish cities (half of my newborn empire) flip to England or another later european civ can be very annoying, the only civs who get that treatment in "earth RFC" are the ancients civs which "are supposed" to collapse (IE.: Babylon, Egypt, etc...), but then again, if it goes against what RAND is supposed to be about, disregard this idea, I perfectly understand that the whole point of RAND is to play a RFC game without knowing about stuff like this.

On another note, I'll try to upload a save from my Dutch "would've/should've been UHV", somewhy, the "be the first to settle on an island larger than 25 tiles" didn't work for me, I don't know if it's supposed to trigger as soon as the city is funded or when the deadline comes, but either way, I have two of those "big enough" virgin islands and I was first to settle on both (in the 1500s) and somewhy, I didn't get the UHV, although I've installed some user-made files (the three files by "one dreamer" from the "Small bug fixes thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=285831&page=2)" and the "RFC Rand Optimizer (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=287931)", I think the optimizer might be causing this, as it says it changes the way UHVs are checked, so maybe that's the cause, I don't know... I'll upload a saved game, although it will be from the late 1800s or early 1900s, I saved it in 1775 and somewhy overwrote the save later... (playing addictive games up to 4am makes you do stupid things... :P)

As for starting ressources, I must admit I rerolled many ancient and classical civ starts and they had access to their "usual" ressources more often than not... I must've been unlucky on my first games...

However, I've noticed that most of the "fish" ressources spawn on "ocean" squares, instead of the usual "coast", I don't know if that's intended or not, it's really not a problem, I like it that way, but considering the rarity of coastal ressources, I really think Japan shouldn't be getting those 2 fishing boats as they spawn, unless they're meant to be used for exploring... because that's the only thing they seem to do in most of my games.

I'm a big fan of Rome, Japan, Spain, England, Dutch and Inca (terraces ftw!), so those are the civs I've played the most so far, I'll try to limit my input to those civs, so I know what's an issue and what's simply "bad luck".

Last thing, I'll check my autosaves for the earliest possible save of that Dutch game, but I've had a couple issues with diplomacy, my neighbor friends, France who'd keep asking me for every and any techs I'd research as soon as I get it... I wanted them as allies when I started, so at first, I gave them all they wanted, ... but they kept asking... they also harrassed me to go to war against Persia until I gave in... at some point, their attitude towards me also "froze", meaning they were "stuck" at "Pleased", no matter what I did, somewhy, they also asked (threatened) me to stop trading with their own vassals, I don't know if that's a bug or not?... I've also had a VERY demanding Ethiopia (similar to France, asking for all the techs I had that they didn't and not caring if I treated them like sh*t, but to a lesser extent since they collapsed and reborned a couple of times, but when they'd reappear, they'd ask for techs until they made up for the time lost while collapsed, which is a lot)...


Otherwise, after finally playing a game of RAND up to the 20th century, I must say I really enjoyed it, I achieved the historical Dutch goals (I don't mind not getting the UHV I deserved, that game is so much fun I want to see how far I can take it...), it was really interesting to see my world evolve, pretty much everything got discovered, settled, conquered, collapsed, reborned, etc... A truly complete and somewhat realistical game that didn't feel like I knew everything before it happened, I think that's what you aimed for with RAND, well done!

Thanks again for making this and don't worry about all the complaints, I'm pretty sure if you asked me to write a post about everything I love in RFC and RFC Rand, that I'd have a whole lot more to say... :goodjob:

please post the save

arabia and turkish have some problems with their beginning situation(a lot of desert) and there is an other major problem:computer build towns very close to his other towns.

please post the save

Hey, the first three files are from my latest Dutch game on the smaller map, just to make sure the first game wasn't a fluke. There are saves from just before I settle on a 25+ tiles large island, then other saves as I complete the other 2 UHVs, then a last one in 1760, after the 3rd UHV's deadline, without result. You can also note on the saves that Mali and Ethiopia (before it collapsed) had a bad habit of asking me for something every turn and not getting mad at me for ignoring their requests... Note (on the 1755 save) that despite being AFTER 1760 (the deadline for settling the island), the "2/3" in the score chart is still "whited" (not-greyed), as if I still had the possibility to somehow complete it?

I'll try the same setup again, but this time with a "clean" version of RFC RAND, since I want to see if the "RFC RAND optimizer" thingie might be the cause of for the 3rd Dutch UHV not getting checked/completed.

Other than that, all went well, there was a nice culture war between my Utrecht and France's Bordeaux and Japan's managed to become a superpower, I had to help Russia strenghten up a bit so the Japanese had a rival their own strenght...

The fourth file is a save from the game I was talking about in my earlier post, it's in the 1920s, I think France is still asking for every tech I research, if you want to check it out...

I can see that something went wrong already before 1600.
The 3rd condition gets checked: if you see the panel, it's the 2nd one that's been somehow unchecked. Seems that the 2nd has moved to the third.
If your optimized version didn't fix a bug in 1.10, that's the reason

Ok, I'll re-install without the optimizer, just to make sure that won't be an issue...

I've slightly reduced map sizes

"RFCRAND110.zip" looks like the same as before was it updated for reduced map size or will that be published with the next version of the mod?

i was refering to the next version

I give it a 4.5. It would be a 5, but there are still a few tiny kinks to work out (I like to nit-pick :p).

Last thing, I'll check my autosaves for the earliest possible save of that Dutch game, but I've had a couple issues with diplomacy, my neighbor friends, France who'd keep asking me for every and any techs I'd research as soon as I get it... I wanted them as allies when I started, so at first, I gave them all they wanted, ... but they kept asking...I had the exact same thing happen me today in my game as Maya. I had both France and England ask me for something every single turn, whether it be for a technology or something else, but when I denied them they wouldn't get a -1 relationship hit.

I think that RAND is one of the best mods ever, except for one thing. I guess that I'm just unlucky but there is always a civ that spawns close to me and flips the good half of my empire. It's annoying and then I have to start the game over. Could you possible script the spawns to be a little further apart from each other?