Having seen many messages for Independent cities, I believe it would be better for them to have their own thread, because independent cities are one of the most important aspects of RFC generally.

Current cities

Italy

Milan, Roma, Firenze, Napoli, Catania

Spain

Valencia, Toledo, Barcelona, A Coruna, Pamplona

France

Nantes, Burdigala, Massilia, Tours, Caen, Lyon, Tarbes

Africa

Tunis, Oran

Balkans

Ragusa, Beograd

Germany

Augsburg

Former USSR

Kharkov, Kherson, Rostov

Barbs

Tripolis, Marrakech

Forgot any?
Ideas for additions:

Dubh Linn (Dublin)
Imbir Nish (Inverness)
Prag
Bruxelles
Zurich

Any other ideas welcome

Zurich

normally only a lurker, but rejoining for one small comment. Zurichs importance only starts in the 18th or 19th century to outgrow those of other Swiss towns. Berne, Basel or Geneva were all more important and larger! (chose Basel please, it's been the largest during the middle ages, I don't think it will make such a big difference map tile wise)

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Having seen many messages for Independent cities, I believe it would be better for them to have their own thread, because independent cities are one of the most important aspects of RFC generally.

Current cities

Italy

Milan, Roma, Firenze, Napoli, Catania

Spain

Valencia, Toledo, Barcelona, A Coruna, Pamplona

France

Nantes, Burdigala, Massilia, Tours, Caen, Lyon, Tarbes

Africa

Tunis, Oran

Balkans

Ragusa, Beograd

Germany

Augsburg

Former USSR

Kharkov, Kherson, Rostov

Barbs

Tripolis, Marrakech

Forgot any?
Ideas for additions:

Dubh Linn (Dublin)
Imbir Nish (Inverness)
Prag
Bruxelles
Zurich

Any other ideas welcome

I don't think Tarbes is on the actual list. I've never seen it before - it's more likely that someone built it and it went independent.

Oran isn't, but Alger and Tangier are.

Kharkov, Kherson, and Rostov are currently off. Kherson and Kharkov will be going back on at different times.

For your suggested list:
Dublin and Prague are on the list; the others aren't. As Mitsho said, Zurich's not time-appropriate (although Basel would be), Bruxelles is in the middle of an area always settled by France, Burgundy, or Germany (or all three), and Inverness may be a possibility, but would give us two independent cities in Scotland (Edinburgh being the other). The Norse may settle Inverness on their own.

What should be the spawn year for Basle? Perhaps around 900-1000 AD, I don't know.

What should be the spawn year for Basle? Perhaps around 900-1000 AD, I don't know.

If Basel is included, it should spawn in 500 AD as "Basilia" and be high on Burgundian conquest priorities.

Basel would be sort of tricky to manage. If it's not there from the beginning, it won't spawn because it'll be in the Burgundian cultural zone. If it's in from the beginning, it'll probably flip to Burgundy, which would be fine except for the advantage it would give Burgundy over France. Additionally, the area around Basel is unremarkable for resources (although that could be changed); it wouldn't be a great city to hold in the early game. It is old enough to be included in the 500 start.

To get back the advantage from Burgundy, perhaps Rheims should be added and spawn to France.

To get back the advantage from Burgundy, perhaps Rheims should be added and spawn to France.

That's a lot of cities to flip to early civs for the start of the game, and leaves very little empty space to settle. I don't think either city should be in.

That's a lot of cities to flip to early civs for the start of the game, and leaves very little empty space to settle. I don't think either city should be in.

That's very much my concern too. I would not have Warsaw in as an indy either if Poland is spawning at Kracow. The AI needs room to expand. On that note I've got another suggestion. Why don't we change the minimum no. of tiles between cities from 1 to 2? It would stop the AI building a lot of cities all close together and encourage the player to expand more widely. I think the code could be changed fairly easily AFAIK.

That's very much my concern too. I would not have Warsaw in as an indy either if Poland is spawning at Kracow. The AI needs room to expand. On that note I've got another suggestion. Why don't we change the minimum no. of tiles between cities from 1 to 2? It would stop the AI building a lot of cities all close together and encourage the player to expand more widely. I think the code could be changed fairly easily AFAIK.

I would agree with this. In every game I play, the AI almost always builds it second city 2 tiles from its capitol, and normally on top of a food resource. As a result large parts of europe (particularly in the east) are left empty late in the game.

I think there should be more indy representation of the baltic cultures. Hence:
Danzing (I think it is already included even if not in this list)
Koenigsberg
Novgorod

I think there should be more indy representation of the baltic cultures. Hence:
Danzing (I think it is already included even if not in this list)
Koenigsberg
Novgorod

Danzig is already included. (Gdansk)
Novgorod is definitely on the list.(not on the Baltic though).
Koenigsberg won't be as its only 1-2 tiles from Gdansk.
However, on the Baltic we're also including Lubeck, Memel, Riga and Abo.
So along with Gdansk that makes five on the Baltic (not counting Sweden).
Should be plenty IMO.

all right. One more thing: why is Catania the indipendent city in 500 AD in Sicily ? At that time, Syracuse was far more important, actually one of the most important cities in the euro-arabian world. One of the Byzantine emperors even moved the capital there. After Syracuse, Messina and Trapani were both more important than Catania. After the Arabian conquest, Palermo became the most important city. Catania became somewhat important later, after the Norman reconquista.

all right. One more thing: why is Catania the indipendent city in 500 AD in Sicily ? At that time, Syracuse was far more important, actually one of the most important cities in the euro-arabian world. One of the Byzantine emperors even moved the capital there. After Syracuse, Messina and Trapani were both more important than Catania. After the Arabian conquest, Palermo became the most important city. Catania became somewhat important later, after the Norman reconquista.

I actually wondered this also, and moved the mountain to make room for it(Siracusa was my original suggestion for a Sicilian city), but I deferred to Jessiecat after looking up the dates on Catania and finding out that it was present and fairly large in 500 AD. I'm fine with changing it (I'd switch the mountain back to its prior spot) if it doesn't create trouble.

Does it create problems if I do that?

I actually wondered this also, and moved the mountain to make room for it(Siracusa was my original suggestion for a Sicilian city), but I deferred to Jessiecat after looking up the dates on Catania and finding out that it was present and fairly large in 500 AD. I'm fine with changing it (I'd switch the mountain back to its prior spot) if it doesn't create trouble.

Does it create problems if I do that?

I'm OK with changing it too if people prefer it though I think Palermo became the most important city in the Norman period. In my present game as Genoa I conquered Catania and just founded Setia in the early 1500s. So that kinda works for me historically esp. if the Setia tile becomes Palermo. And there is room for both on our map. In fact, if you swapped the mountain back and it became Siracusa that would work just as well for me.

I'm OK with changing it too if people prefer it though I think Palermo became the most important city in the Norman period. In my present game as Genoa I conquered Catania and just founded Setia in the early 1500s. So that kinda works for me historically esp. if the Setia tile becomes Palermo. And there is room for both on our map. In fact, if you swapped the mountain back and it became Siracusa that would work just as well for me.


If we switch the mountain and make the city Siracusa, that leaves more room for a productive Palermo. Fine with me. I'll update it in the next couple of days.

Does anyone have objections to replacing Caen with Calais, which would then flip to the English? This way, we can extend the French core area west without giving them extra cities, and have the English core area cover part of the continent to make conflict with France more likely.

By the way, I agree with onedreamer that more civs should be interested in Sicily. I think we lowered Arabian interest because it would spread them too thin, but they should have at least a little incentive to take the island, as should Venice, Cordoba, Spain, and maybe even the Norse (although that may do more harm than good).

If we switch the mountain and make the city Siracusa, that leaves more room for a productive Palermo. Fine with me. I'll update it in the next couple of days.

Does anyone have objections to replacing Caen with Calais, which would then flip to the English? This way, we can extend the French core area west without giving them extra cities, and have the English core area cover part of the continent to make conflict with France more likely.

By the way, I agree with onedreamer that more civs should be interested in Sicily. I think we lowered Arabian interest because it would spread them too thin, but they should have at least a little incentive to take the island, as should Venice, Cordoba, Spain, and maybe even the Norse (although that may do more harm than good).

I prefer the Calais option. Even though Caen is important in terms of the Norman invasion of Britain, flipping it from Britain is kinda backwards. Calais remained part of England right up to Henry VIII's time so it is a much better choice IMO. What you do need to prevent however is France wanting to settle south of London before England spawns. That is really annoying.
I agree about Sicily. A lot of people could want it esp. if we give it enough resources to attract their interest.
BTW Are we decided now on the indies so they can be included in the next version? I guess you read my post above about not including Warsaw in your square so Poland can expand there?

I'm OK with changing it too if people prefer it though I think Palermo became the most important city in the Norman period. In my present game as Genoa I conquered Catania and just founded Setia in the early 1500s. So that kinda works for me historically esp. if the Setia tile becomes Palermo. And there is room for both on our map. In fact, if you swapped the mountain back and it became Siracusa that would work just as well for me.

Nope, Palermo became important with the Arabs. In fact, they made it the capital of Sicily, position that it still holds today. Previously Syracuse was the center of culture of the island, but -unlike the rest of Sicily, and especially western Sicily who felt oppressed and not part of the Roman Empire- it opposed a strong resistance to the Arab occupation. As a result, when they finally entered the city, they slaughtered a lot of people, plundered most riches and didn't take their culture there as they did with Palermo, which owns much to the Arabs. After the Arabs Syracuse recovered a bit, but remained the shade of what it was in the past (according to Cicero, the most beautiful city in the world).

nevermind, this was for the HRE.

By the way, I agree with onedreamer that more civs should be interested in Sicily. I think we lowered Arabian interest because it would spread them too thin, but they should have at least a little incentive to take the island, as should Venice, Cordoba, Spain, and maybe even the Norse (although that may do more harm than good).

Especially Spain (Aragon, once an indepedent nation, had all the West Mediterranean islands and Naples under control at once) and Arabs, but Byzantines could be interested for Sicily and Southern Italy too (before the Norman invasion, Italy south of Rome was Byzantine).

I prefer the Calais option. Even though Caen is important in terms of the Norman invasion of Britain, flipping it from Britain is kinda backwards. Calais remained part of England right up to Henry VIII's time so it is a much better choice IMO. What you do need to prevent however is France wanting to settle south of London before England spawns. That is really annoying.
I agree about Sicily. A lot of people could want it esp. if we give it enough resources to attract their interest.
BTW Are we decided now on the indies so they can be included in the next version? I guess you read my post above about not including Warsaw in your square so Poland can expand there?

I'm ok with not having Warsawa in. The one reason I'm inclined to give Poland (and Hungary) a city to flip is that they're starting out in an area full of powerful neighbors (especially true in Hungary's case) without much of a power base. Somehow, Bulgaria does fine under similar conditions, but in the games I've played, I've never seen Poland or Hungary get anywhere. Almost every other civ (Portugal being another notable, weak exception) flips at least one city upon spawning, which gives them at least one developed city with an infrastructure base. The Ottomans, for example, would really suffer if they weren't getting cities that had been built up by the Byzantines and the Arabs - I worry that the Poles and Hungarians will always be at a competitive disadvantage without any help. Still, I'll leave it off for now pending further playtesting and discussion.
One possible solution to this problem is to give Poland and Hungary an extra settler upon spawning, and give their newly founded cities more starting buildings than they would normally contain.

Especially Spain (Aragon, once an indepedent nation, had all the West Mediterranean islands and Naples under control at once) and Arabs, but Byzantines could be interested for Sicily and Southern Italy too (before the Norman invasion, Italy south of Rome was Byzantine).

While this is entirely true and historically accurate, the Byzantines are a superpower from the beginning of the game, completely able to impose their will and dominance anywhere on the map. If we give them an interest in Italy, they'll take Italy and nobody else will be willing to risk a war with them to claim it. I think we're better off sacrificing some historical accuracy to keep the biggest and strongest civ in the game from expanding its early lead.

While this is entirely true and historically accurate, the Byzantines are a superpower from the beginning of the game, completely able to impose their will and dominance anywhere on the map. If we give them an interest in Italy, they'll take Italy and nobody else will be willing to risk a war with them to claim it. I think we're better off sacrificing some historical accuracy to keep the biggest and strongest civ in the game from expanding its early lead.

OK. I suppose Spanish and Arabs are both to be interested in Sicily?

OK. I suppose Spanish and Arabs are both to be interested in Sicily?

Yes. And also Genoa IMO.

Venice would be interested in game terms as well, especially if Genoa is :D

In order to get their locations correct, it would be good if someone (St. Lucifer?) could put all the rest of the independent cities into a WorldBuilderSave. I'll use this to get the coordinates of the late-spawning cities and make them spawn at the appropriate time in the Python. We also need to give them age-appropriate initial defenders so they aren't too easy to kill. Again, you could add these units to a WorldBuilderSave.

I'd use this list of times for the later cities. Are all the current indy cities supposed to spawn at 500 AD, or would you prefer some of them get moved back too?

700 AD:
Dublin
Edinburgh
York
Tonsberg (flips to Norse)
Lubeck

800 AD:
Leipzig
Prague
Kharkov
Minsk
Novgorod
Kazan
Samara

900 AD:
Breslau
Gdansk (flips to Poland)
Memel
Riga
Vologda
Smolensk (flips to Moscow)
Tver
Yaroslavl

I've gone ahead and done that for you as I already had most of it saved on an excel map anyway. I've flagged all the locations with the starting dates you suggested. Please note that, as agreed, Kracow is now the start for Poland so they would flip Breslau on spawn. I've also flagged the two suggested location changes for Toledo and Pamplona (1 tile east in both cases). I've saved it as a saved game rather than WB. I hope that's OK.

Yeah, the saved game file is okay, thanks.

Perhaps Prague should be moved 2-3 tiles north, in the springs of Elva.

Only the 500AD cities should go on the WB save. All later Indy cities are to be codedin Python. It is on the to-do list right after fixing the Norse UHV and UP.

Hey 3Miro,

Welcome back. I added the independent cities via Python in the latest test build, available through my post on the Files thread*. In fact, I decided to move most of the 500 AD cities there too (Roma being the exception) so that it was all basically in one place. I have some more modifications to this file in progress -- I'll finish them up and send it to you. At that point, I don't plan further modifications to the Python, and will resume doing XML work. That way we won't duplicate effort.

*I've been dropping the C++ source code in the latest full test builds. Obviously I haven't changed anything there, so you can just throw in the last version of the source code you have and go from there.

I have some catching up to do, but I am back.

I will start working on the UPs, I would need to change some some stuff to synchronize them with python. I want to make it so that we can change the Promotions and terrain without worrying about c++. I will wait for the independents python file before I do any work there. I don't expect any would be necessary for that file anyway.

My suggestions;

1. Eliminate Tours, Leipzig, Memel, Minsk, Tver and Pisa

2. Make indies fight each other (Always at war?) and slow their tech rate. Agreed.

3. Change Pamplona, Nantes, Beograd, Riga and Kharkov to barbarian. Add Astrakhan as a strong barbarian base for later invasions.

4. Barbarian invasions able to raze indy cities but not civ ones?

5, More plagues but shorter duration. (who really luvs plague anyway?)

6. Minimum distance between cities to be increased from 1 to 2.

7. More incentive for AI civs to expand as required for their UHV conditions.

8. Code in respawning for all civs in core area cities where historically appropriate.

EDIT

9. Indys not allowed to build wonders (In my last game they built 6)

Just moving this over to the appropriate place. The way the code works, it's very easy to remove/re-add an indy city spawn (just comment it out), so I've been deleting some in my latest test version. I can't seem to make them fight each other yet though.

Barbarians are coded as "Independents", so discussion of them belongs here.

There are two main ways to add barbarians, as cities (already implemented) and as spawning units. You specify for each barb "event":


A time period
A box inside which barbs will spawn at a random non-occupied location
The unit type and number (easily modified by difficulty)
The frequency with which the spawn event happens.


So, suggestions? For the box, you can just post a screenshot of the map area and I'll convert to coordinates (these can, obviously, be somewhat rough). The more specific the better.

So far here are my rough ideas:


Animals. A few wolves/bears in Scandinavia/Russia and Lions in Africa for flavor. Anytime before 1000 AD

Mediterranean pirates (light early on, heavy in the 1500-1800 time-frame). Start as triremes, transitions to caravals, carracks, war galleons at some point.

Misc. Germanic barbarians. Axemen and spearman in France, Italy, Germany, Spain from 500 AD to 800 AD. Mounted Infantry in this area from 800 AD to 1000 AD.

The Avars in Hungary 550 AD to 800 AD. Horse Archers.

Misc other asiatic tribes. Small numbers of Horse Archers in Russia/Ukraine before 1000 AD

Cuman and Pechenegs. 800-1100 AD. Horse Archers and then Light Cavalry. Spawning in the Ukraine?

Seljuk Turks. Anatolia. 1070 AD to before Ottoman spawn. Unsure on units.

Mongols! A huge number of keshiks (equiv to knights). 1250 all along the eastern edge of the map, but heaviest north of the black sea.

My response to Jessiecat's suggestions on indies:

1. I'd be in favor of eliminating Nantes over Tours, but am fine with eliminating Leipzig, Memel, and Tver. I have reservations about eliminating Pisa and Minsk - I think that Minsk fills an area that doesn't have a lot of competition, and Pisa's sort of a special case.

What I'd suggest doing on the Pisa/Firenze problem is propose putting Firenze in the Venetian core area so that it flips on spawn. This gives Genoa Pisa and Venice Firenze, pits them against each other, and hopefully provides them with enough of a bulwark against the independents in Rome that they don't get recaptured or wiped out.

2. I'm in favor of both proposals - a crawling tech rate and always_war with each other if possible. This may lead to some consolidation in places with independents close to each other, but if it's workable it seems like a good idea.

3. I'm in favor of eliminating both Pamplona and Nantes, so I'd rather not see them as barb cities. However, we could make Burdigala or Tolouse barbarian, and they'd be more likely to affect multiple civs (France, Burgundy, Spain, and Independents), whereas Pamplona would only affect Spain and maybe Cordoba, and Nantes only France.

I like Beograd, Kharkov, Astrakhan (although there's no Caspian or river delta to put it on - I might consider changing the map to introduce that), and maybe Riga as barb cities.

4. I'm fine with barbs being able to raze any city. They razed Kiev!

5. Is there a way to modify or randomize the severity of plague? For instance, have a short plague (like a major influenza outbreak) that hits hard but lasts only a turn or two, and a long plague like the Black Death which lingers?

6. With the map as resource-rich as it is, I think the 1 tile spacing is ok. I realize that it's often used illogically or abused by the AI (I don't understand why Hungary does that), but too many parts of Europe are tightly packed with important cities and valuable resources to increase the distance requirement to 2. I understand the argument, but if there's a way we can address it by changing the AI behavior, I think that's a better solution.

7, 8. No objections.

9. If the indies are constantly at war with each other, they won't spend as much time building wonders. If they tech really slowly, they may not be able to. Let's see if we can modify the behavior rather than imposing the arbitrary restriction.

Barbarians are coded as "Independents", so discussion of them belongs here.

There are two main ways to add barbarians, as cities (already implemented) and as spawning units. You specify for each barb "event":


A time period
A box inside which barbs will spawn at a random non-occupied location
The unit type and number (easily modified by difficulty)
The frequency with which the spawn event happens.


So, suggestions? For the box, you can just post a screenshot of the map area and I'll convert to coordinates (these can, obviously, be somewhat rough). The more specific the better.

So far here are my rough ideas:


Animals. A few wolves/bears in Scandinavia/Russia and Lions in Africa for flavor. Anytime before 1000 AD

Mediterranean pirates (light early on, heavy in the 1500-1800 time-frame). Start as triremes, transitions to caravals, carracks, war galleons at some point.

Misc. Germanic barbarians. Axemen and spearman in France, Italy, Germany, Spain from 500 AD to 800 AD. Mounted Infantry in this area from 800 AD to 1000 AD.

The Avars in Hungary 550 AD to 800 AD. Horse Archers.

Misc other asiatic tribes. Small numbers of Horse Archers in Russia/Ukraine before 1000 AD

Cuman and Pechenegs. 800-1100 AD. Horse Archers and then Light Cavalry. Spawning in the Ukraine?

Seljuk Turks. Anatolia. 1070 AD to before Ottoman spawn. Unsure on units.

Mongols! A huge number of keshiks (equiv to knights). 1250 all along the eastern edge of the map, but heaviest north of the black sea.


I like it.

I'd also add in wolf spawns in the forests of Germany and France, and bear spawns in the Carpathians, anytime before maybe 1300 or so. They'd only be able to pick off workers and unescorted settlers, but that seems reasonable to me.

My response to Jessiecat's suggestions on indies:

1. I'd be in favor of eliminating Nantes over Tours, but am fine with eliminating Leipzig, Memel, and Tver. I have reservations about eliminating Pisa and Minsk - I think that Minsk fills an area that doesn't have a lot of competition, and Pisa's sort of a special case.

What I'd suggest doing on the Pisa/Firenze problem is propose putting Firenze in the Venetian core area so that it flips on spawn. This gives Genoa Pisa and Venice Firenze, pits them against each other, and hopefully provides them with enough of a bulwark against the independents in Rome that they don't get recaptured or wiped out.

2. I'm in favor of both proposals - a crawling tech rate and always_war with each other if possible. This may lead to some consolidation in places with independents close to each other, but if it's workable it seems like a good idea.

3. I'm in favor of eliminating both Pamplona and Nantes, so I'd rather not see them as barb cities. However, we could make Burdigala or Tolouse barbarian, and they'd be more likely to affect multiple civs (France, Burgundy, Spain, and Independents), whereas Pamplona would only affect Spain and maybe Cordoba, and Nantes only France.

I like Beograd, Kharkov, Astrakhan (although there's no Caspian or river delta to put it on - I might consider changing the map to introduce that), and maybe Riga as barb cities.

4. I'm fine with barbs being able to raze any city. They razed Kiev!

5. Is there a way to modify or randomize the severity of plague? For instance, have a short plague (like a major influenza outbreak) that hits hard but lasts only a turn or two, and a long plague like the Black Death which lingers?

6. With the map as resource-rich as it is, I think the 1 tile spacing is ok. I realize that it's often used illogically or abused by the AI (I don't understand why Hungary does that), but too many parts of Europe are tightly packed with important cities and valuable resources to increase the distance requirement to 2. I understand the argument, but if there's a way we can address it by changing the AI behavior, I think that's a better solution.

7, 8. No objections.

9. If the indies are constantly at war with each other, they won't spend as much time building wonders. If they tech really slowly, they may not be able to. Let's see if we can modify the behavior rather than imposing the arbitrary restriction.

And my responses to your responses.:D

1. I agree with most of what you say. Let's drop Nantes but keep Tours. Drop Pamplona, Leipzig, Memel and Tver. Your probably right about Minsk so keep that. I'm fine with keeping Pisa if it flips to Genoa and if Florence flips to Venice.
2. Agreed
3. Change Toulouse, Beograd, Kharkov and maybe Riga and Vologda to barbs. Add Astrakhan as a barb. (see screenshot below. There is a delta there.)
4. Barbs can raze anybody. Agreed.
5. Three or four plagues. The Black Death and a couple of shorter ones.
6. Don't like close-spaced cities. I always raze one. But I can live with that.
7.,8. Agreed
9. You're probably right. Agreed

EDIT I also agree with Sedna's list of barbs and animals. The barb spawns look fine. Astrakhan could
be the spawn point for the Mongols though one group should appear in Anatolia after the Seljuk Turks. And a barb Kharkov for the Cumans and Pechenegs. To answer sednas question, like most Central Asian nomadic tribes the Seljuks excelled at horse archery. But I'll research further on that.

BTW There were lots of bears and wolves in Britain the early Middle Ages until the Normans killed them off.

A proposal:


I would like to revisit the list of independent cities, both for pruning and for some new additions (!).


I think we may be taking the wrong approach in having spawning civs found their capitals in unoccupied space. Most of the capital cities are in areas that were population centers or major cities long before the spawning civs arrived, and should probably be represented as cities which flip immediately upon spawn and become the capital.
If we break it down by civ, it looks like this:

These civs should definitely have their capital city in place upon spawn:
Byzantium, France, Arabia, England, Poland, Portugal, and Austria.

These civs should probably have their capital city in place upon spawn:
Burgundy, Cordoba, Kiev, Germany, Moscow, Netherlands, Venice, Sweden

It may be appropriate for these civs to have their capital city in place upon spawn:
Spain, Genoa, Ottomans

It's probably appropriate that these civs start with settlers:
Bulgaria, Norse, Hungary


Implementing these cities (even if they only show up one turn before the civ spawns) gives the late-spawning civs a running start, makes city flips between civs and wars more common, and increases our level of historic accuracy.

Now, I'm not sure how to code this, but it seems like it should be doable. We can easily do it for France, and can justify doing it for Burgundy, which takes care of our opening civs. It'll be more of a challenge to implement for spawning civs, but isn't the code available from the 600 AD start in standard RFC?

I think we're agreed with most of the indies to drop. Instead of any new indies I wouldn't mind a couple more barbs on the periphery like Abo in Finland and one in the Azov area for barb spawn along with Astrakan as proposed above. But lets not get overcrowded again in the rest of Europe.

As far as having capitols pre-built I'm happy with your list although I think Spain has a better case than Germany. But the reasoning behind your idea is quite sound. I'll vote for it if it can be implemented as easily as the RFC 600AD start. Easier to adjust units and techs too I imagine.

Instead of any new indies I wouldn't mind a couple more barbs on the periphery like Abo in Finland and one in the Azov area for barb spawn along with Astrakan as proposed above.

By this do you mean a barbarian city of just a bunch of barbarians? Both would be kinda wrong, there were no major settlements in Finland before the Swedish arrived, and the Swedish didn't face a major resistance in Finland that could be represented by a group of barbarians.

By this do you mean a barbarian city of just a bunch of barbarians? Both would be kinda wrong, there were no major settlements in Finland before the Swedish arrived, and the Swedish didn't face a major resistance in Finland that could be represented by a group of barbarians.

OK. How about a few wolves and bears, just for flavour?:D

That would be great. :lol: With wolves and bears one could guarantee that any cities wouldn't be created in Finland without a garrison, settlers are great food for the wolves.

That would be great. :lol: With wolves and bears one could guarantee that any cities wouldn't be created in Finland without a garrison, settlers are great food for the wolves.

Didn't you guys used to sacrifice bears to the Great Sky God or something?
Maybe just a couple of goody huts hiding a giant bear with attitude, bent on revenge.:trouble:

please leave Florence indipendent and Pisa flip to Genoa. What's the problem with that ? Florence will control most of the mainland while Pisa will control sea squares. If the vicinity is such a dreadful problem (Florence was already moved where it doesn't belong to in order to not cross too much with Pisa, they are distant enough now don't you think ?), give them more resources and initial buildings. For example, Pisa should have marble in the square North of it, Florence shouldn't have Marble. Let Venice spawn area stretch along the Po Valley and Istria/Dalmatia, not Tuscany.

Should we make Milan flip to Venice, or will it harden the Genoan UHV?

Didn't you guys used to sacrifice bears to the Great Sky God or something?
Maybe just a couple of goody huts hiding a giant bear with attitude, bent on revenge.:trouble:

Nah, we just ate them but first apologized the dead bear for killing it.:p

please leave Florence indipendent and Pisa flip to Genoa. What's the problem with that ? Florence will control most of the mainland while Pisa will control sea squares. If the vicinity is such a dreadful problem (Florence was already moved where it doesn't belong to in order to not cross too much with Pisa, they are distant enough now don't you think ?), give them more resources and initial buildings. For example, Pisa should have marble in the square North of it, Florence shouldn't have Marble. Let Venice spawn area stretch along the Po Valley and Istria/Dalmatia, not Tuscany.

At this point, I'm less concerned with making Pisa and Florence stronger/more resource-rich than ensuring that Venice and Genoa survive as viable civs, which hasn't really been the case of late. Part of the problem is that AI Venice and AI Genoa end up fighting the independents in those two cities (with or without the flip), and are ultimately overrun. I feel like they'd have more of a chance if Venice flipped Firenze, even if that gives them control of half of Tuscany (ahistorical). We can give them Istria in the core/flip zone, but that doesn't give them much benefit, as there's nothing prebuilt there. We can't extend their core/flip zone much further into the Po valley without conflicting with the Genoan core area, and they can't overlap.

Should we make Milan flip to Venice, or will it harden the Genoan UHV?

It won't just make the UHV harder, it'll make the existence of Genoa as a viable city difficult. It's also difficult to extend the Venetian core into Lombardia without conflicting with the Genoan core.

I just had a test game in which Venice took the whole Adriatic coast and Crete. Due to their discounted tech costs that meant they were researching frigates around 1300 when I popped in to see how my massive hordes of mongols were doing. Of course everyone was still too far ahead in technology -- not that their fancy "muskets" could withstand the might of the Khan!

The new weakened indies and making Firenze not the same "indy" as Rome might be helping Venice/Genoa. Of course, that was just one game. Rolling another now and then I really will post this new version for others to play with.

I just had a test game in which Venice took the whole Adriatic coast and Crete. Due to their discounted tech costs that meant they were researching frigates around 1300 when I popped in to see how my massive hordes of mongols were doing. Of course everyone was still too far ahead in technology -- not that their fancy "muskets" could withstand the might of the Khan!

The new weakened indies and making Firenze not the same "indy" as Rome might be helping Venice/Genoa. Of course, that was just one game. Rolling another now and then I really will post this new version for others to play with.

Sedna, do you want the small map fixes before the new update? (it's mostly just cleaning up some of the marshy areas - removing mud that's mistakenly been left on grassland, making a little more arable land available in the Nile and Danube deltas; moving/creating the Volga Delta for Astrakhan)

Sedna, do you want the small map fixes before the new update? (it's mostly just cleaning up some of the marshy areas - removing mud that's mistakenly been left on grassland, making a little more arable land available in the Nile and Danube deltas; moving/creating the Volga Delta for Astrakhan)

Sure, if you've got it ready.

It won't just make the UHV harder, it'll make the existence of Genoa as a viable city difficult. It's also difficult to extend the Venetian core into Lombardia without conflicting with the Genoan core.

While I agree that things will get hard for Boccanegra's people, aren't we supposed to get Venice and Genoa in war? And what better way there is for that, than giving them a common part of core, perhaps in Lombardia (without Milan flipping to any of them)

While I agree that things will get hard for Boccanegra's people, aren't we supposed to get Venice and Genoa in war? And what better way there is for that, than giving them a common part of core, perhaps in Lombardia (without Milan flipping to any of them)

Yes, that is the goal. But you're missing an important point - it is NOT POSSIBLE, as in crash-the-game-not-possible, for civs to have overlapping core areas. To review, the core area is the rectangular region which flips to a civ upon spawn. Those do not overlap. It IS possible and desirable to give both Venice and Genoa a high desirability value for Lombardy/Milano, and we should certainly encourage that. But if we have Milan flip to Genoa, that gives them too large an advantage, and if we have it flip to Venice, that gives them too large an advantage. We're better off leaving it outside of both civs' core areas, but making it highly desirable to each of them.

OK then. I suppose you are right.

At this point, I'm less concerned with making Pisa and Florence stronger/more resource-rich than ensuring that Venice and Genoa survive as viable civs, which hasn't really been the case of late. Part of the problem is that AI Venice and AI Genoa end up fighting the independents in those two cities (with or without the flip), and are ultimately overrun. I feel like they'd have more of a chance if Venice flipped Firenze, even if that gives them control of half of Tuscany (ahistorical). We can give them Istria in the core/flip zone, but that doesn't give them much benefit, as there's nothing prebuilt there. We can't extend their core/flip zone much further into the Po valley without conflicting with the Genoan core area, and they can't overlap.



It won't just make the UHV harder, it'll make the existence of Genoa as a viable city difficult. It's also difficult to extend the Venetian core into Lombardia without conflicting with the Genoan core.

Venice should should flip Verona (on the hill with coal). If you don't want an indipendent Verona there, Venice should flip an indipendent Aquileia. Incidentally, Venice was founded by Aquileians. Also, it should start with galley and a settler loaded on it and high priorities to colonize Istria and Dalmatia. The goal of Venice shouldn't be to expand in Tuscany/Italy, and if they flip Florence they will end up in a permanent war with Genoa over the control of Italy, which IMO will be worse than one with mere indipendents.

Genua should spawn Pisa and build Nice and aim at controlling Milan and Corsica. Milan, Florence and Pisa should generate less culture as indipendents if possible. Their strong culture creates problem to the Genuan AI.

Imbir Nish (Inverness)

Inbhir Nis?

Some notes:
Indy Tangiers should become Tingis.
Similarly, Toledo should be changed to Toletum.
And was indy Valencia removed?

Okay on renaming. I did remove Valencia in the latest version to see if encouraging Cordoba to go westward first (into Portugal spawn zone) would help kill the Cordoban AI. This was probably unnecessary, and counter-productive to the "start strong, then fade" thing we're trying to have going with Cordoba, so I plan to return Valencia.

Okay on renaming. I did remove Valencia in the latest version to see if encouraging Cordoba to go westward first (into Portugal spawn zone) would help kill the Cordoban AI. This was probably unnecessary, and counter-productive to the "start strong, then fade" thing we're trying to have going with Cordoba, so I plan to return Valencia.

I wondered what had happened to Valencia when I replayed Cordoba. though I'm glad you're returning it. That made Cordoba even weaker for the human player against a very strong Spain. I would add a couple of Berber cavalry at Tanjah too to give them a decent presence in North Africa esp. with the barb swarm at about 1000AD.
Also, just to clarify;
Toledo should not use the ancient Roman name. It was renamed Toledo by the Visigoths who made it their capitol in the early 6th.C. If it is captured by Cordoba though it should adopt its Arab name "Tulaytulah".

I'd like to chime in that I found the new city in the 3/22 version, Cartajanna/Denia (Denia as Spain) far more productive and useful than the old Valencia. Maybe my current game is an oddball, but if the name is returned I'd submit that I prefer the more southerly location (Alicante?): the old one seemed to take out at least one better city placement and I always had trouble making it produce.

On a related note, what do people think of expanding the area for what would be called Madrid, I think Aranjuez is close now? Or perhaps moving Toledo one square east and renaming it Madrid when/if Spain takes it? Or dropping Toledo all together in favour of a more westerly Salamanca? Or, best case if impossible scenario, moving Toledo one square east and only renaming it Madrid if it is changed to be the Spanish capital? Maybe I'm just concerned that there's no real potential for a Madrid in the mod without razing Toledo.

Also, just to clarify;
Toledo should not use the ancient Roman name. It was renamed Toledo by the Visigoths who made it their capitol in the early 6th.C. If it is captured by Cordoba though it should adopt its Arab name "Tulaytulah".

I'm just telling that I found Toledo as ''Toletum'' in a Wikipedia map of the Visigoth Empire.
Moreover, I would be in favor of dropping Valencia for Carthago Nova, which was more of an important city at that time.
I would also like to share a nice webpage I found as searching for those. www.euratlas.net It also shows Toledo as Toletum.

Maybe we should just give Cordoba another settler on spawn, then you're free to found whatever western city you want.

I'm not sure about the Toledo/Madrid thing. It's sort of like the Seville/Cordoba/Granada problem in the south -- just not enough room unless you pack cities in really tight. Toleda was much more important for the early stages of our mod, Madrid more important later on.

Or, best case if impossible scenario, moving Toledo one square east and only renaming it Madrid if it is changed to be the Spanish capital?

This is not impossible. Plain RFC has code sort of like this to deal with Istanbul and moving the Turkish capitol there. It requires coding in some special cases into the code, but it could be done.

I'm just telling that I found Toledo as ''Toletum'' in a Wikipedia map of the Visigoth Empire.
Moreover, I would be in favor of dropping Valencia for Carthago Nova, which was more of an important city at that time.
I would also like to share a nice webpage I found as searching for those. www.euratlas.net It also shows Toledo as Toletum.

The problem with the euratlas site is that everywhere on all its early maps is in Latin. That doesn't mean the Visigoths in the 6th.C were speaking Latin and naming their cities with Latin names. They adopted the local Iberian name. Which was Toledo. Still I think its a French site isn't it? What do you expect?:lol:

BTW Valencia was founded as Valentia by the Romans in 137BC and continued to be important thru the whole of our mod. Carthago Nova was founded earlier by the Cathaginians and was important in Roman times but it was completely destroyed by the Vandals about 435AD. Therefore it did not exist at the beginning of our mod.

The problem with the euratlas site is that everywhere on all its early maps is in Latin. That doesn't mean the Visigoths in the 6th.C were speaking Latin and naming their cities with Latin names. They adopted the local Iberian name. Which was Toledo. Still I think its a French site isn't it? What do you expect?:lol:

Heh? What's that? Classical English anti-francoism?:lol: Anyhow, I suppose you are right at your point.

The problem with the euratlas site is that everywhere on all its early maps is in Latin. That doesn't mean the Visigoths in the 6th.C were speaking Latin and naming their cities with Latin names. They adopted the local Iberian name. Which was Toledo. Still I think its a French site isn't it? What do you expect?:lol:

BTW Valencia was founded as Valentia by the Romans in 137BC and continued to be important thru the whole of our mod. Carthago Nova was founded earlier by the Cathaginians and was important in Roman times but it was completely destroyed by the Vandals about 435AD. Therefore it did not exist at the beginning of our mod.

I don't understand your comment. By the 6th century there was no such thing as an "iberian", pre-roman language standing (one could argue about basque, but that's only in its region, not the whole Peninsula).

Visigoths did in fact have to speak latin with the "natives". The spanish languague is about a mixture of 60% latin + 15% arabic (some linguists would say even less than that) + pass of time and extern influences. There are very few, if any, spanish words with visigoth/barbaric roots; and some of them are disputed nowadays.

Toledo was Toletum by that time.

Carthago Nova was indeed destroyed by the vandals, and never recovered that high importance, but it was rebuilt as Cartagena and still a major naval seaport later by the time of Philip II. It's even a big naval shipyard today, on par with Cadiz and Vigo.

I don't understand your comment. By the 6th century there was no such thing as an "iberian", pre-roman language standing (one could argue about basque, but that's only in its region, not the whole Peninsula).

Visigoths did in fact have to speak latin with the "natives". The spanish languague is about a mixture of 60% latin + 15% arabic (some linguists would say even less than that) + pass of time and extern influences. There are very few, if any, spanish words with visigoth/barbaric roots; and some of them are disputed nowadays.

Toledo was Toletum by that time.

Carthago Nova was indeed destroyed by the vandals, and never recovered that high importance, but it was rebuilt as Cartagena and still a major naval seaport later by the time of Philip II. It's even a big naval shipyard today, on par with Cadiz and Vigo.

I bow to your expertise. Though the stuff I've read about Visigothic Spain describes the capitol as Toledo. I'm sure you're right about Latin being used but wasn't there also an existing Iberian language like Suevi which was spoken by ordinary people?
Anyway. I think we can agree that Valencia was more important than Cartagena until the latter was developed by Philip II as a naval base. When Cordoba spawns, it really should be indy Valencia rather than Cartagena, don't you think?

I bow to your expertise. Though the stuff I've read about Visigothic Spain describes the capitol as Toledo. I'm sure you're right about Latin being used but wasn't there also an existing Iberian language like Suevi which was spoken by ordinary people?
Anyway. I think we can agree that Valencia was more important than Cartagena until the latter was developed by Philip II as a naval base. When Cordoba spawns, it really should be indy Valencia rather than Cartagena, don't you think?

The suevi were another germanic tribe which came to Iberia before the visigoths, just like the vandals and alans (?).

Hispania was, apart from Italy (logically), the most romanized territory in the whole empire. Only some parts in the far north of the Peninsula were less touched by that influence (such as the Basque country, but I suppose you can imagine why that's a highly debated and controversial issue).

Most of the inhabitants spoke latin, or better put a slightly bastardized version of it (when Seneca first went to Rome he was laughed at for that). It's often said visigoths "romanized" themselves after conquering Hispania.

But please don't call this expertise. It's just that I still remember well my high school history stuff.

I seem to recall Toledo was only called like that with the Reconquista, but am not sure.

Anyway, I agree Valencia is a better fit than Cartagena for the mod. El Cid conquered it, after all (I still liked my idea to have wonders/projects after great literary works :lol:).