Imam Reza shrine is for Shiites only IIRC, so usually it's built in Cairo or by Sindh/Bahmani. Otherwise, Safavids are likely to get it.
Shahnameh used to be like a free wonder for the Safavids, but I remember the Seljuks or even now the Buyids building it more often.

The nerf for Cairo would mean soil degradation (after 1245, then?) again beacuse as Fatimids and Ayyubids, I remember badly needing the massive production from Cairo to build adequate armies.

@Tigranes, you mean Gorgan? The only Girkan I could find is a nature reserve in Azerbaijan, where Astara/Ardabil (Safavid spawn spot) would be in the game, so that's not what you mean, I guess. But Gorgan, if existing should flip, if edead has not removed Tabaristan from their core.

Yes, I meant Gorgan. I still think that Tabaristan is a core province for Safavids, some units around Gorgan flip, but the city itself does not!

Safavid game on Caliph is almost hopeless. I have started 3 different games, Shahnameh was available only once. Iran is always devasted by Mongols, it's hard to find a well developed city. By the time you take over Iraq and start to discover 19000 beaker techs all the Wonders got built by the leading Civs. Perhaps Shia Wonders could require Shia State Religion as opposed to merely Shia religion in the city?

Well, I'm back, I'll try to catch up with replies during the weekend:

Another (I guess mostly graphical idea) I had while playing Khwarezmia: the city distances are quite high when you play one of the civs that stretch into Persia, even with level 4 culture your empire isn't really connected.

So I thought about what effects it would have to give a player cultural control over a whole province once he controls it (i.e. "control" in the usual UHV sense) and has at least a level 3 culture city in it. This would have the additional effect that the player would see immediately which provinces he controls, and the effect shouldn't affect civs that settle in tightly populated areas at all.

Other than enemy armies having to march slightly longer until they reach your cities, I can think of no possible downside.

It'd look nice, esp. with the idea coming from TW & EU series, where it does look nice, but I thought about this and there are two problems:
- I'd have to move a lot of the python code to the DLL and it would still probably eat a lot of resources to check for region control for every region, every turn (or a lot of work to code a caching system)
- Barbarian invasions... this pretty much makes them obsolete, they won't have a place to spawn save for a few desert regions; there are inner spawns too but they are so annoying for the player I'd rather keep them to minimum.

What are the Kingdom of Cyprus spawining conditions anyway? I have not seen them maybe in 10-12 games I played in later eras... Would you later consider at least to add some olive trees to Cyprus? I mean the island does not look right now -- not a single green thing, only Salt and Copper :) And now with the 1 square radius one can fit 2 cities on Cyprus!

It's normal random spawn. Cyprus gets Sugar actually, if KoC spawns.

And missing city names could be fixed somehow. I am not sure how to get cordinates everytime I see one, do I just describe it relative to the resources/known cities?

If you enable cheat mode you can press shift while hovering over a map tile and coordinates will be shown on the tooltip!

Hi, everyone, I started playing this mod a week ago and absolutely love it. I would have commented sooner, but I found myself spending every free minute playing :mischief:

I really like the provinces system, it makes all the territorial tasks so much easier, as well as adding a great immersion element. However, I did have a few questions on the topic:

1. When civs spawn, cities only in their core provinces flip to them? I am currently playing as Armenia, and I'm wondering if a city in eastern Armenia Minor will flip to Rum despite that not being one of their core provinces.

2. I think I've read on this thread that some units are only trainable based the provinces a civ controls. Does this mean only cities in that province can train a unit, or that any city in a civ that has a city in that province can train said unit.

3. Finally, is there any easy way to find out what units are limited to what provinces? I'd really like to use some lancers someday.

PS- embryodead, this is the best one-man mod I've seen since Rhye got into the business. Pats on the back can't convey how proud you should be of yourself.

Thank you :D and sorry for late reply, but anyway:

1. Yes, only core provinces flip to new civs. Some nomadic civs can also flip neighboring Barbarian-owned cities that are not in their core.

2/3. Regional units are limited to mercenaries. The short story is that if you have a city in a given province, you can hire mercenaries from that province/area, i.e. you can hire camel units if you have a city in Egypt, Sudan or Arabian peninsula. The list of all regional mercenaries is in the Manual PDF located in the mod's folder.

Some nomadic civs can also flip neighboring Barbarian-owned cities that are not in their core.


Is that why I see AI AkK (not myself as active player, neither as AkK nor Timurids) flip all of Mesopotamia on their 2nd turn? Honestly, I think that's a bit too much of a buff for them. They have ok production from their western core. In my recent Safavid game they became the #2 power* and made it impossible for me to conquer Iraq (at least it would have been to much of a diversion). AkK seem inclined to found Tabriz in Azerbaijan and make it their capital. And then they had an SoD of at about 20 units inside sitting vis-à-vis my capital doing nothing with them. That was odd.

A propos flips: So the AkK capital in Azerbaijan didn't flip to me but, playing Samanids, my (moved) capital Samarkand flipped to Khwarezm... Player capital cities flip but AIs' do not?

* one for the OMG-Thread: Portugal was super-expansive #1 and vassalized Gujarat, Bahmani and Yemen, controlling all of the Indian Ocean ports, Mamluks collapsed for no apparent reason during the 1550s and the Ottomans were stuck with Byzantium just until about then. Imam Reza Shrine got built in Lahore (Delhi).

- Barbarian invasions... this pretty much makes them obsolete, they won't have a place to spawn save for a few desert regions; there are inner spawns too but they are so annoying for the player I'd rather keep them to minimum.
Good point, that's one thing I haven't thought about.

Nice to see you, embryodead! I was holding my comments about Safavids until you come back :) Did you ever won yourself on Caliph? :mischief:

Is it possible to make vassals actually keep the civic combination that the master imposes on them? I tried the vassalization strategy for the Chauhans again and I had to check my vassals (Sindh, Gujarat, Malwa) every other turn or so beacuse they constantly switched away from Persecution. That was annoying.

There is a very irritating bug in F7 screen the moment one wants to declare a Holy War while no other country is available to consider that call. The game simply crashes. I have saved the dump file, but I am not sure it can be used to debug this issue... :(

This is basicly a bug, although not that serious one. KoJ has been dead for a long time by now.

http://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz188/Jusos2108/Civ4ScreenShot0004-16.jpg

Also the fourth crusaders weren't that eager to attack lightly defended Constantinople; they just stood there for seven turns:

http://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz188/Jusos2108/Civ4ScreenShot0001-13.jpghttp://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz188/Jusos2108/Civ4ScreenShot0002-11.jpghttp://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz188/Jusos2108/Civ4ScreenShot0003-12.jpg

Whats an Ayyubid Revolution in Zinjibar??

It's what happens when you take over a nearby city with your own culture.

It can be a strange mechanic: in a game as Chahans, I had razed (Seljuk) Herat and the city respawned (for rebels) but asked to join my empire two times (both times I disbanded and the city respawned later), my army long gone.

Hi!

I've just played my first game in this mod and I'm really impressed. Is it possible to play this mod in multiplayer mode or it is the same problem as with basic RHYE (too many gameplay changes so its not compatible with multi)?

The latter, unfortunately.

http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/6264/civ4screenshot0123.jpg


Report to follow :)

Luck or genuine genius? :D I'm already eager to see :)

Why did you stop the Makurians from getting OB with you from the start? (For the Abbasids by the way). Because now they are annoyed with you from the start :(

I didn't change anything tbh.

Whats a simple way to tell, who is the most scientifically and culturally advanced civ? Because when playing as the Abbasids, I got the scientific most advanced, but I found out only after calculating every single Byzantine city, that they had more culture than me; which was a pain.

Culture graph. Not much can be done about science but it's easy to tell from diplomacy, and not really a problem for Abbasids.

I would recommend adding a river in between Constantinople and its Asian side only, to represent the sea of marmara (Propontis). Here is a close up of the city and the "sea" or river which divides the city, and Asia and Europe:

It's a diagonal crossing, can't place a river there.

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I always forget to ask 2 simple questions that puzzled me from day one: Mahmud of Ghazni was the most prominent ruler of the Ghaznavid dynasty -- why he is not a leader? We don't use Osman for Ottomans for a reason... And also how come Timurids start as pagan in 1370s?

The leaderhead doesn't look like Mahmud Ghazni at all, so I used the dynasty's founder Sabuktigin, whose no depictions exist.

Shamanism was still popular even among Timur's Turko-Mongol troops, and as far as I understand, it finally declined during his time.

Safavid comments

I finished Safavids on Sultan/Normal speed two times, once in 0.3.1 and once with some older version. I did not have many issues, but I remember restarting once because Georgia was stupidly powerful and just wouldn't let me live. Luck-factor is more about the possibility of one of your neighbors being superpowers, rather than wonder situation, I think. That being said, I never played Safavids on Caliph and/or Epic speed.

On the Tabaristan/Gorgan issue - in RFC, if you flip too many cities, you won't get all of them (as if AI just refused them). That's what happens with Safavids and Mughals sometimes (not just with Gorgan, also Baku will resist sometimes, depends on the city setup).

It's impossible to have only 2 wonders buildable when you start as Safavids - but as you have discovered, later wonders are blocked until 10 years after Safavid and later Mughal spawn, which is why you can't build them when you give yourself techs with WorldBuilder. Imam Reza Shrine is not affected but it requires Shia religion. There are 6 guaranteed buildable wonders when Safavids spawn (Grand Bazaar, Esfahan Bridge, Shah Mosque + 3 Mughal's) + 2 almost guaranteed, as it's very unlikely that techs go that far even on Caliph (Topkapi & Blue Mosque). That's 8 wonders minimum. The problem on higher difficulty is that Mamluks, Ottomans and Mamluks all have more productive cities, until you can build Esfahan or Qazvin or Tehran up. For this problem I did two small tweaks so far: I removed one hill from Cairo (Soil degradation already happens) and increased the time the UHV-related wonders cannot be built by the AI.

Ak Koyunlu can flip barbarian-owned Mesopotamia, yes. It's perhaps too much, as that expands them to their historical size but way too quickly. In the next patch this will not happen, so the AkK shouldn't be as powerful.

Also, AI Timurids are now struggling in a civil war (w/ Uzbeks) when Safavids spawn, which means one enemy less, and easier conquest of Persia.

Safavid comments

I finished Safavids on Sultan/Normal speed two times, once in 0.3.1 and once with some older version. I did not have many issues, but I remember restarting once because Georgia was stupidly powerful and just wouldn't let me live. Luck-factor is more about the possibility of one of your neighbors being superpowers, rather than wonder situation, I think. That being said, I never played Safavids on Caliph and/or Epic speed.



I have started 7 Caliph games as Safavids and 1 Sultan. You should really try it on Caliph :mischief: Here is the main problem:

No single civ has such a striking difficulty-wise inbalance as Safavids :crazyeye: . It is too easy to win on Sultan, and virtually impossible to win on Caliph. The only WOnder you can almost always build is Imam Reza -- just start running 2 Engineers in Kermanshah and switch to Religious Law right away. Then and only then you can beat Medina-Marble-owning superdeveloped Cairo -- with Caliph discounts Mameluks can build it in 4-5 turns. Bazaar can be built only if you add Banking to Safavids starting techs. Otherwise even Yemen gets Banking before Iran and laughs at your slow going empire. Mongols burn it all there is nothing you can do to get strong fast, like Mughals can.

The rest of the mentioned Wonders get built routinely by Timurids, Mughals, Gujarat, Ottomans and Mameluks. Even if I stick with my core (fast research for smaller empires) and build research non-stop I just don't get the techs in time, not even close. In my current Mughal game Topikapi Palace flipped to me in Lahore :eek: together with 10 Musketeers. The gap between Sultan and Caliph get whider and whider over the time and for the later civs things just get out of control, like Fintlock in 1526. Definetely need some balancing issues here.


Now compare things on Sultan. My Shia empire has built Hindu, Zoroastrian and Catholic Wonders without Great Engineers, I only used one for Bazaar (used 2 Merchants to get to the Banking). I have also built Observatory Wonder, which gets built by Oman few turns after I start on Caliph. I could go for Shah's Mosque and such, but why? I could win much earlier if I would start sending MIssioners early instead of building troops for "historical" Safavid empire.

Here is my suggestions:

1. Somehow change Iran's UHV so that even on Sultan one would need to play at least until 1650 to win. Let's say require to build Shah's Mosque not 4 Ottoman, Hindu, Zoroastrian and Catholic Wonders.

2. Require Shia state religion instead of religion in city to build SHia Wonders.

3. Make Shahanshah title more challenging by adding Khorasan, Kuzhestan and Sistan to the list. I mean have you seen any Iranian Empire without Khorasan? Even Abbasids came from Khorasan.

4. Some how check the unlimited progress of Mameluks and Delhi techwise.


Other than that Safavids is trully a gem of this mod. I like everything about them even the color :)

In the several Sultan games I started I usually had no old Wonders buildable. In the one I started now as Caliph there's Imam Reza... Just saying that "too easy" isn't necessarily the case in most games, although I think it'll make sense to obsolete more old Wonders by 1500.

About Khorasan, Safavids only really controlled half of it (Mashhad), IIRC Marv fell to Uzbeks. I'm not against extending Shahanshah requirements but keep in mind this will make other civs' UHVs more difficult.

About tech rate on Caliph - it's the same as on Sultan, unfortunately. Only the human player gets a penalty. Faster research is a result of 30 different factors I guess. I lowered the AI bonus to Wonder construction slightly.

Edead, why is it that you put 4 in the corner of Wonder UHV? All this artificial adjustments... Wouldn't it be more historical and elegant just to stick with 3 specific Safavid Wonders (Imam Reza, Bridge, Shah's Mosque plus make Civil Architecture bulbable by Engineers.

About Khorasan, Safavids only really controlled half of it (Mashhad), IIRC Marv fell to Uzbeks. I'm not against extending Shahanshah requirements but keep in mind this will make other civs' UHVs more difficult.


In general you are right -- Eastern and Western Khorasan parted ways, but for the Persian identity Khorasan still plays very important role -- literary Persian was formed here, most poets came from here, Abbasids, Nadir Shah and so on... However you are mistaken about Marv, even though Wikipedia's map leaves it outside of Safavid Empire:

Merv

In 1505, the city was occupied by the Uzbeks, who five years later were expelled by Shah Ismail, the founder of the Safavid dynasty of Persia. It was in this period that a large dam (the 'Soltanbent') on the river Murghab was restored by a Persian nobleman, and the settlement which grew up in the area thus irrigated became known as 'Baýramaly', by which name it is referred to in some 19th-century texts. Merv remained in the hands of Persia until 1787, when it was captured by the Emir of Bokhara. Seven years later, the Bukharans razed the city to the ground, broke down the dams, and converted the district into a waste. The entire population of the city and the surrounding area of about 100,000 were then deported in several stages to the Bukharan oasis. Being nearly all Persian-speaking Shi'as, they resisted assimilation into the Sunni population of Bukhara, although they spoke the same language.

Just a side note -- if you feel we have too many Mosques here is an idea to use some important dam with some interesting food effrects as a new Wonder.

Here are the facts about Herat:

The Black Sheep Turkomans (Qara Qoyunlu) at one point established their capital in Herāt during the 15th century, and in 1506 it was captured by the Uzbeks.

Only few years later the city was taken by Shah Ismail Safavi, to become part of a new Safavid Persian Empire. Mughal Emperor Babur, who had his first drink of wine in Herat, visited the city in early 16th century but decided to abandon it.

Herat was lost by the Safavids to the Uzbeks of Transoxiana, but was regained following a Safavid counter-offensive around 1600 CE, along with Sabzevar and Farah


In fact out of four main capitals of Khorasan (i.e. Balkh, Merv, Nishapur and Herat)
only Balkh remained in the hands of Uzbeks, only non-Safavid Nadir Shah took it back:

In the 16th century the Uzbeks entered Balkh. The Moghul Shah Jahan fruitlessly fought them there for several years in the 1640s. Balkh was the government seat of Aurangzeb in his youth. In 1736 it was conquered by Nadir Shah.

Seljuks flip Khorasan anyway, who else can be hurt by adding this important province to the glorious title of Shanshah?

Outstanding Mod!:goodjob:
I have to say, that's one of the most well-made mods there's out there!
Played as Antioch, Georgia and Oman, and I have to say it was fun.
Comments:
Antioch: a rather difficult game. Had to stay on the defensive for most of the game. The Zenghids surprised me with their gazillions troops coming out of nowhere.
Overall, the game is pretty good and accurate. You really feel alone (with Jerusalem) on the map. You have a lot of Muslim enemies, and the Orthodox are reluctant to help.

Georgia: pretty calm game. Eliminited Armenia early to get some breathing space. The mongol activity to the north was rather important, but it wasn't very hard to counter. The mountains only leave a few chokepoints to pass. Not a lot of war due to rather isolated position.

Oman: Was a very calm game. No one else around, peacefully expanded and trying to make gold.
All was well... until the Portuguese arrived. Now, I was expecting them. But not like that! They appeared out of nowhere just next to my capitol!! That was really harsh! Lost Masqat. Retake it.
Lost it again. Retake it again. Increase my defense in case others carrack appears. Continue on with the game. Overall, a nice game. Enemies aren't a concern until late-game (and the :aargh: portuguese.). You can build up your nation to get GOLD, GOLD, and MOAR GOLD!
But I really think those carracks shouldn't appear like that! I mean, okay, but not RIGHT NEXT TO THE CAPITAL!

To conclude I'd say again that I had great fun playing that. And that's the most important. (Trying Ottomans next. I'm up for some :hammer:.).

Seljuks flip Khorasan anyway, who else can be hurt by adding this important province to the glorious title of Shanshah?

Khwarezm --> must go for Herat, then, which is not part of their current game plan
Ak Koyunlu --> they'd seriously overextend

Maybe splitting Khorasan into a Western (around Neyshabur) and an Eastern (Marv to Herat) part?

[LIST]
Maybe splitting Khorasan into a Western (around Neyshabur) and an Eastern (Marv to Herat) part?

YES PLEASE! That would be an EXCELLENT idea, and I really support that, because all too often, the owner of Marv (Merv) is not always the owner of Neyshabur (or that other city around their), having them as too separate provinces, would be great!

Khorasan did belong to Kwaresm at one points, but to demand the same from Ak Koyunlu would be too much... To be perfectly honest Uzun Hasan should not claim Shahanshah title in a first place. This title is not just about the land, it is about Empire of the East vs Empire of the West, going back to the time of Greeks and Romans vs Persians and Parthians. There is no historical or cultural reason to associate Turkomans with this title...

It is customed that the third UHV isn't historical, rather more of something that the civ might have wanted to accomplish, thus the "Claim the title of Shahanshah" uhv condition fits AkK quite well IMO.

A propos flips: So the AkK capital in Azerbaijan didn't flip to me but, playing Samanids, my (moved) capital Samarkand flipped to Khwarezm... Player capital cities flip but AIs' do not?

Yes (if moved). Not my doing, it's Rhye's anti-exploit mechanic, one of the measures to stop squatting I guess.

Is it possible to make vassals actually keep the civic combination that the master imposes on them? I tried the vassalization strategy for the Chauhans again and I had to check my vassals (Sindh, Gujarat, Malwa) every other turn or so beacuse they constantly switched away from Persecution. That was annoying.

Not possible and I don't see an easy way to code it. Can't you just check exactly after revolution timer ends (8 turns? don't remember). Well I guess one way to do it would be to increase the revolution timer in case of diplomatically forced civic, I'll see if it's doable.

There is a very irritating bug in F7 screen the moment one wants to declare a Holy War while no other country is available to consider that call. The game simply crashes. I have saved the dump file, but I am not sure it can be used to debug this issue... :(

Dump file is useless but I could use the save if you got it, since I can't reproduce it.

Or maybe you could explain when exactly does it happen, which button you clicked etc. Your explanation doesn't fit the problem because at the time of calling, possible civs to join aren't even checked, and later it's just skipped, so it may be something else.

Also the fourth crusaders weren't that eager to attack lightly defended Constantinople; they just stood there for seven turns:

This is correct behavior, they are bombarding the walls before attacking. There is normally a revolt on the 2nd turn that often makes them attack sooner, but they may as well not if the defense is tight, or because of some other distraction.

Safavid replies will follow.

Edead, why is it that you put 4 in the corner of Wonder UHV? All this artificial adjustments... Wouldn't it be more historical and elegant just to stick with 3 specific Safavid Wonders (Imam Reza, Bridge, Shah's Mosque plus make Civil Architecture bulbable by Engineers.

1. I didn't want the UHV to be exactly the same as for Mughals.

2. Originally there was only 1 Safavid Wonder (Shah Mosque), now there are two (Esfahan Bridge). Imam Reza is Timurid: the shrine dates to 7th c. with the current complex built under Shahrukh Mirza in 15th c.

---

Point taken about Khorasan. I'll split it, though most of the problems mentioned are fixed by other means - you won't have a chance of building very old Wonders anymore, and with some balance factors changes I think the tech situation is bearable on Caliph now (started with Imam Reza & Shalimar Gardens immediately, and only Ottomans are slightly ahead, though it needs a few more starts). I'd still encourage the Safavid player to switch to espionage, esp. on Caliph.

As a side note about Safavid bad starts and random cities, see the attachment. Event Derbent is there. Because of this, FIVE cities in my core did not flip to me, though given the situation, I guess that's good...

1. I did not saved the autosave right before F7 screen makes the game crush. There is only one button on F7 screen, which is Holy War declaration button. Perhaps I clicked more than 1 time while not observing any effect and that made the game crush...

2. It turns out that Balkh is already different province, so I am not sure if any further split of Greater Khorasan is needed. Only Herat is left there and Ak Koyunly never even controlled Western Khorasan.

3. How is Safavid UHV sound exactly like Mughals when you require 3 different Wonders to be built? Why do the Mughals directed to built their historical Wonders, while Shia state is left to build anything they could? By requiring to built Shah's mosque Safavids might need to stay in the game longer and not to win before the end of Shah Abbas' reign. If Imam Reza is not very Safavid flavored Wonder, perhaps one could replace it with some other Safavid landmark. What you think about Dam in Merv (adding 1 food to every tile), to step away from countless Shrines?

4. 3rd Seljuk UHV is really bad both from gameplay and historical perspectives. There was no Seljuk Empire in 1500, it all stopped in 1199, like 1 and 2 UHVs indicate. I realize we need to stretch reality to create longer game for the player, but sitting there for 300 years and popping Great Artist cannot be very entertaining :). How about requiring to kill certain amount of Byzantine units by 1300? Right now Seljuks don't need to fight Byzantines for their UHV, no Battle of Manazkert occurs anywhere on the map. Rum and Barbarians represent this fairly well in AI vs AI situation, but when human player takes control of Seljuks he (funny we seldom say he or she on this forum :) ) he should be incouraged to recreate some onslaught.

5. I was playing Samanids on Caliph and was able to win right when the 2nd UHV checks by sending 5 Settlers to "control" 5 such random provinces as Taklamakan, Pamir, Kuzil Kum and Kara Kum, instead of fighting for Herat, Sistan and Belujistan (Samanids also controlled Kerman, but it is not in border provinces). This brought me an idea. Since you have pinned down core and border provinces for every civ, how about making the next logical but very time consuming step -- require for every civ to control their core and border province at least by the date that civ dissapeared from history. I do realize that this will require huge amount of work, but it will reinforce province system, will introduce "all the empire" challenge and bring more order and uniformity to the entire UHV department.

2. It turns out that Balkh is already different province, so I am not sure if any further split of Greater Khorasan is needed. Only Herat is left there and Ak Koyunly never even controlled Western Khorasan.
Agreed, Khorasan should be split up, but perhaps into a NEW name, rather than "Western and Eastern Khorasan"

3. How is Safavid UHV sound exactly like Mughals when you require 3 different Wonders to be built? Why do the Mughals directed to built their historical Wonders, while Shia state is left to build anything they could? By requiring to built Shah's mosque Safavids might need to stay in the game longer and not to win before the end of Shah Abbas' reign.
Once again, I agree; who cares if it is similar in nature to the Mughal UHV; both the Yemeni AND Ottomans need to capture the Hejaz, doesn't mean that they are bad UHV's! I would therefore strongly suggest that you make the Safavid UHV, wonder specific, as I think that would be more interesting for the player, as well as aid Historical accuracy.

4. 3rd Seljuk UHV is really bad both from gameplay and historical perspectives. There was no Seljuk Empire in 1500, it all stopped in 1199, like 1 and 2 UHVs indicate. I realize we need to stretch reality to create longer game for the player, but sitting there for 300 years and popping Great Artist cannot be very entertaining :). How about requiring to kill certain amount of Byzantine units by 1300? Right now Seljuks don't need to fight Byzantines for their UHV, no Battle of Manazkert occurs anywhere on the map. Rum and Barbarians represent this fairly well in AI vs AI situation, but when human player takes control of Seljuks he (funny we seldom say he or she on this forum :) ) he should be incouraged to recreate some onslaught.

Agreed Again! The Seljuk UHV, should last until the Mongols really begin to pour in, I think that would be better, then trying to force them to stay alive until 1500, which is just strange....


Also, apparently the Orthodox Armenians King, enjoys taking pilgrimages to Makka ;)
There is defintly something wrong with that; I would have to encourage you to make Christian leaders have to take a pilgrimage to Jerusalem (Orthodox AND Catholic) and have Muslim's (Sunni & Shi'ite) take a pilgrimage to Makka. And also since pilgrimage is also very important for Hindu's, you should have Hindu leaders have to take a pilgrimage to the Hindu Holy City (I forgot the name :p)

Oh and, is it possible to make all NON Hindu countries (excluding Sindh and other nearby civs, which do sometimes convert to Hinduism), find it EXTREMELY unattractive to get Caste System

Finally, "Norman Crimean Horse Archer"???? Thats the strangest mercenary I have EVER heard of!

how about making the next logical but very time consuming step -- require for every civ to control their core and border province at least by the date that civ dissapeared from history. I do realize that this will require huge amount of work, but it will reinforce province system, will introduce "all the empire" challenge and bring more order and uniformity to the entire UHV department.

I think that this is a really bad idea, first, it will make all UHVs similer, seacond, it would be almost impossible for civs like Byzintines, Abbassids, Ottomans, Fatimids or Ayyubids. I agree that some UHVs should be more based on specific provinces, but far from all of them.

2. It turns out that Balkh is already different province, so I am not sure if any further split of Greater Khorasan is needed. Only Herat is left there and Ak Koyunly never even controlled Western Khorasan.

Agreed, Khorasan should be split up, but perhaps into a NEW name, rather than "Western and Eastern Khorasan"

What new name? It's Khorasan, and Western/Eastern are in use at least. There's Marv and Herat in the Eastern part and Masshad/Nis and Bastam/Beihagh in the Western. Two cities in each.

About Ak Koyunlu (who like all their precedessors adopted Iranian culture):
"In letters from the Ottoman Sultans, when addressing the kings of Ak koyunlu, such titles as Malak al-Molook al-Iraniyyah (King of Kings of Iran), Sultan Salatin Iraniyyah(Sultan of Sultans of Iran), Shahanshah Iran Khadiv ajam (King of Kings of Iran and the Ruler of Persia)...have been used"

3. How is Safavid UHV sound exactly like Mughals when you require 3 different Wonders to be built? Why do the Mughals directed to built their historical Wonders, while Shia state is left to build anything they could? By requiring to built Shah's mosque Safavids might need to stay in the game longer and not to win before the end of Shah Abbas' reign. If Imam Reza is not very Safavid flavored Wonder, perhaps one could replace it with some other Safavid landmark. What you think about Dam in Merv (adding 1 food to every tile), to step away from countless Shrines?

Once again, I agree; who cares if it is similar in nature to the Mughal UHV; both the Yemeni AND Ottomans need to capture the Hejaz, doesn't mean that they are bad UHV's! I would therefore strongly suggest that you make the Safavid UHV, wonder specific, as I think that would be more interesting for the player, as well as aid Historical accuracy.

Because it's different, less deterministic and it would become insanely difficult to complete the UHV if you missed a specific wonder, and if you played on Caliph you know this (Mughals don't have that issue). Once again, the whole problem that brought us to this discussion - too easy situation on Emir/Sultan because of some old wonders - has already been dealt with. You are no longer able to build them.

Finally, "Norman Crimean Horse Archer"???? Thats the strangest mercenary I have EVER heard of!
Isn't that just a Horse Archer from Crimea in Norman service? It's how the mercenary system works, nothing odd for me there.

Isn't that just a Horse Archer from Crimea in Norman service? It's how the mercenary system works, nothing odd for me there.

Sorry for not being clear the first time; I meant, why would Crimean horse archers being working for the Normans?? I know we've talked about this before, but I've done quite a bit of reading on the Crusades, and I have HARDLY ever seen anything close to Muslim (or Pagan) Horse Archers from the Crimea working for the Crusaders.


@Edead
Point taken, it would make the UHV pretty hard....
But I still recommend that you scale down the Seljuk UHV #3 to 1200-1300 rather than 1500, which is a bit absurd.
Still haven't seen the Uzbeks spawn :( Hoping to see them soon though!

Also I would recommend cleaning up the civilopedia a bit, so that Genghis Khan isen't the leader of all civs that are unplayable.

I admit that I don't know that much details about the crusades, but I know that the crusader states employed Turcopoles in their armies, especially as Horse Archers. Is recruiting Cumans as mercenaries so absurd then?

I admit that I don't know that much details about the crusades, but I know that the crusader states employed Turcopoles in their armies, especially as Horse Archers. Is recruiting Cumans as mercenaries so absurd then?

Crimean does not equal Turcpole. Turcple's are a mix of Turk-Byzanetine Greek heritage, and are nominally Christian, and yes they did fight for the Crusaders, but mostly as secular warriors. Therefore I find it kind of weird that "Crimean's" are on the list of merc for the Crusaders! Although I think its fine for the Byzantines to have them.

Crimean does not equal Turcpole. Turcple's are a mix of Turk-Byzanetine Greek heritage, and are nominally Christian, and yes they did fight for the Crusaders, but mostly as secular warriors. Therefore I find it kind of weird that "Crimean's" are on the list of merc for the Crusaders! Although I think its fine for the Byzantines to have them.

It's a pool for Christian-used Horse Archers, including those used by Byzantines, Georgians etc., Turcopoles as well as nations they were recruited from. I already explained it 2 times I think. Mercenary system relies on unique names, the alternative to this is having Crusades recruit units named "Turcopole Horse Archer ______________________" (that's a lot of spaces there)

There is a potential exploit with crusades when human player does not bother to attack Jerusalem or Antioch. Why kill the defender, inhabitants and destroy buildings in conquest and get 3-4 turns of resistance instead of waiting 2 turns when the city flips and you get everything for free? Perhaps Jerusalem and Antioch should be excluded from the flip?

It's a pool for Christian-used Horse Archers, including those used by Byzantines, Georgians etc., Turcopoles as well as nations they were recruited from. I already explained it 2 times I think. Mercenary system relies on unique names, the alternative to this is having Crusades recruit units named "Turcopole Horse Archer ______________________" (that's a lot of spaces there)

mmm.... ok ok, I guess its not THAT big of a deal.

Also I was wondering, can't you just rename Sabuktigin, to Mahmud of Ghazni? I mean, I think it would be more appropriate for the Ghaznavids, considering that he was their greatest ruler, not to mention, no one has "seen" OR "heard" of Sabuktigin, even if he was the mythical founder of this dynasty. Not to mention the LH for the Ghaznavids already kind of looks like Mahmud, so I don't think that should be a problem.

Also, (considering that you are back to modding this *full time*) I was wondering what your next plans were for this mod? Which patch are you going to lead it on next?
I personnaly would like you to implement the Silk Route, Indian Ocean trade idea, and remove some random resources on the map; but its up to you :)

EDIT: Don't the AI Byzantines ALWAYS have the 4th Crusade spawned? I thought it was scripted so that the Massacre of the Latins was committed for the AI Byzantines? If not, I believe it should be like that, you should force the 4th Crusade to happen, if the Byzantines are being played by the AI
Also the AI Ghorids need a boost. The Ghaznavids tend to be a bit too powerful when they spawn, and either collapse the Ghorids or they vassalize them, both ways are not very good. Even I feel, the Human player has quite a hard time taking down the Ghaznavids, could you please make them generally stronger, perhaps add a few more starting units for them? Because I currently NEVER see an AI Delhi Sultanate.

Thanks!

It's only 5th of December, I want to puke :mad: Anyone knows if there's a way turn these ugly colors off?

Also I was wondering, can't you just rename Sabuktigin, to Mahmud of Ghazni? I mean, I think it would be more appropriate for the Ghaznavids, considering that he was their greatest ruler, not to mention, no one has "seen" OR "heard" of Sabuktigin, even if he was the mythical founder of this dynasty. Not to mention the LH for the Ghaznavids already kind of looks like Mahmud, so I don't think that should be a problem.

1. He looks completely different (http://islamicheroes.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/mahmood_ghaznawi.jpg) and 2. saying no one has heard of Sabuktigin is just :rolleyes:

Also, (considering that you are back to modding this *full time*) I was wondering what your next plans were for this mod? Which patch are you going to lead it on next?

Sorry to disappoint but no. My plans are to finish balancing SoI and update RFCMarathon.

EDIT: Don't the AI Byzantines ALWAYS have the 4th Crusade spawned? I thought it was scripted so that the Massacre of the Latins was committed for the AI Byzantines?

Yes, AI Byzantines always massacre the Latins, but it's a random event and while very probable, it's not guaranteed to happen.

Also the AI Ghorids need a boost. The Ghaznavids tend to be a bit too powerful when they spawn, and either collapse the Ghorids or they vassalize them, both ways are not very good. Even I feel, the Human player has quite a hard time taking down the Ghaznavids, could you please make them generally stronger, perhaps add a few more starting units for them? Because I currently NEVER see an AI Delhi Sultanate.

I see Delhi or Ghorids 100% of the time. Seriously. Weak AI Ghorids don't need a boost, they are supposed to die often, so that Delhi can spawn. In human hands they are fine.

Outstanding Mod!:goodjob:
I have to say, that's one of the most well-made mods there's out there!
...
But I really think those carracks shouldn't appear like that! I mean, okay, but not RIGHT NEXT TO THE CAPITAL!

Thanks :) and about that Portuguese attack, it's the only way to make sure they actually attack Oman proper, instead of wandering away to sack Gwadar or Basra...

4. 3rd Seljuk UHV is really bad both from gameplay and historical perspectives. There was no Seljuk Empire in 1500, it all stopped in 1199, like 1 and 2 UHVs indicate. I realize we need to stretch reality to create longer game for the player, but sitting there for 300 years and popping Great Artist cannot be very entertaining :). How about requiring to kill certain amount of Byzantine units by 1300? Right now Seljuks don't need to fight Byzantines for their UHV, no Battle of Manazkert occurs anywhere on the map. Rum and Barbarians represent this fairly well in AI vs AI situation, but when human player takes control of Seljuks he (funny we seldom say he or she on this forum :) ) he should be incouraged to recreate some onslaught.

...and what if Byzantines collapse? :mischief: I'm OK with moving the date 100-200 years back or so, though.

5. I was playing Samanids on Caliph and was able to win right when the 2nd UHV checks by sending 5 Settlers to "control" 5 such random provinces as Taklamakan, Pamir, Kuzil Kum and Kara Kum, instead of fighting for Herat, Sistan and Belujistan (Samanids also controlled Kerman, but it is not in border provinces). This brought me an idea. Since you have pinned down core and border provinces for every civ, how about making the next logical but very time consuming step -- require for every civ to control their core and border province at least by the date that civ dissapeared from history. I do realize that this will require huge amount of work, but it will reinforce province system, will introduce "all the empire" challenge and bring more order and uniformity to the entire UHV department.

After a year of coding, testing and balancing, lets not just throw the UHVs out of the window to make new ones for all civs, please? :please:

There is a potential exploit with crusades when human player does not bother to attack Jerusalem or Antioch. Why kill the defender, inhabitants and destroy buildings in conquest and get 3-4 turns of resistance instead of waiting 2 turns when the city flips and you get everything for free? Perhaps Jerusalem and Antioch should be excluded from the flip?

I mentioned it when I implemented these "faux invasion spawns". This makes sure the AI actually gets the cities no matter what. The benefits are minimal, not much of an exploit. With Antioch this will also make Tripoli your capital.

After a year of coding, testing and balancing, lets not just throw the UHVs out of the window to make new ones for all civs, please? :please:
I also want to express that this opinion (his demand, that is) is not shared by everyone here anyway; quite on the contrary, I find the "control the provinces your civ had in its greatest extent" quite limiting and boring. It's interesting for certain civilizations, but I don't want to recreate an exact historical empire every time.

I also want to express that this opinion (his demand, that is) is not shared by everyone here anyway; quite on the contrary, I find the "control the provinces your civ had in its greatest extent" quite limiting and boring. It's interesting for certain civilizations, but I don't want to recreate an exact historical empire every time.

I totally agree!

Also, apparently the Orthodox Armenians King, enjoys taking pilgrimages to Makka ;)

That was a bug, fixed now, thanks.

Oh and, is it possible to make all NON Hindu countries (excluding Sindh and other nearby civs, which do sometimes convert to Hinduism), find it EXTREMELY unattractive to get Caste System

Already done since long time ago. Never seen anyone but Hindus civs use it.

Can't find the post about Civilopedia & Barbarian leader, but the answer is - they have barbarian as default leader, because if it's changed to their original leader, said leader stops being a leader of the original civ... hopefully that's clear :crazyeye:

I also want to express that this opinion (his demand, that is) is not shared by everyone here anyway; quite on the contrary, I find the "control the provinces your civ had in its greatest extent" quite limiting and boring. It's interesting for certain civilizations, but I don't want to recreate an exact historical empire every time.

For the pure fun of it, I'm going to create a new thread, where everyone can post their full flung Empires (Full Core and Border Provinces), and we can have that as a bit of a challenge, and how long you can keep it up for. Look for it in the RFC modmod folder! :)

It's only 5th of December, I want to puke :mad: Anyone knows if there's a way turn these ugly colors off?

Are you talking about the CFC Christmas theme? Just switch to the black theme I didn't notice the change until the smileys changed and I logged on a different computer.

I also want to express that this opinion (his demand, that is) is not shared by everyone here anyway; quite on the contrary, I find the "control the provinces your civ had in its greatest extent" quite limiting and boring. It's interesting for certain civilizations, but I don't want to recreate an exact historical empire every time.
:agree:

Hi,

I haven't yet tested your mod but it seems to be a very great one. I like the historical background. :)

I have also seen that we are all in the Credits. Thanks.

Please note that Bakuel have release a large amount of new Muslim units. They were made for all of us (even if it was firstly an order we made to Bakuel).
I don't know if you already use them. If not, you should take time watching what Bakuel have created. It's a very nice job.

About our mod, we haven't yet release our "modernized" BtS version. Many new units were added. Feel free to use our SVN version and borrow what you need. For example, we have a nice pack of "Crusader" like units (Spain, France, Italy/Rome and England).
Another solution: PM me and i will send you some of our work.

I really think i will test this historical mod. :)

Hian the Frog (TR Team).

For example, we have a nice pack of "Crusader" like units (Spain, France, Italy/Rome and England).


YYYYEEEEESSSS! CRUSADER UNITS!! :D
I know that Embryodead has already used all of Bakuel's new Middle Eastern units, and has been looking for "Crusader" type units for a while (especially Crusader GG), so thank you VERY much for this great news! :goodjob:

Hian the Frog,
No way I could have missed Bakuel's units, while I never requested them it felt like a birthsday present because of all the civs that are in SoI - including exotics such as Makuria. As The Turk said, they're in :)

I only have the Warlords version of TR, I'll check the SVN repository then, thanks. Of couse feel free to use SoI resources should you find something, there's a lot of extra units there as well, though they're mostly bastardization of Bakuel's work ;)

Nice too see people from outside world visiting this thread :)

I am really surprised that regular RFC players do not stop here that often.
Anyways, here is more quick KoJ questions for edead:

1. Don't you think that first UHV for KoJ should read control or vassalise vs just control? I thought I need to somehow collaps my vassal PoA, in order to win back all the Northern Siya from them :lol: Thankfuly it was not nessecary!

2. Could we add Rhodes to the KoJ border provinces pretty please?

3. Manual say Genova and Venice companies compete and could not exist together, but lo and behold I have 2 cities with both of them...

4. Don't you think that typical Feudal kingdoms like Jerusalem and Antioch could start with Agrariarism?

5. UP says that maintanence is halved but what I see so far that all the units up to lvl 5 require only 1 gold. Does it really use factor of 0.5 and rounds up?

6. Does Ayyubid spawn anything common with KoJ stability? Or its all Fatimids? Its early 1200s Fatimids where flat/shaky all the time but no Saladin appeared. Should Koj strategy be to keep Fatimids as stable as possible?

7. Was happy to see Nicosia vs Famagusta. Is that added as random element in recent patch?

Nice too see people from outside world visiting this thread :)

I am really surprised that regular RFC players do not stop here that often.

Well, a second thread just happened, maybe 1 more and I might start begging for a sub-forum ;) Although I'm still not sure what thread to start at this point.

1. Don't you think that first UHV for KoJ should read control or vassalise vs just control? I thought I need to somehow collaps my vassal PoA, in order to win back all the Northern Siya from them :lol: Thankfuly it was not nessecary!

But it's just "control". Why would you need Northern Syria? It's Palestine, Jordan & Cyprus.

2. Could we add Rhodes to the KoJ border provinces pretty please?

Why? It wasn't part of KoJ. Mind you, it's already a border province of Kingdom of Cyprus, just not KoJ.

3. Manual say Genova and Venice companies compete and could not exist together, but lo and behold I have 2 cities with both of them...

Manual lists *preferences*, with essential requirements emphasized(italicized). "No competition" is just a preference, not a requirement, i.e. the presence of Genoans lowers the city's value for Venetians.

4. Don't you think that typical Feudal kingdoms like Jerusalem and Antioch could start with Agrariarism?

Alright.

5. UP says that maintanence is halved but what I see so far that all the units up to lvl 5 require only 1 gold. Does it really use factor of 0.5 and rounds up?

Well, you've found a bug. This bug is present in RFC too, but it's unlikely to have much impact there. Here it surfaced when I modified maintenance costs in 0.3.0 to be more based on unit cost and less on promotions (since unit cost is also halved, the UP works twice... more or less).

6. Does Ayyubid spawn anything common with KoJ stability? Or its all Fatimids? Its early 1200s Fatimids where flat/shaky all the time but no Saladin appeared. Should Koj strategy be to keep Fatimids as stable as possible?

Ayyubid spawn depends on Fatimid stability only. Ayyubids add extra units and flip extra cities, so I guess it is better to have the weaker Fatimids as your enemy. On the other hand the short period of civil war can be used to grab a city or two.

7. Was happy to see Nicosia vs Famagusta. Is that added as random element in recent patch?

Yes. Limassol is also possible. A few more script-placed cities are randomized since 0.3.0.

Are you talking about the CFC Christmas theme? Just switch to the black theme I didn't notice the change until the smileys changed and I logged on a different computer.

Thanks, saved my life, or eyes at least :crazyeye:

Thanks, saved my life, or eyes at least :crazyeye:

No prob ;)

So how bout that merger between RFC:E/M and BTS:Speed that I've been hoping for?

How to get more coffee as Yemen? I've got 2 and completed 2 UHV and see no other coffee present on the map. When and where and how would coffee appear?

How to get more coffee as Yemen? I've got 2 and completed 2 UHV and see no other coffee present on the map. When and where and how would coffee appear?

All coffee becomes visible with Companies tech. There are 2 coffee sources in Yemen and 2 more in Ethiopia (Aksum) - so that's where you need to go.

@KMRblue1027
It's done, I just have to run a few tests to make sure it's not borked.

just wanted to say that this mod is awesome
it deserves it own forum like RFC Europe, not just this thread
i'm playing my first game as yemen now and i think it's very challenging
i think i can keep playing Civ 4 for many months now!

I agree. It is guaranteed that people would notice better and play it more, if it had a own subforum. The timing is just right too, as the modmod is basicly bug free. Also this thread is a monster, it would easier to ask questions about SoI in a subforum.

Embryodead, you could PM a moderator about it. And if more threads are needed, you could open treads for strategy, Q&A, bug reports and this one could be the welcome/files thread.

All coffee becomes visible with Companies tech. There are 2 coffee sources in Yemen and 2 more in Ethiopia (Aksum) - so that's where you need to go.

@KMRblue1027
It's done, I just have to run a few tests to make sure it's not borked.

Thanks. I opened WB twice and didn't check Ethiopia. Now I won in 1354, I could win in 1250 actually.

Yemen has fine starting position -- nearest to Mecca. Hire merc to conquer Mecca, you'll be rich; conquer Medina, build heroic epic there; conquer Jerusalem, have it produce settler, then give it away to other civs before crusaders come; conquer Dimashq ASAP, for Abbasid usually build House of Wisdom and Spiral Minaret there, it will be your GP center. I bulbed many teches. And after Civil Service, I moved capital to Mecca.

@KMRblue1027
It's done, I just have to run a few tests to make sure it's not borked.

Cool :D

http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/3380/civ4screenshot0127z.jpg

What a game! I remember playing many different civ2-3-4 scenarios about crusades, but none was as exciting as this implementation. Where else can you start as a Kingdom of Jerusalem and win the game as Latin Empire? :king:

KoJ is definitely a civ for those who enjoy less talk and a lot more action. Nobody talks much to you and everybody is eager to fight you, well, except Antioch, which became my vassal eventually.

I have restarted couple of times due to the crazy SoD Seljuks and Rum would send against us. In one aborted game Rum took care of PoA, and at the same time Fatimids tied my units at Gaza while Abbasids and worst of all Seljuks killed every single defender I have drafted to save Damascus.

This time situation was different. Abbasids were dead on my start and when resurrected in few years they started at peace with me and no Damascus was reclaimed as their core area :confused: Jerusalem was just captured by Fatimids, exactly like in real history, and enemy had 4-5 units defending city. Thanks to the en faux factor Christians in Jerusalem persuaded Shia fanatics to switch sides and fight against their Motherland when city was delivered to me after 2 turns for free.

Gaza became my Capital, with all the nice bonuses that come together with Companies which expand in coastal cities. Since the father of this mod does not think this is a big exploit :mischief:, please do not tell me it is :D. Fatimids proved to be my most resilient enemy. After I decimated their first SoD sent to Gaza, my troops when to fight in Egypt in the early version of 5th Crusade and results were very historical, except for I did not manage to take Damietta. I still need to figure out how AI hires mercenaries and in which order Mercenary pool becomes available for AI and Human Player. While I was anxiously pressing Shift M every turn to hire just about anybody, Fatimids hired some tough guys who killed both my initial stack and ex-Fatimid deserters from Jerusalem.


Seljuks were passive this time, even though they were running strong and had 4 vassals before Mongols took care of them -- Abbasids, Georgia, Zengids and Rum. Rum also was busy with something else. So for the 1st UHV I just took over the Cyprus and settled Aqaba on the hill (1 tile East from regular place). Very soon I was teching at 100% without bleeding much gold all thanks to the Companies, Jerusalem and Mercenary maintenance bug. Fatimids would declare on me like every 20 turns, I had 3-4 major wars with them, plus Rebels from Medina sent a sizable stack against me and almost managed to take Aqaba, but it was saved by knights Templar.

I kind of forgot about Zengids, PoA lost a number of units to them, and my hastily created task force under the command of Joscelin of Courtenay, Count of Edessa encountered Zengi himself in Edessa proper :)

http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/8310/civ4screenshot0124.jpg

Both leader died in battle, but Zengids managed to expel my force. I sent more troops but did not conquer any of their cities, as I was afraid they will vassalize to Seljuks and I would need to fight them as well. So I gave them some tech to make a peace and focused on building Krak des Chevaliers in Gaza, as Fatimids came with 5 Trebuchets and 10 Marksman. Those sieges of Gaza became the most memorable fights in the fight packed game, as I was very close to lose the city. PoA, which became DoA, helped me with some of their men, as I directed them to attack Damietta.

Long story short I was able to score my first UHV, used GE to create a Golden Age and build lots of churches, monasteries and 2 Cathedrals. I had my 2nd UHV by 1220s, thanks to the 20% base piety from my Protector title. I really think Orthodox powers should be able to benefit from this title as well, since Jerusalem importance is universal among all the Christian creeds.

The 3rd UHV is the most challenging of all. One only has 4 luxuries in Palestine. So you either need to conquer Yemen and/or settle Ethiopian coast, or take a more historical route and try to trade with India together with controlling Silk trade of Constantinople. Massacre of Latins happened in Abydos, and this outrage justified my resolution to take historical path and send my boys to Constantinople, capturing on the way there the glorious Island of Rhodes as my midway base (upgraded my ships there).

The rising power of Islam eventually expelled the Knights from Jerusalem. After the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1291 (Jerusalem itself fell in 1187), the Knights were confined to the County of Tripoli and, when Acre was captured in 1291, the order sought refuge in the Kingdom of Cyprus. Finding themselves becoming enmeshed in Cypriot politics, their Grand Master, Guillaume de Villaret, created a plan of acquiring their own temporal domain, selecting Rhodes to be their new home. His successor, Fulkes de Villaret, executed the plan, and on 15 August 1309, after over two years of campaigning, the island of Rhodes surrendered to the knights.

So, broadly speaking Rhodes WAS KoJ's posthumous "border" province :p




This is how Byzantine capital looked like by the time Latins from Holy Land joined with Latins from Europe:

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/7158/civ4screenshot0125.jpg

For some strange reason my Fleet was attacked my wicked Venetians! I did not know I was at war with those Rebels, perhaps something should be done about it? So the three-way-war went among Jerusalem, Constantinople and Rome. Jerusalem was victorious, but to make things even more complicated, newly devassalized Rum declared later on me, followed by Fatimids. Talk about lots of excitement. Lots of military planning went into this stage, since in this last war with Fatimids they had a big fleet, sunk all my ships in Mediterranean, and my landed force at Constantinople got no reinforcement for 30 years and was
reduced to one Templar Knight.

Then suddenly a stray Mongol Archer came and took the city right before my ships finally approached with new units and Workers to rebuild Silk Plantations! Good thing Wonders prevented Constantinople being razed! I was able to retake the city in 2 turns.

Meanwhile my trade mission arrived to India and was trying hard to negotiated some trade deals with Gujarat, Malwa and Sindh. They all hated me. I finally defeated Fatimids, took Alexandria (built on Incense) and with 2 Byzantine Silks was
just 1 Luxury short from winning the game. I sent a Settler to settle Ethiopian Incense for the earliest possible victory but Yemen declared on me and sunk my ship! And then Mameluks came and I almost lost Alexandria to them, fighting to the last defender there (check the very first picture to see who is defending Alexandria the turn I finally won at). In a word, everything that could go wrong went wrong!

In, in a twist of the luck, just when I gave up on my Indian plans and called my ship back to the Red Sea Ajmer Rajputs greeted me. Ajmer, Georgia and Oman have the best pro-trade personalities. I traded for 2 Spices from them! :goodjob:

My final winning Luxury combination can be seen here:

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/3733/civ4screenshot0126.jpg


My final :) with this game came when I checked the score rating. My French Latin Emperor mirrored accomplishments of the future president of France:

http://img840.imageshack.us/img840/8792/civ4screenshot0128.jpg

In the manual Vassalage+Serfdom+Agrarianism and Free Labor+Market Economy+Religious Freedom are listed as good combos.

Does this mean that all three of either set are needed for any bonus, or would only two of those in a set still provide a bonus, just not as a large a bonus as the full set?

Great game report Tigranes! Would enjoy to read more, and we really need a subforum for this sort of thing.

I've got one question, though: you always talk about Fatimids, but they usually don't tend to live long enough and one of your screens shows the Mamluks already. Did I miss something?

I ask because my main problem as KoJ is that Fatimids collapse too early and I face myself with a strong Ayyubid respawn on both the Syrian and the Egyptian front.

@Tigranes + Whomever else
First off, great game :goodjob:
Secondly, I was wondering if you HAVE to go and capture Constantinople, OR if there was a simpler way of doing it, like invading Egypt for example?

In the manual Vassalage+Serfdom+Agrarianism and Free Labor+Market Economy+Religious Freedom are listed as good combos.

Does this mean that all three of either set are needed for any bonus, or would only two of those in a set still provide a bonus, just not as a large a bonus as the full set?
Yes, you need all three, (ex. Vassalage, Serfdom, Agrarianism) to get the stability bonus.


I ask because my main problem as KoJ is that Fatimids collapse too early and I face myself with a strong Ayyubid respawn on both the Syrian and the Egyptian front.

Personally, thats fine for me, because not only is that historical, but it also adds a good recreation of the challenges the Crusaders faced. Because lets face it, Saladin was most definitely a force to be reckoned with ;)

Historically, it's absolutely fine, but I'd still like to know if there's a way to wriggle myself out of that challenge like the goal oriented player I am :D

I have no idea why I never saw Ayyubids. Fatimids were never solid (never past +20, according to the stability icon), so I don't know how to explain my luck, perhaps edead did some tweaking on conditional spawning... Mameluks came later, you can see them nearly taking away my Alexandria with their terrible Toasin Mameluks starting units.

I DID go to Egypt, but Egypt has only 1 Luxury (Alexandria). You have 2 on the Ethiopian coast, so you still need 1 from somewhere...

Thanks for the report :goodjob: All in all a nice game, too bad about mercenary maintenance bug, but that is fixed in 0.3.2. I'll create a thread for AAR, too bad I can't move posts, but hopefully it'll get filled eventually ;)

Gaza became my Capital, with all the nice bonuses that come together with Companies which expand in coastal cities. Since the father of this mod does not think this is a big exploit :mischief:, please do not tell me it is :D.

You can do that with every civ, even in normal RFC, by simply not using a settler and waiting for the flip.

I had my 2nd UHV by 1220s, thanks to the 20% base piety from my Protector title. I really think Orthodox powers should be able to benefit from this title as well, since Jerusalem importance is universal among all the Christian creeds.

The title already works for all Christians.

So, broadly speaking Rhodes WAS KoJ's posthumous "border" province :p

In the quoted passage it clearly says "Cyprus" and as I said, Rhodes is in Kingdom of Cyprus' border provinces :p

For some strange reason my Fleet was attacked my wicked Venetians! I did not know I was at war with those Rebels, perhaps something should be done about it?

Well, they are Rebels and you happened to be at war with them. Nothing can be done about it, i.e. I can't force peace with other civs as that could possibly interfere with whatever is happening elsewhere. It's not that unrealistic either, considering the Crusaders quickly started arguing with each other about leadership/spoils of war.

Secondly, I was wondering if you HAVE to go and capture Constantinople, OR if there was a simpler way of doing it, like invading Egypt for example?

I DID go to Egypt, but Egypt has only 1 Luxury (Alexandria). You have 2 on the Ethiopian coast, so you still need 1 from somewhere...

For that matter, reestablishing contact with the heavenly kingdom of Prester John was one of crusaders' dreams (and others - the Portuguese believed they found one and handed the letter to Prester John to the Ethiopian king). So you basically need 2-3 objectives of possible 5: Alexandria(1), Prester John(2), Yemen(2+), Latin Empire(2) or trade with India(1+), only one of which is far from realistic.

Yes, you need all three, (ex. Vassalage, Serfdom, Agrarianism) to get the stability bonus.

Sorry to make a correction but no, any combination of 2 works, while all 3 give a bigger bonus.

I have no idea why I never saw Ayyubids. Fatimids were never solid (never past +20, according to the stability icon), so I don't know how to explain my luck, perhaps edead did some tweaking on conditional spawning... Mameluks came later, you can see them nearly taking away my Alexandria with their terrible Toasin Mameluks starting units.

Ayyubids spawn if Fatimids are unstable. It's likely the Caliph difficulty level that makes Fatimids perform slightly better and maintain positive stability.

It is a bit disturbing that the easiest way to get the PoA UHV is to declare war on two of your allies: Cilicia and KoJ. First you take Cilicia for the first and third condition. Then you declare war on KoJ and sign open borders with all the other nations that are at war against them. After that you just need to figure out what to do during the 70 years that you have to wait for the victory to trigger.:crazyeye:

http://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz188/Jusos2108/Civ4ScreenShot0001-15.jpg

Well I guess the crusaders were a backstabbing bunch anyways. Nontheless I really enjoyed the game.:D

http://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz188/Jusos2108/Civ4ScreenShot0004-18.jpghttp://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz188/Jusos2108/Civ4ScreenShot0003-14.jpg

BTW, Embryodead, you should open a thread for strategy guides, because I have really good tips for PoA. For example, how the deal with the Ayyubids.

My strategy for the OB: convert to Islam and be everybody's darling.:D:D:D

It is a bit disturbing that the easiest way to get the PoA UHV is to declare war on two of your allies: Cilicia and KoJ.

Perhaps we should make it 7 OB. And/or require 3 Venetian and 3 Genovan Quartals -- go figure how to do it! :)

As a side note Christian power declaring on the Protector of Jerusalem must suffer additional massive piety loss. Also some very low piety levels must trigger additional problems -- double the instability, units refuse to take orders, churches generating angry faces instead of happy -- basically ALL the benefits from religion must stop or even get reversed if you hit Heretic level. In a sense Piety must be even more strategically important, second only to Stability...

Finally I have a question -- what is the precise formula of tech rate vs growth? I kept 6 cities in my Mughal game but Taj's tech kept getting more and more expensive as I was researching it -- from 8K to 12K (used 3 Artists to bulb it and was building research non-stop). At the end Sindh had built Taj only 1 turn before me :gripe::wallbash::aargh:

Perhaps we should make it 7 OB. And/or require 3 Venetian and 3 Genovan Quartals -- go figure how to do it! :)
Please no.... I think the current UHV for the PoA is good :p

As a side note Christian power declaring on the Protector of Jerusalem must suffer additional massive piety loss. Also some very low piety levels must trigger additional problems -- double the instability, units refuse to take orders, churches generating angry faces instead of happy -- basically ALL the benefits from religion must stop or even get reversed if you hit Heretic level. In a sense Piety must be even more strategically important, second only to Stability...
I agree! There should be a hit on stability, some how...
Also... I really like the idea about "soldiers not taking orders". Earlier in the forum, I suggested to Edead, that there should be a small percentage, that dictates if a mercenary attacks or not; but I have to agree now that the notion was a bit silly. But now, I realize, that having it happen for low piety, would make a lot of sense, and it would be pretty cool as well.

Finally I have a question -- what is the precise formula of tech rate vs growth? I kept 6 cities in my Mughal game but Taj's tech kept getting more and more expensive as I was researching it -- from 8K to 12K (used 3 Artists to bulb it and was building research non-stop). At the end Sindh had built Taj only 1 turn before me :gripe::wallbash::aargh:
EXACTLY! I have had SOO many problems with this! It's really annoying when you are one of these older Empires, and it takes FOREVER to research one tech, especially one which you need.

As a side note Christian power declaring on the Protector of Jerusalem must suffer additional massive piety loss. Also some very low piety levels must trigger additional problems -- double the instability, units refuse to take orders, churches generating angry faces instead of happy -- basically ALL the benefits from religion must stop or even get reversed if you hit Heretic level. In a sense Piety must be even more strategically important, second only to Stability...

It already reduces Stability, and causes Unhappiness which cancels religion & temple happiness. It's not shown on churches but you can hover over your piety level on main screen to see the effect, the citizens will also complain about you being evil or something. Units refusing to take orders is interesting but I doubt I'll get time to code this tbh.

Finally I have a question -- what is the precise formula of tech rate vs growth? I kept 6 cities in my Mughal game but Taj's tech kept getting more and more expensive as I was researching it -- from 8K to 12K (used 3 Artists to bulb it and was building research non-stop). At the end Sindh had built Taj only 1 turn before me :gripe::wallbash::aargh:

The formula is that every city beyond 10 increases cost by 7, 5 or 4 % depending on Era (so 4% for Mughals). You were NOT affected by the penalty and could easily capture more cities.

What happened is that you witnessed tech cost *reduction* for new civs fading away to normal cost (tech costs are reduced for the first 20 or 25 turns after civ birth).

If that is annoying, how would it be without it :p This is all from RFC, except the 11+ cities penalty in RFC is 10% per city.

BTW I've made some lateen galleys/war galleys/great galleys, so there will be a great galley between war galley and lanternas.

@Jusos

Thanks, I'll open the thread, hopefully today when I think of something not too stupid to write in it ;)

New ship setup:


Moves Power Other

Galley/Dhow 5 2 Cargo:2, Cannot enter Ocean
Roundship/Baghlah 5 2 Cargo:3
Caravel 6 3 Cargo:1*, Double movement in Sea/Ocean
Carrack (Portugal) 5 5 Cargo:3, Double movement in Sea/Ocean
Galleon 4 4 Cargo:4, Double movement in Sea/Ocean

War Galley 5 3 Cannot enter Ocean
Great Galley 5 4
Lanternas 5 5
Frigate 5 8 Double movement in Sea/Ocean

It already reduces Stability, and causes Unhappiness which cancels religion & temple happiness. It's not shown on churches but you can hover over your piety level on main screen to see the effect, the citizens will also complain about you being evil or something. Units refusing to take orders is interesting but I doubt I'll get time to code this tbh.


The easiest way to code it, I suppose, -- is to just get a random non-mercenary unit disbanded "because of lack of piety". Sometimes soldiers refuse to fight for a heretical ruler, just like with the lack of funds.

New ship setup


Really cool! :goodjob:
My only problem is that the Frigate and such, (the boats on the far right), look very European, and it would be hard to ever see the Egyptians or Turks with ships like that :crazyeye:

Nice! Although, carrack is now weaker compared to Galleys, maybe it could have 5 strength or couple extra first strike chances.

IMO it would be strange and unhistorical even for units to refuse battle because of low piety. Come on, whenever has religion been more than a tool for the rulers. The lack of money has been a far more important factor..

Really cool! :goodjob:
My only problem is that the Frigate and such, (the boats on the far right), look very European, and it would be hard to ever see the Egyptians or Turks with ships like that :crazyeye:

They look exactly like European ships to me:
early Ottoman galleons (http://www.dzkk.tsk.tr/english/TarihiMiras/geneltarihce_eng.php), later frigates & man-o-wars (http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?173114-Sea-Warfare-in-the-17th-18th-and-19th-century&p=4726651&viewfull=1#post4726651) (post #39)

Egyptians just collapsed before they could get that far in the tech tree :mischief:

Nice! Although, carrack is no weaker compared to Galleys, maybe it could have 5 strength or couple extra first strike chances.

Yeah thanks, it should have 5 strength, I forgot to raise it as I raised Lanternas.

I am very happy about naval additions! To be honest, I have already gave up on that, very nice surprise :D

I can feel that new patch is coming to town,so I would like to bring up three
rather-easy-to-implement ideas:

1. Human player almost never get to appreaciate beautiful art and design of UUs for certain civs he is playing. I am talking about Oman, Gujarat, KoJ and such... So much work went into them and you end up seeing them only when u fight AI. One simply does not need to go that far in tech tree to win the game. Mameluk starting units are a nice example how one can easily fix this situation. Let's replace couple of KoJ starting units with Foot Knights, give Oman couple of Shekhs and so on. PoA, Mughals and Ottomans is fine the way they are, simply, as a side note Ottoman Great Bombard could me symbolicaly 10 hummers more expensive than simple Bombard.

2. I really love it how Zengids start with Great General Zengi. One of the things Total War Series have surpassed Civ is their concept of Agents. Trully History was not made by "units" and "cities" only, many unique individuals been able to change to course of historical developement. Many great Statesman, Warlords and Prophets initiated very Rise of the CIvilizations we are playing. So why don't we flavor starting situation by attaching some unique prenamed leader to the intial stack? I know AI has a porr use of Great Generals (many times they just settle him), but Zengid example shows a way to go about it. Ottomans could start with Osman Great General, Safavids with Ismail Great Prophet, Mughals could use Leader promoted Pashtun Cavalery named Babur (the single exception from Mercenary pool), and so on. Should not mess balance too much, but will add nice excitement in the game.

3. How about giving a Caravan desert adaptation promotion? It has a Camel in graphics. During the first Muslim civil war Aisha's Caravan went from Medina to Basra in 10 days! Try to cross Arabian desert with our Caravan on our Map.

after a great succes with the yemen imamate and disapointing faillures with the fatamids and kingdom of Jerusalem I thought i might try it in the far east with the Kingdom of Ajmer.

My strategy was to just constant pump out soldiers. At first i thought the unique unit was :), but then i realised the rayput horse archer can get defencive bonuses, so it's a very good UU. anyway, i conquered the Kingdom of Malwa, Sindh, the Ghaznovid empire, Khwarezmid empire, eastern part of Seljuk. I razed all cities except the ones i could donate to the Kingdom of Gujarat wich offered to be my vassel very early on in the game.
And so i achieved the second victory goal, have 3 great generals in 1200, by murdering almost all of iran, afghanistan and pakistan:). currenty i'm working on expanding into the lands of the Ghorid Sultanate.
http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/4880/civ4screenshot0008e.jpg (http://img69.imageshack.us/i/civ4screenshot0008e.jpg/)
http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/347/civ4screenshot00090.jpg (http://img526.imageshack.us/i/civ4screenshot00090.jpg/)

Now my only problem is for my last historical victory goal i have to clear all of hindustan of Islam by 1400. But my vassel has one little city with sunni islam. I gifted him a religious persecuter and made him adopt Persecution and Religious Law, so it would be wise for him to use that persecuter. But he doesn't!:mad:
Is there any way i can still win this game and make kingdom of Gujarat remove the sunnies from this city?


http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/8484/civ4screenshot0010.jpg (http://img510.imageshack.us/i/civ4screenshot0010.jpg/)

Bouw,

I'm afraid at this point the only way is to release your vassal, declare war and capture the city. The AI doesn't always use Persecutors, but in this case it should. Just to make sure I checked the Persecutor AI and it turns out it's disabled... Looks like I have disabled the python code while implementing some speed tweaks and forgot to rewrite the code in C++. I appreciate your report as it pointed out this issue which I seem to have missed completely :(

There's always the less destructive worldbuilder out islam option, which in this case would not be cheating at all.

Anyway, I am coming to talk about Makuria, and some serious problems relating to it in the game I just quit out of sheer frustration.

I can happily deal with desert raiders. I can happily deal with rebels. I can understandably deal with the Fatimids. I can cope with the challenge that those pesky slaves represent the first time rounf. I can grin and bear it when they respawn shortly after I crush them and finally get Upper Egypt back in order. I can grit my teeth and handle it when it happens AGAIN, despite the fact we've a significant military garrison in Upper Egypt, we've never adopted slavery, and they were demanding Aswan, which I founded waaay back at the start.

But when they returned for time number four, after I just built my Summer Palace in Cairo, against a strong garrison, with my army just having captured Baghdad...well, I'd had enough, and I quit.

===

The point of this really revolves around Aswan, and its importance to a human Makurian player. Makuria is going to be perpetually behind. Its Coptic (and yes, you can convert to Islam, but that's really neither here nor there in terms of the true problem the player faces), it's in a desert, and production sites are very very very hard to come by. Aswan is the only city that can really do much production, as the Capital is never going to be that useful, and the rest are cash farming sites really. With Aswan, at least the player has a hope of holding unto Egypt and a foothold elsewhere (I kept KoJ from Crusaders, and really, Jerusalem kept me out of the red.) The repeated uprisings by that slave dynasty that took Egypt's productivity off line for 50+ turns at a time, but most galling, their claim over Aswan when I'd held that city for the entire game....was simply both unfun, and unfair.

In general, my request would be:

a) Look into the multi-respawning issue please. I'm not quite sure why they even spawn if the place is not under Arab control, but its not a biggie.

b) Take Aswan out of the territory that is given to them if the city is controlled by Makuria.

C) A general comment...the UHV condition that Makuria must not lose a city forces a starved Nubian people to turtle if they want to pull it off (which is plan unfun for the humn)...may I suggest that condition be changed to say building a certain amount of cultural buildings by a certain date?

Well, you were close... as per RFC rules, +20 Stability is needed to stops respawns.

Saw this earlier, and have a point to make...if +20 is the rule, there's simply no way you can reach that with Makuria and even be close to having an empire. And by Empire btw, I mean Nubia/Egypt Jerusalem and Tyre. Even with just Nubia/Egypt I was lucky to stay at -20. This is a bit harsh on Makuria, which had a societal concept of Ma'at (think peace and order) and statecraft. In sum, Makuria needs help to allow it to represent its internal stability in a Muslim world. (Especially when its 'allies' which are few and far between generally get mowed down most of the time...)

Also, as an adjunct to that. The Muslims should not look at Makuria like they do the Franks or the Byzantines, due to the fact that under the first Caliphs the Baqt agreement was signed which essentially gave Makuria a status of respect that left them belonging neither to the infidels or believers, but somewhere in between. Relations with muslim states should not be smooth, but you should at least be able to trade with them, as long as you don't annoy them.

Finally, just as a thought to improving the scenario...states have real issues with trading - they don't have the money for it. It would be nice if states were directed to keep some per turn free for that sorta thing.

My general though was this...keep things as they are for health and production resources. However, for the valuable goods, like gold and jewels, give them their own super valuable caravans, with extra points for those who have them. Also, caravans should be captured not destroyed upon capture really. Anyway, just an idea.

Well, from how I see it, you can't expand Makuria to Tyre and expect it to be still solid. The stability system is exactly there to penalize this sort of thing. You can do it, sure, but you have to deal with the consequences, then.

@Edead

Three things:
1. You still have not fixed the immediate OB between Abbasids and Makuria, which is supposed to represent some sort of agreement they had.

2. You haven't updated the SVN! I still don't have the newest ship stuff :(

3. The Pharos Lighthouse should disappear around 1323, when it was "deactivated"

Well, from how I see it, you can't expand Makuria to Tyre and expect it to be still solid. The stability system is exactly there to penalize this sort of thing. You can do it, sure, but you have to deal with the consequences, then.

Well, I do expect a hit from that. My main concern is that even just owning Nubia proper, then Lower Egypt, then just Jerusalem and Tyre, my stability stayed the same, which really was patently absurd :p

In order to allow some variety - and ensure Makuria's survival from a gameplay perspective, the Arab world needs to have a slightly less hostile view than it currently does currently...however, what it really needs a big base stability boost.

My suggest would be to give every city from Aswan to Meroe +4 stability each at founding for a total of +20, which would reflect the state's crumbling from external, not internal reasons.

Bouw,

I'm afraid at this point the only way is to release your vassal, declare war and capture the city. The AI doesn't always use Persecutors, but in this case it should. Just to make sure I checked the Persecutor AI and it turns out it's disabled... Looks like I have disabled the python code while implementing some speed tweaks and forgot to rewrite the code in C++. I appreciate your report as it pointed out this issue which I seem to have missed completely :(

How do i release my vassal, if i try to cancel the vassal state deal in the diplomation screen it says that this deal currently can't be canceled? I always thought it was impossible when they offered to become a vassal?
i wouldnt mind to just conquer Gujarat cos my army is almost finished with killing everybody else and it would be ashame to just disband it, wouldnt it?:)

Dunno if it's too hard to code, but either getting in the option to release a vassal state or to use persecutors on their cities would be neat here. But basically bouw had the same problem as I did - I either forced civics too late on my vassal and/or I didn't check them often enough whether they had switched away.

vra379971,

Thanks for the report. Some of the things you describe do look like an overkill (i.e. 4 Mamluk revolts), however, many of them stem from your choices. As Leoreth has said, stability is there exactly to prevent civs from overextending. You expanded WAY beyond your historical borders, so low stability is a given.

For that matter:
Well, I do expect a hit from that. My main concern is that even just owning Nubia proper, then Lower Egypt, then just Jerusalem and Tyre, my stability stayed the same, which really was patently absurd

Not really absurd - stability normally grows over time due to growing economy, so you balanced it with expansion, just not on high enough level to prevent respawns.

a) Look into the multi-respawning issue please. I'm not quite sure why they even spawn if the place is not under Arab control, but its not a biggie.

I don't get it. I assume you were just not playing for the UHVs and tried to build an Empire into 15th century or something? In that case it's kind of... expected. Or did you get 4 Mamluk respawns in 50 years? (since the game is normally over for Makuria in 1300). In that case it's quite broken, not sure why would that happen.

You can avoid respawns (but not the first spawn) with higher stability, i.e. by not expanding into the Levant etc. and even then you can avoid losing Aswan (see below).

b) Take Aswan out of the territory that is given to them if the city is controlled by Makuria.

That is actually intentional and a matter of strategic city placement, though may not be obvious at the first glance. Look at the map and the province names, visible on the tooltip. Aswan is right on the border between Egypt and Nubia, on the Egyptian side. If you found a city 1 tile South or Southwest instead (3 workable Hills, Stone, Hemp & Sorghum in BFC, almost as good as Aswan), it will be named Kalabsha and lie in Nobatia, not Upper Egypt. This means:
- more stability because it's your "border province", and Egypt isn't
- it will never flip to Mamluks, because unlike Egypt, Nobatia isn't their core province

That essentially solves two problems at once, although you have to invest in culture a bit to get those gems and cotton into your borders before 1000 AD. Normally the area is settled by AI Fatimids, who found Aswan, but sometimes AI Makuria reaches it first and can found Kalabsha, a Makurian bishopric. Of course, you can choose to found the slightly better Aswan instead, but as you can see it has some annoying consequences by being in the Egyptian sphere of influence.

C) A general comment...the UHV condition that Makuria must not lose a city forces a starved Nubian people to turtle if they want to pull it off (which is plan unfun for the humn)...may I suggest that condition be changed to say building a certain amount of cultural buildings by a certain date?

I'm open about modifying UHVs, but: that UHV is the second one, checked in 1200, and there's another one (expansion) checked in 1300, essentially requiring you to defeat the Mamluks once. So, changing the barbarian UHV will do nothing about turtling. On the other hand, the third UHV is about defeating Mamluks, I don't know, it would just be bad to have Makurian victories end long before the state's zenith and collapse.

Also, as an adjunct to that. The Muslims should not look at Makuria like they do the Franks or the Byzantines, due to the fact that under the first Caliphs the Baqt agreement was signed which essentially gave Makuria a status of respect that left them belonging neither to the infidels or believers, but somewhere in between. Relations with muslim states should not be smooth, but you should at least be able to trade with them, as long as you don't annoy them.

Baqt is the reason Makuria starts with contact with Abbasids, though I can add a diplomatic bonus to reflect it better.

Finally, just as a thought to improving the scenario...states have real issues with trading - they don't have the money for it. It would be nice if states were directed to keep some per turn free for that sorta thing.

I use the default BTS setting of 5-10% gp per turn, possibly it can be raised to 10-15%, we'll see.

My general though was this...keep things as they are for health and production resources. However, for the valuable goods, like gold and jewels, give them their own super valuable caravans, with extra points for those who have them. Also, caravans should be captured not destroyed upon capture really. Anyway, just an idea.

Caravans already work that way - they are captured. The only case when they would be destroyed is when you don't have the tech required to build them. I'm not fond of having resource-specific caravans... KISS principle. Somewhat related, in the new patch income calculations are changed so that they can't be exploited with big empires (distance is calculated from closest city, rather than the capital).

1. You still have not fixed the immediate OB between Abbasids and Makuria, which is supposed to represent some sort of agreement they had.

Well, I didn't break it either - they never had OB, only free contact. OB wouldn't work anyway with current game mechanics. As I said above I'll add +2 diplo bonus vs. Abbasids to reflect baqt.

2. You haven't updated the SVN! I still don't have the newest ship stuff :(

I'll commit the changes today. I update SVN when I test something internally at least, and I only finished the ship update yesterday.

3. The Pharos Lighthouse should disappear around 1323, when it was "deactivated"

It already does - it's obsoleted with Astronomy. No reason to force it to a specific date.

How do i release my vassal, if i try to cancel the vassal state deal in the diplomation screen it says that this deal currently can't be canceled? I always thought it was impossible when they offered to become a vassal?
i wouldnt mind to just conquer Gujarat cos my army is almost finished with killing everybody else and it would be ashame to just disband it, wouldnt it?:)

My ignorance of BTS mechanics shows here... really no way to release a vassal? :eek:

Well, at least the persecutor bug is fixed for the new version.

My ignorance of BTS mechanics shows here... really no way to release a vassal? :eek:

Well, at least the persecutor bug is fixed for the new version.

ya its quite stupid! Could you add something into the game, that would allow you to cancel a vassal agreement?

I think the reason behind that is that a civ becomes a vassal to be protected by you ... and especially from you. What's the point in becoming one's vassal if he can cancel the agreement and attack you anytime?

I think the reason behind that is that a civ becomes a vassal to be protected by you ... and especially from you. What's the point in becoming one's vassal if he can cancel the agreement and attack you anytime?

agreed. If vassal agreement can be broken it should come with a diplomatic penalty from other civs "You are an oath breaker". Or it should be an agreement with a time limit on it that can be renewed.

I had the exact same problem with Ajmer. Really cheesed me off too, so I feel your pain. Next time I just took no prisoners and had no problem. the moral: Kill everything. Bwahahahahahahahaha

agreed. If vassal agreement can be broken it should come with a diplomatic penalty from other civs "You are an oath breaker". Or it should be an agreement with a time limit on it that can be renewed.


No, but thats the point! You have a long time agreement with them, but then after a while (30-40 turns), you can cancel the vassal agreement. You shouldn't be bonded to it, for ever and ever!

POST #1000!!! WHOO! :clap:
:trophy2:
My 1000th time clicking the "Submit Reply" Button :D

No, but thats the point! You have a long time agreement with them, but then after a while (30-40 turns), you can cancel the vassal agreement. You shouldn't be bonded to it, for ever and ever!

POST #1000!!! WHOO! :clap:
:trophy2:
My 1000th time clicking the "Submit Reply" Button :D

any guess's how many !'s that makes? :lol:

I was just playing a game as the Ghaznavids, and I decided to look them up on wikipedia. And apparently their Empire stretched well into Persia, and all the way to Iraq! So I was therefore thinking if you could add some Eastern Iranian border provinces (like Western Khorsan), to the Ghaznavid Border Province that would be great! Especially considering the fact that playing as the Ghaznavids feels quite limited, it would be better if their quite expansive Empire, could get a Border Province boost. Also Hindu Kush should be in their border provinces. Overall though, they just need more border provinces.

Here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Ghaznavid_Empire_975_-_1187_%28AD%29.PNG

I was just playing a game as the Ghaznavids, and I decided to look them up on wikipedia. And apparently their Empire stretched well into Persia, and all the way to Iraq! So I was therefore thinking if you could add some Eastern Iranian border provinces (like Western Khorsan), to the Ghaznavid Border Province that would be great! Especially considering the fact that playing as the Ghaznavids feels quite limited, it would be better if their quite expansive Empire, could get a Border Province boost. Also Hindu Kush should be in their border provinces. Overall though, they just need more border provinces.

I'm well aware of this but it's impossible to make it work in this timeframe. The same applies to Samanids (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Samanid_dynasty_%28819%E2%80%93999%29.GIF) and Ghorids (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ghori_Dynasty_1149-1212_%28AD%29.png), not to mention Abbasids - but there's no time to conquer Persia as those civs. Sure I can add a few more provinces to the list, but it will have no effect on gameplay really.

any guess's how many !'s that makes? :lol:
:lol:

I was just playing a game as the Ghaznavids, and I decided to look them up on wikipedia. And apparently their Empire stretched well into Persia, and all the way to Iraq! So I was therefore thinking if you could add some Eastern Iranian border provinces (like Western Khorsan), to the Ghaznavid Border Province that would be great! Especially considering the fact that playing as the Ghaznavids feels quite limited, it would be better if their quite expansive Empire, could get a Border Province boost. Also Hindu Kush should be in their border provinces. Overall though, they just need more border provinces.

Here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Ghaznavid_Empire_975_-_1187_%28AD%29.PNG
Personally I don't buy the claim of "I've found a map that proves that this civ has owned these territories in their era of greatest extent, so they should be part of their historical area / border provinces". The underlined part is important here. "Greatest extent" maps only show one moment in history, and ignore in which problems the civ (possibly) ran while governing these territories, or for how long they were able to hold them. It's like posting a map from 1942 here and demanding that Germany needs France, Scandinavia, the Balkans and Western Russia added.

I just wanted to chime in, on 3 points:

First, I really enjoy this mod. I've started probably dozens of games. Never won any, between being not a very good player (I've lost a few games), and being a bit ADD. Usually, 100 years into playing as (say) KoJ, I go get dinner and when I get back, I decide to try the Timurids again, or Yemen, or Safavids, Byzantines or Seljuks... But even when I stick it out, it's the most fun I've ever had at a game I kind of expect to lose. And it's educational--I'd never heard of Ak Koyunlu, Samanids or the Buyids.

Second, I love the province system. I wish a couple other RFC modmods would/could incorporate something like this: it really helps the learning curve to see in the window that a certain city is safe to conquer, or needed for a victory condition. But I can understand that the coding for them would probably be a massive job for a relatively small payoff.

Finally, on the subject of adding provinces to Ghaznavids et al., If I ever actually win a game without wanting to move immediately on to the next one, I think a fun and challenging "4th UHV" could be to expand the civ to its historical boundaries/control all its provinces. This would be especially fun with Timur, because there's so much to do, and not much in the way of new civs to flip away your conquests. But to get to 12% of the world, there's probably not much of his empire left anyway, is there?

Personally I don't buy the claim of "I've found a map that proves that this civ has owned these territories in their era of greatest extent, so they should be part of their historical area / border provinces". The underlined part is important here. "Greatest extent" maps only show one moment in history, and ignore in which problems the civ (possibly) ran while governing these territories, or for how long they were able to hold them. It's like posting a map from 1942 here and demanding that Germany needs France, Scandinavia, the Balkans and Western Russia added.

Ok.... well it still allows the player to have the OPTION of expanding to greater lengths. Currently, I am constricted, and when I conquered a territory, that was not in their Border Provinces, but which they actually DID conquer historically, then I just get mad :mad:! And YES, if we were playing a map of Modern Europe RFC (which btw, to anyone out there, would be a REALLY cool game), then yes, Germany should have all those places in their border provinces.

@Edead
And anyway, its really easy to do, so could you please just add on more provinces for them, like Hindu Kush, and Western Khorsan, and perhaps even where Kerman is. You did the Ghaznavid Eastern Provinces REALLY well, its just that they could push farther West.

As an empire builder myself, I tend to agree with the Turk here, since the Ghaznavids ventured that far to the west, those areas should be in their border provinces.

BTW qaplawjw, there is challenge that the Turk started featuring the conquest of the historical empires here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=401642).

Second, I love the province system. I wish a couple other RFC modmods would/could incorporate something like this: it really helps the learning curve to see in the window that a certain city is safe to conquer, or needed for a victory condition. But I can understand that the coding for them would probably be a massive job for a relatively small payoff.
Well, compared to RFC's code, SoI is even extremely beautiful "behind the scenes" ... embryodead really did a great job in streamlining and restructuring Rhye's code to make it easier to access and understand, it almost warrants praise on its own.

So, while it may be complicated to include a province system into RFC post facto, SoI is almost the ideal foundation if one wants to make a similar RFC modmod with a smaller scope. I have some ideas for such things in my head recently, for example, and I definitely would use SoI as a base for it, if embryodead doesn't mind (if I actually had the time for something like that, that is, of course).

Ok.... well it still allows the player to have the OPTION of expanding to greater lengths. Currently, I am constricted, and when I conquered a territory, that was not in their Border Provinces, but which they actually DID conquer historically, then I just get mad :mad:! And YES, if we were playing a map of Modern Europe RFC (which btw, to anyone out there, would be a REALLY cool game), then yes, Germany should have all those places in their border provinces.
Then I guess we have a different understanding of the historical areas concept here. From how I see it, stable areas (i.e. border provinces in SoI) represent areas that a civilization could hold on to without much trouble after it's conquered. That's something different to the territories Germany conquered in WW2 - historians usually agree that the ineffective Nazi administration would have collapsed under these territories even if they'd somehow won the war.

That doesn't mean now that I'm strictly against adding some provinces to their border provinces. If it can be proven they had a reasonably strong power base there, it's now problem. But for me, showing a map that says "they conquered it once", doesn't suffice.

Also, provinces not being part of your borders doesn't prohibit you from expanding there. It only makes it harder. And in my eyes, it should be hard, not only to acquire, but also to keep together a large empire.

Well, compared to RFC's code, SoI is even extremely beautiful "behind the scenes" ... embryodead really did a great job in streamlining and restructuring Rhye's code to make it easier to access and understand, it almost warrants praise on its own.

So, while it may be complicated to include a province system into RFC post facto, SoI is almost the ideal foundation if one wants to make a similar RFC modmod with a smaller scope. I have some ideas for such things in my head recently, for example, and I definitely would use SoI as a base for it, if embryodead doesn't mind (if I actually had the time for something like that, that is, of course).


I agree. SoI's mechanics are much betteer then original RFC. I tend to think of it as the next evolution. Not just the province system either, the use of mercs, better integration of events, espionage, titles.... the list goes on and on. i would want future mods to follow his lead.

Leoreth, you can't really say something like the underlined without expanding on it. I am literally drooling right now thinking of the possibilities.


Then I guess we have a different understanding of the historical areas concept here. From how I see it, stable areas (i.e. border provinces in SoI) represent areas that a civilization could hold on to without much trouble after it's conquered. That's something different to the territories Germany conquered in WW2 - historians usually agree that the ineffective Nazi administration would have collapsed under these territories even if they'd somehow won the war.

That doesn't mean now that I'm strictly against adding some provinces to their border provinces. If it can be proven they had a reasonably strong power base there, it's now problem. But for me, showing a map that says "they conquered it once", doesn't suffice.

Also, provinces not being part of your borders doesn't prohibit you from expanding there. It only makes it harder. And in my eyes, it should be hard, not only to acquire, but also to keep together a large empire.


To me core areas are the ones where your culture and language are predominant. Order can be kept with police. Border provinces have your culture and language as a minority and require a military garrison to keep order. Anything outside of this would be areas where other cultures and languages are predominant and your own is seen as foreign. A millitary occupation is needed to keep order and you would be susceptible to revolts and instability. The stability system of RFC is deisgined with this in mind and can portray it beautifully.

Going back to the WW2 Germany example. Germany would be a core province, Austria a border province (as they are). France and Russia are definitely not core or border provinces, in the game or reality. The results of German occupation of these areas lead to their downfall, as the instability in the game represents.

@Leoreth, jammerculture
If anyone wants to use SoI as a base for RFC Ancient Times or whatever (yeah I've read that post in DoC thread ;) ) sure I don't mind, though the mechanics are vastly different and as it stands now, the above situation with Germany is not possible. Currently warmaps & stability maps are streamlined into one since that just suited my needs. I guess it would be just a matter of adding an extra "war province list" of provinces that are worth +2 pts. on AI war map without making it a border province.

I agree with the idea though, and it's especially true for Middle Eastern dynasties that expanded and collapsed quickly - you wouldn't want all of Persia on the province list of a civ that controlled it for 50 years because it couldn't hold onto it any longer. So far I added Western Khorasan to Ghaznavid list at least, Hindu Kush is OK, but going further west kind of forces you to add the rest of Iran.

@qaplawjw
Thanks. As for the fourth UHV, I'd rather not have more of them, though I toyed with the idea of a "FFA" option for SoI - it would turn UHVs off, increase stability and make it an Empire building game, for those that prefer this kind of gameplay.

@Leoreth, jammerculture
If anyone wants to use SoI as a base for RFC Ancient Times or whatever (yeah I've read that post in DoC thread ;) ) sure I don't mind, though the mechanics are vastly different and as it stands now, the above situation with Germany is not possible. Currently warmaps & stability maps are streamlined into one since that just suited my needs. I guess it would be just a matter of adding an extra "war province list" of provinces that are worth +2 pts. on AI war map without making it a border province.

I agree with the idea though, and it's especially true for Middle Eastern dynasties that expanded and collapsed quickly - you wouldn't want all of Persia on the province list of a civ that controlled it for 50 years because it couldn't hold onto it any longer. So far I added Western Khorasan to Ghaznavid list at least, Hindu Kush is OK, but going further west kind of forces you to add the rest of Iran.

@qaplawjw
Thanks. As for the fourth UHV, I'd rather not have more of them, though I toyed with the idea of a "FFA" option for SoI - it would turn UHVs off, increase stability and make it an Empire building game, for those that prefer this kind of gameplay.

To the respected author:

For FFA mode, I would like to suggest: once you gain control of all core and border provinces, gain a triumphal arch in the capital and golden age like when 2/3 UHV are met. I believe that all players will love this feature.

To the respected author:

For FFA mode, I would like to suggest: once you gain control of all core and border provinces, gain a triumphal arch in the capital and golden age like when 2/3 UHV are met. I believe that all players will love this feature.

Or similarly, that civ who expanded to its fullest, would get a title like "Emperor of Byzantium", kind of like how the Stainless Steel mod for M2TW does it when you for example are England and capture all the British Isles, you get a new title.

@Leoreth, jammerculture
If anyone wants to use SoI as a base for RFC Ancient Times or whatever (yeah I've read that post in DoC thread ;) ) sure I don't mind, though the mechanics are vastly different and as it stands now, the above situation with Germany is not possible. Currently warmaps & stability maps are streamlined into one since that just suited my needs. I guess it would be just a matter of adding an extra "war province list" of provinces that are worth +2 pts. on AI war map without making it a border province.
That's good to hear. Did I really say something about an Antiquity modmod already? I should think more before I post ;)

Leoreth, you can't really say something like the underlined without expanding on it. I am literally drooling right now thinking of the possibilities.
Sorry, but you'll have to. DoC is my project currently, and it will still take months to include everything I'd like to do with it now, so I don't want a discussion about something I can't deliver in any reasonable amount of time, especially not in this thread (if you really want to talk about it, carry it over to the DoC thread). I am currently doing research on sources and resources for various possibilities, both historical and fictional, that I can say at least.

To me core areas are the ones where your culture and language are predominant. Order can be kept with police. Border provinces have your culture and language as a minority and require a military garrison to keep order. Anything outside of this would be areas where other cultures and languages are predominant and your own is seen as foreign. A millitary occupation is needed to keep order and you would be susceptible to revolts and instability. The stability system of RFC is deisgined with this in mind and can portray it beautifully.

Going back to the WW2 Germany example. Germany would be a core province, Austria a border province (as they are). France and Russia are definitely not core or border provinces, in the game or reality. The results of German occupation of these areas lead to their downfall, as the instability in the game represents.
This is how I see it, too.

That's good to hear. Did I really say something about an Antiquity modmod already? I should think more before I post ;)

No, it was jammerculture who kind of requested it ;)

No, it was jammerculture who kind of requested it ;)

oooh that would be interesting! I would love to help with a mod like that, especially if it followed the principles of SoI! You could do the "Ancient Middle East" that would be really awesome, and follow the Ancient Egyptians, Hittites, Assyrians, Phoenicians and later the Achameind (spelling?) Persian Dynasty, ending with Alexander the Great's invasion of the Middle East.

No, it was jammerculture who kind of requested it ;)

dance puppets

dance

dance puppets

dance

LOL! We're dancing! :D

@Edead
I was thinking that the Socotra Island (Near Yemen) was a bit bare, and needed another resource nearby. So oneday I was reading the news on Al Jazeera, when I came across this:
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/middleeast/2010/12/201012613020466803.html
(although not 100% relevant), it does show that there are incense trees on the island, so perhaps you should add some incense to the island on the "left" square.

To the respected author:

For FFA mode, I would like to suggest: once you gain control of all core and border provinces, gain a triumphal arch in the capital and golden age like when 2/3 UHV are met. I believe that all players will love this feature.

Ok i will reconstruct the Yemen Empire
just about 4 provinces and i get a triumphal arch:)

I like the idea of some form of acknowledgment and maybe a bonus on completion of maximum historical empire would be cool, but not sure the triumphant arch/GA is the way to go. Should be something different from UHV victory condition. Maybe one of those events where "so and so is born, he will be remembered as..." and you get to pick a GP, and "so and so" is the civ's greatest leader, or an event where "so and so has returned triumphant from his epic conquest. He was the greatest warrior with the..." and you get to pick the unit type and you get an uber-promoted unit.

Why not simply grant a free GG as this "great conqueror"?

Why not simply grant a free GG as this "great conqueror"?

Ya, like I said earlier in this thread, it would be cool to have spawning GG's in your nations capital when the time is right. Just like certain non-playable factions get spawning GG's it would be nice for the player to get something similar to that as well.
Or if you really want to go radical, you can have it so that the player starts off with a GG unit (a King), and you have to protect that King from harm, or else your civ gets minus stability. So kind of like a "Regicide" game, where if you can kill that civ's king (or Queen), then it gives you an advantage, as that Civ will get a lot of minus stability.
Just an idea....:D

Why not simply grant a free GG as this "great conqueror"?

cuz then I'd settle him :lol:

If we're trying to keep it simple, then maybe a free level 6 UU. (when I said uber, I meant uber!)

Wouldn't one expect tho have Ghorid Empire to change the name to Sultanate of Delhi when human player builds a palace in Delhi? Much like KoJ --> Latin Empire transition... I realize there is already (unplayable) Delhi Sultanate Civ in the mod, but when human player is in charge of Ghorids they do not come into play, do they?

Also, is it possible to cheat Barbarian Mongols by simply preplacing a unit/city on the tile they will eventually spawn, or the code takes care of it somehow?

Finally Ghor itself is nowhere in city name grid... I realize that Wikipedia does speak about province Ghor, but not the city ... however if you read an article about Ghorid Empire it says that Ghor was the capital of the Empire with same name... That city is between Kabul and Herat...

Perhaps I'm just being blind and stupid, but for some reason I can't find the 'Blue' Mosque or Suleymaniye Mosque in the tech tree, as in I can't build it. I can see it in the civilopedia, but not their in the tech tree. :confused:

Also, yes I agree, although Kabul is an important city, and it would be nice to have it spawn; why isn't Ghor the capital which is spawned?
And yes I agree that the player of the Ghorids should be able to transition into the Delhi Sultanate, once they move the capital to Delhi.
Also, do you think it would be possible to have the Ayyubids change names, once they move capitals to Damascus? Currently I can't think of any names, but does anybody know of a name for the displaced Ayyubid Sultanate?

Wouldn't one expect tho have Ghorid Empire to change the name to Sultanate of Delhi when human player builds a palace in Delhi? Much like KoJ --> Latin Empire transition... I realize there is already (unplayable) Delhi Sultanate Civ in the mod, but when human player is in charge of Ghorids they do not come into play, do they?

I thought I did it already. The reason I originally made the name change AI only is that some civilization data of the active player, flags and units in particular, are not updated unless you reload the game. Also Delhi has different civ stats, no UU etc.

Also, is it possible to cheat Barbarian Mongols by simply preplacing a unit/city on the tile they will eventually spawn, or the code takes care of it somehow?

Not really, barbarians don't spawn in a particular tile but any free tile in varied areas of 20-100 tiles each Some, Mongols in particular, can also spawn within your borders. I guess if you place 100 or more units, 1 tile each, there's a chance you cover one spawn, but you'd have to consult Python source code... I guess it's easier to just cheat ;)

Finally Ghor itself is nowhere in city name grid... I realize that Wikipedia does speak about province Ghor, but not the city ... however if you read an article about Ghorid Empire it says that Ghor was the capital of the Empire with same name... That city is between Kabul and Herat...

The city is more commonly called Firuzkuh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turquoise_Mountain) and it's on the map, exactly between Kabul and Herat, always founded by Ghorids.

Perhaps I'm just being blind and stupid, but for some reason I can't find the 'Blue' Mosque or Suleymaniye Mosque in the tech tree, as in I can't build it. I can see it in the civilopedia, but not their in the tech tree. :confused:

It's there, look at Syncretism. Also when you look at it in the Civilopedia it shows all required techs.

Also, do you think it would be possible to have the Ayyubids change names, once they move capitals to Damascus? Currently I can't think of any names, but does anybody know of a name for the displaced Ayyubid Sultanate?

No, we discussed this already. Ayyubid Emirs survived in Syria and ruled Homs, Hama and a few other minor towns, eventually only Hama. The rest was ruled by Mamluks.

Also I found a buildings goldmine, though it may take some time to convert them all. So far got three done, replacements for Genoan Quarter, Royal Mausoleum and Kizil Kule - see attachment. There's also Ulugh Beg's observatory, caravanserais, a lot of Armenian churches and some Indian buildings.

What is that goldmine? Maybe they can be used for other mods.

hi, i'm new here so i want to say that this is the best mod since the original rhye's. I had been playing and its very funny, however when i played with the seljuk empire i noticed that the third uhv condition was very boring, wait for too much time and just create some great artists, so i think that it should be anticipated, because it's unhistorical too, and i think that put Ilkhanate as a unplayable civ in persia is a reasonable idea. It would finish seljuks, and would take care of the cities in persia, for safavids (as delhi with mughals),avoid unhistorical expansion from other civ under persia and even could be hardcoded to launch frequent invasions over the levant and make mamluk game harder. Then they could be whiped be timurids and just collapse.

i played with the seljuk empire i noticed that the third uhv condition was very boring, wait for too much time and just create some great artists, so i think that it should be anticipated, because it's unhistorical too...

AGREED! Yes the Seljuk Empire 3rd UHV is VERY boring, in the sense that you need to wait until 1500, which is a really long wait, not to mention ahistorical, as by then the Seljuk's had collapsed. So although I am fine keeping the 3rd UHV essentially the same; I would like to see the date pushed back by 200 years.

Also, I was wondering as well, where this "treasure cove" was found. I'm surprised that people are actually making unit art for Kizil Kule and Genoan Quarter : P
But nonetheless thats great, and I can't wait to play with them :goodjob:

What is that goldmine? Maybe they can be used for other mods.

It's been used before actually, as some buildings like the Orthodox churches come from it: http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/

This requires converting from Collada to Blender, UV mapping, then converting to Nif, the middle part being the only problem.

@comrade & The Turk
Thanks / I already pulled the third Seljuk UHV 200 years back (in SVN) / Genoan Quarter = Galata Tower :)

I'm confused why the Genoan Quarter is a lighthouse looking building? Wouldn't it be more like a house or warehouse even?
Also, for the sake of English grammar, I was reading the Ottoman "Dawn of Man" text, and realized that it sounded a bit awkward. Although I sort of understand what you mean, it should be changed in my opinion, just a bit.

I'm confused why the Genoan Quarter is a lighthouse looking building?

Like I said above, it's the Galata Tower (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galata_Tower).

Crafty :goodjob:
So is this going to be a new wonder, which is only enabled if you have Genoan Merchants in your city? Because it seems to me, that this building was unique to Constantinople : P

Also, I realized that in A LOT of my Ottoman start games, the Byzantines are still too fairly strong; therefore I was thinking that since the Ottomans did not just spontaneously combust into the world in 1300 around Bursa, it would be nice to have some "Osman/Ottoman" barbarian Horse Archers running amok around Lycia and Asia provinces.
Also the AI Byzantines should ALWAYS pick the option to get the 4th Crusade.

Also I can across a VERY VERY VERY strange game, which I thought you might want to take a look at. in 1300 the Samanids AND Fatimids are still there, and flourishing. I don't know why this is, but it may be a bug, as NO Fatimid Empire could resist a Mamluk invasion : P

Crafty :goodjob:
So is this going to be a new wonder, which is only enabled if you have Genoan Merchants in your city? Because it seems to me, that this building was unique to Constantinople : P

I imagine a lot of buildings in civ 4 and many of its mods are based off real life buildings that only exist in a single place. Just because there is only one example of them doesn't mean they need to be a wonder. Just be happy that another building from Istanbul is being included in the game.

Also, I realized that in A LOT of my Ottoman start games, the Byzantines are still too fairly strong; therefore I was thinking that since the Ottomans did not just spontaneously combust into the world in 1300 around Bursa, it would be nice to have some "Osman/Ottoman" barbarian Horse Archers running amok around Lycia and Asia provinces.

I've only played the one game as Ayyubids, but I've noticed that the Ottomans are really struggling to overcome the Byzantines. They're on their second attempt now, but I guess I'll wait and see how it pans out.

Also I can across a VERY VERY VERY strange game, which I thought you might want to take a look at. in 1300 the Samanids AND Fatimids are still there, and flourishing. I don't know why this is, but it may be a bug, as NO Fatimid Empire could resist a Mamluk invasion : P

From what I've read the Mamluks (like the Ayyubids) don't spawn as long as the Fatimids are still alive. Unfortunately the Ayyubids don't get the same privilege it seems...

From what I've read the Mamluks (like the Ayyubids) don't spawn as long as the Fatimids are still alive. Unfortunately the Ayyubids don't get the same privilege it seems...

Thats only for the Ayybudids, the Mamluks will always spawn, even if there is a strong Fatimid Empire. But it still puzzles me how they have been able to hold out....

Despite Lower Egypt being a Byzantine border province, of all the cities there only Alexandria is renamed upon conquest. Domyat may be Tamiat, Al-Qahirah Memphis and Al-Minya Herakleiopolis.

Thats only for the Ayybudids, the Mamluks will always spawn, even if there is a strong Fatimid Empire. But it still puzzles me how they have been able to hold out....

IIRC this is incorrect, the Mamluks will not spawn, if the Fatimids are alive.

I think edead needs to clarify this for once and for all, for I had a game with a (scripted?) collapse of Fatimids (and Mamluks spawning accordingly) in 1237 despite not being unstable.

in my current game it's the year 1300 and i'm the fatamids, still alive! haven't seen any mamluks whatsoever.
But can someone tell me why I can't see the research progress of my vassals or spyed upon enemies?

Herakleiopolis
Spelled wrong just either way you look at it

Also the AI Byzantines should ALWAYS pick the option to get the 4th Crusade.

They do, already explained here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9977358&postcount=1542).

Also I can across a VERY VERY VERY strange game, which I thought you might want to take a look at. in 1300 the Samanids AND Fatimids are still there, and flourishing. I don't know why this is, but it may be a bug, as NO Fatimid Empire could resist a Mamluk invasion : P

Nothing wrong with that save, in fact, it's quite cool to finally see Samanids alive and kicking! Why Fatimids can't survive once in a while, if they are powerful? Besides, the chain of events is correct, as Mamluks gained power under Ayyubids.

I think edead needs to clarify this for once and for all, for I had a game with a (scripted?) collapse of Fatimids (and Mamluks spawning accordingly) in 1237 despite not being unstable.

- neither Ayyubids nor Mamluks will spawn if Fatimids are alive
- AI Fatimids are collapsed before Ayyubid and Mamluk spawns unless they are doing very well, stability-wise.
- after 1250, Mamluks can "revolt" against anyone, using the resurrection mechanics - high stability can counter that

Yes, it's not fair for Ayyubids, however, Mamluk revolt is related to their history and 3rd UHV. I said previously it can be changed if too many people find it frustrating (Mamluks taking Egypt from Ayyubids, that is).

Yes, it's not fair for Ayyubids, however, Mamluk revolt is related to their history and 3rd UHV. I said previously it can be changed if too many people find it frustrating (Mamluks taking Egypt from Ayyubids, that is).

No, it's fine, I was just poking fun at the idea that the Fatimids, who are historically non-existent by 1250, can withstand the Mamluks (i.e. prevent them from spawning), while the Ayyubids cannot.

Is there a way to reduce the number of buildings that are lost in city conquest? While I developed my Egyptian cities, I think it's a little bit silly that the human player should avoid developing certain areas because they are "clairvoyant" enough to predict certain flips occuring well down the track. The "massacre the infidels" option upon city capture could just keep the standard city destruction level to reflect the chaos that occurs.

Despite Lower Egypt being a Byzantine border province, of all the cities there only Alexandria is renamed upon conquest. Domyat may be Tamiat, Al-Qahirah Memphis and Al-Minya Herakleiopolis.

Found that medieval Greek name for Damietta was Damiata. I'm not fond of the other two - they are really different cities.

No, it's fine, I was just poking fun at the idea that the Fatimids, who are historically non-existent by 1250, can withstand the Mamluks (i.e. prevent them from spawning), while the Ayyubids cannot.

Is there a way to reduce the number of buildings that are lost in city conquest? While I developed my Egyptian cities, I think it's a little bit silly that the human player should avoid developing certain areas because they are "clairvoyant" enough to predict certain flips occuring well down the track. The "massacre the infidels" option upon city capture could just keep the standard city destruction level to reflect the chaos that occurs.

I have always that that building damage should be a result of the use of siege for bombarding cultural defence. This way, there would be incentive to attempt take the city without the bombardment.

As well, I find that these games are more enjoyable when I am able to overcome my "clairvoyance" and play the game "in character" so to speak. To me, using my knowledge to exploit the game makes it not worth playing even. Now some of my favorite games have been defeats.

But can someone tell me why I can't see the research progress of my vassals or spyed upon enemies?

You can see research progress in the tool-tip when you hover over the civ's name, same box where there's stability & diplomacy info. I moved it there because with full civ names & stability the screen was really cluttered.

Is it possible to change the picture of World Wonder "Hagia Sophia" in Constantinopolis - remove four minarets that were added by Muslims after the collapse of Byzantium Empire?

Is it possible to change the picture of World Wonder "Hagia Sophia" in Constantinopolis - remove four minarets that were added by Muslims after the collapse of Byzantium Empire?

Unfortunately no, unless you know Blender well.

Unfortunately no, unless you know Blender well.

I hoped that such component was already made by someone, but didn't find one.

However, it's Islam-oriented mod so it's smaller bug than in vanilla CIV4 World Wonders.

You can see research progress in the tool-tip when you hover over the civ's name, same box where there's stability & diplomacy info. I moved it there because with full civ names & stability the screen was really cluttered.

that's neat! i always hate it in normal RFC when half the screen is a dark box because of the republic of the seven united provinces that are researching Replaceable Parts while i'm at war with them

I am just curious, is there any reference about any Ghorid ruller being proclaimed as Sunni saint in real history?

And while we there, we have Catholic, Hindu and Sunni saints UHV, but no Orthodox, while Georgian Tamar the Great is actually venerated as a Saint in Georgian church...

I am just curious, is there any reference about any Ghorid ruller being proclaimed as Sunni saint in real history?

No, but Muhammad of Ghor is credited for bringing Islam to India.

And while we there, we have Catholic, Hindu and Sunni saints UHV, but no Orthodox, while Georgian Tamar the Great is actually venerated as a Saint in Georgian church...

Well, do you consider any one of the current UHVs bad enough to replace it? The one that asks you to build 5 monasteries, churches and castles would be essentially the same, difficulty-wise.

Argh!
this event just screwed up my game
http://img594.imageshack.us/img594/9231/civ4screenshot0012b.jpg (http://img594.imageshack.us/i/civ4screenshot0012b.jpg/)

http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/8813/civ4screenshot0013c.jpg (http://img146.imageshack.us/i/civ4screenshot0013c.jpg/)

had to reduce my tech from 70 % to 30 % !

It's both historical (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musa_I_of_Mali#Islam_and_pilgrimage_to_Mecca) and balancing, as Egypt is just too rich. With your points advantage, you can still do well, however...

Argh!
this event just screwed up my game


Or you could say it made your game, as it presented you with a new and unexpected challenge, which, imo, is priceless while playing a game that is five years old :lol:

Remember, the glass is always full, 50% air, 50% water

As well, I find that these games are more enjoyable when I am able to overcome my "clairvoyance" and play the game "in character" so to speak. To me, using my knowledge to exploit the game makes it not worth playing even. Now some of my favorite games have been defeats.

Same, I could not agree more; you just need to picture yourself as a ruler in that century in that place, for better gameplay overall.

Also Al- Qariah would not be Memphis, as Al-Qariah was built ontop of another city (and just renamed) called Fustat, but it was more of a small village town, and it was a precursor to the megalopolis it would become.

Also I'm currently visiting Istanbul again for the first time in a quite a while tbh; and I actually visited the Galata tower for the first time; its quite amazing, so I guess its fine to put into the mod : P



Is there a way to reduce the number of buildings that are lost in city conquest? While I developed my Egyptian cities, I think it's a little bit silly that the human player should avoid developing certain areas because they are "clairvoyant" enough to predict certain flips occuring well down the track. The "massacre the infidels" option upon city capture could just keep the standard city destruction level to reflect the chaos that occurs.

Ya, that would be a really cool feature, for example a bombardment could destroy 1 or 2 buildings max; or they could just "damage them", which would just mean that the building is destroyed but you can rebuild it for much less hammers, then what it usually costs


Also in the the money advisor, what determines how much tax revenue you make? Because if you could play around with that, that would be fairly interesting; for example if the tax is too high, you could have rebellions, while very low tax, gives you extra happiness (but less money)

Is there some sort of code that prevents the Byzantines from capitulating? I was planning on making both them and the Ottomans my vassals so they could hold my Anatolian cities to help me reach a conquest victory (at some point), but the Ottomans have collapsed and the Byzantines just wont give up.

Oh yeah, and speaking of vassals; who needs friends when you've got powerful minions? ;)

Is there some sort of code that prevents the Byzantines from capitulating? I was planning on making both them and the Ottomans my vassals so they could hold my Anatolian cities to help me reach a conquest victory (at some point), but the Ottomans have collapsed and the Byzantines just wont give up.

Like in BTS, some leaders/civs are more likely to capitulate, while others are very unlikely. Only Portugal is set to never capitulate, as that wouldn't make any sense.

Also in the the money advisor, what determines how much tax revenue you make? Because if you could play around with that, that would be fairly interesting; for example if the tax is too high, you could have rebellions, while very low tax, gives you extra happiness (but less money)

Investment slider. That's essentially tax in CIV4, and it already works like that, i.e. lower gold rate, increase culture rate = extra happiness.

Like in BTS, some leaders/civs are more likely to capitulate, while others are very unlikely. Only Portugal is set to never capitulate, as that wouldn't make any sense.

Okay, I'll keep going. I've thumped them down from most of Anatolia to just Thrace, hopefully once I've taken Adrianopole or whatever it is they'll capitulate, Constantinople has nothing left to kill off.

The plague was broken in my SoR game. It spread to Constantinople, but nowhere else and it lasted until the next plague hit. As you can see I don't have the plague sign in front my score.

http://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz188/Jusos2108/Civ4ScreenShot0007-14.jpg

I also had a funny Byzantine respawn in independent Dardanellia.

http://i826.photobucket.com/albums/zz188/Jusos2108/Civ4ScreenShot0001-16.jpg

Patch 0.3.2 RC1

Download here (http://sourceforge.net/projects/sword-of-islam/files/Sword%20of%20Islam%200.3.2%20Patch.exe/download)
or here (http://sourceforge.net/projects/sword-of-islam/files/sword-of-islam-0.3.2-patch.7z/download) for manual patch (7-zip)


General changes
- Changed the AI Wars system so that the AI prepares for the war first; also applies to 2/3 UHV triggered wars
- Added a possible respawn of Khwarezm (as Khanate of Bukhara)
- Added new events: 'Grateful Aristocrats', 'Religious Law', 'Caste System', 'Tax Reform', 'Hajj', 'Army Reformer', 'Religious Supporters'
- Re-added the event: 'The Reconquest of the Holy Land' (fixed)
- Added some generic Heavy Spearmen and Heavy Infantry to regional mercenary pools
- Enabled some African mercenaries in Iraq
- Split Khorasan into Western and Eastern parts (this also changes core/border provinces and UHVs for Samanids and Ghaznavids)
- Added Eastern Khorasan to Shahanshah requirements
- Changed the Seljuk UHV3 so that it has to be finished by 1300 AD
- Changed rebellious Peasants to occupy the countryside rather than attack cities
- Changed Dhow, Galley and War Galley so that they can no longer enter Ocean
- Changed Ocean-faring to work with both Ocean and Sea; removed it from Roundship and Baghlah
- Added Great Galley between War Galley and Lanternas; adjusted other ships' strength and speed as necessary
- Added one turn of disorder to religious persecutions
- Increased conquest probability for some buildings
- Added Desert Adaptation promotion to Caravans
- Added a missing speedtweak from BTS on Speed
- Added many new Civilopedia entries

Balancing
- Changed AI Ak Koyunlu to no longer flip Barbarian-owned Mesopotamia and Armenia upon spawn
- Increased the time the AI cannot build wonders related to human player's UHVs
- Changed the Caravan and Great Merchant income to use distance to closest city instead of the capital
- Added Bithynia to Rum's border provinces, Hindu Kush to Ghaznavids' border provinces, Greater Armenia to Safavids' border provinces
- Removed one hill from Cairo BFC
- Changed some Great Wonders to be buildable only up to a certain era, as shown in Civilopedia (only affects Wonders that are way past their times)
- Lowered AI Great Wonder construction bonus on Caliph level
- Changed the Mongols to pillage Mesopotamia more and other areas less
- Adjusted some balance factors for Yemen and all late game civs
- Added some barbarian pressure on Gujarat and Mughals (Sher Shah Suri & Hemu)
- Reduced the commerce bonus of Dye from 4 to 2
- Reduced the food bonus of Clam and Crab from 3 to 2
- Increased the cost of Ottoman Great Bombard by 10
- Increased the Unhappiness and Stability penalty for being a Heretic or Apostate
- Added extra Piety loss for attacking the Protector of the Holy Sepulchre or the Commander of the Faithful (if State Religion is the same)

Bugfixes
- Fixed the cottage bug (no growth with Agrarianism)
- Fixed a bug with Crusader UP reducing mercenary maintenance more than it should
- Fixed the 'Brimstone' event not working
- Fixed the AI not using Religious Persecutors
- Fixed an occasional crash triggered by hovering over the Holy War button

Graphics
- New art for the Genoan Quarter, Royal Mausoleum, Kizil Kule, Theodosian Walls, Shah Mosque, Shia religious buildings and Arab-Sunni religious buildings

@Edead

YAY! New Patch!


@Jusos2108

I was just looking at one of your photos; and I noticed you were building an Orthodox Church in Konstantinyye, and then I realized you were Sunni Muslim, so why are you building an Orthodox Church? Can you get a bonus with the local population for doing so? :confused:

Nice a new patch! Trying it now!:D

@The Turk: Yes basicly you can, since you get the +1 happiness. (In this case it might have even been +2, because of the Bagrati Cathedral.)

Great, am already installing it :)

But:
- Added Eastern Khorasan to Shahanshah requirements
Shouldn't it say Western Khorasan here?

OMG!!!!!!! :woohoo: OMG!!!!!!! :woohoo:

NEW GAME!!!!!!!! :woohoo:


Edead you rock!!!


And i get twelve days off through Christmas!!!!!!!



P.S. anyone else think it's ironic that I will be spending Christmas playing Sword of Islam?

Great, am already installing it :)

But:

Shouldn't it say Western Khorasan here?

Yeah, it should. Civilopedia has the same mistake, but the game checks for Western Khorasan.

Do you have any plans on making Buyids playable? The reason is there is a big "playable" gap in the map between Abbasids and Samanids in the early game until Seljuks.

also, byzantine spearman have button for heavy spearman

Do you have any plans on making Buyids playable? The reason is there is a big "playable" gap in the map between Abbasids and Samanids in the early game until Seljuks.

Well, I personally feel that, that would ruin the purpose of them. They are supposed to appear, cause damage to the Abbasids, and then get big stability hits and collapse. They have to be programmed to work. If ANYTHING, the only non-playable civ that COULD be playable, would be Kingdom of Malwa or even the Zengids (well, actually even them I'm a bit queazy about).

But seriously speaking, if Edead wants to make a non-playable civilization playable, I would much prefer him adding an entirely new civilization, "IF ANYTHING".

Anyway, my only question to Edead now, is where he is hoping to go ahead with this mod, with version 3.3?

Malwa is playable. I suppose you mean Bahmanids.

Did you unlock them? Or perhaps mix them up with Chauhans/Ajmer? I just installed the new version :goodjob: and Malwa is still not an option for me to play as.

So far there weren't any constructive replies to my inquiry about Greek names for cities in Lower Egypt except for edead finding out about Damiata. If there is no solid info (at least I don't have any...) about Cairo/Fustat and al-Minya, why don't we just stick with the ancient names of those sites? Or keep the Arab names and remove the province from the Byzantine map - I just feel it should be reasonably clarified.

Anyway, my first game will be as Safavids once again.

Malwa is playable. I suppose you mean Bahmanids.

Malwa is most definitely notplayable, I don't know which version you are talking about; but yes the Bahmanids would also be interesting to play as. Overall though rather than a new civilization being added, I'd be more interested in seeing a new "concept" be added, such as the"Silk Road" idea, or something else

I mixed them up with the Solanki, sorry :crazyeye:

Before I install, does the patch break saves? Definitely want to play it, but also want to finish my current game (which will probably take me a while).

Before I install, does the patch break saves? Definitely want to play it, but also want to finish my current game (which will probably take me a while).

Pretty sure it's not compatible with old saves. I had a crash while trying to load one...

@Jusos

I have seen the plague bug as well, not sure what causes it, but I found some leftover "Plague in Constantinople" code that was applied to Black Death incorrectly. Hopefully that's it.

Anyway, my only question to Edead now, is where he is hoping to go ahead with this mod, with version 3.3?

The plan is to have 1.0 as next patch, with bugfixes only.

Do you have any plans on making Buyids playable? The reason is there is a big "playable" gap in the map between Abbasids and Samanids in the early game until Seljuks.

No plans for playable Buyids. The civs that are not playable are either scripted (Buyids, Zengids, Portugal) or too small/badly located (Malwa, Bahmanids - their main enemies/expansion territory is off the map).

also, byzantine spearman have button for heavy spearman

Fixed, thanks.

So far there weren't any constructive replies to my inquiry about Greek names for cities in Lower Egypt except for edead finding out about Damiata. If there is no solid info (at least I don't have any...) about Cairo/Fustat and al-Minya, why don't we just stick with the ancient names of those sites? Or keep the Arab names and remove the province from the Byzantine map - I just feel it should be reasonably clarified.

I don't understand, why would the fact that they can't rename Cairo should deprive them of Lower Egypt being their border province? There are many such cases for other civs. Here it's simply that Alexandria and Damietta were in Byzantine hands at some point, whereas Fustat/Cairo were new cities, founded after Arab Conquest. Minya doesn't appear to have any special Greek Name.

BTW You were closer with Damietta actually, it appears the Greek name was Tamiathis, at least that's what Melchite Greeks used.

I'm guessing we're not supposed to found cities in these locations, but I put one down on the Black Sea coast of Thrace (in modern Bulgaria I guess) and another south of Mecca (roughly where Khamis Mushayt is) in order to pump up my territory for a potential domination victory. Both came up as "No city name" or whatever it says. I just made up random names for them in the end, but something more authentic would be nice.

I'm guessing we're not supposed to found cities in these locations, but I put one down on the Black Sea coast of Thrace (in modern Bulgaria I guess) and another south of Mecca (roughly where Khamis Mushayt is) in order to pump up my territory for a potential domination victory. Both came up as "No city name" or whatever it says. I just made up random names for them in the end, but something more authentic would be nice.

Well which civ are you playing as? I don't think there is any civ that has its border provinces in the Hejaz and Thrace though, so that dosen't work. But to simply answer your question, your not supposed to build cities outside your core or border provinces, and for example if you are the Ghorid Empire, you will loose a lot of stability from building cities in Thrace. Hope that answers your question : P

@Edead

So your only going to release a bugfix version? :(
No new super duper cool feature, for us to be excited about!? :(

part of the Aral Sea is Khwarezmia (sp?), is this intended?

Well which civ are you playing as? I don't think there is any civ that has its border provinces in the Hejaz and Thrace though, so that dosen't work. But to simply answer your question, your not supposed to build cities outside your core or border provinces, and for example if you are the Ghorid Empire, you will loose a lot of stability from building cities in Thrace. Hope that answers your question : P
As far as I understood SoI's city name manager, there's a global city name map, so the civ he played isn't relevant here.

I don't understand, why would the fact that they can't rename Cairo should deprive them of Lower Egypt being their border province?
Due to principle. If you don't like my principles, that's ok - I have others.:)

There are many such cases for other civs. Here it's simply that Alexandria and Damietta were in Byzantine hands at some point, whereas Fustat/Cairo were new cities, founded after Arab Conquest. Minya doesn't appear to have any special Greek Name.
I didn't realize other civs also don't have proper renames, though I'd really like to see that implemented completely at least for their core and border provinces. On the other hand, we've just had an example of a case in which it's not possible...

Back to game experience. I just had a casual game as Safavids.

Loading time seemed significantly faster to me, which is great, of course.
Long time ago I had suggested to rename Rayy to Tehran for the "post-Mongolian invasion" civs, as Rayy went into decline during the 13th century. In v031 Khwarezm, Timurids and Safavids renamed the city IIRC from my games (I loved to see that), but in my latest v032 Safavid game, the city name was not changed. I do think Khwaresm may still keep Rayy on their city map, but all the other civs that come after 1250 should have Tehran as name for that spot.
The Khanate of Bukhara is a nice addition from a historical perspective, though I still need to get used to them. They did DoW on me, but overall seemed much less aggressive than Timur. Are they also one of those "nomadic" civs that flip huge areas? They spawned, then Timurids collapsed an THE NEXT TURN they were in possession of all the remnants, even got a city on the Khorasan/Tabaristan border (Bojnurd). Eventually I kicked them out of Khorasan entirely, but I just didn't like that flip mechanism here, either. I also wonder what would have happened if I had pressed on and conquered Sogdiana. Would they move their capital to Khiva and rename accordingly? Anyway, if they get out of Sogdiana so quickly, I'd call them "Shaybanid Khanate" or "Khanate of the Uzbeks" in the game from the start.
Why does Oman sort of inherit all the advanced naval/military techs from the Portugese when they respawn (like Chemistry, Matchlock, Compass)? Of course they do make a formidable trading partner like that, but is that really intended?
I'm really interested to know how other, more skillful players experience the AI "better preparing for war". The combined massive armies of Mamluks and Ottomans with their AkK vassals had me on the brink of utter defeat.

I think next I'll do a proper game as Seljuks. I didn't play them in the last version, but I'd like to see how they fare with the Buyids now being around and their earlier ending. 1300 might even be too early to build cultural buildings and spawn artists after the Mongolians. I was going to suggest 1350 (same as Khwarezm) or 1370 (Timurid spawn) as their ending date, but we'll see how things pan out eventually...

The mod is supadupafly, can't say that enough!

I've been playing RFCE a wee bit and also reading their forum and I must add that edead, you're doing helluva great job to reconcile historicity and game balance. Of course, the makers of RFCE are also doing fine, but the discussions in their forum have been veering out of relevance for the making of the mod time and time again. Actually, my ignorance about the Middle East may be a bliss here. I just enjoy playtesting the mod and looking up things that I stumble upon and find interesting.

in my latest v032 Safavid game, the city name was not changed. I do think Khwaresm may still keep Rayy on their city map, but all the other civs that come after 1250 should have Tehran as name for that spot.

It didn't change name when I took the city with Timurids either. It's good to relate a weird Iranian city to the current capitol of the state.

The mod is supadupafly, can't say that enough!

Whatever this means, I agree!

Finished a game with Ghaznavids yesterday. First time for me I managed to lay down the sequel of a game and return to the predecessor...

Time for Ghorids now :)

It didn't change name when I took the city with Timurids either. It's good to relate a weird Iranian city to the current capitol of the state.
According to wikipedia, the Mongols destroyed Rayy and subsequently a small nearby village called Tehran became more and more important, but only much later the Safavids were the first have to have a royal residence there.

Seljuks: I was perplexed to have 3/3 in 1199. That game was definitely too short in the way that it withheld me both the Mongols and conquests outside Shahanshah territory.:sad: Edead, I see that you changed the 3rd UHV from "in" to "by". How about undoing that one?

Just finished the game with Timurids (first SOI UHV I manage to do, and on emir :D ). The game was quite fun, although the 1rst UHV is trivial. For the 3rd UHV you have to conquer and for the second it seems natural to use the UP in razing (once in my case) or massacring the infidels (about 10 times) ; which wasn't the best option since in the end Samarkand was 5th city in culture until I used a great artist.
So if you're going for the UHV it's only natural to raze or massacre lots of cities, a bigger challenge would be :
a) to put a time limit on the UHV 1, although it would still be one of the easiest UHVs of the game
b) to increase the number of cities to 15-20, so you really have to continue playing after the other UHVs are met.

But I know this is only about Emir difficulty, so it's probably not that easy on sultan-caliph. That's also why I'm not complaining about my +35 stability with a huge empire (also because I had courthouses in most cities) or my economy that could stand 50% :science: and 10% :culture:

Thank you, 2phunkey4u, for this precision. I still renamed the city and built the summer palace there :)

For the sake of telling everyone, I triggered the victory in 1502. It was sad to use the golden age for only 1 turn...

The most amazing thing is that edead does all this work alone! And the way he considers feedback is just amazing -- so many good ideas implemented in this latest patch. Finished Ghorids on Caliph and could not help but to notice how well is this civ designed. Really captures the spirit of jihad :goodjob: Will try Safavids on Caliph to see if I can finally win with them (after 7 aborted games).

One word about Barbarian Mongols -- they still prefer to conquer cities and sit in them waiting to be killed, rather than razing them and moving to the next target. This is the reason why on Caliph even Kwarezm survives Chenghis Khan invasion. Mongol Archers are busy sitting in cities instead of chasing Kwarezm Shah. Would be also nice to have a leader for every major coordinated barbarian activity. Like we have Bala crossing Indus in 1219, but no unit for Chenghis Khan himself!

The most amazing thing is that edead does all this work alone! And the way he considers feedback is just amazing -- so many good ideas implemented in this latest patch. Finished Ghorids on Caliph and could not help but to notice how well is this civ designed. Really captures the spirit of jihad :goodjob: Will try Safavids on Caliph to see if I can finally win with them (after 7 aborted games).

One word about Barbarian Mongols -- they still prefer to conquer cities and sit in them waiting to be killed, rather than razing them and moving to the next target. This is the reason why on Caliph even Kwarezm survives Chenghis Khan invasion. Mongol Archers are busy sitting in cities instead of chasing Kwarezm Shah. Would be also nice to have a leader for every major coordinated barbarian activity. Like we have Bala crossing Indus in 1219, but no unit for Chenghis Khan himself!

As Oman I opened WB and saw at least 200 Mongols roaming the country side (I hate how missile cavalry have no weakness)

As Oman I opened WB and saw at least 200 Mongols roaming the country side (I hate how missile cavalry have no weakness)

Could not agree more; but I think thats historically accurate; although I would not mind seeing a counter to them though.


Quick Question to all: How do you guys start off a Ghorid Empire game? Do you start by trying to conquer the Ghaznavids? Because I'm playing on Sultan level, and I'm realizing that whenever I conquer the Ghaznavids, before I even begin to penetrate Hindustan, I'm invaded by massive Ajmer or Solanki armies!! Its soo annoying! :mad:

Leave the Ghaznavids to their dry lands, conquer the fertile India asap.

There's now a thread for strategy discussions.

Well which civ are you playing as? I don't think there is any civ that has its border provinces in the Hejaz and Thrace though, so that dosen't work. But to simply answer your question, your not supposed to build cities outside your core or border provinces, and for example if you are the Ghorid Empire, you will loose a lot of stability from building cities in Thrace. Hope that answers your question : P

Ayyubids, so no, that doesn't answer the question. Only reason I was founding in both locations was to increase my territory for the domination victory as I had said.

Speaking of, my original %land target for the domination was 25%. Now it has changed to 30%. Does the objective fluctuate depending on the number of Civs that are alive? 25% I think I can manage by getting Mamluks, Ak Koyunlu and Safavids as vassals, but I don't think I'll be able to do any better than that without collapsing my empire (already teetering between unstable and collapsing as it is). It's looking increasingly likely that I need to go for a points/time victory.

I have noticed one "problem" though, but I doubt it's anything you can fix edead. When my Light Cavalry get killed, their rifles that get dropped to the ground come up as the fluoro pink colour until the combat round finishes. Just figured I'd mention it in case it wasn't known.

The more I read about 4 millenium old "narrow gate" Derbent the more I feel that it needs to be represented somehow on this glorious map... If rebel city with castle and Marksman ends up being conquered by Georgians and/or Barbarians, at least an empty fort could represent the only 3 km of plains between sea and mountains...

hey listen!
for some reason i don't get the health bonus of opium in my cities although i have three plantations of them
http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/995/civ4screenshot0015x.jpg (http://img716.imageshack.us/i/civ4screenshot0015x.jpg/)

i also had that problem with clam or crabs in a previous game as the fatamids, but that was in the previous version of the mod.
is this a bug or am i doing something wrong?
my peoples are getting restless without their opium!

The health bonus for opium takes effect once medicine is researched. IIRC the Ghorids do not start with that tech. I thought the tooltip also explained if you hover over the resource tile.

On a different note: acquiring a title by vassalizing the holder does not seem to work. Civilopedia tells me it should be possible. Vassalazing KoJ as PoA did not give me the protector title, vassalizing Byz as Seljuks did not give me the emperor title, vassalizing AkK as Ottomans did not give me the Commander title and so forth...

I believe that you have to also meet the conditions for the title in order to get it from your vassal.

So as Fatimids, I took Bagdad from the Abbasids and vassalized them and still didn't get the title.

Personally, I think vassalizing should be enough. To me it's self-evident that when a civ loses sovereignty, it also loses its merits at the will of its master.

Finally won as Safavids on Caliph -- was building research ONLY until year 1574 to complete the first UHV about 4 Wonders. Imam Reza was trivial, superEgypt (Fatimids) had Banking, so I went Civic Architecture -- Fatimids were following me neck to neck. Used Engineer for Shaliman Gardens and went for Taj and Brindge -- Fatimids were following neck to neck again! They got there 2 turns before me and used Engineer for Taj! I got the Bridge though and was teching with 10 cities and no conquest until I got Shah's Mosque.

The rest was pretty straightforward, Shia Islam was beating Sunni Islam around 1590s and I could claim Shahanshah title in early 1600s but I took my time to take over every single border province for Safavids (including Belujistan and Georgia) -- just to post a picture in Turk's thread :lol:. Qizilbashes rule!

P.S. The second picture is for "Look what happened!" thread: apparently rebels collapsed ... to rebels? :crazyeye:

Just tried a game as Mughal Empire, but halfway through me researching Civic Engineering (my first tech) someone built Taj Mahal :(. Disabling the AI's ability to build them is not enough to ensure players get a chance at them.

Attaching a save. 'twas the blasted Mamluks

Long time ago I had suggested to rename Rayy to Tehran for the "post-Mongolian invasion" civs, as Rayy went into decline during the 13th century. In v031 Khwarezm, Timurids and Safavids renamed the city IIRC from my games (I loved to see that), but in my latest v032 Safavid game, the city name was not changed. I do think Khwaresm may still keep Rayy on their city map, but all the other civs that come after 1250 should have Tehran as name for that spot.

The current mechanics are that the city is always renamed to Tehran when conquered or acquired after 1250. If no one conquers it, it will remain as Rayy.

The Khanate of Bukhara is a nice addition from a historical perspective, though I still need to get used to them. They did DoW on me, but overall seemed much less aggressive than Timur. Are they also one of those "nomadic" civs that flip huge areas? They spawned, then Timurids collapsed an THE NEXT TURN they were in possession of all the remnants, even got a city on the Khorasan/Tabaristan border (Bojnurd). Eventually I kicked them out of Khorasan entirely, but I just didn't like that flip mechanism here, either. I also wonder what would have happened if I had pressed on and conquered Sogdiana. Would they move their capital to Khiva and rename accordingly? Anyway, if they get out of Sogdiana so quickly, I'd call them "Shaybanid Khanate" or "Khanate of the Uzbeks" in the game from the start.

They flip their core area (which I think was Khwarezm, Sogd, Farghana) + whatever was captured by Uzbek barbarians. As for Timurids - when a civ collapses, its AI neighbors are given the cities based on culture, as per RFC rules. Normally Timurids just don't collapse instantly - at least it never happen in my games. I've seen them defeat the Uzbeks more often than not. So what happened here wasn't normal, but from historical POV wasn't bad either, as Uzbeks just overthrown the Timurids and took over their Empire. That was the intention - to provide a more historical opponent for Safavids, because previously Timurids were just up and kicking in 16-17th c.

Why does Oman sort of inherit all the advanced naval/military techs from the Portugese when they respawn (like Chemistry, Matchlock, Compass)? Of course they do make a formidable trading partner like that, but is that really intended?

Well, that's how RFC resurrection mechanics work. Of course I could change them, but it's there to ensure the resurrected civs can put up a fight.

I'm really interested to know how other, more skillful players experience the AI "better preparing for war". The combined massive armies of Mamluks and Ottomans with their AkK vassals had me on the brink of utter defeat.

That's good to hear :mischief:

The mod is supadupafly, can't say that enough!

Thank you :)

Seljuks: I was perplexed to have 3/3 in 1199. That game was definitely too short in the way that it withheld me both the Mongols and conquests outside Shahanshah territory.:sad: Edead, I see that you changed the 3rd UHV from "in" to "by". How about undoing that one?

OK I guess. The idea was to make it fluid, but surviving the Mongols should be part of the UHV, as culture itself is trivial.

I think I discovered 3 pesky issues with the last pre v. 1 patch:

1. Armenian UP oddly works for other religions' religious buildings, i. e. Sunni Mosque gets the same bonus as Orthodox Church :crazyeye:

2. In my current Armenian game I had Sunni Zengids as my vassals when Seljuks declared a Jihad against me. My capitulated vassal broke free and declared on me! While practicly possible (religious rebellion) from the game mechanics POV this situation feels very wierd. According to the general BTS rules voluntary vassal can break under one of the 3 well know conditions, while capitulated vassal, AFAIR, cannot get free at all. But now capitulated state become free civ again and I don't think this is an intentional effect for Jihad mechanics...

3. There is a tech to get a free Spy, a Scholar, an Engineer and a General, but none for Merchant, Artist and Saint. While this is almost certainly intentional, it feels a little unfair :) : in regular BTS and RFC there is a tech for every kind of free GP. Banking, Patronage and Religious Unity could be a good techs to create those respective Great People ... for the sake of uniformity... Edit: Well, we could skip Great Saint, I guess :)

And finally, -- not a bug but rather a note -- it is still possible to minimize Seljuk barbarian spawn with a good amount of culture from northern Vaspurakan. I only got 8 Mounted Archers to kill with my nicely promoted UU. For comparisson in my Samanid game I killed 28 Karachanid Mounted Archers with much worse UUs (regular strength cheap archers) -- which (the number 28) is a little bit too much in its own right...

2. In my current Armenian game I had Sunni Zengids as my vassals when Seljuks declared a Jihad against me. My capitulated vassal broke free and declared on me! While practicly possible (religious rebellion) from the game mechanics POV this situation feels very wierd. According to the general BTS rules voluntary vassal can break under one of the 3 well know conditions, while capitulated vassal, AFAIR, cannot get free at all. But now capitulated state become free civ again and I don't think this is an intentional effect for Jihad mechanics...
Wasn't it so that voluntary vassals could break free whenever they wanted, while capitulated vassals needed to fulfill one of the three conditions?

3. There is a tech to get a free Spy, a Scholar, an Engineer and a General, but none for Merchant, Artist and Saint. While this is almost certainly intentional, it feels a little unfair :) : in regular BTS and RFC there is a tech for every kind of free GP. Banking, Patronage and Religious Unity and Banking could be a good techs to create those respective Great People ... for the sake of uniformity...
Those techs seem good, but I have to note that there's no tech for a Great Prophet in BtS either :)

Well, yeah, sorry :) You just get Holy City for yourself by discovering certain techs...

@Edead
Believe it or not, but I'm in Damascus now (sight-seeing) and something which has struck me is that Timur actually burnt down the entire city! How is that not represented!? These are my suggestions:
1. Add barb Timurd invasions of Iraq, Anatolia (Battle of Ankara), Syria and India (where I believe he attacked as well)
2. You HAVE to add the Umayyad Mosque prebuilt in Damascus; IT IS AMAZING, not to mention it's a very important mosque, one of the first, and it would give Damascus greater power/importance, something which I believe it lacks. Not to mention, and most important of all, the Umayyad Mosque is the fourth holiest site in Islam, so not adding it, is like not having the Prophets mosque or Al-Aqsa
3. Some event or something should represent Damascus Steel, which was VERY famous as I'm sure you know, and it would be cool to have some sort of event representing that importance

Anyway that's it! Happy New Year Everyone (and Merry Latemas)

@Edead
Believe it or not, but I'm in Damascus now (sight-seeing) and something which has struck me is that Timur actually burnt down the entire city! How is that not represented!? These are my suggestions:
1. Add barb Timurd invasions of Iraq, Anatolia (Battle of Ankara), Syria and India (where I believe he attacked as well)
2. You HAVE to add the Umayyad Mosque prebuilt in Damascus; IT IS AMAZING, not to mention it's a very important mosque, one of the first, and it would give Damascus greater power/importance, something which I believe it lacks. Not to mention, and most important of all, the Umayyad Mosque is the fourth holiest site in Islam, so not adding it, is like not having the Prophets mosque or Al-Aqsa
3. Some event or something should represent Damascus Steel, which was VERY famous as I'm sure you know, and it would be cool to have some sort of event representing that importance

Anyway that's it! Happy New Year Everyone (and Merry Latemas)

I think Damascus steel would be cool, but if you implement it then you can't forget about wootz steel

@Edead
Believe it or not, but I'm in Damascus now (sight-seeing) and something which has struck me is that Timur actually burnt down the entire city! How is that not represented!? These are my suggestions:
1. Add barb Timurd invasions of Iraq, Anatolia (Battle of Ankara), Syria and India (where I believe he attacked as well)
2. You HAVE to add the Umayyad Mosque prebuilt in Damascus; IT IS AMAZING, not to mention it's a very important mosque, one of the first, and it would give Damascus greater power/importance, something which I believe it lacks. Not to mention, and most important of all, the Umayyad Mosque is the fourth holiest site in Islam, so not adding it, is like not having the Prophets mosque or Al-Aqsa
3. Some event or something should represent Damascus Steel, which was VERY famous as I'm sure you know, and it would be cool to have some sort of event representing that importance

Anyway that's it! Happy New Year Everyone (and Merry Latemas)

I think the first two are solid ideas, but isn't Damascus steel already represented by crucible steel? I actually think its a bit odd that the only iron in Hindustan is in Sindh, Punjab and Chittor, as India had been exporting steel to much of the middle east (and indirectly to Europe) for much of the middle ages.

Is it only me who feels that Al Jazira Workshops is kind of ... tooo significant in this game? I mean, with all due respect to the famous polymath it is still kind of strange to have a Workshop worth 900 hummers and giving a free tech, together with free engineer and invention. It's like combining Apollo Project (cost) with Liberalism, plus some extras compared with the regular RFC. So this particular Wonder is meant to play the same pivotal role Liberalism plays for regular RFC games? But why?

If one to chose what was really revolutionary and pivotal in SoI context then being first to discover Blackpoweder/Gunpoweder can be a very good and logical candidate for free tech reward. As for the Workshop one could keep the other two effects and cut the cost in half, for example...

I agree, it's really a bit too much to save a complete technology that easily worth 15k+ in that era.

Maybe its better to remove the free tech and buff the effects of the "inventions" event, maybe even add a fourth choice that works as a weaker counterpart to the free tech, e.g. a certain (fixed) amount of bulbs for the currently researched tech (let's say as much as a GP can add).

3. There is a tech to get a free Spy, a Scholar, an Engineer and a General, but none for Merchant, Artist and Saint. While this is almost certainly intentional, it feels a little unfair :) : in regular BTS and RFC there is a tech for every kind of free GP. Banking, Patronage and Religious Unity could be a good techs to create those respective Great People ... for the sake of uniformity... Edit: Well, we could skip Great Saint, I guess :)


I'd rather associate music therory with a GA, not bc it's also like that in RFC, but bc there's already so much stuff tied to patronage, and nothing except for one wonder with music theory, plus it's a dead end in the tech tree.
And I'd chose companies over banking to provide a free GM.
Religious unity already gives a free persecutor unit by event to the first civ to discover it IIRC. If there should be one tech to provide a free GS, it should be religious philosophy. Can't remember ATM if that'd spoil the UHV for Gujarat, though.


And yes, Al Jazari is OP, but can you do the Ottoman UHV without it? If I should choose a tech to provide an additional free tech like Liberalism does in RFC, I'd analogously choose syncretism. Unlocking bombards is powerful enough for the gunpowder tech imho. To me, those things have a huge impact on warfare in the game.

Speaking of, my original %land target for the domination was 25%. Now it has changed to 30%. Does the objective fluctuate depending on the number of Civs that are alive? 25% I think I can manage by getting Mamluks, Ak Koyunlu and Safavids as vassals, but I don't think I'll be able to do any better than that without collapsing my empire (already teetering between unstable and collapsing as it is). It's looking increasingly likely that I need to go for a points/time victory.

Yes, this is Rhye's settings - domination victory % depends on the number of alive civs. This is fairly balanced I think as it works both ways (i.e. resurrections should lower the number).

I have noticed one "problem" though, but I doubt it's anything you can fix edead. When my Light Cavalry get killed, their rifles that get dropped to the ground come up as the fluoro pink colour until the combat round finishes. Just figured I'd mention it in case it wasn't known.

That I can fix actually, thanks.

On a different note: acquiring a title by vassalizing the holder does not seem to work. Civilopedia tells me it should be possible. Vassalazing KoJ as PoA did not give me the protector title, vassalizing Byz as Seljuks did not give me the emperor title, vassalizing AkK as Ottomans did not give me the Commander title and so forth...

I'm fairly sure it works - the title remains with the vassal, but the effects are applied to the master, i.e. if you are the master of the caliph, you can call holy wars. I'll try to double check it but last time it worked at least.

Finally won as Safavids on Caliph -- was building research ONLY until year 1574 to complete the first UHV about 4 Wonders. Imam Reza was trivial, superEgypt (Fatimids) had Banking, so I went Civic Architecture -- Fatimids were following me neck to neck. Used Engineer for Shaliman Gardens and went for Taj and Brindge -- Fatimids were following neck to neck again! They got there 2 turns before me and used Engineer for Taj! I got the Bridge though and was teching with 10 cities and no conquest until I got Shah's Mosque.

The rest was pretty straightforward, Shia Islam was beating Sunni Islam around 1590s and I could claim Shahanshah title in early 1600s but I took my time to take over every single border province for Safavids (including Belujistan and Georgia) -- just to post a picture in Turk's thread :lol:. Qizilbashes rule!

P.S. The second picture is for "Look what happened!" thread: apparently rebels collapsed ... to rebels? :crazyeye:

Congrats, that sounds just about right then :) As for the Rebels collapsing to Rebels, that's the minor civs sorting code (periodically cities are shifted around between minor civs so that none of them has too many cities).

Hey embryodead!
Where did you adjust the population of the cities? Is it xml or python change only?
Right now it's the square of the pop point * 1000 if I got it right...

Hey embryodead!
Where did you adjust the population of the cities? Is it xml or python change only?
Right now it's the square of the pop point * 1000 if I got it right...

In CvCity.cpp (DLL) - it's pop ^ 2 * 1000 actually.

long CvCity::getRealPopulation() const
{
// edead: start real population change
//return (((long)(pow((float)getPopulation(), 2.8f))) * 1000);
return (((long)(pow((float)getPopulation(), 2.0f))) * 1000);
// edead: end
}

it's pop ^ 2 * 1000 actually.


Yeah, I also said that :)
Thanks for the help and the real quick response! :king:

I don't remember any Domination victories posted in later versions, so here we go :king: :

http://img573.imageshack.us/img573/6067/civ4screenshot0140.jpg
Safavids, Karamanids and Ak Koyunlu are my vassals (contribute 6% to the final 32% of land). Population requirements was rather trivial, but it took me many hours to chase the land requirement -- every time a civ collapses the winning percentage jumps by 2%!

Compared to regular RFC it's both easier and harder to win by Domination in SoI. Easier because of Roman Emperor title (note my stability :crazyeye: ). Harder because of all those vast deserts and mountains. One oasis in the center of Arabia could greatly improve things!

Here are 2 highligts:

a) Armenian Vishaps prepared for the battle of Manizkert :) :

http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/6613/civ4screenshot0138.jpg


b) It is nice to have an obidient vassal (Ak Koyunlu) when one needs to take over Safavid's capital:

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/8686/civ4screenshot0139.jpg

Amazing!

But I'm wondering ... didn't you still face secessions? Or did I misunderstand the effect of Roman Emperor in this regard?

Hello everyody !
I have been lurking around for the last few months, and since most of my pc-time is dedicated to SoI, I had to join the feedbac, hadn't I ?
Congrats Embroyded, this mod is quite addictive I must say. Thanks to all the regular feeders of the thread aswell; Being a bit of a classical Islam bookworm freak, I hope my contributions will be worthy. Happy new year to all, Salaam et choukran !

Welcome to CFC!
Hope you will join the regular feeders with many suggestions and feedback, this amazing mod truly deserves it :)

Amazing!

But I'm wondering ... didn't you still face secessions? Or did I misunderstand the effect of Roman Emperor in this regard?

Amazingly, I did not have a single city to declare independence (only one revolt in 50 turns), whereas Byzantium itself, while being Roman Emperor, was regularly loosing cities to rebels. I was baffled myself, and suspected a bug, but those 32% was so hard to get, that I prefered just to get doen with it instead of investigating about it ;) ...

I could always claim to be lucky, you know...:lol:

I've been spending my holiday playing your mod, and have been enjoying it a lot. Great job.
I won campaigns with Ghaznavids, Abbasids, Ayyubids, Georgia, Oman, and Rum and attempted campaigns with Jerusalem, Antioch, Ajmer, Gujarat, Sindh, Ghorids and Mughals.

I'll put experiences/suggestions about the campaigns I played in a spoiler. I hope some suggestions find their way into version 1.0 :)

Ghaznavids
Enjoyable Early Campaign - took me two attempts to get provinces and money by 1180. The third UHV is a bit boring though - just put all your cities on wealth and wait. That's clearly not the intented way, the UA being double gold from plunder, but it's working... Maybe a pillage oriented UHV would fit better? Gain 5000 gold by pillaging. I don't know if that is possible to check.

Abbasids
Again, the start with two UHVs triggering the same date is very hard, but also enjoyable. The third UHV is rather strange, since you have rather little influence about the spread of Sunni Islam in the world. You can sent Sufi-Missionaries around the world and work on your population. But the real "battles" here arefought in India and Egypt, and you cannot influence them much. Is it possible to allow Persecutors to act in other players cities if the state religion is the same and you have open borders? That would help this UHV a lot (and also comes at later, with Ajmer)

Ayyubids
The Ayyubid campaign is really great. You have to rush your army to antioch, at the same time build an army for Yemen, and once you got it all safe, you get a rebellion back home to fight. Here also we the first two UHVs checking the same date. Here one of them (have relations with Genoans and Venetians) comes automatically if you leave the cities in Levant unharmed.
You spent the next hundres years fighting the Mamluks and the (more or less) peacefully builiding your Empire until you reach 1500. Your main opponent then being the Ottomans. The end of the campaign is a bit sad, as it is just clicking turns off. I don't have any better suggestion here though.

Something I don't like here though is Nubia. In most games, the Kingdom of Makuria collapses at some point, often shorty after Mamluk spawn. After that, Africa is just space to be occupied by the Egyptian ruler withour significant resistance. Maybe another faction could be added here, or Makuria could respawn, maybe with another name?

Georgia
As usual, the campaign start is lovely, taking several tries to get right, but being very well doable. You have to get 5 cities quickly, wage war against Armenia, and grab Trebizond and Baku from the rebels to complete both UHVs.
The third UHV is rather boring compared to that. Maybe adding Cilicia to the regions would be a good Idea? One need not capture it, just make sure the Kingdom of Cilicia survives.


Oman
Generally, I am more of a builder type. I like peacefully building an empire. Hence I liked Omans campaign, even if it is a bit tedios in the end (50.000 gold is just a lot). The Portuguese Invasion is another Issue. It is easy to handle, if you build tons of Great Galleys and sink the ships before they unload. If they unload, you have huge problems. Would it be possible to have them spawn both land and sea units? That would fix the invasion being so exploitable. At the same time you could, say, halve the unit spawn so it is still manageable.

A serious problem I had during my first attempt though were the Mamluks. Not because they fought me or something, but because they spawned and immediatly (yes, immediatly) started building my Wonders (the Embassy in particular, it is rather vital to Oman, as it helps you with the trade routes). I think the Mamluks are a general problem of the later game (see also my post about Mughal campaign earlier in this thread). They're getting out of hand with Egypt and no competition and constant respawning.
Some suggestions to weaken them:


Reduce their techs. At spawn and respawns.
Add competition. The Ottomans are busy enough untill very late in game, so the Mamluks are literally without competition in Egypt from defeating the Ayyubids until the Portuguese or Ottomans get to them (do Portuguese spawn in the Mediterannean? I don't know :() Maybe one could add more Mongols in Egypt, or even better (they would propably just cause collapse and respawn) an opponent in Africa or the Ilkhanate, to offer long time pressure on Egypt.


Rum
Very nice campaign. Some building, some fighting, some offense, some defense.
My only problem with this one is the UU being so useless ;)

Ajmer
My only problem with the Ajmer campaign is UHV3. It is currently only doable by owning all of India, and it would be more honest towards the player to phrase it like that. To salvage the condition, you had to ensure the AI persecutes properly (it doesn't), or allow to persecute in same religion/open borders cities.
One could also change it to be like Georgia's UHV: Ensure there are no Islamic Civilsations in Hindustan. This would mean wiping out Sindh, Delhi, Bahmanis and whoever else thinks of invading :)

Gujarat
UHV1 (becomming a saint) is just ultra-tough in the short time given. A relaxation of 20-40 years would help a lot.


Antioch
UHVs 1 and 3 are hard and nice (You don't have many coastal towns, so UHV 3 is really tough). I managed UHV 2 only by converting to Islam...... I don't think the player should be given that option, yet I don't know if it is possible to prohibit it?

Something I don't like here though is Nubia. In most games, the Kingdom of Makuria collapses at some point, often shorty after Mamluk spawn. After that, Africa is just space to be occupied by the Egyptian ruler withour significant resistance. Maybe another faction could be added here, or Makuria could respawn, maybe with another name?


Could not agree more. In fact a couple pages ago, Edead suggested adding a new civilization (non-playable), to spawn later in Nubia, to fill up the old Makurian city-states (that ALWAYS collapse), but it was turned down by people who thought the game would move too slowly, which I heartedly disagree with. This new civ (I forgot the name), would challenge the Mameluks and stop there spread to the bottom of Africa (Aksum), so I would STRONGLY suggest there being a non-playable Makurian respawn or a new-civilization altogether that is also non-playble. This would also make the Yemen UHV a bit harder, but I think thats worth it overall.

I just took a look at the mod and I have couple of observations.

1. Too much desert. I know it is the Middle East and not rain forest Brasil, but still. All of Arabia is practically useless and all civilization is concentrated near couple of large rivers. For the sake of game-play, you could have put some more water or invented another improvement or given more food resources or something.

2. In the same way, the Byzantines have all of that lush land and nothing to keep them occupied (Bulgarian raids would hardly be enough here).

3. I don't see the point of having both Catholic and Orthodox religions present. Make a generic Christianity and represent the Catholic Crusaders as powerful barbarian raiders. They will attack both Muslim and Christians alike (which would be historically accurate).

This is just a surface look so I am probably just trolling.

Regards

1. Armenian UP oddly works for other religions' religious buildings, i. e. Sunni Mosque gets the same bonus as Orthodox Church :crazyeye:

Thanks, fixed.

2. In my current Armenian game I had Sunni Zengids as my vassals when Seljuks declared a Jihad against me. My capitulated vassal broke free and declared on me! While practicly possible (religious rebellion) from the game mechanics POV this situation feels very wierd. According to the general BTS rules voluntary vassal can break under one of the 3 well know conditions, while capitulated vassal, AFAIR, cannot get free at all. But now capitulated state become free civ again and I don't think this is an intentional effect for Jihad mechanics...

I think Leoreth is right about capitulated vassals, they certainly can get out, so this is just another condition, and a pretty cool one IMO.

3. There is a tech to get a free Spy, a Scholar, an Engineer and a General, but none for Merchant, Artist and Saint. While this is almost certainly intentional, it feels a little unfair :) : in regular BTS and RFC there is a tech for every kind of free GP. Banking, Patronage and Religious Unity could be a good techs to create those respective Great People ... for the sake of uniformity... Edit: Well, we could skip Great Saint, I guess :)

After reading all the replies I added Great Merchant to Companies (less attractive than Banking I think) and Great Artists to Syncretism (with Music there would be two GPs in a row, and with Syncretism it can be part of Mughal strategy).

Is it only me who feels that Al Jazira Workshops is kind of ... tooo significant in this game? I mean, with all due respect to the famous polymath it is still kind of strange to have a Workshop worth 900 hummers and giving a free tech, together with free engineer and invention. It's like combining Apollo Project (cost) with Liberalism, plus some extras compared with the regular RFC. So this particular Wonder is meant to play the same pivotal role Liberalism plays for regular RFC games? But why?

I agree as well. So far I halved its cost, removed the 1 Free Tech and changed the inventions. Notably there are two new ones that add 25% beakers towards either Blast Furnace or Astronomy. Blast Furnace is an intermediate tech needed for Ottoman UHV, although it's nowhere near 1 free tech of course. Ottoman UHV is doable without the workshop, but it kind of forces you to use the other way to accomplish it (espionage).

@Edead
Believe it or not, but I'm in Damascus now (sight-seeing) and something which has struck me is that Timur actually burnt down the entire city! How is that not represented!? These are my suggestions:
1. Add barb Timurd invasions of Iraq, Anatolia (Battle of Ankara), Syria and India (where I believe he attacked as well)

This was already discussed and the problem is that you end up being in contact with Timur, at peace, with Timurid troops attacking you. Or as Timur you send troops to the West and get whacked by Timurid barbs. With Seljuks it works fine because they first invade, then found their empire, and the remaining barbs flip to them. With Timurids, they spawn in 1370, but should invade Syria and Anatolia around 1400.

I'm not happy with Timur never reaching Anatolia but I haven't found a good solution. One could be adding a number of "Turko-Mongol" or "Turkoman" spawns, without clearly associating them with Timur, eh. After all the area was full of Turkoman tribes who sided with Timur and asked him for help against the Ottomans. Such barbs spawns could be considered either these Turks, or Timurids, depending on the POV ;)

2. You HAVE to add the Umayyad Mosque prebuilt in Damascus; IT IS AMAZING, not to mention it's a very important mosque, one of the first, and it would give Damascus greater power/importance, something which I believe it lacks. Not to mention, and most important of all, the Umayyad Mosque is the fourth holiest site in Islam, so not adding it, is like not having the Prophets mosque or Al-Aqsa

There's no Umayyad Mosque model, and I don't see a point in adding an odd placeholder when the Wonder isn't needed in game.

3. Some event or something should represent Damascus Steel, which was VERY famous as I'm sure you know, and it would be cool to have some sort of event representing that importance

There's a generic event with quality steel IIRC, just without the mention of Damascus. I originally wanted wootz steel generated in India and later by a something related to Damascus steel but I did't quite see it. In the end wootz has been represented by the Chauhan UB.

Could not agree more. In fact a couple pages ago, Edead suggested adding a new civilization (non-playable), to spawn later in Nubia, to fill up the old Makurian city-states (that ALWAYS collapse), but it was turned down by people who thought the game would move too slowly, which I heartedly disagree with. This new civ (I forgot the name), would challenge the Mameluks and stop there spread to the bottom of Africa (Aksum), so I would STRONGLY suggest there being a non-playable Makurian respawn or a new-civilization altogether that is also non-playble. This would also make the Yemen UHV a bit harder, but I think thats worth it overall.

That respawn, Sennar, isn't in Makuria, but south of it. It would include only 2 cities (Soba/Sennar and old Meroe). Makuria itself was conquered by Mamluks, then Ottomans, with no independent states North of Sennar, so the whole situation is just, like, correct.

I did something else today to deal with it. Nubia was already losing most of resources after 14th c., but the cities still used to provide a lot of commerce from Towns developed over centuries, which wasn't realistic. If you get the newest SVN version, there's a new script that degrades Nubian towns, villages, hamlets and randomly also farms, when Makuria collapses. This should make the area really bad, or at least, you'll need 100-200 years to get it back to a profitable state.

1. Too much desert. I know it is the Middle East and not rain forest Brasil, but still. All of Arabia is practically useless and all civilization is concentrated near couple of large rivers. For the sake of game-play, you could have put some more water or invented another improvement or given more food resources or something.

2. In the same way, the Byzantines have all of that lush land and nothing to keep them occupied (Bulgarian raids would hardly be enough here).

3. I don't see the point of having both Catholic and Orthodox religions present. Make a generic Christianity and represent the Catholic Crusaders as powerful barbarian raiders. They will attack both Muslim and Christians alike (which would be historically accurate).

This is just a surface look so I am probably just trolling.

Probably ;) There is a point in Catholicism - notice that there are actually playable Catholic civs - crusader states. They are surrounded by Muslim enemies, and Orthodox civs that aren't particularly cooperative. They also have to deal with all the different religions in their cities - which causes unrest, revolts etc. Wars between crusaders and Byzantium or Armenia are frequent and related to their UHVs.

Despite being so green, Anatolia isn't as good as Egypt, Mesopotamia or India, and many of those arid cities in Iran are more productive despite supporting smaller pop. Byzantines face only minor barbs for the first 300 years, but it changes from 11th c. onwards when Turks, Crusaders and Mongols arrive.

Arabia is intended to be a desert because there's no civs that should be there, other than hostile bedouins (barbarians).

Thanks and nice to see you here :)

First off I would like to report a bug. When playing as the Byzantines on Epic speed, the Karimi corporation spread to Attelia which JUST had Orthodox Christianity, but according to the manual you need a sunni/shi'ite population.

Also why can I get Iranian Javilenman in Byzantium??

While looking at this story (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=10076491#post10076491) from Jusos, I got a great idea for you mod! If you have the time now or in the future, why not script something so that units are named based on where they are built and what type/number Regiment/battilion they are in. That would be pretty cool, if you could have something like, "1st Cappadocian Swordsman Regiment" or something like that! And perhaps therefore leave out Mercenaries, who will get there standard name (like now)

Further Responses:

This was already discussed and the problem is that you end up being in contact with Timur, at peace, with Timurid troops attacking you. Or as Timur you send troops to the West and get whacked by Timurid barbs. With Seljuks it works fine because they first invade, then found their empire, and the remaining barbs flip to them. With Timurids, they spawn in 1370, but should invade Syria and Anatolia around 1400.

That sucks! :( But I guess thats the sad reality to it. Well I guess I would have to suggest having the Timurd barbs spawn ONLY when the Timurds are being played by AI. Because I have NEVER, NEVER, NEVER seen the AI Timurds get to Anatolia or Syria/Levant; nor for that matter of fact have I or any other player (I know of) gotten that far with the Timurds. But I understand your point though, so perhaps just activating them with a AI Timurd would be a good idea; and only if you are at war with them.


I'm not happy with Timur never reaching Anatolia but I haven't found a good solution. One could be adding a number of "Turko-Mongol" or "Turkoman" spawns, without clearly associating them with Timur, eh. After all the area was full of Turkoman tribes who sided with Timur and asked him for help against the Ottomans. Such barbs spawns could be considered either these Turks, or Timurids, depending on the POV ;)

mmm.... I don't know if I like that idea. Although I guess they should be included as well, I don't think you can leave out explicit Timurd soldiers.

There's no Umayyad Mosque model, and I don't see a point in adding an odd placeholder when the Wonder isn't needed in game.

:blush: Seriously! :(
The Ummayad Mosque is SUCH an important site! But I understand if you can't find a model. Can't you find something that "looks" like it? Also I would HIGHLY attest to your statement that its "not needed in game"; I would say that Damascus really does need a boost in importance, because currently its not too powerful and tends to be captured easily by the PoA or KoJ.


There's a generic event with quality steel IIRC, just without the mention of Damascus. I originally wanted wootz steel generated in India and later by a something related to Damascus steel but I did't quite see it. In the end wootz has been represented by the Chauhan UB.

Can you make it mention Damascus steel? Or even better can you create a new event? I think something which makes this mod great is the great amount of events that occur, and making more is always a bonus! Also what did you mean, you "wanted wootz steel generated in India"

That respawn, Sennar, isn't in Makuria, but south of it. It would include only 2 cities (Soba/Sennar and old Meroe). Makuria itself was conquered by Mamluks, then Ottomans, with no independent states North of Sennar, so the whole situation is just, like, correct.

I meant a new non-playable civ, and to tell you the truth, I don't recall Makuria ever respawning in "Sennar", or respawning quite at all in the deep south... Perhaps you could ramp that up a bit.

I did something else today to deal with it. Nubia was already losing most of resources after 14th c., but the cities still used to provide a lot of commerce from Towns developed over centuries, which wasn't realistic. If you get the newest SVN version, there's a new script that degrades Nubian towns, villages, hamlets and randomly also farms, when Makuria collapses. This should make the area really bad, or at least, you'll need 100-200 years to get it back to a profitable state.

Yay! Great idea! :)

I think Damascus has a high importance in the game, being the only city in the whole Levant and Egypt with access to iron. Controlling Damascus usually means military superiority in its region.

I agree on the Timurids, though. They are the only faction that need some serious help to unfold their historical significance. Have you considered to give the AI some semi-scripted declarations of war followed by free troops? I know scripting these things is often a double-edged sword with all its determinism and unexpectedness for the player, but on the other hand, this is Timur - I'd be happier to see him suddenly attacking me with a large army than having him sit around in Samarkand doing only the occasional conquest.

I agree on the Timurids, though. They are the only faction that need some serious help to unfold their historical significance. Have you considered to give the AI some semi-scripted declarations of war followed by free troops? I know scripting these things is often a double-edged sword with all its determinism and unexpectedness for the player, but on the other hand, this is Timur - I'd be happier to see him suddenly attacking me with a large army than having him sit around in Samarkand doing only the occasional conquest.

Could not agree more. Also why does Byzantine Konya become Ikonion? Shouldn't it be Iconium?
Also I found another bug; I got the Massacre of the Latins event in Trapazunta and in 1158 (opposed to the correct date of 1182); also the 4th Crusade landed in 1217, opposed to 1204, I think this may be caused to the fact that I was playing on "Epic" speed

While we're at city names currently, what language is "Antioch" supposed to be? The city is called Antioche in French and Antiochia in Latin, which is one of the languages the crusaders should use.

That sucks! :( But I guess thats the sad reality to it. Well I guess I would have to suggest having the Timurd barbs spawn ONLY when the Timurds are being played by AI. Because I have NEVER, NEVER, NEVER seen the AI Timurds get to Anatolia or Syria/Levant; nor for that matter of fact have I or any other player (I know of) gotten that far with the Timurds. But I understand your point though, so perhaps just activating them with a AI Timurd would be a good idea; and only if you are at war with them.

I agree on the Timurids, though. They are the only faction that need some serious help to unfold their historical significance. Have you considered to give the AI some semi-scripted declarations of war followed by free troops? I know scripting these things is often a double-edged sword with all its determinism and unexpectedness for the player, but on the other hand, this is Timur - I'd be happier to see him suddenly attacking me with a large army than having him sit around in Samarkand doing only the occasional conquest.

The thing is, that's actually quite correct. I mean, the leaderhead is Timur, but after the first 30 years, Timurid Empire is not Timur but his sons and grandsons, busy fighting with each other. Timurids spawn in 1370 and over the next 28 years conquer Transoxiana, Iran, Azerbaijan, destroy the Golden Horde etc. Flipping and occasional conquests take care of that more or less.

Then I'd have script what follows:
1398 - Timur conquers Delhi Sultanate (all of Northern India and more)
1399 - Timur conquers Eastern Anatolia and Syria
1400 - Timur conquers Georgia and Armenia
1401 - Timur conquers Mesopotamia
1402 - Timur conquers Western Anatolia
1405 - Timur dies and all those areas flip back or go independent; Timurid Empire is reduced to Iran & Transoxiana and continues for 100 years of internal struggles.

We are talking about conquering the whole map in a matter of 2-3 turns, then losing everything 2 turns later. It's just not going to happen - even if you script wars and units. Stretching Timurid rule from 5 to 50-100 years by forcing Timurids to Anatolia etc. wouldn't be any more "historical" than one off barb attack - from the above timeline you see that during its 136 years of existence, Timurid Empire was Transoxiana/Khwarezm + Iran. Everything else was just grounds for pillaging and raping, since Timur couldn't hold any of it for more than 5 years.

Could not agree more. Also why does Byzantine Konya become Ikonion? Shouldn't it be Iconium?

No, Iconium is Latin. Crusaders use that name.

For the above @Leoreth, yeah, both are good, I guess I'll go with the Latin Antiochia.

Also I found another bug; I got the Massacre of the Latins event in Trapazunta and in 1158 (opposed to the correct date of 1182); also the 4th Crusade landed in 1217, opposed to 1204, I think this may be caused to the fact that I was playing on "Epic" speed

No, those aren't bugs, there are just no pre-set dates.

First off I would like to report a bug. When playing as the Byzantines on Epic speed, the Karimi corporation spread to Attelia which JUST had Orthodox Christianity, but according to the manual you need a sunni/shi'ite population.

Fixed, thanks.

Also what did you mean, you "wanted wootz steel generated in India"

A steel, wootz steel or watered-steel resource generated by a wonder in India i.e. Pillar of Delhi and Damascus or a generic equivalent. So this steel would be obtained by trading with India or from Damascus. But I don't see the point, purpose, KISS and all.

I meant a new non-playable civ, and to tell you the truth, I don't recall Makuria ever respawning in "Sennar", or respawning quite at all in the deep south... Perhaps you could ramp that up a bit.

It's not in game... and why would I add it as a seperate civ, when it has little point even as a respawn (2 crappy cities on the edge of the map, won't affect Mamluks at all, and shouldn't really).

While looking at this story from Jusos, I got a great idea for you mod! If you have the time now or in the future, why not script something so that units are named based on where they are built and what type/number Regiment/battilion they are in. That would be pretty cool, if you could have something like, "1st Cappadocian Swordsman Regiment" or something like that! And perhaps therefore leave out Mercenaries, who will get there standard name (like now)

Possibly an optional feature one day... frankly it's one of my most hated default features of BUG, although with province names it sounds better.

BTW here is a list of scoreboard leaders to replace the Augustus Ceasar-to-Dan Quayle list. Where possible, I tried to use some unrepresented leaders instead of those used as LHs. Let me know if something seems very odd ;)

Suleiman the Magnificent
Tamerlane
Nader Shah Afshar
Hulagu Khan
Mehmed II
Shah Ismail
Manuel I Komnenos
Babur
Sher Shah Suri
Hemu Vikramaditya
Saladin
Mahmud of Ghazni
Al-Mutawakkil
Qutb-ud-din Aybak
David the Builder
Imad ad-Din Zengi
Malik Shah
Levon the Magnificent
Constantine XI
Guy of Lusignan

Good choices. Guy de Lusignan as worst is really :lol:

I don't remember any Domination victories posted in later versions, so here we go :king: :

http://img573.imageshack.us/img573/6067/civ4screenshot0140.jpg
Safavids, Karamanids and Ak Koyunlu are my vassals (contribute 6% to the final 32% of land). Population requirements was rather trivial, but it took me many hours to chase the land requirement -- every time a civ collapses the winning percentage jumps by 2%!

Compared to regular RFC it's both easier and harder to win by Domination in SoI. Easier because of Roman Emperor title (note my stability :crazyeye: ). Harder because of all those vast deserts and mountains. One oasis in the center of Arabia could greatly improve things!

Did I tell you that you are insane? :lol: Some comments on this:
- the name of your civ should have changed to "Armenian Empire" - it didn't due to a bug, now fixed
- I think it'd be sensible to lower the domination requirements by about 5%; vast deserts are fine as they just take the role of oceans in normal maps, but it skews the land ratio
- Roman Emperor is OP but I'm not sure if anything should be done about that, I guess the possibility of building insane Empires like that is nice.
- Can't seem to find any bugs related to secessions; Roman Emperor doesn't do anything about that; secessions happen to any unstable civ randomly.

If you want to consider that an exploit of the Roman Emperor title, I suggest to stop applying its effect after a certain amount of provinces that aren't in the Near East. Or increase the probability of secessions, so that while you can't collapse, your empire still keeps fracturing beneath your fingers.

I don't know if it should be considered an exploit, though. We've seen that domination victories are still difficult enough to complete, and so even civs with disadvantageous stability maps are able to do it.

Did I tell you that you are insane? :lol:

I am happy I did not go for Conquest victory, even though at some point it felt easier than keeping all the collapsing civ alive (so that % would not increase). I am happy because after that game I loaded default Byzantines, opened WB and positioned troops against Makuria, Ajmer and Abbasids, to kill them all on the first turn. Sure enough the Conquest victory did not work, even though F8 screen shows 0 for the number of rivals left alive. I opened WB again, erased all the rebel cities but one, conquired that last city and again no victory occured. Now imagine if I would go for conquest until year 1700 only to dicover it does not work! :suicide:

I am happy I did not go for Conquest victory, even though at some point it felt easier than keeping all the collapsing civ alive (so that % would not increase). I am happy because after that game I loaded default Byzantines, opened WB and positioned troops against Makuria, Ajmer and Abbasids, to kill them all on the first turn. Sure enough the Conquest victory did not work, even though F8 screen shows 0 for the number of rivals left alive. I opened WB again, erased all the rebel cities but one, conquired that last city and again no victory occured. Now imagine if I would go for conquest until year 1700 only to dicover it does not work! :suicide:

Hmm, does Conquest work in RFC? And if so, are minor civs counted as enemies?

If you want to consider that an exploit of the Roman Emperor title, I suggest to stop applying its effect after a certain amount of provinces that aren't in the Near East. Or increase the probability of secessions, so that while you can't collapse, your empire still keeps fracturing beneath your fingers.

Maybe an extra secession check for civs with Stability under -80 (such numbers are impossible in normal RFC since it's capped at -80/+80).

I am pretty sure it works. AnotherPacifist became a High Priest of Rhyeism thanks to his outstanding Conquest victories :king: (it is still strange he did not check this mod yet...). I remember Conquest SG won by Ottomans -- was a great game. For that matter -- I think you can win in RFC by Conquest even when your vassals are alive: they kept liberating cities to their vassals to save their stability. Before I took over the Constantinopol I was doing just that with an excellent results -- Shahanshah also helped alot.... And yes every single Independent city needs to be conquered in regular RFC.

Note that for SoI any conquest victories are only possible BEFORE 1500 -- sinse Portugal is immortal.

I disagree strongly with Constantine XI being the worst, in fact he would have been a great leader, just if he had come at later times, and he was very courageous on the oncoming of the ottomans, I would strongly suggest removing his name and placing somebody else, like Byzantine Empress Irene of Athens, who was TERRIBLE. She blinded her own son, exasperated the Iconoclastic controversy, and got herself kicked out and sent to a monastery.

Their have been worse Byzantine Emperors I believe, but I thought you might need a bit of diversity ;)

Also I'm fairly surprised, why did you place Saladin so low; I would believe that he was a better ruler than Tamerlane even, and what was your reasoning about placing Tamerlane so high?

I disagree strongly with Constantine XI being the worst, in fact he would have been a great leader, just if he had come at later times, and he was very courageous on the oncoming of the ottomans, I would strongly suggest removing his name and placing somebody else, like Byzantine Empress Irene of Athens, who was TERRIBLE. She blinded her own son, exasperated the Iconoclastic controversy, and got herself kicked out and sent to a monastery.


Indeed. Why stop at Irene though? Some of the Angeloi Emperors were absolutely terrible, they were indirectly responsible for the 4th Crusade...

Maybe edead doesn't want to insult his players by comparing them to one Angeloi ;)

That's actually a really good point.

Finished a UHV as Sindh on Sultan. Other than maybe the Mesopotamia Conquest in C3C, was easily the shortest game of Civ I've ever played. Was pretty fun and quite challenging, though it got a little tiresome having this pattern repeat a fair bit:

1) Face a declaration of war on one side of kingdom
2) Move forces to hostile border
3) Hostile state collapses in civil war
4) Declaration of war from opposite side of kingdom
5) Return to step 2, rinse and repeat ad infinitum

Only a couple of things I noticed:

a) Sometime after getting Sufism in my 3rd city, it was removed from the 1st city it appeared in and the Sufi Shrine disappeared. However, when I eventually got a 4th city to Sufism and built my "4th" shrine (at which point I had 3 cities with shrines listed), I got a surprise when I had suddenly won the game. I'm guessing the building remains in the city improvement list even when the company leaves to avoid the player getting annoyed if a company keeps on entering and leaving a city repeatedly, but perhaps there should be a check to make sure that each city you have a Sufi shrine in also has Sufism itself for completing the objective?

b) I got an event about someone invading Northern Hindustan ~1400 or so. When I get these things I usually fire up the world builder to see what's happening, but when I checked I couldn't find any barbarbians or anything. Is something supposed to happen here?

You still have spent almost 15 hours of your life on this game :) I am pretty sure there were shorter games in my Civ experience. Sometimes Gujarat presents a tougher challenge, but I play on Caliph most of the time, so it's hard for me to tell if you were just lucky with them or this is how it always works on Sultan.

As for Sufi shrines -- I have never seen a Shrine to dissapear with Sufism -- it should not, perhaps some kind of bug. With the Hindustan -- it was Timur who invaded it in circa 1400 and perhaps the actual invasion starts one turn after the message -- did you check on 1402?

You still have spent almost 15 hours of your life on this game :) I am pretty sure there were shorter games in my Civ experience. Sometimes Gujarat presents a tougher challenge, but I play on Caliph most of the time, so it's hard for me to tell if you were just lucky with them or this is how it always works on Sultan.

Ah, my games tend to go on quite a lot (see my Ayyubid game in the other thread). I'm an extreme micromanager, and often like to sit back and look at my empire. Add in the time I just leave the game running while doing other things around the home and you'll probably find it's the equivalent of 3-5 hours of actual gameplay.

I may have just been lucky against Gujarat, though I found a couple of trebs and the Sindh UU make you reasonably unstoppable. If anything my main threat was the other Hindu kingdoms trying to come to Gujarat's aid. Unfortunately I didn't have heavy spearmen at the time, so the elephants were a bit of a handful.

As for Sufi shrines -- I have never seen a Shrine to dissapear with Sufism -- it should not, perhaps some kind of bug. With the Hindustan -- it was Timur who invaded it in circa 1400 and perhaps the actual invasion starts one turn after the message -- did you check on 1402?

I'll try and go back to see if the shrine is still in the city looking at the saves, but I did take a good look and was a little disappointed to see it gone. Not sure about the event, I can try looking at the saves for that too, but I don't believe there were any Timurids or barb Timurids in Hindustan before I got the victory (or does Northern Hindustan constitute more than I figured?).

Hello everyody !
I have been lurking around for the last few months, and since most of my pc-time is dedicated to SoI, I had to join the feedbac, hadn't I ?
Congrats Embroyded, this mod is quite addictive I must say. Thanks to all the regular feeders of the thread aswell; Being a bit of a classical Islam bookworm freak, I hope my contributions will be worthy. Happy new year to all, Salaam et choukran !

Welcome and thanks :)

Ghaznavids
Enjoyable Early Campaign - took me two attempts to get provinces and money by 1180. The third UHV is a bit boring though - just put all your cities on wealth and wait. That's clearly not the intented way, the UA being double gold from plunder, but it's working... Maybe a pillage oriented UHV would fit better? Gain 5000 gold by pillaging. I don't know if that is possible to check.

Technically it's how I wanted it to be - you need to pillage for the first gold UHV and use your UB - mints - and trade / wealth to accomplish the second.

Abbasids
Again, the start with two UHVs triggering the same date is very hard, but also enjoyable. The third UHV is rather strange, since you have rather little influence about the spread of Sunni Islam in the world. You can sent Sufi-Missionaries around the world and work on your population. But the real "battles" here arefought in India and Egypt, and you cannot influence them much. Is it possible to allow Persecutors to act in other players cities if the state religion is the same and you have open borders? That would help this UHV a lot (and also comes at later, with Ajmer)

Persecutors should be limited to your realm only. Spreading of Islam is definitely within your control - as you said, Sufis work well, and you can send them to India easily, especially if you have a port (i.e. Basra, otherwise not so attractive location).

Something I don't like here though is Nubia. In most games, the Kingdom of Makuria collapses at some point, often shorty after Mamluk spawn. After that, Africa is just space to be occupied by the Egyptian ruler withour significant resistance. Maybe another faction could be added here, or Makuria could respawn, maybe with another name?

Like I said in another post, there was no Nubian state after Makuria - the area just fell to Mamluks, then to Ottomans, and Nubians became history. The closest one is Sennar but it wouldn't solve the problem at all, only flipping just Soba and Meroe. New patch contains an extra script that will turn Nubia into a very poor realm after Makuria collapses, hopefully adding to the Ayyubid/Mamluk balance.

Oman
Generally, I am more of a builder type. I like peacefully building an empire. Hence I liked Omans campaign, even if it is a bit tedios in the end (50.000 gold is just a lot). The Portuguese Invasion is another Issue. It is easy to handle, if you build tons of Great Galleys and sink the ships before they unload. If they unload, you have huge problems. Would it be possible to have them spawn both land and sea units? That would fix the invasion being so exploitable. At the same time you could, say, halve the unit spawn so it is still manageable.

That would be rather unrealistic because then they'd invade from the desert... If it's so easy I can make the Carracks more powerful, though. Indeed it may have become easier than before in 0.3.x because Great Galleys were added.

Mamluks. ... Some suggestions to weaken them:


Reduce their techs. At spawn and respawns.
Add competition. The Ottomans are busy enough untill very late in game, so the Mamluks are literally without competition in Egypt from defeating the Ayyubids until the Portuguese or Ottomans get to them (do Portuguese spawn in the Mediterannean? I don't know :() Maybe one could add more Mongols in Egypt, or even better (they would propably just cause collapse and respawn) an opponent in Africa or the Ilkhanate, to offer long time pressure on Egypt.


Mamluks have been a nightmare since the beginning, and believe me, they were nerfed in a lot of different ways, pretty much in every patch so far. Their research is already terrible, and so is production, pop growth, inflation etc. but Egypt is just that good. Worse Nubia and Free Labor civic may help a bit. Adding new civs is not an option at this point, and there's no historical opponent there anyway (long story short, Mongols are more realistic as barbs, hence no Ilkhanate).

Gujarat
UHV1 (becomming a saint) is just ultra-tough in the short time given. A relaxation of 20-40 years would help a lot.

It's been done many times so I'd rather leave it. The key is to build the shrine, a hindu wonder and all possible religious building + religioious unity of course.

Antioch
UHVs 1 and 3 are hard and nice (You don't have many coastal towns, so UHV 3 is really tough). I managed UHV 2 only by converting to Islam...... I don't think the player should be given that option, yet I don't know if it is possible to prohibit it?


It's a valid point, though I'd prefer punishment rather than prohibition. No more Crusades, loss of Christian units, war declarations from Christian neighbors etc.

Thanks for the feedback!

It's been done many times so I'd rather leave it. The key is to build the shrine, a hindu wonder and all possible religious building + religioious unity of course.



I think its fine if you want to leave it as it is for a very tough requirement, but its definitely not simple. I tried this just recently, I avoided fighting other hindu states, got that independent city just east of starting location, and took over all of sindh and one ghaznavid city. I built the shrine, rani ki vav, and almost built all the religious buildings I could before running out of time (didn't finish a second cathedral equivalent and I might have missed one or two temples in the recently conquered cities). I also researched the important religious techs. Islam at some point spread to all my original cities on the same turn and I was able to persecute it away.

In the end I still only had 88 faith points when the deadline came. So I'm sure its doable but its definitely one of the harder requirements when compared to other civs UHVs.

I've failed the Gujarat some times as well. Is it really advisable to go conquering before becoming a saint, though? The piety score is determined from building ratio anyway, so conquering more cities to be able to build more religious buildings won't get you anything, right?

Maybe I'm confused about how faith points work it but I thought fighting muslims would help. You get points for massacring other faiths and it gives you more cities to use missionaries on. If you are ready to take down sindh right after spawn you should have enough time to build the buildings. You get a point just after building a building too.

If you just have 4 cities with only hindu and the buildings, the shrine, the wonder, and 1 cathedral do your points just increase naturally to a high enough level? Is there enough time to wait for it to go up?

Hindu Shrine gives 10 piety -- Great Saint is the most important element to win the game. Start to "grow" him from the start. You also get points from researching the right techs -- Music Theory gives you some points, for example. Most of the time 2 Hindu Cathedrals and a Shrine can do the job without much Muslim fighting.

In the end I'm not that great at civ, but I did win as Gujarat on the second try. The saint requirement was definitely super tough though. Maybe I got lucky.

Here's the event I was talking about... a little bit further away from 1400 than I thought... :blush:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=277941&stc=1&d=1294286584

Started a new game and rolled Jerusalem. Think I'm a little out of my depth though (see ouchie attached) and might go back to Samanids as I think I finally figured out how to complete the UHV1.