RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

@sedna17: Some help needed: I tried doing an experiment, reput Tours as indy and make it flip to the French. Since Tours is in the flip zone of the French, why doesnt it do so? Is it because it spawns at Turn 1, while the Franks at turn 0?

micbic said:

@sedna17: Some help needed: I tried doing an experiment, reput Tours as indy and make it flip to the French. Since Tours is in the flip zone of the French, why doesnt it do so? Is it because it spawns at Turn 1, while the Franks at turn 0?

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OK as an experiment I guess, but we don't really want Tours back as an indy do we? In my last game as France the indy Bordeaux made city spacing much better. I didn't even found Tours but Limoges instead, 1 tile south and much more productive.

micbic said:

@sedna17: Some help needed: I tried doing an experiment, reput Tours as indy and make it flip to the French. Since Tours is in the flip zone of the French, why doesnt it do so? Is it because it spawns at Turn 1, while the Franks at turn 0?

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Yes, I believe that's the reason.

jessiecat said:

OK as an experiment I guess, but we don't really want Tours back as an indy do we? In my last game as France the indy Bordeaux made city spacing much better. I didn't even found Tours but Limoges instead, 1 tile south and much more productive.

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Yup. I wanted to strengthen France over Burgundy, by giving them a second city advantage. Next try will be with keeping the doubled units for the French.

micbic said:

Yup. I wanted to strengthen France over Burgundy, by giving them a second city advantage. Next try will be with keeping the doubled units for the French.

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I wonder if France needs strengthening at all. The recent changes have nerfed Burgundy quite a lot, I think. In my last game I overtook Burgundy quite easily and didn't bother to wipe them out until nearly 1400. I'll have to try Burgundy next to see if it's become much harder in comparison.

jessiecat said:

I wonder if France needs strengthening at all. The recent changes have nerfed Burgundy quite a lot, I think. In my last game I overtook Burgundy quite easily and didn't bother to wipe them out until nearly 1400. I'll have to try Burgundy next to see if it's become much harder in comparison.

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Not really. They are still the leaders of Europe .

A couple of strange things in my Portugal game:

1. Roman Empire signs peace with Roman Empire.
2. Burgundy signs defensive pact with Burgundy.
3. Norse has become vassal state of the Norse.
4. Burgundy signs defensive pact with Burgundy again.
5. Genoa has become vassal state of Genoa.

What's going on???

That will be easily solved if we give them a later spawn date. My idea is this:

Burgundy spawns in 840AD with the same techs as Venice(800AD) except Literature
which they will have to research first.
They start with a settler, 2 crossbowmen, a worker and a missionary and found Dijon
which has a granary and a barracks at the start.
If any French cities exist in the flip zone (very small) they flip to Burgundy on move 2.
That way they'll only have 1-2 cities at the start while France has had 340 years to
develop and expand. There's no way that Burgundy will catch up very fast with them.

What about that?

EDIT. Maybe you discovered an early example of the "doppleganger"?

That's what happens when civs get multiple personality disorder .

I think the problem with the French (in hands of the AI of course), is that they like Burgundy too much in the early game (predefined +4 attitude, same religion, etc.), and when they think they should destroy Burgundy, it is already too late.

Just a theory:

The Burgundian UP allows the cities to quickly gain some territory. So, when the French declare war on the Burgundians, the Burgundians has some time to build / move some defensive troops. They have the time to do that, since they have some pretty strong production cities, like Dijon. In fact, they have a higher production potential than the French. So, when the French launch an attack on a Burgundian city, it is likely that Burgundy can protect itself, because they have a high unit density in their core and always a cultural barrier to prevent blitz-attacks.

I know. When I'm playing as Burgundy the French are pussycats. Gift them one cheap tech and they're friends for life. What about the idea of starting Burgundy late, as I described in the previous post?

jessiecat said:

I know. When I'm playing as Burgundy the French are pussycats. Gift them one cheap tech and they're friends for life. What about the idea of starting Burgundy late, as I described in the previous post?

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I like it.

I think that should solve the problem. Another positive side-effect is that the French can culturally compete with Burgundy, since their cities are older. So, Burgundy has a weaker border situation, which should make it easier for the French AI to launch a succesful attack.

And it would also make the style to play these civs a little less the same (is that correct English??!). The uninteresting part about Burgundy and France is that the basic strategy is to conquer modern France, and then try to get the other part of the UHV. After the change, there would be a larger difference between them, so it would be more fun to play.

As described in an above post, there are three possible jump-points for Burgundy:
a) 500 AD, first kingdom of Burgundy
b) 840 AD, second kingdom of Burgundy
c) 1369 AD, Duchy of Burgundy

Which one will we represent?

Wessel V1 said:

I think that should solve the problem. Another positive side-effect is that the French can culturally compete with Burgundy, since their cities are older. So, Burgundy has a weaker border situation, which should make it easier for the French AI to launch a succesful attack.

And it would also make the style to play these civs a little less the same (is that correct English??!). The uninteresting part about Burgundy and France is that the basic strategy is to conquer modern France, and then try to get the other part of the UHV. After the change, there would be a larger difference between them, so it would be more fun to play.

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Yeah, I think we're all in favor of moving the Burgundian spawn date back to 840. If there's more empty territory around Paris (after removing Tours), the French are less likely to lose a city to the flip, and Dijon has been nerfed in the next map update (still has great production, but is much weaker for food - it's not going to be a large city). Lyon is still likely the best city site, but has lost the copper, so it's not quite as strong.

France will have a food and culture advantage over Burgundy, at least to start out. Burgundy will have a production advantage, but will have to expand vs. independents or France in order to become more than a minor civ, and will struggle with health resources in the early game.

Okay lads, you won

Finished game as Poland, Monarch level w/ UHV. Power & Food output graphs included. All in all fun but too easy.

Crashes
Later in the game, crashes were very frequent. At this point I can see it happens randomly while scrolling the map.

Religion
Religion Overhaul is fabulous, with all the nuisances like the Jewish diaspora, instability, prosecutions and reformation. This is even better than I imagined religions should work. Only thing that bothered me is that by the time I made contact with the Arabs, they were devout Christians. It'd be nice if at least the "Holy" factions - Byzantines and Arabs - were ready to defend their faith at all costs and never convert.

Polish UHV
UHV as Poland was trivial at least on Monarch level - I didn't have to do anything. I just settled the vast empty areas in the East and later captured a few defenseless cities that remained of the collapsed Kievan Rus. My neighbors were pitifully weak and begged for protection. I think the issue is that mod is not so much Eurocentric as it is West-centric. There are too many civs in Western Europe compared to the much larger Eastern Europe which only hosts 3 civs. If you consider changes to civs at all, replacement of one of the Western factions with Novgorod, Lithuania, Prussia or Golden Horde would balance things a bit. Personally I can't see Netherlands as interesting to play with such a late start and thier historical domains reduced to buildable projects.

Winged Hussar
Even though it uses heavy armor and lance, Polish Winged Hussar is a unit from Renaissance era, 16-18th c., the time of the Commonwealth, Gunpowder and Cuirassiers, not Knights.

Burgundy
In my game as well they also the most powerful faction most of the time until I surpassed them. The Duchy w/ Dijon and Luxembourg really belongs to the 14th c. but I'm glad to see their start date being pushed forward at least. Are they going to start in Dijon still, or Lyon/Arles? Lyon + Dijon flip could pass as semi-historical I guess.

Spelling of proper names
I don't know what thread this should go in so I'll just put all the things compiled here.

Romaii -> Romaioi or Rhomaioi

Moscowan(s) -> Muscovite(s) or Moscovite(s)
Short name of "Moscow" -> Muscovy (city vs. duchy)
Full name of "Moscow" -> Muscovy or Grand Duchy of Moscow

Short name of Hungary -> Hungary, not "Madyar" which is misspelled "Magyar" and also an adjective or a person (Hungarian), not the kingdom/country.

Long Swordsman -> this is really a Swordsman that is long, whatever that means I know AoE did it, but it doesn't make it less silly. If anything, the weapon, longsword has no space in it and is generally 2-hander. Heavy Swordsman would fit the unit better.

Guisarme looks a bit silly as well... much like a "Spear" would as a unit name. Guisarme-man doesn't sound any better though. Voulgier would be ok, however, and the unit's weapon actually looks more like a voulge than a guisarme (no hook).

Arbalest -> Arbalester (as above)

Cogge -> either "Cog" in English or "Kogge" from German

Galleas -> correct spelling: Galleass

The Novgorod suggestion is interesting, but is it possible to make such a major change at this point?



The biggest issue with taking the Netherlands out seems more like a perceptual one. How would people react to the elimination of what would be a major power in the late period of the game, or the colonial era?

Unfortunately, as embryodead points out, they don't have a whole lot to do. They're not completely limited to a OCC, but there's not a lot of room for growth, and there is the issue of resource placement in the low countries to contend with.


Historically, the Low Countries have changed hands many times, and were more commonly at the edge of someone's sphere of influence than at the center of their own control.
Would it be possible to code it so that cities founded in that area were more likely to declare independence in cases of instability?


Of the other options listed, I'd vote for Novgorod over Prussia (too late) and Lithuania (too tangled up with Poland).

The Golden Horde option is potentially interesting, showing up after the Mongol invasions - it would also give us the option of making the Kievan Rus a short UHV (much like RFC had several shorter ones) and giving the Golden Horde 'conquer all Kievan territory by ____AD' as a UHV goal.



What do other people think?

I would vote against changing the Civ list. We have always maintained that the Civ list is finished, and indeed, it would be a lot of work to add a new Civ. I'm not wedded to the current list out of any belief that it best represents Europe (heck, it was settled on long before I joined), but I think it does it well enough to make a good game. The Netherlands is small, yes, but that makes it kind of unique too.

At some point in the distant future, I could see us adding another couple Civs. But for now, let's focus on making the best game out of the ones we have.

sedna17 said:

I would vote against changing the Civ list. We have always maintained that the Civ list is finished, and indeed, it would be a lot of work to add a new Civ. I'm not wedded to the current list out of any belief that it best represents Europe (heck, it was settled on long before I joined), but I think it does it well enough to make a good game. The Netherlands is small, yes, but that makes it kind of unique too.

At some point in the distant future, I could see us adding another couple Civs. But for now, let's focus on making the best game out of the ones we have.

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True, and sensible.

/apostasy