Current (SVN) development discussion thread

Great, thanks!
 
okay a quick question. do you plan on editing the aztec city map?

I mean besides their actual little cradle they always go with default city names every time they go north, which they always do.

Moreoso..as a quick request. Give the central african city spot to the french, it's a great spot and it needs a city to go with it.
 
Well, the actual Aztecs didn't settle away from that so where should I take the names from?
 
Granted but I'm thinking in terms of mexico (being as the aztecs didn't even last to the industrial age nor accomplish any of it's UHV I think we can use mexico as a base)

perhaps spanish city names?
 
Is it just me, or is the list of dead civs you've killed/witnessed dying gone now?
Sure, it made some the interface a little unwieldly, but it was nice to
have as a trophy list of sorts.
 
Granted but I'm thinking in terms of mexico (being as the aztecs didn't even last to the industrial age nor accomplish any of it's UHV I think we can use mexico as a base)

perhaps spanish city names?
I want them to switch to using Spanish city names when they convert to Catholicism or become a European vassal anyway. Maybe they shouldn't settle outside of the traditional Aztec core as well until that point.

Is it just me, or is the list of dead civs you've killed/witnessed dying gone now?
Sure, it made some the interface a little unwieldly, but it was nice to
have as a trophy list of sorts.
Yes. I've heard several complaints that the scoreboard didn't fit into their screen in the late game, especially from 3000 BC starts. And actually when running Strg+Z it was too large for me, too.

I've looked if there was a Python module that makes it scrollable, but the only option looked to clunky, so I went for this solution instead.
 
Another idea I just had: do you think it would make sense to add a short popup message when one of your UHV goals fails?

There are many goals where you don't know in advance when a goal could fail, and while I already changed the code so it fails as soon as you can't win it anymore, you still miss it sometimes and tech/conquer on or whatever.
 
Another idea I just had: do you think it would make sense to add a short popup message when one of your UHV goals fails?

There are many goals where you don't know in advance when a goal could fail, and while I already changed the code so it fails as soon as you can't win it anymore, you still miss it sometimes and tech/conquer on or whatever.

I think that sounds good. There have so many times when I'm going for the UHV, but I continued playing over 100 years before I realized I failed it.
 
Sounds good.
A warning 10 turns before the deadline might be good too if it won't cause too many notification :)
 
Sounds good.
A warning 10 turns before the deadline might be good too if it won't cause too many notification :)
That's a little harder to implement. Is there a UHV goal where that would be useful? I mean, can you really change much in the outcome in 10 turns?
 
Leoreth, I think I wouldn't be the first to tell you that you are a very talented modder! But, sometimes you simply over-doing the stuff. Was it really that critical to rmove India from 3000 BC start to 1500 BC start?



The picture above is just iconic. The earliest cradles of civilization were those 4. No matter what you had in mind -- Dawn of Civilization MUST start with those 4 civs.

If you say that Harappa and Aryans had little in common and Indian civilization is Aryan civilization, I will argue that 3000 BC Sumeria had little in common with Babylonia. Please don't rewrite the classics and bring Indians back. If I see Spain spawns in Australia I would be less confused, I am telling ya :crazyeye:
 
^ While I am as fascinated by the Indus Valley Civilization as anyone can be, the fact remains that we know very little of them IRL. Even their language is not yet deciphered, unlike that of the other three great ancient civilizations. As such, it is very difficult to make the early Indian gameplay actually interesting (I think the Great Bath wonder was an aborted attempt).

I believe Leoreth postponed the spawn for Japan and Netherlands for similar reasons.

In fact, I'll go so far as to propose a delayed spawn for China. To some time between 2100BC and 1600BC. Because:

(1) It's historically more accurate;

(2) It allows us to easily remedy the idiotic settlement of the AI by preplacing Independent cities, the same way we control the city locations in India;

(3) A later start with appropriate starting Tech, Civics (Forced Labor?), may address many of the issues China players are currently facing.

(4) It can hopefully prevent Human China players from abusing the historically absurd strategy of squatting the spawn area of India or straight-up rushing them (the Chinese IRL did not have any knowledge of India until millennia later).
 
I agree with that, although it may mean some techs are already discovered by other civs, making China's UP less worthwhile at the beginning.
 
I was just about to ask for the opposite.
I also believe that India should be moved back to 3000BC.
I understand they are not contiguous to the Indus Valley civilization,
but I grew up with that history book too.
Not to mention just right now, there've been way too many changes and
the mod as a whole imo, could use some scaling back.
I mean, nowadays, people are posting about adding Israel
or somehow preventing the player from attacking back at the Seljuks.

Uhhh...what?

The game itself has become much more regimented; all the bonuses are miniscule and don't really amount to as much
and there's more and more arbitrary penalties at every turn. The only new change I have liked so far is the traditional music for civs.

What do we play RFC for, if not for the absurdities?

I do plan on keeping a copy of 1.81 in perpetuity,
but I am certainly following along with all the new additions as well.
So I'd like to suggest that obviously first and foremost,
the AIs current disinclination to refuse trade to the player be removed.
Vanilla BtS is already relatively difficult enough even if Tech Brokering is not turned off.

Second, for civs that start with Agrarianism, I believe that the -GPP% be removed.
There are other ways we can simulate the disadvantages of a peasant farmer centric-system.
For one, the value and experience level of troops would likely be less effective in such a society.
I propose that the -GPP% be changed to a reduced XP gain from military victories.
Sort of like a reverse Charismatic.

Also, while France's new UP is good in theory, in practice in a real game, it's worthless.
Seriously, listen to me here. To fulfill the conquest UHV goal, you will be conquering all your neighbors, the ones who are friendly with you from shared religion.
Every other civ; Japan, Mughals, Ottomans will still treat you like dirt. As France, I am essentially playing without a UP until Secularism.

Either we go back to the old UP, or we can do something else.

Also for the love of God, please disable Persecution pop-ups.
 
Leoreth, I think I wouldn't be the first to tell you that you are a very talented modder! But, sometimes you simply over-doing the stuff. Was it really that critical to rmove India from 3000 BC start to 1500 BC start?



The picture above is just iconic. The earliest cradles of civilization were those 4. No matter what you had in mind -- Dawn of Civilization MUST start with those 4 civs.

If you say that Harappa and Aryans had little in common and Indian civilization is Aryan civilization, I will argue that 3000 BC Sumeria had little in common with Babylonia. Please don't rewrite the classics and bring Indians back. If I see Spain spawns in Australia I would be less confused, I am telling ya :crazyeye:
Ugh ... that was a hard decision.

While I had the rationalization of IVC != Indo-Aryans in mind when I did this (and it does make sense considering that you spawn at Dilli/Patliputra) and I would contend your Sumeria counter-example (Sumerian for example was like the Latin of Babylon, while there's no indication the Indo-Aryans even knew about the IVC), the actual reason was more from a gameplay perspective. India was hard to reign in, and it couldn't really cope with all the new resources and the food in the early game. I tried a lot of stuff to nudge it into the right direction but nothing worked, so I used the brutal approach. I think India is in a lot better shape now, both in the hands of the AI and in the player's. I don't really want to give up on all this again.

So I'd like to suggest that obviously first and foremost,
the AIs current disinclination to refuse trade to the player be removed.
There is no such disinclination, except for China. There was a little bug in that system (the AI was told to only accept a tech if someone else than China knew it, but it only took civs it had contact with into account, which often meant it thought the tech was unique to China when in fact India etc. knew it), but that's fixed now. And even then I was able to keep a realistic tech lead as China with Great Wall in 400 AD and the cathedral goal before 800 AD (Monarch).

Second, for civs that start with Agrarianism, I believe that the -GPP% be removed.
There are other ways we can simulate the disadvantages of a peasant farmer centric-system.
For one, the value and experience level of troops would likely be less effective in such a society.
I propose that the -GPP% be changed to a reduced XP gain from military victories.
Sort of like a reverse Charismatic.
I agree, in most of my games I decide that GP are too useful to me to use Agrarianism. But it should have an economic downside, maybe reduced trade routes or trade yield?

Also, while France's new UP is good in theory, in practice in a real game, it's worthless.
Seriously, listen to me here. To fulfill the conquest UHV goal, you will be conquering all your neighbors, the ones who are friendly with you from shared religion.
Every other civ; Japan, Mughals, Ottomans will still treat you like dirt. As France, I am essentially playing without a UP until Secularism.

Either we go back to the old UP, or we can do something else.
Good point, although no one forces you to go all out on your neighbours right from the start ;)

I think I could throw in a reduced penalty for religious differences, it's fitting due to stuff like the French-Ottoman alliance after all.

Also for the love of God, please disable Persecution pop-ups.
Update your SVN :D

On postponing China, I think for the human player that would be the worst thing to do. I've just played a China game and in my opinion it works pretty well. The AI is another matter, but I have another solution for its main problem (city placement) in mind already, and plan to try it soon because I'm currently fixing Antiquity anyway (making Rome more powerful at the moment). Postponing China too would mean that Egypt and Babylonia are the only early civs and that would make exploitable early rushes possible.
 
Ugh ... that was a hard decision.

While I had the rationalization of IVC != Indo-Aryans in mind when I did this (and it does make sense considering that you spawn at Dilli/Patliputra) and I would contend your Sumeria counter-example (Sumerian for example was like the Latin of Babylon, while there's no indication the Indo-Aryans even knew about the IVC), the actual reason was more from a gameplay perspective. India was hard to reign in, and it couldn't really cope with all the new resources and the food in the early game. I tried a lot of stuff to nudge it into the right direction but nothing worked, so I used the brutal approach. I think India is in a lot better shape now, both in the hands of the AI and in the player's. I don't really want to give up on all this again.

There is a useful concept in mathematics -- the degree of approximation. With the global mod covering 5000 years the degree of approximation of everything cannot be very high. India Civ in RFC-DOC represents all the (native) Indian civilizations. India could start with the Settler at Harappa -- human player could move it to Delhi. The capital can dynamically move from Harappa (renamed Lahore) to any city found on Ganges. Indy Varanasi can also shift things Eastward. The moment you discover Hinduism or move into the Iron age Harappa will be dynamically renamed, to say, Vedic India:

In the aftermath of the Indus Civilization's collapse, regional cultures emerged, to varying degrees showing the influence of the Indus Civilization. In the formerly great city of Harappa, burials have been found that correspond to a regional culture called the Cemetery H culture. At the same time, the Ochre Coloured Pottery culture expanded from Rajasthan into the Gangetic Plain. The Cemetery H culture has the earliest evidence for cremation; a practice dominant in Hinduism today.

The legacy of IVC on subsequent Indian civilizations is not very explored but still palpable. (Mirror reflected) Swastika seals were not invented by Aryans or other Iron Age Indians. They were discovered at IVC.

I really don't want to start a historical debate, but Babylonia was an ancient Semitic, Akkadian speaking nation. Summers were not Semitic. Obviously the influence of Sumers on Akkad was far greater than IVC on Iron Age India, but as my quote suggests, there are some links.

As for your main argument -- I never recall there were some problems with India in vanila RFC. How can DAWN of civilization start without the largest ancient civilization,
one of the world's earliest urban civilizations, along with its contemporaries, Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt? At its peak, the Indus Civilization may have had a population of well over five million -- and we have empty plains in the game. You constantly perfecting the mod taking it to the second and third degrees of approximation, how can you neglect zeroth degree?

There must be a more crafty way to nerf India. Modifiers, dynamic resources, early growth penalties, etc. If one has a headache you don't solve the problem by cutting the head off :nono:
 
moar rome :drool:

I also feel china was fine except for that trading bug. you just have to embrace new strategies.

problem with early India is they would need to be wiped out before new India spawns. a contigous indian civ from 3000 bc is ahistorical and op. how to engineer the fall without causing more problems? maybe a new civ? honestly I think it might be a ton of work to fix in order to include a civ we know little about, when the current system works well. I do agree that not being able to start as India does just feel wrong though, but I can live with it.
 
There must be a more crafty way to nerf India. Modifiers, dynamic resources, early growth penalties, etc. If one has a headache you don't solve the problem by cutting the head off

.. What about spawning an Indie?
 
There must be a more crafty way to nerf India. Modifiers, dynamic resources, early growth penalties, etc. If one has a headache you don't solve the problem by cutting the head off :nono:
I don't want to sound rude, but it's easy to make claims based on vague statements. Sometimes it's better to cut the knot.

moar rome :drool:
A little sneak peek?



Yes, that's the Mayan spawn.
 
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