Noob advice for RFC.

I'm playing as China, doing pretty well, but I cannot seem to stop going broke and yet still lagging in the Tech department.

Here's a save game:

Same here. Was getting beaten up all the time and as soon as I was strong enough to hold my ground, I started running into bankruptcy.

China seems pretty hard. Barely managed to get enough troops to hold the barbarians back, when the plague hit. Luckily, it seemed to kill the beleaguers too. Still was left unarmed and with half a nation, facing more barbarians just enough turns later to be able to build at least 1 archer for each city again.

Is this constant flood of bandit horse archers - that's been hitting me for ages now - hard coded into RFC? Like in order to force China to build the great wall (which I failed to)?
Or does the AI simply cheat here? Cos I can clearly see barbarians popping up in areas that are well visible. Some swordsmen e.g. keep spawning in "Tibet" (that mountain encircled area north of the indian/korean peninsula) although mine and India's cultural borders almost completely cover that area (except for some 3 desert piles).




Another, maybe silly question: Why can't my troops move through jungle tiles? Workers can, settlers can ... troops can't?
Forgive me if that's answered somewhere already, I couldn't find it, neither in the 'pedia nor these forums....

First, there is a Rhyes forum (Civ 4 - Creation and Customization -> Project&Mod Development -> Rhyes ; There are quite some articles there (including the newest patch for it) and there is the link to the Rhyes Wiki with guides to start, on stability and on various civs (UHV). So,

- you best read the wiki for "going broke" and "stability" and so on...

- No movement through jungle is a game feature. These areas should be hard to travel, ever been to one? AFAIK, (not sure), troops can move through jungle as soon as there is a road built there (and a tech?). There are some units that can always move through jungle: Elephants (and their Khmer counterparts) for example, and some American (Aztec etc. ) units.

- The barbarians ARE scripted to allow the historical feeling. China will receive pressure from Tibet (Swords) and Mongolia (ha). Play it once or twice and you will know where they come from and be prepared. Great Wall is an option, but not a must. (Attention: If you play a European or an African power. The great wall will keep only barbarians out, no natives or independents or ... . Caveat II: Europe is one continent, Africa another one. If you build the Great Wall in Europe, it won't keep your African cities safe)


m

Ah, thanks mitsho!
Gonna check that wiki.


Gruess us Züri

IMO Rhyse is a broken mod pack precisely because of what you are detailing. Yes Yes Rhye will say that stability is just "very complex" etc etc but the truth is it is a concept which at present doesn't function properly and which he is unambitious to do anything about. The best way to solve your problems with stability is to completely alter how you would normally play the game. For example normally you don't want to cluster cities together too close but in Rhyse you do precisely because of stability there isn't a huge advantage to "spreading out". This is yet another reason why I consider this a very subpar mod.

It is subpar because it's different? The Aim of Rhyes was to alter gameplay, to get away from the "get as big as fast as possible"-approach of the vanilla game. This is something that was achieved imho and it is what makes the mod so popular. But remember, there are still ways to get really big superempires. It just takes longer and lets you experience the modern era as well... ;-) Plus, there are some of the UHV (Arabia, Persia, Mongolia, Germany, ...) that require you to go on a mad killing spree. Some of the empires would fall apart normally a few turns after the UHV has been achieved, so you can get a big empire and still win..

m

Wow that's really not what I said at all. Perhaps the problem with those who designed and defend this game is their lack of ability to communicate properly.

No Rhys is an attempt to counter spread strategies where you gobble up as much land as possible, but because Rhys built in too great of a bias against this the mod favors extreme clustering...that is building as many cities as close together. I personally usually build one city every two spaces, or as close as I can then build all workshops. Yes none of my cities gets very large but the sheer number of them will give that player an enormous advantage that tries to space their cities out more merely because distance adversely affects stability.

The Aim of Rhyes was to alter gameplay, to get away from the "get as big as fast as possible"-approach of the vanilla game.

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Rhys is the MOST vanilla game there is precisely because there is no flexibility. There is a strong difference between trying to dissuade against this and going too far to the other side so as to create an opposite problem and this is what Rhys did. Small clustered countries are far more advantageous, build them and you'll win every time. Perhaps your tactics are just not as advanced as mine. I believe I read in another thread people claiming how some of the UHVs are difficult to get because wonders are built too soon after discovering the tech to build them. Heres the answer stockpile engineering great people and rush build. Again an example of where the people who support this mod are not as smart as me.

This is something that was achieved imho and it is what makes the mod so popular.

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Or its that most other mods are terrible and Rhys is good only in comparison. Personally I don't grade on a curve. I have extremely high standards which I refuse to compromise on because 1)I know history 2) I know good gameplay. That said while I might only give Rhys a 5.5-6 on a scale of 10 most other scenarios would get much lower especially the Road to War ones. Those mods had the feel of being very incomplete. And what I am asking is not impossible to clarify I would like to see the geography cleaned up, as well as some of the historical inaccuracies and some basic strategic concepts modified/softened. But it is those of weak minds who assume that because I don't like it as is that must mean I dislike stability entirely as I have said repeatedly it needs to be softened not eliminated. You either need to learn to read, learn to read English or learn to understand logic.

Plus, there are some of the UHV (Arabia, Persia, Mongolia, Germany, ...) that require you to go on a mad killing spree. Some of the empires would fall apart normally a few turns after the UHV has been achieved, so you can get a big empire and still win..

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Yes and this is what I don't like about this modpack in particular...the slash and burn mentality in order to get UHVs. I would rather build an empire and continue to manage it in perpetuity.

The reality is that with Rhys once you have built all the cities you can in your culture area and have built as many as you can outside of it as you can before you break apart there isn't a lot left to play the game for. Very often I will have 2 of the 3 UHVs and I quit playing out of boredom because I've more or less won. Getting the third ibecomes a useless exercise of hitting the enter key to cycle through turns. Continuing to conquer/spread hegemony is not possible because doing so will destroy what you already have built so going to war means either destroying rivial cities and or passing them off to friendly powers. In one game like this were I was France I had reached the threshold before I would collapse due to over expansion and Germany declared war on me. My options were not to capture Germany because of stability so I sacked and destroyed most of their cities. This pattern continued with other powers as the only way I could get stronger was to weaken my opponents not expand my own base. That is the problem with stability as is.

The threshold of collapse either needs to be expanded or expansion instability must have a mechanism of control by the player just like unhealthy/unhappiness otherwise it is useless.

Every game I have played is actually quite easy(contrary to what people here seem to think), quite predictable/stale, and the victory quite anti-climatic. With all the problems of the regular game I would say that it is still very likely that by the end there will be a few superpowers who are vying for dominance and must call upon strategica minor countries in order to outmaneuver the others. In other words quite challenging and open to variance. There is simply no luck and no variance in Rhys...other than some of the stupid quirky junk meant to handicap the smart and skillful.

Hakim the Mad said:

IMO Rhyse is a broken mod pack precisely because of what you are detailing. Yes Yes Rhye will say that stability is just "very complex" etc etc but the truth is it is a concept which at present doesn't function properly and which he is unambitious to do anything about.

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Please tell us how it is broken. We appreciate input and often fix real issues.

Hakim the Mad said:

No Rhys is an attempt to counter spread strategies where you gobble up as much land as possible, but because Rhys built in too great of a bias against this the mod favors extreme clustering...that is building as many cities as close together. I personally usually build one city every two spaces, or as close as I can then build all workshops. Yes none of my cities gets very large but the sheer number of them will give that player an enormous advantage that tries to space their cities out more merely because distance adversely affects stability.

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I find that a horrible way to play. For instance:

Whitefire said:

My mighty Roman empire. With 7 vassals in tow.

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One you understand the workings of Stability, and test the expansion limits of each civ, you can grow an extremely large Empire.

Hakim the Mad said:

Rhys is the MOST vanilla game there is precisely because there is no flexibility. There is a strong difference between trying to dissuade against this and going too far to the other side so as to create an opposite problem and this is what Rhys did. Small clustered countries are far more advantageous, build them and you'll win every time. Perhaps your tactics are just not as advanced as mine. I believe I read in another thread people claiming how some of the UHVs are difficult to get because wonders are built too soon after discovering the tech to build them. Heres the answer stockpile engineering great people and rush build.

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That's mostly my fault when I showed how easy it was to exploit the stability code. A large chunk of the changes in the last 8 months have been to make the game much more difficult for advanced, hyper-aggressive players. You might see this as inflexible, but someone as smart as you should be able to find the loopholes that I purposefully failed to point out.

Hakim the Mad said:

Yes and this is what I don't like about this modpack in particular...the slash and burn mentality in order to get UHVs. I would rather build an empire and continue to manage it in perpetuity.

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See my Roman game.

Hakim the Mad said:

The reality is that with Rhys once you have built all the cities you can in your culture area and have built as many as you can outside of it as you can before you break apart there isn't a lot left to play the game for. Very often I will have 2 of the 3 UHVs and I quit playing out of boredom because I've more or less won. Getting the third ibecomes a useless exercise of hitting the enter key to cycle through turns. Continuing to conquer/spread hegemony is not possible because doing so will destroy what you already have built so going to war means either destroying rivial cities and or passing them off to friendly powers. In one game like this were I was France I had reached the threshold before I would collapse due to over expansion and Germany declared war on me. My options were not to capture Germany because of stability so I sacked and destroyed most of their cities. This pattern continued with other powers as the only way I could get stronger was to weaken my opponents not expand my own base. That is the problem with stability as is.

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Blah, blah, blah. You're playing it wrong.

Hakim the Mad said:

Every game I have played is actually quite easy(contrary to what people here seem to think), quite predictable/stale, and the victory quite anti-climatic. With all the problems of the regular game I would say that it is still very likely that by the end there will be a few superpowers who are vying for dominance and must call upon strategica minor countries in order to outmaneuver the others. In other words quite challenging and open to variance. There is simply no luck and no variance in Rhys...other than some of the stupid quirky junk meant to handicap the smart and skillful.

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Weird, I find the obscenely hard challenge of getting a Domination victory with Japan very challenging and hopefully fulfilling (I've only reached 22% of landmass so far). I would assume a great player could find the challenge in the mod and go after it, rather than rely on the gameplay that is presented. I guess that's the difference between someone who plays games and someone who wins them.

I find that a horrible way to play. For instance:

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I do too but the problem is that it works and is better than the opposite. In this modpack that is the BEST way to play. With stability deters large empires with large numbers of cities you instead cluster to get the maximum benefit out of the land that you can have because ultimately there is a finite limit on the land you can realistically get outside of your culture areas. I don't like it myself I think there should be a better balance between spread and cluster tactics but Rhys has made a choice and as the player you should recognize that choice and exploit it. Personally, I think any person that clusters will have a far superior advantage in this game

Weird, I find the obscenely hard challenge of getting a Domination victory with Japan very challenging and hopefully fulfilling (I've only reached 22% of landmass so far). I would assume a great player could find the challenge in the mod and go after it, rather than rely on the gameplay that is presented. I guess that's the difference between someone who plays games and someone who wins them.

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Haaa haaa you a good player with that kind of a sense of humor you should be on television!!!

But seriously the problem with Rhys is that while this might pose a challenge why bother. The UHVs are easy to get, cultural victory relative to domination is a much easier victory to get so why bother. If you and I were to play I would win every time if you tried to get domination victory because it is much harder to get. I guess thats the difference between someone that doesn't know how to play and someone that does.

Blah, blah, blah. You're playing it wrong.

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And praytell what is the "right" way. This is the problem with Rhys modpack... it operates on the assumption that there are certain unwritten rules and taboos that people won't break i.e. that domination victory is the "preferred" way to win, that settler spam is the only way to win etc etc. In actuality only an idiot won't play their advantage and in this modpack you don't need to go for domination. which leads to....

Please tell us how it is broken. We appreciate input and often fix real issues.

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The problem with stability as such is that it overlooks that one of the POSTIVE things about settler spam is that it forced the action. Because everyone could expand into any territory equally the end result was that all land got grabbed very quickly or as quickly as it could be. The downsides are obvious and don't need to be listed b/c I concede them. Stability is a very good idea because it does away with some of the prblms of spam but in the end b/c you have some areas which are in your culture area and some that are not and expansion within that culture area is essentially a "freebie" there just isn't much incentive to grab more territory once you've maxed out in your alloted areas. So the effect is that if you get to your culture area first e.g. New France for France you can squeeze out opponents like the English but still gain a large enough empire to build a lot of strength and wealth ensuring a stable playing position i.e. that you won't be easily swallowed by "bigger fish". The problem is that b/c the others have similar areas they too are guaranteed to do the same and so don't need to worry about being shut out and weak by virtue of being small. Thus the end result of this as is a bunch of large stable countries without a lot of incentive to fight others to secure their possessions. In essence the whole history of colonial wars in the New World and elsewhere is unecessary because just about everyone will get a slice of the pie.

Rhys and stability if very very fun and entertaining up until you get to about the early to mid industrial periods because the game tends to stagnate. Nobody(even the AIs) aren't that interested in MORE expansion so the game becomes more about preserving the status quo than doing anymore.

That's mostly my fault when I showed how easy it was to exploit the stability code. A large chunk of the changes in the last 8 months have been to make the game much more difficult for advanced, hyper-aggressive players. You might see this as inflexible, but someone as smart as you should be able to find the loopholes that I purposefully failed to point out.

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Or you could build a better machine You seem to think that its all or nothing, either you have stability to curb settler spam/hyper aggressive players or you don't. Why can't there be a happy medium where players who manage their empire well can expand with some limitations and restrictions?

See my Roman game.

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And exactly what is this supposed to prove that you aren't a very good player. as many countries hate you as like you so that either proves you don't really know how to play the game or you pissed everyone off by being hyper aggressive either way it proves the weakness of this mod or at least you as being qualified as a voice to defend it.

Heres a list of some solutions for this modpack in order to balance out expansion in order to force some late game action rather than the plateau it usually hits around 1780 and on.

1)I suspect there is a time period where founding/obtaining a new city outside of ones culture area negatively affects stability thus when this expires you can expand again this is what I have found seems to be true. I don't like it because it tends to slow down late game expansion where California isn't settled until the 20th century or Austrailia even later. I think given the fast pace of the turns in this game this isn't so necessary and should be eliminated or reduced.

2)Rather than some of the stability calcs used now which seem to overemphasize negative stability I would like to see some more positive modifiers especially with empire expansion. If a city contributes -4 stability there ought to be a way to get positive stability to counter that much in the same way you have to balance happiness and health. I'm not saying it should be easy and it should entail some risk/reward...For example, I would like to see this countered with a military presence so that if a city was a particular problem in regards to negative stability you could garrison one unit for +1 stability in that city. The catch is and the reason why I think this would be good is that with plagues killing off units one could theoretically expand a to a very iffy level and to counter that station a very large colonial/occupying army much like IRL. However, if a plague struck you could see that punished with the loss of those cities to indepence/civil war. You could push the limits of stability but would be taking a very huge risk in doing so. It would also push the action and enable people in the later game to expand into unused areas

A historical and real life comparison...The prussians were not particularly wealthy or industrious and yet were a major player on the European stage because they had a large army which ultimately became the basis of the German Empire in the late 19th century. The benefit of having a large empire would then be that not only could you take on neighboring rivals but you would also have an already built occupying force with which to occupy with stability.

Additional problems...culture flipping....it is just to easy to build up culture early in the game by cranking out cultural buildings and wonders in order to get a high culture level in the mid game to turn rival cities.

Culture penalty on neighbors. Additionally when you build up a lot of culture and there is enough of a disparity between you and a neighbor it leads to the neighbor falling into civil war. In a game I just finished I "outcultured" the others to such an extent that I caused 3 nearby/neighbors to be destroyed by civil war. Neighbors culture should not have as great of an impact on stability

Plague and aggressive AI-on the one hand I like aggressive AI because it is a challenge on the other hand it is a HUGE advantage to a human player precisely because of plagues. Since plagues will happen, and since they will destroy units when they hit, aggressive players that build up a lot of units will lose more of what they have produced than will a developmental player. The net effect is that by the late game the computers cities will have far fewer of city buildings built like universities,observatories,banks etc all of which have an important impact on the game for that player. The AI has a signficant disadvantage here.

Plagues are a problem merely because of this. There isn't a huge incentive to build a large expansionistic military since it is very likely tha much of it will be lost in a plague, but if you invest the same amount of shields in buildings which cannot be destroyed...

And exactly what is this supposed to prove that you aren't a very good player. as many countries hate you as like you so that either proves you don't really know how to play the game or you pissed everyone off by being hyper aggressive either way it proves the weakness of this mod or at least you as being qualified as a voice to defend it.

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You do understand that every vassal you have gives you -1 or -2 relations for, "Our rivals are vassals of your empire". So after 7 vassals you have anywhere from 7 to 14 negatives. I would assume a great player like yourself is aware of the base rules of the game. Anyway, I don't have the time to read your self-important ramblings anymore. They're better sent in a PM to Rhye than cluttering up threads where people ask for help.

Hakim the Mad said:

-Rather than some of the stability calcs used now which seem to overemphasize negative stability I would like to see some more positive modifiers especially with empire expansion. If a city contributes -4 stability there ought to be a way to get positive stability to counter that much in the same way you have to balance happiness and health. I'm not saying it should be easy and it should entail some risk/reward...For example, I would like to see this countered with a military presence so that if a city was a particular problem in regards to negative stability you could garrison one unit for +1 stability in that city.


-Additional problems...culture flipping....it is just to easy to build up culture early in the game by cranking out cultural buildings and wonders in order to get a high culture level in the mid game to turn rival cities.


-Plague and aggressive AI-on the one hand I like aggressive AI because it is a challenge on the other hand it is a HUGE advantage to a human player precisely because of plagues.

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-It's already possible and easy to gain points by conquering or founding cities, switching your expansion civic
-Later civs have cultural bonuses (it grows much faster) and in the case of the Turks, they can also assimilate
-There already are various measures to prevent the human player to exploit plagues

-There already are various measures to prevent the human player to exploit plagues

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Which are? It seems that as of right now the aggressive AI tends to build so many military units that as a result of plagues their cities are horribly underdeveloped by the industrial age. I could be wrong it could be because of something else but my hypothesis is that it is because plagues kill so many units and aggressive AIs will always overbuild on military units anyway.

-It's already possible and easy to gain points by conquering or founding cities, switching your expansion civic

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Right but heres the problem with that and with the civics only mechanism of present. One tactic I have used successfully against the AI is to try to weaken neutralize expansionistic civs prior to the point when they can expand. For example in one game I kept the Dutch from the Americas but controlling the channel and not giving them open borders. True there wasn't a absolute way to keep hold them back forever but it did slow them down a great deal. Secondly, as France I dropped Spain into anarchy by taking Madrid. With Spain and Holland out of the race for America it greatly reduced the pace of expansion in the New World as a result up until ~1800 much of South America was still unclaimed. Because the pace of this mod is so fast and because stability is such a critical issue if you can knock your opponents off kilter even a little you will achieve a lot.

What I'd like to see is rather than certain areas being reserved for certain powers which enables such exploits allow more variance of other powers to fill such a vacuum. Yes its possible that I might have become enormous, but that happened with me sticking to my culture borders, but had someone else also been able to fill that void cough cough England maybe they could have posed a serious challenge later on.....

Which brings me to another problem with stability which is that collapse, civil war etc have far too much of an impact on the long term game. If you can destabilize an opponent at just the right time it will permanently weaken them so that Spain never gets an empire, Germany never unifies etc etc.

As I see it the best use of stability is to limit the human player, make them play honest but also enable the AI to be more than merely a punching bag. Right now it seems like they are just there and don't really present much of a strategic challenge.

I think someone had said that the only ones that are possible to be posted here are the other mods because RFC has its own forum in this site.

- In case you attack an AI that's having plague, it'll strike your units more badly than his.
Overproduction of units isn't a consequence of plague anyway. The AI works that way (without plague you'd see huge stacks) and I even tried to reduce this from the AI functions.

- The Dutch can move through close borders, it's their power

- When West European civs are crippled, other civs should claim the land - Germany and Scandinavia at least are expected to do that (but sometimes Germany is disunited and Scandinavia is behind). Otherwise Russia, Carthage, Greece or Rome should be interested in small pieces of land, though with low priority. When it doesnt happen, they are busy doing something else. It should never happen anyway, because you must be very good to cripple ALL of them (England, France, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands).

I won a 600AC start as Germany on Monarch. It was challenging but managable. I am currenty getting stuck at China 3000BC start. Would appreciate some pointers.

My problems:
1) I read the guided on Rhye website and start with researching Bronze Working. I always get beaten to Math for Confusionism by Babylon. I find that the only way to be first in Math is to beeline to it. Beijing can train only 1 worker and nothing more, so that it can grow to use up all the commerce producing tiles (the fish, farming the incense, wheat, pig, horse) for a total of 6 commerces. Is my experience unique or did I do something wrong? Post-Math, gotta beeline to Calander for Taoism as well.

2) Post Math and Calender, I can at most research 3-4 more techs, (I go Wheel, Msytic, Monestary tech, Temple tech, then Currency). Research rate would be 9% by Currency. It will take something like 20-30 turn to finish it by Scientist. Is it normal?

3) I got manly objectives to accomplish. I need to get 8 cities up and running. Need to build a set of temple on everyone of them before I can build 4 big temples by 1000AD. I am currently around 600AD, with around 6 small temples each, the last two cities are giving me a lot of problem due to late start. Am I doing something wrong here?

4) I don't have much trouble defending barb. Spearman to the north and Axeman to the west and so far, so good. As to will I have enough troop ready when Mongol come, don't know yet. The temple UHV is giving me a lot of headach now.

Any pointers and helps is highly appreciated.

When West European civs are crippled, other civs should claim the land - Germany and Scandinavia at least are expected to do that (but sometimes Germany is disunited and Scandinavia is behind). Otherwise Russia, Carthage, Greece or Rome should be interested in small pieces of land, though with low priority. When it doesnt happen, they are busy doing something else. It should never happen anyway, because you must be very good to cripple ALL of them (England, France, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands).

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Well it shoud be said that one problem with Civ in general is that what it takes to cripple a civilization is very little in some cases, and because your mod is designed to make smaller civilizations more competitive it makes them more vulnerable to this. Consider that Spain in most games I've played usually consists of 3-4 cities. If you are France and you build one at Barcelona, and prohibit a Spanish build near Valencia it holds Spain at only 3 major cities likely Santiago, Madrid, Seville, and perhaps Leon if they are smart. The problem is that with only 3 the Spanish really cannot afford the lose of even 1 city for any length of time. Since so much of this mod is about timing i.e. being able to extend into the Americas at just the right time in the game taking Madrid, or Seville can set the Spanish back 100 years or more without doing much else. The benefit to risk is extremely high given that the French don't have to do much of anything extraordinary. This sort of play works on other powers as well...take one of their most important cities when they have a very narrow base and you cause a bottleneck at just the right time.

Additionally, there are certain time periods you can exploit militarily specifically to do this. Usually by the later Spawns i.e. the Dutch Macemen will have spread far enough that you cannot make much headway since the defense gets considerably stronger but early on even Longbowman built en masse can have an impact.

Maybe the advantage I have found is that the damge to relations early wars do can be repaired but they can usually have a profound affect on the latter outcome of the game since there is less margin of error which is the exploit you are taking advantage of. For me I would rather have the dutch to deal with in America than the Spanish French or English since the Dutch tend not to build large consolidated empires instead opting for a spread out approach which I'll concede to them usually. But if I can take out a couple of the "big dogs" incidentally then that just increases the likelyhood I can build a large consolidated empire myself.

- In case you attack an AI that's having plague, it'll strike your units more badly than his.
Overproduction of units isn't a consequence of plague anyway. The AI works that way (without plague you'd see huge stacks) and I even tried to reduce this from the AI functions

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Well that's the rub isn't is without aggressive AI the computers are too passive and innefectual but with it they pose only a short term threat, in the long term they cannot compete because their cities are underdeveloped and there is nothing you can do about that I guess...except have you considered designing your mods under the assumption that the AI is a good gauge for its strength whereas I tended to try to test assuming the opponents were human controlled. From that point of view the mod maybe less playable with AI players but more challenging when played against other humans.

With all this talk about the flaws of stability and the need to protect minor powers I feel it needs to be said that you seem to assume that there is country which must be minor. In fact with stability just about any country can be a major power if played right, and that is because stability tends to slow down the rate of expansion so that "first come" is not the most important thing. This is where I feel the real strength of stability lies in making players build and develop good cities not just "spam" cities. So in that regard we agree, IMO you just haven't considered that most of what is already done negates the spam advantage without the civ size penality in place. IMO if the city number penalty to stability was removed I would challenge anybody to try spamming as a tactic to win because I doubt it would work. Even if you could build enough settlers to carry it out before anybody else could get established you would likely have to fight off rivals from your colonies which would be a daunting task considering that 40 crap/dead weight cities would be too much to hold on to for a developed metropole of 4 cities.

That is why settler spam cannot work even without stability because 4 good cities are not enough to balance out too many bad cities and it takes enough time to develop the new ones to prohibit such a strategy.

So once again I would suggest stability be based less on the "size" of ones empire or its locality and more about how well that player is actually managing his countries. A player that can defend his territory, keep his people happy, and develop an economic/industrial base should always be able to expand IMO.

Stability mechanisms are very fragile, and I must always think twice before changing anything.
I recall seeing games without penalties for expansion which ended up in the human players controlling 50% of the world (search for "Japanese Imperial Challenge" in the RFC forum, you'll see what I mean).

Anyway, you are welcome to play the new MP version of RFC, in which you'll be able to confront your skills with other humans

Well that is a good point, but I would add perhaps there is another way to limit the threat of an Asian domination early in the game.

One thing I have long thought is that the ability to build ships should be connected to resources. There aren't a lot of trees in Egypt or Mesopotamia making it less likely they would have developed shipbuilding. Additionally, Japan didn't really have a large seagoing history prior to very recently, and I'm not sure the major "shipping" techs should be delayed a little in their entry into the game. Also I noticed on your map that deep water seperates the Americas from both Asia and Europe which I assumed was to block galleys from getting their too early which I liked...because I thought of trying that as a strategy. Maybe there should be a barrier between Australia and Asia too?

These might be a bit too complex, but something to consider?

Addendum: could you connect stability to civ happiness? I think this is a logical extension to make regardless of other considerations because it seems to me that if you have a civilization with a total number of say 12 people and 4 of them are unhappy that you should suffer a great instability penalty than a civlization with 40 people of which 4 are unhappy? One thing I would like to see is happiness and contentment factor into stability more.

yes the ocean is a barrier for galleys.
As ocean next to land screws up the graphics, it's hidden beneth a layer of sea-ice.
This wouldn't be possible in Australia (both for graphics and realism). But Australia won't be much settled anyway, thanks to the AI forbidden areas.

Stability takes account of happiness too, already. Both as overall approval rating, and city-per-city unhappiness (with some caps)

Check here for details
http://wikirhye.wikidot.com/stability