Rallying call for Rhye's and Fall of Civilization

Rhye said:

http://rhye.civfanatics.net/pages/civ5-RFC-gallery.php

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I am impress with how much work is done already!

But, France's color scheme is kinda.. ugly. At least for my eyes. I understand that this is not how the release is going to be like, but yeah, just pointing that out.

Also, I see Verona is not a CS? Wait, you separated independents from CSs? (I see it has the barbarian color scheme, and the roman thingy-emblem)

In rest, AWESOME

Rhye said:

one more update: I'm thinking of replacing Songhai with Ethiopia.
Besides being a more important civ, Ethiopia is more useful for gameplay (containing Egyptian expansion that otherwise may reach South Africa, and leave room for European colonization of West Africa). A city state or 2 can be placed around Timbuktu.

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Rhye, as one of the biggest fans of your mod that there is, this is a personal plea for you to keep both Ethopia and the Songhai as major, playable civs. Having playable civs in both of those map locations added a tremendous amount of variation--and thus enjoyment--to the game play of your civ 4 mod. Removing either would be a great loss.

As far as the inclusion of the Iroquois is concerned, I could really go either way. I write this as someone who grew up on the shores of Onondaga Lake and is quite familiar with the history of the confederation. The Covenant Chain was indeed important to the history of what is now the northeastern United States, however many of the claims about a vast Iroquois empire were exaggerations by the British to further their own colonial ends. If the Iroquois held sway over many other tribes and regions, and the British held sway over the Iroquois, it isn't hard to see why the British would want to disseminate hyperbolic claims of Iroquois dominance. Historian Francis Jennings has done perhaps the best work on this subject, most notably in "The Ambiguous Iroquois Empire."

Anyway, please take as much time as you need to do the mod right, rather than fast. My wife and I have spent many long hours--years, really--playing your mod together. We can't wait until the civ 5 version comes out. Consider this a personal thank you for all the fun you made possible for us.

I love RFc, I am excited to see that you are developing a CiV version.

I agree with Photar. Take as long as you need.

In the meantime, I would like to volunteer as a tester.
If you accept, be aware that my testing could take awhile to do school, HW, etc.

Thanks for the screenshots, appreciate them. I get the impression that the map is much larger, f.e. the width of Northern Italy... and I agree, the colours for France are ugly which by itself is no reason to change them

Now that Korea is officially announced, will the full-blown civ be in this mod instead of city-states representing Korea?

I just looked at the pictures, and I just noticed how in the latest picture of Italy how Rome is a CS but Verona is under Roman control (and the Romans have Barbarian colours now apparently.) What is with that???

landlubber said:

Now that Korea is officially announced, will the full-blown civ be in this mod instead of city-states representing Korea?

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Korea ends up being a really small area on a world map of civ V or civ IV.
Korea was there in bts, but it wan't playable untill someone made a modmod for it.

I've gotta say that I have been anticipating the release of RFC ever since CiV came out. That being said, I've had a tough time imagining how RFC would translate to CiV. I'd imagine it is still designed to be an accurate depiction of the development of civilization throughout the world (which is really what makes it such a great mod in the first place). I've been wondering...

Will religions be re-implemented? Like it or not religions have played a monumental role in shaping the development of civilizations even to this day. Without it I think RFC would have a lot to lose. Plus maybe it helps to somewhat remedy the crazy ai diplomacy.

Will some form of a governmental system be added? Social policies were an interesting add to CiV, but I don't see how they entirely replace government. In fact they seem to be more of an indicator of the culture of a civilization. Honestly, I'd love to see social policies in the game with perhaps the type of government influencing which branches could be unlocked. However, this does not change the fact that social policies cannot replace a government system altogether.

How will the one unit per hex system work? Personally I think this ruins the game doublefold. One reason is that there just simply isn't enough space in general. But the other reason totally breaks the game: The ai simply can't handle it. I think it has to be taken out to ensure fun gameplay. Just imagine playing as Germany with conquest based uhv's. It would just be too easy to win against an incompetent ai.

These were just thoughts I had trying to imagine RFC for CiV. I really don't know how possible it is to implement solutions to these problems given that CiV has been to this point so unmodder friendly. I just hope that it will be possible to have a mod that accurately simulates history again.

NinjaCow64 said:

I just looked at the pictures, and I just noticed how in the latest picture of Italy how Rome is a CS but Verona is under Roman control (and the Romans have Barbarian colours now apparently.) What is with that???

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My guess is that Rome collapsed and became independent states.

NinjaCow64 said:

I just looked at the pictures, and I just noticed how in the latest picture of Italy how Rome is a CS but Verona is under Roman control (and the Romans have Barbarian colours now apparently.) What is with that???

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Maybe it's the papacy?

I've probably become rusty on civilization modding (haven't done anything over a year on civ 4), but I would gladly help on a project such as this one. If you want to send me a PM about what I can do for art Customization, I would be more than happy to help. I would love to have another go at .dds files.

Rhye, know that we fully appreciate your work and we truly understand how hard this project is, and we understand how some of the latest patches/DLCs might have adjusted your plans, but it'd be very, very nice to see some more details.

I mean, I just jump with joy seeing those screenshots, honestly, but I would LOVE to see some textual facts. Like, is Korea going to be in the DLC version? Are the Wonders of the Ancient World going to be in? What balance changes have you made, or are planning to make?

I do understand this is a heavy burden, but can we just see some more details, please. You know, when you have time. We don't want to rush you. Thanks again

Rhye said:

http://rhye.civfanatics.net/pages/civ5-RFC-gallery.php

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It's great to see some more details trickling out. Can't wait until there's something playable... I'll have a reason to reinstall Civ5!

OK, here's some information I can share. But keep in mind that it's all tentative.

- The timeline is very similar to the Civ4 RFC one (so, shorter Modern age, longer Classical), but with Classical age even longer. This will later result in an extension of the Ancient and Classical tech trees, and shortening of Modern/Future

- For this reason, I think that adding the Ancient Wonders DLC into the main game is really convenient.

- The DLC included so far are Babylon, Mongolia, Spain, Inca, Denmark (as Vikings). No Polynesia. Korea is yet to be decided. When Carthage DLC comes out, it will for sure be included.

- A DLC free version is not planned at the moment, but it could be made once the mod is complete

- Songhai are replaced by Ethiopia. Leader graphics will stay at it is. This change isn't 100% sure yet, but so far it proved to be a good change gameplay-wise

- Seraphim's UHV mod will be included

- City states are used as RFC independents. They are grouped in Minor Civs. There are 20 or more of them. So, when a civ collapses, it will not necessarily break up into barbarian/independent/native, but it may become Byzantine, or Australian, or Brazilian, depending on the falling civ and on the location.

- Stability is not implemented yet. I am thinking of a kind of civic system that includes religion and government, that should affect stability. The panel will contain 6x5 options.

- Civs respawns, secessions, etc. are not yet implemented

- The map is in my opinion the best ever made. Smaller than the largest civ5 size, it offers plenty of room in crowded areas.

- So far, the DLL is not available. This means: no settlers maps (civs settle randomly), no modifiers (ancient civs are super strong, the game is basically unplayable), no dynamic civ names

- City names map are halfway done. Your help is needed.

- Mercenaries, congresses, embassies, plague and world wars are something that I'd like to do, but who knows when...

Can you script some things with LUA? I know the AI wouldn't know what it was, but it could be done via flavors...

Rhye said:

- So far, the DLL is not available. This means: no settlers maps (civs settle randomly), no modifiers (ancient civs are super strong, the game is basically unplayable), no dynamic civ names

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For the modifier, what do you think of unique buildings with stronger bonus for late civ ? For example a Library UB for England/Germany/France would yield more science than the "normal" library used by Egypt/Babylon/India... else we can just add science/culture/gold manually using Lua at each player turn, but I don't know if it could be well reflected on the UI info bar.

By dynamic civ names you mean changing with Era ?

I've successfully changed CS name on the fly for some part of the UI in one of my test mod by changing the localized text database value, but it will also require modification to some other UI files, 'cause I now some doesn't reflect the change. It may be possible to do that for Major Civs too.

The settler map is a kind of area restriction for settlers of some civs, or is it more complex ?

Any particular reason DLC's wouldn't be included (sparing, of course, the incredible difficulty this must take)? I could easily see Polynesia being changed to Hawai'i or New Zealand, and just making the map full-size would give Korea room. Also would like to see the Songhai be their own civ, not converted into Ethiopia.. if it's wanted so bad, why not mod it in with a "skeletal" version?

Gameplay wise, maybe? There's not enough islands to make Polynesia a fun civ to play as? Just because they're included doesn't make them fun to play as - I for one wouldn't want to play a one-tile civ with ocean all around.

Putmalk said:

Gameplay wise, maybe? There's not enough islands to make Polynesia a fun civ to play as? Just because they're included doesn't make them fun to play as - I for one wouldn't want to play a one-tile civ with ocean all around.

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As I posted above, translating them into the Hawai'ians or Maori isn't a terrible option.. New Zealand is relatively large, and, in terms of Civ, has good terrain for production. With Gedemon's YNAEMP maps, the largest Hawai'ian islands are scaled up, which isn't a terrible option, and the terrain is, again, decent for a city. Certainly tall empires, but that wouldn't really be a terrible thing.

I just wanted to say that I'm really looking forward to playing this mod.