Current (SVN) development discussion thread

Again, any major changes totally make my settings weird and unplayable.
Are there any ways to implement speed-specific balances?
So that for instance when someone who plays Epic vouches for changes they want,
it doesn't completely screw over people who play my settings?
Leoreth, you said yourself that you don't really care if Emperor China is winnable
and your AI changes sometimes affect the players controlling that faction as well.

And 3000BC Normal speed Mongolia pretty much always collapses China.
Epic is understandably different because China has more time to prepare.

EDIT: I've recently moved up to Emperor on vanilla BtS (Normal speed as always)
so I think I might try tackling Emperor scenarios here and have some more insight than normal.
 
No, it's true, I've observed that the Mongols are back to lackluster again under my normal settings as well (otherwise I would be more hesitant to react). I'm currently trying some stuff to rebalance them and China.
 
Leoreth, Are you still open to suggestions regarding the four major empires of classical antiquity (Persia, Macedonia, Rome and Carthage to a smaller extent) or will you just be fixing bugs and errors for the 1.9 release?
 
Again, any major changes totally make my settings weird and unplayable.
Any major changes? Do you object the new soundtrack changes too? :eek:

TD, I worry about you. You are sounding as ultra-conservative as Ann Coulter nowadays. What happened to you?! :confused:

Need I remind everyone that RFC: DoC is a modmod, which by definition is a set of fan made changes on top of a set of fan made changes to an official game? Change is what keeps this alive. Change is what makes this interesting.

For TD, as a fellow Dragon Age fan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSX6mxWXmcs&t=213
 
Any major changes? Do you object the new soundtrack changes too? :eek:

TD, I worry about you. You are sounding as ultra-conservative as Ann Coulter nowadays. What happened to you?! :confused:

Need I remind everyone that RFC: DoC is a modmod, which by definition is a set of fan made changes on top of a set of fan made changes to an official game? Change is what keeps this alive. Change is what makes this interesting.

For TD, as a fellow Dragon Age fan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSX6mxWXmcs&t=213

I dislike being compared to Ann Coulter.

After a little while having completed several UHVs during 1.8, I started trying out Domination Challenges and etc. and when I moved to SVN again, I feel as if these things are less possible.

Many of the changes have been either buggy or had consequences that are difficult to deal with. I still feel the K-Mod Great Artist change is unpalatable. If we could implement the improved naval AI from K-Mod that would be great. But instead we get Great Artists without fixed 4k bombs. I still feel like all the AIs just refuse to trade with me, no matter what the civ I play as well.
I don't agree with Leoreth in that a Monarch game needs to be challenging in exchange for forfeiting doable Emperor games, especially in my position,
when I just moved up to Emperor in vanilla BtS and will begin tackling Emperor UHVs.
I have mentioned before that I like the new soundtrack changes, but not much else.

Also, the recent spat of REALLY bad suggestions (such as punishing you for resisting the Seljuks) and (Israel) to me, seem like byproducts of bad change as well.
Admittedly, the Seljuk exploit needed to be fixed, but it's not a very intuitive exploit.
You really going to take two stability hits AND miss out on a treasure trove of EXP to get rid of the Seljuks?
I'm sure not, I'm going to crush them with 20 Camel Archers and get LV4-6 units.

The biggest thing imo, is that Leoreth, if you're reading this, I don't think 1.9 is anywhere NEAR ready for release. There is so much polish it needs.

Bottom line. A lot of DoC hasn't really been fun lately,
especially when I pour in a couple hours per game,
only to find some bug or issue that either prevents me from winning
or something (playing Japan and when the Spanish come, no matter what option I pick, the conquerors still come, or the recent France issues where 50% of the land area = 80%.
Or when I was saying that China's trade penalty for tech was too severe months ago, no one was listening until recently.)

But I guess that's the role of the beta tester huh?
The other thing is that, from my perspective, I'm the only one really voicing dissatisfaction with these things and
I feel like they probably would've ended up going into the final product if I didn't mention some.
 
I dislike being compared to Ann Coulter.
Rush Limbaugh then. He's much more badass. :lol:

I still feel like all the AIs just refuse to trade with me, no matter what the civ I play as well.
Same here. Tech Trade is now a rare event, rarer than the Transit of Venus. I'd like to compile an impressive Trade Montage picture like the one in my Corporate Russia Domination game, but that is no longer possible. :(

I miss being able to trade for Gunpowder from China while having a different State Religion. Or trading techs with the Turks (Cautious, not a Vassal) as Russia.
Spoiler :


Or when I was saying that China's trade penalty for tech was too severe months ago, no one was listening until recently.
I think it applies to all civs now, not just China.

A most striking example is Byzantium. I used to get Calendar routinely from AI Byzantium while playing as any European civ. Now I have great difficulty even as an Orthodox Russia who share a Brothers in Faith bonus. With a Catholic civ it's plain impossible.

Thankfully Mansa is still the good old Divine Right Guy. :p

I think most of the recent changes are great. Especially the soundtracks, improved Chinese city placements, and improved Portugese Conquerors. Continental Europe on 3000 BC is still a dump, but that's understandable.
 
No Rush Limbaugh either.
I have strong feminist leanings,
but I won't give away anything else about my affiliations.

Leoreth has denied changing the tech trades for anyone other than China though.
But I really feel the effects and it is pretty impossible to trade for any techs that normally shouldn't be hard to obtain. (I can't even get Banking most of the time?)

I have noticed that the Portuguese end up in Malacca though now,
instead of Macao. Does that mean I no longer need to launch
pre-emptive naval invasions against Lisboa?
 
Leoreth has denied changing the tech trades for anyone other than China though.
Modifying tech trade of China affects the entire world history in a DoC game, since China is by default the greatest Tech monopoly source in this game. You will feel this particularly strongly if you play as Russia. Now I just rage switch to Mercantilism because China won't give me squat.

The irony is, Espionage against China is even less feasible due to the way Espionage works. I don't think BTS's Espionage system is designed for balance among civs with vastly different spawning dates.

That and adding Orthodoxy. With AIs not capable of building the AP/Catholic Shrine consistently before 1000 AD, 3000 BC start Medieval Europe is pretty much every state with a different State Religion - how do you trade in a place like that.
 
Modifying tech trade of China affects the entire world history in a DoC game, since China is by default the greatest Tech monopoly source in this game. You will feel this particularly strongly if you play as Russia. Now I just rage switch to Mercantilism because China won't give me squat.

The irony is, Espionage against China is even less feasible due to the way Espionage works. I don't think BTS's Espionage system is designed for balance among civs with vastly different spawning dates.

That and adding Orthodoxy. With AIs not capable of building the AP/Catholic Shrine consistently before 1000 AD, 3000 BC start Medieval Europe is pretty much every state with a different State Religion - how do you trade in a place like that.

I've noticed that Espionage is a lot less feasible now because Intelligence Agencies &
Security Bureaus are still faraway comparatively with how it used to be as well.
That is a big factor as well.
 
No Rush Limbaugh either.
I have strong feminist leanings,
but I won't give away anything else about my affiliations.

Leoreth has denied changing the tech trades for anyone other than China though.
But I really feel the effects and it is pretty impossible to trade for any techs that normally shouldn't be hard to obtain. (I can't even get Banking most of the time?)

I have noticed that the Portuguese end up in Malacca though now,
instead of Macao. Does that mean I no longer need to launch
pre-emptive naval invasions against Lisboa?
Radical, egalitarian or equality feminist?
 
Also, the recent spat of REALLY bad suggestions (such as punishing you for resisting the Seljuks) and (Israel) to me, seem like byproducts of bad change as well.
Admittedly, the Seljuk exploit needed to be fixed, but it's not a very intuitive exploit.
You really going to take two stability hits AND miss out on a treasure trove of EXP to get rid of the Seljuks?
I'm sure not, I'm going to crush them with 20 Camel Archers and get LV4-6 units.
I'm not sure why you're bringing this up, because I haven't followed any of these suggestions, and stated that I don't think they'd work early on.

The Seljuk exploit on the other hand needed to be fixed. It may not have been intuitive, but it still was an exploit. And as you say, it's not as if it's impossible to have an army to fight them off as you're supposed to.

The biggest thing imo, is that Leoreth, if you're reading this, I don't think 1.9 is anywhere NEAR ready for release. There is so much polish it needs.
That's a pretty vague remark imo.

Bottom line. A lot of DoC hasn't really been fun lately,
especially when I pour in a couple hours per game,
only to find some bug or issue that either prevents me from winning
or something (playing Japan and when the Spanish come, no matter what option I pick, the conquerors still come, or the recent France issues where 50% of the land area = 80%.
Or when I was saying that China's trade penalty for tech was too severe months ago, no one was listening until recently.)

But I guess that's the role of the beta tester huh?
The other thing is that, from my perspective, I'm the only one really voicing dissatisfaction with these things and
I feel like they probably would've ended up going into the final product if I didn't mention some.
I'm sorry, but yes, that's what comes from being able to beta test. It's the trade off you make for getting new features regularly.

Please don't think I wouldn't value your reports on everything; you're right that you've brought to light many problems with the game that I would've missed or only noticed much later. If I had to work without that kind of feedback, I would be much slower because I had to play through every change I make myself.

But please don't blame me for being a little skeptical here: I trust your judgment, but I still need to see how things are in the game to really know what to change. Sometimes I can't manage to get that form of experience immediately because I'm focused on other things or simply don't have the time for, say, a whole China playthrough that would be needed to get the right perspective. And sometimes I just come to other conclusions, as with the Chinese tech speed for example.

Now for the actual tech rate problem, I do see there's something wrong. When I roll Byzantium spawns and Rome or India are still working on Currency or CoL I know it's not right. And I agree that there's something wrong with tech trade. I just denied that I actively inhibited tech trade for anyone else but China as you accused me of. What's wrong now? Maybe China was needed to fuel the world with techs. Maybe there's some hidden change in the way the AI evaluates techs because there are more players in the game now. I don't know, but I plan to find out.

Same here. Tech Trade is now a rare event, rarer than the Transit of Venus. I'd like to compile an impressive Trade Montage picture like the one in my Corporate Russia Domination game, but that is no longer possible. :(

I miss being able to trade for Gunpowder from China while having a different State Religion. Or trading techs with the Turks (Cautious, not a Vassal) as Russia.
Spoiler :



I think it applies to all civs now, not just China.
Do you think these are bad trades? On Emperor?

I have noticed that the Portuguese end up in Malacca though now,
instead of Macao. Does that mean I no longer need to launch
pre-emptive naval invasions against Lisboa?
They have more options now. Macao is still among them, only more unlikely.

Radical, egalitarian or equality feminist?
Is that really relevant here?
 
Do you think these are bad trades? On Emperor?
Well they're certain good trades. Great trades, for both me and AI China. :p

If you mean to question their realism though, I admit it's not realistic for Russia to get Gunpowder from China, and that you can use that as the reason to prevent it from happening, but there are several points of note:

(1) I as a player am extremely unrealistic in my foreign policies. For Russia, anyway. For the Netherlands or England my policies are somewhat realistic. Ideally, I think players should get different results with different approaches, not the same uniform tech trade penalty regardless of what you do. You could accomplish this by tweaking the foreign relations system (a la the French UP, but in a more extensive way that applies to all civs).

(2) If you're going for realism in terms of tech trade, historically there were a lot of trade between China and the Middle East (Persia, Arabia). It's via the Middle East that Gunpowder spread into Europe. That is currently nonexistent in game. Practically the only ways for Europe to get Gunpowder is to trade directly with China, or research it themselves. The Islamic civs (except Mali) generally do not trade techs with other civs in this game. Should that be changed to improve realism?

(3) Religious penalties to relations need rebalancing in general. Most prominently:

(3A) What's with the new religious penalty with Chinese leaders? Taizong is fine, but Hongwu is a religious zealot. That's bull. I know Hongwu used to be a Buddhist monk, but he did that only for the free food - he's not actually a Buddhist.

I agree with Hongwu being a less competent AI than Taizong, but the switch between them occurs way too early. Bottom line is, the switch should happen after 1250, not before. Hongwu is known for driving Mongols out of China, not for loosing China to the Mongols.

(3B) Justinian hates everyone. Too much. In RFCE he's much more realistic - always willing to OB, always willing to trade techs - my kind of leader. In DoC he behaves much like Toku with a funnier hat: "I only hate you moderately, but I won't give you anything".

(3C) Safavid Persian leader, Abbas. He has perhaps the highest religious relations penalty among all leaders (something like -12 or -16) and never OBs with any European civ in any of my games. I thought AIs were supposed to conduct at least half-serious attempts at their UHVs? And that the OB with Europeans UHV was actually based on the historical Abbas?
 
Well they're certain good trades. Great trades, for both me and AI China. :p

If you mean to question their realism though, I admit it's not realistic for Russia to get Gunpowder from China, and that you can use that as the reason to prevent it from happening, but there are several points of note:

(1) I as a player am extremely unrealistic in my foreign policies. For Russia, anyway. For the Netherlands or England my policies are somewhat realistic. Ideally, I think players should get different results with different approaches, not the same uniform tech trade penalty regardless of what you do. You could accomplish this by tweaking the foreign relations system (a la the French UP, but in a more extensive way that applies to all civs).

(2) If you're going for realism in terms of tech trade, historically there were a lot of trade between China and the Middle East (Persia, Arabia). It's via the Middle East that Gunpowder spread into Europe. That is currently nonexistent in game. Practically the only ways for Europe to get Gunpowder is to trade directly with China, or research it themselves. The Islamic civs (except Mali) generally do not trade techs with other civs in this game. Should that be changed to improve realism?

(3) Religious penalties to relations need rebalancing in general. Most prominently:

(3A) What's with the new religious penalty with Chinese leaders? Taizong is fine, but Hongwu is a religious zealot. That's bull. I know Hongwu used to be a Buddhist monk, but he did that only for the free food - he's not actually a Buddhist.

I agree with Hongwu being a less competent AI than Taizong, but the switch between them occurs way too early. Bottom line is, the switch should happen after 1250, not before. Hongwu is known for driving Mongols out of China, not for loosing China to the Mongols.

(3B) Justinian hates everyone. Too much. In RFCE he's much more realistic - always willing to OB, always willing to trade techs - my kind of leader. In DoC he behaves much like Toku with a funnier hat: "I only hate you moderately, but I won't give you anything".

(3C) Safavid Persian leader, Abbas. He has perhaps the highest religious relations penalty among all leaders (something like -12 or -16) and never OBs with any European civ in any of my games. I thought AIs were supposed to conduct at least half-serious attempts at their UHVs? And that the OB with Europeans UHV was actually based on the historical Abbas?
1) What do you mean by unrealistic?

2) pfft who cares about OTL?

3A) Probably to keep China isolationist

3B) I call him Tok of the Occident :p

3C) I've seen Abbas with a -21 before, that's a little overkill. Recover his cities, gift him techs, give him resources and he is still furious.
 
I've toned down the religious diplomacy penalties for Justinian, Hongwu and Abbas. Abbas doesn't care about religion at all now, and instead gets more angry when you've got close borders with him to create some trouble with the Ottomans. He and Justinian also like to OB more. Toku actually was more inclined to vassalize than to OB which I thought was kinda funny, I made both the same instead.

I also tried to remedy the tech trade problems in the classical age a little by giving most involved leaders lower thresholds after which they stop to monopolize techs (they start trading after a certain percentage of civs knows them, but due to the existence of certain backwards civs I assume they were often not passed). The "you can't trade away monopolies" rule now only applies to human China, most of their leaders (except Taizong to model the medieval tech exchange) have high thresholds anyway.

Let's see what comes of that. I will also look for some way to make the Middle Eastern civs trade more despite the religious differences.

Edit: by the way, is there any civ where you feel they capitulate (not vassalize) too easily/rarely? Because then I could change that too while I'm at it.

Edit2: Several leaders, especially of classical and muslim civilization, will now only outright refuse to trade techs if you're furious. Suleiman and Saladin are more open to trade techs in general and have less dislike for other religions. Mehmed and Abu Bakr are more isolationist still.
 
@strijder20:

-My advice is to send your starting Galley over to India and trade for Ivory. Maintain good relations with China and cave to their demands;
don't worry, they'll be dying soon enough. When the Mongolians come; they'll usually conquer China,
from Corea, send in a stack of War Elephants+Samurais+Cats and start razing badly placed cities and routing Mongolian armies.
When China respawns, they will either be:

-Weak and voluntarily vassalize to you.
-Weak and easily conquerable since they'll only have 2-3 cities tops from razing all the non-essential cities.

If they are beating back the Mongols, then what you'll need to do is assist the Mongols by invading the eastern seaboard simultaneously.
Pay attention and leave an Explorer or some other unit in the Chinese capital to monitor progress.

-I don't think there's anything special about natural Japanese stability after playing them semi-frequently. (Rhye's is still a Japanophile though).
However, AI Japan never collapses, which is absurd.
There were certainly periods of disunity and turmoil in Japan throughout its history.
The Genpei Wars and the Sengoku period are perhaps the two best examples.
Not that it has a powerful bearing on gameplay, but it's something to be left considered.

No, no, you get me wrong. I had no problem with China being so strong - I trained 15 samurais and slashed their army to pieces - to get UHV, I'm just remarking that it might be hindering human Mongolia and Korea or something. Oh, and China never respawned, because they didn't collapse in the first place. Good point on attacking simultaneously with the Mongols though.

Japan is a extremely great civ to play with (especially with it's new UP, which allows an awesome amount of Promotions if you get the Himeji Castle), and if I remember correctly, I also got my first UHV ever with them (although in Vanilla RFC it's rather easy to get).
 
Ah, that's the world I'm searching for : exploit.
Sorry for making this Seljuk thing kinda very complicated, unreasonable and senseless~ HAHA

P.S : Did I miss something about the civ-specific event Leoreth describe in the original thread's #1 post?
Is it about Trading Company, Orthodoxy popup and Persecution things only? Or will there be any specific events like "Incoming Chola attack" for Indonesia, "Mansa Musa pilgrim to Mecca" for res. Egypt or "Songhay attack" for Mali thingy?
I just saw that 1.9 is about to be released soon..
 
In any case that won't make it to 1.9.
 
Edit: by the way, is there any civ where you feel they capitulate (not vassalize) too easily/rarely? Because then I could change that too while I'm at it.

Edit2: Several leaders, especially of classical and muslim civilization, will now only outright refuse to trade techs if you're furious. Suleiman and Saladin are more open to trade techs in general and have less dislike for other religions. Mehmed and Abu Bakr are more isolationist still.

The Mesoamerican civilizations, Corea, Mali, Khmer & Indonesia will vassalize all too readily.
But that is normal and I don't think should be changed. As they normally don't amount to much;
vassalization helps them survive and contribute something.
I once had a Rome game where I had Inca as a vassal; I tried actively to keep them less advanced,
but they managed to catch up to me and overtake me briefly before Future Tech, without Internet.

Big civs like China, Russia & Mongolia no longer vassalize as much or at all,
even if they're down to about one city/on the brink of collapse from being under siege and you've got Astronomy.
The rebirthed versions, while usually weak, will never vassalize to the player and usually end up vassalized to someone else like Mongols or Vikings.

Most of the European civs will fold/vassalize under normal parameters.
 
Edit: by the way, is there any civ where you feel they capitulate (not vassalize) too easily/rarely? Because then I could change that too while I'm at it.

Portugal was a vassal of Spain between 1580-1640, perhaps working towards that might make things interesting.
The Netherlands was a Spanish vassal until their independence fight in 1568. Perhaps make it so the Netherlands starts off as a vassal to an AI Spain.
 
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