Rhye's of Europe Civ Discussion Thread

[-W-]

Ok, I'll try to get something done then

[Úmarth]

If the cities are independent, or controlled by Russia, then Helsinki/Turku/et cetera. If Sweden controls, then Helsingfors/Åbo/and so forth.

Just to clarify, the independents don't have a city map. Individual independent cities are spawned with set names at set dates, I don't know if there's one in Finland.

Since Russia never controlled Finland in our period that region should not be included in Russia's city map. If Russia conquers Finland it will retain the original name from whoever it was conquered from. If they settle in Finland it will have a Russian name from the list like in vanilla civ. That's how it works in RFC.

[-W-]

Should I also name tiles, which the civ never actually controlled, though they might've called certain cities on different names. So for example, for the Swedes should I name the tile(s) which consist Constantinople/Istanbul Miklagård? And BTW, why are the British Isles covered in snow?

[Úmarth]

That circumstance might prove contentious, but I would say yes.

The snow is a placeholder for moorland, although I seem to remember it being decided to cut back on that because there aren't huge tracts of infertile land in Britain. You'd have to look at the map development thread or ask st.lucifer.

[jessiecat]

Originally Posted by -W-

Should I also name tiles, which the civ never actually controlled, though they might've called certain cities on different names. So for example, for the Swedes should I name the tile(s) which consist Constantinople/Istanbul Miklagård? And BTW, why are the British Isles covered in snow?

I'm done the settler map for the Bulgars and have started on the Byzantines. My view is that names like Constantinople or Adrianople should stay the same whoever conquers them.
Except in the case of the Ottomans who should automatically change the names to Turkish ones when they capture them.
As already said, the snow is a placeholder waiting for special moorland art.
It's OK like that for now, I think.

[st.lucifer]

Originally Posted by jessiecat

OK, how about,
1. Control Greece and the Balkans (south of the Danube) in 1400AD?
2. Build 6 Christian monasteries and 4 academies by 1600AD?
3. Control Greece, the Balkans and Constantinople in 1800AD?

BTW There maybe a problem with the capitol as Ive described on the map
thread. What do you think?

I'm in favor of the capital being in the Danube delta, as mentioned in the map thread. Varna is fine.

The starting date, UB, UU, and UP are all good, as are the leaders.

The UHVs - I'd be in favor of making one of them kick in earlier. Possibly capture 3 Byzantine cities by 1000 AD, in lieu of the 3rd suggested UHV? I'm thinking that Bulgaria might be a civ that we'd want to have come in early and be done early, as we don't have many of those.

My proposed UHV list:
1. Capture 3 Byzantine cities by 1000 AD (Adrianople and Thessalonika are prebuilt; the chances of the Byzantines founding a third city somewhere in the area are pretty good; there's always Constantinople if the Bulgars are ambitious)
2. Build 8 Orthodox monasteries, 2 academies, and 2 Orthodox cathedrals by 1600 AD
3. Control Greece and all Balkan territory south of the Carpathians by 1400 AD (should we exclude Constantinople from this?)

Thoughts? If done right, this requires the player to balance military with religious development (while generating enough science GPP to found two academies); the second UHV condition becomes a challenge similar to the China UHV in the current RFC. Completion of the second condition kicks in a golden age to fuel the military buildup necessary for the third UHV.

[st.lucifer]

Originally Posted by -W-

Should I also name tiles, which the civ never actually controlled, though they might've called certain cities on different names. So for example, for the Swedes should I name the tile(s) which consist Constantinople/Istanbul Miklagård? And BTW, why are the British Isles covered in snow?

I'm fine with calling Constantinople Miklagard, even though the Swedes may never even see the place. As Umarth said, the snow is a placeholder for moorland (like plains but without the irrigation bonus), and I did go a little overboard with it, which will be corrected in the next map update (mostly devoted to fixing Britain to Disenfrancised's demanding specifications)

Sorry for the confusion - I don't like it either, but it has to stand in until we can put in new terrain modifications.

[jessiecat]

Originally Posted by st.lucifer

I'm in favor of the capital being in the Danube delta, as mentioned in the map thread. Varna is fine.

The starting date, UB, UU, and UP are all good, as are the leaders.

The UHVs - I'd be in favor of making one of them kick in earlier. Possibly capture 3 Byzantine cities by 1000 AD, in lieu of the 3rd suggested UHV? I'm thinking that Bulgaria might be a civ that we'd want to have come in early and be done early, as we don't have many of those.

My proposed UHV list:
1. Capture 3 Byzantine cities by 1000 AD (Adrianople and Thessalonika are prebuilt; the chances of the Byzantines founding a third city somewhere in the area are pretty good; there's always Constantinople if the Bulgars are ambitious)
2. Build 8 Orthodox monasteries, 2 academies, and 2 Orthodox cathedrals by 1600 AD
3. Control Greece and all Balkan territory south of the Carpathians by 1400 AD (should we exclude Constantinople from this?)

Thoughts? If done right, this requires the player to balance military with religious development (while generating enough science GPP to found two academies); the second UHV condition becomes a challenge similar to the China UHV in the current RFC. Completion of the second condition kicks in a golden age to fuel the military buildup necessary for the third UHV.

I think we concur on most of this. Glad you're happy with the Mongol template for UU, UB and UP and leaders.. Easy to mod I think. I wasn't sure about UP as maybe it should relate to Christian faith rather than just city razing. Maybe linked to their early conversion to Orthodox Christianity. Hard to judge.
Agree with the UHV's except that taking Constantinople will be hard at any stage if we want the Byzantines to remain playable before the Ottomans spawn. Otherwise your UHV's work for me.
The map I've posted has Bolhorod on the north bank of the Danube where the Bulgars spawn and Varna on the south bank, so maybe either would be OK as capitol I think.

BTW What about we open the links to the civs in the RFCE wiki so we could post civ descriptions like this one, open for discusssion and editing of course? That way, we can build a working database where people can view work that has been done and what's in progress. Might save referring all the time to posts made a long time ago. It would be all there at a click. What do you think?

[Whitefire]

Originally Posted by st.lucifer

I'm fine with calling Constantinople Miklagard, even though the Swedes may never even see the place.

I concur and encourage you to make this a requirement for all civs. Most nations have names for cities that differ from the names chosen by current and historic politics. For the sake of roleplaying, all cities should be renamed that are applicable.

[Akhera]

I think Poland shouldn't start at Warszawa - it was founded around 1300 and became the capital as late as in 1596. Poznań or Kraków would be better choices. Poznań was the capital of Poland in ~970-1038, Kraków in 1038-1596.

[Rof]

Welcome every one, this is my first post on this forum. Please forgive me my English I think it would better if Kraków will be capital, because this is very important city for polish culture and history. First capital was Gniezno but this isn't important city. Warszawa was built to late, like Akhera said.

[st.lucifer]

Good point. Let's go with Krakow, and encourage them via settler map to expand into Lithuania rather than into Germany or Austria.

[Úmarth]

I can't recall how far we got discussing UPs, or if we did at all. But I was thinking about how big Byzantium will be from the start, giving it huge stability problems. And yet ideally it should survive until at least the fourteenth century, while getting sizeable chunks taken off it at regular intervals (Italy as native civs spawn, N Africa then the Levant then Syria to the Arabs, then Bulgaria and Thrace to the Bulgarians and Anatolia to the Turks). The chances of this happening without them collapsing is basically nil.

So, I propose the following UP for Byzantium:
"The Power of the Emperor - cannot collapse when running hereditary rule"

The historical basis for this would be the amount of times Byzantium was brought from the brink of collapse under the pressure of either external or internal threats by a powerful Emperor - Justinian, Heraclius, Leo III, John, Romanos, Alexios, to name a few.

[Ajidica]

Nice idea Umarth. One thing I would change is the civic requirement to another civic. Many of the Emperors who saved the empire were generals who overthrew the emperor. Examples:
Heraclius overthrew Phocas, no hereditary lines there.
Leo the Armenian overthrew (?), no hereditary lines there.
Nicephoras overthrew Leo the Armorian (?), no hereditary lines there.
Alexius overthrew Nicephoras Byrennius.
For vannila Rhyse, the civic would actually make the most sense as Police State.

[Úmarth]

True, I suppose that all depends on how we handle the civics since many of them don't fit the period at all.

[st.lucifer]

Originally Posted by Úmarth

True, I suppose that all depends on how we handle the civics since many of them don't fit the period at all.

Great suggestion for the UP. Let's look at this again when we redo civics - we had an updated civics list back there somewhere, and there's definitely one which fits better (absolute monarchy, maybe? I'm trying to remember what we had).

If we can tweak the Byzantines so that they're likely to lose outlying cities to revolt semi-regularly, that would also make me happy. Whether the Byzantine player is AI or human, they should be struggling to hang on for most of the game - I'd propose that at least one of their UHV goals should be 'control ___# of original cities in 1000 AD'.

[Úmarth]

Okay I went ahead and added it to the wiki so we don't forget later on.

[Úmarth]

I've updated the wiki page so that the civ list shows a vague spawn order. I started to put the spawn on there but reading through this thread there's a lot of uncertainty and it seems a lot of the spawn dates were decided upon in the original thread, now lost to the mists of time it would seem, which I didn't have much to do with so I don't think I'm qualified to sort out what's what.

Anyway, if someone (looking at you, st.lucifer :P) could hammer out a rough but more fairly authoritative list of spawn dates and add it to the wiki then I'd appreciate it.

[blizzrd]

Originally Posted by st.lucifer

Great suggestion for the UP. Let's look at this again when we redo civics - we had an updated civics list back there somewhere, and there's definitely one which fits better (absolute monarchy, maybe? I'm trying to remember what we had).

If we can tweak the Byzantines so that they're likely to lose outlying cities to revolt semi-regularly, that would also make me happy. Whether the Byzantine player is AI or human, they should be struggling to hang on for most of the game - I'd propose that at least one of their UHV goals should be 'control ___# of original cities in 1000 AD'.

I'm new to posting about RFC Europe, so apologies if I've missed stuff from earlier.

Agree also, great suggestion for the Byzantium UP.

I can't see any discussion thread for the civics just yet, but is Oligarchy somewhere in the mix to be added? Many parts of Europe were ruled by Oligarchies during the historical period of RFC Europe.

Also, how will it be possible to work in the military orders to RFC Europe? Perhaps quests could be the way to incorporate the Knights Hospitaller and Teutonic Order (and there were others too)?

[jessiecat]

Originally Posted by Úmarth

Okay I went ahead and added it to the wiki so we don't forget later on.

How can I add the Bulgaria civ details that st. lucifer and I worked out to the civ list?
Maybe if the civs were highlighted we could open them up and add stuff to them like
you did with the Byzantines. Also there seems to be an access issue with the page.
When I try "edit" it gives me "access denied" even though I've joined the wiki.
What's up?