Minor Suggestions Thread

[dragodon64]

I think he meant sea routes to the ends of the Old World, not technical circumnavigation.

I think adding various localized pirates would be a nice addition, especially to prevent galleys from sailing down the coast of Africa without a hitch. Would the western tip of Africa be a good spawn location?

[AnotherPacifist]

well, there's always the historically early Suez Canal.

[plastiqe]

Yes, I meant circumnavigation of continents. The cape of good hope in Africa (and cape horn in South America) should be natural barriers that prevent the easy passage of early ships.

Civ III Rhye's had pirates pretty good, it was near impossible to get from Europe to Asia unless you built a small armada.

Another thought I just had, if the early mediterranean pirates were changed to galleys, then what about taking away metal casting as a starting tech from Rome and Carthage? That way it'd be a race for triremes to dominate the seas.

To my list I'll add:
e. remove metal casting as a starting tech for ancient civs

[Panopticon]

Galleys would be far too easy to beat in the Mediterranean. They would have essentially no aggressive capabilities.

[ilduce349]

i would like to see a new promotion, called loyalty which is +10 attack and defense in home territory and cannot convert to uprising civs. i was playing as the spanish and one of my cavalry had 182 experiance (great general attached won alot of battles against the dutch, french and incans) then america trys to gain their Independence from me and Timur (my super unit) converted to america because of the new civ converts unit . i ended up enterting world builder deleting the unit from the enemy and rebuilding it after doing this 6 times the american threat was over and they had been destroyed, however if their was no unit flipping or a promotion to prevent this i would not have to enter world builder give a unit 20 or so promotions 6 times

[Lone Wolf]

The New World nations are a bit too quick to respawn. They should have a lower chance to respawn, or the instability for owning Mexico and Peru should be lessened.

[star15389]

Originally Posted by Lone Wolf

The New World nations are a bit too quick to respawn. They should have a lower chance to respawn, or the instability for owning Mexico and Peru should be lessened.

Well, Spain has decent stability there, but since AI Ethiopia is more likely than AI Spain to get the New World conquerors it doesn't really make a difference. This is actually the thing that bugs me most about RFC, even more than the persistently independent Eastern world: Spain NEVER gets to the New World first since Izzy always goes for Engineering and DR before Guilds, and even on the rare occasion Spain is first to Optics some other civ with more productive coastal cities techs it within one or two turns (not that Isabella would actually build a Caravel that quickly ) I mean, if it's Europe that's most advanced when Optics is discovered, it should be overwhelmingly likely that Spain or Portugal are first to reach the New World assuming the human player isn't European, but they never do.

[Panopticon]

Originally Posted by star15389

Well, Spain has decent stability there, but since AI Ethiopia is more likely than AI Spain to get the New World conquerors it doesn't really make a difference. This is actually the thing that bugs me most about RFC, even more than the persistently independent Eastern world: Spain NEVER gets to the New World first since Izzy always goes for Engineering and DR before Guilds, and even on the rare occasion Spain is first to Optics some other civ with more productive coastal cities techs it within one or two turns (not that Isabella would actually build a Caravel that quickly ) I mean, if it's Europe that's most advanced when Optics is discovered, it should be overwhelmingly likely that Spain or Portugal are first to reach the New World assuming the human player isn't European, but they never do.

AI France is an unusually strong civ. Simple as that. They colonise best, as we've discussed recently. They frequently colonise first, at least in Mexico. They have a good tech rate and lots of gold. They often lack Iron, but Germany isn't aggressive enough in the early game to take advantage of that with Knights (whose counters need Iron to build, i.e. Pikes and other Knights).

I don't know if it's possible to encourage a specific AI to pursue a specific tech path, but if it is, then Isabella should be pushed towards Optics and Astronomy.

[Deego3]

Originally Posted by Panopticon

AI France is an unusually strong civ.

Really? For me they are usally impossibly weak. Once, in a 3000BC game, they were below Inca in score.

[Lone Wolf]

Once, in a 3000BC game, they were below Inca in score.

Did they have Paris? Were they vassalized by Germany?

[Panopticon]

Originally Posted by Deego3

Really? For me they are usally impossibly weak. Once, in a 3000BC game, they were below Inca in score.

Well, they can't be impossibly weak, because that would be impossible. There is little we can learn from "once for me" stories, as opposed to the evidence we've all accumulated here together about our games. I'm running a series of American starts at the moment that should provide a more systematic view of what happens throughout the early and mid game.

[star15389]

France is really hit or miss. If Spain doesn't attack early and take Bordeaux, and they get to Louisiana early, they do well. But if not, AI France tends to do very poorly.

[ICNP]

Yeah I've seen France always be one of the top Europeans. However I have seen them fall behind when they fail to capture Milan or Spain/Germany/Netherlands decides to launch an offensive on the nearest French city.

I think there should probably be more Privateers in the Pacific, either from Arabia or just spawned, but England should get something to help counteract this to keep their UHV from being impossible (ie needing more than one escort per Galleon).

[dragodon64]

What do Arabians have to do with Pacific piracy (which I've never even heard of before)? I think there needs to be a lot more piracy in the Mediterranean in the 2nd millennium AD, preferably starting around 1200 as triremes and moving up to privateers in the 17th century until the 19th.

[Ogrelord]

Took this idea from Europa Universalis III.
Nations, States, and Kingdoms get bonus to their tech progress if their neighbours are ahead.

What if we do away with trade tech and replace with this: Civs which are behind in tech get a minute amount of beakers if they have open borders with Civs that are technologically advanced. More open borders, more bonus, but the overall bonus beakers are still small. This work best over a long period of time.

EDIT: Maybe you can still give tech away. Maybe this work best for RAND.

[Arkaeyn]

There are mods that have that for more normal BTS games. I think HephMod had something like that, packaged from a different mod.

[Wessel V1]

The concept is in the game already, but in a slightly different form. Techs get cheaper when more civs know them, which has roughly the same effect as you described.

[dragodon64]

Also, that really wouldn't be a minor change if it was implemented, now would it?

[civ_king]

it should increase the more eras behind it is, If Inca is in Classical and France is in Renaissance,
that's two eras apart so it would multiply it by two and if it were 3 eras behind it would multiply it by for in a binary increase

[dagriggstar]

Originally Posted by Panopticon

I don't know if it's possible to encourage a specific AI to pursue a specific tech path, but if it is, then Isabella should be pushed towards Optics and Astronomy.

It is possible...Create a new "flavour" say "Spain" then add the flavour to all the techs along the Optics/Astronomy route with a high value. Then give Isabella this "flavour".

I have done this and increased the rate of Spanish conquerers, though it still didn't happen in the majority of games...Perhaps it needs a higher value, don't really have time to test it myself at the moment though...

You can change other things too there...Like I think someone wanted America to play more like Mansa (backfill techs), this is also possible with xml...