RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

[Barak]

I would agree is there was a single civ which had researched clockmaking!

The indies have researched Optics, Guilds and Chivalry in 1126. Noone is even close to them.

 

[st.lucifer]

Sounds fun. I don't see the problem of the indies being on a tech parity with the regular player.

Tech parity is fine in principle, but the problem is that the Indies build stacks of heavy crossbows, pikes, and trebuchets, and go take out weaker AI civs completely. If it were only a matter of Independent vs. human, I'd be in favor of them being able to competently defend themselves, but they tend to be powerful, spread out, and aggressive.

Perhaps if we gave them a stronger tech penalty for number of cities controlled than the status quo, they would effectively slow down as they became more powerful (and would have a crawling tech rate at the very beginning of the game, speeding up as superfluous cities are lost).

 

[micbic]

DIARY OF A VENEZIAN MERCHANT

CHAPTER 1:EXPANSION AND CONSOLIDATION

800 AD

Dear diary,
Let me introduce myself. I am Enrico Del Piero (ancestor of the Juventus player), a fish merchant from the newly-settled town of Venice. As the government system allows merchants to take important decisions, I am actually a part of the leaders!!! I am a faithful christian, as this newly spread belief, having spread from Rome, has found place in our city. We don't have any buildings for our faith yet.

816 AD

Dear diary,
Good news for our city-country.First of all,our empire has expanded to three cities!! It's no more a city, we have colonized the Adriatic, building Zara in the mouth of a small river, and captured Firenze. I can tell that the means of defense were primitive, single archers like those our Roman ancestors were defending Aquileia. Also, there has been work at the fish resource, so that we get more of them (and we sell more!!!). Finally we have officially recognized catholicism as our state religion.

828 AD

Dear diary,
Two news this time: At first, we are not the only civilization. Word has spread that an islamic culture, the Al-Andalus, at the same level of advancement as us, exists-we don't know where. They seem peaceful. Other news is that there has been some religious reform, since religion is now existent throughout the empire, and is now organized.

860 AD

Dear diary,
The explorers of our nation have not found the Al-Andalus civilization yet. On the other hand, they have found many cities which do not belong to any particular power. I don't think it would be bad to capture some of them, it would expand our trade...

868 AD

Dear diary,
Two new major powers have been found: Byzantines and Burgudians. The first ones are Orthodox and don't seem friendly. We don't know their core yet. On the other hand, the Burgudians are fellow believers and they are based somewhere northwest of Milano. The Byzantines are more powerful than us, we are more powerful than the Burgundians. I can't understand, however, why the Firenzians have revolted against us-what more did they have as part of the independent empire?

900 AD

Dear diary,
Our country finally has its own road system, which connects Zara and Firenze with Venezia!!!That means faster conduction of trade. Moreover, we have found, using our glorious tririemes, the core of the Cordoban Empire. You can get there either by land, via Milano, Marseilles and Barcino, either by sea, using some islands as chokepoints. In both cases, the first city you will see is Balansiyah-our people already trend to call it Valenzia. It is not a populated city-not more than Zara or Firenze, though it is very cultured. Finally, our scientists have a great science rate, we feel like a new era comes every few years!!!

 

[Whitefire]

Perhaps if we gave them a stronger tech penalty for number of cities controlled than the status quo, they would effectively slow down as they became more powerful (and would have a crawling tech rate at the very beginning of the game, speeding up as superfluous cities are lost).

First off, the Independents aren't too aggressive. Unless you reqorked the code, they never declare on players or AI.

If you increase the tech penalty, then you will have large stacks of obsolete units resulting in XP farms. If you want to address the issue of large armies and the tech rate, then give them some kind of UP that gives +1 military unit cost. As the military grows, their economy collapses and it helps restrict their army size.

 

[sedna17]

First off, the Independents aren't too aggressive. Unless you reqorked the code, they never declare on players or AI.

If you increase the tech penalty, then you will have large stacks of obsolete units resulting in XP farms. If you want to address the issue of large armies and the tech rate, then give them some kind of UP that gives +1 military unit cost. As the military grows, their economy collapses and it helps restrict their army size.

We can tweak virtually any aspects of the indy powers, it's just a matter of choosing which one. These are as simple to implement as changing one number in a Python script. Really. Look in Assets/Python/RFCEBalance.py and I bet you can figure it out. We can increase unit maintenance costs for indys by an arbitrary percent. We can increase the maintenance penalties they pay for having many cities. We can increase the number of hammers it costs them to produce units. The key is figuring out the right parameters to tweak. If only I had a nice cluster of Civ-capable computers to run a truly representative number of simulations for each tweak...

 

[Whitefire]

I am well aware of what can or cannot be tweaked. This isn't my first time testing and developing on the civIV platform .

I proposed the military unit cost to handle 2 birds with one stone. The teching rate and the size of the army. If you want to tweak production and beaker values, go right ahead. Hell, you could even code it to have the Independent only produce as many beakers as the non-barb, indie civ with the lowest tech rate does. It's just a matter of opinion the "best" way to handle it.

 

[st.lucifer]

First off, the Independents aren't too aggressive. Unless you reqorked the code, they never declare on players or AI.

If you increase the tech penalty, then you will have large stacks of obsolete units resulting in XP farms. If you want to address the issue of large armies and the tech rate, then give them some kind of UP that gives +1 military unit cost. As the military grows, their economy collapses and it helps restrict their army size.

I personally don't understand the code or know what's been done to it. My statements are simply made from observations of the games I've played to test things. I doubt that the independents are declaring war on anyone, but the AI civs are certainly willing to kick the hornet's nest, and if they begin next to a powerful indie that never loses contact with them (as in the case of Venice or Genoa), there's no auto-peace and no end to the rampaging armies.

 

[micbic]

I personally don't understand the code or know what's been done to it. My statements are simply made from observations of the games I've played to test things. I doubt that the independents are declaring war on anyone, but the AI civs are certainly willing to kick the hornet's nest, and if they begin next to a powerful indie that never loses contact with them (as in the case of Venice or Genoa), there's no auto-peace and no end to the rampaging armies.

Have you ever noticed, in the diplomacy screen, that you actually can ask another leader to make peace or war with independents? Attached a screenshot with a such scene from latest version (Dec. 9)

 

[jessiecat]

I personally don't understand the code or know what's been done to it. My statements are simply made from observations of the games I've played to test things. I doubt that the independents are declaring war on anyone, but the AI civs are certainly willing to kick the hornet's nest, and if they begin next to a powerful indie that never loses contact with them (as in the case of Venice or Genoa), there's no auto-peace and no end to the rampaging armies.

If Whitefire actually believes the indies are not too aggressive then I can only assume that he has not play-tested this mod very much. Everyone else who has done so, in some cases dozens of times, agree completely with you and I on this. I'm not concerned about how we slow them down. We've got modders like sedna and 3Miro who are quite capable of dealing with this. Some people may the greatest Civ players in the world. Others may be the best modders. Some people may even be both. But the rest of us mere mortals are moderate Civ players who are quite capable of spotting a problem in our mod which is spoiling gameplay and we'd like something done about it.

 

[Barak]

In my current game as France, i have been at war with the indies for the entire game! they keep invading my territory, which causes me to attack them.

 

[Jet]

Tried the Dec 9 version as the Norse. It looked good but wasn't very interesting. I didn't feel like I had much to do and gave up early.

 

[Barak]

I do feel there is something missing in the late game. No goal, no way to "win" unless you can get a UHV.

It would be great if there were a diplomatic way to win the game, or something we could create to replace the spaceship victory.

 

[micbic]

Colonial victory would be a way, but it is placed as the UHV of some civs.
I think that cultural victory should be on, but with lower aims (eg 15000 culture-legendary)
I would disagree with diplomacy victory, as there was no real alliance at those years.
And of course a domination-conquest victory :O

 

[jessiecat]

That's a good point. Colonial victory is a possibility even though getting individual colonies might still be a UHV condition. Maybe relating to no. of colonies built, monopoly of certain trade goods etc. It's worth thinking about.
And it could replace a diplomatic victory though personally I think we should still have that option too.
I agree that cultural victories should be possible. Not 50,000 per city as in RFC but 20,000 as it used to be. Also winning as the most cultured civ even if you're not the leader on points. That's another possibility. We should be looking at a whole range of victory conditions beyond military conquest and domination, neither of which are very likely in this mod.

 

[sedna17]

But it's a good point about early-game too. Who were you playing as, Jet?

Barbarians give you a lot more to do early on -- to be included in the next test version posted tonight. Some of Whitefire's ideas about re-arranging the early tech tree will be useful for improving the challenge of the early game (esp. for Western Europe), but they won't be in the next test version since they take longer to implement (and I need to think about what to include).

 

[micbic]

DIARY OF A VENEZIAN MERCHANT

CHAPTER 2: POSSIBLE ALLIES, AND LONG TERM PLANS

918 AD:
Dear diary,
It seems that our nation will lead the whole world to a new era!!! A library has just been built in our south-eastern city, Zara, and given that another one is funded to finish in kinda a few turns in our great capital, that means that many people will develop and have access to knowledge. Moreover, a scout patrol wants to explore Burgundy, since we have now a Right of Passage agreement and our relations have become better.

927 AD:
Dear diary,
At first, from what I know, the scouts have explored much of Burgundy. They have two cities, called Dijon and Verdun, at west-northwest of the great mountain chain. Moreover they have found their west neighbors, the Franks. They have Chalons near the Burgundian border, but it is not their capital. Their king, according to the stories, looks a bit like a gay, but is anycase nice. They are slightly more advanced than Burgundy. Somewhere else, the Eastern Empire of Orthodoxy seems to be at an unstable phase. That is surely good news, as they are not so much a threat right now.

939 AD:
Dear diary,
Many news have reached our borders. Let's start. Our patrol has found more about the Franks and the Burgundians. The Burgundians have not only the pre-mentioned cities, but as well Charleroi, near another sea at north. The Franks, have an extended border with the Burgunds, with Chalons, Tours and Calais being their outposts. To our interior, we have officially recognized a bureaucratic system, and slaves are renamed to peasants (but the only difference is their name-not more rights ) These peasants have started mining iron in the northen mountain range-we will soon be able to crush our foes with our army!!!

951 AD:
What a glorious day it was! The elected president of our nation gave the following speech: "It is well-known, my friends, that a great deal of wealth lies at eastern lands. But since we cannot capture these lands yet, we need to trade with there. And to do so, we have to control trade stations along the route to the Middle East, coastal or islands (author's comment: Actually the first UHV). For our glory!!!'' I felt proud as a citizen of this Empire. Moreover, I don't think that Byzantines are so powerful. I mean OK they have 10 cities etc etc, but we are more advanced. And, with a powerful army, can easily take over 2-3 cities of them.
Finally, we have met the Germans, who are as powerful as their west neighbor, Burgundy. By the way, I don't think that Burgundy can be a threat, as they don't have room to expand.



P.S. Because the ACTUAL job of a playtester is discovering bugs, rather than writing stories there are two strange screens...

1) OK. I don't want -1 modifier. Let's make peace with them (the actual fun is that the modifier is referring to the indies).
2) My own cities revolt for me (and what else in the world)

EDIT: Sarcasm refers to myself

 

[Whitefire]

If Whitefire actually believes the indies are not too aggressive then I can only assume that he has not play-tested this mod very much. Everyone else who has done so, in some cases dozens of times, agree completely with you and I on this. I'm not concerned about how we slow them down. We've got modders like sedna and 3Miro who are quite capable of dealing with this. Some people may the greatest Civ players in the world. Others may be the best modders. Some people may even be both. But the rest of us mere mortals are moderate Civ players who are quite capable of spotting a problem in our mod which is spoiling gameplay and we'd like something done about it.

I see it as a problem too, however I see it as a problem of free workers early game and free experience mid-late game.

I guess I need to explain my point about them being Aggressive. Aggressive implies that they are the ones actively seeking the fight. And, unless I missed this, the Indies can't war dec. So the problem is the AIs are biting off more than they can chew OR the war dec stays active so long that the indies can muster their idle army on the Baltic coast to reinforce the fight in Italy.

This can be seen as two problems. The first is that the AIs seem to have had their Aggression and Backstab levels tweaked. I haven't delved into the code, but it does seem the AI is more willing to War Dec than in regular civ (good thing). Unfortunately, this tweak might cause them to go Montezuma on the Indies, causing them to fail to recognize an enemy with 20ish cities as a deadly threat to their 2-5. The other problem is that the Indies start with an empire larger than the Byzantines, with the greatest resource variety of any civ, it can never collapse even if it conquers all of the map, and there are 2 of them.

Off point, but do the Indies initiate in trade with each other? i.e. Open Borders? If they do, turning off that ability would hinder trade routes, army movement and resource availability.

So, to hinder the Indies directly, you can do hard caps and soft caps. Hard caps are against Rhye's GD philosophy, so I won't discuss them (although scripting when the indies get certain techs would be the fastest, surest way to control the problem). Some of the soft choices left in the Game Design are city maintenance, unit maintenance, tech modifiers and production modifiers. Taking all 4 into account, the first 2 are better IMO.

Why? Because they're inherently dynamic and require no tweaking on our part. If you double or triple the cost of maintenance, you reduce research, since the slider has to pay for gold, and restrict the number of units, since the lack of gold will cause auto-disbands. The up side is that as the Indies fall behind and contract, the penalties are removed and they can start catching up.

You can make a similar argument for tech rates in Rhyes, since it's already coded in. But, IIRC, production rates are a flat adjustment that never changes. Which means lots of tweaking to make sure they can't produce too much early on yet don't fall behind late game. And since we can't play as the indies, any kind of test is going to be observational and entirely subjective to a player's influence on the world.

Also, you can make an auto-peace between AI and Indies once a city changes hands. The AI will likely war dec if they have the upper hand, but remain at peace if they lose a city.

In short, "Independents aren't too aggressive" and "give them some kind of UP that gives +1 military unit cost. As the military grows, their economy collapses and it helps restrict their army size."

You people give me typist's cramp.

In my current game as France, i have been at war with the indies for the entire game! they keep invading my territory, which causes me to attack them.

How many other civs are losing to Independents? In my games as France, Burgundy and Spain, I was highly aggressive towards Independents early on (stealing workers, farming experience) and other civs seemed to be spared their wrath because of it. Trying Cordoba today.

 

[Cethegus]

I like the colonial victory suggestion. What do other people think of cultural victories then? Should there be other ways to win it other than just the regular 3 cities requirement? Perhaps upon achieving a total culture value divided between a number of cities? (For example 20 000 for 3 cities, 15 000 for 4 cities, 10 000 for 6 cities... it all ends in 60 000)

What about other victory conditions? Conquest and domination are very unlikely in my opinion (perhaps unlikelier than in any other mod/scenario) and adding Religious victory in would be rather deterministic. RFCE doesn't yet have a replacement for Diplomatic victory (have to be elected as the HRE for a number of times?) and as much as I like an economic victory, does anyone have a good idea how it should be pulled off? Total amount of isn't really all that hard or interesting to achieve. Should an Alliance Victory be then made possible? It would be directly related to your Power (and espionage?) rating and all things connected to it. (Vassal States and Defensive Pacts)

 

[Barak]

In my French game, i noticed the Italian independents harassing Genoa and Venezia. Every time one of the AI civs took Milan, Pisa or Florence the Indies would strike back.

In central Europe, I conquered Leipzig liberated it to my vassal Germany (added 2 Xbow to replace the 2 warriors that appeared there). 5 turns later a huge stack of indies retook the city. Normally, I would be pleased, but im not sure we ever intended the indy cites to be this aggressive.

Austria and Hungary were destroyed by the independents as well. The Poles were harrassed along their western front by continual war with the German independents, trading cities back and forth.

In Iberia and Gaul, the indies are weak to start and easily overrun making these territories relatively safe.

IMO if we want to keep the independents this powerful as a force we need more than 2 independent groups. When I move to take Milan, the indies in the Baltic shouldn't get mad at me In RFC there are 4 IIRC. Perhaps in this case they could be regional?

Italian, Germanic, Slavic and eastern?

 

[jessiecat]

Some interesting points there. You've spotted something I've noticed as well.
In most cases the indies are passive until you attack one of them. Then every other indy in the area seems to attack you. Sort of like "You declared war on our friend".
The worst case is Italy. If you manage to capture one of them then sooner or later waves of attackers (usually superior troops) seem to pour out of Rome and attack you in waves. It's less of a problem in Central Europe and usually none at all in Iberia because Cordoba and Spain either flip them or capture them early on.
And I agree with you about indies wiping out whole civs. In one recent game as Cordoba, they destroyed the French, the Germans, Burgundy, Genoa, Venice, Russia and Poland. After I wiped out the Spanish I became the only civ in Western Europe, apart from the English and the Norse. It was like WW3 had broken out.