RFCEurope 1.4

[Panopticon]

(feedback on Venice)

Just completed a game as Venice.
...
overall verdict (by me):
The Venetian game is fun and not too hard. I recommended it (especially) for (relatively) new players.

I personally believe it is very easy (and there are many ways to win), while France is hard (with a puzzle-type precise way to win that the player has to follow religiously).

You can invade North Africa as Venice.

 

[El Bogus]

The latest map changes aren't in the 1200 AD map (which you probably know). In that scenario Norway now has both harbour and trading post in their cities (+3 sea tiles).

 

[Swarbs]

I didn't think of setteling Amsterdam (early). I wanted to keep my civ small (you receive less of a penalty for having lots of cities under merchant republic, but it is still (about half of the original) a penalty.

Also there is only so much room in stability to play with and I don't know if the added city of Amsterdam is the best investment stabilitywise (compared to (eg.) running bureaucracy)

You don't need to settle Amsterdam early - most other civs only settle it very rarely if at all, so you can do it around 1300 and usually be fine for stability as you have manor houses, courthouses and castles in all your other cities by then.

As for stability, I rarely stay in MR as Venice as I find it a fairly underwhelming civic. If you are small enough to use it stably you generally won't need a high gold slider, so the 25% to gold is of limited use. In fact, once you take Constantinople, the Hagia Sophia with a market and weaver will usually fund maintenance and upkeep for all six cities you gain during the first and second UHV, so the gold slider will be close to zero. Feudal Monarchy ends up superior as the reduced cost of the units needed to defend a dispersed coastal civ, the increased happy cap from barracks, and the reduced maintenance and stability bonus from Feudal Law will outweigh the gold gained from MR.

But if you do want to stay as a Merchant Republic then stability is still no problem, as you will rarely end up with enough cities to get real stability issues imo. With Venice I have taken / founded Milan, Florence, Zara, Ragusa, Tirana, Prevesa, Candia, Navarin (Morea), Athens, Thessalonica, Hadrianople, Constantinople and Amsterdam. With 13 cities, you get -4 stability from MR, but +39 stability from manor houses, courthouses and castles in every city.

 

[gilgames]

Lil' feedback on Arabia: Initial kick off now works, no need to further tweaks.
But there is 1 problem. During crusades: if any catholic civ is voted to lead you have a turn between arrive and attack! BUT IF France or "Byz" is voted to lead, they come before you and will attack. This is due to civ's spaw order as arabia being 3. this is an issue with France only. They get awesome big stacks o 2-3. crusade. Pls fix this gamebreaker.

 

[AbsintheRed]

The third UHV is a bit of a funny one, but as gilgames says Amsterdam is probably the easiest way to get it. Although personally I think that the galleass should get the ability to sail on ocean and the cargo capacity promotion, and there should be AA resources on the Azores and Madeira. That would mean the ultimate evolution of the Venetian thalassocracy was to become a genuine colonial empire, using galleasses to settle Atlantic islands rather than squatting off another civ's AA for long enough to grab one colony.

We should make the 3rd Venetian UHV more challenging somehow.
Settling either the Azores or an empty Netherlands is not too fun IMO.
They should fight for an AA is some from, preferably with economy and/or trade instead of military.

 

[AbsintheRed]

The latest map changes aren't in the 1200 AD map (which you probably know). In that scenario Norway now has both harbour and trading post in their cities (+3 sea tiles).

Ohh, right, forgot to adjust the initial buildings there.
Eventually the map changes will also follow, but only after the base map reaches a more final form.

Lil' feedback on Arabia: Initial kick off now works, no need to further tweaks.

There is no inital kick off, nothing was implemented yet.
1 game is not really significant balance-wise.
Since there is a huge variance in every game, stability itself isn't always the same.

But there is 1 problem. During crusades: if any catholic civ is voted to lead you have a turn between arrive and attack! BUT IF France or "Byz" is voted to lead, they come before you and will attack. This is due to civ's spaw order as arabia being 3. this is an issue with France only. They get awesome big stacks o 2-3. crusade. Pls fix this gamebreaker.

Why is this gamebreaker in any way?
Historically the Arabs lost the city, why would it be a problem if you can't always repel the attackers when playing as Arabia?
Losing one city isn't the end of the world. Things like this make the challenge.
If anything, it should be the other way around, all Crusaders should be able to attack right away.
Gameplay limitations don't really allow this though.

 

[TheMulattoMaker]

They should fight for an AA is some from, preferably with economy and/or trade instead of military.

I don't know if this makes much sense in terms of history or gameplay, but could there be a diplo mechanic that allows Venice to "buy out" another civ's AA, similar to buying a Crusade? Like, offering a huge amount of gold, or GPT, or whatever?

...you could call the third UHV "Make 'em an offer they can't refuse"...

EDIT:

Spoiler :

Then again, this would get boring for Venice, the game would go like this:
1. Settle the Adriatic. First UHV. Easy.
2. Make tons of gold, buy Crusade, take Constantinople. Easy.
3. Make tons more gold, buy AA, make colony. Easy. Win.

 

[DC123456789]

It's a resource, so you can already trade for it if they have multiple (but it's likely to be very expensive to do).

 

[Force44]

I like the fact that all three of the UHV-conditions are easy. I think it (the inclusion of at least one civilization that has an easy achievable UHV) improves gameplay of the mod overall.

Now if UHVs were to be dependent on difficulty (different UHVs for different difficulties) it would be a different story.

 

[Force44]

We should make the 3rd Venetian UHV more challenging somehow.
Settling either the Azores or an empty Netherlands is not too fun IMO.
They should fight for an AA is some from, preferably with economy and/or trade instead of military.

In the current form this is more or less how my game(s) turned out.

The AA near Amsterdam could be made to spawn concurrent with the spawn of the Dutch. (shame for all the civs for whitch it is the closest AA though)

Cities with AA could be made a target for a diverted crusade. (still feels kind of military to me)

Mulattomaker's offer they can't refuse idea could be tweaked a bit from a UHV-condition to (Norwegian) viking-like points that get acquired through trade and (superior) economy.

eg.
Upon reaching a certain amount of points either a military force to capture a AA (also still feels kind of military) or the ability to forcefully trade away a competitors resource could be granted (ao AA) (disabling them to continue their project while simultaneously allowing you to start/continue yours <- does not feel military (to me)).

 

[Force44]

Upon reaching a certain amount of points the ability to forcefully trade away a competitors resource could be granted.

The 3rd UHV-condition could then be changed to.

Be the first to build a modern colony (so Greenland is excluded) and have acces to an Atlantic Acces resource without having an Atlantic Acces resource in your territory for a 100 years (33 turns)

 

[AbsintheRed]

I don't know if this makes much sense in terms of history or gameplay, but could there be a diplo mechanic that allows Venice to "buy out" another civ's AA, similar to buying a Crusade? Like, offering a huge amount of gold, or GPT, or whatever?

...you could call the third UHV "Make 'em an offer they can't refuse"...

EDIT:

Spoiler :

Then again, this would get boring for Venice, the game would go like this:
1. Settle the Adriatic. First UHV. Easy.
2. Make tons of gold, buy Crusade, take Constantinople. Easy.
3. Make tons more gold, buy AA, make colony. Easy. Win.

Yeah, this seems very easy.
Which is not a problem in itself, as I agree that some civs can remain easy.
But I don't see a point to spend time on coding new mechanics for something like this.
It's very minor gameplay-wise. You spend your production on some ships and a settler, or you convert it to some gold.

@Force44:
Similar answer.
These would be even harder to implement. Especially the forced trade part.
I don't think adding such complex changes are worthwile ATM.

Will probably follow the easiest route for now.
AA near the Netherlands spawn later, AA in the Azores.
Maybe a boost to Galleass.

 

[AbsintheRed]

AA near the Netherlands spawn later, AA in the Azores.
Maybe a boost to Galleass.

But this is not ideal either, I'm unsure whether there should be such easily reachable AAs.
Holland and Tangiers are already on the borderline, but you have at least some threat there in most games. But the Azores are always free of conflict.
Sure, you have to have a city in unstable territory, but is that enough if it's unchallenged by any other civ?

 

[Swarbs]

Could you add a "blockade resource" button to the interface that allows a civ to use a rival's naval resource when their ship is on it. It requires the two civs to be at war, and allows the civ to gain the benefits of a sea resource - be that health, happiness or Atlantic Access. At the same time it denies the use to the controlling civ.

So Venice can DOW on Morrocco, Portugal, Spain or France, then camp some ships on the AA whilst building the colony. That makes it a challenge, as the ships will have to survive multiple enemy attacks in hostile territory during the construction, or progress on the colony will be lost. Could also add a script that makes it more likely other civs with AA will go to war with a civ which tries to steal AA, so Venice has to have a massive navy to withstand all the civs that are trying to kill it.

This mechanic also has the advantage of allowing other non colonial civs, like Germany, Scotland and Poland, to try and build colonies if they so desire, albeit at the cost of a big investment in their navy.

 

[CaterpillarKing]

I haven't been on this mod in awhile, and I'm curious about something. How much of RFCE++ has been put into this mod? What's missing? I'm just curious because I know it's been awhile since RFCE++ was alive so I was wondering what has changed with RFCE since then.

 

[srpt]

++ had Serbia, Egypt, Sultanate of Rum, Crimean Khanate, Bohemia, the Lombards, Tunis and a Holy Roman Empire mechanic (am I missing anything?)

 

[DC123456789]

It had a union mechanic as well.

 

[AbsintheRed]

RFCE and RFCE++ has many differences, as ++ is based on a Beta version of RFCE (maybe Beta 12?), so even before 1.0 was released.
It has some cool features on a very outdated base, but not all of those features/civs is desired in the main mod.
Nevertheless some civs already made it: Aragon, Novgorod, Scotland, Morocco and Prussia/Teutonic Order.

I would advise you to take a quick check on the changelog, it's rather thorough

EDIT: the latest version of ++ was updated to RFCE 1.0, although it was buggy with it.
Also, just checked, and the changes in the mod since 1.0 are almost as much as the changes up to 1.0, from day 0!
On the other hand many of the most significant ones (provinces, new stability system, civic overhaul) came around Beta 7-10, so the corresponding version for those is present in ++ as well.

PS: I joined the mod developers around Beta 3-4. The changelog since that is more than 2100 lines
Probably an excerpt from all the mod features would be very welcomed.

 

[2phunkey4u]

Cities with AA could be made a target for a diverted crusade. (still feels kind of military to me)

Used to work out smoothly a lot of times for me with Ishbiliyah.

 

[CaterpillarKing]

Are there any scripted events for the Hundred Years War? If so what happens?

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