A bit disappointed

[jaolhe]

Hi,

I just decided to give this mod a go as it sounded very interesting, playing alternate history in the real world. I was also excited that the final patch had come out so the mod as a whole might be quite polished and full of nice features.

I loaded the 600AD scenario, picked the middle difficulty level and Arabia as my nation (seeing what I could do in the world, conquering all those ignorant Christians ).
The first thing I considered strange was that I began the game with a map showing just the western coach of Arabian peninsula and southern parts of Palestine. How can this be, the Arabs of those days being very educated and civilized people, shouldn't they have at least some idea of the medieval world map?!

Well, I was given 4 camel archers so exploration wasn't too hard. I made some early conquests and established 4 cities of my own with the settlers I started the game with. I encountered the Byzantines and fought some victorious battles with them. After that there was the second disappointment: no diplomacy with the Byzantine emperor at all! The nation was also very passive, not really doing anything against my growing war machine. Well, perhaps that is historical but the lack of diplomacy options here is really strange!

Playing the game further showed more and mored flawed things. I have now played until about 1100AD (500 years!) and still haven't been able to experience any diplomacy at all. I've explored the North Coast of Africa, whole Asia Minor and the coastline all the way to India. So far I've only encountered those weak Byzantines without any diplomacy and some independent states. I've seen no sign of Indians, Ethiopians or any European or Mediterranean power out there.

And the biggest disappointment: I thought this mod had some nice historical events and quests (like the advertised plague and Mongol invasion later on). I was pretty sure that I was going to see crusades in the 11th century, Christians bringing war to the Holy Land controlled by my Islamic empire. Now those years have almost gone and I've seen no one, nobody threatening me with war. There is no conflict between religions that was the most important thing existing in the world in the middle of the darkest middle ages!

Is the Arabian nation the only one suffering from this kind of design or are all the nations included with this mod as bland and uninteresting?

 

[merijn_v1]

The Byzantiums are an independent civ. So it's supposed to have no contact with them. If you want Byzantium as a major civ, download this.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=324003

I agree that the civs should get some pre-known territory. I said this some time before in the minor suggestion thread.

In the 600AD their are no Etheopians. Only the civs that are aviable in the Civ-choosing screen. (But those civs can respawn)

Unfortunately, their are no Crusades. But if you want them, I recommend RFCEurope.

BTW, welcome to RFC.

 

[nody]

The only civ that occasionally conquers Jerusalem from the Arabs are the Turks. They often turn out Christian so then you can consider them Crusaders.

You can always pick a European civ and send some knights to Jerusalem to control the Church of Nativity (and the Temple of Solomon). Maybe someone can make a modcomp (or modmod) where civs like Germany or France have a feature that they want to control Jerusalem. Like Germany conquers Rome most of the time and France sometimes.
Of course there is always a chance of a Spanish, Turkish or even Arabian or Dutch Rome.

You probably also need to send a Christian missionary to Jerusalem, since it only starts with Judaism (even with the Church of Nativity pre-build).

Of course in the 3000 BC scenario you always have the Church of Nativity in the Holy City which is not always Jerusalem or Rome. Haven't seen a 3000 BC Rome as Christian holy city yet.

Rhye said that's more probable in the new patch... but I rarely play 3000 BC.

 

[Baldyr]

I can see where you're coming from and the problem seems to be that you had really high expectations. RFC is a great mod nonetheless, if you give it a chance. But you need to realize that the main feature can be found in the title: Rise & Fall. All Civs don't start at the same time in the Stone Age - and dead Civs can be resurrected later (Nationalism). To me this is plenty!

Other than that there are some historical "events" in the mod (like conquistadors arriving in the New World) but the mod is really designed to play pretty much like a regular game of CivIV - with the added Rise & Fall.

If you want historical events you can add them yourself - look in my signature for a link to my scenario making tool that allows for some of the things you described. Or you could look out for other peoples mod-scenarios incorporating a more scripted game. (I'm working on one about the Rise of Russia.)

There is actually something called the Dynamic Starts modmod. It gives your spawning Civilization Techs depending on the current game situation - and also knowledge of the map depending on what other Civs know! But I believe this modmod needs to be updated for the new patch...

 

[Baldyr]

Maybe someone can make a modcomp (or modmod) where civs like Germany or France have a feature that they want to control Jerusalem. Like Germany conquers Rome most of the time and France sometimes.

Or there could be a real Crusades mod-scenario where historical events spawn European units in the Holy Land... (Or perhaps in Constantinople, enabling the Crusades with an Open Borders agreement with Byzantium. The playable Byzantium modmod could actually form the basis for such a mod-scenario.)

Anyone interested in designing this? Because I can make the actual code happen...

 

[Jusos2108]

The Arabs aren't suppose to be interacting with other civs in a 600AD start, that much anyways. If you play an unlocked 3000BC start, you'll find out that Middle East is full of other civs like Egypt, Babylon and Persia, even Greece might be present in modern Turkey. Byzant is a minor civ as they'll always be mopped out by the Ottomans that spawn in their heartlands.

BTW, try playing as Ottomans, it is a good starter civ.

 

[nody]

Or there could be a real Crusades mod-scenario where historical events spawn European units in the Holy Land... (Or perhaps in Constantinople, enabling the Crusades with an Open Borders agreement with Byzantium. The playable Byzantium modmod could actually form the basis for such a mod-scenario.)

Anyone interested in designing this? Because I can make the actual code happen...

I suggest something similar as the Conquerers event in America. Crusaders in Jerusalem for any Christian (maybe only European civs) that discovers the city first after a certain date. Maybe only in the 600 AD scenario?

I would then also add the renames for Jerusalem for all European civs in citynamemanager.py (in my development-thread). No French Al-Quds or Küdüs please.

It could easily be a modcomp and probably 1 file has to be modified, which anyone could replace in the mod.

EDIT: Wouldn't it also be cool if Israel would spawn as a minor civ after a certain date (1945?) with Judaism as state religion with the same unique power as Arabia and starts at war with all Islamic civs. Can anyone code that?

 

[jaolhe]

Well after your suggestions I tried the unlocked 3000 BC start and that seems to be a whole lot more interesting to play as Arabian nation as Egypt, Ethiopia, Persia etc are there (soon to be destroyed by civil wars though). There is also some variability what the world looks like when I start the game (which is nice BTW). Jerusalem seems to be razed in every game though, is this common?

This dynamic starts modmod seems really good idea and just what I might be after, lets hope the author gets it updated to the new version! I really wasn't happy when Turkey spawned on at my northern border with all those cannons, trebuchets and Christian religion... At the moment it seems I might enjoy this mod after all. What's the point with the über boring 600 AD start with all those independent civs anyway?

 

[Wessel V1]

1. It was because Firaxis didn't want us to wait more than 15 minutes when starting a new game. On some machines (although the game is now 3 years old) it took over an hour to load America. Therefore the unlocked starts were released. Most people consider them to be more exiting, and some who have played the Warlords or even Vanilla version of the mod never play the 600 AD start at all.
2. The 600 AD start is not so boring, except for Arabia and perhaps in a rare case the Aztec (because of the Maya). All others have enough neighbours to worry about, though the presence of Rome and Greece makes medieval Europe (even) more exiting.

 

[Baldyr]

I suggest something similar as the Conquerers event in America. Crusaders in Jerusalem for any Christian (maybe only European civs) that discovers the city first after a certain date. Maybe only in the 600 AD scenario?

Nay, not a carbon-copy - most Civs should know about the Holy Land anyway. (I'd suggest incorporating the Dynamic Starts modmod to any mod-scenario, by the way.)

Maybe just have a historical event for the First Crusade, or something. Spawn units for all Christian European Civs in Constantinople (or something) and make everyone declare war on the Arabs at once. I could whip up a PyScenario script for that once I get all the necessary features in.

I would then also add the renames for Jerusalem for all European civs in citynamemanager.py (in my development-thread). No French Al-Quds or Küdüs please.

Yeah, superficial additions like those would be a given. (That can also be done with PyScenario.)

It could easily be a modcomp and probably 1 file has to be modified, which anyone could replace in the mod.

A PyScenario script is only one file. (But you also need to install the application itself, which is one additional file and also have a replacement file for the Event Handler module.) And it would be easy for anyone to edit themselves.

EDIT: Wouldn't it also be cool if Israel would spawn as a minor civ after a certain date (1945?) with Judaism as state religion with the same unique power as Arabia and starts at war with all Islamic civs. Can anyone code that?

I think you'd have to add a new Civ to RFC, which isn't easily done... Or do you propose a regular Independent city? (Anything else would be beyond my own limited skill, at least.)

 

[Baldyr]

What's the point with the über boring 600 AD start with all those independent civs anyway?

The benefits of the AD600 scenario would be that it gives a more historically accurate Medieval world. Also, there are a lot of cities but only a few Civs (at start) - which helps with time in between turns. (It is after the Dark Ages, you know. All the old Great Civilizations pretty much perished...) But soon new ones will spawn...

I actually prefer the AD600 scenario for playing anything else than the Ancient Civs. I also like the Autoplay Expansion modmod (probably needs to be updated also) as it generates more historically accurate starts for any Civ and date. Like a Roman and a Mongolian empire, which never happens otherwise.

 

[nody]

EDIT: Wouldn't it also be cool if Israel would spawn as a minor civ after a certain date (1945?) with Judaism as state religion with the same unique power as Arabia and starts at war with all Islamic civs. Can anyone code that?

In addition to this Israel modcomp-idea:

Because of their late start they should also get another extra unique power, similar to Americans: Regular immigration from all cities in the world that have Judaism.

... and they should prefer to be vassalized by America of course.

Time victory should be possibly disabled (or delayed to 2120 AD) in this scenario to give them these UHV's:

- Have 5000 espionage points in 2000 AD
- Make sure Arabia doesn't control any territory in Mesopotamia, the Mediteranean and Persia in 2050 AD
- Spread Judaism to 10 % of the world in 2100 AD

 

[Baldyr]

While I'm not in favor for a Israel mod, I think the Crusade idea would be doable. Just howl if you wanna pursue it further and we could make it happen, for sure. Or if anyone else wants to take the reigns. The code part is not a problem, as long as its only Python.

 

[robward5]

For a crusade mod, would it be possible for whichever civ controls the christian holy city to receive extra military units spawning in the holy land when jerusalem is first absorbed/conquered by an islamic empire? As this almost always happens when the arabs spawn, the likelihood of an actual crusade occurring should be quite high, although a human player could use the units for other purposes if they so wished. As far as I recall, the first crusades were instituted at the request of the pope.
My best guess is that some form of modified conquerors code could be used to make this happen. Of course, my own programming experience is essentially zero, so if I'm being a tool, please shout me down.

 

[Baldyr]

For a crusade mod, would it be possible for whichever civ controls the christian holy city to receive extra military units spawning in the holy land when jerusalem is first absorbed/conquered by an islamic empire? As this almost always happens when the arabs spawn, the likelihood of an actual crusade occurring should be quite high, although a human player could use the units for other purposes if they so wished. As far as I recall, the first crusades were instituted at the request of the pope.
My best guess is that some form of modified conquerors code could be used to make this happen. Of course, my own programming experience is essentially zero, so if I'm being a tool, please shout me down.

Sure, there would be conditions to the various Crusade related events. Like that the Arabs need to control the Holy City, and the Arabs being at war with the Civ controlling Rome, and that Civ needs to be Christian, and so on. If not, there shouldn't be a Crusade either... One such event could be tied to the Civ controlling Jerusalen when its lost, granting them units. Why not?

I don't think that the Conquerors code applies - it would probably be more work to rework it than to write new code... All this is basically simple if-statements ("if the game year is so and so, and if the Arabs control Jerusalem, and if they are at war - then...") so its pretty straight forward stuff.

There could be sort of a counter Crusade, also - if the Christians do manage to take Jerusalen - then the Arabs would rally up some reinforcements to take it back! Also, there could be an additional monetary reward connected with actually taking the city, giving the human player incitement to do so.

 

[nody]

There could be sort of a counter Crusade, also - if the Christians do manage to take Jerusalen - then the Arabs would rally up some reinforcements to take it back!

They already have the advantage of having cities very close to Jerusalem in which they can rapidly whip some camel archers. Most Europeans must travel a lot of distance to send reinforcements to the city. Not to mention the camel archers movement bonus in deserts.

Also, the Arabs are already very powerful in medieval times compared to the Europeans. The Europeans become the world leaders in the Rennaisance, but before that the Arabs rule the world. (or the Persians in 3000 BC start).

Also, there could be an additional monetary reward connected with actually taking the city, giving the human player incitement to do so.

The monetary award is the Church of Nativity, which is at max of 20 gold very early on as Christianity spreads fast into Europe from the start. I almost forget the Temple of Solomon, which give some more additional coins (not much in most games).

 

[scu98rkr]

I would agree the 600AD start is weak in comparison to 3000 BC.

Civ that NEED to be added to 600AD are the persians and the ethiopians. As both these CIVs were doing very well around 600AD

 

[Lone Wolf]

Yeah, the Sassanid Empire theoretically should be present. Of course, most of the time, AI Persia should succumb to AI Arabia.

 

[TDK]

The Crusade idea has merit, but it should be generic to fit into RFC. It could be something like: All civs with Religion X declares war on the civ controlling Shrine X(or holy city X), if that civ also has another religion than Religion X.

The historical Crusades were a total fiasco and doesn't deserve anything unique like Conquerors. It is a parentheses in history. So is Israel.

 

[onedreamer]

Playing the game further showed more and mored flawed things. I have now played until about 1100AD (500 years!) and still haven't been able to experience any diplomacy at all. I've explored the North Coast of Africa, whole Asia Minor and the coastline all the way to India. So far I've only encountered those weak Byzantines without any diplomacy and some independent states. I've seen no sign of Indians, Ethiopians or any European or Mediterranean power out there.

It's impossible that you didn't meet the Spanish in 1100AD if you are exploring the Algerian coast. The indipendent states you met in India ARE the indians.

Anyways, I suggest you play the 3000BC start, the real RFC. The 600AD scenario was set up to avoid longer load times, but it doesn't turn out to be as interesting as 3000BC IMHO.