Alternatives for preset cities

[merijn_v1]

Off:
Why do you always say "inertia rule"? It's like the third time you said that recently where it sounds sooo strange to me
It's inertia, like in Newton's law, right? Does the word have another meaning which I'm unfamiliar with?
Is 'inertia rule' a common expression for something different, so this makes sense to native english speakers?

AFAIK, it's a common expression in the RFC mods. It basically means that things happen at a much slower pace than desired.

Example:
When a civ spawns, some cities flip. For some civs, it is not historical to flip all cities in the flipzone, because those cities were conquered later IRL. However, they are still in the flipzone, because if they weren't, the civ that is supposed to get it would get it too late, if it gets it at all.

But this time I used the expresion out of context.

Is that not what we are trying to avoid? I think we are risking the mod being deterministic because cities which became important due to historical events are put in place automatically, thus undermining the player's ability to influence said events.

Imo we should be allowing the player (and AI) maximum variation in the games they play, rather than saying "Well, Bordeaux and Naples were important in real life therefore they will be important in your game". After all, if not for strategic decisions taken in real life those cities would probably not have been particularly important, so why not let those decisions unfold in a different way?

You're right. I think I phrased it badly. The chance of appearing should be based on the importance of the city historically. IMO, we shouldn't take a look at the importance at the time of spawn, but over the whole length of the game. Napoli wasn't as important when it spawn compared to Benevento, but looking at the timespan of the game, it was more important. So therefor it should have a bigger chance of spawning IMO.

 

[PinkPallin]

One thought I had is would it be possible to simulate the process by which some conquered cities were abandoned and resettled elsewhere by their new owners. So instead of the usual capture / raze options, is it possible to have a resettle option whereby upon city capture you have the option to raze the city and get a settler instead of any gold from the capture?

A way to implement it might be a new unit, the "resettler", that subtracts 2 or 3 population to the city and can be used either to found a new city or to add population to an existing city.
If the producing city comes to zero population is destroyed.

 

[gilgames]

One thought I had is would it be possible to simulate the process by which some conquered cities were abandoned and resettled elsewhere by their new owners. So instead of the usual capture / raze options, is it possible to have a resettle option whereby upon city capture you have the option to raze the city and get a settler instead of any gold from the capture?

That could be a good way to simulate the 'inertia' as Merjin refers to it, and give the player a choice of replacing cities they don't really want with ones which are more useful / historic, at a cost of lost infrastructure and gold.

It could also be applied to the AI, to provide some changes / variety due to wars and conquests.

An absolutely lovely idea! I did it actually in some french game with WB. Also this way raze should not give permanent negative stability. Thus i would not allow this unit to move more then 3 tiles away from it's spawn and wouldn't allow it after a date i.e. 1100AD or so...


PinkPallin: A way to implement it might be a new unit, the "re-settler", that subtracts 2 or 3 population to the city and can be used either to found a new city or to add population to an existing city.
If the producing city comes to zero population is destroyed.


Yes and no. Re-settler unit is ok, with above mentioned restrictions, and no do not boost existing cities population imo.

Also There could be some city which were important at the start of the mod. They can be indy and reduce them to town when they faded in importance, except if sby capture it! how does that sounds?

Swarbs got a point to allow as much variety and "freedom" in city placement as much we can.

ps: My annoyance it that AI always put Capital on spot! In a few cases its okey, like Cordoba or Venice, but in general its not! Even if they would move first settler 1 tile in any direction it would make lot of change in other city placement, but not in gameplay.

 

[DC123456789]

ps: My annoyance it that AI always put Capital on spot! In a few cases its okey, like Cordoba or Venice, but in general its not! Even if they would move first settler 1 tile in any direction it would make lot of change in other city placement, but not in gameplay.

I very strongly disagree. If nothing else, at the very least the capitals should be fixed.

 

[AbsintheRed]

It's a DoC expression. Basically, it just means that in RFC and civilization in general, things are much less dynamic than historically, and so if you want to have a desired effect/city/civ control/whatever down the road you kind of have to railroad it earlier on. It's the reasoning for what would otherwise be anachronistic design decisions in DoC (and other RFC mods).

AFAIK, it's a common expression in the RFC mods. It basically means that things happen at a much slower pace than desired.

Example:
When a civ spawns, some cities flip. For some civs, it is not historical to flip all cities in the flipzone, because those cities were conquered later IRL. However, they are still in the flipzone, because if they weren't, the civ that is supposed to get it would get it too late, if it gets it at all.

But this time I used the expresion out of context.

Oh, yeah, sry
Thanks for the info, I'm not following most DoC discussions that closely

 

[AbsintheRed]

I very strongly disagree. If nothing else, at the very least the capitals should be fixed.

Don't worry, capitals will remain fixed
Btw: actually I experienced some improvements in AI city placement after the recent changes
Seems to be more variance which will further increase after the alterative indy spawns are also implemented

 

[gilgames]

I very strongly disagree. If nothing else, at the very least the capitals should be fixed.

I do not mind but why?

@AbsintheRed

It seems AI put cities closer to each other even big empire civs like france or germany.

 

[DC123456789]

I like seeing historical cities. Nothing would bother me more than France not having Paris as its capital or something like that. (Well, unless it's an absolute travesty like having the Mongols invade to 700 or something like that.) You've probably already figured that out from my earlier comments though.

 

[gilgames]

I do not say they never should have Paris, but if they sometimes do not have it its cool. Also the maximum freedom for city placement rule means this too. My cities are usually 100% functional and i also hunt for rarely used city names, but fixed cities prevent this specially in Byzanc.

 

[DC123456789]

I know, but I personally prefer to always have Paris, London, Venice, etc.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Is that not what we are trying to avoid? I think we are risking the mod being deterministic because cities which became important due to historical events are put in place automatically, thus undermining the player's ability to influence said events.

Imo we should be allowing the player (and AI) maximum variation in the games they play, rather than saying "Well, Bordeaux and Naples were important in real life therefore they will be important in your game". After all, if not for strategic decisions taken in real life those cities would probably not have been particularly important, so why not let those decisions unfold in a different way?

It's a matter of personal perspective. Some people like determinism and to see historically important cities be constantly founded (with a more extreme example being SoI and RFCCW) and the game to run generally as historical (basically, people like me), while others like more dynamism and "what-if" scenarios (I imagine you're in this camp).

IMO there are no two distinct groups. Actually most RFC/RFCE/SoI/DoC players want to have both, only with small(ish) preference differences.
These kind of mods are doing exactly that: trying to balance between the more deterministic and more dynamic approach. Trying to achieve a fun game with adding the right amount a historical railroading, while keeping as much flexibility for alternative history as possible. Ofc the "right amount" differs in each mod, for each modder, but it's always there to a quite big extent.

Just look at civ spawns. Noone think that all those spawn times, spawn areas, or even spawning civs would be exactly the same (or even similar in some cases) if things were only slightly different from 500AD than they were in real life history. Not to even start on UHVs, UPs, and all other civ-specific things.
Yet these are a fix point in all RFC-type mods, and everyone is content with it. Not only content, but as we have to have the civs exactly as they were historically, it counts as a real problem if anything connected to these things isn't plausible enough in the generated "alternative history" scenario when the civ actually starts.

As all of you surely noticed I don't like to have too much historic railroading, but quite a few are absolutely necessary.
But hey, that's part of the reason we love these mods
You have to have some comparison points with real life history if you are to feel that you are having a fun gameplay; if you want to feel that you are really involved in forming the history of your chosen civ.

 

[Swarbs]

IMO there are no two distinct groups. Actually most RFC/RFCE/SoI/DoC players want to have both, only with small(ish) preference differences.
These kind of mods are doing exactly that: trying to balance between the more deterministic and more dynamic approach. Trying to achieve a fun game with adding the right amount a historical railroading, while keeping as much flexibility for alternative history as possible. Ofc the "right amount" differs in each mod, for each modder, but it's always there to a quite big extent.

Just look at civ spawns. Noone think that all those spawn times, spawn areas, or even spawning civs would be exactly the same (or even similar in some cases) if things were only slightly different from 500AD than they were in real life history. Not to even start on UHVs, UPs, and all other civ-specific things.
Yet these are a fix point in all RFC-type mods, and everyone is content with it. Not only content, but as we have to have the civs exactly as they were historically, it counts as a real problem if anything connected to these things isn't plausible enough in the generated "alternative history" scenario when the civ actually starts.

As all of you surely noticed I don't like to have too much historic railroading, but quite a few are absolutely necessary.
But hey, that's part of the reason we love these mods
You have to have some comparison points with real life history if you are to feel that you are having a fun gameplay; if you want to feel that you are really involved in forming the history of your chosen civ.

I completely agree.

The historicity of the mod comes from the spawn dates, UHVs, flips, core regions etc. They mean that civs and games will always develop in a similar manner, in certain regions and move towards certain goals.

But within that historical path, I think the player should have as much variety and choice as possible. France's 1st UHV is currently quite boring - no AI to challenge so it just becomes a case of conquering and founding known cities, in known locations, in the optimal order.

With more variety in city placement, it would become much more interesting, varied and fun. And if you add the resettle ability, then people could have even more variety to select their own history and build their own nations, as historically or optimally as they like. That should be the aim of the mod imo - build you own history rather than just being forced to replay actual history through deterministic decisions which limit replay value.

 

[Swarbs]

A way to implement it might be a new unit, the "resettler", that subtracts 2 or 3 population to the city and can be used either to found a new city or to add population to an existing city.
If the producing city comes to zero population is destroyed.

I think it would have to subtract all population from the city. It would be too spammy and exploitative to essentially give a free settler upon conquering a city of any meaningful size.

The idea of resettlement is to allow you to move a city, not conquer one city and get two.

 

[PinkPallin]

I think it would have to subtract all population from the city. It would be too spammy and exploitative to essentially give a free settler upon conquering a city of any meaningful size.

The idea of resettlement is to allow you to move a city, not conquer one city and get two.

Sorry if I wasn't clear, in my mind this resettler is a unit you have to build, not a unit you get for free when conquering a city.
For example: a city flips to you but you'd prefer if it were a tile apart. Then instead of building a settler in order to create a new city two or three ties apart, leaving the old one in place, you start building resettlers until the city is destroyed and you can found the new city where you want it.

The other use of the resettler unit is to move population from one city to another, that's why I don't suggest to subtract the whole population.

 

[gilgames]

Only 1 notice, crapy cities which you wouldn't like, build slowly.....why not raze and grab the rest and move them a little.

 

[Swarbs]

Sorry if I wasn't clear, in my mind this resettler is a unit you have to build, not a unit you get for free when conquering a city.
For example: a city flips to you but you'd prefer if it were a tile apart. Then instead of building a settler in order to create a new city two or three ties apart, leaving the old one in place, you start building resettlers until the city is destroyed and you can found the new city where you want it.

The other use of the resettler unit is to move population from one city to another, that's why I don't suggest to subtract the whole population.

I can see an argument for having the ability to move population, particularly if you have settled a food poor city and want to grow it a lot.

But I can't ever see this unit being used to destroy a city - a city with two or three population in a poor location will take so long to build a resettler that it will always be better to raze and rebuild with a settler from an existing and well populated city.

If we are going to add that unit, it should be in addition to the option to resettle a city upon capture, meaning you get a settler instead of any gold, rather than instead of that option.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Do we have a concensus on some of these alternate spawns?

 

[AbsintheRed]

Do we have a concensus on some of these alternate spawns?

So what of these suggestion should already appear in 1.4?
Do we have some which everyone agrees with?

 

[DC123456789]

I think we're all in general agreement for most of the cities mentioned.

 

[merijn_v1]

I do like the suggestion by Swarbs in the 3rd, 4th and 5th post of this thread.

Small request to everyone. If you suggest variations of a city, please do it like below. That is the easiest way for us to include them.
Pool1: Nantes (36, 43, 60%), Rennes (37,44, 20%), Vannes (35, 43, 20%)
Pool2: Bordeaux (x, y, %), La Rochelle (x, y, %), Limoges (x, y, %)
Pool3: Toulouse (x, y, %), Toulouse Alternative location (x, y, %), Montpellier (x, y, %)
Pool4: Lyon (x, y, 100%)
Pool5: Taranto (x, y, 20%)
etc.
(Spawn chances in pool1 are random to give an example)

The code picks 1 entry from the list, taken the appearing chance into account. The appearing chances don't need to add up to 100%. That would mean there is a chance no city appears at all. A pool can also exist of just 1 city ofcourse.