Beta 12

[ezzlar]

Playing as Byzantines. Managed to destroy starting stack of Arabs, Bulgars, Venetians, Germans.

But on the other hand, research was really slow. I had aristocracy, siege engines and plate armor (guisarmier, castle and chopping) ready 40-50 years before the Seljuk spawn. One guisarmier is about 154 hammers and seljuks now have 13 strength, wasnt that 12 earlier? I am thrilled to see how it works out

Edit: The seljuk spawn is somewhat broken. They used to spawn in the north eastern part of Anatolia, now I get spawn outside Damascus and Jerusalem.

 

[Duke of Awesome]

just finished winning Portugal on Monarch and i have some observations and complaints.
Cordoba absolutely killed Spain. by the end of my playthrough (around 1700) Spain had 3 cities in the upper left of Iberia and Cordoba owned the rest. England conquered Scotland very late. I never met Lithuania. they collapsed before i met them. Austria spawned, became Hungary's vassal, collapsed, respawned, lost Vienna to Hungary in a war, and collapsed again. Arabs collapsed early on and never respawned. Genoa conquered Belgrade for some reason. Burgundy built a lot of cities close together but actually went from Marsaille to the Netherlands. Sweden didn't get Aland. the Norse had built a city there and it didn't flip to Sweden which i found odd. I built Magellan's Voyage in Lisboa and now there was a graphic of a ship in the middle of my city. i found that quite humourous lastly, i built East and West India Companies and my colony counter went up as if it counted them as colonies. but they weren't counted as colonies toward my UHV goal so by the time i won my colony counter said i had 8 colonies. very good game and i had a lot of fun playing

 

[youtien]

I tried Moscow last night, the "get 20% of the land" UHV didn't trigger. I had 22% land and Lithuania, Hungary as my vassals. Conquered Istanbul too.

The Muscovy UHV is easy: just spam troops and settlers. The most important tech is drama(adjust culture rate to get land), the second is gunpowder(need bombards to siege Constantinople).

 

[FakeShady]

And about Hagia Sophia. Wouldn't it be better if you remove the minarets? Hagia Sophia was originally built as an Orthodox church, not Muslim. It would cost to make at least because in this scenario, the Hagia Sophia is used as a symbol of Orthodoxy.

As much as i dont like the minarets on the hagia sophia too, suggestion for such minor changes are quite irrelavant, unnecessary, and quite frankly makes you sound like some guy who likes to come here often and make suggestions to suit his personal cultural tastes and has no impact on gameplay whatsoever

P.S oh and on behalf of that guy i would like to suggest that the hagia sophia "grow" back its minarets upon capture of the city!

 

[3Miro]

I tried Moscow last night, the "get 20% of the land" UHV didn't trigger. I had 22% land and Lithuania, Hungary as my vassals. Conquered Istanbul too.

The Muscovy UHV is easy: just spam troops and settlers. The most important tech is drama(adjust culture rate to get land), the second is gunpowder(need bombards to siege Constantinople).

I am not sure if Vassals count towards the land victory. Do you have a savegame?

 

[youtien]

I am not sure if Vassals count towards the land victory. Do you have a savegame?

Here. In the screen there was no X% + Y%(vassal) like regular game and RFC.

 

[3Miro]

Here. In the screen there was no X% + Y%(vassal) like regular game and RFC.

As soon as I hit "End Turn", I won the game. Vassals don't count and you had just made it to 20.1% of the land (excluding Vassals). I will add a proper counter so you can see the real percentage.

 

[youtien]

Here. In the screen there was no X% + Y%(vassal) like regular game and RFC.

LOL. Tried again, and the UHV triggered just after the turn(1528) ends. 22.5% land, 2.5% was of vassals. In the stastitics I have 800000 square km. So it is 40000 = 1%.

 

[3Miro]

When I redo the mercenary mechanics, should I leave the option to contract mercs away or should I make it so that you can only hire and release mercs?

I would think that only hire/release should be fine and most fitting.

What do you guys think?

 

[Duke of Awesome]

When I redo the mercenary mechanics, should I leave the option to contract mercs away or should I make it so that you can only hire and release mercs?

I would think that only hire/release should be fine and most fitting.

What do you guys think?

i think just being able to buy mercenaries is the best route. countries didn't sell their army to other countries

 

[civ_king]

Only make hire and release, countries didn't hire out their soldiers (or at least not the ones present in-game)

 

[Morholt]

Another vote for only hire and release. Also my biggest problem with the system as it is is that there are rarely any mercs to hire past early game, I suspect it has to do with the 10% cap on mercenaries.

 

[3Miro]

Then I will make only hire/release options. This would be easier to code.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Then I will make only hire/release options. This would be easier to code.

Cool, I always found the contracting out mechanics unrealistic
Don't forget to get rid of the other bugs/issues of the current system:

So, the bugs and incompleteness in the current mercenary system (the ones I know of):

• The mercenary gold bug which can cause unrealistic amount of gold in a few specific cases
• Gold calculation bug of the Carthagian (Genoan) UP - this may be related to the previous one
• Another small bugs in the code which enables negative gold, thus "free" mercenaries
• Clicking on the mercenary button (on the main interface) causes CTD for many people
• The mercenary screen UI has some small issues as well
• There's also a bug in RFC/RFCE that creates mercenaries with 0 level, or with -1 XP sometimes
• Contracting units out is very unrealistic. Why would the ruler get money, after some mercenaries left to serve someone else?
• Also, the income you get from the current contracting out mechanics isn't balanced at all.
• The "price" of mercenaries is more or less based on the number of promotions they have, rather than the actual stregth of the unit (in RFC/RFCE a spearman with 5 promotions is much more expensive than a knight with no promotions)
• Mercenary naming is also screwed up currently, at least if you want to use regional names. And it won't work the province system the way it is now

Of course if you rewrite the whole thing from scratch, then most of these won't be a problem at all

 

[3Miro]

Of course if you rewrite the whole thing from scratch, then most of these won't be a problem at all

Don't worry, I will remove all the old code (along with the bugs) and introduce my own set of new bugs that would be unique to our mod.

 

[AbsintheRed]

and introduce my own set of new bugs that would be unique to our mod.

Awesome
RFCE deserves it's own bugs

 

[Veshta]

Love the delay of the Longbows but have run into another (related) issue. Kniggits!

How the hell does one go about countering these things? AI spams horse like there is no tomorrow and with double promotion (Barracks/Stable) the available counter (Guisarmier) runs its head against a brick wall.
Also, the religious orders are able to build knights before (sometimes very early) Chivalry is even remotely close which just feels wrong somehow. Teutonics/Templars are already cheaper and more powerful than vanilla Knights so is a double whammy.

In short: The mid-game lacks tactical options. We have managed to replace Longbow spam with Knight spam which is great for Civs with Horses but still makes for a bland landscape.

Crusade mechanic needs a rethink, as Germany I got #1-4 in the span of a 100 years or so. Lost Jerusalem trice to respawn/revolts and every time Rome sent out a new decree .. in the end I had 30 Knights +support in the Levant and all of Europe was begging for my protection.
Is it possible to make getting subsequent crusades for a single civ more difficult/less likely?

PS: Early Pressburg + Hungarian UB = "Lol". That is just scary, my Austrian game was vaporized in no time flat when I suddenly came up against twin generals leading Knights ... hahahahah

 

[3Miro]

Knights are best countered by more Knights. Guisarmier need to use terrain and city walls to properly defend against Knights. I will do the math again, maybe we can give Guisarmier a small boost. (Also, Arbaleist in cities should be enough to stop Knights)

I will think about delaying the Knight Orders until the first Crusade and the ultra powerful Crusades are on the "to fix" list.

 

[Daffy]

Knights are best countered by more Knights. Guisarmier need to use terrain and city walls to properly defend against Knights. I will do the math again, maybe we can give Guisarmier a small boost. (Also, Arbaleist in cities should be enough to stop Knights)

I will think about delaying the Knight Orders until the first Crusade and the ultra powerful Crusades are on the "to fix" list.

Giving Guisarmier +100% vs Heavy Cavalry instead of +75% would have them at 12str vs knights still less than an ordinary knight with its 13str
and they still don't have anything vs light cavalry so they aren't too strong imo

spearmen(4) have +100% vs heavy cavalry giving them 8str vs lancers(7) and heavy lancers(10)
guisarmiers(6) have +75% vs heavy cavalry giving them 10.5str vs heavy lancers(10) and knights(13)
and cavalry units are easier to build with 2 promotions(barracks, stables), infantry for the most part only get 1 promotion (barracks)

I'm having a tough time with Portugals infantry against the seemingly endless cordoban cavalry assaults (everything from horse archers/berber cavalry/armored lancers and later knights)
Having their UU replace the maceman and become available later with chivalry isn't helping either
The problem isn't defending cities, it's defending resources and workers

 

[Veshta]

..The problem isn't defending cities, it's defending resources and workers

Hahaha, yeah. Not a lot of options for evicting a stack pillaging along whatever strange path the AI choses.

Spain planted five triple-strength Knights on the Luebeck Salt when I was playing Vikings, they never moved and didn't pillage it either.
Once I had a stack of mace and guisarmier (no horse for norse ) moved into range they sprang into action, wiped out my stack (never should have chopped that forest ) and pillaged everything in sight .. very odd.

Since the pikes come relatively late, making Guisarmier better at their job might not be such a bad idea. Light cavalry is not a big problem due to the low strength (hate their running away though ) but heavy poses a significant obstacle unless it decides to suicide against castle walls.