Beta 13

[Wessel V1]

In my game as Arabia Cordoba conquered Portugal too, but on another occasion when I loaded Moscow I saw Spain control almost the entire peninsula. Portugal doesn't stand a chance though it seems. It should be noticed that in the game where Portugal (and Spain vassalized to Cordoba after being kicked out of Leon) was defeated by Cordoba, Cordoba had settled the Portuguese area before they showed up. Maybe that had something to do with it.

 

[civ_king]

In Iberia Portugal always gets stomped

 

[Nintz]

Further Feedback:

I have just reached Astronomy as Colonial Bulgaria.

AI Feedback-

Iberia- Upon further review, Spain has conquered the entire peninsula. What happened was Portugal spawned, then collpased by Cordoba. Cordoba was then, of course, obliterated by Spain. Portugal did try to respawn, but I don't think they even managed to retake one city from the Spanish, who conquered all the numerous independent cities.

Venice- As I mentioned before, their units were stuck near Ragusa. The stack has grown to around 25 units (min.), and they keep coming.

Germany- Conquered a collapsed Poland. Ridiculously powerful at this point. Lost its crusader kingdom due to Arab respawn.

Burgundy- Weak. Too weak to put up a serious fight against France, Genoa, or Germany. They collapsed early in my game. Then they respawned and became my vassal.

Genoa- Their only strength is position. If you go through Venice, Burgundy, or Rome, Genoa will fall really, really easily.

Hungary- Slightly UPd at this point. They respawned after I collapsed them by taking Buda. They managed to collpase Austria, and are once again in a strong posistion.

Muscovy- It's expanding really rapidly through former Kievan territory. Seems to have a really low score for some reason.

Lithuania- It actually is doing well due to a collapsed Poland.

Ottomans- Easy to defeat with knights. I did it during a plague for crying out loud. I then got them to convert to Orthodoxy for peace after obliterating their stacks.

Orthodox Diplomacy- The Ottomans, Lithuanians, and Muscovites all have a -1 hit for heathen religion with me, despite a commmon religion (Orthodoxy).

Bulgaria Feedback-

OPd late game if warmongerer- I managed to take Thrace and Constantinople early. Soon, I took Macedonia and Greece. I crushed Genoa by stroming through Florence. Now, I control all of that plus Tetuoan and Morroco. I have 2 vassals, Burgundy and Tunisia (Cordoba). I also managed to get 2 DPs with Turkey and Muscovy.

Science Advantage- It comes from the Round Church, I think. The Hagia Sophia also gives a lot of gold to keep the science rate high. I am well ahead of everyone else at this point.

Orthodoxy Advantage- I have around 80 faith points right now, and my stability is very high despite cities in Italy, Africa, Greece, and one in Russia. My overall stability is around +12.

I hope to post more info. once I finish the game.

 

[ezzlar]

Round church gives diplomacy penalty to other orthodox civs.

 

[civ_king]

I think it's awesome that when Venice vassalizes Lithuania they become the Venetian Netherlands

 

[Nolan08]

I think it's awesome that when Venice vassalizes Lithuania they become the Venetian Netherlands

 

[Sian]

if interested in unearthing the civ names depending on their state (size, year, vassal (to who) etc), where should i dig?

 

[AbsintheRed]

if interested in unearthing the civ names depending on their state (size, year, vassal (to who) etc), where should i dig?

Dynamic civ names are handled in the CIV4CivilizationInfos.xml file
We long postponed of updating those, maybe it's time to finally do that
See new thread

 

[Sian]

can't find anything specific in that file Absinthe ... only a forwarding notice that it takes the name from list "txt_key_DN_Civ:number"

 

[AbsintheRed]

can't find anything specific in that file Absinthe ... only a forwarding notice that it takes the name from list "txt_key_DN_Civ:number"

TXT_KEY_... are always the ingame links to the actual textfiles. Those are in the Assets/XML/Texts folder
In this case all the Dynamic Civ Names' text files are separated by civiliaztions, for example: CIV4GameText_DynamicCivNames_01BYZ.xml

Anyway, check the new thread I just made for DCN. We only need suggestions there
There are a few other rules regarding how RFCE handles those specific DCN entries, so I will handle putting the ideas to the actual XML files

 

[AbsintheRed]

General Feedback:

I was attempting a Colonial Bulgaria for this game. I am only 1/3-1/2 of the way through, but I have some feedback to give on the AI and Bulgaria's balance.

AI-

France appears to be stronger in this version of Beta. They are expanding more aggresively, and seem to be holding off the English invasion quite capably.

Cordoba appears to always conquer Portugal in this new version. I like that Cordoba is stronger (they needed it) but it would appear Portugal wasn't scaled to compensate.

Germany is even more OPd in this one, if that's possible. They always expand fast and hard. They often get chosen to lead crusades as well, which just increases their powers.

I found an interesting Venice bug that caused around 8 of their units (including a settler) to get stuck a couple tiles away from Ragusa. I observed it for multiple turns, and the stack just sat there.

Genoa is too weak. Not sure if it's intended, but they always are stuck with the same exact cities. Milan, Zena, one on Corsica, and one on Sardinia. They often are at war with Burgundy, but never manage to conquer anything.

Bulgaria Feedback-

Italian diplomacy. Both Venice and Genoa randomly declared war on me a few turns after I met them. I did own Constantinople, could that have affected it?

2nd UHV. I have no clue how to get this one. It says you need 100 faith points. I managed to get 55-60 due to Hagia Sophia+ multiple Great Prophets. I also built the Round Church. While the benefits are nice, how am I supposed to get 100 for the goal?

Konnik. Very nice UU. Your initial stack can take Contantinople due to its small garrison. The only issue with them is that they are rather expensive for their time frame, but that might be intentional.

Stability Map. I would suggest making Moldova/Crimea areas OK on stability. According to the pre-load pop-up, the Bulgarians are from that direction. It would make sense to have those areas as OK, wouldn't it?

I will try to post more after I finish the game.

Thanks for the feedback!
Balance is not perfect in the latest version, we will try to improve that step by step based on feedback and testing

Will check Cordoba-Portugal, but in my experience Spain is the nation that tends to become way too powerful on the peninsula
Right now both France and Germany are overpowered, they will get a nerf

There is a good chance that Venice and Genoa declared war on you because you have Constantinople, you are probably right on this

I don't really want to improve more provinces on the Bulgarian stability map.
They tend to get too powerful in most games anyway. Also, I never saw them collapsing (without the human player taking actions)

 

[AbsintheRed]

In my game as Arabia Cordoba conquered Portugal too, but on another occasion when I loaded Moscow I saw Spain control almost the entire peninsula. Portugal doesn't stand a chance though it seems. It should be noticed that in the game where Portugal (and Spain vassalized to Cordoba after being kicked out of Leon) was defeated by Cordoba, Cordoba had settled the Portuguese area before they showed up. Maybe that had something to do with it.

In Iberia Portugal always gets stomped

It seems that Portugal could really use a serious buff
As I just said in my previous post, will look into it

 

[AbsintheRed]

Further Feedback:

I have just reached Astronomy as Colonial Bulgaria.

AI Feedback-

Iberia- Upon further review, Spain has conquered the entire peninsula. What happened was Portugal spawned, then collpased by Cordoba. Cordoba was then, of course, obliterated by Spain. Portugal did try to respawn, but I don't think they even managed to retake one city from the Spanish, who conquered all the numerous independent cities.

Venice- As I mentioned before, their units were stuck near Ragusa. The stack has grown to around 25 units (min.), and they keep coming.

Germany- Conquered a collapsed Poland. Ridiculously powerful at this point. Lost its crusader kingdom due to Arab respawn.

Burgundy- Weak. Too weak to put up a serious fight against France, Genoa, or Germany. They collapsed early in my game. Then they respawned and became my vassal.

Genoa- Their only strength is position. If you go through Venice, Burgundy, or Rome, Genoa will fall really, really easily.

Hungary- Slightly UPd at this point. They respawned after I collapsed them by taking Buda. They managed to collpase Austria, and are once again in a strong posistion.

Muscovy- It's expanding really rapidly through former Kievan territory. Seems to have a really low score for some reason.

Lithuania- It actually is doing well due to a collapsed Poland.

Ottomans- Easy to defeat with knights. I did it during a plague for crying out loud. I then got them to convert to Orthodoxy for peace after obliterating their stacks.

Orthodox Diplomacy- The Ottomans, Lithuanians, and Muscovites all have a -1 hit for heathen religion with me, despite a commmon religion (Orthodoxy).

Bulgaria Feedback-

OPd late game if warmongerer- I managed to take Thrace and Constantinople early. Soon, I took Macedonia and Greece. I crushed Genoa by stroming through Florence. Now, I control all of that plus Tetuoan and Morroco. I have 2 vassals, Burgundy and Tunisia (Cordoba). I also managed to get 2 DPs with Turkey and Muscovy.

Science Advantage- It comes from the Round Church, I think. The Hagia Sophia also gives a lot of gold to keep the science rate high. I am well ahead of everyone else at this point.

Orthodoxy Advantage- I have around 80 faith points right now, and my stability is very high despite cities in Italy, Africa, Greece, and one in Russia. My overall stability is around +12.

I hope to post more info. once I finish the game.

Yeah, these are more or less my thoughts too
Germany, France and Bulgaria are the most overpowered nations currently.
If France and Germany are weakened it will result in a stronger Burgundy and Poland
(btw, Ottomans can become really-really strong if you are not in a position to crush them early - maybe even too strong)

Venice stacks near Ragusa is a bug in their war maps AFAIK
The Orthodox -1 diplomacy is from the round church, as Ezzlar said
But there was a mistake that Orthodox faith points gave 0 diplo boost.
I already fixed that, from now on you will still get positive relations with other Orthodox nations if you have enough FPs

 

[Nintz]

Yeah, these are more or less my thoughts too
Germany, France and Bulgaria are the most overpowered nations currently.
If France and Germany are weakened it will result in a stronger Burgundy and Poland
(btw, Ottomans can become really-really strong if you are not in a position to crush them early - maybe even too strong)

Venice stacks near Ragusa is a bug in their war maps AFAIK
The Orthodox -1 diplomacy is from the round church, as Ezzlar said
But there was a mistake that Orthodox faith points gave 0 diplo boost.
I already fixed that, from now on you will still get positive relations with other Orthodox nations if you have enough FPs

Ah, ok. So Germany, France and Bulgaria are all OPd. As is Spain for that matter. I have a few ideas you could implement to help this situation.

Germany Situation- Nerf it. Also buff the AI of Genoa and Burgundy. That may help. On the Poland side, just make Lithuania better. This comes late, but should prevent an OPd Poland.

France Situation- Aside from buffing Burgundy, you may also want to consider reallocating their unit vs. building probability. If they build more buildings, they should be slowed down, at the very least.

Bulgaria- Well... not sure on this one. They have to be strong enough to take down the Byzantines early on. However, there are no other civs near them excpet for the Ottomans later on, and Hungary to some extent. You could beef up Hungary a bit, bbut then you would need to seriously reconsider Austria...

Spain/Iberia- Spain is OPd, and Portugal is UPd. Portugal is always collpased by Cordoba. However, spain then conqueres the entire peninsula. Decreasing the power of D. Crusades as well as giving Portugal a lot more defensive units on spawn should help this situation.

Ottomans- I would just like to say that there is one easy way to help stabilize this nation. Don't have Hadrianopolis/Odrin flip to them. Give them units there, perhaps, but don't just give them a city. I discovered that by driving their units towards the east, Turkey grew to be a very nice and balanced power. Alternatively, have them start in the East part of Anatolia to begin with. They are OPd when they start conqeuring the Balkans.

 

[civ_king]

One of the most epic moments I've seen in my games. Never seen this before. This happened in a game where Cordoba quickly took over Portugal, but besides these things nothing strange happened so far.

I've seen that happen in a number of Beta 13 games, France has gotten competent at naval invasions to the point where they conquered Corsica, England and pieces of North Africa in one game!

Yeah, these are more or less my thoughts too
Germany, France and Bulgaria are the most overpowered nations currently.
If France and Germany are weakened it will result in a stronger Burgundy and Poland
(btw, Ottomans can become really-really strong if you are not in a position to crush them early - maybe even too strong)

Venice stacks near Ragusa is a bug in their war maps AFAIK
The Orthodox -1 diplomacy is from the round church, as Ezzlar said
But there was a mistake that Orthodox faith points gave 0 diplo boost.
I already fixed that, from now on you will still get positive relations with other Orthodox nations if you have enough FPs

Ottomans should become absurdly strong, when they start to weaken is after the game time frame.

Originally Catholicism having a diplo bonus was one of its special things, since Orthodoxy and Islam have the same thing now will it get something else? There is no reason after the Reformation to be Catholic

Ah, ok. So Germany, France and Bulgaria are all OPd. As is Spain for that matter. I have a few ideas you could implement to help this situation.

Germany Situation- Nerf it. Also buff the AI of Genoa and Burgundy. That may help. On the Poland side, just make Lithuania better. This comes late, but should prevent an OPd Poland.

France Situation- Aside from buffing Burgundy, you may also want to consider reallocating their unit vs. building probability. If they build more buildings, they should be slowed down, at the very least.

Bulgaria- Well... not sure on this one. They have to be strong enough to take down the Byzantines early on. However, there are no other civs near them excpet for the Ottomans later on, and Hungary to some extent. You could beef up Hungary a bit, bbut then you would need to seriously reconsider Austria...

Spain/Iberia- Spain is OPd, and Portugal is UPd. Portugal is always collpased by Cordoba. However, spain then conqueres the entire peninsula. Decreasing the power of D. Crusades as well as giving Portugal a lot more defensive units on spawn should help this situation.

Ottomans- I would just like to say that there is one easy way to help stabilize this nation. Don't have Hadrianopolis/Odrin flip to them. Give them units there, perhaps, but don't just give them a city. I discovered that by driving their units towards the east, Turkey grew to be a very nice and balanced power. Alternatively, have them start in the East part of Anatolia to begin with. They are OPd when they start conqeuring the Balkans.

Poland sucks, honestly from playing both Poland and Lithuania the latter is stronger in just about every way, also Lithuania's UHVs don't require you to stick too many cities in too small an area. On that note could you please have a culture counter for Lithuania?Also I had the Ottomans collapse fairly early because the Mongols razed two of their cities.

 

[AbsintheRed]

I've seen that happen in a number of Beta 13 games, France has gotten competent at naval invasions to the point where they conquered Corsica, England and pieces of North Africa in one game!

Good to hear. On the other hand, we shouldn't have France always getting the upper hand in the English-French conflict

Ottomans should become absurdly strong, when they start to weaken is after the game time frame.

Ottomans should become very strong, but not absurdly strong. We have to keep the mod playable

Originally Catholicism having a diplo bonus was one of its special things, since Orthodoxy and Islam have the same thing now will it get something else? There is no reason after the Reformation to be Catholic

Now all religions have diplo boost, which is realistic IMO. Catholics still have more than the other religions, double boost as the Orthodoxs have for example
You are right that Catholicism becomes weaker towards the endgame - it's biggest strength is the Pope with it's gifts, crusades and defensive crusades after all
But I don't see a problem with Protestantism being better, otherwise noone would want to switch ever
Also you get a stability boost if you stay catholic IIRC

Poland sucks, honestly from playing both Poland and Lithuania the latter is stronger in just about every way, also Lithuania's UHVs don't require you to stick too many cities in too small an area. On that note could you please have a culture counter for Lithuania?Also I had the Ottomans collapse fairly early because the Mongols razed two of their cities.

Poland will get a direct or indirect buff (by weaking Germany).
To be honest, I also don't like the city-cramping UHV for Poland. Will think about it

The Ottomans can be fairly easily collapsed in the first few years, like all the other civs.
Since they should be around in most games, they recently got a high probality respawn around 1450.

 

[Sian]

could poland be changed to just control said provinces? ... then they don't have to cityspam in unstable territories

 

[ezzlar]

Five seljuks spawned outside Al-Quds just before crusaders arrived, kinda hard! Seljuk spawn area is still too large!

 

[AbsintheRed]

Five seljuks spawned outside Al-Quds just before crusaders arrived, kinda hard! Seljuk spawn area is still too large!

There are 2 seljuk spawn zones ATM
One in the Levant, and one in the east-Anatolia
Both spawn with 5 seljuks, and later 2 crossbowman for defense
You are right though, probably the one in the Levant shouldn't be that hard...

 

[AbsintheRed]

could poland be changed to just control said provinces? ... then they don't have to cityspam in unstable territories

That would probably be too hard
Poland has this much provinces on the UHV to be able to choose which provinces they want to conquer/settle
There is one exploit though - which Civ King mentioned - that you can avoid serious expansion by cramping a lot of cities in a few provinces, as only the number of your cities count