Beta 13

[3Miro]

Are dynamic names fixed yet? I stopped playing for a while because I got sick of seeing a frankish or british empire the whole game..

Some nations have been fixed or greatly improved. Many are still the same.

 

[Tigranes]

Its quite unfortunate that Switzerland is not represented by any province and Geneva in particular is not seen on the map that often, if ever. Swiss scored glorious victories against Burgundian Charles the Bold and Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph Habsburg! Plus Geneva played such a vital role during the Reformation. If there is no way that we could carve a Switzerland province out of Swabia can we at least represent the Swiss via the minor Nation Mechanics with the city Geneva flipping to Burgundians upon their spawn and going independent around 1526 AD. This way we could also hurt Burgundy -- it is almost always on the map around 1700s (while France is often dead).

Now when we have a Swiss Pikeman -- not having Switzerland in any form looks a little strange for a mod about Europe...

 

[amrod]

I would first go for details on the spawn areas (core area and normal area) for the various civs. Can you do that?

PS: I don't know about line drawing in globe-view.

I'll look into it.

In the globe view, there are some icons above the minimap. They are different than the usual icons there. And I only discovered it a few days ago (after several years...but then I didn't really use globe view, esp with the clouds on).

The icons let you view the cities, armies and culture regions, and the last icon lets you draw freehand lines on the map (and also delete them) which stay on the map even when you zoom back to normal view. This supposedly helps in planning your campaign. Might work in multiplayer,don't know about that. I was just thinking that I could maybe use it for the screenshots, but didn't exactly figure out how Anyway, these icons didn't seem to work for me in rfce (the other icons might be of some use, at least aesthetical)

upgrade: the culture etc icons work now except for the strategic view.

But now I somehow managed to turn all units invisible (in vanila bts as well). Don't know how, though, as I only messed with the clouds and sky parts in xml and then copied back all the original files. Reinstalled the patch as well and still bad. ;-( Have to find the original cd..
Maybe this tinkering with the files isn't really for me. (Though still don't believe how it happened)

 

[amrod]

Another question: I've seen this message back in beta 12:

TXT_KEY_GREAT_PERSON_HARALD_HARDRADA

now looking into the unitinfos xml there's nothing different than with other general names.
(found
<Class>UNITCLASS_GREAT_GENERAL</Class>
<Type>UNIT_GREAT_GENERAL</Type>
<UniqueNames>
<UniqueName>TXT_KEY_GREAT_PERSON_HARALD_HARDRADA</UniqueName>
and nothing elsewhere)
maybe the problem is that there's a civ leader with the same name?

 

[merijn_v1]

Another question: I've seen this message back in beta 12:

TXT_KEY_GREAT_PERSON_HARALD_HARDRADA

now looking into the unitinfos xml there's nothing different than with other general names.
(found
<Class>UNITCLASS_GREAT_GENERAL</Class>
<Type>UNIT_GREAT_GENERAL</Type>
<UniqueNames>
<UniqueName>TXT_KEY_GREAT_PERSON_HARALD_HARDRADA</UniqueName>
and nothing elsewhere)
maybe the problem is that there's a civ leader with the same name?

No. The problem is in the text file. But this one shouldn't be a GP, because it's already a leader.

 

[amrod]

Here's a first try at starting locations map. (There's still some work to do with the large map, but in the medium size the errors are not obvious luckily).


Some questions:
- what is tNewCapitals ? is it the respawn location?
- CoreAreas : what exactly is the function of these? There are no core regions here as in SoI and uhv's and stability depend on provinces afaik.
-same for NormalAreas and Exceptions and BroaderAreas...

 

[dafiden]

- CoreAreas : what exactly is the function of these? There are no core regions here as in SoI and uhv's and stability depend on provinces afaik.

CoreAreas are the spawn locations, i.e. the area where cities flip for new civ spawns. This is what Mods\RFCEurope\Reference\spawns.png uses, although I'm not sure if that actual file is current. If not, it gives a very good ballpark of what will flip on new civ spawns.

 

[Sian]

as far as i can see you have Hungary 1n of the prober place, otherwise it looks right

and for equality Constantinople should be renamed into Byzantine

 

[amrod]

CoreAreas are the spawn locations, i.e. the area where cities flip for new civ spawns. This is what Mods\RFCEurope\Reference\spawns.png uses, although I'm not sure if that actual file is current. If not, it gives a very good ballpark of what will flip on new civ spawns.

Ah, yes, I forgot the flips. Thanks for reminding. The png files can be out of date. The other stuff in reference directory is mostly out of date, that's why the new mapping being done.

as far as i can see you have Hungary 1n of the prober place, otherwise it looks right
and for equality Constantinople should be renamed into Byzantine

Hungary start has been changed in beta13. Should be (66, 37), #tBuda, Hungary according to the python file.

I'll change the byzantine - though that should correctly be Byzantine Empire then, right? (Not to mention those around the forum who argue for a Roman Empire - but then how can you call it a Roman Empire if it doesn't contain Rome?)

 

[ezzlar]

The capital of the eastern roman empire was Constantinople.

 

[Tigranes]

I'll look into it.

In the globe view, there are some icons above the minimap. They are different than the usual icons there. And I only discovered it a few days ago (after several years...but then I didn't really use globe view, esp with the clouds on).

While we are on F11 features -- just want to mention that for some strange reason rfce disabled all the detailed F11 information, i.e. it lets you to see either all the resources or none, but no other options. In the vanila BTS there is a F11 feature to see Strategic resources only, then Luxury resources only and so forth. Same goes about Religions (no options to see Orthodoxy only, for example) and the rest. I was wondering if modders accidentally disabled F11 options.

 

[amrod]

The capital of the eastern roman empire was Constantinople.

I'm perfectly aware of that. Just wanted to point out that they had it a bit funny calling themselves the Roman Empire - while being so far from Rome. Though of course, if Roman is meant as "upholding roman tradition" it's okay. Anyway, it's true that they weren't called the Byzantines until much later a historian invented the term.

While we are on F11 features -

Didn't even know that these functions are available... Nice game this Civ4 is, gives new stuff after several years

 

[Tigranes]

I understand that at this stage all the colonial projects are more or less fixed and new F9 feature makes it very easy to see them. So I could not help but to compare it with the actual map of colonization:

Spoiler :

As you can see this mod captures most areas of colonization. However there are 4 notable omissions:

1. Angola -- just like East Africa this area was very important for slave trade. It was also one of the longest lasting European colonies.

2. Taiwan. "The time of Dutch rule saw economic development in Taiwan, including both large-scale hunting of deer and the cultivation of rice and sugar by imported labour from Fujian in China." -- This colony is not falling under a Far East trading port -- because it was (short lived) colony and can provide Rice, sugar and deer -- rice is very important comodity due to the health issues in RFCE.

3. Florida -- All the Spanish colonies require South American Access, Florida was an important exception -- oldest place in US settled by Europeans was Florida and this deserves to be depicted somehow.

4. Greenland -- Together with Vinland Greenland can be an early colony. Vinland was short lived colony but settlements in Greenland lasted for a long time and were badly devasted by the Black Death. AI never build Vinland -- it takes too much intelligence to sail to the Iceland and settle there. Would be cool to see early colonial project available for Norse after they discover some tech and unlike Vinland also available for later years:

However, after the Norse settlements died off, the area was de facto controlled by various Inuit groups; but the Danish government never forgot or relinquished the claims to Greenland that it had inherited from the Norwegians, and when contact with Greenland was re-established in the early 18th century, Denmark asserted its sovereignty over the island. In 1721 a joint mercantile and clerical expedition led by Danish-Norwegian missionary Hans Egede was sent to Greenland, not knowing whether a Norse civilisation remained there. The expedition can be seen as part of the Danish colonisation of the Americas

Yeah, and by the way -- there is absolutely no evidence of Norse in Vinland using tobacco. Vinland providing tobacco in c. 1000 AD looks very silly We better replace it with Ivory.

 

[lil old me]

Quick question, playing as Hungary going for the UHV. The victory screen shows that I have 7% of the land area with Muscovy second with 5%, however I did not accomplish this objective. I have Bulgaria as my vassal which I think might add to the land area but not the UHV, is this correct? Bit of a pain if so!

 

[3Miro]

Quick question, playing as Hungary going for the UHV. The victory screen shows that I have 7% of the land area with Muscovy second with 5%, however I did not accomplish this objective. I have Bulgaria as my vassal which I think might add to the land area but not the UHV, is this correct? Bit of a pain if so!

Only your land counts and only your land within Europe. IIRK Arabia and the Ottoman Empire are not a competition even if they have more land than you.

In the future, the Victory screen will be more verbose and will show much better information.

 

[3Miro]

I understand that at this stage all the colonial projects are more or less fixed and new F9 feature makes it very easy to see them. So I could not help but to compare it with the actual map of colonization:

As you can see this mod captures most areas of colonization. However there are 4 notable omissions:

1. Angola -- just like East Africa this area was very important for slave trade. It was also one of the longest lasting European colonies.

2. Taiwan. "The time of Dutch rule saw economic development in Taiwan, including both large-scale hunting of deer and the cultivation of rice and sugar by imported labour from Fujian in China." -- This colony is not falling under a Far East trading port -- because it was (short lived) colony and can provide Rice, sugar and deer -- rice is very important comodity due to the health issues in RFCE.

3. Florida -- All the Spanish colonies require South American Access, Florida was an important exception -- oldest place in US settled by Europeans was Florida and this deserves to be depicted somehow.

4. Greenland -- Together with Vinland Greenland can be an early colony. Vinland was short lived colony but settlements in Greenland lasted for a long time and were badly devasted by the Black Death. AI never build Vinland -- it takes too much intelligence to sail to the Iceland and settle there. Would be cool to see early colonial project available for Norse after they discover some tech and unlike Vinland also available for later years:

Yeah, and by the way -- there is absolutely no evidence of Norse in Vinland using tobacco. Vinland providing tobacco in c. 1000 AD looks very silly We better replace it with Ivory.

There are a lot more real colonies than we can accurately represent. We are aiming at a good sample rather than complete historicity. We can move one Far East Trading Post for Taiwan, but in general we already have more colonies than we need.

For Greenland and Vinland in particular, I consider the real world Viking expedition to Vinland to be a failure. They never managed to establish a permanent settlement, so this falls in the category of: "something the nation tried to achieve and failed, something important that could have changed the history of Europe". Permanent settlement in Vinland would predate the real colonization by many centuries and could have dramatically changed the entire colonial history.

 

[3Miro]

While we are on F11 features -- just want to mention that for some strange reason rfce disabled all the detailed F11 information, i.e. it lets you to see either all the resources or none, but no other options. In the vanila BTS there is a F11 feature to see Strategic resources only, then Luxury resources only and so forth. Same goes about Religions (no options to see Orthodoxy only, for example) and the rest. I was wondering if modders accidentally disabled F11 options.

I will have to test this. When was this feature introduced in BtS? RFCE originally started with patch 3.17 and was later ported to 3.19 (at the cost of 20 hours of my life). If 3.19 introduced this feature, then it is possible that it was lost in the port, which means it is not disabled, but rather buggy.

 

[3Miro]

Here's a first try at starting locations map. (There's still some work to do with the large map, but in the medium size the errors are not obvious luckily).


Some questions:
- what is tNewCapitals ? is it the respawn location?
- CoreAreas : what exactly is the function of these? There are no core regions here as in SoI and uhv's and stability depend on provinces afaik.
-same for NormalAreas and Exceptions and BroaderAreas...

1 tile off for the capitals isn't a big deal. The New Capitals just guide the game to properly assign new capitals when the nation respawns.

You absolutely have to show the CoreAreas. In RFC those are used for Flip, Stability and UHV. In RFCE we only have Flip, but this is still very important. People would want to know whether building a city one tile to the left or right would result in the city eventually flipping to another nation.

Normal Areas are used for respawn (RFC has more use for them, but we are only left with respawn). It would be nice to show those as well. Normal Areas use rectangles, the Exceptions add individual tiles tot he rectangles so that nations can spawn or resawn in more irregular shapes (like Austria or the Ottomans).

Broader Areas are not used at all, I thought I had them removed, maybe I forgot.

 

[3Miro]

I'm perfectly aware of that. Just wanted to point out that they had it a bit funny calling themselves the Roman Empire - while being so far from Rome. Though of course, if Roman is meant as "upholding roman tradition" it's okay. Anyway, it's true that they weren't called the Byzantines until much later a historian invented the term.

There are many arguments for and against the Byzantines being the same as the Romans. The term Byzantine didn't even exist until long after the death of the Empire anyway. To avoid confusion with Papal Rome, we use the term Byzantine for everything. If all the other capitals are labeled as "Hungary" or "France", then we should Byzantine for Constantinople (obviously Kiev and Moscow are exceptions since the names of the cities and the name of the nations coincide).

 

[Sian]

For Greenland and Vinland in particular, I consider the real world Viking expedition to Vinland to be a failure. They never managed to establish a permanent settlement, so this falls in the category of: "something the nation tried to achieve and failed, something important that could have changed the history of Europe". Permanent settlement in Vinland would predate the real colonization by many centuries and could have dramatically changed the entire colonial history.

a reasonably expected AU where Vinland didn't collapse and failed to gain a permanent 'beachhead', it would be likely that the Vikings (primary Norweigians, secondary Danes) would have colonized down the eastcoast and in through the big rivers, ending up in a semipermanent war with assorted Natives, or establishing petty kingdoms not unalike Kievan Rus, with a Norse elite and a Native Commoner class, which through time is going to be intermixed ... but at some point lose comonication with them (at latest doing Black Death, prehaps even transferring the plauge overthere, deciminating the Natives), but the memory of the 'land beyond the sea' presisting, triggering a earlier 'second disovery', spearheaded by The Kalmar Union in the early 1400s (with Swedish Nobles prehaps being somewhat less interested in disbanding the Union again since that would mean losing all oversea assets, 'cept Finland)