yogiebere
Civilization City Planner
HRE Changes!
Ok this is in response to many comments lately about the implementation of Charlemagne and the subsequent split-up into France and Germany (and Italy but they're not a civ)
Also later HREs with Barbarossa and Austria, but let's focus on early stuff for now.
Option 1: Keep what we have: The single UHV dedicated to this is. The object is to essentially conquer the various cities in a loosely controlled empire not unlike Charlemagne himself.
However you start in Paris, not Aachen, the French stay around and keep the Spanish, Italian cities (if they don't collapse), which can lead to some weird dynamics.
As pointed out in another thread, the current Burgundy system in place doesn't work. Burgundy is weak, ahistorical, a really unfun civ to play, and doesn't want to die off like it should.
I'm a history buff, but I admit I am not well read in the intricate history of Burgundy. That said, it seems their paths are very intwined with France. Also it seems Burgundy collapsed several times throughout the course of its history, then most notable regaining prominence during the hundred years war then finally subjecting to the French officially.
Germany is also kind of a weird civ because it combines many kingdoms of Germany and fails to address the competely decentralized Germany in which protestantism was founded (I don't think we need a collapsed Germany so we could say that is one "possible" scenario of our mod). Austria also doesn't do s**t.
*Option 2*
Incorporate Charlemagne in the Mod as a separate entity from France. The only problem is they would be a very brief civ, only about 80 turns, which doesn't seem like much at all. Their only purpose would be to essentially settle and expand.
*My proposal for this option would be to make them independents. Something like the mod starts with Aachen in 500 as indy, then spreads a city every 10 or so turns (a city pops up not settlers) while the pope is spamming catholic missionaries everywhere. Just before 843, unified indy (not split up like indys are in collapsing empires) has Aachen, Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseilles, Tours, Strasbourg, Milano, Barcelona, and Augsburg.
I know scripting is awful, but as France you are rather "scripted" into doing a very specific set of actions to complete the UHV1.
France: would spawn in 843 (think civ3 europe mod, not RFC) with Paris, Tours, Bordeaux, armed with several settlers to make Caen and Nantes, and a decent amount of units, workers, and tech. Also buffing up French starting buildings and those civ variables like starting pop, tech rate, that stuff.
Hopefully France should be diverting lots of attention to war with England (who should be a lot more aggressive in France). After a couple hundred of years, France would divert its efforts to capture Strasbourg, Aachen (which it may or may not have already), Dijon, Lyon, and Marseilles, as the period of Burgundy sunsets.
Germany: they could spawn at the same time (or 5 turns later if you want to space them out, I recall there was a good reason for spacing out civ starting times), Build Hamburg, flip Augsburg, expanding north and east with several settlers, much like they play right now.
I'm thinking we should change Germany's UHVs around to make them much more military and barbarossa like. The reformation and army size ones can stay. But I think the territory UHV should be expanded to try to take Basle, Burgundy (yes it's historic), Milano, Tyrol, and into austria, czech like this picture:
LINK
Later on maybe they collapse under Austria's powerful new empire when they spawn.
*Realistically the mod would progress something like: Germany is much more aggressive in alps and Salzburg/Prague and then its power gets checked by France, Genoa and Venezia in Italy, and Austria (and then if they actually do collapse, the French and Austrians will battle over Germany, it's almost like its the 30 years war hohoho)
*Note: Burgundy and Germany can fight over the Basle/Switzerland area.
Burgundy: Not sure what you think about the start time, I'm thinking 843 for balancing (otherwise France takes Lyon, Marseilles which leads to war when Burgundy comes diverting focus away from hundred years war). Burgundy builds Dijon, flips Lyon and Strabourg. They will try to quickly conuqer Aachen and Marseilles, as I think giving them those two on the start would just be too much power, especially as France and Germany only get a couple.
IMPORTANT: Burgundy would seemingly start out strong, but would have handicaps against them in unit production, wonder production, starting buildings, and tech especially (say a 140% cost) to deter their long term growth.
In the long run, France should take over Burgundy.
Charlemagne's Empire: Almost completely collapses within 15 turns after the 843 deadline, everything except Barcelona is now French German or Burgundian
This seems like a pretty good system to me. The HRE would move form indy Dark Ages Charlemagne to Medieval Germany to Renaissance Austria. I don't think "titles" are necessary, not really the mods style, but I don't mind either way.
Option 3: Huge change, not sure bout this.
We could make it like the europe scenario in civ3 (again not RFC). What I mean is the mod starts in 843. Hold on for a sec there before you run screaming into the other room. Yes it would totally F up all the timings, but this is just one option. What was great about the civ3 thing was that it competely bypassed the Charlemagne situation. Currently, until 843 it's pretty much only the French and Byzantines (later Arabs, Cordobans, but they aren't huge until after 834).
If you don't want the scripted Charlemagne and want the whole France/Burgundy/Germany/Austria/HRE system to be fixed, (which needs a serious change to the system we have currently), this is another option.
*Alright please post comments, and not some random post like "I don't really like it" or "Cool". Let's leave this thread for serious discussion which I would love to see. If you have a great idea please introduce it. Want to work "within" the system? By all means let's. I'm sure this change would be massive works for the programmers which I wouldn't want to impose if there's a possible working change for the current system.