Civs discussion thread

[mollari]

Yeah. Taking out Israel for not being expansionistic and replacing it with another non-expansionistic civ isn't going to do a whole lot. A single independent city on Crete would do roughly the same thing.

You figured out the minoans all wrong, guys! They were amazingly expansionists - they may have been peacefull (sort off) but they were far from timid
They founded colonies, absorbed lots of cities throught cultural and economic influence, and may have conquered a few more - eventually they exercise some kind of power over most of the cycladean islands, Greece and Asia Minor coasts.
Their political system - temple/palatial states - lasted almost 1k years and their cultural influence remained a huge force in the Aegean world centuries after their political fall.

Some ideas for a Minoan civ:

Leaders:

Minos, Radhamanthys or Sarpedon (for one leader choice only, it would be Minos)

City list:

Knossos, Phaistos, Mallia, Kato Zakro, Gournia, Hagia Triada, Kommos, Petras, Galatas, Khania, Palaikastro, Amnissos, Mochlos, Vathypetro, Akrotiri, Kastri, Thrianda, Miletos,etc.

UP: "The Thalassocracy" - some kind of boost to minoan ships or to sea commerce...
UU: The Pentekonter (not that the name is historical accurate, but...) - an improved galley, with a little more power or cargo space.
UB: Some kind of minor palace - a courthouse with a good financial or cultural bonuses... Maybe a bull leaping game courtyard... Maybe both
UHV: that is hard... maybe something along these lines:
1 - have a colony at X different landmasses before X year;
2 -have open borders wit X civs;
3 - have X cities at the greek mainland and asia minor.
OR you could go for treasury thresholds... OR it could have to do with resources (secure X, Y and Z resources...).

They would go for "Organized Religion" as pref civic, and it would be cool to have a specific religion for them (IMHO)...

They would have to survive 3 great challenges (one may try to tie it with some cool UHV): a massive erupton at Acrotiri, with tsunamis, loss of agricultural production, etc (it seens things didn't get that bad, but it would be cool to see it ); an invasion of myceneans short after the eruption; and a massive invasion of "sea people" by the end of the bronze age.
Best regards!


BTW - I'm all for the Etrurians as well!

 

[OzzyKP]

I have to agree with this: Israel just doesn't work with the civ dynamics and is so radically different than almost every other civ I see it being almost impossible to implement correctly and if implemented accurately would only make it easy for another civ to conquer it so if that is the case why not make them independent and use their spot for a more expansionist civ?

Israel should definitely be in.

 

[The Turk]

You figured out the minoans all wrong, guys! They were amazingly expansionists - they may have been peacefull (sort off) but they were far from timid

Well, I think Mollari did a really good job expI don't want laining everything and it sounds really cool but two problems came to mind:

1. Is the map around the Aegean sea big enough to fit all the little islands which the minoans colonized?

2. Since the Minoans are SUCH an ancient race of people will they fit within the time frame of the game?

But overall if you can address these problems I would love to see them in the game

 

[mollari]

The Turk:


1) that may be a real problem... Not that it would ruin the case for a minoan playable civ, but certainly it raises 2 points - it will be a real challenge to play with them and we may have to leave the "colonize X places" out of their UHV... But again, Rhye, you could do a bigger map

2) well, their spawn date should be around 1900BC, not that early in the game, I don't belive it would be a problem...

 

[Rhye]

When I release the files you'll understand yourself why the bigger map was a wrong option.

 

[Cethegus]

Your Minoan UHV suggestions sound good, especially the "colonize X landmasses" idea. But looking at your other suggestions, aren't you painting them out to be Phoenicia v2.0?

 

[mollari]

Your Minoan UHV suggestions sound good, especially the "colonize X landmasses" idea. But looking at your other suggestions, aren't you painting them out to be Phoenicia v2.0?

Maybe a little - of course the correct would be to paint the phoenicians as minoans 2.0
But we may try to put some more emphasis at the religious/cultural aspects of the civ... Well, not now, RL calls...

 

[Steb]

Are the Phoenicians still in the game, though? Some hints (AI war maps, new timeline) brought me to think they've been removed (I hope it's not the case!)

 

[merijn_v1]

I think this is usefull for the Huns.

 

[Swein Forkbeard]

Personally, I would just extend the map to the entire old world and include all of the Age of Empires civs in here, to make this "Rhye's of Empires", with a sequel being "Rhye's of Empires II: Rhye's of Kings". Now if I remember correctly, here were all the civs in Age of Empires, in no particular order:

-Egyptians
-Greeks
-Babylonians
-Yamato (Japanese)
-Shang (Chinese)
-Choson (Koreans)
-Minoans
-Hittites
-Assyrians
-Persians
-Phoenicians
-Sumerians
-Romans
-Carthaginians
-Palmyrans
-Macedonians

Uhm...what do you guys think?

On a side note, how do I stop your replies from gumming up my e-mail inbox?

 

[Wessel V1]

That would just not be possible, since the Japanese and the Chinese had a very different tech tree. And there is a huge gap between any European civ and a Chinese civ, which would make Asia rather boring.

And to turn the auto-mails off, you have to go to "My Account", and then search for "subscribed threads". There you'll find a button to delete subscriptions, and also a button that deletes all subscriptions automatically.

 

[The Turk]

I have to agree with Wessel on the Asian half, but I agree with you 100% on expanding the map to encompass more of Europe and north africa and the middle east

 

[Cethegus]

And for what reason would that be? Europe and Africa had little to do in the Classical era.

 

[Metal Alloy Man]

I think that the map's fine as it is and that RFC: Asia should be a seperate project. Let's not get too ambitious otherwise the whole project will be set back.

 

[Arkaeyn]

We're likely to always be asked by people to add to the map, different civs, etc. It's hard not to ask for MORE MORE MORE. Hell, the only reason I'm not demanding it myself is probably only that my computer can't handle MORE MORE MORE - I can't do RFC past 1700 or so, or RFC:E past 1200.

Fortunately, Rhye has his vision, and it's proven to be a remarkably effective one. I think this map is great and we'll have a lot of fun with it. As for the civs, well, I'm sure in good time that'll all fall into place.

 

[The Turk]

And for what reason would that be? Europe and Africa had little to do in the Classical era.

Ok, first off what i meant by that was just that i think the map should be bigger in the sense that I would like to see it stretched (forget about the n africa bit). because I want to see a bigger Agean sea and larger middle east not to mention other areas. Also if the Britons are going to be added then there should be more of England at least for the Romans and Britons to conquer.

 

[Swein Forkbeard]

The Civilizations in Age of Empires II (which becomes Rhye's of Empires II)

-Goths
-Teutons
-Franks
-Britons
-Vikings
-Celts
-Spanish
-Huns
-Byzantines
-Saracens (Arabs)
-Turks
-Persians (Sassanids)
-Chinese
-Japanese
-Mongols
-Koreans
-Mayans
-Aztecs

And these are the civilizations of Age of Empires III (Rhye's of Empires III)
-English
-French
-Spanish
-Germans
-Portuguese
-Dutch
-Russians
-Ottomans
-Aztecs
-Sioux
-Iroquois
-Chinese
-Japanese
-Indians (yeah, I'm serious)

 

[Arkaeyn]

Ok, first off what i meant by that was just that i think the map should be bigger in the sense that I would like to see it stretched (forget about the n africa bit). because I want to see a bigger Agean sea and larger middle east not to mention other areas. Also if the Britons are going to be added then there should be more of England at least for the Romans and Britons to conquer.

The Britons aren't likely to be added, I suspect. There's a good five civs I'd prefer to see before them.

 

[Rathaus]

Hello, I'm a long-time lurker at this forums, but this is my first time actually posting so feel free to criticize.

I think the map is perfect as it is. Civilizations are crowded due to the small size of the map but this is a good thing as it makes it more of a challenge to get land. Civilizations that historically colonized the Mediterranean (e.g. Phoenicia, Greek civilizations, etc) are forced to do exactly that in this mod because there isn't enough room around the spawn area to settle a lot of cities.

The small size also means it's much easier for certain civilizations to make their empires as large as they were historically. On a larger map, it would be very difficult for Persia, Rome, Macedonia, etc to create historical empires.


While I like the idea of another colonizing civilization, I don't think there's enough room for Minoa to exist. At the moment, they only have a 10 tile or so island to work with. Plus, they would be in conflict with all the other civilizations for land for colonies. The colonies of Athens, Sparta, Phoenicia, Carthage etc would take up a lot of space.

On the map, I noticed there is a lot of unoccupied land in north europe/asia. I suggest maybe we add in another barb civilization, perhaps something like Scythia, as north of Turkey is vacant and no existing civilization in the mod historically conquered it (Persians/Sassanids stopped near Georgia). At the moment, there is only really three barbarian civilizations (Germans, Celts, Huns and some of them are unplayable) so I think another one will make the mod more interesting to play.

 

[Steb]

Well said. I agree that there is too much expansion at the moment in northern Persia by the Hittites and the Persians. I don't know if this justifies the addition of a new civ; I think many problems will be corrected once the settler maps are included.

My main gripe is about how the early civs don't have time to do much before the later civs appear. Phoenicia for example doesn't have time to colonize anything and already Cathage and Rome, etc. appear and control the west sea.