Current (SVN) development discussion thread

[Leoreth]

I am not that good, I've only played Viceroy and some Monarch.

So was your review on Viceroy or Monarch? I'm usually talking about and balancing for Monarch, so it's really important to know if it is otherwise.

600AD start will need some testing and balancing because in vanilla,
600AD China was already pretty almost notoriously hard.

Really? I found it easier to get the cathedrals in 600 AD. Can't say anything about the tech goal though, that's why I ask: maybe their starting techs need to be revised a little.

Leoreth, Are the Seljuks going to be added in the near future? Or will they have waith till 1.9?

Yes, they're basically the only remaining item on my to do list besides the Maya goal I've mentioned above.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_the_Seven_Cities
Any inspiration from this?

Pure coincidence But yes, the basic idea is that you have to ruin the colonizers' life.

But you can change it, right?
There is still hope!

Yes, but actually these little diaspora pockets don't matter a lot in the whole picture. Manchuria is another issue.

And uh, nobody has anything to say about my proposed stability map?

Most of that is already in effect ...

If you spawned an indy Tibet with a lot of culture, that actually buffs China because then,
they help block off spillover culture from Xian picking up unstable tiles.
Same reason why I leave Khmer and Mongolia alive is to box me in to protect my stability.

I don't think that's a problem. If China doesn't decide to conquer Tibet, it shouldn't suffer bad stability for it.

 

[Qiu]

For Japanese immigration, if we were to represent it, I would put some in Hawaii, Peru & Brazil. Those are more reasonable and historical choices.

Agreed. And I think northern Australia could also be an option. That may lead to more war between Japanese and British/Dutch.

Besides, there exists a nearest Uranium for Japan(and China) in the game, if I were right.

 

[IrishDragon]

Tibet should be light green for China imo, especially if you compare it to the historical areas of other civs, and should be represented with a barbarian/independed city that starts with culture buildings and spawns units powerful enough to raid into China, some of the silk road cities and possibly northern India. Wouldn't be against the idea of giving China and Japan some historical area on the west coast of America either

 

[Qiu]

Maybe this graph could help in mapping the stability of China in the game...

The sphere of `CHINA` or `CHINESE` could be described by three circles.

The yellow one is so-called `China proper`, where the Chinese people (mainly the Han people) have inhabited since ancient era and created the Chinese civilization.

The red one is so-called control sphere. The Chinese expanded to these areas from time to time, large partly in defense consideration, mainly through military ways. The native people commonly have their own culture that cannot be incorporated into the Chinese culture. Part of these areas are still Chinese territory at present, and the Chinese government claims that all people living there shall a same motherland as the Han people. Some people there agree but some others disapprove.

The blue one is so-called culture and emigration sphere. Many areas here have never been actually controlled by the Chinese dynasties, but people there did deeply got affected by Chinese cultures. The Chinese people lastly emigrated into these areas privately, bringing relatively advanced craftsmanship and culture. Some of them were completely assimilated into local culture (ex. in Japan and Korea), and some of them remained their culture identity for long time and formed a mass ethic group there (especially in south-east Asia). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_Chinese In fact the Chinese dynasties never encouraged such emigration, sometimes even punished them and didn't allow them to return. But, in totally hypothetical, if the Chinese dynasties ex. the Ming decided to embrace colonialism, like the Europeans did in history, IMO would not be too difficult to achieve the goal there.

I got this idea of circle-theory from a Japanese book. I think it is persuasive for me.

 

[Leoreth]

Yeah, but the question is how to translate this into game terms. In my opinion, the historical areas (i.e. green and yellow) should cover those parts where it was no effort at all to expand to and maintain internal stability. Areas that were subject to immigration or cultural influences doesn't fall into this category, in my opinion, contrary to Rhye's habit. But I don't think it's really worth the effort to remove this, because the impact is already low.

The problem with the red circle in your map is that for a large part of the game, like the first 4000 years, it wouldn't be right to have them as historical for China. It's not as if you can never control them because of this.

 

[River guard]

Yeah, but the question is how to translate this into game terms. In my opinion, the historical areas (i.e. green and yellow) should cover those parts where it was no effort at all to expand to and maintain internal stability. Areas that were subject to immigration or cultural influences doesn't fall into this category, in my opinion, contrary to Rhye's habit. But I don't think it's really worth the effort to remove this, because the impact is already low.

The problem with the red circle in your map is that for a large part of the game, like the first 4000 years, it wouldn't be right to have them as historical for China. It's not as if you can never control them because of this.

Correct me if I am wrong, but from some early stability map japan got light green and yellow area even in northeastern manchuria and southeastern asia (islands) which compared with chinese situation shouldnt be considered as historical either, also many of the european nations with their colonies territory in green/yellow stability which also wasnt their for the most part of their history.

 

[Leoreth]

But the European colonies don't matter because you're not able to reach them before stability there would start to become appropriate. Manchuria etc. is another issue, as I already said.

 

[River guard]

But the European colonies don't matter because you're not able to reach them before stability there would start to become appropriate. Manchuria etc. is another issue, as I already said.

Isnt there other way to solve this instead of putting China under discrimination ? Like putting more barbarians in those area preventing China from expanding too early, or include something like long periode of anarchy/all chinese city revolt for a certain periode of turns triggered by certain date/events? For example upon the spawn of mongolian civilization all chinese cities would automatically go into 20 turns of continued revolt, even if china does not "collapse" per say, such actions would put China into stagnation and combined with forced units flip mongol would almost certainly conquer China.

 

[Qiu]

I think the main gap is the difference between what can be done by Ai and what can be done by players.

Leoreth, your mod is great. I think many people would try to play it to simulate much more, rather than pursuit of UHVs only.

 

[Linkman226]

Dear god, twenty turns of revolt?

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

Isnt there other way to solve this instead of putting China under discrimination ? Like putting more barbarians in those area preventing China from expanding too early, or include something like long periode of anarchy/all chinese city revolt for a certain periode of turns triggered by certain date/events? For example upon the spawn of mongolian civilization all chinese cities would automatically go into 20 turns of continued revolt, even if china does not "collapse" per say, such actions would put China into stagnation and combined with forced units flip mongol would almost certainly conquer China.

That already is a kind of selective discrimination

Also, my current playtest is on Viceroy.
My last one on Rev178 was on Monarch (the one where my economy dropped horrendously and I had to run specialists at all times).

Leoreth, Xinjiang was never subject to much effort on the part of the Chinese to expand there.
Vietnam while constantly breaking off, was equal amounts under direct control by various Chinese dynasties, much like Tibet.
Manchus as I stated before, had no problem throwing away their own culture and customs and adopting Chinese ones.
In reality, China would have a much better stability map as compared to say, Japan in its current incarnation.

The map that I made was kind of reflecting gameplay balance but I would expand the map to be much bigger.
I did suggest the Tibet/Xinjiang removal initially but it doesn't really make sense now.
If you look at the Qing Dynasty all the way to the modern PRC, the borders (minus Outer Mongolia)
are extremely contiguous and haven't changed so much in about over three hundred years.

If you ask me, I think a timed settler bias for the AI, where they only settle on core
tiles up to a certain point (1400 maybe?) would be good. I do not know if this is possible at all.

In my opinion, the historical areas (i.e. green and yellow) should cover those parts where it was no effort at all to expand to and maintain internal stability.

By that logic though, Japan would not have any stability in Corea & Manchuria, nor the Phillippines or all those islands just above Australia.
We are generous to them for their short-lived WWII and prelude occupations so why not give China some leeway for 300+ years of contiguous control?

Yes, but actually these little diaspora pockets don't matter a lot in the whole picture.

Diaspora were important in history though. I can cite Jewish diaspora to Moorish Spain & Eastern Europe as an example. In the case of Moorish Spain, they brought wealth and knowledge. Among other examples, if it weren't for Chinese diaspora in Singapore...we wouldn't have the current makeup of ethnic makeup of Singapore being over 70% Chinese . And most importantly, it really can't be denied how important immigration was and continues to be today in the United States.

As it stands we only have representations of:
Japanese, German & Roman (Italian?) immigration.

The four that immediately come to mind when thinking about importance and significance are:
Jews, Indian, Chinese & Irish (not sure if you plan on implementing Celts)

I may be opening a whole new can of worms with this statement,
but perhaps immigration should not be represented on the stability map?

 

[AOS9001]

By that logic though, Japan would not have any stability in Corea & Manchuria, nor the Phillippines or all those islands just above Australia.
We are generous to them for their short-lived WWII and prelude occupations so why not give China some leeway for 300+ years of contiguous control?

This. Also, Xinjiang was under control of both the Tang and Qing, not to mention Republic/People's Republic of China, excluding the short lived nation of Turkestan there. Why not make it historical when it obviously is? I like this idea of delayed settling, I think it could work here.

it really can't be denied how important immigration was and continues to be today in the United States.

I could have so much fun saying this to some of the people I know...

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

I could have so much fun saying this to some of the people I know...

Well, immigration's importance in the American sphere today is mostly a topic of heated debate today.
I'm living in California and it's a hotbed of virulent anti-immigration & fervent pro-immigration activists.

 

[jammerculture]

I'm a little confused.

What are the problems that we are trying to solve in regards to Chinese and Japanese stability?

What are the issues to gameplay that arise from these problems?

What are the issues to historical accuracy that arise from these problems?

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

It's something that's needed a long overhaul since vanilla RFC.
See this thread for a long list of complaints against Rhye's choice of maps:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=313398

I brought it up because I thought the Asian ones in particular should be fixed before we moved on from 1.8.
Issues to historicity being the constant settling of the Philippines by the Japanese and China being disallowed Manchuria amongst other things.
Gameplay being how it affects stability of said nations due to the maps.
Also, people have concerns about China settling Tibet/Xinjiang in like the BCs; which I proposed a timed settling to remedy.

 

[Leoreth]

I'm a little confused.

What are the problems that we are trying to solve in regards to Chinese and Japanese stability?

What are the issues to gameplay that arise from these problems?

What are the issues to historical accuracy that arise from these problems?

Thanks, I'd like to have a little more focus on these questions as well.

The point is, stability maps are a fairly abstract concept to talk about, and in the end what matters is if a civ's stability performs realistically. AI China's didn't until I removed some areas from their stability maps, which finally prohibited them from controlling Mongolia proper and Transoxania without even getting into unstable territory. Now this may seem unfair compared to how, say, Japan is treated and it objectively actually is, but fact is Japan doesn't cause problems because they rarely leave their islands anyway, so I don't bother changing their maps. Because that's a rather ugly part of civ modding; take a look and try to make sense of Rhyes.cpp if you want an impression.

Now, on the matter of immigration and stability maps, I don't think immigration should play a role in if a tile is easy to control for its civ (and I assume so did Rhye, and he only included it for the settler map aspect). But I also don't think it really matters now that it's there, because the impact is negligible and not worth the aforementioned effort.

 

[J. pride]

While Leoreth is on the topic, I would like to bring up another important point. I have had games where Mongolia had conquered all the cities in China proper (by 1250) but China still manages to live as long as 1350-1450 only with a lone city in Eastern Turkistan or Manchuria.

Here are some screenshots:




What I would also like to point out is that this does not help China at all and is rather counter intuitive since if Manchuria is stable for China and China has a city there that Mongolia does not conquer than China will never have a proper respawn and rather continue to live as a one state weak nation.

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

Thanks, I'd like to have a little more focus on these questions as well.

The point is, stability maps are a fairly abstract concept to talk about, and in the end what matters is if a civ's stability performs realistically. AI China's didn't until I removed some areas from their stability maps, which finally prohibited them from controlling Mongolia proper and Transoxania without even getting into unstable territory. Now this may seem unfair compared to how, say, Japan is treated and it objectively actually is, but fact is Japan doesn't cause problems because they rarely leave their islands anyway, so I don't bother changing their maps. Because that's a rather ugly part of civ modding; take a look and try to make sense of Rhyes.cpp if you want an impression.

Now, on the matter of immigration and stability maps, I don't think immigration should play a role in if a tile is easy to control for its civ (and I assume so did Rhye, and he only included it for the settler map aspect). But I also don't think it really matters now that it's there, because the impact is negligible and not worth the aforementioned effort.

To me, that is not a completely satisfactory answer but I really feel like this topic badly needs a revisit in the future.

On a last note, the capability to recreate actual stable historic borders from a player perspective should never be punished by stability constraints, imo. It seems from the last couple of posts that many people here would seem to agree with me on this regard (at least in certain respects) so all I'm asking is that if we're not going to look at this now, at least let's try and revisit it later.

Otherwise, it's just kind of like the elephant in the corner of the room that nobody wants to acknowledge but we all know is there.

 

[Linkman226]

Concerning Indian culture spreading into Tibet, there's always RoM: AND's realistic culture spread, in which the speed at which culture spreads over tiles depends on the tile's terrain type.

 

[hoplitejoe]

Concerning Indian culture spreading into Tibet, there's always RoM: AND's realistic culture spread, in which the speed at which culture spreads over tiles depends on the tile's terrain type.

Please don't add this. Waiting for culture to spread to resources in your BFC is so painful.