Current (SVN) development discussion thread

[Leoreth]

Welcome to the boards, and thanks for the feedback.

I think you're right about China's UP, it's quite easy to abuse it and they are too clearly a tech leader in the early eras. Korea's defense deserves some buffs, at least for the AI (which could also benefit from some axemen to counter swordsmen).

The unwillingness to attack / suicide DoWs are likely caused by the AIWars module, which basically declares war based on occupied territory without completely notifying or asking the AI about it. I'll see if I'm capable of making it a bit more intelligent with what I know about AIWars.py and the actual player AI.

 

[MuppyP]

3000 BC start as England, China founded Catholicism and Jerusalem is the Zoroastrianist holy city, though I don't know who founded it there. Also, respawned Egypt, which somehow controlls Carthage, in the ninth century.

 

[Leoreth]

The last one is nothing unusual.

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

If you are going to commit to it, try lowering the Chinese UP to 20% first to see if that feels just right. 15% might be a bit of a jump at this point.

FYI though, killing Mongolia has always been easy for the player.
You could give them 20 more Keshiks and the point will be made for them between the AIs but the player will typically find a way to beat that
(unless they've been skimping on defenses and going peaceful builder).
It's just the AI that doesn't do so well against them.

I agree with giving Corea some Axes on spawn though.

 

[Leoreth]

If you are going to commit to it, try lowering the Chinese UP to 20% first to see if that feels just right. 15% might be a bit of a jump at this point.

Yes. -25% equals +33% research speed, -20% equals +25% research speed, -15% equals ~17.6% research speed. And the latter would too weak imo.

So the reduction effect is larger than the bare numbers imply.

(unless they've been skimping on defenses and going peaceful builder).

Sounds like me

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

Getting constantly DOW'ed on in vanilla RFC by neighbors while playing peacefully as the Dutch and Portuguese
has taught me the value of establishing hegemony on your continent.

As for +77 China Economy, I've only ever gotten that around 1700-1900 and only after I've switched to all fascist/communist civics.
Maybe I can hit 77 during a Golden Age, but either way, I'm not going into a Golden Age unless I know for sure I can extend it enough to get the civics techs I need (Nationalism+Fascism+Communism).

Also, the vassalization of Khmer & Indonesia is just what they do.
Kind of like Ethopia oftentimes for Western civs.

 

[Leoreth]

Do you think those civs' inclination to peacefully vassalize should be lowered?

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

The short answer is Yes.

Personally, I never vassalize civs with small stability maps because they can't aid me well in Conquest/Domination victories.
(I <3 Spain & Isabella just for this purpose)

The shorter answer is No.

If they're not vassalized, to put it bluntly, they're dead.

 

[Caesar Augustus]

The short answer is Yes.

Personally, I never vassalize civs with small stability maps because they can't aid me well in Conquest/Domination victories.
(I <3 Spain & Isabella just for this purpose)

The shorter answer is No.

If they're not vassalized, to put it bluntly, they're dead.

Really? Admittedly, I haven't played a ton into the late game, but it's hard for me to imagine many successful invasions of either Khmer or Indonesia, considering the Jungle helping the former and the water (and hence the AI's dismal record on sea-borne invasions) helping the latter. But honestly I feel like there's not much you can effectively do to prevent them from ending up someone's vassal eventually. I mean, they are going to be drastically less powerful than pretty much everyone, so you'd have to make them just unreasonably hostile to prevent their eventual vassalization. Not really worth the effort to prevent them from doing what is, as Tomorrow's Dawn stated, kind of a good move from their perspective. Besides, if the tiny, weak civs aren't meant to vassalize, what's the point of having it as an option?

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

Really? Admittedly, I haven't played a ton into the late game, but it's hard for me to imagine many successful invasions of either Khmer or Indonesia, considering the Jungle helping the former and the water (and hence the AI's dismal record on sea-borne invasions) helping the latter. But honestly I feel like there's not much you can effectively do to prevent them from ending up someone's vassal eventually. I mean, they are going to be drastically less powerful than pretty much everyone, so you'd have to make them just unreasonably hostile to prevent their eventual vassalization. Not really worth the effort to prevent them from doing what is, as Tomorrow's Dawn stated, kind of a good move from their perspective. Besides, if the tiny, weak civs aren't meant to vassalize, what's the point of having it as an option?

Indonesia gets hit by the Dutch conquerors event.
That is already pretty much an auto-vassalization/guaranteed death unless
you take matters into your own hands and kill the Dutch or the Indonesians yourself.
In the case of the Khmer, they are usually protected by jungle but the fact that they often go the whole game OCC'ing
and backwards in tech is an invitation for any master to come swoop them up.

And yes, I always play extensively into the modern age and oftentimes do not shoot for the UHV.
In my opinion, it is a much more accurate indicator of which civs are "easy" to play and which ones are harder as compared to ease of UHV.

On another similar note, I have no problem generally when people want certain civs to die
(typically Rome, China, Mali, etc. among some others that I've seen mentioned),
there are just two problems that emerge that I dislike:

1) When "scripted collapse", aka periodic stability hits, meant for the AI hurt the player overtly.
2) When it makes every game look exactly the same with the same live civs each time with the same colonies each time and the same dead civs each time. Some people like that, but I'm in the camp that dislikes that kind of determinism in my games. Currently, from everything that's been posted in the OMG thread, I kind of like the balance that we have so far.

 

[Linkman226]

What color did you use for the Safavids? your Mughal coloring scheme and my Iranian coloring scheme are pretty much identical, and considering they're right next to each other...

 

[Leoreth]

Not really worth the effort to prevent them from doing what is, as Tomorrow's Dawn stated, kind of a good move from their perspective. Besides, if the tiny, weak civs aren't meant to vassalize, what's the point of having it as an option?

I don't want to completely take the possibility away from them, but I could make their leaders to refuse vassalization unless you're friendly with them.

1) When "scripted collapse", aka periodic stability hits, meant for the AI hurt the player overtly.

The current mechanic that covers that specifically excludes the player and even the civs that neighbor him.

2) When it makes every game look exactly the same with the same live civs each time with the same colonies each time and the same dead civs each time. Some people like that, but I'm in the camp that dislikes that kind of determinism in my games. Currently, from everything that's been posted in the OMG thread, I kind of like the balance that we have so far.

Me neither, but several civs that are not supposed to survive tend to stay until the modern era without collapsing once, especially the notorious Mali. I think there's nothing wrong with doing something about this without turning it into an 100% guaranteed death, especially since the chance to respawn is higher now.

What color did you use for the Safavids? your Mughal coloring scheme and my Iranian coloring scheme are pretty much identical, and considering they're right next to each other...

I used your FlagDECAL (which doesn't work via alpha channel as you know), but left their cultural colour as it was (PLAYERCOLOR_PINK). Initially it was meant as a temporary solution, but I can't think of anything better so I think it'll stay.

 

[Linkman226]

I see...

Also, why is Jimmu now Kammu? Those are two different people.

 

[Leoreth]

I know. Jimmu made sense when ancient Japan was included, now that they spawn in the 6th century a Heian period LH is more appropriate.

 

[Linkman226]

Ah, I forgot the spawn date was moved.

 

[Leoreth]

Reduced the Chinese UP to -20% now, and would be grateful if somebody can test how this affects their tech rate.

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

I'll test it but before I do, the techs are fixed right?

EDIT: Techs are fixed but I stopped when someone apparently beat me to Paper.
I was still just teching Civil Service too.
I don't unfortunately know who it was because my western Warriors died.

Also, the Tech feels fine but the stability on my Economy is drastically low.
It was like this in the last game I tested too.
Economy is supposed to be mostly based on tile yields right?

 

[Leoreth]

Economy rating is mostly based on a constant increase in commerce (and the other yields iirc). So even if you have an awesome economy that's way ahead of everyone else, if you've been at that level for a long time, you'll start losing your initial plus points and move towards zero or even negative.

(I've checked and I didn't change anything to their stability by the way).

When do you usually start to face the risk of secessions or collapse?

 

[jammerculture]

I will play China as well. My last game ended in bitter defeat two turns after my golden age from accomplishing the first two goals started, Mongolia spawned and defeated me in three turns. I was unprepared for their new incarnation and the use of the wall hampered me I think. In previous china games I would have a nice supply of formation promoted spearmen from my wars against the barb HA, which would defend me against the Keshiks. In this one, they sweapt over the wall and took six of my lightly defended cities on the first turn!

From my previous games I found the economic stability problem to be as a result of relying on scientists instead of cottages. Cottage growth is great for a steady increase in the economy, which will keep stability good, whereas scientists yield is flat. There is a tipping point in the chinese game where you have to stop relying on scientists so much and start working your cottages. I will attempt to pinpoint this in my next game. My guess is it will be sometime after your third GS.


Your changes to the desirability of chinese tech trades has gotten a little extreme. India wont trade bronze working for pottery. They want Bronze working, fishing and math for it. Hiram wants math and alphabet for polytheism. crazy stuff. Could this be modified so it had a geographicial component? i.e. harder to trade with europe. I don't think that there should be difficulty with trading with India and Persia as this is historical. Maybe instead of changing the value of the techs, you add a diplomacy modifier "-1 You're from a strange and foreign land" to civs in the west.

also, the new Indian spawn location creates an Indian culture dominated tibet. not a huge problem but kinda strange. one of those things that would enrage certain people if it happened in certain areas of the world

Are you supposed to be able to improve jungle tiles? I have never tried it before just assuming you couldn't but I did and I can. You can clear quite a bit of south east asia this way, creating a super city at Hanoi after calendar.

 

[Leoreth]

I will play China as well. My last game ended in bitter defeat two turns after my golden age from accomplishing the first two goals started, Mongolia spawned and defeated me in three turns. I was unprepared for their new incarnation and the use of the wall hampered me I think. In previous china games I would have a nice supply of formation promoted spearmen from my wars against the barb HA, which would defend me against the Keshiks. In this one, they sweapt over the wall and took six of my lightly defended cities on the first turn!

That makes me happy because it shows that the Mongols are not so incompetent after all

From my previous games I found the economic stability problem to be as a result of relying on scientists instead of cottages. Cottage growth is great for a steady increase in the economy, which will keep stability good, whereas scientists yield is flat. There is a tipping point in the chinese game where you have to stop relying on scientists so much and start working your cottages. I will attempt to pinpoint this in my next game. My guess is it will be sometime after your third GS.

Yeah, exactly.

Your changes to the desirability of chinese tech trades has gotten a little extreme. India wont trade bronze working for pottery. They want Bronze working, fishing and math for it. Hiram wants math and alphabet for polytheism. crazy stuff. Could this be modified so it had a geographicial component? i.e. harder to trade with europe. I don't think that there should be difficulty with trading with India and Persia as this is historical. Maybe instead of changing the value of the techs, you add a diplomacy modifier "-1 You're from a strange and foreign land" to civs in the west.

I see. I'll still go with a value decrease but my first attempt went way overboard as it seems.

also, the new Indian spawn location creates an Indian culture dominated tibet. not a huge problem but kinda strange. one of those things that would enrage certain people if it happened in certain areas of the world

Well the Tibetans have more in common with the Indians than with the Chinese, don't they?

Are you supposed to be able to improve jungle tiles? I have never tried it before just assuming you couldn't but I did and I can. You can clear quite a bit of south east asia this way, creating a super city at Hanoi after calendar.

Wait, do you mean jungle tiles without resources?

Edit: I've included another of RFCE's features: AI war maps now actually influence which cities they want to attack, not only which civs they declare war on.