Current (SVN) development discussion thread

[jammerculture]

Jammer, you know AIs are more likely to open borders when you have a mutual war, right? Justi is quite likely to war Arabia, so if you declare on Arabia he might be willing to OB.

but how to do this consistently? I usually don't have contact with arabia in time. adriatic is closed by byzzies, so would need to build ships from rome, which is hard enough to capture in time. actually only time i have even met arabia is when they found me!

 

[strijder20]

but how to do this consistently? I usually don't have contact with arabia in time. adriatic is closed by byzzies, so would need to build ships from rome, which is hard enough to capture in time. actually only time i have even met arabia is when they found me!

Can spies make contact? I'm not sure.
I already mentioned there is a (long) way in the north: there is a small passage in the Kaukasus.
Supposing Spain and France will OB (they usually do if you give them a gift at contact) founding Hamburg and chopping out a galley to make contact with Arabia would do too.

 

[jammerculture]

it shouldn't have to be so determined not to mention ahistorical. I am assuming Leoreth picked the UHV condition, to symbolize the fulfillment of Barbarossa's crusade, which he died trying to attain.

spies are a good idea, i will try that

getting ob with byzzies is part of that, using a mutual war with arabs works well in this context, however game mechanics make this difficult. the best solution is reducing the penalty for different religions between cath and orth.

or

shouldn't crusading civs have los on jerusalem? they obviously know of its existence. maybe all christian civs should get los on jerusalem in the middle ages, therefore contact with arabs would be automatic. problem solved. perhaps a scripted event when arabs take jerusalem, the pope calls for crusades yadda yadda, all christian civs get los on jerusalem.

 

[Leoreth]

leoreth, do you want the uhv condition to be possible in 600ad start?

Yes! It certainly shouldn't rely on a lucky holy city location in the 3000 BC scenario. I'm aware of the Byzantine OB problems, just not sure on how to solve it elegantly. Maybe having the HRE start at war with Arabia is the best way.

 

[Fresol]

Maybe having the HRE start at war with Arabia is the best way.

I think this'll ensure Byzantium OB.

 

[morff]

I have got some idea about the slaves concept while playing RFC Dawn - maybe it could work this somehow:
- some civilization (those involved in slave trade), and or just some unit could "enslave" native units in Africa and or America and create workers from them either with some unique power, or n percent of the killed natives would be converted to workers
But you know it's just idea, i don't really care about this feature

 

[iOnlySignIn]

Is it just me, or does HRE seems a lot weaker than the Germany of old? They died to France before 1500 in every game I played, 600AD or 3000BC. And they never settled Hamburg. Or even Wien.

 

[Leoreth]

I'm rolling America starts by the dozen currently and they were almost always alive by then (judging by the event log without respawn). And when they're dead, their dynamic name indicates that they were at least alive until the Prussian spawn. German dominated Europe is a thing of the past, though, obviously.

 

[Fresol]

HRE is doing alright, in my last game they even killed Prussia on spawn.

 

[Leoreth]

Prussia has some serious problems as AI, they almost always get conquered by someone. Looking at the power graph, they apparently disband their whole army on spawn for upkeep reasons. I'm working on fixing this.

 

[iOnlySignIn]

I think a problem for both HRE and Prussia is Vikings founding Malmo on the southernmost tile of Scandinavia. This prevents HRE from founding Hamburg/Kiel and severely cripples their economy. I've seen this happen predictably on 600 AD and 3000 BC starts.

What happens next is France takes Frankfurt and HRE dies/capitulates/collapses.

This usually happens upon Reformation - France and Spain remain Catholic, HRE converts and get declared on by the other two continental powers. Viking/England may become Protestant too, but they don't offer any help as their lands do not connect. Viking also won't help because of Close Borders and a history of war with HRE.

Then France/Spain asks Russia to declare on HRE (if they haven't yet). Note that this Russia is either a respawn Russia with Gunpowder or a Russia strong enough to fend off the Mongols. Russia will always declare on HRE, because (1) Close Borders Tensions; (2) Orthodoxy Heretic; (3) French UP makes Russia more likely to help French wars.

So HRE always gets dogpiled and die miserably. *Before* the Prussian spawn.

 

[iOnlySignIn]

HRE's UP is also severely weakened because Russia and Byzantium are now completely Orthodox and fall outside the AP's jurisdiction. This would be even worse on 3000 BC starts.

Also on 3000 BC starts, there is a realistic chance that AP won't be built until after the Reformation, so HRE has effectively no UP at all.

 

[civ_king]

Unless there is a mechanics reason for education to be a Renaissance tech it should be a Mediaeval tech. Not getting a waiting screen thing as Ayutthaya (until it finishes). Plantations on islands aren't providing the resources which limits Trading Companies a bit (Caribbean anyone?).

 

[strijder20]

Plantations on islands aren't providing the resources which limits Trading Companies a bit (Caribbean anyone?).

That's normal, they don't on normal BtS either. You have to build forts.

 

[civ_king]

That's normal, they don't on normal BtS either. You have to build forts.

Leoreth said he changed it previously.

 

[Leoreth]

No, I didn't. I said I had a look at the code and found that it was hard to do.

HRE apparently needs some work; I'll start by reducing the diplomacy penalty between Orthodoxy and the other Christian denominations.

 

[Fresol]

One result of allowing Silk Route for China is that they're no longer willing to trade related resources (Beijing and Dunhuang are on silk route).

 

[Lone Wolf]

Looking at the power graph, they apparently disband their whole army on spawn for upkeep reasons. I'm working on fixing this.

The Turks sometimes do that too, both in DoC and in original RFC. It rarely results in them being conquered by the AI, though.

 

[morff]

I agree with the HRE/Viking problem, if they found Malmo or similar city in south Scandinavia, their borders prevent building cities in north part of central Europe, in RFC this was kind of fixed, because their border was pushed out of the HRE (Germany) spawn area around Berlin (which historically wasn't really good spawn point, the Frankfurt is more historical).

One more thought i checked the HRE/Prussia quickly, and i don't like the changes very much But i guess i just have bad luck in this case... Wien completely spoil the central Europe area and render it useless by my standards; nearest good cities are Reval and Kiev (instead of Danzig / Budapest) i will have to play some other civ like Russia, they have some space to build good cities

One idea may be good or bad - some civs have UHV that ends really quickly, so you play as winner rest of the game. Could there be one optional UHV milestone, that would be triggered by UHV victory (pop-up play for bonus or just win now)... the purpose of this last UHV it would be some modern era achievement, like i don't know be first to reach Proxima Centauri or have biggest production in year 2000 or biggest import/export etc. different for each civ of course.

 

[Kraizer]

Hopefully with the implementation of K-Mod we will see allot of these problems fixed (or created) what with AI England and whatnot finaly being able to wage war across the seas and run naval invasions. Considering the AI is the fundemental aspect of the game, I guess we can expect DoC to completely evolve by the time we have K-Mod intergrated, since there will be so many new variables created and smarter decisions at the AI's disposal. Infact, wouldn't it be wise to focus on implementing K-Mod first? I mean, won't all these changes your making to balance the AIs just be rendered obolete once they start acting smarter in general and causing different problems?