Dawn of Civilization - an RFC modmod by Leoreth

[jammerculture]

there's got to be another place to upload files to in the absence of the ability here. any ideas?


I should specify save files lol

Also, I have just played my very first game with a 600 ad start as Byzantines. Definitely an entirely different game! I finally understand some of the comments/complaints/suggestions people have been making lol. The whole time I've been like "spearmen in Africa WTH?!!?? don't say anything you don't want to look dumb"

Has anyone yet managed to get the gold in time? I think it'll be a little easier in 600ad, because you can make c-town a dedicated merchant factory right off the bat. In 3000bc i usually end up with Athens or Sparta loaded up with a eclectic mix of GP points, makes breeding a merchant especially hard, not to mention not starting with the ability to even run a merchant specialist!

 

[Gruekiller]

I use Imgur.

 

[Linkman226]

Imageshack is best.

 

[Leoreth]

I agree on that first point. As for Hesperides, it's a useless city, it can afford to be lost. Put Neapolis in it's stead, and then you'll have something better. Tripolis is a good spot and still important-ish, so I'd advise it stay to represent the ERE's presence in North Africa.

I haven't posted in forever, but I have been keeping an eye on things here.

Yeah, but wouldn't it look odd if they control only Tripolis but not Benghazi?

Will the flood plains fix be in v 1.72?

EDIT: Oh and what does the following SVN error eman?

Command: Checkout from https://www.assembla.com/code/Dawn_of_Civilization/subversion/nodes, revision HEAD, Fully recursive, Externals included  
Error: Server sent unexpected return value (405 Not Allowed) in response to OPTIONS   
Error: request for 'https://www.assembla.com/code/Dawn_of_Civilization/subversion/nodes'  
Finished!:

Don't know about the floodplains, I still consider it imbalanced that it's bonus stays for the city tile yields.

On your SVN problem, you have to check out from "https://subversion.assembla.com/svn/Dawn_of_Civilization/", not the actual assembla page.

I don't think Byzantines having too many cities should be a problem especially since u tweaked the Arabs; But if a city must go then it should probably be Benghazi.On the same note, can there be an independent or Byzantine Tunis until work on the Minor Civ starts

The Arabs still have problems to go after Byzantine Africa, if at all they push into Anatolia (which is actually smarter). I guess their expansion would improve if the cities in the South would go independent again.

Also, I have just played my very first game with a 600 ad start as Byzantines. Definitely an entirely different game! I finally understand some of the comments/complaints/suggestions people have been making lol. The whole time I've been like "spearmen in Africa WTH?!!?? don't say anything you don't want to look dumb"

Has anyone yet managed to get the gold in time? I think it'll be a little easier in 600ad, because you can make c-town a dedicated merchant factory right off the bat. In 3000bc i usually end up with Athens or Sparta loaded up with a eclectic mix of GP points, makes breeding a merchant especially hard, not to mention not starting with the ability to even run a merchant specialist!

I did it in 600 AD, but it was VERY close. Even a 4 merchant Constantinople can't give birth to three GP in time (my third spawned in 970 AD so too late to go somewhere, but it was an Artist anyway so I used him to secure UHV2). If you wait until shortly before 1000 AD, both can yield 900 gold in Paris or Madrid, so you have 3200 gold left to be earned. It's possible to do so with 0% research, building wealth and sending out spies to steal gold (some odd hundred gold really makes the difference).

I haven't tried 3000 BC Byzantium yet, but I guess it's a lot harder, although you have more time. But it's possible to help them out by adjusting the amount of starting gold.

 

[Opera]

Just played an Arabs game, 600AD on the easiest difficulty (chilling game!). Although it was obviously easier, I'm pretty proud of the empire I managed to pull off, from Tripolis to Patya... Pat... the indian city with the holy cities Add to that Ethiopia, Greece and Merv.

Currently I stopped in 1260 or so; Italy just DoW'd on me, plague is rampant and the Turks are coming soon. Not gonna win the UHV and it's so painful to lose everything to the Turks.

 

[Leoreth]

How difficult would it have been to conquer Spain as well?

 

[Opera]

Well, I would have needed a quite big fleet of galleys to debark in Iberia first; then I guess a few catapults, although maybe simply the numbers of camel archers would have been sufficient. Thing is, I think this should be done ASAP. I was too busy conquering the east and I completely forgot about Spain.

So I'd answer "not difficult". Maybe I'll try again

However, the "3 shrines" UHV is handed on a plate. Mecca, Shiraz, Jerusalem. First is your capital, the two others flip to you. Just needs a Great Prophet, which isn't hard to get by 1300. Maybe three holy cities instead? So either the Indian ones or Roma (which would flip away to Italy before 1300...).

Any strategy to spread Islam? Conquest of course (34% of pop was following Islam mostly because I conquered a lot and had big cities) but otherwise it's very hard to get open borders.

 

[Leoreth]

Including at least Persia into their territory goal is long due anyway imo.

And I agree on the shrines condition (although including Shiraz into their flip was a mistake and will be reverted soon). I think they need some kind of goal to represent the Islamic Golden Age of philosophy and sciences. Religiousness is already included in the last goal, and there is already enough incentive to control as many shrines as possible anyway.

You can get open borders quite easily by converting away from Islam and/or joining into European wars. It's still quite an annoying settler spam though.

 

[Opera]

Including at least Persia into their territory goal is long due anyway imo.

I was surprised to not have to control North Africa either. IIRC the UHV says control or vassalize the Levant, Egypt and Spain in 1300. Levant and Egypt? They flip to you

"Control or vassalize the Levant, Egypt, Persia, North Africa and Spain" sounds much more daunting. Although NA is pretty barren in 600AD...

And I agree on the shrines condition (although including Shiraz into their flip was a mistake and will be reverted soon). I think they need some kind of goal to represent the Islamic Golden Age of philosophy and sciences. Religiousness is already included in the last goal, and there is already enough incentive to control as many shrines as possible anyway.

Sounds fair to not get Shiraz right away; supporting their empire needs shrines anyway (and the oh-so-good Spiral Minaret). Not sure what you could do for the Islamic GA. I can see goals of big culture, highest tech or building all the islamic wonders but none of those are very interesting. Maybe 'experience a X turns long GA'.

You can get open borders quite easily by converting away from Islam and/or joining into European wars. It's still quite an annoying settler spam though.

But converting away from Islam doesn't quite fit a "historical victory" for the Arabs, does it?

 

[Leoreth]

I was surprised to not have to control North Africa either. IIRC the UHV says control or vassalize the Levant, Egypt and Spain in 1300. Levant and Egypt? They flip to you

"Control or vassalize the Levant, Egypt, Persia, North Africa and Spain" sounds much more daunting. Although NA is pretty barren in 600AD...

Yeah, that's because the original UHV was tied to the cores of Spain, Egypt and Carthage and I've only changed the text to make clear that Carthage/Phoenicia's core is now in the Levant. I'll definitely turn the whole condition into a "from Spain to Afghanistan" goal.

Sounds fair to not get Shiraz right away; supporting their empire needs shrines anyway (and the oh-so-good Spiral Minaret). Not sure what you could do for the Islamic GA. I can see goals of big culture, highest tech or building all the islamic wonders but none of those are very interesting. Maybe 'experience a X turns long GA'.

Yeah, I've also thought about one of these possibilities ...

But converting away from Islam doesn't quite fit a "historical victory" for the Arabs, does it?

That's why I find the spreading goals to be unfun, to be honest

 

[Opera]

What about 'be the first in score and have 500+ culture in every city in 1300' instead of the shrine uhv?

Not sure what could replace the spread uhv.

 

[Gatsby]

Has anyone yet managed to get the gold in time? I think it'll be a little easier in 600ad, because you can make c-town a dedicated merchant factory right off the bat. In 3000bc i usually end up with Athens or Sparta loaded up with a eclectic mix of GP points, makes breeding a merchant especially hard, not to mention not starting with the ability to even run a merchant specialist!

Playing v1.7 I have managed to get the gold in time on both the 3000BC and 600AD starts on Monarch level at epic speed. Basically I did the same thing as Leoreth did: set the research slider to zero (or 10% at most), and run as many merchants as you can in Byzantium. You may also need to trade some techs for cash and have some of your more productive cities producing wealth from about 850AD onwards, and it's a good idea to keep anarchy to a bare minimum before 1000AD (i.e. only make a civic or religion switch if it's urgently necessary). If you prioritise getting the 5000 gold above everything else you should be able to do it. I find it easier to get the 5000 gold in time in the 600AD start.

Bug note: The third goal of the Byzantine UHV does not appear to be working. I have managed to fulfill the "3 cities in the balkans, north africa, and the near east in 1450AD" goal in three epic-speed games now, but the victory screen keeps saying that I have not achieved it. Has this issue been addressed in 1.71?

 

[J. pride]

And I agree on the shrines condition (although including Shiraz into their flip was a mistake and will be reverted soon).

The Arabs still have problems to go after Byzantine Africa, if at all they push into Anatolia (which is actually smarter). I guess their expansion would improve if the cities in the South would go independent again.

I suggested this before; the only solution i see to this problem is to spawn Camel Archers and Longowmen in Persia and Libya and Central Asia. Arab units spawning in these territories will should make sure that the Arabs conquer the above regions. It might be too deterministic but so are European (most of the time) units spawning in the New World. And really the Arabs don't get too much of an advantage; all your doing is moving their units to a new location and in the same turns that the human would. All in all it just makes sure that the Arabs behave like a human player in the first couple of turns.

On another note, perhaps not giving the spearmen an advantage over the camel archer might also help (or maybe even the other way around; giving camel archer an advantage over spearmen). It will help Arabs conquer North Africa.

 

[jammerculture]

Arab ideas: discover medicine by x. maybe add some more techs in there. the idea is have them research deep into the tech tree on non-military branches.

generate at least one great scholar, merchant and saint by x

build x universities, temples and monasteries

Generate x amount of culture from wonders

Have at least x number of priest and scientist specialists in your empire

spreading goals are extremely un-fun, even without the borders. spending hours doing nothing but building missionaries........ even in SOI with the Sufi's I have never been able to force myself to complete one of those goals.

Here's a crazy idea: conquest victory as the third UHV condition, which will in essence because of the new UP, create a unified Islamic world. The UHV condition could be "Kill all the infidels!"



Non-doc related woohoo: Dance with Dragons July 12th!

 

[Linkman226]

Are the following bugs gonna be fixed?

Some great persons get renamed to single-letter names
Diplomacy screen doesn't allow gold trading after the Italy switch
Oil industry produces oil
Transition to Democracy instability lasts forever

 

[Gatsby]

it's so painful to lose everything to the Turks.

I agree, the way the Turks arise in this game is a pain in the butt. They make an already-overcrowded part of the map even more overcrowded, especially with their assimilation UP. Having a heap of Turkish units appear out of nowhere on the Anatolian peninsula in 1280AD and flip a huge surrounding area (including cities on the black sea) is historically unrealistic; it is also incredibly annoying if you are playing as the Romans, Byzantines, Greeks, Arabs, Persians, Phonecians, Russians, or Babylonians. The Turks came from a region of central asia near the Aral Sea, and they had already established a large empire in western Asia (including parts of modern day Turkey itself) well before 1280AD. For more info on the pre-Ottoman history of the Turks, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turks and http://www.allempires.com/article/index.php?q=Seljuk_empire.

I think it would be better for gameplay and realism if Turkey's spawn date was moved back to around 1000-1050AD, and their spawn area was changed to central Asia near Afrosiab (give that area a few more food resources if necessary). Their UHV objectives should be expanded to include controlling the Anatolian peninsula by a certain date.

 

[Gruekiller]

I agree, the Turks are a pain in the butt. They make an already-overcrowded part of the map even more overcrowded, especially with their assimilation UP. Having a heap of Turkish units appear out of nowhere on the Anatolian peninsula in 1280AD and flip a huge surrounding area (including cities on the black sea) is historically unrealistic; it is also incredibly annoying if you are playing as the Romans, Byzantines, Greeks, Arabs, Persians, Phonecians, Russians, or Babylonians. The Turks came from a region of central asia near the Aral Sea, and they had already established a large empire in western Asia (including Turkey itself) well before 1280AD. For more info on the pre-Ottoman history of the Turks, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turks and http://www.allempires.com/article/index.php?q=Seljuk_empire.

I think it would be good for both gameplay and realism if Turkey's spawn date was moved back to around 800AD-1000AD, and their spawn area was changed to central Asia near Afrosiab (give that area a few more food resources if necessary). Their UHV objectives should be expanded to include controlling the Anatolian peninsula as well as the Bosporus Straits by a certain date.

This. But we'd have to give the AI a pretty strong inclination to move west as the Turks. It seems like any civilization that I play always has to contend with the Turks. ._.

 

[Gatsby]

This. But we'd have to give the AI a pretty strong inclination to move west as the Turks. It seems like any civilization that I play always has to contend with the Turks. ._.

Good to know someone agrees with me on this . I think the way to do that would be to give the Turks a large number of mounted units at spawn, and make one part of their core area in central Asia at their starting location and the other part in Anatolia and the Caucasus. Having them automatically at war with the Romans/Byzantines/Greeks/Phonecians/Babylonians when they spawn might also help.

PS Is the Silk Road already built in the 600AD scenario?

 

[J. pride]

The Turks are fine; they only represent part of the reality to what happened to the Arabs. The Arabs are like the Romans; by the end they should have most of their territory taken away. My only problem is that the Arabs never actually reach the potential of their empire. Secondly unlike Europe we don't have middle eastern states that replace the Arabs (like the do with the romans); like Berbers, Fatimids, Safavids (represent all of iran, and Timurids (represents all Central Asians)

 

[jammerculture]

lol it begins. Leoreth's work is never done.

Spawning the Turks east of Anatolia would make tons of historical sense, but would not be really possible in the game I don't think. i do think the Turk spawn should be changed however, but in a way that would ensure they have a high chance of controlling their historic core and not forming empires in Russia instead for example.

my suggestions:

Military spawn, no settlers. Now that you have implemented Byzantine as a civ, the Turks should have to conquer their empire, not be given it. The weakening of the empire to make way for the Turks can be handled in SoI fashion, i.e.barbs from the east to represent the initial Turkish incursions, causing destruction and stability hits. Then the ottomans spawn with cannons in central Anatolia.