Ready_set_go
Too Late
Is there a reason why Turkey doesn't start with settlers?
How do I load a picture here, I'll show you I had none.
How do I load a picture here, I'll show you I had none.
Maybe the Buddhism spread rates for Europe should be decreased by at least a small amount. And now that I think about it, Islam rarely spreads anywhere except Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the New World, but I rarely (if ever) see Muslim cities in India, southeast Asia, or western China, although these areas have large Muslim populations today.
My current version of 1.71 (in the SVN currently) already gives Al-Iskandariyya, Al-Qahirah and Al-Quds to the Arabs. I'm currently divided whether the already preplaced Tisfun should flip to them as well (turning into Baghdad). Currently the Byzantines conquer it too often, but I'll try if reworking both civ's overlay maps (especially Byzantium's) might solve that as well).
I've also made the same observation as you that Arabia wastes its starting settlers on useless cities in Yemen and Oman, so I currently think if it's better to place their settlers in Cairo or Baghdad when they flip
Alexandretta is gone in 1.71, although I have replaced it with Antiochia on the same spot.
Good point. While a strong military for the Europeans might not be that bad, it's to luck dependent for both player and AI. Could be that this is the reason for several instances of medieval super Germany.
My current version of 1.71 (in the SVN currently) already gives Al-Iskandariyya, Al-Qahirah and Al-Quds to the Arabs. I'm currently divided whether the already preplaced Tisfun should flip to them as well (turning into Baghdad). Currently the Byzantines conquer it too often, but I'll try if reworking both civ's overlay maps (especially Byzantium's) might solve that as well).
I've also made the same observation as you that Arabia wastes its starting settlers on useless cities in Yemen and Oman, so I currently think if it's better to place their settlers in Cairo or Baghdad when they flip.
Great suggestions, but I don't want to open that can of worms parallel to all that Byzantine trouble. I think the cataphract can be fixed independently to this.
On the Cataphract issue:
For me, three approaches present themselves to solve that issue.
1. View cataphracts as Byzantine knight counterpart
This would mean they'd be moved to feudalism, would be only slightly nerfed or made more expensive. Byzantium won't spawn with feudalism anymore.
2. View cataphracts as a Byzantine knight predecessor
This is probably the more historical variant. Keep the cataphracts at an earlier tech they know on spawn, but make them weaker than their knight counterpart, like the strength 9 suggestion by civ_king.
3. Use the Varangian guard instead
Has the advantage that they were in service for a longer time than the traditional cataphracts (later Byzantium tended to use lighter cavalry), but are also ahistorical in that they never entered the actual army in greater numbers. They would fit better into the idea of a defensive Byzantium.
I think if the AI controls the Arabs, they just need a bit more help initially. What about making all of Mesopotamia part of the Arab core area, give them only 1 initial settler, give the other 2 a couple turns after the spawn, also lower the city-settling probability to something really low for all other city sites within Arabia. What about making the Arab AI decide to fight a total war against the Byzantines for the first x number of turns?
To help the Arab AI in conquering North Africa, can Arab AIs get 3 free Camel Archers spawn just south of Libya? I also think that North Africa should be guarded with less spearman and Turkey be guarded with more spearmen.
I would much prefer to see Cataphracts as a knight predecessor than a strict knight counterpart. They've historically been in use for hundreds of years before knights have been. Giving Byzantines a 9 str version of heavy cavalry isn't that much of a disadvantage considering how ridiculously early the Byzantines would have access to such a powerful unit. I still think they should should also get some sort of attack bonus vs barbarian units or melee units given how successful they were at routing unorganized infantry through massed charges.
Idea 3 sounds interesting... This might open up for cataphracts to be used as a regional unit available only to Persians, Byzantines, Romans, Greeks, Turks and Arabs. (Cataphracts could then act as the main cavalry unit between chariots and knights. Horse archers could then be made to be available later, more powerful/useful and have the main role of softening up enemy units)
No, you get those three spawn settlers together with your workers now. This is to prevent the AI from founding Sogut which annoyed many people for its ahistoricity and bad location.Give them atleast one, that way when I capture a city, and then somehow lose it, I don't die.
So I get them when cities flip? Or did Byzantines decide to keep 3 Settlers in a city? Again, if I knew how to post an image, I'd show you...
Yeah, I haven't done that yet because that requires adding a new XML entry for the names and I wanted to save me the trouble. But if I do, I think I'll use Exarchate based names for most cases.BTW, I noticed that there really aren't any special vassal names for civs vassalized to the Byzantines. Maybe Theme of X or Exarchate of X instead of Protectorate/Colony? I'm not sure of the exact Byzantine Greek names for different European countries, but that can't be that hard to find.
Is this with version 1.7?Is Parliamentary-ism bugged? It seems to perpetually apply the "transition to democracy" penalty.
I don't know exactly myself now. Near East is roughly the rectangle from the Levantine coast to as far as the stone tile in Mesopotamia. Balkans is roughly everything between the Adriatic and Black Sea coast and all of Europe south of it, so including Greece. I'll draw a map later.What are the UHV areas for Byzantium?
What are the borders of the Balkans?
What are the borders of the Near East?
Did you wait one turn? They don't show up immediately on DoW.Um what are the exact mechanics of the Roman UP? I just DoW'ed on Carthage (Phoenicia) only to find out I have no stack of Praets to murder them. What's up with that?
Yeah, definitely less settlers for balance. Don't know what to do about the barbs though. Personally I'd rather see the Arabs get there before the barbs can raze everything.I think you should include Baghdad in the spawn area but you should balance that by reducing Arab settlers( as u said they waste their settlers anyways).
Also, the barbarian pressure in Tripolis and Benghazi razes the city. Is there a way that the barbarians can take those cities and not raze them. I didnt test out the svn but usually the arabs never make it to Tripolis; it is either Byzantine or razed.
Interesting, I didn't know that (about Aleppo).Even though Anitoch is better than Alexandrette but it was only important in Antiquity and lost its importance in middle ages (apart from principality of Anitoch). And after Arab conquest Anitoch lost its importance as a trades and around 1000ad's it was finally destroyed by Malmuks.
I reccomend replacing it with either Damascus or Aleppo (also an important city under the Byzantine; was called Beroea by byzantines and was the 3 largest city in the empire)
Bonus against barbarians is kinda difficult to do, I still haven't figured out how edead did it in SoI. But bonus against melee makes sense, especially because it doesn't help against Arabia's UU.I would much prefer to see Cataphracts as a knight predecessor than a strict knight counterpart. They've historically been in use for hundreds of years before knights have been. Giving Byzantines a 9 str version of heavy cavalry isn't that much of a disadvantage considering how ridiculously early the Byzantines would have access to such a powerful unit. I still think they should should also get some sort of attack bonus vs barbarian units or melee units given how successful they were at routing unorganized infantry through massed charges.
I think the problem is more that if the AI discards a spot because it thinks it unprofitable, even the highest settler map value can't get it to settle there. This especially true if everything is full of jungles but the AI lacks the tech to chop them.Sorry, I don't completely understand the jungle situation. Do AIs not colonize jungle heavy areas because of the limitation on unit movement, or because of the fact it takes a long time to clear yet produces no shields?
What happens if we make jungle covered areas to be extremely high priority on settler maps? For instance, have Borneo be 9 on the Dutch settler map.