For the Romans, what about control every tile in the med for one, and subjugate the celts for another? That would provide a really challenging goal that encompasses the med but also encourages them to conquer inside as well. Celtic cities can spawn in France, cental Spain and Southern England providing targets for the Romans. It might be fun to play around with the cities that spawn too, I get bored of the same ones all the time, so why not make it slightly more random. The cities stop spawning after a certain date, or once all the relevent land is controlled, and if there are no celtic cities after another certain date you complete it.
That'd be a good solution, but I don't know if its good to waste 2 goals on territory.
General musings on Rome's third goal: I kinda like it that they're two parallel goals for the early empire and then one goal that focuses on its later fate. Maybe we can replace it with a "spread Catholicism to x%" goal? That's not in the game yet and is rather historical considering Rome's role in the spread of Christianity.
Why not make the Celts a proper civ who spawn about 1200-1000 BC and who colonize western Europe? It would make the conquest of Britannia/Gaul/Hispania more interesting for sure. Then have the Franks spawn with Charlemagne and then France and Germany only spawn if Francia collapses.
The English only spawn if the Romans or the Celts collapse while one is still in control of Britain.
Portugal/Spain should only spawn if Francia pushes the Arabs out of northern Iberia.
I dislike historical determinism so I think the level of uncertainty would make for a more interesting game. But I guess my suggestions heavily favor ancient/classical civs.
First, I think the Celts are problematic as a civ because they never formed any kind of centralized state.
For the indeterminism: I'd like to have the game to be more like this as well, but as you've seen from the discussions here, it's difficult to get the AI play along.
Also, Italy rocks as is, although slight balancing may be needed.
Currently I'm in favor of simply a free specialist in their three largest cities as UP. That's not so luck dependent as the wonder condition and also favors a small empire.
The mid game presence of an independant kiev in a large number of test games would argue otherwise, as well, the Ai treats weak minor civs the same way too. Besides, the whole dynamic in the area is going to change drastically once the Germany/HRE split occurs and Leoreth is already being criticized for being nationalistic and Eurocentric lol.
Fun oxymoron of the day: Euronationalism
Poland (or ahistorically early PLC with say, Krakow, Königsberg and Kiev) ideally won't get much in the way of a later Prussia because it only serves to slow the HRE down, but is already absorbed by either Germany or Russia when Prussia spawns in 1700. (Prussia and Russia, never noticed how similar they sound in English.)
The Russian treatment of Kiev is an odd one anyway. I've had some looks into the code for wars against independents and it seems to be that the independents declare a limited war on anyone whose historical territory is owned by them. From this point of view, they should be at war with Kiev all the time.
The following screenshots illustrate my previously reported bug when you say no to flipping to yourself. Basically when getting the message that cities are wishing to join your rising empire, if you say no, then a few things happen
1)you go to war with your neighbors.
2)a buttload of cataphracts appear (in this case it was half a buttload of cataphracts and half a buttload of legions. The first time it happened I got about 8 cataphracts in asia minor)
3)your troops defect to the rising civilization who is yourself. the result is your troops teleport all over the place for the next few turns.
Haha, funny image titles by the way. Looks like the flip is somehow triggered twice. Will investigate.
Bonus: for those of you who highly value historic realism. The last picture illustrates how far Leoreth has brought the game in those terms. Scenes like this were impossible under regular rfc, and are becoming increasingly more likely with every tweak, although I would still like to see a more probable Persian, rather then Babylonian empire.
I'd be even better if they have more cities in Mesopotamia and Anatolia though. I'm growing more and more fond of the Sardes idea ...
1) Kiev was still independent in 1300 (while surrounded by Germany, Russia, and Byzantine). Just proves my point that that an independent krakow would be a sufficiet buffer for the Germans.
From how the code works (see above), it might also be the case that an independent Krakow would only distract the Germans from Italy which is definitely not intended.
2). Its 1300 ad, and italy only has 2 cities (in core area). Can there be a preplaced Naples ( independent or perhaps one controlled by Byzantine to show their influence in Southern Italy. Also Milan is missing (should be independent or German controlled to represent the influence of HRE on Northern Italy; after the Italian spawn it could flip to Italy).
Wouldn't that crowd northern Italy too much? They have Milan in the 3000 AD scenario instead, provided Rome is collapsed at this point.
3). Byzantine, a bit overpowered still. (conquered back Cairo and jerusalem and still control tripoli and anitoch). But more importantly can they be discouraged or even stopped from conquering territory in the Crimea and the Balkans.
Seems to be more a problem of Arabian weakness to me.
Both Crimea and Balkans are historical parts of the empire, I don't see any problems in that. Chersonesos appears a bit too often though.
5). The Vikings control Northern UK in 1300 ad, is that normal? And England has Islam in one city and no religion in London (they only have 3 cities). Should they spawn with missionary(s).
Every civ without a preplaced city will get a missionary soon. If Islam wants to take hold in Europe, it has to do more than just spread to one city.
6).The Austrian, an independent Krakow should solve their eastern expantion. But is it possible for them to found Budapest for often?
Budapest is just one tile away from Vienna, so I don't know how to make that happen.
7). Can there be an independent Norovgrod that flips to Russia.
This would mean no St. Petersburg.
8). China, can Qufu (only significance, birth place of Confucius and Confuciusism isnt in the game) be replaced with Nanjing (capital for several centuris). And can the there be more of a chance of china founding Louyand and Chang an. and the chinese should have completed reunification by now.
Okay, but where's Nanjing exactly?
9). India, there should be more independents in India (espesically Southern India). The cities should be better defended (arabia shouldnt conquer them so easily). And why the BArbarian pressure from Southern India; if there was any pressure it was foreigners from the north west.
More independents in India means less colonies in India, which would be bad imo.
Leoreth a few comments:
The inclination of barbs to raize cities needs to be severely proscribed. Especially in the 3000 AD start, this can be a problem. Let's see what happened in my most recent game, as the Ottomans, upon spawning:
Agree. I'll try if editing the raze probability of the barbarian leader changes anything.
...As you can see, the religions are all screwed up. I am assuming that this is because Athens or Jerusalem, as the Christian holy city, got razed (as you can see to the left in the first attachment, Athens is razed, and some further exploration revealed that Jerusalem was razed too). Although almost any city could have been the holy city, there's no way of finding out now. Another fix might be the holy city relocation mod.
Either that, or I'll forbid the destruction of holy cities completely.
Kiev always gets conquered.
Yeah, but usually either by Germany or by the Vikings, a Russian Kiev is rare.
Better fix for German/ Russian overexpansion:
- An extra two longbowmen and a pikeman spawning in Kiev, instead of just two longbows.
- Indie Krakow/ Warsaw with two, three longbows
- Indie Riga with two/ three longbows; take this region out of Russian spawn zone
- Germany/ HRE Split- HRE spawn remains the same, in Vienna; Germany spawns in Berlin, 1871. Dynamic name change for HRE- changes to Austria or Austria-Hungary after a certain date. New LH would be nice, like this Metternich or this Franz Joseph. Reduce HRE spawn zone so all that Eastern European land is not included.
Krakow/Riga might be a good combination. Don't know if any of these actually is in someone's core though.
Germany will spawn in 1701 if at all. 1871 is too late for any reasonable UHV. Your ideas for the HRE is what I intend anyway.
Concerning Italy- How'd you make the change? Pardon my coding inexperience.
Go to Consts.py and edit the tRebirth tuple. You can change the respawn date of Italy to anything you like.
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i didnt mean to say Balkans, i wanted to say the Caucasus) And their influence in the Caucasus and Crimea should be limited. They should have atleast two cities in the Balkans instead of funding cities in crimea and the Caspian. 
See my AAR below for the picture.
Could it have to do with the fact that I'm Zoroastrian (funny story) or that I'm doing a 3000 BC start?
