Development thread for 1.5

[Force44]

I was thinking along the same line.

Personally I found the original Marco Polo wonder far from gamebreaking. So it felt like a fix for something that wasn't broken.

But that sentiment was not universal and the wonder got nerfed. Temporarily (arguably) below the impact of an unique building.

To make it worthwhile I'd suggest giving the city a or some free buildings usually restricted to coastal or river squares.

(Eg free lighthouse + free wharf + free merchant
or free lighthouse + free wharf + free harbor + 2 additional merchant slots)

Or perhaps let it give certain buildings in that city for free when the appropriate tech is acquired.

 

[The Turk]

Marco Polo is very underwhelming right now. In comparison: Mezquita gives a free Merchant and the gold bonus, 8 : 450 .
Leonardo's Inventions: free Artist, free Engineer, +50% (!), 6 : 500 .
Cluny Abbey: free Priest, the science bonus, 8 : 550 .
Genoan Bank: free Merchant, +50% : 200 .
Konets: free Merchant, free Engineer: 150 .
I could go on, but:
Marco Polo: free Merchant, 4 : 400 . That's not worth building.

Well this is why I said just chuck Marco Polo, and replace it with something else if needed. There is also concern about the lack of Orthodox World Wonders, which is true.

Marco Polo, in terms of game timeline effects, did not have the effect of the others by a long shot. Leonardo was already a superstar in his day for example.

Now the argument has been made that Marco Polo wonder has some sentimental value for the developers, which I respect, so the +1 merchant representing the influence he had (potentially) on other merchants/explorers makes fine sense to me.

@Force, I don't understand your response to my question about a Berber civilization.

As for Morocco, any chance we can simulate the Sa'adi invasion of West Africa? Perhaps through a "colonial" project? I mean, even the Almoravids (their southern branch), held sway in West Africa for a time.

 

[AbsintheRed]

I'm back, will respond to earlier posts a little later.
The effect I planned for Marco Polo is to give culture for each merchant specialist. Along with the free merchant.
It's not as trivial to add as I originally thought, so didn't have time to do it in my last commit.

Having said that, I disagree with a free merchant being underwhelming.
If anything, most of the other wonders are overpowered. Some of the UBs too.
I plan to do a bigger overhaul of the wonder effects soon.

Also some additional wonders are already planned for the mod.
I agree that there is room for more wonders, especially for wonders associated with Orthodoxy.
On the other hand, I do not want to add more wonders just for the sake of having them.
It should be thematically/historically fitting, and it's effect/bonus either fun, or significant for gameplay.

EDIT: made a thread for brainstorming:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/wonder-balance-and-new-wonders-post-1-5.614584/

 

[AbsintheRed]

Just finished a game as Burgundy which was fun (Revision 1255). There was a little bug with Germany which was chosen to lead the crusade (over me ). The same turn they collapsed but the turn after they declared war on Arabia. They never got units, though, I guess because they didn't respawn.
Anyway, here is the safe if @AbsintheRed is interested. (Btw, is this the right thread for this because I remember this thread should not be revived?)

You can use that thread too, no worries.
There weren't any issues with choosing the leader, just with the war declaration after the collapse?

Uhv check problems appear at novgorod too, not only for morocco.

What's wrong with the UHV checks?
Took a quick check, didn't see anything.

 

[El Bogus]

There weren't any issues with choosing the leader, just with the war declaration after the collapse?

Yes, just the DoW after the collapse.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Yes, just the DoW after the collapse.

Great, that's only an additional check
Thanks for the report!

 

[AbsintheRed]

Also I'd really like it if something more ingenious than the current Moroccan bonus with deserts was attempted. (don't get me wrong, I think it is a nice bonus, there are nicer bonuses around though.) But as Absinthered already said, it is way too early to discuss those civilizations right now.

I agree with this - personally I think the Moroccans should get a bonus related to the Berbers. Maybe an ability to assimilate defeated Berber units into their armies, so when they kill a barb unit there is a chance to recruit it.

Yep. Noted for later.
This also depends on what will be the new Moroccan UU.

 

[The Turk]

It should just be noted that Berbers are not a homogenous group. When we talk about the Idrisids (the first "Moroccan" state), or the Fatimids being reliant on Berbers, what we are really talking about is specific Berber clans. The Kutama Berbers who supported the first Fatimid Caliph al-Mahdi (through his missionary al-Shi'i), were hostile to other Berbers such as that of the Rustamids.

So having Berbers attacking other Berbers makes perfect sense in other words.

But do consider having a Moroccan/Maghrebi project to conquer West Africa, and gain gold and culture. Perhaps even gain slave soldiers.

 

[AbsintheRed]

After looking at the answers given sofar my guess would be:

1 Crimean Khanate
2 Egypt
3 Kingdom of Naples and Sicily
4 A Berber civilization in North Africa

The post you are quoting is part of a guessing game. Some guesses are very precise and some are more vague. This one is more vague. I could have said Tunesia (There is a big empty space on the map right now over there) but they are already present as a Cordoban respawn.

No way I am able to guess all four of them. If I guess three out of four correctly I would be pretty pleased with myself.

Maybe there is a way after all
Crimea, Egypt, Sicily, Tunesia.

A quick reasoning why I chose these:
Crimea was already mentioned in one of the other threads. It's inspiration will be the RFCE++ civ, it was very fun and unique, great for gameplay.
For the rest: I hate all those "respawn civs". It's not even an 1/10th solution, just makes everything worse in most cases. Also in the case of Egypt it's not even implemented on the already very low Hafsid/Tunisia or Sicily level.
So the respawns of Cordoba, Aragon, and Arabia will be made to full civs instead.
There are way too many thing related to core area in RFC type mods, most of which can't really be properly added for a second core area without a major rework of many basic functions.
IMO respawns as different civs only works well in DoC too, if it roughly happens at the same area.
And then there is all the art, uniques, etc., which are totally out of place most of the time. Not to even mention the missed opportunity to have a respawn of the original civ.

@The Turk @Swarbs
I don't want to get into the debate related to Egypt and Arabia, sources and the Caliph title, it got a little out of control.
I will strictly concentrate to the more general questions:
My opinion is closer to Swarbs', as in gameplay triumps here. If more solutions can be justified historically, we should aim for the more fun UHVs.
I find it more than feasible that the Mamluks would go after the Ottomans to some extent. Even if it's only partially correct, it sounds great for an ahistorical UHV. Especially with the setup of the mod, where dominance above the Levant won't be that hard after the Crusades are over.
Also, about the spawn: while it would be great to have conquest spawns, it's not really feasible for the reasons metioned above. 2 different core areas - one in Egypt, and one in Ifriqiya if the conquest fails - would lead to many strange situations. I would prefer to spawn them after the dynasty established it's core in Egypt, even if it was a rather unlikely outcome in real life. This also gives us better options for the early Arab UHVs, with a bigger gap in the timeline.

 

[Force44]

@The Turk

Define "Berber" civilization?

The term Berber can be defined in a lot of ways. To cover all of them would probably take me multiple pages. To engage in a fruitfull exchange of ideas I need you to be a little more specific so we can start with a common base of understanding.

To be perfectly honest though, I would prefer to start this exchange of ideas in a different thread for it has very little to do with the development of version 1.5.

 

[AbsintheRed]

It should just be noted that Berbers are not a homogenous group. When we talk about the Idrisids (the first "Moroccan" state), or the Fatimids being reliant on Berbers, what we are really talking about is specific Berber clans. The Kutama Berbers who supported the first Fatimid Caliph al-Mahdi (through his missionary al-Shi'i), were hostile to other Berbers such as that of the Rustamids.

So having Berbers attacking other Berbers makes perfect sense in other words.

Yep, don't worry. Do not plan to make them unique for Morocco.
But I do think that the Moroccans should have much stronger ties to Berbers too. As in a nod in thier UU, UP, maybe both.

 

[DC123456789]

Hmm, wasn't expecting Egypt - in RFCE++ I always thought that gameplay-wise, it overlapped too much with Arabia (since Mesopotamia isn't in the mod). Interested to see how you adjust everything for that.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Hmm, wasn't expecting Egypt - in RFCE++ I always thought that gameplay-wise, it overlapped too much with Arabia (since Mesopotamia isn't in the mod). Interested to see how you adjust everything for that.

Indeed, for the purposes of RFCE surely it's the "weakest" option of all 4.
ATM I think I will give it a try, to keep it in line with the other special respawns.

 

[El Bogus]

Congratulations on guessing right all four new civs, Force44!

 

[Swarbs]

I'm back, will respond to earlier posts a little later.
The effect I planned for Marco Polo is to give culture for each merchant specialist. Along with the free merchant.
It's not as trivial to add as I originally thought, so didn't have time to do it in my last commit.

Having said that, I disagree with a free merchant being underwhelming.

I still think a general bonus to commerce would be good. After all, we've established it doesn't represent Marco Polo as much as the general trade and exchange of culture and ideas down the Silk Road routes, so it could just give a bonus to the city which builds it along with the free merchant. Something like +10% and +10%, or just a straight up +10%. Or a bit higher if that's still quite underwhelming.

I don't think we currently have any wonder which gives that specific type of effect, and it would make it quite powerful for commerce oriented cities like Venice, Constantinople etc which would be natural centres for the Silk Road.

 

[Swarbs]

@The Turk @Swarbs
I don't want to get into the debate related to Egypt and Arabia, sources and the Caliph title, it got a little out of control.
I will strictly concentrate to the more general questions:
My opinion is closer to Swarbs', as in gameplay triumps here. If more solutions can be justified historically, we should aim for the more fun UHVs.
I find it more than feasible that the Mamluks would go after the Ottomans to some extent. Even if it's only partially correct, it sounds great for an ahistorical UHV. Especially with the setup of the mod, where dominance above the Levant won't be that hard after the Crusades are over.
Also, about the spawn: while it would be great to have conquest spawns, it's not really feasible for the reasons metioned above. 2 different core areas - one in Egypt, and one in Ifriqiya if the conquest fails - would lead to many strange situations. I would prefer to spawn them after the dynasty established it's core in Egypt, even if it was a rather unlikely outcome in real life. This also gives us better options for the early Arab UHVs, with a bigger gap in the timeline.

Agreed and agreed

As I said at the time, I've always seen the flip as representing the first notable conquests that brought a civ out from being one of many tribes / smaller kingdoms, as the Fatamids were before the conquest of Egypt, and towards being a civ with influence. Same as we have the Arab flip to represent their conquest of Syria, the Teutonic flip to represent the conquest of Livonia, English flip to represent the Norman invasion and so on. They aren't always historical, but necessary for gameplay.

Although I suppose, depending on how hard it is to code, we could always look at giving the human and AI player different flip zones. IIRC some mods have done this in the past, I think RFCCW gave the Romans a much larger flip zone under AI control and the Ottomans may flip Constantinople in DOC. That would make a more challenging game for the human player, particularly for easier civs like the Arabs, whilst avoiding strange situations when the AI is less competent. But as I say I'm not sure if that's feasible or worth the time and effort in coding.

 

[Swarbs]

Yep, don't worry. Do not plan to make them unique for Morocco.
But I do think that the Moroccans should have much stronger ties to Berbers too. As in a nod in thier UU, UP, maybe both.

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of Morocco's UP being an ability to recruit defeated Berber and Bedouin barbarians in North Africa. It would make the Banu Hilal spawns more interesting if you gain, for example, 50% of the defeated units. You can then ship them to Iberia where their ability to ignore terrain movement costs will be a great help in the hills of Andalusia.

 

[AbsintheRed]

I still think a general bonus to commerce would be good. After all, we've established it doesn't represent Marco Polo as much as the general trade and exchange of culture and ideas down the Silk Road routes, so it could just give a bonus to the city which builds it along with the free merchant. Something like +10% and +10%, or just a straight up +10%. Or a bit higher if that's still quite underwhelming.

I don't think we currently have any wonder which gives that specific type of effect, and it would make it quite powerful for commerce oriented cities like Venice, Constantinople etc which would be natural centres for the Silk Road.

Some kind of minor commerce boost sounds good too.
I think I will follow the easy route for now, and mix the culture bonus from merchants with this.
So instead of adding culture (that would require new xml schemas, and the connected implementation in the dll), I simply add extra commerce for each merchant specialist.

 

[Swarbs]

Some kind of minor commerce boost sounds good too.
I think I will follow the easy route for now, and mix the culture bonus from merchants with this.
So instead of adding culture (that would require new xml schemas, and the connected implementation in the dll), I simply add extra commerce for each merchant specialist.

Sounds good - possibly a doubling of and from merchants would also be a viable option, basically letting it be a GM farm similar to how the shrines allow for GP farming and the Opera House for GA farms.

 

[gilgames]

The Kingdom of Scotland - start in 960 AD
Leader: Robert the Bruce
The Power of Defiance: Lower stability penalty for losing cities and whenever you do, your other cities get free defenders.
UU: Sheltron - the ultimate anti-cavalry formation, but it's inflexibility makes it somewhat weak against everything else.
UB: Shieling - a system of transferring livestock with the seasons to keep them on good grazing grounds. A smokehouse replacement with extra bonuses for Sheep.
UHV's:
Fortification: Have 10 Forts and 3 Castles in 1296.
The Auld Alliance: Have 1000 Attitude points with France by 1560. You get points for good relations, open borders, exports, imports, and common wars.
The Celtic Union: Control Scotland, the Isles, Ireland, Wales and Bretagne in 1700.

I just found it. And its pretty doable. you can get 1000/1100 points by that time but not 2500!!!!! also why push castles to 4? there is soo few usable city spots?
You also changed the Novgorodian UHVs to be harder...