Development thread for 1.5

[AbsintheRed]

So, the +1 commerce from mines is ok at Replacable Parts, or should come later?

At first, I thought this would be a good idea. But I actually prefer if only areas get urbanised (i.e. cottaged) that can sustain the cottages. So industrial areas still need farms while North Italy and London and so on will be urbanised

This was pointed to my or to gilgames?

That said, I think North-East Germany (where I come from) has access to too much valuable ressources. This region is underdevelopped/sparsely populated until today. So something like salt, timber, maybe amber is okay. But too many food ressources are a bit unrealistic. Take them away and the Hanse becomes much more desirable there. Right now it just adds (yeah, yeah and population) and thus instability.

Noted

 

[Swarbs]

I thought about that one, too. I think, production is pretty high in the game, so +1 on mines might be overkill. +1 on the other hand could be good, but it's definitely still worse than +1 .

Could add +1 and a further +1 if on a river? That would make them an alternative to lumber mills as well in some cases, particularly for civs with low happy and health caps.

Also agree that gilgames' proposed +1 for towns would be op and unbalanced - towns should have to supply themselves with food rather than creating it. If anything, there's an argument for the CW scenario, where towns add but have -1 so you focus more on developing a few towns using food from other improvements.

 

[gilgames]

I tried to refer the "borough"s (if GT do not play with me) wish were common in the main trimframe of the mod. Also tied to some restriction as well. OR we can modify it as all towns built on grassland/plains should give 2 food to be self sustaining.

 

[gilgames]

Before we move on to 1.5 russia need some serious boost. The performance of AI/player are very bad.
ideas:
-dont allow kiev to respawn after ad1350.
- tell barbs to move keshiks out of city and attack if the city built some garrison. (there is no way to kill 10+ keshiks w/ 5 boyar.)

general problems to all late empire: big and late civs rely heavily on what previous civs have done. if byzance performed poorly and barbs raped the landscape, ottomans have very little to none chance to do any UHV. Its the same with Russia and Kiev. Recently AI Kiev is pathetic also. I played some games in emperor and AIs do a lot better there, if you could apply it to monarch Kiev, it would do miracle to both civ.

 

[AbsintheRed]

- tell barbs to move keshiks out of city and attack if the city built some garrison. (there is no way to kill 10+ keshiks w/ 5 boyar.)

Usually only 2 barb units stay in cities after conquest. First they heal though.
Also, Keshiks more likely move out when there are defensive units in the city.

general problems to all late empire: big and late civs rely heavily on what previous civs have done. if byzance performed poorly and barbs raped the landscape, ottomans have very little to none chance to do any UHV. Its the same with Russia and Kiev. Recently AI Kiev is pathetic also. I played some games in emperor and AIs do a lot better there, if you could apply it to monarch Kiev, it would do miracle to both civ.

One could argue that it's the beauty of the RFC-type mods. You can find hugely different conditions with late starting civs - and I think a lot of people love that.
The very example you made is a wonderful thing IMO: no rise of a powerful Ottoman state if the Byzantine survive earlier barb attacks in a better shape, or if they are able the avoid the 4th Crusade sounds awesome for the mod, as most probably this would have happened in real life too.

If an AI civ overperforms and it's way too powerful in 100% of the late starts, that's a problem though.
In my experience AI Venice and Hungary are the 2 worst offenders nowadays (altough a powerful Hungary in the 17th century is the direct consequence of a too weak Ottoman AI, incapable of being agressive early enough even if they dominate Anatolia)

 

[gilgames]

One could argue, waiting for an hour to play and then it all suck and no way to make it work, is horrible.
In general Russians situation need to be fix, they are weak. 2 keshik in 4-5 cites is too much for that little time.
I suggest to make an auto-balance system:

Ottomans and russians have a big flip zone. You count the improvements (w/o roads) on their territory and you put it in balance with their army.
This way, good land means less starting army, bad land means more starting army. it should not be so hard to code, i guess.

 

[AbsintheRed]

I guess the Russian starting position could (should?) be strengthened (mostly indirectly, through the other civs), to be more viable in most starts.
I still stand by my other point though. Variety between different starts is a very important aspect of the mod.

 

[jekke]

I see now that the map is not the one it used to be a long time ago... and so, where are my 12 novgorodian furs? I counted 6 in their native lands (Karelia/Novgorod/Vologda/west of Pskov etc), there are two more in Finland which you can get with a little resistance from the Swedes, which is ok. That's 8. There is 1 south of Vilnius and 1 next to Smolensk, so if you kill the Lithuanians (which is not easy) you might get a chance for those too. That's 10. There is one in Moscow, but given that you need to have them in 1387 and the Muscovites spawn in 1380 + a few turns of enforced peace, there is little chance of getting this tile. Anyway, even if this is sorted out, it is still 11. Where do I get the 12th one?

Also, I do not know which name a city in Karelia (west of lake Ladoga) should get, but it's probably not Khabarovsk.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Yeah, the Russian part of the map is the least accurate one.
The updates on it always got postponed, but actually recently I set up some clear plans for the next versions of the mod, and these map changes will come fairly soon.
As I already mentioned somewhere, 1.5 is scheduled to be released in the end of the month.
Expect a rather big update for it in the next couple days.

 

[gilgames]

Jekke, u are right. Novgorod lack a lot of city name and the promissed production too. But there is twelve fur in core+finnland+ smolensk. At least it was last time. But i agree it should be 1-2 less.

 

[gilgames]

Its ok to have different starts, problem is if its hopless for player. Yes. Kiev could use a boost too. Flipping Hkarkov and higher mumbers in their settlermaps to the north-eastern part might do the trick. In addition, kiev and russian AI settle their cities densly! Its not realistic nor good gameplay-wise.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Settling density is much lower for the northeastern civs with lots of room to expand, than for civs in central and western Europe.
Kiev is already in a little better shape in my current build - wait a little and test it out again when it's up in the SVN.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Since there are lots of things to discuss (and would like to keep the SVN log thread clean), I will also copy the changelog from the 1226 commit here:

- Dynamic Company system is introduced to the mod!
- Companies are not founded by civs anymore (or with GPs actually), but are independent entities on their own
- They semi-automatically spread to cities based on their own preferences:
-- Available regions and provinces for the companies are set up on a (more or less) historic base
-- Most companies have hated and preferred religions, and have modifiers for most religions (both on a state and on a city level)
-- Hated state religion or the lack of preferred religion in the city can even be an excluding reason for some companies
-- Wars might also add negative or positive effects to company spread on some situations, mostly based on state religion of the participants
-- Knowledge of some techs give better odds for some companies (e.g. Chivalry, Plate Armor for military orders; Banking, Shipbuilding for trade companies)
-- Military buildings will boost your chances for a military order, trade buildings for a trading/banking company
-- Many civics have various modifiers to company spread, for example Merchant Republic, Feudal Law, Mercantilism, Religious Tolerance, Militarism
-- Trade goods available to a city is fairly significant in spread chance, also you get bonuses to yields in a similar fashion as in vanilla BtS corps
-- Number of trade routes is also an important factor for deciding where to spread the trading/banking companies
- They have a "birth" date and some have a "death" date, and are mostly active between those (these are usually set on historic dates)
- All of them have a limit for the number of cities they can be active at at a given time
- There is competition between the cities for the companies - every few turns the company may leave some cities if there are better ones for their needs
- If there is a huge drop in the preference value for a company (for example on state religion change or city ownership change) it may leave the city right away
- There might also be competition between companies for a given city (e.g. Templars-Teutons-Hospitallers), if one is present the rest have decreased chance
- If a given company has already spread to some cities of a civ, it will have somewhat decreased chance for further spread in that civ's cities

- Masters/Executives can no longer spread companies, they are effectively removed from the mod
- Currently there are no Headquarters, all cities with the given company spread into them are considered equal - this might change later on
- Companies have resource preferences, and add various yield bonuses if you have access to them (based on their quantity) - as in the vanilla game
- Hospitaller, Templar and Teutonic Knights also give you access to the Relic resource type, which adds extra happiness to your civ
- Companies might have special units and/or buildings associated with them, all of which are only buildable while the company is present in the city
- Company costs are independent from your civ: do not cost any money when they spread to your cities, and do not cost any maintenance for being present
- Added various interface messages for companies spreading/leaving, both for your own cities and for foreign cities visible to you
- Removed unnecessary popups connected to company availability
- Corporations in your cities no longer add any stability penalty

- All 7 previous RFCE companies were integrated into the new system
- 2 new companies: the Order of the Dragon, the Order of Calatrava
- Hanseatic League can only spread to coastal cities
- Hospitallers, Templars, Teutons and Calatrava spread Catholicism to the city when they spread there
- The Levant (and especially Jerusalem) has a greatly improved chance for Hospitallers, Templars and Teutons
- Trading/banking companies have a preference (smallish) to their historical founding provinces
- Hospitaller preferred region change after the Crusades, with Malta and Rhodes gaining importance
- Teutons preferred region change after the Crusades, with Transylvania and the lands of Prussia gaining importance
- Teutons are set to have a very high chance to spread to cities of the Teutonic Order (Prussia)
- City limit is also modified for Hospitallers and Teutons after the Crusades are over
- The Genoese UHV is changed to simply build 8 banks (for now)

- Crusading units now have a chance to arrive to their destination, around 70% of the units will arrive for the first Crusade
- Number of arriving Crusader units scale reversed with the start date of Crusades, to counterbalance the increasing number of units available for selection
- This reduction is very significant for an AI-controlled Jerusalem, much less if the human player has to defend the city
- When the Crusade is deviated to a new target, it gets only a little more than half the units as it would have if it was a normal Crusade
- Increased gold cost for deviating Crusades for both the human and the AI player
- Decreased extra votes for the Papal States (they were the deciding factor before, thus almost always the Papal favourite civ was chosen to lead)
- Adjusted some minor inconsistencies with unit types in the Crusading unit categories
- Revised how special units and UUs are handled on Crusades if the leader of the Crusade has access to the given unit
- Fixed calculation bug when Paladin units were participating in Crusades, which caused issues with number of Knights as well
- Fixed bug where both Catapults and Trebuchets were added to the Crusading stack in many cases (doubling the intended amount of siege units)
- Added Cordoba as the primary target for stolen Crusades for AI Portugal, Aragon (Castile already had it this way) if they are Muslim and not a vassal
- Added Ottomans as the primary target for stolen Crusades for AI Hungary, Austria and Poland (if there is a late Crusade) if they are Muslim and not a vassal
- Byzantium will only be the primary target for stolen Crusades for AI Venice and Genoa if they hold Constantinople and they are not a vassal
- Fixed mistake which would kill all units around the Crusade's target city (instead of only making room on one tile) if no valid plot was found

- Added special religion spread rules for a couple areas, based on provinces, only checks for cities without a religion
- Orthodoxy: increased chance to spread in Rus territories between 850-1300AD, in Bulgaria and the Balkans between 700-1000AD
- Islam: greatly increased chance to spread in the Maghreb and in the southern part of the Iberian-peninsula between 700-1200AD
- Catholicism: increased chance to spread in southern Scandinavia between 1000-1300AD, in Hungary between 960-1200AD
- Increased generic Judaism spread chance slightly, especially in Central-Europe
- Reduced Islam spread, it will have a harder time reaching the faraway parts of the map (Scandinavia, Novgorod)
- Fixed bug which could mess up Judaism spread if some parts of the map were sparsely populated with cities

- When choosing where to construct free buildings or whom to give gold the Pope considers a weighted value of both faith points and diplomatic relations
- You need to have Catholicism as a state religion and open borders with the Papal States to be eligible for any bonuses
- For gold gifts diplomatic relations matter much more, for religious buildings faith points are the deciding factor
- The (Catholic) owner of Jerusalem has a greatly increased chance to be selected for free Papal buildings
- Increased frequency of Papal gifts between the Schism and the Protestant Reformation, decreased afterwards
- No monasteries will be built for the chosen player after the discovery of Scientific Method (so the Pope may only build temples)
- Changed civ selecting method on Papal bonuses, earlier civs (with lower IDs) won't have a bigger chance anymore

- Revised NW Keshik spawns, to move the Mongol threat more on Poland and Hungary (instead of the recently spawned Prussia and Lithuania)
- Changed barb city spawns in Ireland, not all 4 will spawn in all games, 2 is enough (already provides an early barb-island feel)
- Ireland, 700 AD: Hill of Tara/Dublin (100%, "Teamhair"), barbarian, population size 1, has a respawn in 988 AD
- Ireland, 700 AD: Downpatrick (20%, "Rath Celtair"), Rathcroghan/Sligo (30%, "Cruiachain"), Cashel/Cork (50%, "Caisel"), barbarian, population size 1
- Redesigned early barbs in Iberia as Visigoths (also to represent the Kingdom of Asturias), strengthened them to slow down early Cordoban expansion
- Wends added as new barbarians for Germany, with extra threat from them around the Great Slav Rising of 983AD
- Revised barbarian Magyar spawn areas and numbers in the late 9th century in Central Europe (before the Hungarian spawn)
- Toned down stregth of "barbarian" Teutonic Knight spawns in Livonia in the early 13th century (right before the Prussian spawn)
- Reduced number of Berber barbarians in North Africa (especially for Cordoba), less early barbs for AI Kiev

- Kuban province changed to contested for the Ottomans, Lithuania and Suvalkija contested for Prussia
- Starting civic changes: Arabia (Trade Economy), Kiev (Serfdom, Manoralism), Spain (Serfdom, Manoralism), Morocco (Trade Economy, Militarism)
- Starting civic changes: Genoa (Feudal Monarchy, Serfdom, Manoralism, Vassalage), England (Vassalage), Portugal (Serfdom, Manoralism, Vassalage)
- Starting civic changes: Aragon (Serfdom, Manoralism, Vassalage), Sweden (Feudal Law, Vassalage), Prussia (Militarism), Austria (Vassalage)
- Starting civic changes: Ottomans (Apprenticeship, Guilds, Militarism), Moscow (Feudal Monarchy, Feudal Law, Vassalage), Dutch (Colonialism)
- Novgorod starts without the Feudalism tech, thus in the Despotism civic (similarly to Kiev)
- Venice starts without the Vassalage and Code of Laws techs, Germany without Machinery, Burgundy with Aristocracy
- Venice starts with Spearman instead of Crossbowman, Germany and Burgundy with Guisarme instead of Crossbowman
- Burgundy and Germany stars with a couple additional defensive starting units
- Additional starting units for the French, to be able to get more aggressive with early conquests
- Revised Prussian starting units - instead of Teutonic Masters, they start with more military units
- Tuned down Cordoban production modifiers a bit, increased Castilian and Aragonese
- Increased production modifiers for AI Kiev (stays more or less the same for the human player)

- No interface messages are displayed during autoplay/autorun (Crusades, RiseAndFall, Religion, Wonders, Leaders, etc.)
- Plague icon on the city banner, not only the plague cloud above them (idea from DoC)
- Fixed oversight in the 1200AD scenario where Norwegian cities started with both Trading Post and Harbor - now they have Lighthouse instead
- Fixed oversight in the 1200AD scenario where Portuguese cities started with both Feitoria and Lighthouse - now they have Harbor instead
- Bonus health from Infirmary increased to 2
- Removed unnecessary Derivative Civ settings for all civilizations
- Reduced unit chance to stay with the original civ on city secession
- Adjusted province borders in Ireland, Norway, and Finland
- Minor updates in the CNMs in Ireland, Norway, Finland and Karelia
- Updated CNMs for all civs around the lakes in Anatolia and the Levant
- Lowered diplomatic bonuses for sharing a religion, for almost all religions
- Civs can't get back one of their previous leaders on resurrection (would be changed to the later one anyway in a couple turns)
- Civs have 40% chance to remain with the leader before the collapse, 60% chance to get the next leader (chronologically)
- Minor text updates in the wording of some UHVs and UPs

- Fixed bug which sometimes caused issues when the plague spread to a known civ's unknown city
- Fixed a couple oversights in various province lists (representing regions)
- Fixed bug where Protestantism wasn't auto-founded by the Dutch even if no civs researched Printing Press by their spawn
- Fixed bug in the Genoese UHV counter for Banks
- Fixed bug with unit removal in the NW tile of Iceland (related to various mechanics which include switching/moving units - ie: spawn, respawn, secession)
- Fixed bug that caused AI civs to produce unnecessary prosecutors way too often
- Fixed a couple minor issues and inconsistencies with some old leftover code from vanilla RFC
- Added a couple more fixes for Firaxis oversights and bugfixes from Karadoc/K-mod

 

[DC123456789]

Yay, a commit!

Nice to see that the SoI company system has finally been ported.

 

[gilgames]

Yes its good and bad too, yet. did you tuned down the general GP numbers? in my first testgame, it seem i got 1-2 less by 1516. also it feel wierd that i cant force companies to spread. as hungary i got 2 teuton in transylania and dragon order later in south hungary, but i was in mercantilism by then, so have no clue what does it do. Civilopedia need update for those two new.

But good job mon.

 

[AbsintheRed]

What did you find bad or strange? Only that you can't spread companies manually?
Didn't touch GP generation at all.

Mercantilism isn't updated to the new sysytem, I have yet to decide what to do with.
There are a couple options, including less spread for companies, also to forbid them alltogether if you are under that civic.

 

[gilgames]

Yes, i like if a company is big and i can take all of its benefits. I felt my cities empty. Also AI's did not had much as used to. I think mercantilism should stop the furder spread, but leave exiating. With exception maybe.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Well, companies were very imbalanced before. This was a long needed change IMO. (even if it was sometimes fun for the player to build a huge company-empire)
AI also has much less companies in their cities, that's just how the system works.

 

[gilgames]

then can we add more local companies?

 

[gilgames]

What is this? I was very solid as usually. Then in less then 1O turns, I went down to +1, +2 and finally unstable -8. two turns later, this happened: