Experiment: Persia that starts with Mathematics

[Cethegus]

I saw someone suggest it in a thread some time ago and thought to myself, "What damage could it do? It would only make Persia more entertaining as a civilization."

All went fine and nicely, Persia's UHV would probably be tons easier now, but then I rolled a few 3000 BC American starts and saw what such a little change would eventually accumulate into. Provided are four of the pictures I gathered from one of those saves. I will show only their exceptional captures, since their hometurf is in no way special. Covers modern day Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. The usual stuff.





Persian Korea (I've seen them capture Seoul before, but not wage war against any Far Eastern country or even show hostility to these lengths in general)




Persian Himalayas (This is a first for me). Lhasa usually falls under Chinese or Indian rule, often already as early as pre-AD. But the next one surprised me even more than Arabian Tikal...




Peru/Chile under Persian rule. Has anyone ever seen any other ancient Civ become a colonial power or pull out something of equal surprise value? Even Arabian Conquerors can be seen more often than this.

Oh, nearly forgot. Here, a screenshot outside of WorldBuilder. As you can see, Persia is bested only by four other nations, three of which are European. The complete list of wonders they hold is Oracle, Pyramids, Colosseum, Great Wall, Mausolleum of Maussullos and believe it or not, Notre Dame. Has anyone else seen AI-controlled Persia this succesful?




Pyramids, Notre Dame and Colosseum as can be seen in Parsa. Persia even has Musketmen and Cuirassiers. (The Catapracht button is merely a Persian Cuirassier as presented in Varietas Delectat RFC modcomp.)




15 cities in 1775. Impressive. (Ignore the fact they're unstable. )


What do you guys think? I would provide a save, but I've done so much modifications on RFC (mostly modcomps and XML-modifying) that I don't know how well it would work for other people. I don't know have they re-spawned during the ages but I doubt it. The event log is also of no help since it only shows Pyramids being built in a far away land in 370 BC.

 

[Cethegus]

Actually, something even more astonishing happened when I rolled another 3000 BC American start, regarding the Chile area again. This time it's not Persia who got the Conquerors, it was Mali.




I didn't even mess around with their files at any point. No leaderhead personality tweaking, no extra technologies, no additional bonuses, nothing. I've never seen them achieve this much.
I did give Victoria of England 3 points to Growth interest instead of the original 2 but I don't see what effect that would have except paying more attention on colonizing the world and maybe some wars in Europe. Spain and Portugal should still have a fair chance of getting there first. Fool's luck, perhaps?

 

[Lone Wolf]

Fool's luck, perhaps?

Exactly. I've seen Indian Conquerors once.

 

[thadian]

i always see japanese conquerors...

 

[star15389]

The conquerors seem to come from every country except Spain.

 

[War Bear]

I frequently see Greek and Roman conquerors, but never Persian or Malian! That's pretty cool.

Was Europe's growth stunted by an inopportune war? I've seen Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Portugal all engage in wars that set them back a couple hundred years.

 

[Hangly Man]

That's awesome. 3000 BC starts are the best.

Never seen Persia or Mali get the conquerors event, but I have seen Rome, Greece, Japan, and Arabia conquer the New World.

Actually if Rome manages to survive the spawning of the European civs it often continues to dominate through to the modern era. Ditto Greece, just not quite as often.

 

[NerfCothons]

As to single cities being controlled way out of their starting zone, is it possible that is the effect of congresses?

 

[Verily]

As to single cities being controlled way out of their starting zone, is it possible that is the effect of congresses?

No. First off, even under the old system, only cities which had historically been under a Civ's control or influence were ever requested by an AI (so Britain might ask for Hong Kong, for example, or the Netherlands for Jayakarta). Persia has no area in East Asia so flagged. But it is my understanding that even this has been removed in the current Congress system, and that now Civs will only request cities they haved controlled in the past or which are near their border and contain some of their culture.

It is worth pointing that, despite their great strength, Persia in the test-run is technologically backward.

 

[Kenjister]

Wow, that looks pretty awesome... Persia usually collapses or becomes quite irrevelent in my games once the Arabs spawn. This looks like it could spice up the Classical era quite a bit too, since they'll have catapults much earlier than they normally do.

 

[Virdrago]

Persia is usually decent in my games... They will take back any Arabian cities lost, take on and control India or independent India, and have pushed the Turks back to Western Anatolia more than once. Of course, I have never seen Persian conquerors, and Mali generally doesn't have Sailing (or even a coastal city) for a long time in most games...

 

[War Bear]

I frequently see Mali found Sefadu (I believe that's the name of the city on the river by the coast) as it's third city. Sometimes I see it as their capital because Timbuktu and their other city are razed by barbs or impis.

 

[Deego3]

I've never seen Mali Conquerors, Ive usally destroyed them by then.

 

[Aprisis]

Crap. That's amazing! Do you mind telling how did you allow the Persians to have Mathematics? I'm eager to get a similar result.

 

[Aprisis]

By the way, did you use another mod or something to get the those units' diverse graphic?

 

[blizzrd]

Crap. That's amazing! Do you mind telling how did you allow the Persians to have Mathematics? I'm eager to get a similar result.

Worldbuilder.

 

[blizzrd]

By the way, did you use another mod or something to get the those units' diverse graphic?

Yes, it is a mod for RFC. The relevant thread can be found here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=279708

 

[Hangly Man]

Wow, that looks pretty awesome... Persia usually collapses or becomes quite irrevelent in my games once the Arabs spawn. This looks like it could spice up the Classical era quite a bit too, since they'll have catapults much earlier than they normally do.

Catapults nothin'. They're only one tech away from elephants!

 

[Cethegus]

Worldbuilder.

Actually, I modified the RiseAndFall.py file in Assets->Python folder. It's not rocket science to copy a line of something already done and modify it a little so I gave it a try.

There's a part in RiseAndFall.py which states:

def assignTechs( self, iCiv ):
#popup = Popup.PyPopup()
#popup.setBodyString( 'assigning techs to civ #%d' %(iCiv))
#popup.launch()

Scroll down a little and you'll see a list of Greek and Persian starting techs. Copy a line from there somewhere and paste it under the Persian tech list and change its name so it reads

teamPersia.setHasTech(con.iMathematics, True, iCiv, False, False)

which means only changing the tech's name to the one appointed in the italics, really. (I don't know if the location of the line plays a part of any kind, I put it between 'Writing' and 'Hunting' as it should be.)
It's not all that hard to poke in here and there and do "fixes" of your own. Give it a try, people.

 

[Aprisis]

Yes, it is a mod for RFC. The relevant thread can be found here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=279708

Thanks man. Downloading it now, though the download speed looks kinda unstable