Idea: Conditional Euro spawns

[apenpaap]

Several civilizations in the game already have conditional spawns, and from what I've heard the future post-colonial civs (including America) won't spawn under certain conditions either. This got me thinking about having the European civs not spawn when certain conditions are fulfilled.

In reality, Spain, France, England, etc all "spawned" centuries after the western Roman Empire was destroyed. But in DoC you'll often find the Roman Empire survives the barbarian invasions. Usually, however, their stability will be awful; and in this case it makes sense that provinces like Iberia and Gallia might secede, their governor crowning himself King or something like that.

In rare cases, however (usually only when the player is the Romans), the Roman empire will be stable in the early middle ages, and the empire will still be strong despite the barbarian invasions. In this case it makes no sense for Iberia or Gallia to suddenly declare independence.

So what I propose is to make the European civs not spawn if a Stable or higher (or Solid or higher if that would make it too likely) Rome or Phoenicia (in the case of Spain) is holding on to their core lands.

 

[Locutus_Morti]

That drastically alters the game, but a drastically stronger WRE would probably warrant that. I'm for it, but the threshold should really be Solid or Above. Anything else and you get some wacky scenarios.

 

[theHIStorymaker]

I think that would mess with the balance of the game too much. If France and Spain do not spawn thanks to an AI Rome/Carthage, wouldn't England and Holland grab too much colonial land?

 

[Hippo8085]

As was said in the conditional America thread, conditional spawns for added minor civs that occupy a region where another civilization may already be present are good. Conditional spawns for civs that normally and historically have a large impact or take up land not already under another core are bad.

 

[Sikandar]

I think that would mess with the balance of the game too much. If France and Spain do not spawn thanks to an AI Rome/Carthage, wouldn't England and Holland grab too much colonial land?

Why would Holland spawn at all? Without the Franks and the Visigoths there would be no 'European civilization' as the Romans were very much a Mediterranean-oriented civilization.

What I find to be a more interesting proposition is instead of arbitrary spawns, barbarian stacks who represent specific future European identities (e.g. Franks -> French/Germans, Visigoths -> Spanish, Anglo-Saxons -> English) spawn in the outside of the empire and go after the territories associated with them. If the Romans defeat the stacks then why should they spawn as civilizations?

 

[apenpaap]

Conditional spawns for civs that normally and historically have a large impact or take up land not already under another core are bad.

Why? I agree it would be bad if it happened a lot, but how often is AI Rome strong enough to prevent the Byzantines from spawning, let alone have similar stability four centuries later after huge hordes of barbarians and their medieval stability penalty kick in? It would probably happen in less than one in a hundred games; less than one in a thousand if the threshold were at Solid instead of Stable. But it could improve a long game when playing the Romans a lot, and would increase the alternate history appeal of the game.

 

[eel]

I would very much like to see all civilizations spawn conditionally (i.e. when the civs spawn is controlled by stable civ the new civ won't spawn), but as was said, it would happen in like one of several hundreds games, would it be worth the changes that needs to be made?

 

[mykeedee]

I like this idea but the threshold should be solid or even very solid to prevent it from being too easily abused by the player.

 

[calad]

Agreed. Thats why there is 3000 bc and 600 ad.

 

[iOnlySignIn]

I think that would mess with the balance of the game too much. If France and Spain do not spawn thanks to an AI Rome/Carthage, wouldn't England and Holland grab too much colonial land?

This kind of "mess with the balance of the game" already exists on 3000BC start.

Most of the time, one or several of the European civs (often France) will be very weak, they might as well never have spawned at all.

If you load 3000BC Dutch starts, it's not unusual to see France completely gone and its land divided between Spain and HRE. Alternatively, you can see HRE gone and its landed divided between France and Turkey. Or you can see France taking over everything, killing HRE, Italy, vassalizing Spain and driving the Turks out of Europe by taking Constantinople.

If you want reasonably historical balance between European powers you pretty much have to play 600AD.

 

[mykeedee]

Any European balance of power is shattered by the sheer chaos of 3000BC starts.

 

[Pavel Chichikov]

The first 5 Civs to build trading companies should get conquers, rather than the current arrangement, no?

 

[Locutus_Morti]

I rarely see balanced European powers in any game. This is why people are creating the 1700AD scenario.

 

[strijder20]

The first 5 Civs to build trading companies should get conquers, rather than the current arrangement, no?

Not a bad idea, but where would you land the conquerors? In a random East Asian country? It could lead to weird things, like the Mughals conquering southern India with TC conquerors. And it certainly won't fit with the historical area all the time.

I rarely see balanced European powers in any game. This is why people are creating the 1700AD scenario.

Yes, and to reduce the load times. It's indeed very annoying when you load a Prussian start and France is roflstomping everyone with rifles, or England's got MGuns and is starting the modern age two centuries too early. Or both.

 

[Zaduzai]

I would love to have Mod where Civs do not spawn from "thin air".
Lets make - we community - mod mod to DoC. So community could test how it would work. I am ready to commit working on that.

 

[Bair_the_Normal]

Regarding this, I'd like to bring back another suggestion of mine, that again regards to the issue of spawn flips. It's rather complicated, and I haven't fleshed it out fully yet, but it takes into account each individual city's likeness to flip based on their: presence in the owner's core, historical, contested, foreign, or foreign core areas, the happiness and healthiness of the city, and the stability of the owner.