Medieval European Mod II 2016-10-05

[Mirc]

What is the advisable difficulty level one should play at?

I tried playing as the Byzantines, at emperor level. Even with early exploration and chekcing at each turn who has what tecks so as to stay at worst 1 tech away from the leaders, i only have four cities when some civs have over double that...
I do not have an army, and could not built any early wonder.

So i am thinking that, since there are even harder difficulty levels, this part of the game possibly was a bit overlooked?

The Byzantines don't have a great start in this game IMO, much like the French.

 

[embryodead]

What is the advisable difficulty level one should play at?

I tried playing as the Byzantines, at emperor level. Even with early exploration and chekcing at each turn who has what tecks so as to stay at worst 1 tech away from the leaders, i only have four cities when some civs have over double that...
I do not have an army, and could not built any early wonder.

So i am thinking that, since there are even harder difficulty levels, this part of the game possibly was a bit overlooked?

Difficulty levels are the same as in normal Civ3 game, so nothing could have been overlooked... Name change can be misleading though - note that you played on 3rd to last level, which is Demigod in original Civ3 (which, among other things, gives the AI two settlers and three workers each).

@Mirc
IMO Byzantine location is one of the best, with lots of resources and more good spots for cities nearby. You have to grab land aggressively, but that's true for most kingdoms.

 

[Mirc]

Yes, they have resources, but they're crowded. For my style of play, their location is great. But for other, more peaceful styles, I don't think so.

 

[ohcrapitsnico]

In all my games the Byzantines are usually one of the tech leaders and if I don't get all the wonders the Byzantines will get them because they have such good land. You have to be careful though, you are surrounded by bulgaria, serbia, and the turks and they tend to be quite aggresive. You have to settle fast to keep up.

Edit: I do agree that France sucks. They always get dominated in the second era by germany and burgundy. I always see them only build 1 or 2 cities apart from paris. Oh and this is from my experiences from the huge europe map.

 

[ohcrapitsnico]

Yes, they have resources, but they're crowded. For my style of play, their location is great. But for other, more peaceful styles, I don't think so.

What civ is a good peaceful civ? I tried playing a one city variant as italy on least aggressive, and every other turn the whole world demands techs and contacts. I fortified my entire borders with border forts and bombards and swiss mercenaries in barricaded fortresses and it seems even their spearman can break holes in my defenses.

 

[Virote_Considon]

I guess if you had a good navy, then Ireland could put up a pretty good defense...

 

[Mirc]

What civ is a good peaceful civ? I tried playing a one city variant as italy on least aggressive, and every other turn the whole world demands techs and contacts. I fortified my entire borders with border forts and bombards and swiss mercenaries in barricaded fortresses and it seems even their spearman can break holes in my defenses.

The Rus is probably the best example.

 

[ohcrapitsnico]

The Rus is probably the best example.

I would never have thought the Rus, they seemd to get surrounded and beaten up occassionally in my games. I think Ireland would be peaceful but there isn't much room to expand and you are away from all the action.

Heres another question, how do the abbasids and fatimids fare in your games?
The fatimids always seem to annihilate them in my games unless I play as the Abbasids. The Fatimids are really aggressive settlers, I noticed them trying to surround baghdad with cities. The Abbasids are always left with Persia to settly which isn't very good land.

 

[Son_Of_Dido]

Hey, if you wanna go for a culture victory, Ireland is your choice.

You'll have to push England and Scotland around a little and jump on them early, but other than that pretty peaceful. And that water is a great defender against everyone else.

[Also, Scientific and Religous. So yeah.

 

[Yoda Power]

Ok I'm more or less back now.

In all my games the Byzantines are usually one of the tech leaders and if I don't get all the wonders the Byzantines will get them because they have such good land. You have to be careful though, you are surrounded by bulgaria, serbia, and the turks and they tend to be quite aggresive. You have to settle fast to keep up.

Edit: I do agree that France sucks. They always get dominated in the second era by germany and burgundy. I always see them only build 1 or 2 cities apart from paris. Oh and this is from my experiences from the huge europe map.

I haven't discussed it with ED yet, but we could atleast consider changing France's trait to agricultural. It would probably boost their power.

The Rus is probably the best example.

Well I never actually survived as Rus on that map, so I'm not sure I agree.

Sweden seems to be a good choice, they've never been conquered in any of my games on the map.

 

[Mirc]

I would never have thought the Rus, they seemd to get surrounded and beaten up occassionally in my games. I think Ireland would be peaceful but there isn't much room to expand and you are away from all the action.

Wow, seriously? In all the games I tried they were the biggest Civ in the game by far!! Almost twice as big as anyone else.

 

[Yoda Power]

I'm playing a game right now, where they are only doing fairly well, but not really good. Instead Poland have settled much of Ukraine, and is now the second biggest civ. (The biggest being myself)

 

[embryodead]

Well guys, get your facts straight, you're talking about EU-Large map, so France, as a civ, doesn't suck - at worst their locatoin on that map. The mechanism of AI settling is very delicate, and you can turn civs into super powers with very little change - such as adding 1 cattle in their starting location, so that they can churn out settlers faster than their neighbors during the initial land grab. The problem is, the settling pattern for France is "Drag nach Osten" As a result, France settles Germany... while Germany, with no other place left, settles Western France. I tested it numerous times and tried to move some resources around. It just looks stupid to have France in Germany and Germany in Britanny. To be honest I never see France really weak, e.g. 4-5 cities is not a major world power (which I assume are the expectations) but is better than a multitide of other civs. If you want France to be closer to its historical borders, you have disable Burgundy...

There are some changes to the map in the patch e.g. I moved Khazars south, with Samandar as their capital (it was a capital in 8th century anyway, before Atil); this way they are farther from Tatar's location and expand to their historical borders. Also, 1 wheat was removed from Nile Delta, Syria and Ukraine each, while 1 wheat was added to Asia Minor, near Turkish starting location. I don't really have any *working* ideas for France, though.

 

[ohcrapitsnico]

Well guys, get your facts straight, you're talking about EU-Large map, so France, as a civ, doesn't suck - at worst their locatoin on that map. The mechanism of AI settling is very delicate, and you can turn civs into super powers with very little change - such as adding 1 cattle in their starting location, so that they can churn out settlers faster than their neighbors during the initial land grab. The problem is, the settling pattern for France is "Drag nach Osten" As a result, France settles Germany... while Germany, with no other place left, settles Western France. I tested it numerous times and tried to move some resources around. It just looks stupid to have France in Germany and Germany in Britanny. To be honest I never see France really weak, e.g. 4-5 cities is not a major world power (which I assume are the expectations) but is better than a multitide of other civs. If you want France to be closer to its historical borders, you have disable Burgundy...

There are some changes to the map in the patch e.g. I moved Khazars south, with Samandar as their capital (it was a capital in 8th century anyway, before Atil); this way they are farther from Tatar's location and expand to their historical borders. Also, 1 wheat was removed from Nile Delta, Syria and Ukraine each, while 1 wheat was added to Asia Minor, near Turkish starting location. I don't really have any *working* ideas for France, though.

I like your changes. Turks do have a slightly weak start.

Did you try resource replacement, maybe a cattle instead of wine and move the wine elsewhere or switch the horses with the iron to the west?

 

[Virote_Considon]

How about moving the Wheat in Burgundy's starting square? I don't know where to, though...

 

[T.A JONES]

How bout lettin em all loose in a new land for a change...Hmm?
Just to see em fight for fresh takes sure is fun! Specially with everyone havin a equal start. Its the truest test for seeing who really builds like a champ.

Go Irish! ​

Oh, BTW in effort to make Ireland feel at home in a new world, I built land of green in world builder! (wet /midclimate/60%aqua/192x192 size/continent) . Now I find a map full of marsh can't be cut down.

Ohwell Thats for cheatin I guess The 'auto clear woodlands' is the only button I see besides 'auto clear forest. Oddly enough, my irish workers go through the motions but the lazy bums never finish the darn job!

( Its a strange glitch! , I already checked and saw in the editer that swamp/marsh is designated as 'not workable')

 

[St Exupère]

This France thing is an issue, I already pointed out that with Burgundy in, historical accuracy would take a hit (mod and scenarii alike). The Franks were by far, in those times, the dominant force of western Europe - I am talking in political, spiritual, militaristic, demographic and maybe even economic terms.

Has the agricultural trait been tried? this could boost their start and would also stick more to historical facts, in that France has always been (and in a way still is) the land of agriculture in that part of the world.

I have seen them strong once though, out of 3/4 games. But the trend seems to have them weak, and it should be the exact opposite.

 

[Kyriakos]

I started a new game, again as the Byzantines, and now am in the middle of the second era, at the difficulty level immediately below demigod/emperor.

Everyone is there, apart from the poles and the venetians, who have been destroyed.

I am in war with three nations, but they are all far away.
My most important campaigns have been twice against the turks, who utterly collapsed against my newly created cataphracts, losing all of northern Asia Minor in five turns (five cities), and then a few years later the entire southern asia minor as well (five more cities). They now spend their days in the island of Karpathos

I also conquered the city in crete, first from the italians and then from the sicilians, who at one point took it from me.

The only other city i took was the serbian one above Dyrachion/Dures, using my cataphract army.

I lag terribly behind in techs, and it is a good thing that better military units do not appear that frequently, else my army of pronoiai (which was spelled 'pronoiar' in the scen and it has to be changed ) and cataphracts would not mean much at this stage. My military power is 'average', but the other strong players do not have an edge over me.

The only other city i lost, apart from the cretan one, was Caesaria, which was taken by a superior armenian army. Now i have eight units, along with the said cataphract army, fortified one square next to it, in the case that armenia decides to break all treaties and declare war. I would like to utilise help from my allies the fatimids, and possibly also the abbasids and kharazmia, so as to annihilate armenian power once and for all, and i will seek such a possibility once i sign peace with France (the alliance with Fatimids disabled me and so i waited for the whole 20 turns for it to be nullified).

 

[Rm80]

this thing with France I don't think its true for every time you play....my last try on the large map, France had 7 cities and where one of the bigger nations (funny part is they settled in a way that there borders actaully looked like todays french borders.

Rus was not that big (well in usual Rus terms that is ) the Tatars had grabbed most of there lands that they usally settle on to the east and Lithuania had done the same with the land to the west.

I can't wait for the scenario with pre-placed cities that is going to be really fun.

 

[Mirc]

Update on my game:
- I settled a lot more in Ukraine.
- I conquered all northern Italy
- I conquered southern Italy and Sicily, the rest of Italy being held by Sicily now
- I conquered 2 Polish cities, and I'm marching to Warsaw with lots of units, however I'm slowed down by their attackers. Conquering their cities was very easy, as they have virtually no defense. However, they have a strong amount of Horsemen, which slow me down a lot as I mustn't ever let them attack. But now that I have a couple of Norman Knights (2-3, but building a lot, I have a massive empire) they won't stand a chance.

I'm in a hurry right now, but I'll post a minimap later. I have most of Central Europe (in the geographical sense, not political Cold War sense ), my empire consisting of:
- all the Balkans except southeastern Greece which is Byzantine
- all Romania, Moldova, Hungary, Austria and ex-Yugoslavia
- north and south Italy, missing the central part
- most of Sicily
- a lot of Ukraine, the territories near the Black sea and a city in Crimea
- now I'm conquering Warsaw, already have all the Polish lands until there.