Merry Christmas and happy new year with RFC v165 and RFCW v115

[Spearthrower]

It's written right next to your score.... you can see *all* civs stability score!

Very nice indeed. I just spent some time destablising Japan to see what happened.... 2 turns after reaching "Collapsing" they entered Civil War and broke down into Independent cities.

Looking very very good so far!

 

[Phallus]

I decided to try the late game first so I started as America. Every other civ was either Shaky or Unstable and I was surprised to find that even Mali had collapsed. Is this an anomaly?

 

[Blasphemous]

Very cool! Can't wait to get back to my trusty old machine at the apartment to see it in action! Happy celebrations, everybody! (Whatever you choose to celebrate. )

 

[fearuin]

I'm just going to give a try right now! Just a question (rethoric, because I'll see it by myself), but to inform other Vanilla-players like me. When civs collapse in Vanilla, do they turn barb, or there's an indepndent civ in Vanilla too? (I guess they become barbs, because of the civ-limit).

A lot of thanks, Rhye!
Stability system was just what I was asking for! (Me, and more people).

 

[Wilhelm II]

I decided to try the late game first so I started as America. Every other civ was either Shaky or Unstable and I was surprised to find that even Mali had collapsed. Is this an anomaly?

In my recent German game (AD 1200) even the score leader Arabia collapsed. Maybe because of an imprudent civic change. When I spawned Egypt, India, Rome and Greece had already collapsed. Most civs are still stable.

Afterall I like it that way.

 

[Rhye]

in vanilla they turn barbarian.

If anybody else experiences too much unstability in late game, please tell.
This stability system is very unstable itself (sorry for the word game): at first all the civs were too much stable, then they were ok but all collapsing in the very late game. After many corrections I found a balancement, but may not be perfect.
With a few reports I'll be able to tune it closer to perfection, but please don't open new threads suggesting whole remaking of the system, because that way we'll never improve

 

[Zetetic Apparat]

I tended to find in my game as Carthage that every Civ was shaky or unstable. This didn't seem to really be a problem as such though. I myself collapsed in ~1700 after imprudent expansion into Italy and North Egypt whilst trying to fiddle with civics and the economy to hold the empire together ; it was fair and I think the system worked well. However my first expansion into Italy was due to Rome collapsing ; a city was automatically granted to me and this seemed to make me a fair bit less stable so maybe a choice (take it on/disband?) might be a good idea. (Oh, and I gave up after that since I couldn't be bothered to retake my mainly rifleman-defended distributed empire with a war elephant and a spearman but that's my fault.)

The system seems to work quite well and it's fun seeing the Middle East become such a mess (collapsing and respawning seemed to happen a fair bit from Egypt to Persia and Turkey to Arabia ; not stupidly though).

 

[flaming_iles]

Stability is a great addition, however, how about when an A.I civ descends into civil war, instead of it collapsing, it has all but one cities flip to independent/barb like the human player so it at least has a chance of being able to 'pull through' without totally collapsing. Many countries have gone through civil wars and have not totally collapsed (England, America, France...)

 

[Rhye]

Stability is a great addition, however, how about when an A.I civ descends into civil war, instead of it collapsing, it has all but one cities flip to independent/barb like the human player so it at least has a chance of being able to 'pull through' without totally collapsing. Many countries have gone through civil wars and have not totally collapsed (England, America, France...)

Ai would never be able to reunite its empire. Dying and respawning again instead will make them stronger

 

[ecv]

I have played one game as the germans till ~1750 on monarch. Even though i have won the few wars i have engaged in the stability of the empire is now "collapsing".

I think the major issue is as Zetetic Apparat pointed out, that when one of my neighbours collapsed i often got a city or 2, which greatly dragged my stability down.

Another thing is, that atleast in my game, all ai players seem to have severe stability problems, except the more or less isolated ones (inca, aztec). So far china, india, egypt, persia, russia, france, turkey, greece, rome have collapsed, and the rest is more or less on their way to it. Since i only have played one game, it could ofc have had more collapses than what will usually happen. But atleast for my taste it seems abit much. I think that if i tried all that i could to stay as stable as possible, i could propably win simply by outlasting.
Imo it feels wrong when citys join my realm and i take stability hits for it. It should imho be the opposite. (My citizens gets confirmed that my realm is a great place to live.
When a collapse happens, i often see the ai disbanding pretty much all the units in the citys. Is that a known issue?

In one situation greece collapsed and one of there citys reverted to me, i also conquered 2 others. But quickly after the reverted city and one of the conquered became part of the reappering turkish empire. I declared war on turkey and took back the 2 citys without much trouble, however all in all the series of events seemed to cost me a huge amount of stability. I tried to reload and let turkey have its freedom, but that didnt change anything stability vice (atleast that i could see). Russia also had atleast one city revert to turkish and declared war like me. Even though turkey was destroyed (again), the war also coursed the (fairly) big russian empire to collapse.
Perhaps give a stability gain if you declare war on a revolting state if you have some types of rule? (police state, monarchy stuff). And give a stability gain if you let them go if you have, say, democracy? I think this makes atleast some sense with regards to reality.

Another thing that i would really like, was to be able to recreate a country that had collapsed as my vassal, if i had some of its citys.
As it is now, i dont dare to conquer independent citys, since im afraid that if i do so, the fallen empire will be reappear, with a big stability hit for me as a consequence.

All in all its a great mod though, and i enjoy playing it alot. Its right up my alley. Keep up the good work.

 

[werttrew]

I'm currently in ~1715 with the Russians and everyone is "shaky" at best, many unstable, and I tend to oscillate between collapsing and unstable.

I am 85 percent happy with the instability factor, but like some others were saying, it might need just a little more tweaking to the stable side. Half of the civs in my games collapsed, and the more borders the civ shares with another, the more likely it is to fall apart.

One peculiar thing: when civs regenerate, like Spain and Arabia did in my game, they sign defensive pacts with "Independents'--ALL independents. So anytime I attack an indepent, no matter where in the world, Spain and Arabia join in.

 

[MrThing]

I too like the concept of the stability system but have found that too many civs are collapsing.

I was playing as Greece, when the Turks spawned I did not resist the initial city claims but this quicly led to collapsing wheras I has been stable.

So I reloaded an auto-save and decided to fight instead. This was good for me but before long all sorts of Civs were collapsing when there was no obvious reason.

Babylon had collapsed some time ago (before the Turks) while I was fighting them and winning so that was no suprise. Rome had collapsed, perhaps due to Celts, I am not sure. But by the 1600s Egypt collapsed while winning a war against Turky (as my alley), then Germany collapsed for no obvious reason, then the Arabs after they joined the war against Turky. Before I stopped playing the Persains were in the process of collapsing even though they are doing very well. At this rate I fear that nearly all of the Civs will collapse soon.

It sees that more things must decrease stability than increase it, since the longer a Civ is in the game the more it tends toward collapsing even if it is not under much preassure from any rivals.

 

[ecv]

I played alittle further to see what would happen. By 1835 i decided to stop when my empire collapsed. Vikings have also collapsed and it seems pretty much everyone else is on the brink of collapsing as well.
Since ~1750 i have fought one war with very few casualties (and much more for the reappearing russians who initially got one of my cities), and had 2 golden ages. Either my goverment is bad (Hereditary Rule - Free Speech - Caste System - Mercantilism - Free Religion, the problems seemed just as bad before i adopted free speech and free religion though), or the 2 viking cities that converted to me made me tip over.
I agree that it seems more decreasing effects, than increasing effects on stability are happening. Everyone will eventually collapse.

 

[werttrew]

One peculiar thing: when civs regenerate, like Spain and Arabia did in my game, they sign defensive pacts with "Independents'--ALL independents. So anytime I attack an indepent, no matter where in the world, Spain and Arabia join in.

Heh. A little later my Russia collapsed entirely (stinkin' Mongols razed one city and the whole kingdom falls apart). Then Cyrus and Arabia declare war on me! Apparently the Independent-Leader-as-vassal thing counts even my rebel cities as their vassals.

Or, if a civ, for example Turkey, resurges in the 1700's, even if I agree the flip, Cyrus declares war, while Turkey stays peaceful! Something seem a bit off here.

Like I said, I like the instability addition a lot, but little things like this could use some tweaking.

 

[Zetetic Apparat]

@ecv:
I'm guessing that your civics might be a large part of the problem.

I was trying frantically to abandon FS and FR in my Carthage game (which hurt since FS meant that I had half of Spain under my cultural control but nowhere to put a city ; Cadiz [61% Carthaginian] was engulfed on one side and both Barcelona and the capital [35% Carthaginian] had culture pushing up against them on one side). The anarchy did push me into Collapsing for a few turns though...

By the sound of it Rhye has identified the Independents-as-vassals problem.

 

[McA123]

Ok, I played a game as Spain up until around 1900, at which point I just bored of it. I really like the new system, although it could use a bit of tweaking. When I came in, (and this is Vanilla) Egypt, India, China and Persia had collapsed. France collapsed later on, from a result of many wars and I snatched Bordeaux and Brest and the Romans took Marseille. I took down the Aztecs around 1300-1400 with Conquistadors, and then took down the Incas about 100 turns later. The Romans collapsed later on, I'm not sure why. Next went the Germans, and later on the Mongolians. The only civ I saw re-emerge was the Germans, who died again a few turns later. I was fluctuating between Shaky and Stable, and I went down to unstable once or twice, but eventually I got back up to stable, then to solid and then to Very Solid. The Arabs were Very Solid the entire game, until out of the blue they went down to unstable, then to collapsing, and then poof, they were gone. Rome was doing fairly well up until its collapse, and so was Germany. England went from Unstable-Shaky most of the game, and the Russians barely clung to life, in states of collapsing a lot of the time, but eventually regained stability and became a major power. The Malinese almost collapsed a few times, too, but were fairly stable on the whole. I never made contact with Mongolia, but from Russian maps I saw that they had lost Karakorom to barbs, I'm not sure if that was the cause or the result of their collapsing. America, when it first spawned went down to Unstable quite quickly, but slowly regained its footing and was doing well. Japan almost collapsed several times, too, but managed to hold on. In the end, there was just me, America, England, Russia, Mali and Japan. The congresses were fairly short and I always knew who was gonna be invited .

The result of all of this was that It was me, on my peninsula, controllong parts of France, all of South America, Central America and the west coast of America, and bits of Africa, England on their island with colonial possesions, America on the east coast and central America, Russia spreading back almost to Siberia, and all of central Europe and Scandinvia being a big Barbarian block, the mid east too, and most of Africa except for my cities and the Malinese. All of Asia was Barbarian too.

It was a nice change in comparison to civs never collapsing, or the same civs always collapsing.

 

[CaptainF]

How do I install this intriguing mod?

 

[Prestidigitator]

Excellent now I can test the new system , (darn Rhye, that was fast )

How do I install this intriguing mod?

1. Go to the thread titled "Download the latest version here".
2. Download suitable version (Warlords or Vanilla).
3. Extract.
(here comes the tough bit so bare with me...)
4. Do NOT copy the file named (RFCW115), but rather copy the file inside it, titled 'Rhye's and Fall of Civilization (Warlords)'. This is to be pasted in the game's Mod folder.
5. Run the mod and enjoy .

 

[SadoMacho]

Rhye, you did it again, it looks great.

Some questions :
1. Do courthouses/jails give extra stability. The law system can be used to create extra stability in a state by taking away subversive elements (especially in a police state)

2. If you get the first UHV, does that give extra stability, as people would be proud to live in a state that is so succesfull.

 

[SilverKnight]

I'm very impressed, Rhye! This looks good, I'll give it a spin tomorrow. I was just about to comment on how balanced the game seems lately, with regards to tech. There are backwards civs and tech leaders close together early on, but towards late game, most civs catch up pretty well. Invasion is always a challenge due to the size of the armies, even with less advanced defenders. Now with more to hold back civs, it still seems like more turns would be a good idea. Here's to a new year in Civ!

SilverKnight