Wessel V1
Emperor
They all, except perhaps 4), have the same reason: gameplay. Nothing more, nothing less...
Minor Suggestions Thread
- Thread starter Lokolus
- Start date
Oh god, here it comes...
Because AI is in its infancy in the 21st Century and it is very hard to get them to do things by themselves as a result many civs start out with a chance to be at war with nations that they had very early contact with. This feature is very useful.
Furthermore the dates before you discover calendar don't show up as such I just think of it as 'Classical Era' without much thought to the date.
Finally the Romans don't really have enough time to do everything as it is, so starting a bit early is necessary.
The cities at start represent major cities that had a large impact through the dark ages and medieval period. Carthago Nova doesn't really fit this.
Secondly it would mean that Barcelona never appears, which would be a shame.
Finally too many cities would be overly deterministic.
Not for long, it was independent not Byzantine for pretty much all of the Dark Ages and Middle Ages.
Secondly the current arrangement allows people to try and take Rome whilst being at peace with the Byzantines
Well for once I agree with you.
Because initially the was no HRE civ just a Germany. The HRE seemed to represent the German people and a German unification start date was just too late to be practicable (1871). When the HRE was added with BTS it was felt that the late start was still an issue as was the overlapping core areas.
Dumanios
MLG
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1: Otherwise, Rome and Carthage never go to war. How's that for historical?
2: Lisbon is for balance, the other 2, I don't know.
3: Good Point there.
4: Stability maps are weird.
5: Europe often becomes enough of a national mess already, adding another civ would make it worse. Not to mention that having Holy Rome would require tons of new data.
2: Lisbon is for balance, the other 2, I don't know.
3: Good Point there.
4: Stability maps are weird.
5: Europe often becomes enough of a national mess already, adding another civ would make it worse. Not to mention that having Holy Rome would require tons of new data.
G-Max
Deity
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Wrong. Triggering a war between Rome and Carthage in the third century B.C. would be easy as hell for anyone who knows their way around Python scripting.
1) By that logic, Rome should not exist, either. According to Wikipedia, "The continual war around Rome in the 530s and 540s left it in a state of total disrepair — near-abandoned and desolate with much of its lower-lying parts turned into unhealthy marshes as the drainage systems were neglected and the Tiber's embankments fell into disrepair in the course of the latter half of the 6th century.[9] Here, malaria developed. The aqueducts were never repaired, leading to a shrinking population of less than 50,000 concentrated near the Tiber and around the Campus Martius, abandoning those districts without water supply. There is a legend, significant though untrue, that there was a moment where no one remained living in Rome.
Justinian I tried to grant Rome subsidies for the maintenance of public buildings, aqueducts and bridges — though, being mostly drawn from an Italy dramatically impoverished by the recent wars, these were not always sufficient."
2) Screw Barcelona.
3) There is no such thing as "overly deterministic" in a scenario that's supposed to re-create historical events with some degree of accuracy.
Clarify the "balance" issue.
1) You say that as if you've never heard of scripting.
2) What would be the point of that? The Byzantines are basically just another Indie civ anyway.
Ah... okay, that kind of makes sense. Late start dates (Americans) and overlapping core areas (most notably Portugal/Spain and the Greece/Turkey/Arabia/Babylonia/Persia clusterf**k) had never been a problem before, but adding new historical victory goals, a new stability map, etc. probably would have been more work than it was worth.
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I recently learned that the Persian satrapies are mis-numbered. Babylon was the ninth satrapy; Egypt was the sixth; Greece never was one.
Triggering would yes, which is my point, that it is hard to get them to do it for themselves rather than doing it for them via scripting.
So what your saying is that because Rome was levelled to the ground in the 6th century (before the scenario even starts) then it did not have a large impact during the dark/middle ages? This sort of logical fallacy and non sequentor is just embarrassing to read to be honest.
Yet another brilliant retort. To be honest this is not even worthy of a reply.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pnmZalx9YY
Watch that instead of playing the game if you don't like variation from history. Historical Grand Strategy games are about plausible alternatives and alternative history, not historical recreation.
Spain would be too strong. However I personally believe it is because Rhye did not want civs to start the game taking over another city for their capital but rather build there capital for themselves.
Or maybe I have heard of scripting but think it is pointless starting it off Byzantine and then switching it to independents in 750 ad. What difference would it make to anything? I also dislike scripted events.
Except that in previous versions where they did start off at war with Europe Cataphracts routinely invaded parts of Russia (a Byzantine ally) and Scandinavia (a little out of there reach in reality IMHO).
Yet another cunning retort.
And finally a useful and constructive comment! I second changing the names to reflect this.
G-Max
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What I actually wrote:
What everyone else apparently read:
No, I did NOT say that.
Meh. This is better.
Not if they spawned with fewer settlers and other units.
Either you've never played as any civ that other cities flip to right after spawning, or you have a horrible memory. Cities don't flip to you until 2 turns after you spawn.
We could get a little pop-up message saying "The Byzantine Empire has lost Rome to barbarians!"
Yet another brilliant retort. To be honest, this is not even worthy of a reply.
What does this have to do with anything?
What everyone else apparently read:
No, I did NOT say that.
Meh. This is better.
Not if they spawned with fewer settlers and other units.
Either you've never played as any civ that other cities flip to right after spawning, or you have a horrible memory. Cities don't flip to you until 2 turns after you spawn.
We could get a little pop-up message saying "The Byzantine Empire has lost Rome to barbarians!"
Yet another brilliant retort. To be honest, this is not even worthy of a reply.
What does this have to do with anything?
I don't care enough anymore to answer to all your points, so I just say if you want a scripted recreation of history, you're wrong here. This is still Civilization, i.e. a game where the player decides what happens, not some script.
merijn_v1
Black Belt
Leoreth, I couldn't say it better.
Alexius08
Emperor
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Thus, I suggest replacing names of civs vassalized by Persians from "xth Satrapy" to "Satrapy of [insert name of vassalized civ here]".
G-Max
Deity
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You apparently didn't care enough anymore to read anything that I wrote, either.
So, G-Max, if you just want "some degree of accuracy" why should it include these things rather than what it has now? Its degree of accuracy is far greater than BTS and most mods (especially those with longer time frames).
But my comment actually referred to the:
But my comment actually referred to the:
Which means you would support it being 100% preprogrammed simulation.
They aren't. There is a possibility for each civ to declare war to a new neighbour as this neighbour spawns. So sometimes Rome will be at war with Carthage, sometimes with Greece, sometimes with Egypt, sometimes with more than one, sometimes with neither.
Probably because Rhye wanted to concentrate on cities he felt were important, either historically, or for gameplay. Apparently he didn't want to give the Spanish any cities to get flipped.
To your argument that Rome shouldn't be on the map because of its historical importancy around 600 - if it weren't there in 600, it wouldn't be there later on when it became very important again. If it would have been scripted to appear later, you'd probably be arguing that that was stupid, as Rome would have existed in 600 AD too.
Yes, but just nominally.
Because RFC wasn't just developed when BtS came out. The Holy Roman Empire came with BtS, at a time when Germany already fullfilled its role in RFC. So why change it?
Increasing the number of scripted events would benefit the game more than harm it, so long as they were possible to counter. In this mod, we have plagues, collapse, city flipping, barbarian spawning, independent spawning, conqueror spawning, etc. A few minor scripted events to help with historical accuracy, especially if their impact and challenge to work around were so insignificant in comparison to the current ones mentioned above. The mod has some notable historical issues, most of which can be changed for the better, as modmods such as DoC have done.
You can try script the mod to be a perfect rendition of history, but players will still be able to screw it up as they so wish, especially if they know what is going to happen and when. Unless you set the player civ to auto-defeat or something.
The events of history could have half of them scripted into the game, and it would still be enjoyable, and easy to change. Besides, alternate history is usually more fun the closer it is to history.
Additionally, adding additional starts, such as 800BCE, 1400/1500, and 1775 would be very useful, as predetermined events would not be required to allow for America to come into a world that is not completely unrecognizable.
Ooh, and one more thing: Personally, I would be quite interested in playing a mod hyper-accurate to history, so long as the player is actually allowed to make decisions. So long as I can settle where I want, and choose what I build, the AI could have every action pre-scripted, and as long as they had to adapt to what I did, there is no way history would be too historical. But not in place of normal RFC.
Alexius08
Emperor
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You can try script the mod to be a perfect rendition of history, but players will still be able to screw it up as they so wish, especially if they know what is going to happen and when. Unless you set the player civ to auto-defeat or something.
The events of history could have half of them scripted into the game, and it would still be enjoyable, and easy to change. Besides, alternate history is usually more fun the closer it is to history.
Additionally, adding additional starts, such as 800BCE, 1400/1500, and 1775 would be very useful, as predetermined events would not be required to allow for America to come into a world that is not completely unrecognizable.
To distinguish the 3000 BC start from the 600 AD start, it is checked whether Egypt is playable or not. More conditions need to be checked for additional starting dates to be added.
800700 BC:
Moved to 700 BC so that Egypt and Babylon would fail their UHVs. This means both civs should not be playable by humans, but remain AI-controlled (like Byzantium in 600 AD)- 1500
Mali should be unplayable (fighting native-controlled Songhai) but University of Sankore should be prebuilt in Timbuktu
Arabia should be unplayable (to be conquered by Ottomans a few turns later), Spiral Minaret prebuilt in Baghdad
Persia respawns as Safavids (but unplayable), controls Merv and Balkash (but not Samarkand)
Mongols unplayable (Ming Dynasty takes over China, rest of Mongol Empire collapses) as well as China (failed UHV)
Japan undergoing Sengoku (should be surrounded by independent cities that don't flip on spawn)
Only Portugal and Spain has optics, Spanish caravel near the Caribbean islands and Southeast Pacific, about to get conquistadors and circumnavigate (makes English circumnavigation UHV close to impossible), Portuguese carracks exploring India and dropping off settlers at Brazil
France has Notre Dame prebuilt in Paris
Independents control Venice and Rome (with Colosseum, Leaning Tower and Sistine Chapel prebuilt)
Vikings (as Kalmar Union) unstable with 1/3 UHV (about to fail their 5000 gold UHV), Sweden splits off a few turns later
India about to respawn as Mughals, headstart on constitution to build Taj Mahal in 1648.
Germany has Koenigsberg, Independents has Warsaw and Vilnius.
Kiev is independent, bordered by Turks on the south and Russians on the north.
Hanseong is independent, with Confucianism and Buddhism
Khmer replaced by Siam, Wat Preah Pisnulok prebuilt in Angkor
Ethiopia unplayable, with capital at Addis Ababa, has Christianity as state religion
Dutch spawn date moved to late 1500s
No Temple of Solomon, Great Lighthouse or Great Library.
Good point. There are two different kinds of scripted events, though. Let's look at the conqueror event for example:
1) The first civilization to make contact with the Aztecs gets an army of conquerors in Mexico.
2) The Spanish get an army of conquerors in Mexico in 1517.
The first is completely fine, because it helps to achieve historical plausability without being deterministic and forcing or hindering the player. I've come to the conclusion though that G-Max is arguing for more of the latter.
deanej
Deity
Or you could change the way it's detected completely. You could easily set script data to tell the game what spawn date it is, or even the worldbuildersave file name.
