[Modmodmod] RFC:Europe Extra Civs

[Opera]

Playing Crimea.

First: Bagcasaray starts with 3 pop but they can't maintain it right away. It's a detail but it bugs me.

Then, when the flip occurs, I got Azaq, 3E of the fish (east of Crimea). The city has a wheat resource but is just out of reach of some fish and some wheat... Before the flip, I intended to capture Azaq and raze it so I could settle my second city south of it. Quite disappointed to get Azaq and not be able to raze it :/

Anyway, it was a pretty fun game to play. Razed 41 cities total, kept Moskva and didn't go above 5 cities ever. I also kept Kiev which was a pretty good spot. I ended up collapsing Muscovy and Novgorod. Prussia, Poland and Lithuania also collapsed but not due to my conquests (I have no idea why Prussia and Poland collapsed).

I think they can be pretty powerful if they raze everything to strengthen their capital and then settle back. Their UU and UB are pretty good.

The rest of the game was interesting too: France collapsed so it was split between England, Spain and Burgundy. The Levant was held by the Norse. Venice captured and held Constantinople until 1700 (end of my game). Spain also unified its peninsula (Portugal ended up as a single city civ in the Açores but collapsed soon afterward). Poland respawned in 1698 with a mix of Polish, Prussian and Lithuanian cities.

Aside from Moskow and my cities in Crimea and Kiev, there were not any city left standing east of Poland

 

[Nintz]

This sounds really cool.

Thoughts for future civs-

Italy is already cramped with Venice, Genoa, and Rome.
Maybe you could get away with Neapolis/Napoli, but I don't know its history.

Egypt should be in, just use the Ayyubid/Mameluk Sultanate for a more dynamic name.

Scandinavia should definitely receive some attention-Denmark/Norway is the only civ there for at least 80% of the game.

Just some thoughts-will play soon!

 

[Sian]

@Nintz ... Morholt have allready stated that he'd at some point look at Scandinavia, force-respawning Norse as Denmark/Norway (with new UHVs) and forwarding the spawn of sweden quite a bit (with reworked UHV's)

 

[Morholt]

Why not name it "Jacobite England" or "Stuart England"? This actually reflects the time when the English Throne was occupied by Scotsmen.

Simple and historical. I like this.

Playing Crimea...

Cool game, will improve Azaq/Azov and also add some late game barbs to add some challenge.

This sounds really cool.

Thoughts for future civs-

Italy is already cramped with Venice, Genoa, and Rome.
Maybe you could get away with Neapolis/Napoli, but I don't know its history.

Egypt should be in, just use the Ayyubid/Mameluk Sultanate for a more dynamic name.

Scandinavia should definitely receive some attention-Denmark/Norway is the only civ there for at least 80% of the game.

Just some thoughts-will play soon!

Naples and Sicily were independent kingdoms for 100 and 200 years respectively but they were both absorbed into the Crown of Aragon after that so I think they have some representation there. If I add another Italian civ it will be Lombardy, possibly spawning as early as 568 and later being eclipsed by the merchant republics.

Egypt will be going in for the next version.

My plan for scandinavia is to split the Norse and move Sweden to an earlier spawn. Something like: Norway ~866, Denmark ~958, Sweden ~1210.
Norway would inherit most of the Norse civ's attributes.

 

[Morholt]

@Nintz ... Morholt have allready stated that he'd at some point look at Scandinavia, force-respawning Norse as Denmark/Norway (with new UHVs) and forwarding the spawn of sweden quite a bit (with reworked UHV's)

The plan is rather to have a separate Norway and Denmark, with Norway representing the bearded pagan explorers and Denmark representing the later aspects including Denmark-Norway.

 

[Opera]

I played as Morocco and the first UHV is indeed quite hard. In 1206, I had just conquered Andalusia and I still had all of N Africa east of Terouan to conquer.

With your changes, Iberia is even more fun than it already is in the base mod. 4 civs on it (5 with Morocco but I didn't see it yet on Iberia when controlled by the AI) means a lot of fun, even though it seems Spain has a big, big advantage as they always crush Cordoba, Aragon and Portugal in some fashion.

Outside of Egypt, Scandinavia and (maybe) Lombardy I hardly see any place for a new civ now.

Speaking of Egypt: will you add Crusader states or Armenian Cilicia? They are somewhat important in this region and if expanding it, you might consider them.

 

[Morholt]

Yeah the map is filling up and I don't want to add too many civs. Crusader states might go in but the problem then is that I would have to create some kind of conditional spawn a la SoI and they are fairly well represented by the crusader mechanics as they are.

 

[Opera]

Yeah, true. If I had to choose, I'd vouch for Cilicia over the crusader states. It could be an interesting civ to play, perhaps a short-tough one. They would be a nice foil to the Mamluks/Egypt as well.

 

[Nintz]

Okay, so I started my first game as Morroco. Problem is, a bunch of unit graphics are missing. Just these red dots.

Checked the WB and saw the same issue all over the Islamic world and Russia. West Europe was fine, though. Any ideas what happened?

I tried loading up Scotland instead.

Graphics worked fine, and it was an interesting experiment I was playing.

UU is good for countering England's A. Lancers.

UB is nice, I guess. Didn't really focus too much on infrastructure.

UHV-

1. 10 forts and 3 castles. Sounds easy enough. Its not (At least for me). You need to spam forts in Scotland to meet this goal (Or rush England). This cripples your economy somewhat. Castles+Walls without Stone are also very expensive. And good luck trying to fit 3 good cities in Scotland.

2. 1000 Relationship Points with France by 1650(?).
I had 350 in 1100 (when I quit the game), so... I'm pretty sure this was going to be easy for me.

3. Conquer Scotland, The Isles, Ireland, Wales, and Bretange in 1700.
Didn't really have time to think about this one too much. Got Scotland and The Isles early. Wales was English, Bretagne was French, and Ireland suddenly got a massive Barb stack (checked WB).

Was playing on Viceroy, and overall got more of a challenge than I was expecting.
I'd suggest giving the Scots Stone, at least. Possibly more food.

Still- good game, looking forward to the next one.

 

[Opera]

I just remembered something from my Tunisia game. Spain had collapsed and thus there was only Portugal, Aragon and Cordoba on the Iberian peninsula. Later, Spain respawned and took away several Aragonese cities, presumably in their respawn core (?). It seemed very unfair to cripple Aragon this way. Is it intended?

 

[Morholt]

Okay, so I started my first game as Morroco. Problem is, a bunch of unit graphics are missing. Just these red dots.

Checked the WB and saw the same issue all over the Islamic world and Russia. West Europe was fine, though. Any ideas what happened?

No idea, my best guess is you didn't install it properly? But it worked later so I really have no idea. Perhaps you started the first game while the files were still being extracted, so some files couldn't be extracted?

I tried loading up Scotland instead.

Graphics worked fine, and it was an interesting experiment I was playing.

UU is good for countering England's A. Lancers.

UB is nice, I guess. Didn't really focus too much on infrastructure.

UHV-

1. 10 forts and 3 castles. Sounds easy enough. Its not (At least for me). You need to spam forts in Scotland to meet this goal (Or rush England). This cripples your economy somewhat. Castles+Walls without Stone are also very expensive. And good luck trying to fit 3 good cities in Scotland.

2. 1000 Relationship Points with France by 1650(?).
I had 350 in 1100 (when I quit the game), so... I'm pretty sure this was going to be easy for me.

3. Conquer Scotland, The Isles, Ireland, Wales, and Bretange in 1700.
Didn't really have time to think about this one too much. Got Scotland and The Isles early. Wales was English, Bretagne was French, and Ireland suddenly got a massive Barb stack (checked WB).

Was playing on Viceroy, and overall got more of a challenge than I was expecting.
I'd suggest giving the Scots Stone, at least. Possibly more food.

Still- good game, looking forward to the next one.

The "massive barb stack" in Dublin is likely just 5-6 Galleys + 2 Archers. When I tested Scotland out I built 2 cities in Scotland, built a Galley first thing in Edinburgh and sent my starting troops to conquer Ireland. Your first few fights against the barbarians are guaranteed wins so it's easily done. Then I settled the westernmost tile in Wales which will not flip to the English and will also give you stone. Most of the forts I put in Ireland.

I just remembered something from my Tunisia game. Spain had collapsed and thus there was only Portugal, Aragon and Cordoba on the Iberian peninsula. Later, Spain respawned and took away several Aragonese cities, presumably in their respawn core (?). It seemed very unfair to cripple Aragon this way. Is it intended?

Was it after 1469? I actually didn't think about it but it makes sense that a respawned Spain should include Aragon since they entered a union then. I'll update the dynamic names to show this.

 

[Opera]

Yes it was around this date IIRC. It doesn't really make sense if Aragon is still alive though. Worst thing, you can code it so Aragon collapses right before their respawn.

 

[Nintz]

@ Morholt- I think you misunderstood me. I chose Scotland to avoid the graphical issue. When I checked the WB, there were still red dots on the map. However, they still function exactly the same (they're just a pain to look at).

As for Dublin it should be noted that I didn't check until way later like 1100~1150 ish. It had 5 Vikings, 3 Crossbowmen, 2 Catapults, along with 4 Galleys. That was going to be a very costly conquest, considering my English war.

And for the Stone, I still think that's unfair. A single tile in Wales gives you Stone without flipping. There is a high probability the players will not even consider settling Wales yet. Even placing Stone on The Isles to minimize its effectiveness would be fairer (in my opinion). Scotland is already tough to play after all.

 

[Morholt]

OK, I will consider putting Stone around Scotland.

Could you please post a screenshot with the red dots? And a savegame from the same turn perhaps?

 

[AbsintheRed]

It's probably an xml problem in the artdefines files
Nintz, did you install RFCE++ on Beta 12?
Installing it on Beta 11 (or earlier) or on our svn version might cause similar bugs

 

[Nintz]

@Morholt- Er... how do I post a screenshot? Also, It's not a one-time occurence. Many Arab and Russian unit graphics are simply missing.

@Absinthered- Yes I installed it on Beta 12, no other version.

 

[Baron03]

Is there some way create the union of Lublin? Where around the later 16th century all Lithuanian cities flip to Poland peacefully or all polish cities flip to Lithuania peacefully. It should flip to the biggest or strongest one. And only work if they are both AI

 

[Morholt]

@Morholt- Er... how do I post a screenshot? Also, It's not a one-time occurence. Many Arab and Russian unit graphics are simply missing.

@Absinthered- Yes I installed it on Beta 12, no other version.

Press "Print Screen" (the button on your keyboard) or possibly shift+print screen. You get a popup asking what to name the screenshot. Name it whatever and it will appear in My Documents/My Games/Beyond the Sword/Screenshots or something like that.

I still think the most likely reason is that the mod was somehow not installed properly. Perhaps something to do with permissions if you are on Vista/Win7?

Is there some way create the union of Lublin? Where around the later 16th century all Lithuanian cities flip to Poland peacefully or all polish cities flip to Lithuania peacefully. It should flip to the biggest or strongest one. And only work if they are both AI

Well currently Poland is set to respawn as the Union of Lublin if they collapsed before that. You could also implement it as an AI only thing, or as an event chain to include human players as well.

Actually a union mechanic might not be a bad idea for this mod since there will eventually be 6 unions in it: Poland+Lithuania, Castille+Aragon, Denmark+Norway, England+Scotland, Austria+Hungary, Brandenburg(Germany)+Prussia.

Right now Brandenburg+Prussia is represented as in your proposal, with a flip for the AI only. I think an event chain would be more interesting however, and more "fair" since it can also involve the player.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Actually a union mechanic might not be a bad idea for this mod since there will eventually be 6 unions in it: Poland+Lithuania, Castille+Aragon, Denmark+Norway, England+Scotland, Austria+Hungary, Brandenburg(Germany)+Prussia.

Right now Brandenburg+Prussia is represented as in your proposal, with a flip for the AI only. I think an event chain would be more interesting however, and more "fair" since it can also involve the player.

I like this
Really curious what you can exactly come up for this
And more importantly, how smooth does it works ingame

 

[Morholt]

Here's the system I came up with:

Unions are between a primary (the historical master) and secondary civ, and can involve the entire civ or just a part (as in the Prussia-Brandenburg union).

When the date comes, the primary civ gets an opportunity to invite the secondary civ to union talks.


Then the civs go through three phases of negotiations where they gather points from various aspects of their civ. Generally they choose how much to pay, and get score with diminishing returns. The primary civ gets a 50% bonus to its score.

First it's the economic phase:

where civs get score depending on their cash reserve, at the cost of paying money. Notice the "we are so far at an advantage" message which gives an indication of how we are comparing in score so far.

Then it's the bureaucratic phase:

where civs get score depending on stability and number of cities, at the cost of anarchy.

Finally it's the diplomatic phase:

where civs get score depending on accumulated espionage, at the cost of losing those points.

Then the scores are tallied and whoever has the highest score becomes the master of the union, and all involved cities flip to that civ. If the human player should lose, he gets a last minute option to pull out of the negotiations at a cost of permanent -5 stability.