My suggestions for the new RFCDoC

[Nikas Kunitz]

Hello, RFCDoC community! And hello, Leoreth, if you're reading this! You made a great job with continuing and continuing developing this mod over the years and with new update coming up one can firmly say that RCCDoC became both most advanced among RFC mods and one of the best mods for Civ4 in general! And your working productivity, Leoreth, is both amazing and admirable!

I've spent a lot of time with both RFC mods and RFCDoC in particular. When my friend brought me Civ4 around 10 years ago it went quite special - I almost immediately discovered original RFC and, as this mod aimed at representing historical process more concretically, this took much more of my attention and time than vanilla BtS, as history is both a field of interest and professional study for me. One can't say that RFC is a really good representation of historical process though, so my attention shifted to other RFC mods over the years, including DoC. And there kicked in one of my main personality traits that I now see pretty well over years of self-reflecting - whenever something grabs my attention strong and long enough, I inevitably will start to imagine a better version of this thing, be it game, book or general setting, discovering and fixing any issues I see, or adding something I find missing. And, jeez, mods for Civ is certainly turned to be such a thing for me! I've spent years on personal modmoding, mostly improving maps and fine tuning this and that. As history without georgraphy is like physics wthout mathematics, my interest in georgaphy find a great use in civ mods. Going a bit off, reflecting over Civ (not just 4 and mods, but also 5 and 6) and other games, trying to imagine a perfect representation of historical process led me to one conclusion - there's no way to really simulate history in a game (maybe until we would get billions of perfect free will AIs in perfectly simulated environment), but still there can be an optimal game aimed at such an ideal. Funnily enough, I noticed that a lot of people, even historians, actually look at studying history in way like it's a civ game - trying to find out "hidden mechanics" and "code" that fundamentally determines historical process - in opposite, I now see history as essentially a reaction of human beings to circumstances of their existence, and any historical theories should be build up from that (not down to that from some fundamental "mechanics").

Returning to RFCDoC. I think over the past years I had 3 or 4 "periods" with RFCDoC - whenever a new version was released, I started to implement my improvements to it - more and more with every next version starting anew. This culminated around 3 years ago - my improvements over the map and files of DoC 1.16 were going deeply until I discovered CivilizationsReborn modmodmod that added so much of civs I long wanted to see in the game. So, I modded the modmodmod even more than DoC 1.16 itself, trying to squeeze as much of what it can be improved into (mostly speaking about the map) as I could. Everything was going well until I decided to change starting dates of some civs (actually, upcoming DoC version also has a lot of these changes in relation to France, Mali and Khmer). I sucessfully changed all the needed files, game ran and play test started - only for me to discover that, apparently, unique powers are hardcoded in dll files, so, as the order of civs was changed, UPs now were assigned wrongly (especially considering how much of new civs CivilizationsReborn added). Not being able to solve this, I lost my ethusiasm for RFCDoC for next 3 years.

I kept my eye on developing of new version of RFCDoC though, especially regarding the map. However, I abstained myself from diving deeply into following the development, just was checking from time to time. When 1.17 released I tried it a bit only to have a sad discover that settler, stability and other python maps are now unopenable in the game itself (maybe I'm just missing something?) - that certainly was important for my personal modmoding.

Some days ago I checked again and discovered that new version and map are actually play testable now, so I downloaded and went for it. Although I was sceptical while checking it in the past, now I actually find new map to be quite a great work! However, just as in the past, I still see a lot of smaller issues with it - I will post my propositions about the map, along with other ideas I accommulated for RFCDoC over the years in this thread. I hope my propositions would be considered, evaluated and implemented.
The first questions is - when 1.18 is planned to be released? How much time I have to write my ideas here?

As a small illustration - here are some of the few screenshots I have on what I was doing with improving RFCDoC and CR.

 

[Leoreth]

Thanks for the kind words, it is great to hear that RFC and DoC as well as its modmods have captured so much of your drive and excitement.

To answer your question, there is no planned release date for 1.18. I believe I have been quite thorough in discussing my plans for the contents of the mod, the timeline of included changes, and where we are right now in this forum. Please visit the associated threads to find out more. But you have all the time in the world to make suggestions.

 

[AOS9001]

Those screenshots of the old map astound me. How did we make do with such small spaces for over a decade? Big map is truly a great leap forward.

 

[Nikas Kunitz]

Thanks for the kind words, it is great to hear that RFC and DoC as well as its modmods have captured so much of your drive and excitement.

To answer your question, there is no planned release date for 1.18. I believe I have been quite thorough in discussing my plans for the contents of the mod, the timeline of included changes, and where we are right now in this forum. Please visit the associated threads to find out more. But you have all the time in the world to make suggestions.

Thank you for your attention! I'll check the threads to see how development was discussed, I remember a bit from the checking it in the past. I hope that the map is still open for suggestions (not global ones, just on improving the landmasses we got). The map and landmasses are good, but still can be improved.

Tomorrow I'll upload screens with my improvements for Europe, especially Eastern Europe. With some work today, I think I managed to make as perfect real map representation as we can get with this scale and landmasses, with thought about how it should play out in game in mind. Since the scale of the new map is way bigger than the old map had, the result is MUCH better looking than what you can see with screens of improved old map I posted above.

Map suggestions would be accompained by suggestions about some civs and their gameplay, particularly Rus and Russia.

 

[Nikas Kunitz]

Those screenshots of the old map astound me. How did we make do with such small spaces for over a decade? Big map is truly a great leap forward.

Yeah, the old map was really small, even though I tried to squeeze out as much more space and improvement as possible as you can see above.

 

[Leoreth]

There is a map discussion/suggestion thread, please direct your proposals there. It is highly unlikely that I will make any changes to the shape of landmasses though.

 

[Nikas Kunitz]

Here I am. Back on the last week I started to work on improving the map and soon I made most of essential things though quick in game worldediting. I made a bunch of screenshots to show them - that's what I meant to post back on saturday. However, on saturday, I changed the plan - I decided to actually implement the changes by carefully editing RFC_Earth.txt file as changing the map with ingame WE is not possible now (and that's good, editing the file is much more "clean" and kinda fun, even if somewhat slower). I also changed many other associated files - most importantly, Areas.py, where I redraw core and birth areas of half of European civs, based on balance between historicity and gameplay on the improved map. After these days of work and polishing the result, I finally got the map of Europe ready to show as I wanted it, based on knowledge and vast library of real maps I accummulated over the years. Also, I ran several autoplay and play tests to see how all of this works - and everything works nicely! Of course, there's still plenty things to balance and adjust, but regarding the map itself I think it is as realistic as possible with such scale and landmasses (I added several (5) necessary tiles to make it more realistic).

Here are the screenshots of general terrain and resources. All of them are based on real geography and history and are "maxed", so to say. That means, if it is really needed, some of them can be removed or, more preferably, made to spawn only later (for the target region civ) in game. Some resources that already are coded to spawn later (wine, citrus, potato, corn) are not shown and would be discussed below, in posts about each region. Some regions were improved more (Eastern Europe), others less (Italy, Britain). Anyway, I based my improvements on existing landmasses and city list (with some changes, mostly in Eastern Europe).

Spoiler Screenshots :

To say again, each region will be discussed in detail, including showing city list, birth and core areas of civs, in posts below. (Just for the curious, Moscow is one tile to east of its original location, over the wheat on the improved map).
You can see main mapmaking principles I prefer - less unrealistic noise (random one tile terrain), real forested areas are forests, unless it is really better for gameplay, significant rivers should be included, forming real river basin patterns. A lot of new terrain types and features added by new RFCDoC really helps to make the map even more realistic! (I especially like moorland terrain, so much needed for realistic transition between grass and tundra)

Because my suggestions and screenshots are quite volumious and do touch a lot of aspects, I will continue to post my suggestions in this thread, doubleposting them in shorter form in respective threads if needed. I will gradually improve whole map and post it here, but for now, in posts below, specific European regions would be described and showcased.

 

[Leoreth]

You can still use worldbuilder to edit the map. My process is to load the 3000 BC scenario, make the changes I want, and then save the WBSAVE file. It is directly compatible with RFC_Earth.txt. I use WinMerge to merge the diff into it without copying scenario specific content.

 

[Nikas Kunitz]

You can still use worldbuilder to edit the map. My process is to load the 3000 BC scenario, make the changes I want, and then save the WBSAVE file. It is directly compatible with RFC_Earth.txt. I use WinMerge to merge the diff into it without copying scenario specific content.

That's good! But I kind of sticked and skilled myself to edit it by notepad editing map files - with WE you always need to be careful and some things (like, all player gold reserves stacking over and over by each load and saving) needed to be corrected.
Do you like the improved map so far, what do you think?
Also, important question - as you can see from my initial post, my odyssey with CivilizationsReborn ended when I tried to change spawn dates of some civs - as I understand, there was hardcoded sequence somewhere in .DLL file for things like UP. As RFCDoC is now modular, can starting dates be freely changed? I would write suggestions about that below, but it could be great if I can change them now for testing. Do I need just to change them in Consts.py (and text info in Civinfo)?
Another question - Poland doesn't appear in every game. I remember there was optional chance of spawning for new DoC civs, but I can't find where it is now.

 

[Nikas Kunitz]

Spain.
Concerning geography and city list: not much was changed, the Iberia as it is is well realistically represented. I moved Mulhacen one tile west to its actual location, on the Granada tile (I don't think this city will normally be founded ingame anyway, but the name should be kept as a reminder about it being in these mountains) to make space for Segura river with its characteristic and notable alluvial plain that defines the region and important since Antiquity port city of Cartagena can be founded on this tile now. Other rivers added: Miño in Galicia, lower course of which defines northern Portuguese-Spanish border and provides fresh water for Santiago and Coruña in one of the wettest regions of Spain. Jucar/Turia river that defines region of Valencia. Changed cources of existing rivers to better fit real maps.
Changed some flatlands to hills to better represent real topography, including moving hill between Toledo and Cordoba one tile east to better represent Sierra Morena/Montes de Toledo ranges and for relative flat Extremadura (occupied by copper, though)
Resources: switched cow and sheep - sheep are very characteristic and historically important for Castile, while cows feel more fitting for wetter Catalonia (this tile with cow can also be changed to hill, while additional cow can be placed in Galicia east of Coruña). Moved wheat in La Mancha to definitely stick it to Toledo for AI; added wheat in Portugal in its main grain region - as far as I know, Portugal historically supplied itself well with local grain and wheat seems to be a good addition to otherwise purely fish diet of Portugal. Moved wine and olives to more proper locations while making plains hills more productive and freeing tiles for important cities of Cadiz and Valencia. Reduced later spawning citrus to only one, on Murcia tile (though Spain became one of leading exporters of citrus fruits in last decades, I think one citrus resource is enough for historical representation). Iron in Portugal can actually be made to appear earlier to help Spain, while Portugal's horse can initially be placed on Salamanca tile south of Leon, (re)moving it to Portugal on its spawn. Finally, added corn spawn in 1700 on Salamanca tile (though corn is more characteristic of Galicia, I think it is better to boost Madrid). Also, crab can be placed on the east coast east of Valencia to boost local cities.

IMPORTANT:
Main suggestions for Spain are about its spawning and early gameplay. Having Spain spawn in Toledo right in 722 is totally ahistorical and also bad for Moors gameplay. In CivilizationsReborn I actually changed Spain starting date all the way to 940 (foundation of the County of Castile, though as part of Kingdom of Leon) while keeping starting tile on Toledo (not much space to manoeuvre on the old map). That alone improved gameplay radically - Moors gained 200 years of peaceful domination over most of Iberia, that they kinda had IRL (they had more problems with their own Berbers than with upstart Asturian Reconquista in the far north, until Xth century). Moors thus could experience their golden age as Caliphate of Cordoba, growing cities and building La Mezquita, without ahistorically losing most of its territory right from the start to threatening Spain.
As such, I suggest moving starting plot of Spain to Leon and setting the starting date to 910 (foundation of the Kingdom of Leon, first truly major contender to Cordoba's power in Iberia). This also fixes problem of two unworkable tiles on northern coast of Spain. In 600 AD scenario, Toletum will be preplaced to represent the Visigothic kingdom (in 3000 BC scenario, it should be founded either by Romans, or by Celts representing Celtiberians). On Moorish spawn, Toletum will flip to them, as Tulaytulah kept its importance as one of the main cities of al-Andalus; Moors should later found Lisbon (as Al-Ishbunah) and Valencia (Balansiyya) or other east coast city. On spawn, Spain will flip whole north-western part of Iberia (historical territory of the Kingdom of Leon), while computer player can also flip tiles farther east, including Catalonia, but Toledo, Lisbon and Valencia should remain Moorish for the reconquista. Spain will start well with technologies (7th column, with or without Doctrine), helping it to first to discover America, and with significant army (atleast 3 lancers and catapults), while at war with Moors. Thus, after 200 years (70 turns on marathon speed) of peaceful development, Moors will face strong adversary. Likely, Spain will quickly capture Toledo (IRL it was in mid XI century) and maybe another city, but developed Moors should be able to give proper resistance for couple of centuries. On gaining Toledo, computer Spain should get its capital relocated here. In later starting scenarios (1700 AD, and, I very wish for, 1500 AD), where Spain controls all of its territory right from the start, Leon may or maybe not included (it gradually lost its importance after the end of Reconquista), with Oviedo, Santander or Bilbao being placed on the northern coast.
I actually implemented all of the described changes with exception of starting date and rebalancing of Spain, and checked it in multiple autoplay tests - everything plays well, but without suggested starting date and rebalancing that goes with it, Spain in 2/3 of games fails to do Reconquista (I enlargened AI flip zone only last time) and often Moors completely subdue unbalanced Spain (leading to really advanced Al-Andalus in following centuries).
Here are screenshots of suggested flip zones (core areas are same as now, Spain starts with Toledo in its core, but not flipping it. Later Spain core should expand to all of modern Spain) and some cities. Also, several screenshots of autoplay tests. In one peculiar case Tarragona got razed and Spain found Huesca and Barcelona on its own (I hadn't changed Spain settler map back at his moment), and in another Moors for some reason hadn't founded Cordoba and got theit capital in flipped Toledo while founding Sevilla.

Spoiler Screenshots :

 

[Nikas Kunitz]

France.
Not much was changed with France, especially with its rivers. I added only Dordogne flowing into Garonne estuary near Bordeaux, while Rhine was changed a bit (it is how it realistically looks with this map scale), getting major tributaries of Moselle and Maas (Meuse) to the west of it. Handful of hills was added: line of hills on major watershed between basins of Seine, Loire and Rhine on one side and Rhône on another; two hills between Brittany, Normandy and Anjou that represent the Massif Armoricain, salt got hill that represents Poitou upland; line of hills continued north among Maas and Moselle representing hilly terrain of Lorraine and West Germany, including famous Ardennes for German surprise blitzkriegs, hehe.
Adjusted resources based on uneasy compomise between regional specifics: before improvement France really lacked pigs, so I put one for Lyon; sheep in the south were moved one tile west to give space for extremely important city of Toulouse, while cow moved from Caen tile to hill to represent Breton and Normand regional speciality in cattle. Added second wheat in the south, near Toulouse, that changes to corn in 1700, while wheat reappears to the north in the centre, boosting Paris or Lyon. Wine and olives spawn as they do, but I added additional wine in north-west, representing important Loire wine region.
Added iron in Normandy - as I know, it was an important place for ironworking since Middle Ages and maps of modern France also label this spot as significant iron mining area. This iron is especially needed since plot with iron in Lotharingia will be flipped to HRE on its spawn, also it provides production boost for Nantes or Paris. Moved coal from Flanders to Picardy - very famous for its.intensive coal mining. Also added coal near Lyon in important mining and industrial area of Saint-Étienne. Moved aluminum one tile east, right under Marseille, but it actually can be moved one tile north now - I was considering this hill in Provence for adding sheep or wine.
In fact, even more resources, particularly food, can be added. Historically, France was Europe's most populated state for centuries (it was 4th in the world in 1600s-1700s), its perfect climate enabled agriculture to thrive, in turn giving rise to huge population of France - one of the main reasons of dominance this country had since Middle Ages.

Considering areas. On the attached screenshot, brighter blue line marks pre-renaissance French core consisting of the bulk of Kingdom of France in Middle Ages. From renaissance, French core should increase and include Rhône valley (Lyon and Marseille), that was part of HRE in Middle Ages. Excluded from the core are modern French areas of Lorraine, Alsace and Rousillon (Perpignan), while Catalonia, Navarre and everything west of the Rhine should be historical areas (including Cologne across the Rhine), so called natural borders of France. Since France now starts in 496 as Frankish kingdom, it should be able settle a city on Rhine, like Aix-la-Chapelle, Cologne or Mayence, and also should be able to settle Bruges or Gand (Ghent, in German and Dutch city lists it will be Antwerpen) in Flanders and Barcelone in Catalonia.

Spoiler Screenshot :

 

[AOS9001]

I think you make a good case for a later Spain start date. Leon, though... I don't know about that. Maybe with your map changes it could be a useful city, but with the current map Leon is worthless.

 

[Nikas Kunitz]

I think you make a good case for a later Spain start date. Leon, though... I don't know about that. Maybe with your map changes it could be a useful city, but with the current map Leon is worthless.

Well, main reason for Leon as starting capital is its historical significance as the capital of the first major Christian kingdom and main Christian center of power in Iberia for several centuries, well until XIIIth century, when capital shifted to Burgos, Valladolid and Toledo. While it was capital, Leon was largest Christian city in Iberia, but after center of power shifted to south-east and major coastal cities were reconquered from Moors, it gradually lost its significance, remaining a regional center. As such, it is not needed for Leon to be a major city throughout all the game, nevertheless, it still solves problem of two northern coastal tiles unreachable from Toledo.

 

[Nikas Kunitz]

Great Britain and Little Britain Ireland.
Not much to change there. Of few changes, added new land plot to better represent Cornwall peninsula (in my opinion, it is not as shallowly connected to the rest of Britain, but is a rather solid continuation of it) with historically important city of Exeter. Changed hills in Ireland to better fit real maps and added Shannon river. Also, added islands to the west of Normandy to represent Guernsey and Jersey islands (check France map above. I surpised it wasn't done yet). Moved some resources a bit, but now it seems that 3 sheeps and 3 cows are too much repetitive for British isles (in addition to 3 potatoes and 2 fishes. British cuisine at its finest). Perhaps cow in England can be replaced with a pig (and switched back with Cornwall sheep?).

Spoiler British isles :

Italy.
I'm certainly not a fan of this boomerang shaped Italy, but I can see that there's no way to represent Italy well on this scale without radically changing everything around. In fact, this Italy is kinda nice, as all main cities fit in well. I hadn't seen much space for improvement at first glance, but actually have more thouhts now. Among few changes that I implemented initally are: moving Arno river one tile to south as it is more correct location and changing Florence plot to a hill to better represent Tuscan hills, specifically for Florence (if Florence was one tile to east this plot could be kept flat) and for mountainous terrain of this part of Italy. Added some other hills in Liguria and Umbria (if I remember correctly). Moved olives to plains hill to make it more productive and to free flatland for Taranto (as a town). Changed Sicilian citrus to spawn one tile north on Messina plot to not replace olives in Sicily (1 olive is not realistic for such huge producer and consumer of it as Italy). Added clam near Florence to boost its growth.
Added corn to spawn in 1700 to the north of Naples to boost its growth (Naples grew much and became largest city in Italy in XVIII-XIXth centuries, before new rise of Milan during industrialisation). Another corn or rice can appear around 1800 or 1850 to the west of Milan to represent growth of Northern Italy.

After implementing abovementioned changes as you can see on the map, I actually noticed quite low growth and development of Northern Italian cities (particularly, Milan) during ingame Middle Ages and Renaissance and quite a radical solution came to my mind: flatlands around Po river can have floodplains spawn on them around 1000 to represent fast growth of Medieval Northern Italy. They may or may not despawn around 1500-1600. Floodplains are very realistic to be here as whole Padanian plain is just a big alluvial bed. This will give very fitting advantage for Italy civ - a lot of specialists can be stacked in Milan, Venice and Florence well representing intellectual boom and numerous great persons Italy produced during this time.
Other than adding floodplains, resources can be rearranged as well - wine moved one tiles south (to free up space for Bologna as town, on floodplain), stone moved to east of pigs, marble moved one tile south right under Florence, and iron probably should be moved and placed instead of marble for Milan (main weaponsmithing center of Italy for centuries, also to represent industrial era industry). Another wine probably should be placed in north-west.

Spoiler Italy :

P.S. even more radical idea came to my mind. Considering how much plains hills we have in Mediterranean and Middle East that lack food but actually were more or less densely populated since Antiquity (particularly it affects Iran), and since we now have alternative terrain types such as semidesert and steppe, I think plains can be changed to add +1 food on hills to give historically needed food and to allow cottages to be built on them. I actually just implemented and tested that, works very well, but rebalance of resources is now needed in some places (atleast around Aegean sea, one fish in the middle of it might be enough to be contested between Athens and Smyrna/Ephesos instead of both havng its own).

 

[IrishDragon]

Great Britain and Little Britain Ireland.
Not much to change there. Of few changes, added new land plot to better represent Cornwall peninsula (in my opinion, it is not as shallowly connected to the rest of Britain, but is a rather solid continuation of it) with historically important city of Exeter. Changed hills in Ireland to better fit real maps and added Shannon river. Also, added islands to the west of Normandy to represent Guernsey and Jersey islands (check France map above. I surpised it wasn't done yet). Moved some resources a bit, but now it seems that 3 sheeps and 3 cows are too much repetitive for British isles (in addition to 3 potatoes and 2 fishes. British cuisine at its finest). Perhaps cow in England can be replaced with a pig (and switched back with Cornwall sheep?).

Spoiler British isles :

View attachment 711414

It seems to be quite common that the Cornwall tile stays unclaimed by AI England, adding the Exeter tile might help. Maybe the Celts could be encouraged to settle southwest England, representing Cornwall, which could be conquered by the Romans or flipped by England.

Ireland shouldn't have coal imo, there was coal mining but deposits were relatively small. One of the first things the new Irish state did was get into a trade war with Britain and stopped importing British coal to the detriment of industry and standard of living due to coal shortages. It was eventually resolved starting with the coal-cattle pact, in a Civ context trading coal for cows

 

[Nikas Kunitz]

It seems to be quite common that the Cornwall tile stays unclaimed by AI England, adding the Exeter tile might help. Maybe the Celts could be encouraged to settle southwest England, representing Cornwall, which could be conquered by the Romans or flipped by England.

Ireland shouldn't have coal imo, there was coal mining but deposits were relatively small. One of the first things the new Irish state did was get into a trade war with Britain and stopped importing British coal to the detriment of industry and standard of living due to coal shortages. It was eventually resolved starting with the coal-cattle pact, in a Civ context trading coal for cows

Yeah, new land plot with a food resource should make settling Plymouth (or even Bristol, though it's close to London) viable.
Coal in Ireland was present beforehand. I noticed it is quite common for Civ maps to place coal in Ireland for some more production. Maybe there's another important mining industry in Ireland?

 

[Dracosolon]

Yeah, new land plot with a food resource should make settling Plymouth (or even Bristol, though it's close to London) viable.
Coal in Ireland was present beforehand. I noticed it is quite common for Civ maps to place coal in Ireland for some more production. Maybe there's another important mining industry in Ireland?

Well supposedly there's gold buried there, but I don't know if a rainbow improvement would work.

Joke aside, this is pretty impressive work though it seems to lean toward an excess of resources that might make Europe (or the whole world if it's like this) too rich.

 

[AOS9001]

If anything, Europe should be food rich and happiness resource poor, so spur them into going conquering and colonizing abroad.

 

[Nikas Kunitz]

Well supposedly there's gold buried there, but I don't know if a rainbow improvement would work.

Joke aside, this is pretty impressive work though it seems to lean toward an excess of resources that might make Europe (or the whole world if it's like this) too rich.

Well, I try to balance between real world reasources, their historical significance and gameplay sense. Only certain regions with dense populations and high historical development (Europe and broad subtropical bend from Mediterranean to South and East Asia) will be really resource (especially, food) rich, other places will have more luxury and mineral resources for colonisation and later development, also reflecting historical population densities. I don't think having resource-rich regions is bad, especially considering that resources now have limit for certain number of cities per unit.

 

[Nikas Kunitz]

If anything, Europe should be food rich and happiness resource poor, so spur them into going conquering and colonizing abroad.

Exactly. There's only wine in the south, furs in the north-east with some silver and gold sprinkled around (with gold to despawn gradually), so European civs should expand beyond to get luxuries, just like what was initial drive for colonialism. Especially this is evident for Britain with its cows and sheeps, player really should rely on trade or colonies.