Just wondering, whats your overall goal or vision for this mod, are you thinking of adding more major and minor civs? What do you think the full list of features will look like when you're finished, aside from the best features from other mods? I like what you're doing by the way, just wondering have your goals changed much from the original post.
Wow, this is a such a broad question. To reply quickly, it's pretty much the same: to find the best mod combo while still keeping that RFC feel. I'm not really sure what the final feature list will look like because it depends on feedback. And speaking of feedback...
Sweet Jesus you guys. This is TOO MUCH feedback. Also, I nearly destroyed this mod's future and lost many hours yesterday trying to recover it. Basically I somehow deleted my source files. It's a long story, but I hadn't SVN'd them. Fortunately I was able to pull it out of the recycle bin but it wasted quite a bit of time.
Safavids almost done, with the exception of UHV 2 and 3 as well as AIWars.py, the latter of which I've been lazy about and have been procrastinating on because I don't like touching overlay maps with a 10 ft stick. Matching the coordinates in the files to the coordinates on the map is always a hassle.
Why dont u just change the name into Khwarazmian dynasty after 1140 ad. If anything it makes more sense realistically and historically. I mean Khwarezem were a province of the Seljuks until the governor decided to conquer the empire and establish a new dynasty; all that changed was the lineage and capital. Both empires contained the same area, people, and religion. For RFC purposes, at best I would call it a Civil War.
I guess but if the Seljuks conquer from Iran to Turkey, which the Khwarazmids didn't, how would I get rid of that?
Those are just independents with a few extra graphics. Im asking if u can make them real minor
civs like the Zengids in SOI. If u play CIA you will notice that even though Persia and India have different flags, they dont have a border inbetween. The thing in CIA is great of the Sassanids and the Ethiopians in 600 ad but I think the Turkic dynasties deserve to be a proper minor civilization.
That's cuz they haven't been given separate colors, which is laughably simple to do if you're so concerned. Diplomacy is not something I want to add, however.
IF its not possible to give them diplo midway then I think u should give it to them at the start. I think that they had a very real impact that warrants diplo. As you know the Timurids were one of the most powerful but you should also note that Uzbek Khanate had warring and peaceful relations with the Safavids and if they are alway at war with Persia I fear that will be defeated and swollowed even before Russia enters the scene. Giving Turkic Civ diplomacy will really create a dynamic and better gameplay envoirnment in the Middle East (Diplomacy was also one of the reasons Korea was added). All in all, I dont really see a negative in giving them Diplomacy and as far as the LeaderHeads are concerend u can just import them from SOI or even do flags if u want.
The thing is that, one, you can't give them diplo halfway, and two, they'll fill up a civ slot by making them a civ with which you can communicate.
Here is a summary of my plan (im not saying that u should script most of these things except for spawns, names etc; this is what i think the ideal situation would look like with my plan but a bit of variation is fun too)
-Seljuk Horse Archer spawn in Lower Central Asia at war with Arabia and Independents.
-Conquer most if not all of Central Asia and Iran and parts of Anatolia and Mesopotamia.
-Declare peace with Arabs if the are not collapsed (dont have to)
-name change into Khwarazmian dynasty after 1140 ad (accompanied by a capital change if u want to but i dont think it really matters)
-1230 ad the Mongols come into contact with Khwarazemian and conquers event triggers.
-In the Next few turns the Mongols conquer Central Asia and Persia.
-Mongols come into contact with the Arabs and a conqueres event lead to the sack of Baghdad.
-The Timurids are born and flip the Mongols territories in Persia and Central Asia.
-Ottoman and Safavid spawn/wars leads to the Timurids only controlly Central Asia.
-Name change to Khanate of Bukhara
-Several Persian-Uzbek conflicts leading to mixed results
-Russia expands into Central Asia and vasslizes the Khanate. Name change to Russian Turkestan.
- Russia switches to Communism and name change to Turkestan A.S.S.R
-If russia swithes to something else the Bukarate becomes independent as Central Asian Republics
Don't you find this too deterministic?
Bad idea. The Black Death (and the sufferings of the native Americans) were more than enough to stop wars or cripple societies' ability to defend themselves.
It's enough damage. Play the game, you'll find it's perfectly fine this way.
One good change from RFC would be reduce pop more for cities that are larger to begin with.
This happens naturally with unhappiness and sickness.
Jewish proselytization basically ended after the conquests of Edom and Moab in David's time, although the Jews themselves spread out considerably. Judaism makes more sense in Civ if considered to represent ancient ME religions generally. Elsewhere I see a mention of double revenue for ToS; this does capture flavor of ancient stories told about splendor of Solomon's court--but should still be capped at +20 total or whatever the cap is for other religions. Hmm. No, even that is not justifiable if Israel is not playable. The prestige of the Temple was only strong when Israel/Judea was independent (Solomon and Maccabees/Herodians).
Wait but that defeats the purpose. Then any religion would end up with 20 gold in the end, it would just become a question of time. And the temple is not even found in the 600 Ad start.
Later I see you plan to delete Judaism in favor of Zoroastrianism + Protestantism. Z would not be an improvement; even less spread than J, and essentially dead now. P OK, but raises generally Q of schisms. Orthodox Christianity more important over longer time than the C/P split, and the Sunni/Shia split also at least as important.
It's not a plan, it's been done, along with the C/P split. Have you tried playing the mod yet? And the Sunni Shia split is what I'm working on right now. Z was, for a long time, one of the world's great religions. And how is O more important than P? How many wars did the O/C clash inspire, as compared to the C/P split?
I'm gonna work on Ortho too, it's just that DoC had Protestantism so it was imported over.
No strong states--ever--in North Africa after Carthage, or in Mesopotamia after Sumer/Babylon/Assyria/Babylon, or in Peru. Mexico arguably justifiable on potential if politics had not be so dysfunctional so often (and U.S. so aggressive). "Poor Mexico: so far from God and so close to the United States."
The Berber dynasties are certainly important enough to be worthy of inclusion. They were certainly stronger than say, Korea or the Khmer, and definitely stronger than the Maya, Aztec, or Inca
Good. Many good things here, but this especially important. There is a problem with the Keshik as a unit in BtS--speed should be faster over plains/grass (3?), but not over hills.
Why? The Keshik has two movement. This is useless on a hill because the hill requires two movement, making the Keshik the same speed as any other land unit.
-Mostly good, except: Carthage should have a food resource, not sure about Tripoli. Dunno where they got their elephants, but doubt local.
-Doubt Afghan gems significant.
-Viking passage to America good, but better arrange so shorter from Norway than from Scotland. Not sure blocking access beyond Newfoundland is justifiable. The real barrier was the natives.
-Detroit was contested during the WoI; not sure what that should mean for spawn area.
-Removing ancient Anatolian cities is definitely right (unless a Hittite civ is included, which is probably not justifiable as its internal organization virtually ensured it would collapse as fast as it did).
1) Doesn't it have a wheat?
2) See lapis lazuli
3) Making it shorter is impossible. I could, however, make the route from Scandinavia the ONLY route. That works. And my new idea is to temporarily allow Viking passage through via an ice free passage. Then I'll block it up with ice, isolating the new colony. Native spawns should do it in.
4)Shouldn't automatically get it at birth.
Someone suggested a JA goal of occupying East Asia. I think very good. Requirement should be everything actually held in 1944 (except maybe Pacific islands) plus at least one, maybe two, of: collapse China; a city in India beyond Burma; a city in Siberia; a city in Australia; a city taken from U.S.
Dunno if you tried this but recreating the greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere under the Japanese is very tough ingame.
Eh. Does making Ancient Middle East more crowded help? And what does your playtesting show about effect on constraining Rome? If Rome gets an easier time, this is a disimprovement compared with RFC Carthage.
It's not more crowded because Phoenicia usually gets conquered, surviving on through their colony in Carthage. And who cares if it's a "disimprovement" for Carthage? Conquistadores are a "disimprovement" for the New Worlders. (I believe the correct term would be malus or negative but whatever)
You need to be clear what civ this is. If Renaissance Italy is the idea, then Fascism and Ethiopia have no place, maybe not even any conquest goals except keeping others out of Italy. Maybe must control all cities + no foreign culture on some date.
Civs in RFC represent groups of polities of similar geographic and cultural inclinations, not just one specific polity in history. This is not Europa Universalis, unfortunately.
A
lso, MUST have some kind of governmental weakness. First thing that occurs would be a tendency of individual cities to revolt even when stability is good, resulting in frequent or even near-constant civil war. But you would have to get all the culture and buildings back when the city was recovered .... Even better, no capital, i.e., no city that was immune to revolt. Not sure how workable in practice. Maybe there are mechanisms you could use that I don't know about.
This is a really good idea. Well not the capital thing in any event. But the other stuff.
G
ood except that this civ should also have governmental weaknesses. Not sure what best way would be since historically Byz oscillated between robust and weak periods. Weakness should be greatest vs. Muslim civs. Maybe Muslim civs have an especially easy time reducing city defenses with spies.
Also, although this does not really address the weak government problem, might be appropriate to automatically place Islam and/or automatically remove Christianity when Ms take a city from Byz. And Byz UHV should require that all cities be Christian.
If you've played the game-which I doubt, from reading your posts- you'd know the Byzantines fare horrifically when the Arabs spawn.
Makes sense, although this unit is awfully strong already. It is a good representation of the initial spread of Islam. Maybe after some date its cost should go way up.
Trust me... it's balanced
OK, a bit more.
1. Splitting HRE and Germany would be fine (call latter Prussia, not Germany). But it involves you in complexity, because after one has Nationhood (+ maybe other techs) and one or more or France and some others also do, it should be possible for either to absorb the other, becoming Germany.
The plan, I believe, was to have Prussia flip north Germany/ Poland, incite war, and unite Germany, as is historical.
2. Native Americans did not have level of organization to count as civs on this scale, except maybe Iroquois and Cherokee briefly just before destroyed. I guess you could make a case that the Anasazi/Navaho could gotten further if the climate had not changed against them. Forget the plains tribes--even "late stone age" would be generous.
I'm not including them.
3. Korea would be nice if the balance problems are not too serious.
They're already in, in the SVN at least. Play the game, I think they're relatively balanced;
4. Zulus not justifiable.
5. The problem with Assyrians/Hatti/Sumerians/Hittites is simply how many ancient Mesopotamians do you want? Not obvious game needs more than one.
Agreed.
Israel was minor, but then so was Phoenicia, which was not even a state. You definitely don't want both.
No Israel.
The "heterogenous" rule is violated by Italy and arguably by lots of others. I wouldn't worry about it if the civ is identifable, interesting, and important over centuries, and was at least potentially a strong state or federation or league.
I do have some issues with Italy, personally. I'm thinking of moving them to 1801. perhaps
Historically Hindus have gotten along poorly with everybody, especially Buddhists and Muslims. The relatively pacifist reputation derives mainly from suppression under British rule and from British preference to recruit Sikhs and Muslims for Indian Army. Brits used to say that Hindus were "not a martial race" but a quick look at the Sepoy Rebellion or the history of Ceylon/Sri Lanka will put paid to that. MOre important issue was that, like most colonial powers, they preferred to recruit from the local minorities for divide-and-rule reasons.
Muslims, yes. They have full penalties. Buddhists, the only incident I can think of is the Shri Lankan conflict.
This does not feel right. The silk road was real, but otherwise no incarnation of Persia was especially famous as a commercial society. Have you had other thoughts re Persian UP? (Actually, the RFC Bablyonian UP of no city resistance would not be bad, at least for the Classical period.)
They were pretty well known for their trade, the Safavids. Especially in silk and rugs.
Re the silk road: It would nice if there was some bonus to controlling (or vassalizing) the space from China to Persia. Dunno if best done as a quest or .....
There is the obvious fact that you would get a lot of the silk corporation.
Moving the Vikings from Nidaros to Oslo may not be an improvement from the overpopulation point of view.[.QUOTE]
They were historically more concentrated in that region, so high population there isn't much of an issue.
I saw some mention of uncuttable forests. That or more hills would help keep the Vikings/Scandanivians small. Probably the ideal way to control Scandinavian population would to allow virtually no farmable tiles N. of Copenhagen/Malmo and make them rely on fish, etc.. At first only a few, but allow the number available to gradually grow, either by adding resources semi-randomly over time or by placing some on ocean tiles (can workboats go onceans with appropriate tech)?
Ya, they can. I'll think about this (not the forests being uncuttable, however).
While slowing spread of religion in Scandiania would be nice, "paganism" as a religion would seem to negate the purpose of religions in Civ.
It's still a maybe right now. The problem with civ dynamic is the high spread rate of religion to religionless cities, even if they're thousands of miles away. Hence the Islamic Vikings.
The key Shia religious sites are the pilgrimage cities, mainly Najaf and Karbala. There are no others of nearly comparable importance.
I'm unclear why one needs a separate list of World Wonders for different religions. Seems to violate the spirit of the concept. Giving certain wonders different NAMES depending on the state religion of the builder makes perfect sense, though--as might prohibiting certain ones to civs with no state religion.
Um what about the SoI wonders?
And the latter suggestion may very well be impossible. And what's unclear about it? Obviously a Christian society would have no use for the Shah mosque.
Good choice. Re other map changes:
Spread of coffee (and many others actual or possible: cotton, sugar, tobacco, tea, rubber, potatoes, etc.) is an excellent idea. It should become more likely a if civ with certain techs (Plantation, Astronomy, others?) has contact with the country that has the resource (Brits smuggling tea plants to plant in India, for example; rubber from Congo to Brazil). Probably should not depend on econ. civics; efforts to prevent this sort of thing rarely worked.
This is a cool idea.
Dynamic climate is a truly excellent idea, but it should break into two parts:
-Non-anthropogenic. Q here is whether this should have a large random component. Obvious answer is yes: while climate oscillations happen, we don't know whether the Medieval High or the Little Ice Age were bound to occur. But effects could be quite unbalancing. And trying to balance with this in effect will be very hard; your better choice may be not to try. So this is going to be a matter of taste. I for one look forward to a civ version in which climate 500 years from now is not guaranteed, but others' mileage might vary. So if you do this it should be optional.
So I'll make those random, varying in both occurrence and (assuming they occur) intensity.
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lso, to respond to the guy who objected to cities in Sahara, it would have to possible for cities to dissolve themselves if not enough food. Most elegant way would be if city tile could be reduced to 1 or even 0 food, or if maybe add unhealthiness to cities with too few non-desert tiles. But those would not really be right flavor as city might take 100s of years to die or might stabilize at 1-2. Better would be a trigger that dissolves cities under right conditions even if pop. is > 1. Some fairly famous places disappeared--or were reduced to towns not significant on civ scale--quite quickly under combination of desertification, loss of trade routes, anarchy, and war (e.g., Palmyra).
I was thinking of exactly this. it seems rather rage-quit inducing, but that's fine by me. Don't found cities in the desert then.
-Anthropogenic. As mentioned in an RFC post, this has been going on since Sumerian times. You'll need to decide how to model. Probably need heftier penalties for cutting forests/jungles and long-term penalties for farming, especially in interaction with each other (more farms worse if fewer forests), but should take time before they appear. That in turn probably means bigger short-term payoff for cutting (to compensate). To make it more complicated, timber is more valuable not where there is more of it but where it can be transported to city cheaply. Maybe cutting worth more hammers if tile is connected by river/road in the same way as a special?
These are all really good ideas.
Btw, a floods disaster that becomes pretty common if you have been farming along same river for a long time (time matters because main cause is riverbeds silting up until above surrounding ground) and--maybe--even more likely if unstable would be well justified. It is true that some rivers (Nile) are essentially immune to this, some exceptionally vulnerable (Yellow, Indus), and some in between (lower Yangtze and Mississippi). But as a game mechanic you could ignore that. Should NOT depend on length of river (see recent Queensland floods), only on number of farms within city cross adjacent to river(s) and how long the farms have been there.
Ya this would go with historical natural disasters.
Oh yeah, Timurids and Seljuks. As someone (you?) pointed out, Timurids can be thought of as later Mongols (all the sea-of-grass civs can be thought of as successors to each other). As such, Timurids make more sense as a re-spawn than as a minor. Seljuks and Ottomans can similarly be thought of as equivalent. It was not obvious ex ante which Turkish branch would become a great empire. So for both, rather than minors it makes more sense to allow both these civs easier than normal triggers for re-spawning (Nationhood not required, larger re-spawn area than original, maybe other relaxations also). There are others for whom this would make sense too, most obvious China, India, Babylonians/Mesopotamians, and (maybe) Persians, Slavs/Russians, Vikings/Scandinavians. Actually probably makes sense for Americans too when you think about likely development if USA had failed early. Also, allowing this for Greeks, Romans, and HRE could eliminate need for separate Byzantines, Italians, and Germans (although I like your ideas for these three, and have made suggestions).
I was also thinking about this. However I'm not a hundred percent sure. Scripted respawns seem to work fine for now. For the other civs you mentioned:
1) China- scripted respawns
2) India- i was thinking of making a south Indian civ to represent the Chola, Chalukya, and eventually Maratha empires. There's always been that dynamic in India of conflict between north and south. And then the current Indian civ could respawn as the Muglas.
3) Persians have a scripted respawn as Iran right now.
4)Slavs/ Russians? We don't have a Slav civ.
5) Vikings will probably get a scripted respawn.
6) Again, this seems too much effort to remove Italians, Byzantines, Germans to make them just respawns. And Italy right now is a scripted respawn.
Hmm. There is a good case for a Latin American civilization a la the one in 7 Ages. Bolivar's efforts might have held together better than they actually did. But to follow this up you would need more complicated triggers for appearance of 0-n American civilizations, with different names, UPs, and UHVs depending on whether the spawn sites had been British, French, Spanish, or other at time of spawning. Plus idea that there was nothing fore-ordained about appearance of U.S. could infuriate some more narrow-minded players. You probably think you have enough to work on.
Now I really will go to bed.
Yes, I was thinking of a Gran Colombia civ, with a Bolivar LH.
Also, ck, see Leoreth's posts.
Now I am confused. I thought that this was Linkman226's project, so I was writing mainly to him. Is it actually you, or both of you?
Read the OP. This a synthesis of multiple mods, the most predominant being Leoreth's DoC.
We'll disagree here. Disease could make a civilization completely unable to defend itself. Worst examples in North America.
Yes you're right, and it still does this.
Maybe any Christian or Muslim civ. should get a bonus of some kind for control of Jerusalem; certainly they nearly all either spent effort on it at one time or another or talked about doing it--even the Russians and modern France. Even now U.S. Protestant fundamentalists favor pro-Israel FP for religious reasons. A bonus in AP votes would be the right flavor, but the AP does not always exist and is not both Christian and Muslim at once. A bonus in relations with all of your religion, even across schisms? A stability bonus? And of course it should be on the expansion map for all Christian and Muslim civs.
So this inspired me to add Titles from SoI. A title from a civ controlling the Holy land would be cool. And some other titles I thought up, but I'm afraid if I shared them I'm going to get
excessive feedback and lose time from modding trying to respond to ridiculously long posts. No offense or anything, but aren't we jumping the gun discussing so much stuff that won't be put in for some time anyways?
Except that the time period when Z was important even in Persia was not long. By this logic ancient Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Carthaginian religions should also be in, along with traditional German/Norse religion and state Shinto. And maybe Druidism, if we consider that Christianity was not certain to come to dominate Western Europe. Judaism is touchy because it was never the religion of a major civ; at most "present" in 8-10 cities at civ. scale. The point of including it, if you do, is because that is how we remember the history of the world and because of the importance others have attached to Jerusalem.
None of those are still alive today except for Shinto, and Shinto was never organized. Also, again, Z was considered one of the world's great, large religions.
I'm suggesting that a better (well, more historical) barrier would be stronger natives. Then when plague gets them or Europeans have better units .... Btw, it would be cute to bar gunpowder-era units from being carried by galleys. Dunno how hard that would be. And to have plague hit Americans much harder than anyone else.
Don't think this would be hard.
Still disagree re UHVs related to Fascism or to Italy's modern colonial effort. The Mussolini episode was a moment, not characteristic of Italian civilization from 1167 onward. Not like Germany where hypernationalism/expansionism/anti-Slav racism/anti-Semitism had deep roots.
This sounds blatantly racist.
Besides, making Italy like a very junior Germany is boring. Renaissance Italian city states are different from nearly all other civs and therefore interesting.[/QUOTE]
Opinions, opinions.
The Synthesis project is Linkman's but it's based mainly on my own modmod Dawn of Civilization, where the aspects you mentioned originated from. I took the liberty to reply because I'm the one who added them in the first place
This is correct.
As a German myself, I beg to differ. A LOT.
Justifiably so
Jesus, that took a lot of time!
I'll answer the first post because it seems to be focusing on things taken over from DoC.
