Realism Invictus

[Walter Hawkwood]

This system gave rise to a long and powerful military tradition, faithful to the Sultanate, from which emerged many great generals, commanders and even pashas. The most famous being the Mamluks who ended up ruling over Egypt (although their origins were much more diverse than just Eastern Europe).

While Mamelukes were indeed ex-Christian slaves (mostly), their existence pre-dates Ottoman presence in Egypt, and their origins have nothing to do with Ottoman janissaries (while I know you know that, had to point it out as the way your post was written could leave an impression that Mamlukes were Ottoman in origins).

It was definitely fueled by the Catholic / Portestant hatred, but there were other reasons both more theological and resulting (in my opinion) from a sheer ignorance of islam in the parts of Europe (mostly north) in which protestanism flourished. Above all the Reformation rejected the clergy, their intermediation between the faithful and God, which they considered was a corruption to sacred texts. They saw in islam a monotheism that had no intermediate (at least in its sunni form) clergy and held the sanctity of scriptures to a degree higher than any christian denomination, and that was very appealing to several prominent protestant theologians.

Even more than that, the Protestants (and sympathisers, such as France) had a very clear "the enemy of my enemy" dynamic with the Ottomans, the pre-eminent Islamic nation of the time. Habsburg emperors, leaders of the Catholic cause, had to split their attention and forces between the Protestants and the Ottomans, so any success of Islamic forces directly translated into more breathing room for Protestants. Franco-Ottoman alliance was even a thing for a while, and resulted in some joint naval operations.

On the subject of barbary pirates and Carthage, I've been meaning to ask for a while now, what's the philosophy behind giving the barbary pirates to Carthage? While Carthage is my most played civ by far, I'll be the first to point out that the Carthage flavor thins out drastically after the Classic era and what's left feels like a second Berber civilization with a sprinkle of Arabian and Middle Eastern. Their units are flavored as Hafsids, Moors, Ikwhan, Maghreb, and ultimately Middle Eastern at the end of the tech tree, all of which feel like a stretch to be in the "Carthage" group. Unlike other civs that seem to follow a group of people over time and their cultural influences, Carthage feels more like "whichever people happened to exist in the eastern Maghreb, and then at the end Middle Eastern".

Same design philosophy as all the other civs in RI, really. Look at Egypt, for example - the same territorial continuity with cultural discontinuity. Kemetic to Hellenic to Islamic. In case of Carthage I was tempted to add Vandal as well, but there are very few sources on how Carthagian Vandals are supposed to look, and I feared people would get confused from having purely Germanic-looking units in Carthagian roster. So Carthagian civs directly skips over Roman and Vandal rule, as Punic Carthage gives enough units for a full Classical era roster, and Islamic conquests give a full Medieval roster. Carthage should definitely get the Barbary pirates, as Tunis was the base of operations for the most famous of them all, Hayreddin Barbarossa.

The slogan itself ''Rather Turk than Popish'' is something we could very well hear today

To me, it feels like it might have been a direct inspiration for the later "better dead than red" (with the caveat that it didn't originate in the US, as current use would have given one an impression, but from Nazi Germany, and for them it wasn't inconceivable to have known and consciously paraphrase the original).

 

[RamsesII]

Oh yeah you're right about this, something similar and very curious that happened here in my land is a Magyar designer (Pál Király) that after WW2 fled here and was accepted in the design of weapons for our army and we DEFINITELY beneficiated a lot from his presence. Whether foreign ethnical and cultural presence really represents a threat to one's national identity is another question, but it is true I went out of the actual discussed facts Considering how big of a deal immigration is starting to become around the world, and how big it has been for decades here, I can get a bit excited when it is mentioned. Honestly, I'd like to know your opinion about immigration, at the very least based in your homeland (considering this is one of those topics whose sentiment tend to change from culture to culture).

Interesting Hungarian chap! I'll try to read on it, thanks. On immigration... this is such a vast and politcally loaded subject that I'd rather stay away from my own opinions, which are... well just mine, and biased like any opinion I guess. It's just a fact that when mass human migrations alter the always delicate cultural mix of a certain society, it has the potential to cause very severe issues.

Yes! and also other Europeans pirates of English and Dutch descend. The common denominations for them based on their lifestyle were ''Fillibusters'' and ''Buccaneers'', they settled in Tortuga Island and eventually both France and England grew interest in taking the island. The reason for Spain to abandon the west was contraband, it was getting out of hands and something had to be done. You can read more if you wish. French used this to their advantage and took the west, bringing african slaves along.

Yes ok, they were flibustiers or corsairs, semi-autonomous but losely working for their home nations to undermine a rival's influence - in this case, Spain. I recently read a vast History of the French Caribbeans, in particular the largest colony which was Saint-Domingue (later Haiti). It was both fasscinating but so sad to read the sheer hubris of the French (in this case, but applicable to many other such cases in the area) land owners who were getting so rich with their plantations that it spiraled out of control. Because they were connected at the highest levels of the powerful French nobility, they could mobilize immense capital to invest, and of course slavery (African) was going to be the fuel in the engine to obtain sky-rocketing profits. I read that at some point the Spanish colonists in the other part of Hispaniola and also in Cuba, were alarmed at the ever increasing ratio of slaves vs Europeans (which the Spanish always kept below 50% I believe, and even that was considered too dangerous). In Saint-Domingue ratios reached 90% at some point, such tragic story of human hubris out of control, degradation on a massive scale of fellow humans, erupting into warfare and then a free country (Haiti) which up to this day, cannot really recover. I was amazed also tto read the vast geological damage done to the lands - deforestation in particular. By the way as you may know, a lot of those French colonists (the rich and powerful ones) fled to Cuba and Fllorida, sometimes with their slaves, when Saint-Domingue fell. In contrast the History of the Dominican Republic (where you are from, right?) seems much smoother if I may say...

Yep! It's going very nice for such a high difficulty, any beginner tips for Monarch you can supply? It's surprising how far I've gone in the score, but the chinese have gone absolutely mad and have like 50 more points than me, which does not really bother me because when I met them they had almost 100 more I haven't met Japan yet but if they are so tough in your game then they must be in mine too. I am really curious how are American empires doing, the Incas must be thriving!

It's my second game of civ4 and my first as Monarch so I am probably more of a beginner than you are! I pay attention to military ratios, I try not to get below 1.0 with anyone and if it's too costly (such as in my game right now vs Japan), 0.8 is my ultimate limit. I never let it go in the red... I defend my cities well and build walls + castle everywhere. I build (and garrison properly) forts where there are interesting chokepoints (in the case of Egypt, a well defended fort at Suez on a hill will deter any invasion attempt until well the Renaissance at least). I pay attention not to be behind on military techs, so I tend to beeline them like I guess most beginners do. The various levels of archers are vital I feel, as they make cities very hard to take. I promote them to be even better at defending cities. The other defensive element is having a sizeable mobile cavalry stack (or several), with the right promotions depending on terrain. Offense are the melee troops, I pay less attention to those and just assemble a large force (of... militia, axemen, swordsmen, men-at-arms) with a few siege units when I plan on conquering a city. And then of course, skirmichers rock, until surprisingly late (Middle-Ages). Religion plays an important role in diplomacy; what I have done in this game (with judaism as it spread to my cities first) was to embrace it and spread it to all the neighbours I was not planning to conquer, so as to pacify most of my borders and let them take the blunt of assaults from other empires practising a different faith. It's worked out well so far.

 

[RamsesII]

While Mamelukes were indeed ex-Christian slaves (mostly), their existence pre-dates Ottoman presence in Egypt, and their origins have nothing to do with Ottoman janissaries (while I know you know that, had to point it out as the way your post was written could leave an impression that Mamlukes were Ottoman in origins).

I kind of knew, but I'd like to deep dive one day with a good book (do you of one?). I have in mind that the main ethnic branch of Egyptian Mamelukes were Albanians, but I don't know how accurate that is. But some were Turkic, Circassians... not sure there is a historic equivalent elsewhere...

Even more than that, the Protestants (and sympathisers, such as France) had a very clear "the enemy of my enemy" dynamic with the Ottomans, the pre-eminent Islamic nation of the time. Habsburg emperors, leaders of the Catholic cause, had to split their attention and forces between the Protestants and the Ottomans, so any success of Islamic forces directly translated into more breathing room for Protestants. Franco-Ottoman alliance was even a thing for a while, and resulted in some joint naval operations.

French king François Ier famously let a large Ottoman fleet winter in the port of Toulon, from which they could attack Spanish cities and vessels. It created spectacular uproar at the time in the region (Provence), and within religious circles in France. The wiki link tells a tiny bit of the story...

Ottoman wintering in Toulon - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[[Y]]

Same design philosophy as all the other civs in RI, really. Look at Egypt, for example - the same territorial continuity with cultural discontinuity. Kemetic to Hellenic to Islamic. In case of Carthage I was tempted to add Vandal as well, but there are very few sources on how Carthagian Vandals are supposed to look, and I feared people would get confused from having purely Germanic-looking units in Carthagian roster. So Carthagian civs directly skips over Roman and Vandal rule, as Punic Carthage gives enough units for a full Classical era roster, and Islamic conquests give a full Medieval roster. Carthage should definitely get the Barbary pirates, as Tunis was the base of operations for the most famous of them all, Hayreddin Barbarossa.

You know, I think we may have had this conversation before.

I see what you're saying, I guess I feel that it isn't all that universal in RI civs, and my general impression was that it was focused more on genetically or culturally related people rather than geography. The American empire has nordic and viking flavors rather than indigenous, France has Frankish ancient/classical era units instead of Gallic, and civs like the Celts, the Hungarians, and the Turks follow a specific peoples around in their migrations rather than represent a specific location which they once inhabited (and whatever people happene to inhabit that land before or after them). Egypt might be consistent geographically, but my understanding was that the Hellenistic and Islamic units in their roster represented the influences on the people, with Egypt the civ still representing the people subjected to those influences, not merely the rough borders of Egypt the state.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

French king François Ier famously let a large Ottoman fleet winter in the port of Toulon, from which they could attack Spanish cities and vessels. It created spectacular uproar at the time in the region (Provence), and within religious circles in France. The wiki link tells a tiny bit of the story...

And that was after their joint siege of Nice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Nice

I kind of knew, but I'd like to deep dive one day with a good book (do you of one?). I have in mind that the main ethnic branch of Egyptian Mamelukes were Albanians, but I don't know how accurate that is. But some were Turkic, Circassians... not sure there is a historic equivalent elsewhere...

Well, with military slavery (ghilman, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghilman) quite pervasive throughout the Islamic world at the time, this was far from an isolated thing actually; here's a quote from Muhammad of Ghor: "Other monarchs may have one son or two sons; I have thousands of sons, my Turkish slaves who will be the heirs of my dominions, and who, after me, will take care to preserve my name in the Khuṭbah (Friday sermon) throughout these territories" (and yes, he was indeed succeeded by his former slaves).

You know, I think we may have had this conversation before.

I see what you're saying, I guess I feel that it isn't all that universal in RI civs, and my general impression was that it was focused more on genetically or culturally related people rather than geography. The American empire has nordic and viking flavors rather than indigenous, France has Frankish ancient/classical era units instead of Gallic, and civs like the Celts, the Hungarians, and the Turks follow a specific peoples around in their migrations rather than represent a specific location which they once inhabited (and whatever people happene to inhabit that land before or after them). Egypt might be consistent geographically, but my understanding was that the Hellenistic and Islamic units in their roster represented the influences on the people, with Egypt the civ still representing the people subjected to those influences, not merely the rough borders of Egypt the state.

Eh, maybe. I definitely had it many times before. I am somewhat surprised every time how people treat as a "gotcha" the fact that human history can't be neatly binned into 100% consistent boxes. Not just actual history, but I also have the specific cards dealt to me by Firaxis, the choices of which I had to respect lest I wanted to tear everything up and start from scratch, and which are far from consistent - a "civilization" Firaxis-style can be as widely defined as "Celts", a group of people spread from Ireland to Asia Minor or as narrow as "Ottomans", a specific historical state with a total lifespan of several hundred years.

But to address your specific examples. The main "omission" I deliberately chose to make is designating a later "start" for many civs, even though their territory was obviously inhabited before as well. Due to Celts being a separate civ, I made a design choice to "start" French and English civs in post-Roman period, so they have unique early units rather than sharing them with Celtic civilization. Likewise, the Hungarians can be treated as "starting" with their migration to Pannonia, and as such also a "single location" - there is nothing specifically pre-dating that in their civ. Likewise, Turks basically "start" with Seljuks, and Seljuk-Rum-Ottoman-Turkey progression is fairly location-consistent (even if "creeping" to the West a bit).

The "people subjected to those influences" bit is almost always true throughout history, as the local population was almost never replaced by any new conqueror radically and quickly enough to make a "clean break". Notably, returning to the original example, despite Romans being quite thorough in their destruction of the city of Carthage, Tunisian region maintained a large Punic population afterwards, even though you're right in that it gradually mixed with local Berbers. "Two Berber civs" from a certain time period onwards is a rather fair appraisal, just as Turkish and Transoxian civ are "two Turkic civs" from a certain period onwards. I'm don't see anything wrong with that, as it is on the same level as treating, say, Scandinavia and Germany as separate civs, rather than lumping them together into a "Germanic" one or lumping Poland and Russia into a single "Slavic" civ.

 

[RamsesII]

And that was after their joint siege of Nice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Nice

Well, with military slavery (ghilman, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghilman) quite pervasive throughout the Islamic world at the time, this was far from an isolated thing actually; here's a quote from Muhammad of Ghor: "Other monarchs may have one son or two sons; I have thousands of sons, my Turkish slaves who will be the heirs of my dominions, and who, after me, will take care to preserve my name in the Khuṭbah (Friday sermon) throughout these territories" (and yes, he was indeed succeeded by his former slaves).

Both interesting links, thanks a lot. I had forgotten about this sorry affair of the siege of Nice.

 

[[Y]]

I am somewhat surprised every time how people treat as a "gotcha" the fact that human history can't be neatly binned into 100% consistent boxes.

"Two Berber civs" from a certain time period onwards is a rather fair appraisal, just as Turkish and Transoxian civ are "two Turkic civs" from a certain period onwards. I'm don't see anything wrong with that, as it is on the same level as treating, say, Scandinavia and Germany as separate civs, rather than lumping them together into a "Germanic" one or lumping Poland and Russia into a single "Slavic" civ.

Definitely nothing wrong with that. I had a memory of you at some point saying that you think of civs as a continuous group of people across the ages, which felt at odds with the geographic interpretation of a civilization, and wanted to get a better idea of how you approached the designs. But I might misremembering, or applying something you said in a different context. Thanks for sharing your approach with the examples, makes a lot more sense now.

 

[Jaded1]

Is there a problem with the Art of War Doctrine? It says +1 to Logistics but I'm only seeing +1 to Urban Logistics and not to Rural Logistics.

 

[trashmunster]

Mamluks never had european or christian origin in any significant number. Majority of slave-warriors came from turcic tribes and later caucasus region, often sold by their own clans and families. Probably the only "christian" region could be Armenia where some of them were taken. Still Mamluk sultanate saw its golden age under turcic mamluks, Sultan Baybars, victory over Mongols and so on. And later stagnation and downfall under corrupt Burj clan from north Caucasus region. No europeans or ex-christians in any significant numbers, that was ottoman thing much later.

Osprey's publishing Men at Arms 259 the Mamluks 1250-1517 give a cohesive short answer if anybody's interested.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Definitely nothing wrong with that. I had a memory of you at some point saying that you think of civs as a continuous group of people across the ages, which felt at odds with the geographic interpretation of a civilization, and wanted to get a better idea of how you approached the designs. But I might misremembering, or applying something you said in a different context. Thanks for sharing your approach with the examples, makes a lot more sense now.

The geographic approach was consistent for at least the last decade; it even has several paragraphs in the manual describing it. But I am always happy to clarify stuff!

Is there a problem with the Art of War Doctrine? It says +1 to Logistics but I'm only seeing +1 to Urban Logistics and not to Rural Logistics.

I'll check.

Mamluks never had european or christian origin in any significant number. Majority of slave-warriors came from turcic tribes and later caucasus region, often sold by their own clans and families. Probably the only "christian" region could be Armenia where some of them were taken. Still Mamluk sultanate saw its golden age under turcic mamluks, Sultan Baybars, victory over Mongols and so on. And later stagnation and downfall under corrupt Burj clan from north Caucasus region. No europeans or ex-christians in any significant numbers, that was ottoman thing much later.

This is not quite true - Caucasus in the period was mostly Christian. The dominant ethnic background was, to my knowledge, Circassian, and at the time they were Christian (they would mass-convert to Islam only around XVIIth century). In the middle ages, Islamic peoples were a minority in the Caucasus (though that would gradually change due to later Ottoman and Safavid influences). I would not claim to have any definite statistics (and I doubt they even exist), but whether they were a majority or not, ex-Christian Mamluks were definitely significant in number. Interestingly, the "Turkic tribes" you mention would at the time also not be majorly Islamicised; mamluks of Central Asian Turkic origin would be a mix of various religions, from paganism to Islam to eastern branches of Christianity.

 

[JDCP]

To me, it feels like it might have been a direct inspiration for the later "better dead than red" (with the caveat that it didn't originate in the US, as current use would have given one an impression, but from Nazi Germany, and for them it wasn't inconceivable to have known and consciously paraphrase the original).

Definitely I can see the relation between both, and I agree. Still more than being directly inspired I see it more as the tendency of a rebellious nature, but in that case is definitely both. Revolutionary events always inspire other cultures to follow their steps, either to replicate the results or to succeed where the previous failed.

In case of Carthage I was tempted to add Vandal as well, but there are very few sources on how Carthagian Vandals are supposed to look

About this, you have previously told me how much we go for realism regarding flavor units, but in a game where any player can achieve the impossible, what are your thoughts on making flavors for nations that never had those in real life? For example Mongolian marines or shocktroops for eastern asian civs we don't know how these could have looked at all, but with the first example we can make ourselves an idea looking at comintern marines.

I had an actual idea in my mind with gameplay implications: Plane promotions based in camouflage, under a certain promotion (say, desert camo) a plane evasion power is increased while stationed in a city over a desert tile, of course with greater bonuses in comparison to the more generic Evasion promotion. I know this is rather unnecesary considering A. There's already a promotion for evasion and B. Making plane textures for each camouflage must be a pain in the ass, but aside of a scenario of varied climates, do you think this could have a spot in RI? Just a thought I had something tells me you already thought of this and deemed it unnecesary, but I still wish to know the answer.

Oh also, Walter have you ever thought of adding a doctrine related to healing? something like ambulances on WW1. That aside, what do you think about making the first to obtain early tanks inflict fear on enemy units? Could this be possible? I like the idea.

Interesting Hungarian chap! I'll try to read on it, thanks.

Yes! here you can read more of his designs, there's an interview of his son who was born here in the 60s too (But I couldn't find it, the website that hosted it seems to have gone down) I do know of a blog written by him and his colleages (his last entry was on 2009 about Rusia and Ukraine relations) and also a report about Hungarians in the Dominican Republic by him written in 1998 (in spanish, I can share it on PDF if you wish). Here's a translated commentary from a fellow Dominican about the Cristobal Carbines:

''My brother-in-law was an infantry soldier when the guerrillas arrived in Constanza in 1959. He was 17 years old when he had to fight. He had a FAL Rifle and his companions used Cristóbal Rifles. Of 140 men who climbed the mountain that day, after a month and 11 days of fighting, only 39 came down. Boys without absolute experience, they fought from low ground. Mustang P51 planes gave them support, but they also killed many allies. There were many more soldiers on the mountain, there were many more. My father-in-law fought in 1959 against the guerrillas and later, in 1965 he fought against his comrades, the military that gave the coup to President Bosch ... then he fought against the Americans who invaded them months later. After the war, he devoted himself to work as chief mechanic at UASD state university. That rifle got really hot, it wasn't very good ... that's what he told me.''

For context: Constanza is a town here, the guerrillas were the group of people fighting to take down our dictator, and the American invasion refers to the civil war. Most of the young people here, of my age, think we have a very boring history... I don't think so, the tales that go back and forth on our land are marvelous.

On immigration... this is such a vast and politcally loaded subject that I'd rather stay away from my own opinions, which are... well just mine, and biased like any opinion I guess. It's just a fact that when mass human migrations alter the always delicate cultural mix of a certain society, it has the potential to cause very severe issues.

I couldn't agree more, facts aside I wanted to know more about your own personal view towards it, but I can see why you wouldn't like to share them anyway. So whichever is your reason, I respect it

land owners who were getting so rich with their plantations that it spiraled out of control.

Sounds like the fall of most colonies.

I recently read a vast History of the French Caribbeans

Care to share? The information you speak of (rates and details) sounds mighty interesting and something that remains unexplored by me.

In contrast the History of the Dominican Republic (where you are from, right?) seems much smoother if I may say...

What do you mean exactly? I can make myself an idea, but ''smooth'' is a term I wouldn't use to describe our path trough history.

It's my second game of civ4 and my first as Monarch so I am probably more of a beginner than you are! I pay attention to military ratios, I try not to get below 1.0 with anyone and if it's too costly (such as in my game right now vs Japan), 0.8 is my ultimate limit. I never let it go in the red... I defend my cities well and build walls + castle everywhere. I build (and garrison properly) forts where there are interesting chokepoints (in the case of Egypt, a well defended fort at Suez on a hill will deter any invasion attempt until well the Renaissance at least). I pay attention not to be behind on military techs, so I tend to beeline them like I guess most beginners do. The various levels of archers are vital I feel, as they make cities very hard to take. I promote them to be even better at defending cities. The other defensive element is having a sizeable mobile cavalry stack (or several), with the right promotions depending on terrain. Offense are the melee troops, I pay less attention to those and just assemble a large force (of... militia, axemen, swordsmen, men-at-arms) with a few siege units when I plan on conquering a city. And then of course, skirmichers rock, until surprisingly late (Middle-Ages). Religion plays an important role in diplomacy; what I have done in this game (with judaism as it spread to my cities first) was to embrace it and spread it to all the neighbours I was not planning to conquer, so as to pacify most of my borders and let them take the blunt of assaults from other empires practising a different faith. It's worked out well so far.

I see, this is very surprising, Despite being your second game you seem to already have a correct understanding of how things go. In my case unless I need it really bad I try to avoid directing my resources on defending cities that might never be attacked (be that they are away of borders or simply near a weak rival) usually my main production is either directed to buildings for the basics (gold, health, tech), the occasional wonder that might be needed for an strat (say, the Globe Theatre) or training soldiers for defense, indeed because I have very little faith in diplomacy as a mean to avoid war most of my army is composed of units to defend cities so whenever AI look at me they just go ''NOPE!'', about the other 20% of my army is the one I actually use to conquer. Offensive stacks are definitely the ones I pay the most attention to though, defences are just throwing enough units with city defense bonuses but war takes more than just that. A ordinance is a must for a succesful siege, axeman with catapults, swordsmen with skirmishers, heavy and light cavalry... all in a distribution 3-3 if higher logistics are not available. They all have a role and I selected them according to both countering enemy attacks and their aid bonuses (swordsmen with shock III and recon aid are an overkill ) there's definitely some room for improvement on both my strategical and tactical approach to combat in this mod, but that so far as served me well. As much as I like religion and even knowing how powerful it can be, I rarely use it for diplomacy unless I really wanna be friends iwth someone, the only thing I really see worth on religion is the buildings and units. But your strategy might be very useful, it's just it is easier for me to instigate fear on my enemies with a big army rather than converting them. And yes skirmishers remain strong until late middle ages (drill+terrain bonuses are amazing), which is one of the reasons recon tradition is so important for me, the explorers might not be impressive but light infantry is a must have of any army, so I recommend saving your most succesful skirmishers for that time.

Most of my games end by the time I reach future tech, but considering I only have conquest victory enabled and I'm playing in such a high difficulty, I might now be able to dominate modern warfare (which is the most fun and complex, but also the hardest in my opinion).

Do you consider switching to feudal aristocracy for the knights worth it? I do but for very short time (I leave it as soon as I get the units I need), I can hardly use it considering plutocracy mops the floor with it, such great bonuses can't be laid back Only melee unit I deem better than a Foot Knight is a fully promoted Crusader, and that can be hard to obtain, the knights in the other hand... just get 3k and you can upgradte a handful of swordsmen and even levies!

About cavalry, yeah this is a must for defending cities, attacking stackswith your usual ranged/melee units will result in defeat unless you are are either more advanced or superior in promotions (like swordsman with shock, which rule the classical age... but you rarely use them for defending right?) one has to first weaken the enemies before throwing arms. All that aside we seem to follow a similar style, very nice. Did you win your first monarch game? I did not

 

[RamsesII]

Yes! here you can read more of his designs, there's an interview of his son who was born here in the 60s too (But I couldn't find it, the website that hosted it seems to have gone down) I do know of a blog written by him and his colleages (his last entry was on 2009 about Rusia and Ukraine relations) and also a report about Hungarians in the Dominican Republic by him written in 1998 (in spanish, I can share it on PDF if you wish). Here's a translated commentary from a fellow Dominican about the Cristobal Carbines:

''My brother-in-law was an infantry soldier when the guerrillas arrived in Constanza in 1959. He was 17 years old when he had to fight. He had a FAL Rifle and his companions used Cristóbal Rifles. Of 140 men who climbed the mountain that day, after a month and 11 days of fighting, only 39 came down. Boys without absolute experience, they fought from low ground. Mustang P51 planes gave them support, but they also killed many allies. There were many more soldiers on the mountain, there were many more. My father-in-law fought in 1959 against the guerrillas and later, in 1965 he fought against his comrades, the military that gave the coup to President Bosch ... then he fought against the Americans who invaded them months later. After the war, he devoted himself to work as chief mechanic at UASD state university. That rifle got really hot, it wasn't very good ... that's what he told me.''

For context: Constanza is a town here, the guerrillas were the group of people fighting to take down our dictator, and the American invasion refers to the civil war. Most of the young people here, of my age, think we have a very boring history... I don't think so, the tales that go back and forth on our land are marvelous.

Thanks! I think I need to read more on Dominican Republic's history full stop. I did know even about these guerrillas and coups...

Care to share? The information you speak of (rates and details) sounds mighty interesting and something that remains unexplored by me.

Sure. It's in French, title is "l'Histoire des Antilles Françaises", author Paul Butel, collection tempus. It did shed many lights for a layman like myself on that part of the world. Fascinating for instance, to read the first century of colonization in the Carribeans (by the French) during which there was no slavery, nobles were relying on immigration of poor French peasants from the northwestern provinces. African slaves were brought in later, scarsely at first, then massively most especially in Saint-Domingue. The Spanish were already settled since much longer, had relied mostly on Spanish immigrants (in very large numbers) into Cuba in particular, and had a very different approach to the whole process.

What do you mean exactly? I can make myself an idea, but ''smooth'' is a term I wouldn't use to describe our path trough history.

Most probably the wrong word, as in fact I ignore Dominican history. I was trying to compare to the tragedy that is the history of your western neighbour, of which I am a little familiar.

I see, this is very surprising, Despite being your second game you seem to already have a correct understanding of how things go.

I have played a LOT of civ 3 (which is a great game, in fact similar to civ4 just less polished and detailed) and quite a bit of civ 6. I have also read about R:I before playing, on this site and the excellent pdf manual, to understand a little the gameplay.

In my case unless I need it really bad I try to avoid directing my resources on defending cities that might never be attacked (be that they are away of borders or simply near a weak rival) usually my main production is either directed to buildings for the basics (gold, health, tech), the occasional wonder that might be needed for an strat (say, the Globe Theatre) or training soldiers for defense, indeed because I have very little faith in diplomacy as a mean to avoid war most of my army is composed of units to defend cities so whenever AI look at me they just go ''NOPE!'', about the other 20% of my army is the one I actually use to conquer.

That's what I did in my first game (huge earth map, Noble) and it worked well. However on large earth map as Egypt on Monarch, I found the start rough, there is very little space. I got surprise-attacked several times by Nubians, Zulus, Carthaginians and Arabs (and Japanese actually, but much later). I did not expect those attacks to be so brutal and targeting my weaknesses, on 3 occasions one of my cities fell and I had to dig in to reconquer it. It's walls + castles everywhere, and at the very least 3 archer-type units in defense - and much more on border cities. But that's just me, and it probably depends on starting location. Egypt really is surrounded, had I played the Berbers for instance it would have been quite different.

Offensive stacks are definitely the ones I pay the most attention to though, defences are just throwing enough units with city defense bonuses but war takes more than just that. A ordinance is a must for a succesful siege, axeman with catapults, swordsmen with skirmishers, heavy and light cavalry... all in a distribution 3-3 if higher logistics are not available. They all have a role and I selected them according to both countering enemy attacks and their aid bonuses (swordsmen with shock III and recon aid are an overkill ) there's definitely some room for improvement on both my strategical and tactical approach to combat in this mod, but that so far as served me well.

I am not yet at that level of sophistication. I promote my melee charge units for city attack, they are accompanied by skirmichers, a couple cavalry, a couple siege units, a couple archers, in seperate stacks of 10-12 not more to avoid the heavier logistics penalty. I almost never use irregulars, whilst I understand they are a very powerful strategy. When a city is too well defended I don't bother, the economic cost you have to sink in, I find not worthy. Most cities I have captured were the results of counter-attacks after I had defeated the invading army on my own turf, or weak poorly defended cities.

As much as I like religion and even knowing how powerful it can be, I rarely use it for diplomacy unless I really wanna be friends iwth someone, the only thing I really see worth on religion is the buildings and units. But your strategy might be very useful, it's just it is easier for me to instigate fear on my enemies with a big army rather than converting them. And yes skirmishers remain strong until late middle ages (drill+terrain bonuses are amazing), which is one of the reasons recon tradition is so important for me, the explorers might not be impressive but light infantry is a must have of any army, so I recommend saving your most succesful skirmishers for that time.

I now have explorers (some are previous skirmichers which I upgraded, although that is expensive), they're strong and move fast. At least up to now (I am at the beginning of Renaissance, 1480AD), all civilizations sharing a religion with me have never declared war - but I have a power ratio >1 with them anyways. The combination of both + well guarded cities = peace. At least for the time being. So I find it to be an efficient way to orientate whom I want and will be at war against. One thing the AI does not seem to do so well is spread other religions. For instance, both christianism and islam have struggled in my game.

Most of my games end by the time I reach future tech, but considering I only have conquest victory enabled and I'm playing in such a high difficulty, I might now be able to dominate modern warfare (which is the most fun and complex, but also the hardest in my opinion).

I have the feeling that more modern warfare in R:I is indeed going to be rough and complex. It is not my favourite era in civ games, and I assume that even a well settled empire like mine coould get steam-rolled quickly in industrial or modern ages if out-teched or outnumbered. Which is quite realistic with what happened historically I guess...

Do you consider switching to feudal aristocracy for the knights worth it? I do but for very short time (I leave it as soon as I get the units I need), I can hardly use it considering plutocracy mops the floor with it, such great bonuses can't be laid back Only melee unit I deem better than a Foot Knight is a fully promoted Crusader, and that can be hard to obtain, the knights in the other hand... just get 3k and you can upgradte a handful of swordsmen and even levies!

In this game - and the one before - I skipped Feudal Aristocracy civic and stayed in Plutocracy indeed. I do have a bit of a gap with my men-at-arms and late horse archers vs the knights and foot knights, or crusaders/mujahids, floating around, but I got away with it and am now fielding arquebusiers and cuirassiers. That should be fine. One of Egypt UU, the saqalibas, are also quite strong in Middle-Ages (they're men-at-arms on steroids basically, with great promotions). Oh and war elephants are beasts on the field (not to capture cities), I love them, they rock, I still have 4 roaming around which I use in battle.

About cavalry, yeah this is a must for defending cities, attacking stackswith your usual ranged/melee units will result in defeat unless you are are either more advanced or superior in promotions (like swordsman with shock, which rule the classical age... but you rarely use them for defending right?) one has to first weaken the enemies before throwing arms. All that aside we seem to follow a similar style, very nice. Did you win your first monarch game? I did not

I am in 1480AD. I am tied at score (1400) with Japan, they have 9 cities, I have 16, power ratio of 1.0 but they have many more wonders (mostly scientific) and have a lead in science, I think 4 or 5 techs ahead of me. Spain is strong at 1100 score and power ratio of 1.0 as well, also 9 cities. Then 4 or 5 other civs (Persians, English, Arabs, Berbers, Mongols, Aztecs, Romans) are way behind at 800-ish on score, the rest will not recover (and 18 civs have been eliminated already). So no I have not won at all, I would say I am in a solid position but it's always a delicate balance in R:I between wide and tall play. One of the biggest issue is the scaling costs of a certain unit type: longbowmen for instance, which are an amazing unit, now cost me around 700 hammers a piece, which is almost like a great wonder. Only my capital Thebes can produce them in 10/11 turns, no other city builds them.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Now that you mention the Mongols the sole mention of them in Eastern Europe must have brought pure terror to the people risking an invation, just imagining how it would have been to be in the skin of a Magyar or a Russian (specially the later) during that time makes me chill. You're very right that distance and time makes it more bearable, but another great part of our nature is empathy, and I can't help but feel courage when I read of the unfair acts of the past, the present, and those that will come in the future too because in some way we are still like our ancestors.

I won't be going into the doom and gloom of it, but rather entertain you with a historical anecdote - supposedly, upon receiving an ultimatum from Mongols, Frederick II (whom you can meet in RI), who was the preemient authority on falconry at the time (going as far as actually having published works on it; it's not a coincidence that he's depicted with a falcon in RI), half-jokingly replied that he'd consider the position of the khan's falconer should he lose. While he is obviously joking, the fact that consideration of actually becoming a Mongolian subject even went through the head of the Holy Roman Emperor, making the joke possible at all, shows how widely the Mongol threat loomed over contemporary Europe. Especially after Mongol incursions to Poland and Hungary, there was definitely a "doomsday prepping" psychological element in the European moods of the time.

I had an actual idea in my mind with gameplay implications: Plane promotions based in camouflage, under a certain promotion (say, desert camo) a plane evasion power is increased while stationed in a city over a desert tile, of course with greater bonuses in comparison to the more generic Evasion promotion. I know this is rather unnecesary considering A. There's already a promotion for evasion and B. Making plane textures for each camouflage must be a pain in the ass, but aside of a scenario of varied climates, do you think this could have a spot in RI? Just a thought I had something tells me you already thought of this and deemed it unnecesary, but I still wish to know the answer.

Due to how promotions work, it would have very strange implications - once you painted your plane with desert camo, it is somehow permanent and you can't repaint it after rebasing to woodland. Also, it would obviously require teaching AI how to use it, which I wouldn't undertake.

About this, you have previously told me how much we go for realism regarding flavor units, but in a game where any player can achieve the impossible, what are your thoughts on making flavors for nations that never had those in real life? For example Mongolian marines or shocktroops for eastern asian civs we don't know how these could have looked at all, but with the first example we can make ourselves an idea looking at comintern marines.

It's a very good question. Obviously, if I want to have at least a semblance of balance, I sometimes need to include units with no direct basis in history, like how all civs should have chariots, even though not on the New World civs (obviously) didn't have those, but any civ that doesn't have a Bronze Age component (which is at least half of the Old World civs too) doesn't really have any historical war chariots to draw upon. So, instead of digging up records of specific historical units (which surprisingly can also often be found, even when you don't expect them - for instance, the US grenadier is a real thing, from a single grenadier regiment raised in New York during the Independence war), I have to come up with plausible unit designs.

You make two excellent examples, since both are actually in RI - the Mongol marine and the Japanese/Chinese shock troop can be seen in-game. In both cases, the design approach was "in a slightly different reality, what would the unit most plausibly have looked". In case of Mongol marine, it's a unit that relies heavily on the choice picks of early-WW2 Soviet military equipment that would have been (and has been) sent to Mongolia as it was being phased out in the Soviet Union itself - pre-war helmet design (SSh-36, as opposed to SSh-39/40 for Russian WW2 units) and surplus Soviet military uniform (with rank markings on the collar instead of epaulets; this kind of uniform was widely shipped to China and Mongolia as it was being phased out in the Red Army itself - as a relatively elite unit, the marines would have relied on imported uniforms rather than elements of traditional dress that would still be common with normal Mongolian troops), Degtyaryov machine gun as the LMG of choice (again, as opposed to RPD used by Russian units) - this is how, most plausibly, a Mongol marine would have looked if WW2-era Mongolia had any reason to form such a unit.

Likewise, the default look for a stormtrooper is the most plausible outfit for Japan (as a part of the Entente) during WW1 - it makes a lot of use from the most available equipment: the ubiquitous Adrian helmet with French-style body armour, but dyed olive green / dark khaki which would have been the colour of choice for Japan at the time, with a British-made Lewis gun - the most plausible set of equipment that would be used by Japan if it had actively engaged in trench warfare during WW1 and had to draw up its own stormtrooper units (interestingly, another good fit for Japanese stormtroopers specifically would be Russian-made Fedorov Avtomat, as it was already chambered for Japanese ammo - with the caveat that Russia barely had enough production capacity to produce those for itself during WW1, so IRL it didn't see use outside Russia). Contrary to one's instinct, a WW1-era Japanese stormtrooper wouldn't carry a sword, as those were decidedly out of fashion with Japanese troops in the early XX century, and would only make a comeback in the 30's as a symbolic national sidearm, whereas before it hasn't yet gained the nostalgic value and was seen as an archaic weapon with no place on the battlefield.

Oh also, Walter have you ever thought of adding a doctrine related to healing? something like ambulances on WW1. That aside, what do you think about making the first to obtain early tanks inflict fear on enemy units? Could this be possible? I like the idea.

I can't recall any real historical precedent for that one. Also, we have the Red Cross in the game already, and it kind of fills this niche.

 

[LanceV]

I was very motivated after my last game and seeing all the update activity I was already playing and finishing my second game of 2025. Once again, I didnt encounter any major issues with the standard game (ver3.71b). Just some things I noticed, that might or might not be intended.

*I notice that the water level setting in the perfectMongoose mapscript is always reset to the middle. I was not able to create a map with low water level. The ingame settings display even admits that it didnt take my setting.

*The art eras usually require the previous era as well as a couple of buildings of the time. On the standard map size that I played it was usually 3 or 4 buildings each. Except Romantic Art, that required 9 theatres (=3 operas). That is far more difficult than even all the later eras.

*Some middle eastern civs have a carpet maker instead of a tailor as a distinctive building. It is functionally identical, except that it is not obsoleted with the designer. Other buildings that are not obsoleted like the russian bath are considered unique buildings.
It is also a relatively powerful bonus, so would be worth to be pointed out, if intended.

*Somehow I get the impression that the monarchy special building constitutional monarchy should require representation as a civic.

*In my opinion the fact that missionaries can fail to spread a religion in your own city doesnt add much to the gameplay, but generates just tedium (especially when one wants to switch to free religion civic). Its fine that there is a chance to fail in foreign cities.

*The modern carrier unit has a basically pointless +10% interception chance. The interception chance of infantry was recently increased, maybe also increase for the carrier (or get rid of it completely)?

*It seems to me that the AI was changed (compared to maybe a year ago) regarding its willingness to accept open borders. Now it seems to be a simple check whether it can get a research bonus. One might argue that this makes the AI stronger on average, but also much more predictable.
Once the player is technologically ahead the game becomes very peaceful in my experience, since everybody wants to have open borders. If one is behind on the other hand, it is much more difficult to improve the situation by diplomacy.
In the crusade scenario (as irish) I was able to get open borders with EVERY other civ. It didnt matter which religion they had or how often I refused tributes or their other demands.

Concerning the crusades scenario I noticed a bug in ver3.72:
*When starting with the irish the organized religion civic is already chosen. But I didnt get the +25% building bonus. Instead I get a -25% malus if changing out of organized religion.


Also: thank you for your reply to my previous post. It is very impressive to what degree historical accuracy is being taken into account in this mod.

Concerning the power of Protectionism:

That's one way of thinking about it - but you might be actually interested in having open borders with your friends / enemies of your enemies to feed them tech, or to mutually boost one another if you're roughly equal.

Yes, but this you can also do in Proctectionism. My point is that you basically need open borders with almost everyone (even competitors that you dont want to help) for Free Market being commercially just slightly better than Protectionism.
Of cource, Protectionism then gets better merchants, better craftmen and less war weariness.

If most of your cities are coastal, foreign trade routes will be more lucrative for you (customs houses), which may further be affected from some civ-specific buildings (f.e. Dravidian Payanam)

But this is partially compensated by Protectionism giving a multiplicative bonus of 2 and Free Market only 1.5. The problem is that lucrative foreign trade routes are rare, while you will in general have domestic ones even in Free Market.

Concerning Transoxanian unique improvement:

This is thematically intentional as it depicts the decline of the Silk Road. I know that losing a nice bonus is sad, but all in all, there are many cases like this and some much more severe

Ok, that is a good point with the silk road. But I would still give the final form of the improvement at least the same bonuses as a normal plantation.

 

[AspiringScholar]

A quick word on Totestra: I spawned a map and started in a slew of jungle, as I expected. Regenerating the map for a total of 15 iterations resulted in only one positioning my settler farther than two tiles away from a huge belt of jungle, and (for all its other virtues notwithstanding) this is the case basically every time I play this map mode. This really isn't immersive or historically warranted. Of the 34 playable civs in RI, arguably 4 of them historically "spawned" in a jungle, and it feels very dissonant and frustrating as any of the others to have to deal with this kind of a start so consistently. Sure, from a gameplay standpoint with slash and burn farms and animism, you can make lemonade with lemons sort of, but it still feels at odds with the whole ethos of what RI models a civilization to be and the experience of playing it to its natural advantages that are so painstakingly tailored, when it very predictably will start in an environment historically foreign to it. I suspect that there must be some value controlling starting locations along a Y-Axis that for whatever reason predominantly favors the tropics, but if that can be mitigated without destroying "capital spot" resource placement logic, I think it would make for a better map script, even if things remain random and possibly disadvantageous instead of 90% of civs starting in the tropics, when only a small minority of the "great" civs modeled in the game historically did.

Okay, rant following a frustrating loss after 7 hours followed by an attempted restart being predictably met with this, over.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

Here are the results of me starting seven times on large Totestra, with new world, Monarch, other settings kept default (no cherry-picking, literally the first seven I got):

Spoiler Big screenshots :

While I see some jungle starts, as you can see from the screenshots, they weren't even the majority. Out of 7, there were two I'd definitely call "massive jungle", and two more with some jungle present. I'll take a look at the script, but from my experience, the situation is not as dire as you're describing - you probably got unlucky, or had some map settings different from me so I couldn't replicate your results.

 

[AspiringScholar]

Hmm, that does look much more normally variegated. Does the Regenerate Map button retain some random seed values from the initial one, possibly? I do consistently experience this, for whatever reason.

Thank you for taking a look, as well!

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

I thought that might be the case (code-wise I don't know how regenerate map works, and if it's any different from starting a new game from scratch), so I did a short run of several "regenerations" too, starting with a jungle map deliberately, with much the same result. Could it be that your Totestra has some specific settings that are significantly different from default, such as temperature/humidity?

 

[AspiringScholar]

Actually no, as far as humidity and temperature go. I do often select "Some" on continents as opposed to the default "Few," but that shouldn't directly have bearing on this, I wouldn't think.

 

[[Y]]

Hmm, that does look much more normally variegated. Does the Regenerate Map button retain some random seed values from the initial one, possibly? I do consistently experience this, for whatever reason.

Thank you for taking a look, as well!

Do you have the same issue if you quit to main menu and start a new game instead of using Regenerate Map?