Release of v1.8 approaching

[Leoreth]

Thanks, sounds the Thais already work as intended.

On the first goal, I didn't update it after they got their UP, how many OBs were you able to get? I could imagine to raise the threshold a little.

And for the third, South Asia includes Southern India (excluding the Ganges and Indus areas), Indonesia and Philippines. Your goal is to basically turn back time on all the Trading Company conquests.

 

[Caesar Augustus]

I think I had 10: China, Netherlands, Spain, England, Vikings, Indonesia, Mughals, Portugal, Inca, and Mali. I got Ottomans, Aztec, and France a bit later but those would probably have been doable too. Russia, Italy, and Korea might have been possible too but by the time I got to them I had the "you traded with our worst enemies" and since I was gonna succeed anyway I didn't bother. Obviously Inca and Aztec shouldn't normally be alive (though I've been noticing at least one or the other of them surviving pretty often, guess that's more of an issue for after 1.8 comes out), so somewhere around 10 is probably the sweet spot of "doable but challenging." It's gonna depend a bit on luck, what civs are or aren't around, that sort of thing. Considering how much of a challenge the last goal should be I don't think you'd want to make the first one too difficult.

One last note, the Spanish didn't colonize the Philippines for some reason. They had a stack of Musketmen and Cannons just sitting there doing nothing for a pretty considerable portion of the game, but no Settler or anything. I've seen them found Manila in other games, so I really can't figure it out.

 

[jammerculture]

wow I am amazed at how far this has come. Between my limited time to play civ and Leoreth's increasing skill at modding, I can't keep up with all the changes.

I started a game as India, but I couldn't keep enough interest to keep it going. I noticed that the first condition was pretty easy, there was no trick to it just a simple beeline. I honestly think I could have gotten it by just pressing end turn thirty times or so. All that food around Pataliputra is insane, but it didn't seem to create as quick a growth or settler build times as I expected. Did you change these for balancing?

I guess the challenge is dealing with barbs without defensive techs while beelining for your religions. I lucked out with the rng and for some reason my warriors seemed to slay chariots with ease.

I am going to play an Arab game to see how the changes to the middle east play out. Be back soon.

how do you play Iran?

 

[J. pride]

how do you play Iran?

Start as the Dutch, play the first turn normally and on the second turn it will give you an option to switch to Iran. Alternately, you can start as any civ and wait till 1505 (thats the turn it will ask if you want to switch).

 

[jammerculture]

So Arabia, played 600AD

am at 1180 AD and it has been an interesting game. I almost rage quit twice but stuck through it and am glad I did.

I never played Arabia a lot in previous incarnations, never accomplished the UHV or even really made an attempt at it so not an expert on this part of the game. I started out pretty loose, built a few camels and with the ones I started with was able to conquer to Samarqand, Tripoli and Konya pretty quickly. I built a palace and University of Sankore in Baghdad and the spiral minaret in Damaskos. I almost chose to build the palace in Al-Qahira which raises an interesting possibility. In 1000 AD the Egyptians respawned after some increased barbarian activity caused me to lose Bengazi (it was razed).

Is this a scripted spawn or just a random occurrence? First off, if this is a scripted thing there was some problems. First, they respawned as Eqyptian Old Kingdom and gradually became the Middle kingdom. Second, I wonder what would have happened if I had built the capital in Egypt. Would this have prevented the spawn? If so, I don't think this is a good thing as the Islamic civil war that the spawn created was cool and somewhat historic, and shouldn't be able to be avoided so easily. At the time I was easily on my way to becoming a super dominant force, making the first UHV condition easy, and the second almost won, although the conquest of Spain was going to be hard, and I'm pretty sure impossible in a historic time frame. The Egyptian spawn pretty much forces you to accomplish the UHV condition prior to the spawn, which imo will be difficult, but then again this was just my first attempt.

Along came the Seljuks. At first just a couple of of longbowmen and workers in Persia which were easily dispatched, I was not prepared for the hordes of Ghulams and trebuchets that spawned in my interior. I lost all of the middle east except the arabian peninsula and Persia very quickly. My capital moved to Persia. Maybe it should have moved to Mecca? Just seemed weird to be trying to reclaim the Arabian empire from Persia. The Seljuks did nothing to claim Persia either, they actually jut sat in the cities they took from me in Iraq and the Levant until I reclaimed most of them. 1180 came, and I have taken back all but two of my cities which just went independant, effectively ending the Seljuk's time on earth.

I am unsure if this is how all of this is meant to work. It seems like maybe this is the reason for j-Prides earlier comment that the Seljuks don't take over any more.

Anyhoo, I'mm gonna struggle through and see if I can live through the mongols. I have a feeling though that all of this disruption is going to make the Arab UHV very very difficult to acheive.

P.S. I know the submarining exploits of the Seljuks have already been covered, but I also question the bonus to crossbows. Not really sure where this comes from or what purpose it holds as I'm not sure I have ever seen an Arab crossbow in the game.


Ok that was quick. The Mongols finished me off in a turn, leaving me with just mecca, sana'a and Qandahar so I switched to the Mughals.

Perhaps you should change the Arab UHV condition from be the most advanced civ in 1300 to be alive in 1300


The Mughals are obviously broken. In case you are not aware of their issues here goes, their UU's button is a purple square (deadly!), this might be a random occurrence but Patiluputra was badass, generating so much gold for me that I was running +27 @ 100%. They don't appear to have any UHV's or at least any listing in the victory screen. The lack of iron makes it impoossible to build the deadly purple square, and the Indie ( ) city (with the long strange name I will not even try to type) that holds the iron is defended well enough that any sane general would shy at attempting to take it without the deadly purple square. So by the time you get said aubergine napkin, you wont even need it.

It was pretty cool being able to finish my former Arab self off though lol

Oh yeah one more thing, Mongols were unreal. They conquered all of China, And were in control of every standing city in the middle east except Sanna'a Which is barb and Peshwar and Qandahar which I am in control of. They are the Islamic Mongol Empire.

 

[Spritz]

except for being islamic they sound pretty muck like the mongolian empire from my history lessons, maybe their likelyness to raze a city can be adjusted so they will be more destructive than they are now

 

[Leoreth]

Thanks for the feedback. I'll come back to it when I have more time to answer in detail.

 

[Leoreth]

I started a game as India, but I couldn't keep enough interest to keep it going. I noticed that the first condition was pretty easy, there was no trick to it just a simple beeline. I honestly think I could have gotten it by just pressing end turn thirty times or so. All that food around Pataliputra is insane, but it didn't seem to create as quick a growth or settler build times as I expected. Did you change these for balancing?

Yeah, sure. I can see why India isn't that engaging currently, there's neither much pressure in time nor by adversaries in their isolated game currently.

What can be done about it? Change their first goal to something more challenging, like having the shrines by a certain date? Making them spread both religions to a certain rate? Or more barbarian attacks?

For Pataliputra's food, I'm currently wondering what's the best way to deal with it. It's been proposed to remove some of the flood plains there again, that would of course be the easiest way for it. But the actual intention behind it was to allow more cities, like Delhi/Varanasi/Pataliputra in the Gangetic plain, but obviously neither does the AI do that often nor has the player any incentive to do so. I'd prefer to force a preplaced Varanasi (for example) unto both but I fear that will throw the whole balance out of the window.

(... an alternative I'm rather unwilling to explore within this current version is to move India's spawn to a more reasonable date like 1500 BC and let them start with a couple of cities in the Ganges basin including Hinduism).

Is this a scripted spawn or just a random occurrence? First off, if this is a scripted thing there was some problems. First, they respawned as Eqyptian Old Kingdom and gradually became the Middle kingdom. Second, I wonder what would have happened if I had built the capital in Egypt. Would this have prevented the spawn? If so, I don't think this is a good thing as the Islamic civil war that the spawn created was cool and somewhat historic, and shouldn't be able to be avoided so easily.

The Egyptian respawn works like every usual RFC respawn, i.e. they respawn when your stability is low enough. Having Cairo as your capital would've only prevented that city from flipping, I guess.

At the time I was easily on my way to becoming a super dominant force, making the first UHV condition easy, and the second almost won, although the conquest of Spain was going to be hard, and I'm pretty sure impossible in a historic time frame. The Egyptian spawn pretty much forces you to accomplish the UHV condition prior to the spawn, which imo will be difficult, but then again this was just my first attempt.

Along came the Seljuks. At first just a couple of of longbowmen and workers in Persia which were easily dispatched, I was not prepared for the hordes of Ghulams and trebuchets that spawned in my interior. I lost all of the middle east except the arabian peninsula and Persia very quickly. My capital moved to Persia. Maybe it should have moved to Mecca? Just seemed weird to be trying to reclaim the Arabian empire from Persia. The Seljuks did nothing to claim Persia either, they actually jut sat in the cities they took from me in Iraq and the Levant until I reclaimed most of them. 1180 came, and I have taken back all but two of my cities which just went independant, effectively ending the Seljuk's time on earth.

Yeah, I'll make the capital flip back to the original city, like Mecca, in this case.

In principle I don't see a problem that the Arabs now have to maintain the integrity of their empire, at which they failed in actual history. You're right that conquering Spain is a little off limits now, though. It's always only been part of RFC's goals because it was the only challenging part of the Arab conquests ingame, especially in DoC where almost everything else is granted to you. Now I think it's better to re-include Egypt into the requirements instead of Spain, so that you have to regain it until 1300.

For the Seljuk aggression level, maybe it was the auto-piece that interfered with that.

By the way, did they contact you via the diplomacy screen?

Ok that was quick. The Mongols finished me off in a turn, leaving me with just mecca, sana'a and Qandahar so I switched to the Mughals.

The Mongol strength is balanced so they're able to take out the Seljuks with all their leftover troops from their conquest. Maybe I should make everything a little more dynamic, i.e. weaken them if a proper civ controls the middle east, especially if it's the player.

The Mughals are obviously broken. In case you are not aware of their issues here goes, their UU's button is a purple square (deadly!), this might be a random occurrence but Patiluputra was badass, generating so much gold for me that I was running +27 @ 100%. They don't appear to have any UHV's or at least any listing in the victory screen. The lack of iron makes it impoossible to build the deadly purple square, and the Indie ( ) city (with the long strange name I will not even try to type) that holds the iron is defended well enough that any sane general would shy at attempting to take it without the deadly purple square. So by the time you get said aubergine napkin, you wont even need it.

Purple square of death will be fixed soon. I don't intend the Mughals to be playable at all, was already considering to disable the possibility to switch to them (but decided against it). I don't mind the lack of iron, in fact, I'm happy with everything that slows them down in their efforts to conquer all of India.

For Pataliputra, I'm currently wondering if it's a good idea to limit shrine revenue to ten gold except if it's your own state religion (the threshold could be increased in this case).

 

[civ_king]

Yeah, sure. I can see why India isn't that engaging currently, there's neither much pressure in time nor by adversaries in their isolated game currently.

What can be done about it? Change their first goal to something more challenging, like having the shrines by a certain date? Making them spread both religions to a certain rate? Or more barbarian attacks?

For Pataliputra's food, I'm currently wondering what's the best way to deal with it. It's been proposed to remove some of the flood plains there again, that would of course be the easiest way for it. But the actual intention behind it was to allow more cities, like Delhi/Varanasi/Pataliputra in the Gangetic plain, but obviously neither does the AI do that often nor has the player any incentive to do so. I'd prefer to force a preplaced Varanasi (for example) unto both but I fear that will throw the whole balance out of the window.

(... an alternative I'm rather unwilling to explore within this current version is to move India's spawn to a more reasonable date like 1500 BC and let them start with a couple of cities in the Ganges basin including Hinduism).
*snip*

Purple square of death will be fixed soon. I don't intend the Mughals to be playable at all, was already considering to disable the possibility to switch to them (but decided against it). I don't mind the lack of iron, in fact, I'm happy with everything that slows them down in their efforts to conquer all of India.

For Pataliputra, I'm currently wondering if it's a good idea to limit shrine revenue to ten gold except if it's your own state religion (the threshold could be increased in this case).

India being ungodly wealthy is historically accurate, between the first and eighteenth centuries it was the world's largest economy, in 1700 it still had 24.4% of the world's GDP (insufficient date for before first century).

Historically India should have very large cities and lots of developed towns.

What you need is two Indian civs constantly going at it and being reincarnated.

 

[Leoreth]

The problem is that in Civ4 wealthy = advanced.

 

[civ_king]

The problem is that in Civ4 wealthy = advanced.

And this is a problem because?
India was historically quite advanced, so was China

 

[Linkman226]

But it wasn't, you know, inventing-the-telegram-and-telephone advanced.

 

[Caesar Augustus]

Okay, so I went back and played the Thais again, just to make sure my feedback had been accurate, and I've got to say I vastly underestimated the challenge that the UHVs present. The open borders remained simple, despite the collapse or conquest of the Vikings, Russians, Mongols, Italians, Koreans, Ottomans, Aztecs, Byzantines, Egyptians, and Arabians. I think I ended up with 9, one of which (the Germans) collapsed shortly after 1650. So yeah, you could possibly increase that a bit, but not too much because you never know when the world will just fall apart like mine did.

But the second UHV, I must say, I really lucked into it the first time I tried. In 1700, London had pop 21, Edinburgh was 17, and there were probably others in that range. Ayutthaya can reach at most 21 prior to Biology, Supermarkets, Corps etc., and that's not really achievable due to the plague in the mid 1600's. I suppose I could have sent some spies with my initial Caravels in order to poison the water in whatever cities were my main competition, but no way would that have knocked the 4 or 5 I would have needed off of London, and again, London is not the only city that can reach that size. I dunno, it just seems like it's kind of a crapshoot whether or not you even have a chance at this goal.

As far as the third goal goes, I still like it and I'm sure it's achievable, though I must say it's gonna be a challenge getting to it without Iron. In my previous game I got one of those wonderful ore discovery events on the hills E of Ayutthaya. The Frigates and Ships of the Line will be sorely missed, and I have no idea how I'll make up for the lack of Cannons. I suppose I could set up a little colony in Australia, though it would be really nice not having to go so far afield.

One other little thing: I found it just about impossible to find a good use for the Thai UU. I mean, having the initial ones at your disposal is great, but if you want to get your OB agreements you can't afford to research Feudalism until after Optics. I was lucky enough to trade for Feudalism, but even so I couldn't build any since I went with Absolutism which seems like a clear winner over Vassalage for a small civ like Thailand. It seems like their UU would function better if you either didn't need Feudalism (and hence could build it from the start and make it your main weapon in getting Hanoi and Pagan) or didn't need Vassalage (and hence could build it throughout the game).

I still think the Thais are pretty much on track. Their research rate and overall power level seem to be right where they had ought to be, but they could probably use a tweak or two, IMO.

 

[Leoreth]

But it wasn't, you know, inventing-the-telegram-and-telephone advanced.

This. The areas where India was advanced are not exactly covered by the theory-and-invention oriented lategame tech tree.

Okay, so I went back and played the Thais again, just to make sure my feedback had been accurate, and I've got to say I vastly underestimated the challenge that the UHVs present. The open borders remained simple, despite the collapse or conquest of the Vikings, Russians, Mongols, Italians, Koreans, Ottomans, Aztecs, Byzantines, Egyptians, and Arabians. I think I ended up with 9, one of which (the Germans) collapsed shortly after 1650. So yeah, you could possibly increase that a bit, but not too much because you never know when the world will just fall apart like mine did.

True.

But the second UHV, I must say, I really lucked into it the first time I tried. In 1700, London had pop 21, Edinburgh was 17, and there were probably others in that range. Ayutthaya can reach at most 21 prior to Biology, Supermarkets, Corps etc., and that's not really achievable due to the plague in the mid 1600's. I suppose I could have sent some spies with my initial Caravels in order to poison the water in whatever cities were my main competition, but no way would that have knocked the 4 or 5 I would have needed off of London, and again, London is not the only city that can reach that size. I dunno, it just seems like it's kind of a crapshoot whether or not you even have a chance at this goal.

That's exactly the problem I had in my games. Don't know if there's any city that both has enough food and space to become as much of a problem as London, and so it often boils down whether the English decide to found a city in Northern England or not.

As far as the third goal goes, I still like it and I'm sure it's achievable, though I must say it's gonna be a challenge getting to it without Iron. In my previous game I got one of those wonderful ore discovery events on the hills E of Ayutthaya. The Frigates and Ships of the Line will be sorely missed, and I have no idea how I'll make up for the lack of Cannons. I suppose I could set up a little colony in Australia, though it would be really nice not having to go so far afield.

My solution to that was using hit-and-run naval landings and beeline Assembly Line to solve everything with Infantry.

[/quote]One other little thing: I found it just about impossible to find a good use for the Thai UU. I mean, having the initial ones at your disposal is great, but if you want to get your OB agreements you can't afford to research Feudalism until after Optics. I was lucky enough to trade for Feudalism, but even so I couldn't build any since I went with Absolutism which seems like a clear winner over Vassalage for a small civ like Thailand. It seems like their UU would function better if you either didn't need Feudalism (and hence could build it from the start and make it your main weapon in getting Hanoi and Pagan) or didn't need Vassalage (and hence could build it throughout the game).[/quote]
Oh, I didn't intend them to require Vassalage. I could see Thailand start with Feudalism, though.

I still think the Thais are pretty much on track. Their research rate and overall power level seem to be right where they had ought to be, but they could probably use a tweak or two, IMO.

You mean besides those you mentioned above?

 

[Caesar Augustus]

No, the things I mentioned were the tweaks I think would be useful. The only other thing you could maybe look a bit more is the initial stack that Thailand gets because you never know how well defended Khmer is gonna be. I restarted a few times as I was trying to figure out the best opening and while they didn't challenge me too much most of the time, one run they had like 4 Ballista Elephants, a few Catapults, and a few Heavy Swordsmen, and then hired mercenaries (my fault for not getting to them first, as I imagine that's the purpose of the big treasury Thailand starts with). I dunno, it's a delicate balance; on the one hand you don't want Hanoi to be a gimme in the first few turns but on the other hand I don't think you want the Khmer to pose too big a threat. But yeah, the only particularly important tweak is making it so that the Thais can use their UU.

As far as what other cities would challenge Ayutthaya, I would imagine that Constantinople, Kalmar (if it exists), or Delhi could be close. I could also see Paris or Hamburg getting big if someone takes/razes Amsterdam, getting rid of its culture. But yeah, London is the big issue. Have you tried the spy technique to keep London down? Had any success with it? Or is the absence of a north English city pretty much game over? At the end of the day Ayutthaya isn't going to be any bigger than 18 or very unlikely 19 and there are plenty of city locations that have the food if they're well-managed by the AI (unlikely I know but it does happen).

 

[civ_king]

But it wasn't, you know, inventing-the-telegram-and-telephone advanced.

How about that radio?

This. The areas where India was advanced are not exactly covered by the theory-and-invention oriented lategame tech tree.
*snip*

Then have tech penalties for the Industrial Era and beef up the Europeans so Mughals have a seriously rough time


I noticed for the India temples UHV that Cathedrals don't count at all, is that intentional? IMO they should be worth 1-2 (2 because they are much grander)

PS Ceylon could use a fish, spice in the north and iron in the south

 

[Linkman226]

What about the radio?

 

[jammerculture]

The problem with conquering Spain is the Mediterranean. Maybe some Galleys flipping with Egypt would alleviate that. Your right that without it the challenge is to easy. In order to portray the historical spread of Islam in this game with the Arab civ in the time frame you need a constant expansion from turn one. The current problem is you hit the water and it grinds you to a halt. There is not enough production in the Maghreb to build galleys quick enough, and with 600ADs pre-placed Damaskos you cant chop a fleet out of the Levant.

I've always had a problem with India in this game, mainly because I am ignorant as to its history (most of what I know comes from SOI) and I think the developers were as well to a certain extent. What I do know is that like civ_kings says India has been populous and rich, however in game terms this can get incredibly unbalancing. Pataliputra with 5F mature cottages and double shrine income in the renaissance is retardedly powerful. More cities in the area might help

 

[civ_king]

What about the radio?

J. Bos was there.

 

[Linkman226]

J. Bos was there.

I suspected you might bring him up:

1. He didn't invent it, IMO. i prefer the term 'contributed towards'
2. Even if he did it was under British India. In Civ IV terms: the Brits pop a GS in British Bengal, and then use it to lightbulb Radio.