RFC Classical World

[rrosen]

I tried the Celts several times more when Civfanatics was down, and had some feedback written down at home. My main suggestion was to either make all the Celtic units, or if not that, then at least Gallc Warriors, able to move through forests. Actually, the main problem was that of speed, it is very hard to expand to Anatolia and Illyricum quickly enough. The Romans were possible to handle, at least in one match. After conquering Masilla, they went east as they usually do. Then you can reconquer Masilla and put up a large, nice stack on the wooded hill between Gaul and Italia. After that, it is safe to take Spain. But when I got to conquering Anatolia, the Romans caught up and slaughtered me in the rear. Therefore, being able to move through forest (and making use of the automatic woodsman promotion for Gallic warriors!) would be of great use. If Anatolia is conquered, you could pop down a settler in Illyricum.

The Visigoths text key was found when you hover over the units in the popup build menu.

A player can found a new city to establish the link to the Red Sea. Or, you could include regional mercenary boats that appears in Middle Eastern cities. As for mercenaries in general, I think they have gotten too expensive now. A level 1 Arabian spearman cost 5 gold per turn in upkeep. It also turned up when I played the Celts (but I assume the region specificity of mercenaries is yet to be coded?).

I haven't tried the 220 AD scenario yet. If you want any specific civs to be tested, I'll gladly choose them, otherwise I will work my way up from the oldest first.

One more thing: I tried to spawn a Roman start three times, and each time Neapolis was gone. There was no razed city on its spot (and when I razed it as Carthage, it appeared again a few turns before the Roman spawn, kudos for that), so perhaps some auto-removal is taking place?

 

[srpt]

ok I gave the Gallic Warrior the ability to enter forests and gave them +50% attack vs heavy spearmen (including legions). this gives them 60% odds to defeat a legion on open ground when attacking, but only 10% chance of surviving on defense.

I'm also thinking of removing Anatolia from the city goal. I know they historically went there, but it seems like a lot to ask them to do it on top of destroying the Romans. I had thought of it as more of a settler goal than a conquest one anyway, since you just need a city not province control. without Anatolia they need 4 settlers (Iberia, Germania, Britannia, Illyricum) which seems about right to be possible by 100BC.

Also Iberia needs to be split at some point or I will have to choose between the Visigoths and Cordobans flipping all of it or none, neither of which is good, so as soon as I get a chance it will be Baetica, Iberia and Lusitania I think.

I removed Neapolis from the indy city spawn list because I thought many Roman players would hate the overlap, so if you see it now I guess the Romans founded it. Tarrentum is a better use of the southern italian tiles.

and the Romans are now making it to the Byzantine spawn in the 220AD scenario so it is more playable. it was the number of cities that was killing them (26!) even though they were all in good provinces. so I made Aleppo and Damascus indy and I replaced the standard 7 cities plus era modifier for the expansion stability penalty to a civ-by-civ number, giving the Romans a high number. I also made bureaucracy increase this number. they now survive til the Byzantine spawn but are near collapse after the split and usually declare war. they have done so every time so far. I'd like the chance to be about 25%. I made a special case so that when the Byzantines are flipping Roman cities they can flip as many as there are in their core provinces, whereas usually there is a cap. I'd like to also make a special case so that the Byzantines only flip Roman cities, regardless of province. this way they will not flip aleppo or damascus or any other city that has gone indy. the egyptians are respawning right as the Byzantine spawn as well but I will stop this, not sure whats causing it.

and I can't find an easy way of making the red sea canal work. that tile is the only one in the area that isn't covered by the fat cross of Alexandria, Jerusalem or Diospolis so putting a city there would be terrible and none of those 3 cities can move without wrecking that part of the map. I tried using WB to add egyptian territory but it just disappears on the next turn. there is a mod called super forts which allows forts to produce 1 tile of culture. unfortunately it does tons of other stuff too so extricating the part I want might take some time. I was also going to use this idea to allow accessing resources without founding cities near them. I wanted Carthage to use this to get amber and tin from northern europe.

 

[rrosen]

I'll try tonight. With those bonuses, including Anatolia in the goal seems plausible.

 

[rrosen]

The initial stack is much smaller now, only two spearmen and two gallic warriors. Furthermore, Southern Gaul doesn't seem to flip for them?

 

[rrosen]

Celts:

Initial attacks agains Massilia and Burdigala are a gamble, but I think you need the kickstart from conquering them early. The initial settler is sent north to the Netherlands, as you will already have the cities necessary in southern Gaul. A promoted gallic warrior protects the sourthen flank

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and another the Northern.

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But everything gathers to meet the Roman attack.

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And the Romans run away!

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Sadly, a temporary victory. They return, north of my brave celtic warriors. A magnificient victory, three Roman legions slaughtered, but Massilia has to be evacuated nevertheless.

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Striking from the protection of the wooded hills and forest, the Romans never stand a chance.

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Mediolanum falls to the Gallic hordes.

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Rome falls in 222 BC.

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The Romans gives up alot of juicy tech for peace (and is destroyed a few turns later).

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Capturing Ephesus in 186 gives control of Anatolia.

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The home-front is hard pressed by barbarians, as most new gallic warriors have been sent to the battle, but it still manages.

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Some spawned barbarians in the upper Rhine are stuck.

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The worst problem at the end was economy: having founded the city in Illyricum, I had to give up Byzantium to the Ptolemids simply to sustain my income at -4 gold (0% science). In 111 BC Carthago Nova is captured! Time to concentrate on surviving and accumulating culture until 50 AD.

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It was smooth sailing indeed, as other empires of the world collapsed around me. The last 200 years of activity consisted of defending against barbarians.

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To summarize: defeating the Romans is still somewhat of a terrain puzzle, but certainly not hard the first time you try it. It gives a great feeling of being the rebellious Celtic war leader preparing to strike the Roman columns.
I don't think it is possible to succeed with the first goal without first defeating the Romans. You need the production capacity of Mediolanum and Rome to get enough settlers and Gallic warriors to defeat the barbarians.
There weren't really much you could do about the third goal. The tech rate for the Celts is low, so the only culture building I got for the vast majority of time was the obelisk. Anyway, there was no competition for culture, so just surviving with the automatic culture from their UP was enough.

I hope ai Rome vs ai Celts will be too hard for the Romans with the buffed Gallic warriors!

The map replay at victory is not working at the moment.
(I must say, 5 gold per turn in mercenary upkeep is too much!)

 

[Wessel V1]

Just noted this (I only check the modmod forum every now and then), it seems very promising! Close action it seems, will definitely take a look soon.

 

[srpt]

my internet at home has been down since yesterday morning and won't be back til tomorrow morning so I can't commit anything right now unfortunately.

@Wessel_V1: thank you. I hope you have time to try it out soon.

sorry forgot to lower merc costs. if you want to change it yourself its in MercenaryUtils.py. search for "g_dHireCostModifier" and "g_dMaintenanceCostModifier".

thought I had made paths out of all the forests but I'll fix that one in Germany.

the collapsing civs is more likely losing cities to barbs than anything else. the barbs are a bit much right now. I've started giving small bonuses vs barbs rather than change all the spawns cause its easier, just one change. ideally the Celts should be competing with at least a couple of the Han, Parthians, Ptolemys(may be alive if Rome is dead), Satavahanas, and the Sunga/Mauryan respawn in 50AD.

about the Sunga/Mauryan respawn: the collapse part is working great but I can't get them to respawn no matter what I do with the parameters. hopefully someone in the moddong questions forum can help me with that.

 

[rrosen]

I tried a game as the Romans, though I didn't take notes during the game. Their last victory condition doesn't seem to trigger:

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General comments: The Romans are very easy for the human player, comparable to the other civs UHV. Celts suffer from not having Southern Gaul flip, and when I arrived they still only had their capital. The Dacian seemed underdeveloped as well, all units stuck in their capital, and not much improvements on the land. They did send a few units to attack Byzantium.

The Parthians and their UU present the first real threat to the Romans, which is nice.
The amount of barbarians is quite large, but manageable if you disable show enemy moves, and enable quick combat for defense. You lose some overview, but gain in speed - just like the real Empire.

Tooltips that lack values are the historians for the popups and strategy text for civics. The greek fire quest (build galleys) appear, but didn't trigger.

All in all, the Romans are a nice, historical but easy civ. I don't see them requiring any major changes at the moment.

 

[srpt]

well I don't want the romans to be that easy. you were rock solid stable and making 300 gold per turn at 60% tech. I imagine it was your economy keeping you so stable? can you tell me what your individual stability ratings were? to start with I've moved the empire goal back to 50AD from 100 and added Crimea and Armenia to the requirements. I will also give them some inflation to deal with and add some more detailed, tribe specific barb spawns.

I made it so the Celts don't flip Massilia for 2 reasons: 1, the city entered into an alliance/vassalage with rome to protect them from carthage and the celts and 2, I want the player to choose whether they want an independent buffer between them and the romans while they build up.

 

[srpt]

the Mauryan collapse and respawn is working now but they're not changing to the Sungas properly yet, just respawning as themselves. its quite deterministic right now, I will soften it soon so there's some variation. if you're playing the Mauryans get ready for a spawn of barb elephants, spears and axes in the ganges valley around 185BC.

 

[DC123456789]

The non-svn version seems kind of glitched- the chinese civs don't seem to spawn. Also, are you planning to fix the replay soon?

 

[srpt]

yeah something wrong with the Han. looking into it.

the svn works fine so I'll just upload a new version.

 

[rrosen]

My stability was cities: +59; civics: +4; economy: +221; expansion: -65 and foreign: -28. Note that a large number of my cities were running wealth. when I set them to build other things I had only +80 gpt at 50% science. Tribe specific barbarians sounds fun!

 

[rrosen]

Mauryans next: The goal to control Asoka's (Ashoka?) Empire in 150 BC is certainly challenging, as you have to keep Herat until after the Parthian spawn, more or less forcing you to refuse the flip. Or, I guess, you could accept the flip and very shortly before 150 BC send a strike force. Either way, it doesn't quite feel right to have to control a spawn area just after the flip. With the Saravahans you have a much longer time to take it back.

 

[srpt]

perhaps the deadline should be just before the Parthian spawn then. or maybe Parthia should not flip Arachosia. how was the Sunga event to deal with?

 

[srpt]

made a few changes:
Spain split into 3 provinces, Italy into 2. neither Parthia nor Sassanids flip Arachosia and Susa is back in Mesopotamia so they don't flip that either. we'll see how it goes.
starting units for Rome, Parthia, Kushans and Sassanids reduced for the human player. Rome's inflation increased.

 

[rrosen]

The Sunga event is nice. Since it was the first time I experienced it, I didn't really remember when and how many they would come with, so they managed to capture one of my cities. But as Mauryans you have good production and the war elephant is really powerful, so it was possible to take it back.

I'm not sure about the Parthians/Sassanids not flipping Herat. You changed it so that it would flip in order for the Seleucids not to have an isolated outpost in the east after the Parthian spawn. Not flipping it will also weaken them, which is undesirable since they are the main civilized foe of Rome.

 

[Power_of_Beer]

When I start a game, the interface is gone... do you by any chance know what causes this?

 

[srpt]

svn or non-svn?

 

[rrosen]

What are the UHV requirements for Qin? The "control 8 provinces by 100 AD" doesn't show up in the UHV list.

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I think it is coded though, since I got 1/3 without succeding with the two other.
Which provinces count for the central and north China by 215? There is a really large number of potential provinces for that, more than 8. In that context, having the last goal as 8 pronvinces by 100 AD is odd, since you can accomplish it so much earlier (I did it about 280 BC) using your starting units.

Edit: SVN 191.