RFC Classical World

[srpt]

oops. I'll clean that up.

EDIT: fixed. central and north China means Qin, Han, Wei, Yan, Zhao, Chu and Shu. also took away some of Qin's starting units.

and I'm thinking of moving the Mauryans conquest goal to 200BC to avoid those flipping problems and make it more of a race.

 

[rrosen]

To control north china by 215 BC, you need the province of Han.

Spoiler :

That province is rather small, and tucked in betwen Xian and Louyang, so you really don't want to build any cities there, with your weak economy. I thought controlling all the squares in a province via culture would count as controlling it, but it doesn't seem like that:

Spoiler :

The hardest challenge for the Qin is the economical one. To build the Terracotta army you need to research military drill. In my tries sofar, I have only reached about halfways (560/1125) by 248 BC, which is clearly less than what is need. I usually do a rapid expand though - perhaps the best strategy is to only capture Louyang, build a city with your settler and intentionally hold off the rest of the conquest?

 

[rrosen]

I implemented the plan and waited until about 270 BC to start expanding beyond Loyang and Yichang (city built to the north on the stone). That certainly helped the research, and this time I was only 15 turns away from completing the Terracotta army at 215 BC... but it still counted as if I succeded. Perhaps the and check for great wall and terracotta is an or check?

Spoiler :

 

[rrosen]

This time I planned very carefully, and held off expanding until 260 BC.

Spoiler :

. By doing so, and building workers and fairgrounds early on I could keep 100% science all the time until military drill was researched. Xian then immediately started building the Terracotta army (22 production per turn). Taking the rest of China, including building a settler to settle Han went smooth, though not with a huge margin. Shu, the last independent city in these 8 provinces, fell in 225 BC. Barbarians were a constant but manageable threat.

In 215 BC I still had 10 turns left to build the Terracotta army. I'm at a loss on how to further improve the speed on constructing the Terracotta army. Perhaps its building cost could be decreased, or a resource give construction bonus?

Nevertheless, since the wonder victory only require the great wall at the moment I still won

Spoiler :

The control 8 provinces by 100 AD automatically succeeds if you manage the 8 for UHV 2.

 

[srpt]

well I managed the Mauryan territorial goal by 201BC so I'll change it to that. and also flip Arachosia to the Parthians again.

sorry about the Qin victory conditions. I didn't even attempt to find out if the wonders were doable and I totally overlooked the fact that the other 2 overlap. I'm not sure how the third goal should relate to the Han spawn. maybe the Qin should destroy them? I think I fixed the bug in the wonder goal. did you try getting a great engineer for the terracotta army?

I will probably change the province control mechanism to include completely covering the province with your culture but having no cities there.

 

[rrosen]

Nope, didn't think of trying that! Then it should really be doable, so no change needed. As for the third, perhaps destroy the Han really close to their spawn?

I tried Han as well.

Spoiler :

Control central China is not a list of province, bur rather list highest culture. It didn't trigger in 100 BC. Instead, the second goal to control central China, Tarim and Annam triggered (even though I did not control Tarim and Annam).

 

[DC123456789]

In the non-svn version, the second Ptolemaic Empire UHV goal triggers at 50 AD, not 100 AD.

 

[srpt]

ok the Han goals are fixed and the third Ptolemys goal is now to have the world's best map in 100AD. I will put up a new non-svn today.

and the Romans now need to also control Mesopotamia for their 3rd goal.

and I rebalanced Legionaries and Swordsmen. I was getting 90%+ odds on everything with Legionaries so I lowered them to 6 and raised swordsmen to 7. swordsmen were intended to beat legions anyway. I loaded a Dacian start (80BC) with the change and AI Rome still had most of the mediterranean so it doesn't hurt them too much.

 

[Wessel V1]

Tried a few starts before I actually started playing. Looks good so far. First game was a the Seleucid kingdom, but I soon gave up when I saw no improvement in my cash flow, which was about -20 even with 0% science. Second game was as the Celts, I hoped it would be a distant game to see how things develop. Well, that tactic didn't really work because Rome invaded me around 250BC with a stack of 8 Legionairs, I of course didn't stand a chance. So, Nubia was next. Some remarks:

- The map features are very nice, a very good map overall.
- There is an island of the Greek coast that doesn't belong to the Islands province, but to the Mediterranean Sea. Not sure if this is intended.
- Nubia is a good starter civ, it offers no real pressure. No barbarians, no enemy civs, and lots of production. Stability was about +20, went down to +5 after I conquered Egypt, but was no threat. Goals are pretty easy too, but the production goal doesn't trigger (9 march non-SVN version). I found that goal pretty easy, a golden age and some last minute micromanaging did the trick.
- Not sure about several features. There are some tiles that I cannot enter. After some time it made sense but it seemed strange at first. Same story for Relics, couldn't figure out what they are supposed to do.
- I started with 4 workers, which was good because workers are expensive to build. However, as the Celts I got only 1 so it took too long to get the economy running. Those Roman guys are pretty smart. In my Nubian they conquered Greece and France early, the Levant too, and they were close to Alexandria as well.

Question: is there a release log somewhere? I was wondering how things were developing but I couldn't find one. It seems to be in good shape though, well done.

 

[Power_of_Beer]

svn or non-svn?

Non-svn. I'll have a look in the forums as this bug is reported for other mods as well.

 

[rrosen]

Strategy tips: For the Seleucids, you have to concentrate production on workers and fairgrounds to get the economy running, and set science to 0% from the start. Until you get your economy up, the plunder from city captures will sustain you.
The Gallic Warriors the Celts have can enter the forested regions that are normally inaccessible. From there, you can ambush the Roman legions and eventually decimate them.

 

[Wessel V1]

I figured out it is somewhat like Persia in RFC, lots of trade routes to maximize economy but I also thought I should start with a somewhat easier civ so I didn't give it another try yet. About the Celts I think you're right but if I only have time to build 3 there is no way for me to survive those Legionairs.

 

[rrosen]

The Romans are fun, then you'll be at the other end of the spear

 

[srpt]

@ Power_of_Beer: no interface is usually a python thing. do you have python exceptions enabled?

@Wessel_V1: there isn't really a changelog, so much stuff is changing all the time. right now I'm working on the early civs, just trying to get it all roughly balanced. odd that you didn't get any barbs as Nubia, though barbs seem quite variable game-to-game.

EDIT: just made some changes to Nubia and tested them a bit. they now start with only 1 worker and 100 gold and there are barbs coming from Axum province. I got the tech goal in 152BC getting alphabet first and building libraries and research.

and relics should be out as of now in the svn. let me know if you see any more. and mercenaries are a bit cheaper.

next I need to figure out why my respawned Mauryans are not correctly renaming themselves as the Magadhans. (weird thing is the leader is changing correctly). once I have that working I can properly add the Visigoth, Vandal and Lombard (or maybe Ostrogoth, still haven't decided) respawns, which I'm really looking forward to.

and thinking about it I could actually make those playable in the 220AD start. hmmm... thats something other mods have not done but Vandals would fun.

 

[srpt]

played the Armenians a bit and made some changes.
they now start with 2 spears, 2 archers and a horse, they need it, there's lots of barbs
they start with code of laws so their tech path to Christianity is 1 tech shorter, may give them priesthood as well
no war on spawn with Parthia, sometimes they send their whole stack and you just can't stop it

and here's a couple more pictures

 

[Red Boxer]

I look forward to seeing the 'barbarians' joining the game to sack the Empire!

Something weird happened with my Rome game; I wound up losing the 2nd territorial goal despite it being before 70 AD and me controlling all of the appropriate provinces. In the continuing weirdness of that game I currently have over 500 stability and have maxed out the Tech Tree around 100 AD.

I'll enjoy seeing this mod continuing to grow and develop, it seems like it'll be a lot of fun!

 

[srpt]

@ RedBoxer: those are some weird results. none of my games have been anything like that.

the Byzantine spawn in the 220AD scenario is working well now I think. the Romans are coded not to collapse before the Byzantine spawn and the Byzantines only flip Roman cities and units in their core. This means that if you're playing as the Sassanids you can freely conquer Roman cities without worrying about them flipping. playing the Byzantines on the 320BC start would be weird, you could possibly end up with just Byzantium. I think the Byzantines should also be at semi-permanent peace with the Romans since I don't want them to achieve their territorial goal by fighting them. I could just make it so the Visigoth and Ostrogoth spawns are so strong that no player would want to try to hold Italy or Spain against them. it will probably be enough to make the Byzantines over-stretched at spawn so they need Rome as a friend and safe border. I will also move their spawn forward a bit to around 323AD when Constantine completed his takeover.

there is now a Hannibal spawn triggered when the human Roman player declares war on Carthage. the stack spawns next to one of the Romans cities in North Italy, South Gaul or Iberia. the size of the stack depends on Carthage's total population. the terrain around the alps has been changed a bit for this. I'd also like this to trigger if Carthage gets a great general while at war with Rome, but to only trigger once.

here's how I think the Byzantine spawn should work when they are AI:
if the Romans are stable the Byzantines don't spawn
in the 220AD scenario the non-playable Romans cannot collapse until 305
if the Romans collapse for any reason and the Byzantines have not yet spawned, whether the Romans are the human player or not, the Romans don't collapse but the Byzantines spawn, flipping only Roman units and cities and with a capital at the largest city if Byzantium is not Roman
if the Romans collapse and the Byzantines are already spawned, the Romans collapse.
and I guess if the Romans collapse early or if they have no eastern cities, no Byzantines

and here is my revised idea for the Mauryan/Sunga respawn:
if the AI Mauryans convert to Hinduism they become the Sungas and theres no Sunga rebels
around 185BC if the Mauryans are still Buddhist the Sunga rebels spawn but the stack size depends inversely on your Buddhist piety. this way the AI will get whacked but the human player can protect himself by building piety, which he is doing anyway.
if the Sunga rebels destroy the Mauryans, they respawn as the Sungas.

 

[Leoreth]

Minor thing I noticed while rolling a Han start: you get asked to switch to Bactria immediately upon spawn, even though they spawn before you.

 

[srpt]

@Leoreth: hey thank you for the interest. I read about your mod all the time and someday I hope to get time to try it. modding takes so much time and when its going well it takes even more time...

it actually took me until just a couple of days ago to finally figure out how to prevent the new civ popups. in the case of my mod it had gotten quite messy since the order of civs in the WBS no longer matches the chronological order, something I will fix one day...

 

[Leoreth]

Yeah, I must say the screenshots here looked really promising so I had to take a look at it myself, and I was not disappointed However, I don't actually have the time to play a whole game. So don't worry if you don't have the time to take a look at mine, since I can sympathize if you would rather invest your time in improving your mod