RFC Classical World

[Wessel V1]

re Wessel_V1's crash: I loaded it, took Rome, and it crashed. then I gave myself contact with Carthage first and it didn't crash. then I tried it again without the Carthage contact and it didn't crash. strange.

and about the UHV, its to destroy Rome the civ not Rome the city (maybe you knew that). were you going to squat them? I don't know how that would work out since Gallic Warriors get no extra bonus defending vs Legionaries and Rome is not on a hill. I realise its awkward having to wait for a civ to spawn and then destroy them. perhaps I should have the Celts spawn just after the Romans. I think its kind of important that they don't flip Massilia. it was a Greek city. I would actually almost flip it to the Romans, since I think I read that they voluntarily vassalized to Rome in fear of the Celts.

there are no Roman conquerors for the Celts btw. the reasons being the Romans don't have to cross water to get to the Celts and they don't have critical enemies to meet on the far side, like the Parthians.

A turn later works for me, but every time I load the Celts and attack Rome from the very beginning it doesn't work. Strange bug indeed. I indeed made Rome my capital, which worked out pretty well since Rome was stuck in Palermo. I was under the impression that Rome got conquerers for attacking Gaul. I'm Glad they don't, I can't handle a second stack. I know I have to destroy the civ but with Rome being mine so early that should be a formality. I'm more worried about the territory goal. I still need to rush a few settlers and Warriors to get to Illyricum and Anatolia. Rome is a key city, it takes much less time than other available cities to develop it properly. Lots of resources and no forests around.

 

[srpt]

I'm fairly certain I will move the Celts spawn to just after the Romans. I will move the capital 1 northwest (Bibracte) and they can flip that province, Northeast Gaul. I've already given them 1 more worker and made chopping a bit faster.

 

[Leoreth]

I like Judah being there, I actually think it makes the eastern mediterranean more historic-feeling. I am committed to keeping their power in check though. I would actually like them to get summarily crushed at least half the time as AI. I think the Seleucids are the key. They often go unstable/collapsing even before the Parthian spawn. I've just removed the stability hits they take from the Judean and Armenian spawn. hopefully that will help.

That sounds good. I'm not against Judah on principle, if they really behave like Judah. I agree that keeping the Seleucids alive is key here, but maybe you should also consider the Judean starting units. They often seem to have excess units in case Jerusalem was only lightly defended (the Ptolemids are not that militarily inclined) and use them to take over the Levant. Maybe have their starting unit depend on what's actually in Jerusalem is a sensible alternative.

 

[Cetrix]

- Very nice if the civ list isn't closed ! I think that you may do some respawn civ playable with new UVH, like celt => wisigoth (respawn in spain + burdigala), romans => ostrogoth (italy, illyricum) or lombards (northern italy). It makes the byzantine UVH more interesting, because they have to reconquer italy and south spain (I guess). West Europe is poor in civs, imo it's a good idea.

- Sometimes, barbarians are too hard ! In my last game as bactria, when I open the world builder in ~100BC... only 3 civ were alive in the whole world. Roman empire, celts, parthia, egypt, even india... all collapse.

- Like I said, collapsing seleucid but keep Syria is nice. Or maybe a respawning in Syria very few turns later. Even as human player.

- The game starts in 320BC, during the diadoque wars. Why not add minor unplayable civs in the early game ?

- Kingdom of Pontus is a must add civ, imo.

- There is a problem with byzantines if Constantinopolis was burnt into the ground by barbarians... they do not start with a settler (but maybe fix already ? I've see it once but in a previous version).

- Kingdom of Judah is fun to play, but I don't understand the conquest UVH : why Syria and Arabia ?

- About svn : is it updated every time you make changes ?

 

[srpt]

sorry I meant that the civ list is closed. the Visigoths, Ostrogoths and Vandals are in however and there are 38 playable civs.

yes the svn is updated just about every time I make a change.

the Judean conquest goal is just "greater Isreal".

sometimes the barbs are fierce, sometimes not. lots of balancing still to do.

 

[Cetrix]

My bad. It's OK with all the civs, but ostrogoth, wisigoth and vandals aren't playable and without uvh, are they ?

"lots of balancing still to do" : and we all know that you do a great job !

<and then, launch again a new game>
I will post some new feedbacks later.

 

[Cetrix]

New feedback, with 220AD scenario . I won't speak about barbarian balancing :

- Byzantine Empire doesn't get Syria, Judea, Egypt and Lybia when they spawn.
- City text missing for Seleucids in Anatolia (5 tiles N. of Aleppo)
- A unit's graphic model is bug, don't remember well but it was maybe a javelin of the french spawning ; it was a pink bubble.
- Burdigala should have an estuary to get ocean access.

 

[srpt]

the Byzantines are supposed to flip Roman cities only so if Rome lost its cites there then they wouldn't flip. that being said there could also be something wrong so I'll check it out.

I have the day off today so I'm going to try to fix the spawning-with-city-ruins-bug.

did you mean that the barbs were crazy tough?

 

[Cetrix]

No, even with roman cities, they don't flip. Only Greece, Anatolia.

http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/5213/civ4screenshot0096.jpg
Here you can see. Note the city name missing, it's actually 4 tiles north of Aleppo.

The barbs are too much strong in my opinion in the 220AD scenario. Parthians, Sassanids and both rome civs collapse early because of them the 3rd-3th century (from balkans, caucasus and asian steppe). In the 320BC start, rome is stronger and well in most of my games. Sometimes Rome take its time to conquer Carthage and Egypt but it's ok.

And btw, did you work on epic game speed ? Didn't try yet.

(edit) Wow. Another screenshot of the same turn of the previous one.
http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/7584/civ4screenshot0097a.jpg

Huge roman army flipped to me. Amazing !

 

[rrosen]

Svn 260, Dacia. Since there has been concerns regarding the difficulty and reloads, I will have a strict no reloading policy from now on. Srpt, let me know if you would rather have tests where I took bigger risks and included reloads.

Most of my playthroughs have been with the earlier civs, so I did not know that much what was to be expected with Dacia, except barbarian pressure from the north and a Roman Empire hopefully no longer in its prime.

You spawn with two settlers and a few soldiers in a wooded area and at war with Rome.

Spoiler :

Some desc_text still missing.

Spoiler :

Initial troops went to Salonika and took it for an archer.

Spoiler :

The Romans were threatening my newly built city, so I bought peace for 100 gold. That seems to be the sweet spot for most civs.

Spoiler :

Hireing a camel archer as Dacia is a really bad idea - they are locked in!

Spoiler :

Javelinmen art is bugged for me.

Spoiler :

21 BC: Time to go to war with the Romans! I have a nice little task force of my two starting swordsmen, some mercenaries and some javelinmen.

Spoiler :

A Falxman (UU swordsmen) wins at 65% odds, allowing me to conquer Athens.

Spoiler :

Spatalum, my city in Illyricum, was lost, but quickly retaken. Several units are lost fighting in Thrace against Roman archers and legionaries, but I hire new mercenaries.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spatalum is threatened again by a huge Roman stack returning from the Celts, which they are now at peace with. I evacuate.

Spoiler :

Byzantium is well defended, but I take it. But the Romans are closing in from all sides and refuse peace again, so I have to evacuate Byzantion.

Spoiler :

Use of my two starting Falxman is crucial in ambushing the Roman legions, and It is always scary to attack with 75% odds.

The Romans reinforce Byzantium, this will be a tough nut.

Spoiler :

My eastern army is destroyed, and a Roman stack is coming from the west.

Spoiler :

With my main army destroyed and Salonika lost, I have to concede defeat.

Spoiler :

Lessons: To succeed as Dacia, Rome has to be weak. In this playthrough, the Romans were quite small. When I ended they only had Alexandria, not the rest of Egypt, Tyre and Antioch, but not Jerusalem, Damascus and Aleppo, Carthago Nova and Tarraco, but no provinces in Africa. The Celts were still going strong with all of France and a city in Spain.

After legionaries were decreased in strength one, they have struggled to reach the sizes the used to be in my previous games. I would argue in favour of bumping up the legionarie one in strength. To help i.e. the Celts and Dacians, perhaps they could be given a few more starting units so that the UHV is still possible?

 

[srpt]

I think units are too cheap now. I will go over them tonight. I think they got out of line the same way the tech costs did.

no luck so far with the conditional spawn bug, although I have figured out a couple of things that were confusing me.

I'm a bit torn between allowing the Dacians to produce their unique unit right away (meaning either giving them Steel Working or making the Falxman replace something other than the Swordsman) or just giving them more of them on spawn. I'm not crazy about the idea of spawning civs with units they can't make yet but I notice that it happens a lot in SoI, which means its probably good for balance.

 

[rrosen]

With their low income and gold goal I doubt they'll be teching (at least the human player), so either way they are stuck with the techs and units they have at start.

 

[merijn_v1]

IIRC, I fixed the javelinman art. I'm not sur however if I already commited it to the svn.

 

[rrosen]

The version I had was svn downloaded about 17 hours ago.

 

[srpt]

I've copied the production, growth and research curves from Sword of Islam, basically the early civs are slow and then the later ones get progressively faster. some early UHVs may be impossible at the moment if they are tech based.

I gave the Dacians 2 more Falxmen and a gold (they were always supposed to have one, not sure why it got left out). I got a lucky spawn: Salonika and Byzantion were indy. I took those 2 and fought off a couple of Roman stacks but then the Parthians declared war and took Byzantion with elephants.

 

[Cetrix]

Wonderfull. About barbs, actually it's weird on my games from 320BC start ; sometimes huge romans/seleucids, sometimes an entire ind. map in Europe.

About byzantines, here is maybe the problem in consts.py :

lCoreRegions = [
[rSyria, rMesopotamia], # Seleucids
[rEgypt], # Egypt
[rAfrica, rMauretania], # Carthage
[rMagadha, rPunjab], # Mauryans
[rQin], # Qin
[rSGaul, rNWGaul], # Celts
[rNubia], # Nubia
[rArabiaFelix], # Saba
[rTamilNadu], # Pandyans
[rTarim], # Tocharians
[rNItaly, rSItaly, rSicily], # Rome
[rAnnam], # Vietnam
[rBactria, rMargiana], # Bactria
[rHan, rWei, rQi, rChu], # Han
[rDeccan, rAvanti], # Satavahana
[rArmenia], # Armenia
[rJudea], # Maccabees
[rParthia, rMedia, rPersia, rArachosia], # Parthia
[rDacia], # Dacia
[rGoguryeo], # Goguryeo
[rAxum], # Axum
[rSogdiana, rBactria, rGandhara], # Kushans
[rFunan], # Funan
[rPersia, rMedia, rArachosia], # Sassanids
[rYamato], # Yamato
[rWei, rHan, rQi], # Jin
[rThrace, rAnatolia, rGreece], # Byzantines
[rMagadha, rBangala], # Gupta
[rNEGaul, rNWGaul], # Franks
[rAvanti], # Chalukyans
[rMongolianSteppe, rSarmatianSteppe], # Gokturks
[rSumatra], # Srivajaya
[rScythianSteppe], # Khazars
[rTibet], # Tibet
[rHan, rWei, rQi, rChu], # Tang
[rArabia, rJudea], # Arabs
[rAethiopia], # Ghana
[rBaetica, rMauretania], # Cordova
]

Libya, Judea, Syria and Egypt missing at spawn. I test this and it's fine when fix.

 

[srpt]

but the Byzantine spawn is special. they are supposed to only flip Roman cities but flip them in their Core AND Normal regions. I will look at it again.

 

[srpt]

I was driving myself crazy trying to figure out that conditional spawn bug so I decided to leave it and work on balancing the early civs.

I managed to get the 1st Seleucid goal for the first time. it wasn't easy. I was very stretched. at one point it was my 2 spearmen defending 3 cities against the Ptolemys spearman and Galatian and a barb camel rider. the barb went for the Egyptians thankfully. I'm sure I won't hold Merv or Herat for more than a few turns.

 

[Leoreth]

Have you considered adding some dynamic city names? I know it's not really important for the actual game, but in my opinion it adds a lot if you're playing a Greek faction and are actually controlling Antiochia Margiana instead of Marv.

 

[srpt]

yeah eventually that will be there. I've been spending so much time trying to solve that conditional spawn bug that I've gotten a bit weary. I've found a circumstance where the bug doesn't occur, which is even more maddening. dynamic city names would be a nice fun and easy way to add some detail. maybe I'll do some today.