RFC Classical World

[CrossRFC]

@ Crossphazer: I'm not against the Antigonids holding Athens at the start. Balance definitely takes precedence over down-to-the-year historical accuracy here. Is there a date for that map though?

It is dated to be "The Kingdoms of the Diadochi circa 303 BC." in this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seleucid_Empire . I don't want to overpower them, as in terms of strength they are fine, if not a tad OP. Rather, I want to shift their focus away from Antioch to favour the Seleucids there.

As for the 1 year/turn argument, I would go even a bit further: past 450 AD, the turns really should advance at a quicker pace because "not as much is happening" as in 200 BC, in a certain way. By that I mean that the number of civs will be a lot smaller around that time, making extra time less appreciated than earlier on.

As for the splitting of Anatolia:

Let us assume we split it into 3 parts:
1) Asia Minor (the west) This represents the Eastern Greeks of Anatolia. Greek and Latin civs will have good stability here, whereas the others (Parthians, Sassanids, etc) would not.
2) Galatia (the south-east) Good stability for the Celts and all the Successors (Galatia is where the Ptolemaic dynasty gets their best troops). Fair stability for Parthians/Persians. This will be the zone of conflict between the near-eastern and western civs.
3) Pontus (north-east) Good stability for Armenia (so they can expand into the Trapezous area). The least stable region for any conqueror. Roman empire's stability may not extend here, but Byzantine's will. This reflects that the Pontic region was a client kingdom until the mid 1st century AD. This region should stay nominally independent before the Roman empire, unless another civ is doing very well, in which case I have no problem going along with an alternate history scenario. (I would even advocate for Pontus to be a civ on a bigger map of the near-east, but that's excessive here since there's no room at all and the civ slots are full.)

 

[srpt]

svn and regular download updated with some improvements to the Pandyan and Tocharian starting locations.

 

[CrossRFC]

The Tocharian starting location is different? I see no difference on my end (I updated my svn version twice, and nothing).

Also, replacing the grassland above New Carthage with a plains/mountain hinders it more than it helps. There's a forest/plains/hill to its west which is more productive already. I would argue something like copper on that hill, maybe.

 

[srpt]

Khotan has fresh water (the river starts 1 tile further south) and the Sorghum is on plains not semi-desert. Kashgar is on a hill.

the plains/hills to the west of New Carthage was grassland, so it has 1 more hammer than before. with the other hills/plains/forest tiles it can work 3 tiles of three hammers each once the borders pop, with lots of food from the sea.

 

[CrossRFC]

Yeah, the wooded hills help production after a harbour is set up there, definately. Played a Carthage game, and it feels a lot more fun now. I think this is due to changes in Rome's behaviour and mechanics for the better.

I guess I missed those changes in the Tocharian spawn, since they are fairly subtle.

Edit: Oh by the way, the Carthaginian "destroy the Romans" UHV does not trigger "false" at 50BC. Romans collapsed in 9 BC and I still got the point.

 

[srpt]

oops it was set to 50AD. fixed now.

 

[CrossRFC]

Does anyone think inflation is a bit much for the old civs? Playing as Carthage, I have 46% inflation in 10 AD, which is quite crippling. Bleeding money at 0% sliders. Not sure if it's a desired effect or not.

 

[srpt]

some changes in the SVN:

the Tocharians now start with 2 settlers and 2 unique archers, no horsemen. so they can either found Khotan and or found something else and try to take Khotan when its weakened by barbs.

changed the gems south of Kashgar to a copper. they can still get the gems at Khotan and now they can make spearmen without holding Samarkand.

religious units can now cross all 3 Pamir passes, the one to Ferghana, the one to Bactria and the one to Gandhara, so the Tocharian pilgrims can go around the Bactrians or others if necessary.

no mercenaries if you don't have Currency

I figured out what was wrong with the Discipline Promotion (bonus vs barbs) so its back but its lowered to +25%.

Archery units can learn the Skirmish promotion (bonus vs Missile Cavalry)

added a cow north of Carthago Nova and some grassland across Africa province

added an incense in Punt

I will put those changes up on the regular download tomorrow.

I will look into the inflation thing.

 

[CrossRFC]

Will look at how Carthage's area looks and how it plays out. Same for Tocharians.

Edit:

All the changes made to Africa seem to fit with ancient Tunisia's role as a breadbasket for Rome (at least before they got Egypt, the real gem of agriculture). The cows will definitely help New Carthage get off the ground. There is a road on the hill to the East of those cows for no apparent reason though. (The leftovers of what use to be a city ruin there?)

Tocharian changes creates a different early game than previously. I think this is a positive change which fits the civ's theme better.

 

[srpt]

working on a Roman civil war mechanic.

 

[Sitalkas]

I won my first Tocharian game yesterday. I had to take some risks at the beginning leaving my capital undefended to capture some independent cities in India and gift them to the Sungas, to get some elephants!

Then, having 6 elephants everything was easier.

I had 3 cities in Tarim and Dunhuang. I was giving gold as gift to various civs to make them sign open borders with me.

And I was using spies to make contact with new civs.

I won the game at 150 AD

Generally I enjoyed the game. I think they need another archer to start with

 

[srpt]

added the following wonders:

Colosseum
requires engineering, +5 happiness

Borobudur
requires patronage and Buddhism, allows great prophets to create great works

Archimedes Workshop
requires engineering and Hellenism, allows great scientists to hurry buildings, 1 free scientist and 1 free engineer

Ishtar Gate
prebuilt in Babylon, -50% war weariness

Theodosian Walls
requires state religion Christianity and Fortification, +100% defense

Shwedagon Paya
requires Buddhism and aesthetics, allows all religion civics

also lowered Legions strength to 6 but increased their melee bonus from 25 to 50.

added another mechanism for AI Rome to pick up indy cities in the mediterranean after a certain date

Roman civil wars have been added:

there is a check every 30 turns starting 30 turns after the Roman spawn and ending 30 turns before the Byzantine spawn, as long as Rome has at least 6 cities

the check is based on Roman stability, above 20 you are safe, below that it gets more likely, ultimately I'd like it to be fairly hard to avoid at least 1 civil war playing as the Romans

if you fail the check somewhere between 1/2 and 1/4 of your cities will revolt, forming a new civ, "Roman Rebels"

if you capture one of their cities and that gives you more than double their number of cities they surrender and you get all your cities and units back, as long as they didn't lose them to someone else in the interim

so for example you have 12 cities and fail the check, between 3 and 6 cities go and you need to take 1 or 2 cities back to end the rebellion

if you get a civil war you are immune to the next check

ending a civil war resets your stability at 0

if the civil war happens to the ai, peace between Rome and Rebel Rome ends the civil war, destroying the rebel civ and giving all the cities and units back to Rome

for now Pompey is the rebel leader, later I'll make it different names depending on date

please try the Romans and let me know how it goes

 

[DC123456789]

How about, instead of "Roman Rebels", the name is "Empire of (whatever province their capital is)".

 

[iOnlySignIn]

^ Or name them "Optimates" or "Populares" depending on the civics selection of the player.

 

[Sitalkas]

the Roman Civil war doesnt work on SVN edition. I created an unstable empire ,being all the time at -2 to -6 stability, but untill 10BC that I tryed no civil war happened

 

[CrossRFC]

Region-based Roman rebel names include Gallic Empire, or Palmyrene Empire. (Examples from the Crisis of the Third Century).

 

[srpt]

yes I will eventually make a whole pile of names and capital locations based on the date and size of the empire. the stability check could trigger specific events with their own flips and capital locations.

just had another idea for Rome: different UHVs for the Republic and the Empire, like the multiple UHV choices for the Mongols in RFCA. the Empire goals would be about conquest and the REpublic goals about great people and techs.

 

[CrossRFC]

That sounds like a good idea. Maybe the Republic could also have a diplomatic aspect: forcing the Republican/Senatorial way of government across the Mediterranean. How you would depict this government type I don't know. Maybe vassalage of civs, the aristocracy civic, or some feature that could be added (such as a Republic civic that can only be chosen under certain conditions). I've seen more civic types than the vanilla limit, so I know it's possible, but not how much of a pain it would be to implement, I'm not sure. Perhaps there is an easier way to represent it.

 

[srpt]

the oligarchy civic is supposed to represent the Roman republic, which was after all an oligarchy of hereditary senators, hence the Romans tech goal of Jurisprudence, which allows oligarchy. I know its a bit backwards since they won't discover the tech til later, but it was the best thing I could think of.

but we could also make the republic and the empire different civs. different start dates, UUs, everything. hmmmm.....

 

[Lokki242]

That way there could be a serious civil war between the various successors of Caesar: Brutus and the other assassins (Rebels), Mark Antony (Republic) and Octavius (Empire).