RFC Classical World

[CrossRFC]

As Antigonids, every single city I conquered flipped except my capital, and I got 5 turns of anarchy, for declaring war on the Independents in control of Athens. Seems like a little much...

Edit: Is that supposed to simulate the Antigonids defeat and shift westwards? If so, then I was just completely caught off guard.

 

[Sitalkas]

so, was I the only one who could achieve stability>100 in this mod???

from the comments I understand that there are some things that need to be fixed, so I wont update the svn now.. I ll go berserk if my empire collapse after conquering an indy city!

I ll stay in touch for gameplay,history and UHV ideas

 

[srpt]

I am having no trouble staying stable. are you unstable when you are getting these negative effects? the way it is set up now when you are stable the worst that can happen to you is to be downgraded to unstable.

as the Seleucids I took Tyre, Antioch and Tarsos, founded Edessa and stayed stable. the Antigonids aslo stayed stable, barely.

everyone should keep the svn updated because I am tuning the thing as I go. you should be able to declare war and stay stable now. the system is much more forgiving then when i first posted it

I've introduced a new factor that varies the level of the stability checks. it is now easier to pass a check when declaring war or taking a city than when losing one and making peace is now a positive check.

the Antigonids and Seleucids both start out not controlling part of their core, Syria in the case of the Seleucids and Greece for the Antigonids, so conquering those should be a first priority. this will also make both of them shift westwards if they collapse to their core.

I haven't gotten around to it but I will make the Antigonids transplant themselves to Greece when they collapse as long as there is an indy or barb city for them to take.

just fixed a bug that was causing every stability check that resulted in a change in stability level to be immediately followed by another check. this could cause you to go from stable to crisis in one check. current svn is 615.

hopefully tonight I will have time to do a stabillity display in the finance advisor

 

[merijn_v1]

A small report on my Arabian game.
NOTE: It was one the old map. Some things might be fixed in the new SVN version/map.

- Mecca: I found the capital on the spawning plot. This gave me some problem however. As there spawning plot was (maybe changed now) on a desert tile, I couldn't move my workers/slaves to it, because they can't enter desert tiles. For the workers that isn't really a problem, because they can't improve a city tile (I would only move them into the city when they are threatened by barbs), but for the slaves, that's more a problem. I wasn't able to hurry production with them or settle them in a city.
Similarly, I couldn't improve the Incense resource next to Mecca, as this is also on a desert tile. I saw my brother moving slaves on a desert tile in a later version, so that might be fixed already.
-UP: Islam didn't spread to my flipped cities (Jerusalem, etc.), unlike what the UP text says. Possibly because I copy-pasted the text from RFCE and the coding was done afterwards.
This forced me to use my starting missionaries to spread Islam to the flipped cities. Annoyingly, I was 1 missionary to short to spread the religion to all my cities.
And it also didn't worked always. When I conquered Babylon, Islam didn't spread. It did work properly in the other cities.
- Civics: Arabia starts with the basic civics and no state religion. That means I have to be at least 2 turns in anarchy before I can have Islam as my state religion. I think it would be better if Arabia starts with the Militancy civic (which they already can use at spawn) and Islam as state religion. So they don't need to be in anarchy just to adopt Islam.
- UHV: The 3rd UHV doesn't show up in the Victory screen.
- This might be irrelevant on the new map, but I find it quite annoying that I couldn't utilize the sea resources (clam and pearls) at the coast near Mecca (In the BFC of Mecca), as I didn't have any workboats at spawn. I think Arabia should have some workboats at spawn, so they can improve those sea resources. The development of Mecca would otherwise be annoyingly slow.

I didn't play this game for a very long time because of the new version and Byzantium was frustratingly strong.

 

[CrossRFC]

I have no clue how the balance is like for Arabia now, but fighting against the Byzantine and Sassanid powerhouses was quite difficult. Not that the Arabs' achievement was necessarily easy: their lightning fast and massive expansion was due to their skill, not just the two other great empires' warmongering against each other.

Edit: Firstly, Gaul and Aquitania's names are mixed up. Second, Roman UHV text description for Republic are Empire's goals.

 

[srpt]

here is a bit more explanation about the stability system:

first, it is (or should be) no longer possible to get a bad result from a positive event. make peace, build cities, research techs, you will be safe. I will probably also remove the neutral check for declaring war on independents. I will also make health and happiness more of a factor for reasons explained below.

first, this is how I want it to work in the game for the human player:
you automatically start out stable and will stay that way forever unless you have to pass a neutral check. so you start developing your land and getting an army together and then you declare war on your enemy and you get downgraded to unstable. what can you do? think of when the next positive check will come: peace, finish a wonder or national wonder, research a tech. try to improve the balance of one of the factors before that event. try to get the population of your core as high as possible, maybe even add a city if there are tiles none of your existing cities can reach. also, do not grow your provincial cities beyond the what's needed to work the resource tiles. try to be happier or healthier. trade for stuff you don't necessarily need. the excess happiness and health will help.

I am going to generally balance the effect of the different factors(civics, economy etc) so that you can get enough of a boost from one of them, say monarchy and vassalge or tech over 60% and still earning gold, to actually cancel out a couple of bad factors.

and I think I will make golden ages reset you to stable without a check. golden ages are kind of useless as is and that would make them quite important.

 

[Cetrix]

the Antigonids and Seleucids both start out not controlling part of their core, Syria in the case of the Seleucids and Greece for the Antigonids, so conquering those should be a first priority. this will also make both of them shift westwards if they collapse to their core.

I haven't gotten around to it but I will make the Antigonids transplant themselves to Greece when they collapse as long as there is an indy or barb city for them to take.

Good idea. And seleucids in Syria if they collapse (if indy cities), maybe.

I'll play a new game tonight.

 

[CrossRFC]

I like the angle you're going for with the new stability system. Maybe to make the process better defined, more engaging and less seemingly arbitrary. Maybe some popups, stability events that can respond to player's input and force them to make difficult decisions that engage them in the process (e.g. for X gold, the player can delay or prevent a revolt, or maybe a city could be kept by having a certain number of military units tied down). The fact is that many if not most of the civs in this game decline and collapse at some point. Playing a decaying civ has a charm, but there should be some sort of warning that bad times are coming, and so good players could have a chance to improve the situation with some skillful playing and tough decision-making.

Also on the topic of revolts: I suggest two civics but don't know where I'd put them. One would be a political leader-controlled army system, where army maintenance is expensive and/or the free unit cap is dramatically lessened. However, army revolts are not made possible (archer/spearmen/javalineer armed citizenry is still fine). The other would be a generalship system, wherein army maintenance and free unit cap are more generous, but armies will flip along with the rest in a civil war. The purpose of the two civics is to give an advantage to smaller or less militaristic civs and a penalty to large empires and/or militaristic states.

 

[Ekolite]

Another thing you might want to consider is for a civs core area to change to wherever they move their palace. Several civs have the UHV to move their palace representing a historical change in their centre of power. If a civs core changed to wherever their palace is it would open up so many possibilities, for example Meroe invading Egypt and making that their core province, or the Arabians moving their core to Baghdad for example.

 

[CrossRFC]

Playing as Dacia, crash in 50 BC.

 

[srpt]

yes there is a crash happening. I have had it twice but once was during an autoplay near the Dacian spawn and the other I somehow lost the save. I think it is a mercenary art problem.

can you post a save before the crash? also you may be able to prevent it and play on if you load back and do something different with mercenaries than you did previously.

on a happier note the stability screen is working. one thing about interpreting it: the stability rating indicated at the top is not calculated from the factors below as they are on that turn, but rather as they were the last time a stability check happened, or if you've never had a stability check then it will say stable. so if it says stable at the top and your numbers are bad you know you will be downgraded if you hit a neutral check. you can then react by trying not to hit a neutral check, trying to improve some of your numbers, or both.

the ideas of military coups/revolts and border provinces becoming stable are both ones I like and have thought about.

I will probably add stability adjustments for having too small or too large a military. there could also be a system where if you build too many units you get a rebel general like the Roman civil war system (I know it may not be working, I will look at it). I like ideas that do something with/destroy the giant piles of units the AI likes to build. there is already a system that makes AI civs that have huge armies declare war on other AI civs with huge armies.

as for border provinces becoming stable, maybe something like the RFCE system where certain provinces automatically become core when occupied by certain civs. this would make a lot of sense for southern China and southern Gaul, Spain and Africa. you could also require the building of a colony building and covering the province completely with your culture.

edit: this update is large because I added some music

 

[CrossRFC]

But srpt, I didn't even open the merc screen as Dacia in that game! A crash also occurred while loading a Sassanid game. I can't tell you where, because I started the autoturns, left for a while and when I came back it had crashed. Next crash I have, if I have one, I will get the autosave from a few turns before and send it.

 

[srpt]

then if you load back and DO hire a mercenary, you will change the random seed and may avoid the crash. the crash could have happened when somone else hired a merc.

 

[CrossRFC]

Alright, I'll gave that a shot next game.

Oh and here's some art stuff I found around the forums:
unit art for Antigonid UU? http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=12698 (last image)

I also made this icon for the Baktrian UU (to avoid the confusion of samey-icons):
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4694633/companion_cav.bmp

 

[rrosen]

I really like the new stability system! Previously, stability was an all or nothing issue. Either it had no direct effect (only forcing you to consider it while expanding/building), and if you collapsed it was game over. Now it is possible to endure several periods of instability, which greatly contributes to the feeling of an overextended empire tethering on the brink of rebellion.

I played a game with the Antigonids. Sadly, I didn't take any screenshots or make notes, as I expected to fail the first try. However, I managed to win.

Spoiler :

It is great that the replay function is working!
My game plan was to concentrate on military early on. The starting units sufficed to take Greece, while mercenaries could beat back the Seleucids and take their western cities. I then made peace with the Seleucids and used the plunder to hire more mercenaries to conquer Egypt. A long consilidation period followed, where I fixed the economy and got monarchy. I bribed the Romans with everything I could think of, so they didn't declare war and stay small. The final push against Seleucids was quick with mercenaries, and then it was just a question of teching and building wonders. Slaves from the constant stream of barbarians were essential for success.

It was really fun. The main area of concern was, in that game, the general lack of aggressiveness from the ai. The Seleucids sent a few waves early on, but were mostly passive. Egypt had a few garrisons, but only defended. Rome did send an expeditionary force to take Pontus, but not against me. Parthians stayed calm (with me keeping Babylonia). The military challange came from the barbarians.

 

[srpt]

I'm glad you like the new stability. what you described is pretty much exactly what I was going for.

I think I forgot to mention that being Stable gives +1 happiness in all cities and Collapsing gives -1.

thanks for that art. I'll include it today.

btw I'm not really good at the storytelling or presentation side of this stuff but if any of you wanted to do an AAR for the Stories and Tales forum that would be really great.

edit: svn is not letting me update the python/screens folder. it says its locked. I need to stop trying to fix this because its making me angry. in the meantime you need this replacement file for CvFinanceAdvisor or your stability reports will be inaccurate.

 

[srpt]

svn is working again sort of... its very, very slow. I added some unit art and at this rate it will take hours to finish so if you have problems in the immediate future that may be why. hopefully I can get it back to normal soon.

 

[CrossRFC]

The larger map size does make for generally less aggressive civs, or civs that misuse their initial armies. The Parthians are extremely guilty of squandering their initial stack and failing to conquer Mesopotamia or any regions north or east of their spawn. The Gauls are more isolated, and tend to be left alone in their little corner of Europe.

Not relating to map size, the Egyptian military does not fare very well. They rarely delve into the Levant, and I've seen many games where all of Egypt was conquered by the Nubians are Hebrews. These events make for an interesting alternative, but tend to be the rule rather than the exception.

 

[srpt]

well the svn is working again so there's new art for the Peltast and unique art for some of the Greek city-state mercenaries.

there's 2 things that could be done to help the armies wandering in desert:
make some desert impassable or make it do damage. I guess we can try both and see what happens.

 

[DC123456789]

Just tried out the new map- it's amazing!

By the way, the Antigonids have way too many border provinces- I don't think Numidia, Africa, Libya, Egypt, or Crimea should be historical. Armenia is a bit iffy, but that's acceptable. I also think Crete and Cyprus should be historical for them. Also, Malta and one tile of the Nile Delta is part of the Mediterranean Sea.

Edit: The game also referred to a work boat as a gunpowder unit (when I built my first one).