RFC Classical World

There was one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal_of_the_Pharaohs

And plenty of other potential canals: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_canals

 

For paradroping, if the animation can't be disabled, I'm guessing by the modular nature of civ IV that you could replace it with an "empty"/dummy animation. I'm more concerned about how the AI would know how to use that.

Edit: honestly though, I wouldn't prioritize it. Pelusion is pretty much always founded, and having open borders with the owner, or being the owner, grants you access. This seems pretty fair to me.

 

Double post, but I'd like to address this. When I said "not nearly as notorious", I was simply saying that other regions, like, say near Germania or the Danube and Gaul regions during the Gothic, Hunnic, etc invasions of late antiquity are much more important hotspots of activity, both from a gameplay perspective and a more macro-historical level. I'm not saying Hispania didn't have "barbarian" trouble, just that it's not high on my list of regions to get the "barbaric" invasions right in.

Edit: loaded up a Byzantine game for crash testing. I crashed. Sometime around 70 BC.

 

Perhaps if harbors are used as airports to move units, it could be tied to the sea they're next to. Every sea and ocean is a different 'province' in RFCCW so that would solve the problem of units flying all over the world. Perhaps even divide them some more, but I could see this working.

 

3rd Egyptian UHV is still broken. Despite having Alexandria, Pelusion, and Tyre, it still says I have 0 ports.

 

so far it actually looks promising.

the animation isn't an issue. there is no paradrop animation for the unit so the model just appears in a more or less smooth looking way.

I've restricted it to coastal tiles only and you must start in a city. I'll have to make that require a harbor as well, so you can't do it from inland cities.

I'd also like to limit it to a few units per turn and perhaps require flatlands in the target tile.

notice that its incredibly easy for the human to defend against this: just put units on the target tiles. but if the AI uses it (I don't know why it wouldn't) it would make Siciliy and Gibraltar less challenging for them.

for airport/harbours I need to add a range restriction. the most awkward thing I can think of that wouldn't be covered by the range restriction is being able to ferry units from Asia to Pontus even if Byzantion is hostile. I think I can live with that. the perfect range seems to be 7 tiles. this is the distance from Carthage to Syracuse and from the spot where AI Rome usually puts Neapolis to Syracuse, and also from Carthage to Caralis on Sardinia and again Hippo to Gadir. best of all, Alexandria to Berenice is 8, so would not be allowed. the one problem is being able to jump the Caucasus. I looked at changing the map but it's too far to stretch. luckily the Black Sea is about 15 tiles bigger than the Caspian so I can make the MIN_SIZE_FOR_OCEAN disallow harbors and boats on the Caspian. too bad for Derbent and Baku but oh well, the Mediterranean is much more important obviously. it also kind of makes sense that cities there would not get trade benefits from harbours, for example.

anyway, lets see if I can do the range restriction.

 

Won't that kind of scripting cause slow-downs in turn times? Maybe you could integrate K-mod.

 

no this is all XML and DLL. no scripting.

fixed the Egyptian 3rd goal I think.

 

For the Frankish city names, should I include medieval/modern names for them or leave them as latin/roman names?

 

try to stick to names that would have been in use prior to 800AD but I'm not incredibly fussy.

and I'm surprised but again so far I'm having success with the harbors as airports and paradrops as amphibious landings idea. you can ship any unit from a city with a harbor to any coastal city max 7 tiles away and you can drop any unit with the paradrop tag on any coastal tile within 7 tiles. the 2 abilities share a 1 unit/turn/harbor limit.

if I could make it work on ship pathing rather than distance that would be great and that would obviously be the definitive solution to the Caucasus/Caspian problem.

 

Well, I guess I'll use modern names, since I can pretty much only find a Roman name and a medieval/modern name, without any specification as to when the name change happened.

 

Okay, now the "0/7 ports etc." doesn't even show up under the 3rd Ptolemaic UHV condition.

Also, I assume that "-1" yellow box at the northeastern border of Gaul is Aachen (Frankish capital)?

 

DC123456789 do you need help with Latin or Vulgar Latin names for Frankish cities? I'll provide assistance! Just give me the list and I will either find the period name or the name of a more important settlement in the area.

In general I think I'll keep my eye out for any tiles with more relevant cities everywhere in the Western world if I see any during my playtesting. Keeping track of the multitudes of important ancient settlements that no longer exist, or deciding between two cities that occupied a similar space can be hard work!

 

The shipping function looks really nice. Have you seen the ai make use of it? Would it be possible to implement blockades and have it remove the function, and make some civilizations (Rome/Carthage) want to blockade the cities of their enemies?

 

for some early medieval - or late antiquity - European city names, perhaps you can use this http://www.amazon.co.uk/History-Medieval-Europe-Constantine-Saint/dp/058278462X if you find it in your neighborhood's library. There are some really nice maps...

or I could just prepare a translated map ( I have the Greek version of the book) for France..

 

Oh, Latin names are easy to get. It's post-(Germanic) invasion where it starts to get tricky...

 

Played a game with the Qin-Dynasty, and failed both of the 215-goals. While the conquest goal would have been doable if I had sended some troops to Changsa early enough, the Wonder-goal was too much based on luck in getting slaves for in my opinion. (I was 600 short for the great wall, and the only thing I biuld in Xian despite the wonders was a blacksmith.) Starting with expanded city-cross and a quarry on the stones would certainly help, also being able to get stones without having to research masonry first.

The fact that I got 4 rounds of anarchy for declaring war on Gojoseon besides the bar in the right lower corner saying I was stable didn't helped either (the advisor showed im unstable, though.)

But compliments on the map, at least the areas I played so far looked really good

 

Generally, until the end of the game, the cities either kept their Latin name or changed to a Vulgar Latin name, e.g. Caesarodunum shifted to Civitas Turonum (after the Turones tribe) in the 4th century, then eventually to Tours (at some point after the end period of RFCCW).

Similarly, Lutetia became Civitas Parisii (or just Paris) after that Parsii tribe.

It seems that in the 4th century, many cities in Gaul changed their names to reflect the local tribe either currently or historically.

 

Did you rush a Great Engineer? An engineer right after the blacksmith can take account for 600 hammers so that may just do it. I don't know what the situation is on the current map but on the old map with an Engineer it was just managable. Hard, but managable.

 

Well, clearly you know a lot more about this than me. (Or maybe you're just researching harder.) I'll be finished Southern Gaul soon; could you add those late-game names?