RFC Classical World

[CrossRFC]

Republic could start when the current Roman civ starts. A civil war with the "Empire" civ would result in the Empire civ replacing the Republic civ. If the Republic civ defeats the Empire civ however, the Republic civ stays and civil wars are disabled as a reward (the Empire's civil wars are all succession crises). But then the East Romans wouldn't have a reason to exist and...this could get very tricky.

 

[Sitalkas]

so am I the only one who hasnt seen the civil war yet???

how about spawning the empire's army outside of Italy, with Julius Caesar as a great General, and have it target Rome. If it is successful the empire will flip all of the republic's cities , and then let the 30 turns check begin. If they fall below 20, there will be a high chance of civil war

 

[srpt]

there was a mistake in the civil war code making them extremely unlikely. its fixed in the svn.

I'm thinking that having 2 sets of UHVs and just 1 civ will be fine.

 

[CrossRFC]

I'll do the usual run of the Axum start from 320 BC and see how things are a couple times.

Edit: I've noticed that there's an alternative unit art for the heavy spearmen for the Hellenic civs. I think it looks a lot better than the 700 BC-esque vanilla "phalanx" skin.

As for the Axum starts:

Romans too friendly towards Antigonids, too hostile towards Seleucids. If the Seleucids don't even have access to the Mediterranean, having an army pop up in Aleppo is strange.
Carthage is having a really hard time with barbarians.
Rome is doing poorly in the West (loses Milan as well).

 

[Sitalkas]

hehe, I tryed an Axum game aswell! look at the Roman empire

 

[srpt]

a couple of other things I'm working on:

new Gokturk UP: horses spawn in your city radius when you found a city on the steppes

new Gokturk UB effect: generates 30 culture instanlty when built, 1/turn thereafter

new Khazar UB: (name something like animal breeder) +1 health from sheep, cows, 1 horse, cow or sheep spawns if there are none of them already in the city radius

 

[CrossRFC]

Wow! Those changes will really help get those cities set up and reflects their nomadic way of life (or of their ancestors).

Edit: Nicopolis is a terrible, terrible city! The AI should not favour that location at all, but instead should favour Trapezon one tile north of it (ideally the Nicopolis tile should get a wheat and irrigation).

Re-edit: Uuuuh....Roman flips independent civs starting in 320 BC. In BC, as the Antigonids, I met Rome in 317 BC and was quite surprised!

 

[srpt]

the early Roman flips were from some tests I ran. I forgot to change the code back to normal.

the two path Roman UHVs are in the svn

Republic: be the dominant civ in the mediterranean in 50bc, be the first to discover engineering and jurisprudence, settle 5 different great people in your capital by 100ad

Empire: control the mediterranean in 75bc, make Rome the largest city in the world in 100ad, control the greatest extent of the Roman empire in 200ad

new Roman UP: Power of Roman Law, oligarchy, empire and bureaucracy civics available from the start

the Empire civic now requires code of laws for other civs

I also added a bunch of mod-specific info to the pedia: pilgrims, hiring barbs, roman civil wars etc and some tips on interpreting some of the UPs and UHVs

 

[CrossRFC]

Time to test those conditions for bugs then! Off I go.

Edit: Hm, why do the Romans start with Dynastic Cult by default at spawn?

 

[srpt]

Pandyan UHVs: reduced the temples goal to 7 but reduced the time limit to 50BC, tech goal is now 1st to Metal Casting and Steel Working

new unitclass: Heavy Horseman, str 6, move 2, requires Selective Breeding and copper or iron (and horse). Grivpanvar (str 7), Azatavrear and Hetairoi are all unique Heavy Horsemen. Armenians and Bactrians start with Selective Breeding. Lancers now require...

new tech: Cavalry Tactics, requires Selective Breeding and Metal Casting. the Sassanids, Gokturks, Khazars, Franks and Arabs spawn with this tech

the Sassanid and Byzantine Cataphracts are Lancers

Arab Ghazis are Heavy Lancers

the Stirrup now requires Cavalry Tactics and Steel Working

also changed the name of the Polytheism tech to Priesthood and the name of the Priesthood tech to Organized Religion. this way you don't have Caste System civs without "Priesthood" with "Priests".

and missionaries require state religion

Romans now start with Paganism

 

[Sitalkas]

it seems that some old civs can now respawn

 

[srpt]

that is as intended. its mostly to cover situations where everyone collapsed. certain civs will respawn if their core is unoccupied by any major civ for 30 turns or something like that.

just looked at the code and its set for all civs. I will limit it to Rome, Parthia, Sassanids, Sungas/Magadha and Han.

the Sungas/Magadhans get special respawns to ensure that Pataliputra is owned by a major civ and therefore available for pilgrimmage.

other things people have mentioned lately:

the Seleucids getting Roman conquerors. I will change the code so that the civ being attacked must have a mediterranean port and that the conquerors will only spawn in mediterranean provinces

Hoplite name and art. yes they will both be changed, just haven't gotten around to making a decision.

Rome has been made to dislike the Antigonids just as much as the other Greeks.

who was settling Nicopolis? Armenia?

 

[ace99]

Interesting, I'm going to give the Romans a shot and see where it takes me. I'm not sure it's possible to represent Social War and the various Republic civil wars, and the Crisis of the Third Century during the Empire all with the same mechanic.

Also any thoughts on Pontus?

 

[DC123456789]

who was settling Nicopolis? Armenia?

Always Armenia in my games. I don't think I've ever seen a game where Armenia is alive and well and doesn't have Nicopolis.

 

[srpt]

ok I will get them to go for trapezus instead.

I'm working on a feature to allow silk worms to be stolen from plantations and brought home for cultivation. it will be a Byzantine UHV.

 

[ace99]

ok I will get them to go for trapezus instead.

I'm working on a feature to allow silk worms to be stolen from plantations and brought home for cultivation. it will be a Byzantine UHV.

Send the Legions to China!

 

[srpt]

silkworm stealing is in the svn.

spy or great spy must be on a foreign tile with silk and a plantation and have the crop rotation tech. the silkworms appear as a promotion. when the spy is back in your territory, on a plains or grasslands tile with no feature or bonus, you can cultivate the silkworms there, creating a silk resource.

the Byzantine gold goal is replaced by silkworm cultivation.

I think the Roman conquerors are fixed. it should work like this:
if AI Rome declares war on Carthage, Egypt, the Seleucids or the Antigonids and that civ has a city in a mediterranean province, the conquerors will spawn next to a coastal city of that civ in a mediterranean province, with a special exception to prevent cities on the Red Sea being selected. I will also add Judea to the list and ad an exception allowing Jerusalem to be targeted.

 

[CrossRFC]

What are the advantages of the heavy horseman over the horseman? It also seems like Hetairoi got a pretty severe nerf. Didn't they have an advantage against horse archers before?

 

[srpt]

horseman strength is 5, heavy horseman 6. hetairoi could change again. the discipline promotion fills part of the need in fending off barbs, which was the point of the anti-horsearcher bonus.

to clarify a bit, the heavy horseman solves 2 problems:
the first problem was that the Azatavrear and Hetairoi were horseman replacements, but needed to be strength 6 to be of any use to their respective civs. the fact that they each had +1 strength compared with the unit they're replacing plus other good bonuses was past the usual point of UUs.

the other problem was the Grivpanvar and the Sassanid Cataphract being the same unitclass, 3 centuries apart.

the Hetairoi had +25% attack vs horse archers, a good but very specific bonus. now they have first strike immunity and 1 first strike, not as good but affects every fight.

edit: just realized I forgot to actually give the heavy horseman str 6. fixed now.

 

[srpt]

having fun playing the Armenians.

changes:

a given religion must be present in at least half your cities for you to able to convert to it.

piety decays at half the normal rate if your are running paganism or free religion