RFC Classical World

[CrossRFC]

Honestly, in the space of Roma/Pompeii I would rather put Roma+Neapolis (much more important than Pompeii) and Kroton (south-west tip of the boot, on the plains hill). Also you can now fit either Aquilea or a Ligurian city in the north of Italy along with Milan. Masillia and Lugdunum would probably have space to coexist, etc etc...

Given the new map size, there's even room for a Magna Graecia civ starting in 320 BC! Sicily+Southern Greece. The rest of the Greek cities are better off independent. Perhaps Eprius could be part of Magna Graecia, or flip to them, or some sort of event to simulate Pyrrhus. This might prove too much for AI Rome to handle, but then again, given this better map Rome's "AI cheating" will probably get a buff.

 

[srpt]

to me the city crowding felt like the game was at the wrong scale. the fact that the provinces were so small also gave me that feeling. as soon as I started working on this map I knew it was going to be better. I'm trying to get as close as possible to the pacing and space of SoI as I can working with a much larger part of the world.

here's the whole thing as it is now, for the curious. I drew it in an odd way. I made a blank map 50% longer and taller than the existing one and then plotted all the main city sites on the new map by multiplying their coordinates by 1.5. then I drew the map free hand around those sites, moving them around a few tiles to fit them together.

about the wasted space ie Siberia, sub-Sahara: I've never once been bothered by this in a game and I've never once felt that this mod's performance is being compromised by something like that. yes the atuoplay is not the fastest but thats because of huge piles of python I think. the only thing that bothered me about the wasted space on the old map was that I was letting it dictate the map size and making me run the mod on a map that I had always felt was too small. I didn't make the old map from scratch, although its now altered almost beyond recognition. it came from a cut-down of GEM originally.

and please add city tags and post them if you want to help.

 

[srpt]

making sure Damascus won't get razed anymore.

 

[ace99]

Why don't you fill the useless parts of Africa/Siberia with mountains? Stop anyone from settling up there, stop barbarians from spawning there and stop the AI from having units wander there.

 

[srpt]

yes there will be impassable forests and deserts in those areas.

 

[Sitalkas]

I am not against a larger map; in fact I would like a larger one!

but then again, not only siberia and sub-sahara Africa will be empty, but a large part of north Europe and regions of modern south Russia..

so maybe a Germanic tribe should be introduced to counter the Romans to the north, and also some Greek city states to the black sea (independents? or Greek city states civ? )

And why not adding the Scythians or the Sarmatians? and create a unique style of play for them? make the player actually BE the barbarians! with goals like : pillage x improvements, kill x units , raze x cities etc

 

[Wessel V1]

Well, to make my point a bit clear, it's not just about map size.

Map size means more cities to produce more units. At the same time, more units means larger stacks that the AI is unable to use in a proper way because the defending civ also has a larger stack. In the case the attacking AI succeeds, it conquers a city that is only a border city. It would take a lot of the AI to conquer an entire empire. It's much harder to balance the game. The Kalinkan guy for example has to travel a bigger distance to threaten my city, which makes him less dangerous because a) I have more time to set up a defence, he can't blitz me and b) makes him less opportunistic. That's only in theory though.

More units also means more calculation going on. The large desert areas can't be settled but there are still units wandering around, either barbarian or scouting units. It's funny to see how far those scouts can go once you tech to map trading. Combined with more cities, this means a considerable slower game between turns. I know there are 4 different starts but tech-, map- and unit-wise the starts are entirely different.

Add to that the time to play a turn. Some people like to spend 10 minutes per turn to move all their units and click on new buildings to construct, but it also means a considerably longer game. I like to play a game of civ for about 3 to 6 hours, there has to be stuff going on. When the game takes about 10 to 12 hours (a bit extreme perhaps but you get the point), there may be hours when I think, I'm going to do something other than Civ. Not necessarily bad, but with so many civs on the map I prefer to finish one and then start with another the day after.

That's just my two cents. If the new map is finished I'd like to try it, some more cities wouldn't hurt too much and loading times are even after 500 turns very reasonable. Just make sure that my concerns don't become reality, because the minimalistic approach like RFC has (very small portion of settled land, smooth game with lots of action, invites to replay) is in this mod as well and I'd like to keep it that way.

Don't get me wrong, I like new maps and especially larger maps like most other people do. It's just that in general larger maps tend to provide less dynamic gameplay than smaller maps (and this map is not that small).

It has to be said that I'm opposing the more = better camp. I don't know if any of you has tried Rise of Mankind: I played one game and it's fun as long as you keep unlocking new stuff but when you're done doing that, the game is utterly boring and can't ever be balanced. DoC seems interesting to me but I wonder if it's the same experience.

 

[srpt]

that could be fun. (playable barbs)

what I may do as I convert over to this map is take the opportunity to convert over to the latest SoI engine, which has some significant advantages in that everything about a civ, including settler maps, hidden production, tech and growth modifiers, attitude modifiers, spawn dates and all can be dynamic, meaning you can infinitely respawn the same civ/player slots as new civs with all new attributes. it will also probably improve performance and AI. and I already did much of the work by preparing that "blank" SoI engine.

so if I do that then stuff like playable Huns or Sythians would be easy.

 

[Sitalkas]

The Kalinkan guy for example has to travel a bigger distance to threaten my city

this can be solved by giving foot units a +1 movement #devil's_advocate

 

[DC123456789]

The only problem I see with the bigger map is that it's going to take quite a bit of time to balance everything all over again. But if you're willing to do so, then why not.

 

[srpt]

@Wessel: 2 things about the new map

this map is not adding a ton of production to the game so I don't think it will end up with too many units. almost no resources will be added. the fact that the early game units often don't upgrade and are still available means late game units can be made very expensive since you don't need to garrison all your cities with them. don't worry I don't want to change the game in the ways youre describing and I'm confident I can keep that from happening. note that greater Persia and central Asia starts the game with zero new cities, India gets 2 new ones, China maybe 1, middle east/mediterranean maybe 3 new ones.

also, I have a different perspective. I've always thought the old map was too small. It felt awkward including civs like Saba or the Pandyans whose core was 6 tiles. a civ like the Lombards would have as a conquest goal occupying Italy, which could be accomplished with 2 cities. even the Franks goal of controlling Charlemagne's empire seemed underwhelming, amounting to taking about 4 cities.

 

[AbsintheRed]

also, I have a different perspective. I've always thought the old map was too small. It felt awkward including civs like Saba or the Pandyans whose core was 6 tiles. a civ like the Lombards would have as a conquest goal occupying Italy, which could be accomplished with 2 cities. even the Franks goal of controlling Charlemagne's empire seemed underwhelming, amounting to taking about 4 cities.

I absolutely agree with this, for my taste a change like this was long due (altough a smaller one)
My point was that the map expansion seem a little too much on first glance
But obviously you know your mod better
I hope everything turns out the way you want to

 

[Wessel V1]

Okay, good to know we're essentially on the same line on the new map. About the current map, it doesn't feel to small to me gameplaywise but indeed Saba and the Pandyans aren't too big. I wouldn't mind if we continue the current one for development, but if the bigger map can be balanced properly I don't oppose it.

About the new SoI engine, is it that much of a difference? I don't read that subforum usually and I have only played a game or two, so I don't really know. But if it makes a big difference, can it be ported to the current map as well? How much effort would that take?

 

[srpt]

the main attraction of the current SoI engine is the flexibility of assigning civ data dynamically, which also means you balance it without recompiling the dll. it also means we get whatever AI upgrades from K-mod that edead chose to include. iirc there were also some bugfixes that only occurred when the big change happened, so I was unable to incorporate them. and I'm sure it will speed up the autoplay a bit.

btw, does anyone know how to make the grid coordinates appear in the tooltip when you mouse over a tile?

 

[Cetrix]

Wow, bigger map ! But yes, much more balancing stuff to do, as Wessel said. I hope there will be one or two new civs (in Greece for example).

And maybe add more turns (and units cost upgraded) ? Because with this map, routes will be longer. I like to play a lot of turns for each era.

 

[AbsintheRed]

btw, does anyone know how to make the grid coordinates appear in the tooltip when you mouse over a tile?

I remember vaguely that it's connected to the cheat code
Will try to find a post about it
EDIT: Here it is:

Hint:
To make the coordinates of the plots visible ingame, you should enable the cheatcode. If that's done, you can hoover over a tile with the mouse and press the shift or ctrl button. (I don't remember the correct one ATM, but it's certainly one of them)
Maybe enabling the "view grid lines" option (one of the buttons above the minimap) will help to.

 

[CrossRFC]

Bigger map: better representation of historical regions, with fewer compromises. Larger map means more room for barbarians to pillage and less ways to pin them at chokepoints (except the amazing Bosphurus ). I think road movement should be increased, but infantry speed kept at 1, adding value to building and maintaining roads. Europe will greatly benefit from the new map size.

Also if you need help with city name maps and redifining regions, send us a copy of the map when it's done! (Ressources will be filled in after city placement, I'm guessing?)

 

[ace99]

With the larger map its now practical to add several more civs in India. A Sinhalese civ, the Cholas, the Hoysala and a Rajput civ would add a lot to the warfare. I wonder if a Gurkha Civ in Nepal is possible...

 

[srpt]

the conversion to the current version of the SoI engine is going well. the new dll will load load the python, XML and map without errors. next is new province, settler and city name maps and new grid coordinates for spawns and such.

 

[Cetrix]

Is it with the new map you have done, as you said ? Can't wait to test it !!