RFC Classical World

[CrossRFC]

Mediterranean islands have a few errors:
1. Malta? I know it's a tiny island, but there should probably be something there
2. Crete should be shifted 1 tile South to be better positioned and proportioned with respect to Greece and Rhodes.

Besides that, I will update the the map with many new city names! Don't make the settler maps just yet, srpt, you've misplaced some cities!

Edit: Balkans missing a ton of rivers! http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Balkans_6th_century.svg

Also the valley east of Samarkand, where Alexandria Eschate was, should only be one wide at its western entrance.

Edit: Behold! An incredibly detailed city name map for everything west of India!
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4694633/citynames.CivBeyondSwordWBSave

(I was somewhat lazy with Egypt and France and the Levant...I might get to that if my services are needed again...)

 

[Ekolite]

So I tried a game as Meroe today, and played up until the mid 400's. I only met the first UHV goal, but decided to continue playing and had a pretty fun game forming a Nubian Empire including Egypt, the Levant, Crete and parts of Arabia.

However a few things to report:

-> For the last few hundred years I played inflation was really killing me, even when I switched to Trade Economy I was only able to run about 20% science, and often less at times. It seems a little harsh maybe.

-> The UHV might be impossible. The second goal is to make Meroe the most productive civ, but the deadline is very early and at the time you are only likely to have a maybe 3 or 4 cities max. How could this compete with the Romans, or other much larger civs? The last goal to obtain six gold resources is also very hard as it involves many different elements, you need to settle the one to the south, conquer most of egypt, and then invade the Arabs to the east, however you also need to expand your borders to encompass the resources in many cases and regularly rebuild improvements due to barbarian raids. I've only played them once so far, and I might not have been playing 100% optimally, but I would definitely be interested in hearing from anyone who has managed that UHV.

-> Lastly, had some text missing errors. I'm guessing these will all be resolved in time, but I thought I'd point them out anyway as they were quite noticeable. One for the city which I built to my south east (two south of the iron iirc), and one for the Hun civilization when they appear.

 

[CrossRFC]

Some more things: why does Carthage start with Tyranny? They were a republic from 308 onwards. Oligarchy seems more appropriate. Furthermore, a few civics could use some tweaks to make them more desirable, and there probably needs to be an economy civic further down the tech tree. Bulk trade is considerably late-game!

Oh, and since roads only matter for the movement bonus, and building roads was a considerable investment in ancient times, you should make roads very expensive to build in terms of worker turns.

 

[Wessel V1]

-> The UHV might be impossible. The second goal is to make Meroe the most productive civ, but the deadline is very early and at the time you are only likely to have a maybe 3 or 4 cities max. How could this compete with the Romans, or other much larger civs? The last goal to obtain six gold resources is also very hard as it involves many different elements, you need to settle the one to the south, conquer most of egypt, and then invade the Arabs to the east, however you also need to expand your borders to encompass the resources in many cases and regularly rebuild improvements due to barbarian raids. I've only played them once so far, and I might not have been playing 100% optimally, but I would definitely be interested in hearing from anyone who has managed that UHV.

It is quite possible if you maximise production right at the deadline. If it's necessary, use all production tiles in stead of food tiles for one turn. Also, a Golden Age really helps a lot, so try to save a GP to trigger one. It's important to take Egypt early on, even a stack of about 7 javelinmen are enough to do that. More on this civ here. Barbarians can indeed destroy a lot of improvements. To counter that, make sure there always are appropriate units nearby: spearmen and javelinmen. Buildings like libraries aren't really needed, unit production is very important for most civs. Actually you want a lot of barbarians near your borders because slaves are very useful. Never waste turns on workers.

 

[CrossRFC]

Never waste turns on workers.

One word: Seleucids.

 

[Wessel V1]

Haven't tried them yet. Maybe the next civ I try though.

Of course, there are more exceptions. As the Koreans, there was a point where the land was almost fully developed and barbarians were no threat, so I switched away from slavery. After Engineering I built some workers to construct a network of paved roads. Still, in general there is no need to construct workers. Exceptions to this (or any) rule add to the flavour of the mod, which is a good thing.

 

[CrossRFC]

Slaves = the solution to building mint+palace in Taxila as Bactria. Very useful.

 

[srpt]

I've run the autoplay as far as the Maccabean spawn and played a few turns as them. everything seems fine. the autoplay is a bit slower and it pauses on one turn for perhaps 15-20 secs every so often, but the turn times of actual playing seem normal. I will probably update the svn to the new map some time tomorrow.

I am not going to maintain 2 svns. the new version will be the new map. If you want to save the small map version, copy it to another location before you update. I will of course keep the small map version as well and apply changes to it IF anyone is still using it, for a while at least.

 

[CrossRFC]

It must look great on the new map. How's Italy looking with the new map? It might need a Magna Graecia/Latium/Etruria division instead of the N vs S Italy.

Edit: I love the four colour theorem! (ah, crud, I forgot to colour Illyria)

Image:

Spoiler :

re-edit: gah! I made Bythinia way too big. Some of that should probably go back to the Pontus region.

 

[AbsintheRed]

I am not going to maintain 2 svns. the new version will be the new map. If you want to save the small map version, copy it to another location before you update. I will of course keep the small map version as well and apply changes to it IF anyone is still using it, for a while at least.

Probably you should release a final version of this map - it seems a couple players would be interested in that

 

[Sitalkas]

It must look great on the new map. How's Italy looking with the new map? It might need a Magna Graecia/Latium/Etruria division instead of the N vs S Italy.

Edit: I love the four colour theorem! (ah, crud, I forgot to colour Illyria)

Image:

Spoiler :

re-edit: gah! I made Bythinia way too big. Some of that should probably go back to the Pontus region.

I think that you should include a small region for Toulouse in France, the visigothic first capital was there, not in Marseille. Just to remain historical !

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visigothic_Kingdom

 

[CrossRFC]

Ah, but I just put Toulouse in my Aquitania province, along with the rest of the West, except for Brittary/Armorica which is another region. I guess a distinction could be made between the Toulouse area and the Bordeaux area. I was trying to keep the number of provinces as low as I could because I know srpt is trying to keep the number of provinces down, and already my proposals are a bit excessive.

 

[Wessel V1]

A large number or provinces also means more provinces are required for UHVs like the Roman or the Seleucid.

Srpt, what did you plan to do with settler costs and the number of cities that trigger a science penalty? Settler costs could be a bit lower I think, they're a bit expensive now.

 

[Sitalkas]

Ah, but I just put Toulouse in my Aquitania province, along with the rest of the West, except for Brittary/Armorica which is another region. I guess a distinction could be made between the Toulouse area and the Bordeaux area. I was trying to keep the number of provinces as low as I could because I know srpt is trying to keep the number of provinces down, and already my proposals are a bit excessive.

ah I see! I thought you had designed 3 provinces ,each one for Bordeaux - Lyon - Marseille

 

[Wessel V1]

The Pandyans were a quick game, less than 2 hours. I managed to achieve victory before as them but that was months ago so I gave them another try. I didn't need to conquer a Satavanaha city to achieve the first goal, which was a relief because they outproduced me, trying to build a stack. The second goal was no problem at all with the Han and Saba around, so I focussed on Steel Working from the beginning. The only tech that wasn't on that path was Bulk Trading. I get the idea this tech is a bit overpowered, three trade routes per city (1 from the tech, one from trade economy while losing the -1 from decentralization) and a free specialist means lots of extra commerce so your economy almost doubles in some cases. Victory in 68AD. By the way, at some point Satavahan declared war on me, but luckily I was prepared. Also for what could happen and inevitably happened. I moved my stack to their capital and when it left my lands, Kharvela declared war with a stack of Chariots. Of course I knew he was going to do that so I had constructed a wall around Amavarati before that. I made peace with Satakarni and conquered Singhapura before they could strike again. Nasty fellows.

First time I see the Seleucids in control of Alexandria and Diospolis. The Antigonids in control of Thrace is a bit more common, the Han with Co Loa is rare as well. Pontus has Derbent and Armenia collapsed in the early 1st century BC. Some variation is nice to see. When do you plan to release the bigger map? There are still a few civs on the list that I'm going to try first, most notably the Mauryans, Saba and the Han. Maybe Pontus and Axum as well, the other civs until Funan are completed except Kalinga and Gosojeon. I have some days off next week before the exams so I may finish most of them by next weekend.

 

[Sitalkas]

there seems to be a problem with byzantine UU at the moment..

I discovered the stirrup and blast furnance but I cant build Heavy Cataphracts nor can I upgrade my other mount units

 

[Wessel V1]

Saba is off the list now... but it was hard! I had the unorthodox idea to use some rented Horsemen to go for Meroe first. Why Meroe? Meroe has a decent production and also some gold, plus Meroe isn't that strong in the beginning. My strategy worked, and soon I had both Soba and the capital. The fourth (and fifth) were taken from Egypt and I snacked Alexandria too from Judea. First goal accomplished. In the meanwhile, I didn't fund any research. Perhaps the Alfabet would have been a good idea, libraries give culture that I needed badly. See screenshot, look at the date and the amount of culture I had. Close call indeed. To get there, I bought Organised Religion from Parthia and slave rushed some temples. Temples also provide Priest slots, very useful in Egypt. Zoroastrianism meant another +3 from an artist. Great Saints could have been useful if I had a decent chance to get to Jerusalem. However, despite running out of construction possibilities soon and building lots of Javelinmen, it wasn't enough. Simon always was a threat though he could never actually take a city. The third goal was a bit easier though I don't think it should require more gold. What makes the game a bit easier is that Rome actually isn't a threat as they don't receive free troops. Still, be prepared of offensive pacts by the AI. Armenia, the Seleucids and Judea were pretty strong combined.

 

[srpt]

the new map is finally up. so far just the 320BC and the 80BC version but I'm tired of cut-and-pasting. my fingers are crossed that there are not too many bugs.

 

[srpt]

also tweaked some things:

tech is a bit faster

units are a bit cheaper

settlers are cheaper

great people are a bit slower

in 320BC Antioch and Edessa are not yet founded and the Seleucids control Jerusalem

 

[CrossRFC]

Let's take 'er out for a spin, then!