RFC Classical World

[CrossRFC]

@Tigranes: the "typical game" as East Rome involves getting most or almost all of Rome's territory since they're usually stable. We can't add too many rebel regions to the Byzantine list, because it will be too deterministic. Sometimes you just get terrible starts, and you either should restart or try to save it. That being said, most cases are "normal" cases where Rome is healthy, being either completely intact or having lost a few cities only. The case where you spawn as East Rome with West Rome collapsed should only flip a minimalistic amount of cities. Trust me, I've played a game as Byzantium where I only flipped Greece and Asia, and I managed to win that game with ease after an initial hard time.

Also think of it this way: what if, as the Sassanids, you make it a point to collapse Rome? If you're successful, a too-large Byzantine flip area voids all your efforts, which isn't very fun.

The only reason East Rome existed if because the overextended Roman Empire needed to split its bureaucracy. Had the Empire fallen into chaos prior to Constantine, every region of the Empire would have devolved into a petty state, East Rome being no exception. So, in the case where Rome collapsed, we can only really say that maybe a kingdom formed from the Greek homeland could have been existed.

 

[Tigranes]

@Crossphazer I think we look at 220 AD start differently. I see that 220 AD start with no playable Rome as a situation that puts you in the context of the Crisis of 3rd century. Human player starts when there is/was a big Roman Empire but something is happeneng with AI controlled Rome, at some point they may or may not collapse. Then you start as Byzantines. You don't start as Justinian or Theodosius, you start as Constantine. By placing your capital in Byzantium. You are the real Roman Emperor, the Augustus, while the other Roman dude in Rome is your son, or your Caesar, or someone which starts as related and pleased with you!

Now, if you start with old Rome collapsed to their core in Italy -- you interprete this as if there was no Diocletian, crisis of 3rd century produced lots of Roman rebels, but you start the game as someone who has united the eastern part, at least, and your UHV is to attack the West, while holding against Barbarians and Sassanids. Naturaly, if some eastern parts are under the control of Persia, or another non-Minor civ, than yes, those lands should not flip. But in general, if history could through the dice, crisis of 3rd century would rather produce gray rebels than red Roman empire on the lands where Byzantium starts. So when sprt says 3/4 starts Byzantium will see Western Rome alive and in control of the East -- I don't understand why he thinks this ought to be the most natural state of affairs? Old Roman civ is in crisis, new (Eastern) Roman civ comes to replace it -- sounds like 3/4 to me. Old Roman civ is doing well and then new one comes takes half of the land and continues from there is more like a 1/4.

I would go even as far as to suggest that Byzantium should start in permanent alliance with Western Rome. Your true intentions (and your UHV) is of course to see Byzantium in control of Italy, but this should be done not via simple conquest against Western Rome. Rather you use espionage to collapse them and then conquire, or wait until they will collapse naturally, or do what happened in real life. By resisting and redirecting Barbarian pressure on the East you make Barbarians to seek fortune on the West, and then you come back and reclaim land lost by West to yourself.

 

[srpt]

I don't think there is really much disagreement here. I will make the Byzantines flip Greece, Thrace, Asia, Cappadocia and Pontus no matter who owns them. there will obviously be some variety in the Byzantine starts, which no one seems to mind.

 

[Mr.Kwast]

I still think which is good put a "Roman Rebirth" civ to represent the western roman empire, because the western roman empire are like the eastern part a new and a old society, the boths are a fruit of the same conjunctures and problens, for exemple the barbarian invasion and their influences into the roman governament (the boths sides suffer it), rebelions,the myriad of problems about the rise of the Christianity and their relation with the other cults and religions, like the hellenism(popular in hole empire), cult of mithras(popular into the both sides of the empire, especially in the Levant and the Rhine and Danube-and of course in Rome), the arianism, nestorionism, donatism. The internal and external problens in the Late Roman Empire affect the both sides, the economic crisis for exemple, is better in the eastern part, however, is afflic this part too (the western part have rich provinces too, like Africa and libya, both much rich or Italy itself), i think which answer the crisis of III and IV century based only in trade, and mantain the richest provinces is not the true factor of the crisis once time in the roman world their dont know the word "Economic", and "economic problens", tehy think in strutural problem like a givernamental problens, but it is not the all, is because it the roman empire (both sides) make many reforms, but they itself dont give a true cure for this empire. The Western roman empire is not "decadent" but "new" like their eastern part, but i dont recoment forgot which this new is old in the same time, The Late roman Empire is Cristhian in "name" and in good part of this population, but have a great hellenistic influence (both political, cultural, govermamental- is good remember which in the V century the Roman empire especially the western part have MANY "pagans" in theirs cities, and many of them are influential politicians, philosophians, rich people, poor people).

At all, i think is good put the Western part of the empire playbale like a roman rebirth civ, because they are the same "fruit" of the eastern empire and the ancient rome.

 

[Tigranes]

At all, i think is good put the Western part of the empire playbale like a roman rebirth civ, because they are the same "fruit" of the eastern empire and the ancient rome.

In RFC-universe the word "playable" means very different thing than in other modes or vanila game. Modders make civ unplayable, if playing them would be too lame, or silly, or they serve some very specific role only and driven by scripting, rather than natural developement. In RFC -- modder has to think about UHVs, UPs and how this will affect others. If a player does not go for UHVs and wants to play Western Rome -- he just needs to replace Playable=0 --> Playable=1 in WordPad. No new playable civ is needed, Rome already has it's historical goal when it starts in 320 BC.

(By the way, I playtested Western Rome by the time of Byzantine spawn on 220 AD start -- and no Byzantium spawned at all. Just another Crisis and roman rebels. Is that intetional? Byzantium is conditional?)

 

[srpt]

that may be be fixed now. I'd like the Byzantines to be semi-conditional. I don't think they should spawn in 330AD if Rome is still stable, but any time thereafter that Rome has a crisis they should then spawn. I can't see Rome making it to 330AD stable unless theyre the human player and I'd rather not cut someone's achievement in half at that point if they've done well enough to stay stable.

 

[Tigranes]

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.

sprt, I suppose you have played Warlord's vanila scenario called Mongols. This was one of the few vanila scenarios that I really liked in my Civ experience. So now let me talk about HUns, which I believe must be the crowning, Grand-Unifying civ in your wonderful mod

Huns can be Mongols for your mod. The novelity of above mantioned scenario was that you don't have to have cities! You have unique unit -- Mongolian Camp. It spawns units depending were you park it. Your Great Generals born there. You get techs via conquest. So you are all sufficient steppe civ, who does not need cities.

Spoiler :

Playable Barbarians was another scenario, but there it was faked, player does not really take over AI Barbarians -- rather its a scripted civ just like any other.

However in every RFC mode there is a most-Barbarian civ. Mongols in DoC, Vikings in RFCE, Timurids in SoI. Unfortunately none of them achived the hights of Barbarism created in vanila Mongols scenario. I really hope Classical World will have Huns. In some aspect they were even more remarcable than Mongols, for they made it all the way to Western Europe, which Mongol's didn't. We don't need another Gokturk or Kushan civ. But a conceptually new civ, that does not need a city (well, you may eventually be allowed to settle in Hungary, when you get there ). Current map is perfect for playable Huns. Imagine you start on one side of the map, in Mongolia, and need to walk all the way to France. Pillaging to survive. Protecting your presious camps. Getting techs from conquests. Selling slaves to your next victim before you declare the war on them. The only civ in the game that can touch lives almost every civ in the mod. Think about playing Huns as Epic experince showcasing all the marvels of this enormous Classical World mod during one game. You can experience India, Europe, China, Middle East by playing those regional civs, but Huns will be the only "global" civ. The only way to survive and win is to pillage 'em all!

Now, there are Barbarian Huns and proposed playable Huns with, I hope, Hun camp. Perhaps Python could deactivate Barbarian Hun spawning, if HUman player takes over playable Huns? I know that AI will do very poor job with Playable "civilized" Huns -- in vanila Warlord if you select any other civ than Mongols you will see that AI Mongols will just take over 1 Chinese city, loose their Camps and become irrelevant.

 

[srpt]

weirdly I don't seem to have that mod on my computer. and I have never played it but I will try to check it out. I like the idea.

I'm removing tax collectors, at least for now. my idea for them was to use them when you are at zero tech and losing money but have happiness to spare, sets up a virtuous circle with tyranny as well. however, the AI uses them terribly and I'm wondering whether it might be leading to the worker spam since the AI is putting its cities in "avoid growth" situations.

as for the city flipping popups, I'm getting varied results. I will keep digging.

the Byzantine's 1st goal, control Justinian's empire, now includes vassalization.

 

[CrossRFC]

I think Pontus and Cappadocia should possibly be left out of the Byzantine spawn. That would make the Byzantine "worst case scenario" a tad too easy/deterministic, and frustrate players who may have thought they were being cautious not advancing further into Anatolia for fear of flip.

We could also compensate for the smaller flip with more units in Constantinople. I've always preferred spawn stacks to flips (beyond the necessary), because it's less deterministic and more involving.

Parthia is a good example of that system. Of course, as with Parthia, this involves heftier balancing work.

 

[Tigranes]

sprt, you have mentioned that you polish civs chronologically, little by little. Where are you right now, if you don't mind me to ask? What is in your main focus? Perhaps we should comment about the same thing, otherwise I feel like we sometimes overburden you with alot of concerns, requests and ideas

I miss tax collectors Not those abused by AI, but like I said those who bring instead of .

Byzantium could have an extra challenge by adding Crimea, Sardinia, Northern Italy and Southern Spain to their goals. Was Illyria in ?

It's cosmetic, but in long standing RFC tradition Arabs will not be named Arabian Empire while loading/first turn. Arab people would be the name.

What hapened to Ankira in 330 BC start? I thought we had a deal

 

[CrossRFC]

@Tigranes I just don't think srpt has got to the new changes or even agreed on which city to add in Anatolia

Tax collectors could be a specialist with no unhappy bonus, but only allowed at 1 per palace, summer palace, or courthouse, i.e. state apparatuses that store and/or collect funds.

The extra provinces for Byzantium would add to the current challenge level, so that sounds good.

 

[Tigranes]

Arabs spawn in central Sahara and found a city named City

 

[srpt]

I don't mind being swamped with requests and suggestions. I'm glad people are enjoying the mod and I appreciate the insight into what other people would like to see in it. I know sometimes things can get lost in the thread but I do go over the recent parts of it from time to time to see if anything has been missed.

although I'm working roughly chronologically, I do move around a bit. I tend to be working on the early game in terms of finer balance and the mid-period in terms of rough balance. so for example I'm trying to tune the stability system so Rome can survive til the Byzantine spawn and also making the spawn work properly in terms of what it flips. this involves loading many starts and watching some replays. at the same time I am trying to play all the starting civs and if not get the UHVs get 1 or 2 of them and ensure they work and are not trivial or impossible. then sometimes I get weird ideas and spend a whole day trying to implement them. a good example of that was missionaries. overall I don't get as much time to work on it as I'd like to.

not to discount the opinions and ideas you've offered, the most useful feedback is actual bugs in the mechanism rather than the "bigger ideas" stuff because I would really like to get to a "version 1" where you can play any civ, not necessarily from any map ie maybe not Byz from 320BC etc, and achieve the UHVs without encountering bugs. I've resisted the temptation of just making the post-Byz civs unplayable to achieve this sooner because I think it's not actually that far off. the only real unknowns for me at this point are: Arabs, Tang, Srivijaya and the civs that aren't playable yet. having a relatively bug-free version will help encourage others to try the mod, then the broader balancing can be based on a larger data pool.

that being said, I really like the Huns idea, so thanks for that. I need to get the Mongols mod somehow.

Arab capital plot fixed. yes we can add the "Arab Peoples" thing (I think, Rhye's dynamic civs may have been in the DLL iirc and if thats the case then maybe not)

Ancyra added

added Illyricum, Northern Italy and Baetica to the Byzantines goals. Crimea can be added later if the goal needs to be harder. they have to defeat 3 other civs plus the Huns and Avars as it is.

I thought it would also be useful to have a control sea mechanism. for example, to control the Western Mediterranean you would need at least 1 city in Sardinia, Corsica or Mallorca and be the only one with cities there, or cover the whole thing with your culture. as if those 3 islands were one province basically. or it could also include all ports on that sea, island or mainland, so "control the Red Sea" or "control the Black Sea", could be goals.

I'd like to put Tax Collectors back in (and yes gold not commerce). it's probably possible to get the AI to not assign them when it would result in angry citizens.

 

[Tigranes]

I can't believe you did not play Genghis Khan! Do yourself a favor, take a time out and experience this simple yet captivating scenario. Mongol Camp unit was used in many BTS mods, so I hope it is not hard to adopt it for Classical World. Than unit is my absolute favorite of all the Civ units. Just imagine playing without city and moving your women and children across Eurasian steppe while you are busy pillaging!

 

[Lansa]

I updated svn and try again two games.

- Japan UHV:
I still can not discover Paper in time. I'am missing around 20 rounds. Steel is now doable.
The longest part to research is jurisprudence (China does not have jurisprudence and the Sassanides don't trade it).

- Roman UHV republic:
Please check the part "be the dominant civilization in the Mediterrean" . I control alone whole Italia, Iberia, Narbonensis, North Africa (Mauretania, Numidia, Carthago, Lybia, Egypt), Sicilia, Sardinia, Cyprus, Greece, Rhodos, Cappadocia.
So only Asia, Syria and Judea remain. But the UHV screen says fail ^^''

 

[CrossRFC]

Yes, I fear the "be the dominant civ" goal is a little wonky. I've never gotten it to succeed, despite controlling a very large empire.

 

[Tigranes]

Ok, I will mostly report bugs and oddities then (only 2 ideas ):

1. I am troubled with availability of other religion's buildings under the State Religion civic. Basically Emperor has to make a choice: either he can be Constantine -- promoting Christianity but being ok with other religions operating in Empire, or he has to be Theodosius -- declare Christianity as state religion and bun others. It is silly to take advantage of 25% for buildings because you run (Christian) State Religion while building Hellenic Temple!

2. Discipline promotion does not show in mouse over info when you considering odds.

3. Very delighted with foederati possibilities: I wanted to suggest the possibility of bribing barbarians, but yo have implemented that already! Would be very nice to show button mouse over info on how much gold does each mission cost. Bug: I had 64 gold, was able to bribe new mercenary and ended with negative 46 gold! Idea: Is there anything like barbarian culture in BTS? Would be cool to add barbarian culture to the nearest city after every successful bribery! Historically it will represent the fact that entire depopulated provinces where populated by barbarians in exchange for military service, while game-wise this will complicated massive bribery schemes by Human player. Players are always at war with barbarians and gradually barbarian culture will create unhappiness in above mentioned city.

4. How does "go away" bribery work? That bribed unit will be deleted? Or he will spawn in some other place and come back at some point? Spending 10 gold to delete Hun HA sounds like a bargain. One would either need to increase the price, or to relocate that unit , say 10 plots away.

5. Farms are too productive. 1 per Farm could be the best base. Plough adds 1 more making it 4. To compensate Agrarianism can be available almost to everyone quite early, so player would need to chose between trade or growth. It will make Agrariarsm more useful and more important, right now nobody considers it. Don't forget that Christian Monastery adds a generous bonus (2 ) -- in vanila Supermarket adds 1 and Great Merchant adds 1 -- they are very conservative with the food even after Agrarian revolution. As of right now Farms become much better than Cottages. 1 pre Plough Farm can support 2 regular specialists with more commerce than Hamlet for example.

 

[Tigranes]

I believe this mod should convey to the player the authentic feel of Caste System, very rigid, but very persistent. I propose following changes, provided they are technically possible:

You need Hinduism in your capital order to run Caste System.
Once you assign a specialist in city screen -- it cannot be removed! Basically there is a + button in specialists screen, but there is no "-" button. Once Merchant -- merchant for the duration of that Civic.
To compensate, every city under Caste system gets 4 free slots without any building: Priest, Spy(needs to be renamed to nobelman) , Merchant, and regular Laborer.

 

[Lansa]

the only real unknowns for me at this point are: Arabs, Tang, Srivijaya and the civs that aren't playable yet

Arabia > The third goal is not displayed.
The start point for Arabia should one more north. Because at the moment they found "City" and not Mecca
In this gamestart i see a oversized Gupta Empire from India, Persia, parts of Anatolia and Caucasia to Egypt. There was no Byzantium. The Franks controlled Thracia and rest of Anatolia ... The Vandals controlled North Africa and Iberia.
The Kingdom of Funan cant moved away, because the capitol is surrounded by jungle.
Whenever i meet the Avars and Hephthalites, it crashes the game.
The adjective by the Hephthalites has a bug too.


Srivijaya > 2nd and 3rd goal are not displayed

 

[srpt]

I found the bugs in the Roman Republic "Dominant in mediterranean" goal. I tested it and it triggered and displayed properly in the victory screen.

fixed the city name of the Arabs capital plot

fixed the crash from meeting the Hephthalites and Avars and the Hephthalites have an adjective

combined Gojoseon's 1st 2 goals (Chinese units and cities) and added another goal: first to discover Marksmanship