RFC:E Newbie questions

[Lazani]

Does this mod have a thread like "Quick questions/quick answers" like Civ4? I would've posted my questions there but could not find such a thread. Maybe this excellent mod needs one for totally new players like me. I'm just gonna fire away. There are some really simple things I'm wondering about. I'm playing version 1.0 as France.

1. I can't seem to convert to catholicism, why is that? Almost everyone else is catholic, I can build catholic churches, me and the pope are getting along, the religion has spread to all my cities, but I still can't convert. Why?

2. I can't enter Independent areas or declare war on them. How do you do it?

3. My stability is -19. Apparantly I'm collapsing. I've taken out Genoa, Germany, Burgundy and half of Cordoba and kept all cities. Am I too big?

Any help much appreciated!

 

[KaiserBenjamin]

1. Check your religious civic. If you're still at the first one (I can't remember what it's called), than I don't think it lets you convert.

2. Not sure about this one. Try moving a unit into the first square of their territory and see if that declares war?

3. Short answer: Yes.
Longer answer: It depends on your civics, whether you've built stability-enhancing buildings, whether your conquests are in your core area, etc. But probably yes.

 

[DC123456789]

2. I can't enter Independent areas or declare war on them. How do you do it?

3. My stability is -19. Apparantly I'm collapsing. I've taken out Genoa, Germany, Burgundy and half of Cordoba and kept all cities. Am I too big?

Any help much appreciated!

2. You have to select a unit and left click on a tile belonging to an independent to declare war (this should work for all civs).

3. Yes, you are probably far too big. Are you familiar with the stability system?

 

[Lazani]

Thanks a lot guys. I took out Spain as well, now my stability is -33. Ouch. Aha, I was still at the first religious civic. Will change now. Hmm, I still can't declare on the independent states. I will add my save and maybe you guys can see if you can for exampel take Barcelona? 5 Knights are standing right outside the border. I'm not so familiar with stability as this is my second game on this mod. Though if it's something like in EU3 I will get pretty toasted soon I guess... Now I want to tech towards Astronomy and start my colonial projects. Good plan? And how about Jerusalem, do I go there by foot? Seems so long to travel!

 

[DC123456789]

Thanks a lot guys. I took out Spain as well, now my stability is -33. Ouch. Aha, I was still at the first religious civic. Will change now. Hmm, I still can't declare on the independent states. I will add my save and maybe you guys can see if you can for exampel take Barcelona? 5 Knights are standing right outside the border. I'm not so familiar with stability as this is my second game on this mod. Though if it's something like in EU3 I will get pretty toasted soon I guess... Now I want to tech towards Astronomy and start my colonial projects. Good plan? And how about Jerusalem, do I go there by foot? Seems so long to travel!

Sorry, you should right click on independent-owned tiles.

 

[ezzlar]

You cant declare war with Knight Templars if that is what you have since their unique power is to enter all territory without declaring war. To capture Jerusalem you should be catholic, have spread catholicism in your cities and built a lot of religious building to get many faith points. Then after 1000AD you should try to win the vote for the crusade!

 

[Lazani]

Right-clicking did the trick! I did not win the vote tolead the crusade, but the turn after, a message came up asking if I wanted to buy the leadership of the crusades as I was the wealthiest nation in Europe! Yes, please. This mod is great!

 

[Spirictum]

Now seriously I can't understand how you manage to be -33 points on stability and not collapse in lots of states. My last game was with France, and soon after I destroyed Germany I was like -3 (Shaky). Soon Germany spawned at Prag (luckily my german cities didn't want to join their Empire).

But normally you can't have a so low Stability, try to keep it more then 0, and honestly, you should always halt your expansion when your Stability Points are below 5. Conquering one city can drop you to a negative value, and normally (and this happened a lot with me) someone will try independece just after it.

About Jerusalem, the answer is already there, and you already faced the Crusades, so no need for explanation. But be aware: Jerusalem likes to revolt and become independent, and you MUST have it at the limit year of your UHV 2. By that time, Crusades almost stopped completely.

And another tip: Techs are scaled by the time they were discovered in real history, so rushing for Astronomy will surely make you fall behind other civs in tech. So maybe a espionage at the possible colonist civs to know what they are doing is a good way of being a step front of them (England, France, Spain, Cordoba, *Norse and most important: Portugal - as their Unique Power is a discount on wonders and colonies)
*Not sure if Norse still have the Atlantic Resource in this version

I would like to expand this about French UHV 3, but at my last game I expanded so much (and this makes your technological research be lower for the bigger you get) that I won by Domination before completing the UHVs (At the end i was: France, Germany, Denmark, Iberian Penninsula, Mid East, Italy, Croatia, Poland and Constantinople - and my vassals were England and what was left of Germany - Swabia and lots of cities at Anatolia and Bulgaria that I gave them in my process of expansion).

Good luck with your game, and Welcome to RFC Europe.

 

[Lazani]

Thanks a lot for the detailed answers, Spirictum! I played a game yesterday where I tried to keep my stability low and you're right, the tech pace was much faster! A much smoother win. Since I just found this mod a couple of days ago I'm playing on viceroy, maybe that's why I did not collapse in the game above. Some states did declare independence but I had so many soldiers I could just do whatever I wanted. My stability even hit-75 or something. Now I understand more how to play this game though. I did have a hard time getting to Jerusalem in 1291 though because the Arabs didn't want to open borders with me. How do you handle this if it happens?

 

[Spirictum]

Well, You crush them

Or you can try something like using ships, or coming from Africa (if they couldn't handle taking it). What I did was the following: Dasmascus and Jerusalem keep getting revolts, and I guess Alexandria too (heard something about implementing it to the egyptian province here in the forum, but didn't test it yet), so it's not good to have them. I conquered Tyr (Tyro, Tyre, Sour) in Lebanon and then Antiochia, so I had my foothold there. 10 years before the limit I conquered Jerusalem.

Maybe you're right about the stability, I've been playing on Monarch for a long time (some betas ago), so I'm used to the stability system on monarch.

I Attached my mistake, getting too big made me a stagnating warmongering Empire, that was only able to be good at tech because I destroyed or stopped the advance of most civs. But I won by Domination, not so bad.

PS.: On my last turn the Portuguese tried to get Independence, but My troops handled them