RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

[3Miro]

donbot, you have to send the savegame 3 - 4 turns before the 1600AD. Exactly at 1600AD the code should check for the victory, that is where something goes wrong and it is virtually impossible to check afterwards.

For anyone playtesting, there is a file in your My Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword\Log folder, it is called PythonErr.log. If at any point of time you see it as having anything in it (i.e. not empty with size 0), please post it. It means the program encountered an error and the file would tell me where the problem is.

 

[KaiserBenjamin]

...

For the starting units, Bulgaria was never meant to start that strong. I put the 10 Konniks there when I was doing some testing and at that time Byzantium had Longbowman.

The massive Turkish army that people mention is actually Byzantine army that flips over to the new nation. It cannot be "toned down".

Sounds good. If it's a flip army, then they probably need it. And hey, I never met any of the unit testing to come across as criticism. I know that ya'll had more important concerns at that point, like UHVs. I was just explaining to someone else why I suggested lowering the number to 4.

 

[donbot]

donbot, you have to send the savegame 3 - 4 turns before the 1600AD. Exactly at 1600AD the code should check for the victory, that is where something goes wrong and it is virtually impossible to check afterwards.

For anyone playtesting, there is a file in your My Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword\Log folder, it is called PythonErr.log. If at any point of time you see it as having anything in it (i.e. not empty with size 0), please post it. It means the program encountered an error and the file would tell me where the problem is.

Sorry, forgot you needed an earlier save. I have attached the autosave from AD1588 and also my error log

Edit: When I try to attach the PythonErr file, I am told it is an invalid file to attach

 

[3Miro]

no files attached, anyway try it on the new version first (savegame should load fine)

 

[donbot]

no files attached, anyway try it on the new version first (savegame should load fine)

No difference on the latest version

 

[3Miro]

python error files need to be zipped or rared to attach. Anyway I will look at the problem.

 

[3Miro]

England problem is fixed (for the next version).

 

[jessiecat]

In my latest game (new test version) everyone seems fairly well balanced except for Burgundy and Moscow. The latter will be much better when the Russian indies and barbs are added. But Burgundy needs a real boost in flipped cities as France seems overpowered now. We'll need to reposition Milan to accomodate Pisa, Firenze and maybe Verona. I'll suggest some new coordinates with other fixes on the other thread. Here is a screenshot.

 

[KaiserBenjamin]

In my latest game (new test version) everyone seems fairly well balanced except for Burgundy and Moscow. The latter will be much better when the Russian indies and barbs are added. But Burgundy needs a real boost in flipped cities as France seems overpowered now. We'll need to reposition Milan to accomodate Pisa, Firenze and maybe Verona. I'll suggest some new coordinates with other fixes on the other thread. Here is a screenshot.

France isn't overpowered - just look at that tiny sliver of a score instead of the map. They might have lots of cities, but they're getting dominated in score (presumably because they can't keep up their research.) But I do like the idea of letting Burgundy have some flipped cities.

Would it be possibly to give France and Burgundy libraries on their start in the next version, just to see if it helps? I know that's a ridiculously good unit to start with, but the extra cities isn't addressing the real imbalance issue which is research. Maybe if they start with libraries they wouldn't be so pathetic.

I like the city flips but I'm worried about their proximity to one another. Then again, that's how all the AI players seem to found cities, so maybe it doesn't matter.

 

[Barak]

Now the game feels like RFC!

I suffered my first plague in Poland in 1338. Interestingly enough the plagues seem worse than in standard RFC. As word spread through Europe of the devastating black death, my 6 workers fled to the safety (or so they thought) of Warsaw.

When plague struck, one was killed instantly, yet ALL other units in the city were affected by it and forced to heal.

As there are fewer resources and aqueducts were pushed back to later times, it looks like the plagues may hurt more than we are used to.

 

[sedna17]

Now the game feels like RFC!

I suffered my first plague in Poland in 1338. Interestingly enough the plagues seem worse than in standard RFC. As word spread through Europe of the devastating black death, my 6 workers fled to the safety (or so they thought) of Warsaw.

When plague struck, one was killed instantly, yet ALL other units in the city were affected by it and forced to heal.

As there are fewer resources and aqueducts were pushed back to later times, it looks like the plagues may hurt more than we are used to.

Good to hear. Everybody loves a good plague.

 

[3Miro]

Plague is supposed to be bad. Hope you get well soon.

A note for the city list, jessiecat, some of the cities are in real coordinates and smoe are in "fake" excel coordinates. You took the excel row values as opposed to the numbers in the very first column. Anyway I am fixing it slowly as I go.

For the indy cities. What point does it make to have cities flip over to Burgundy and the Franks. Why don't we just give them couple of extra settlers and/or just prebuild small empires like Byzantium. Anyway, I could not get the cities to flip, but I added them. I will post a new version soon and I don't expect to be able to work on the mod during Thanksgiving week. I did not add anything major, just bug fixes so that you guys can somewhat enjoy a semi-playable thing.

 

[Barak]

The plague was about what I would have expected.Some people died, but it was good to see that the system translated well from version to version.

 

[sedna17]

I hope your new posted version will include the new resources/terrain I posted to the file thread. I actually changed the WBS there too, which might potentially screw up your independent-city work. It would be pretty easy for me to redo that edit in case we have diverged already. I'm going to post some minor bug fixes (just Tech and Unit xml files) now too, to get them into the pre-Thanksgiving patch.

 

[3Miro]

Graphics is now part of the mod, no work is needed on your side.

 

[sedna17]

Okay, my minor changes are posted up now. I'm going to hold off doing anything else until you post a next version.

 

[sedna17]

Argh, scratch that. Those new files were causing a consistent crash later in the game. I'll have to figure out what later though. For now I've just removed the files...

 

[KaiserBenjamin]

Okay, I just tried playtesting Francia and Burgundy. This time, I decided to play as Francia, to see what all the sucking was about, assuming I can play better than the computer.

I think the reason they're sucking it up is a lack of starting technologies. When the Bulgarians spawn in 648, they have "Calendar, Architecture, Theology, Stirrup, Map Making, and Monasticism." Their score as of founding one city: 293. I'm playing as Francia, and I'm doing much better than Burgundy right now. My score is only 210, Burgundy is at 153. And Bulgaria has a HUGE tech advantage, nevermind the Byzantines and Arabs. My only techs as of now are Theology, Monasticism, and 5 turns shy of music. That's 545 tech points compared to 597. Doesn't sound like too much, although when you consider the limitations I had on what I could build at the startup, the reality is a little bit more debilitating. And based on what Burgundy is doing, it seems like the lack of building choices (due to lack of starting techs) leads them to mass produce units, which slows down their research, which means a lack of building choices, which means more units. It's a vicious cycle.

By turn 744, the gap had widened. Only a few turns after their start, Cordoba had: Calendar, Architecture, Theology, Manorialism, Stirrup, Engineering, Herbal Medicines, Map Making, Literature, Code of Laws, and Lateen Sails.

I had Theology, Manorialism, Monasticism, Music, and Literature. I think Lateen Sails alone is worth more than all of my techs combined.

Now Cordoba is more advanced in technologies than Spain, reflected the more advanced Moor learning. But I can see even if I focus on trying to keep up with technology and ignore aggression based expansion, I'm going to have a very difficult time. The computer AI is even worse.

Therefore, I propose both Francia and Burgundy start with Calendar, Architecture, and Theology. We can playtest that and see if it helps them stay more competitive. If they do better but still get dominated by later civs, than maybe we add a few more techs. If it doesn't make a difference, we go back to the drawing board.

Final note: if Burgundy gets two cities on the flip, I think they will dominate Francia unless Francia starts with two Settlers or at least one city on the flip. France has a slightly better starting position, but I've seen games where Burgundy did just as well under the current version.

 

[3Miro]

If you are building so many units, why don't you expand, i.e. conquer Burgundy. When I play with Burgundy,I always conquer the Franks fast. I don't know if I will be able to compete scientifically over the long run, but it helps initially.

 

[3Miro]

@sedna: a lot of the c++ now uses dynamical memory (i.e. adding/removing nations and changing map size and settlers/war maps can now be done entirely in Python).

The unpleasant result is that in order for things to work, any changes have to be synchronized with Consts.py.