RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

[hendriksen]

Well I guess there is something wrong with the Norse UHV of revealing all ocean tiles. And ass jessiecat says I can't enter ocean tiles, so the Norse UP doesn't work either.

 

[jessiecat]

Well I guess there is something wrong with the Norse UHV of revealing all ocean tiles. And ass jessiecat says I can't enter ocean tiles, so the Norse UP doesn't work either.

As I said. It's only since the latest test version. It was working before.

@sedna 17. Any ideas about why some things might have changed?

 

[sedna17]

A quick report on my game as the Norse. I loaded your WB save with the changes but I've got a couple of odd things happen. With WB I added Tonsberg as an indie and founded Aarhus. Turn 2 Tonsberg flips. But as I'm exploring with my galley I notice I can't enter ocean tiles. So much for the UP. It'll be impossible to do the UHVs without it. Then when I found my first city in England its called Birka. It should be Yorvik. It was the last time I played. And again the French have already founded a city south of London's spot.
What's going on?

EDIT I just tried it with the last test version before your changes. Its not your file that's the problem.
Something seems to have been lost in the last test release. Like the Norse UP for instance.

The loss of the UP probably has to do with the addition of the new terrain types, which screws the ordering. I'll have to investigate a little more to see if this is something I can fix or if we need to wait for 3Miro. The map changes probably necessitate some modification to the names maps. The French settler map actually tells them to settle in southern England -- that's an attempt to make sure they fight. See here: http://wikirhye.wikidot.com/rfce-france. Possibly this would be more appropriate for the war map though.

 

[st.lucifer]

A quick report on my game as the Norse. I loaded your WB save with the changes but I've got a couple of odd things happen. With WB I added Tonsberg as an indie and founded Aarhus. Turn 2 Tonsberg flips. But as I'm exploring with my galley I notice I can't enter ocean tiles. So much for the UP. It'll be impossible to do the UHVs without it. Then when I found my first city in England its called Birka. It should be Yorvik. It was the last time I played. And again the French have already founded a city south of London's spot.
What's going on?

As the coastline has been changed, I imagine I messed up the settler maps a bit too - I think the tile on which you founded Birka was previously land.

Sorry for the inconvenience there - I think those are the last coastline/mountain changes to be made. If anyone feels differently/strongly about it, they had better have a very compelling argument.

I forgot to add ocean tiles to the Mediterranean and Black Sea. That's another item on the list of things to correct today.

 

[micbic]

I saw many comments about games played as Norse, so decided to give it a go at Monarch.

1) I also encountered the problem with the UHV, with the third condition given from startgame.
2) Built Odense, took the Galley to Scotland and built Edinburgh, then two other cities to the north. First UHV completed.
3) Meanwhile built Kobenhagen and Skagen. At 1000 AD I realized that to settle Iceland, I had to build a Carrack, and research Shipbuilding which was 12 techs far (Optics, 8 more, and itself). Seemt impossible so I stopped the game.

Other observations:

1) Bulgaria always captures the Independents in Russia before the spawns. Perhaps Rostov should spawn to Kiev
2) No, no Gdansk city existed in my map.
3) Are both Vitoria and San Sebastian initial Independents? Asking because they are at adjacent tiles
4) Much work needed in Italian, Russian and Ukrainian city name maps
5) Believe that generally the Iceland city is very difficult to build
6) Where can I get the new map resources from?

 

[jessiecat]

As the coastline has been changed, I imagine I messed up the settler maps a bit too - I think the tile on which you founded Birka was previously land.

Sorry for the inconvenience there - I think those are the last coastline/mountain changes to be made. If anyone feels differently/strongly about it, they had better have a very compelling argument.

I forgot to add ocean tiles to the Mediterranean and Black Sea. That's another item on the list of things to correct today.

I think you mean that Birka was on a tile that was previously sea.

I noticed you're going to add some resources to Iberia. I'd like to offer some input on that, if I may, on the appropriate thread.
Also, did you see my latest list of proposed indies to add? I'd like your input on that. (see files thread).

 

[3Miro]

Many of the issues are coming from the map and settlers map. We need to finalize the map and then recheck all the city name and settler's map.

For the Norse problem, I should have coded it better, but the UHV is that they should see all number 6 terrain on the map. #6 was Ocean, I guess it has changed now. I will fix it for the next version.

I don't expect to be able to work during the Thanksgiving week. Any changes on my part would have to wait.

 

[sedna17]

Many of the issues are coming from the map and settlers map. We need to finalize the map and then recheck all the city name and settler's map.

For the Norse problem, I should have coded it better, but the UHV is that they should see all number 6 terrain on the map. #6 was Ocean, I guess it has changed now. I will fix it for the next version.

I don't expect to be able to work during the Thanksgiving week. Any changes on my part would have to wait.

No worries -- enjoy your Thanksgiving break. If you put terrain types after the ocean/coast they get drawn "underwater" if you will, so that's why Moorland had to come earlier and mess up the numbering system. I guess the cleanest approach is to reference Consts.py

 

[KaiserBenjamin]

The newest patch is looking really good! Franzia appears to be fixed now that tech trading is enabled.

On the downside, multiple civs completed the tech tree by the time I started as the Dutch. Are there plans to add more technologies and extend the timeline?

 

[Verily]

Just started a new game; again the French have settled southern England. This is just stupid, and England should be removed entirely from the French settler map.

Also, Burgundy is settling the lowlands (as it should), but doesn't have a city name map for the area; Poitiers was founded on the future site of Amsterdam.

Finally, the Byzantines founded "Thessalonica" two tiles south of Hadrianopolis--despite the correctly named Thessaloniki existing a full five tiles to the west. The site should be Xanthi. Another Byzantine naming comment, although less of an issue: the Byzantiens founded "Aidin"; while the Turkish name is Aydin, under the Byzantines the city was called Tralles.

 

[KaiserBenjamin]

Just started a new game; again the French have settled southern England. This is just stupid, and England should be removed entirely from the French settler map.

Also, Burgundy is settling the lowlands (as it should), but doesn't have a city name map for the area; Poitiers was founded on the future site of Amsterdam.

Finally, the Byzantines founded "Thessalonica" two tiles south of Hadrianopolis--despite the correctly named Thessaloniki existing a full five tiles to the west. The site should be Xanthi. Another Byzantine naming comment, although less of an issue: the Byzantiens founded "Aidin"; while the Turkish name is Aydin, under the Byzantines the city was called Tralles.

Yeah, I've noticed the French are consistently settling England as well. It doesn't bother me too much, except that the England flip zone is so small that the French end up controlling half the island.

I ran two Dutch starts (because it allows you to see what happens late in the game) and the same thing happened both times.

Maybe the English flip zone should just be expanded. That might take care of the problem.

 

[sedna17]

@Verily. Thanks for your city name reports. We know this maps are still incomplete. I will hopefully shortly be providing an improved mechanism by which people can contribute fixed name maps.

@KaiserBenjamin. I will remove southern England from the French settler map. As for the late game, we may chose to put in some new techs. We may just come up with some way to slow down civs. I'm currently experimenting with some ways to slow down the pace of development early on. A couple thoughts: increase health penalty to keep cities small, slow down the rate at which workers work. Large barb invasions (Mongols!), of course, have yet to be added, and should slow things down.

 

[Barak]

What is the Norse UP? It is listed as "The Power of the Sea: All Naval units can enter ocean squares", yet my galleys can't enter ocean squares.

Has it changed, as I recall it working several units ago.

 

[sedna17]

What is the Norse UP? It is listed as "The Power of the Sea: All Naval units can enter ocean squares", yet my galleys can't enter ocean squares.

Has it changed, as I recall it working several units ago.

Broken by the introduction of moorland. On the "to-fix" list, but can only be fixed by 3Miro.

 

[st.lucifer]

We may need to redo some of the settler maps and/or starting points, to ensure that civs start at the right places. Currently, the Austrian start (next to Salzburg) is listed as Zara, Hungary starts at Eger, Kiev starts at Khabarovsk, and Poland starts at Warsawa. While the last one isn't unintentional, we had intended to move the Polish start to Krakow for purposes of historical accuracy. It's definitely better at Warsawa for geographic balance, so I'm fine with not moving it.

Edit: Upon using WB to settle the entire Austrian area, I can't find Wien, Graz, Salzburg, Prague, or any other Austrian city I recognize. Something is probably wrong here. I do find Bonn, Bochum, Duisburg, and Magdeburg, so things aren't totally hopeless.

Cities with holes in the settler map (in their close area) include Moscow, Kiev, and maybe others.

Some civs are spreading admirably - in the last game I started as Austria, Cordoba had a city on one of the Balearic islands and several in Africa, Arabia was spreading west across the Maghreb, and even the Byzantines had filled in Greece. A few other civs, Hungary and Spain in particular, didn't spread very much at all and tended to build up cities within two tiles of each other. Spain had a lot of cities, but many of them were superfluous.

Stability issues seem to have subsided considerably - no civs had collapsed by the date of the Austrian spawn, although many had lost cities to independence.

Many civs need larger core areas. Germany should flip Augsburg (which should ideally keep its name - Munich is more of a modern city); Burgundy should flip Lyon; France should flip Tours; England should flip everything south and east of Wales and perhaps Calais (rather than Caen - this makes more sense as core areas have to be rectangles?), and Venice and Genoa should possibly flip a city each.

Load times between turns in the mid to late game are fairly long, though not unplayable by any means. It does mean that loading a late civ like Sweden or the Dutch is a long (30 minutes+) wait.

 

[KaiserBenjamin]

We may need to redo some of the settler maps and/or starting points, to ensure that civs start at the right places. Currently, the Austrian start (next to Salzburg) is listed as Zara, Hungary starts at Eger, Kiev starts at Khabarovsk, and Poland starts at Warsawa. While the last one isn't unintentional, we had intended to move the Polish start to Krakow for purposes of historical accuracy. It's definitely better at Warsawa for geographic balance, so I'm fine with not moving it.

Edit: Upon using WB to settle the entire Austrian area, I can't find Wien, Graz, Salzburg, Prague, or any other Austrian city I recognize. Something is probably wrong here. I do find Bonn, Bochum, Duisburg, and Magdeburg, so things aren't totally hopeless.

Cities with holes in the settler map (in their close area) include Moscow, Kiev, and maybe others.

Some civs are spreading admirably - in the last game I started as Austria, Cordoba had a city on one of the Balearic islands and several in Africa, Arabia was spreading west across the Maghreb, and even the Byzantines had filled in Greece. A few other civs, Hungary and Spain in particular, didn't spread very much at all and tended to build up cities within two tiles of each other. Spain had a lot of cities, but many of them were superfluous.

Stability issues seem to have subsided considerably - no civs had collapsed by the date of the Austrian spawn, although many had lost cities to independence.

Many civs need larger core areas. Germany should flip Augsburg (which should ideally keep its name - Munich is more of a modern city); Burgundy should flip Lyon; France should flip Tours; England should flip everything south and east of Wales and perhaps Calais (rather than Caen - this makes more sense as core areas have to be rectangles?), and Venice and Genoa should possibly flip a city each.

Load times between turns in the mid to late game are fairly long, though not unplayable by any means. It does mean that loading a late civ like Sweden or the Dutch is a long (30 minutes+) wait.

Do you think Austria's flip zone should be expanded? I've found they get rather crowded out by the other civs.

 

[Barak]

Playing a game as Genoa. I notice that they are surrounded by VERY powerful independent forces. Since Genoa does NOT have access to copper or iron at the start, the only way to capture Milan and Marseilles is with a stack of catapults and archers. Once I was able to capture Marseilles, I was then subjected to a stack of enemies including 6 crossbows and 7 archers!

One of 2 solutions. Either tone down the independents, or give Genoa access to iron or copper.

 

[jessiecat]

Playing a game as Genoa. I notice that they are surrounded by VERY powerful independent forces. Since Genoa does NOT have access to copper or iron at the start, the only way to capture Milan and Marseilles is with a stack of catapults and archers. Once I was able to capture Marseilles, I was then subjected to a stack of enemies including 6 crossbows and 7 archers!

One of 2 solutions. Either tone down the independents, or give Genoa access to iron or copper.

Genoa needs lots of resources. Add what you need thru WB and try it that way. Resources have not been added properly yet. I also think the indies are a bit too productive. That's why they should spawn late, just before Venice I think, not at the start.

 

[Barak]

Genoa needs lots of resources. Add what you need thru WB and try it that way. Resources have not been added properly yet. I also think the indies are a bit too productive. That's why they should spawn late, just before Venice I think, not at the start.

I agree on both points. Its now 1080 AD and the Indies now have optics (WAY too early).

I also notice that the indies don't always know how to use the new resources. They don't always build the right improvements

 

[sedna17]

I also notice that the indies don't always know how to use the new resources. They don't always build the right improvements

Can you provide more details on this? What are they doing? Do you see the non-indie AI doing the same thing?