RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

[The Q-Meister]

Erm okay weaken it, but make it better technologically. In terms of technology Byzantium starts pretty advanced, but gradually their technology will diminish due to civ size and vassals, pretty unfair. By the 1500s your technology will be very bad and not everyone play for the UHVs, remember.

In terms of gameplay i think the Alpha still has pretty much of work to do xD

I agree. I just played my first RFC Europe game as Byzantium and it became very frustrating as dealing with stablility issues and Arab attacks slicing huge portions of your empire with extremely long settler builds. Without slavery it became an incredibly long time to increase one's land despite plenty of open space available.

Also, I think the Byzantine cities are way too small at the start of the game(with possibly the exception of Constantinople and Alex), especially the Greek cities. And there should be at least 3-4 Greek cities on the map, even if Byzantine doesn't control all of them.

Twice now I've had the event "Crusaders are coming to Constantinople" and nothing happened. Well I saw a Venetian ship come around the Aegean Sea, destroyed it and I guess that was the 1st Crusade. Way too easy to avoid it if that's the case. 2nd Crusade never showed up. It was such a letdown as I had sent so many armies around Constantinople preparing for a big fight with my huge city defenses!

And many of the Crusaders that are supposed to fight for Jerusalem wind up going after other cities as a couple other people have noticed.

All that being said, the mod does look terrific and especially like what you've done with the religions. Presents new challenges to the player without slavery. I would consider re-tweaking the Byzantines as IMO they have enough challenges with stability, Arabs, Seljuk barbs, Turks, Crusaders (when they eventually work) that they don't need the long build times for settlers.

 

[The Q-Meister]

I concur with others that the AI often gives you a rotten deal for techs, I'd be nice if trading overall was easier to accomplish, especially with civs that are of the same religion and good relations. Haven't played a Catholic civ yet but it seems that Orthodox civs don't have the same camaraderie that the Catholics do.

And any ideas in the work for random events? I cannot wait to see what you guys could come up with for events in RFC Europe as the possibilities would be both endless and fascinating!

 

[JediClemente]

I think Byzantium is supposed to be hard to play, Q-Meister, or at least hard to advance technologically.

If anything, I'd say they are too advanced at the start. In most of my games they build one or two corporations (often Knights Templar), and in like 30% of the games a lot of wonders. Same thing with Arabs or Cordoba.

And although RFCE isn't supposed to be a history-accurate mod, I still find it too distracting to see Notre Dame built in Damascus, Westminster Abbey in Constantinople, byzantine templars and a city like Cordoba with 3 or 4 christian wonders.

It isn't fair, because on one hand, the "muslim world" wonders are almost warranted to be built by muslim civs (as they start with the Arabic Knowledge tech). But on the other hand, any civ can build "catholic" wonders. Same for the corporations.

I'd like a Christian/Catholic Knowledge tech for the catholic nations to restrict that kind of things from happening.

 

[apenpaap]

Found a bug: after the French capitulated to Arabia, their dynamic civname changed to TXT_KEY_DN_FRA_12.

 

[Wessel V1]

I think Byzantium is supposed to be hard to play, Q-Meister, or at least hard to advance technologically.

If anything, I'd say they are too advanced at the start. In most of my games they build one or two corporations (often Knights Templar), and in like 30% of the games a lot of wonders. Same thing with Arabs or Cordoba.

And although RFCE isn't supposed to be a history-accurate mod, I still find it too distracting to see Notre Dame built in Damascus, Westminster Abbey in Constantinople, byzantine templars and a city like Cordoba with 3 or 4 christian wonders.

It isn't fair, because on one hand, the "muslim world" wonders are almost warranted to be built by muslim civs (as they start with the Arabic Knowledge tech). But on the other hand, any civ can build "catholic" wonders. Same for the corporations.

I'd like a Christian/Catholic Knowledge tech for the catholic nations to restrict that kind of things from happening.

I agree with that change, it also makes Arabia a little less easy to play.

 

[sedna17]

Byzantium will always be a very different kind of gameplay. Some people will find it frustrating, but we're probably not going to change the basic dynamics of it. You're going to have to deal with a lot of breakaway cities and other civs stealing your land -- and we have to institute significant penalties to avoid it being a runaway leader in every game.

Re: "Christian" versus "Muslim" wonders. In regular RFC, there is some hard-coding in the dll to get the AI to prefer civilization-specific wonders. I have mixed feelings about it -- well, I'm opposed to such hard-coding the DLL, but that could be changed with some amount of work. It doesn't work that well in RFC, and it's a pain to keep updated.

The easiest way in which we could restrict the religious wonders is just to make them require the "correct" religion (either in the city or as the state religion). There would be no straight-forward way to allow Catholic and Orthodox civs to share -- that is, Notre Dame would have to require (e.g.) Catholicism and the Round Church would require Orthodoxy. I think for this reason I favor restrictions based on having the religion present in the city rather than as your state religion. That allows a bit more "alternate history", but hopefully the right amount.

 

[sedna17]

Found a bug: after the French capitulated to Arabia, their dynamic civname changed to TXT_KEY_DN_FRA_12.

Thanks. Squashed it.

 

[FakeShady]

I agree. I just played my first RFC Europe game as Byzantium and it became very frustrating as dealing with stablility issues and Arab attacks slicing huge portions of your empire with extremely long settler builds. Without slavery it became an incredibly long time to increase one's land despite plenty of open space available.

Also, I think the Byzantine cities are way too small at the start of the game(with possibly the exception of Constantinople and Alex), especially the Greek cities. And there should be at least 3-4 Greek cities on the map, even if Byzantine doesn't control all of them.

Twice now I've had the event "Crusaders are coming to Constantinople" and nothing happened. Well I saw a Venetian ship come around the Aegean Sea, destroyed it and I guess that was the 1st Crusade. Way too easy to avoid it if that's the case. 2nd Crusade never showed up. It was such a letdown as I had sent so many armies around Constantinople preparing for a big fight with my huge city defenses!

And many of the Crusaders that are supposed to fight for Jerusalem wind up going after other cities as a couple other people have noticed.

All that being said, the mod does look terrific and especially like what you've done with the religions. Presents new challenges to the player without slavery. I would consider re-tweaking the Byzantines as IMO they have enough challenges with stability, Arabs, Seljuk barbs, Turks, Crusaders (when they eventually work) that they don't need the long build times for settlers.

AMEN thank you SO MUCH you have no idea how hard it is to find someone siding the Byzantines here lol

I understand that Byzantium is supposed to be a challenge, and is supposed to have a lot of problems to deal with, but what the quote above and i am trying to say is that there are way too many problems. In other words, Byzantium should be made a tad easier, for example, simply by giving the Byzantines normal population growth is fair. By normal growth i mean something like the growth rate of Germany, perhaps.

 

[Myri]

Played a bit again.

First the ai is worse than ever, i guess the unhappiness from barracks, stables, ... isn't known by the ai.

3rd German UHV you need a larger army than the arabs, should be made clear or changed, the arab army can be really huge.

South of Rostock inside the settler map Germany builds Essen.

Basle / Bale should by Basel for Germany.

With the 75 % of Rathaus or 50 % of Bureaucrazy corporations are insanely strong.

England and France need timber, France and Portugal copper or german pirates will deny atlantic access and germany builds all colonies.

Keshiks can spawn near Königsberg (not Konigsberg), beetween Poland and Hungary, inside Hungary, north and west of Kiev, 4 to 6 per stack they collapse every ai controlled nation for sure.

Barbs in Germany can collapse every ai controlled nation, too.

Hungary and Kiev collapse before Keshiks spawn, just for fighting a bit, not loosing cities.

The -something Poland has with all neighbours only apply if you play Poland.

Crusades are a joke, impossible anything will be captured, not even troops that leave crusading are added to the stack, maybe the reason why the ai just moves around instead of attacking.

Stacks that could capture a nearby city often don't try.

Siege engines aren't used to reduce defense.

Germany collapsed because austria spawned, no other cities lost.

Wars are declared and close to nothing happens, causing just unhappiness and a few collapses.

Spain is no threat to Cordoba (maybe just because crusades are broken and troops don't attack).

If Arabs don't collapse they get fare to strong.

To easy to get vassals. Small nation declares war on a much stronger one (why the hell?), you get a vassal. Surrender does not happen, they prefer to collapse, fast.

Overall playability of Alpha 9c is very low, much worse than Alpha 6 or so.

bye Myri

 

[sedna17]

Hi Myri,

Thanks for your feedback. We're aware of, and working on, some of the AI problems you mention. The Rathaus+Bureaucracy combo is available in BTS to make corporations very nice -- I don't think it's considered so overpowerful there as to be a huge problem.

I just don't see barbs being as much a problem as you see. The mongols rarely threaten anyone but Kiev significantly. Sure, the odd western civ collapses now and then to barbs, but overall I think stability is pretty easy. We are talking about the "dark ages" -- historically most of these civilizations would have "collapsed" according to the model of our game at one point or another. If it were up to history (rather than gameplay considerations) it would be a heroic struggle just to manage to keep an empire intact.

 

[3Miro]

I fixed the Trading Company issue (the AI should be building them now), but I guess I have to look at the Crusaders not attacking anything bug.

BTW the defensive Crusade units are regular units added to the capital, they are not like the Jerusalem Crusades ones. If there is a bug with the Jerusalem units, then it will not affect Spain.

Balancing will be time consuming. I think we should finalize the list of features for the mod, IIRK we only need to add minor nations. Then we can move to a beta and balancing only.

 

[sedna17]

I fixed the Trading Company issue (the AI should be building them now), but I guess I have to look at the Crusaders not attacking anything bug.

*snip*

Balancing will be time consuming. I think we should finalize the list of features for the mod, IIRK we only need to add minor nations. Then we can move to a beta and balancing only.

I've decreased the cost of units in the current SVN version. That seems to help the AI generally be more aggressive (at the cost of a slow-down in the mod due to the extra units) but doesn't help the Jerusalem issue.

"Minor nations"? I probably missed the discussion of those. Sounds like a good idea, but can you summarize (or point to a summary post)?

BTW, I'm thinking of releasing Alpha 10 soonish -- maybe tonight, unless someone contributing objects. Got to keep the testers happy with progress, and there's been a steady slow accumulation of stuff building up since late November.

 

[JediClemente]

The easiest way in which we could restrict the religious wonders is just to make them require the "correct" religion (either in the city or as the state religion). There would be no straight-forward way to allow Catholic and Orthodox civs to share -- that is, Notre Dame would have to require (e.g.) Catholicism and the Round Church would require Orthodoxy. I think for this reason I favor restrictions based on having the religion present in the city rather than as your state religion. That allows a bit more "alternate history", but hopefully the right amount.

I would like that.

But does it work for corporations also?

BTW, found a minor bug, I think. Playing as Venezia you start now with Bureaucracy as well as Aprenticeship, but lose them after converting to catholicism...

Edit: Also, it seems Germany collapses too often after spawning. And Spain sometimes only builds its 3 cities and never attacks Cordoba, sometimes becomes a powerhouse and conquers Cordoba but also builds like 70% of the wonders.

 

[jessiecat]

I've decreased the cost of units in the current SVN version. That seems to help the AI generally be more aggressive (at the cost of a slow-down in the mod due to the extra units) but doesn't help the Jerusalem issue.

"Minor nations"? I probably missed the discussion of those. Sounds like a good idea, but can you summarize (or point to a summary post)?

BTW, I'm thinking of releasing Alpha 10 soonish -- maybe tonight, unless someone contributing objects. Got to keep the testers happy with progress, and there's been a steady slow accumulation of stuff building up since late November.

Any progress on my idea of including text descriptions/history on the colony splash art, either on the same screen or as a pop-up? It could be done for the corporations and wonders as well, couldn't it?

 

[JediClemente]

sedna, I can put the religions' requirement in some wonders (the ones traditionally christian and orthodox) as you said.

I see it's the <PrereqReligion> tag. And corporations have that tag also (yay!).

I'll do it anyway for my current download of the SVN and upload it if it's approved by everyone else.

 

[sedna17]

sedna, I can put the religions' requirement in some wonders (the ones traditionally christian and orthodox) as you said.

I see it's the <PrereqReligion> tag. And corporations have that tag also (yay!).

I'll do it anyway for my current download of the SVN and upload it if it's approved by everyone else.

Okay. It might also be nice if some of the later wonders were Protestant-only (where appropriate). It will add some more differentiation between religions.

 

[sedna17]

Any progress on my idea of including text descriptions/history on the colony splash art, either on the same screen or as a pop-up? It could be done for the corporations and wonders as well, couldn't it?

Er... no...

Thanks for continuing to remind me about it though. In due time (or when someone else does it for me).

 

[JediClemente]

OK. Here's a first approach.

Catholic: Cluny Abbey, Palais des Papes, Stephansdom, Notre Dame, Leaning Tower, Krak des Chevaliers, San Marco, Marco Polo's Embassy, Sistine Chapel, Escorial (and all the military orders-corps, not the economic ones)

Orthodox: Round Church, Sophia Kiev, St. Basil
(Theodosian Walls and Hagia Sophia don't matter as they're already prebuilt)

Protestant: Kalmar Castle, Amsterdam Beurs, Brandenburg Gate

Jewish: Temple Mount (done before)

Rest of the wonders:

Shrine of Uppsala, Dome of the Rock shouldn't require any religion.

Imperial Diet, Westminster, Magna Carta, Golden Bull I would put catholic but don't know if it's OK.

Later wonders which are theoretically catholic but I would leave open (Protestantism may have been found already): Paço da Ribeira, Bibliotheca Corviniana, Leonardo's Workshop, Magellan's Voyage, Belem Tower, Fontainebleau, Copernicus Observatory, San Giorgio, Pressburg Castle, Versailles

Alhambra, La Mezquita, Gardens of Al Andalus, Tomb of Al Khalid already require the Arab Knowledge tech which gives muslim civs plenty of time to build them.

Topkapi Palace I don't know. Muslim or not? Or add the Arab Knowledge req?

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Haven't played this recently so I can't say for sure, but isn't limiting wonders to religion tantamount to making emperor UHVs impossible? (Round Church and Cluny seem to be the keys for a lot of the emperor wins)

 

[Myri]

OK. Here's a first approach.
Catholic: Cluny Abbey, Palais des Papes, Stephansdom, Notre Dame, Leaning Tower, Krak des Chevaliers, San Marco, Marco Polo's Embassy, Sistine Chapel, Escorial (and all the military orders-corps, not the economic ones)

Al Quds.

Orthodox: Round Church, Sophia Kiev, St. Basil
(Theodosian Walls and Hagia Sophia don't matter as they're already prebuilt)

Sour.

Won't stop the arabs who build most "wrong" wonders.

State religion would help.

bye Myri