RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

[KaiserBenjamin]

It seems like Germany is unpowered as well. I've seen them get stuck at one city two games in a row, to the point that the center of Europe is never settled, even up to 1750 AD. There are huge empty bits of territory that one one, not Austria, not the Norse, France, or Poland settles even though they are prime city spots. Very weird and unrealistic.

 

[Wessel V1]

It seems like Germany is unpowered as well. I've seen them get stuck at one city two games in a row, to the point that the center of Europe is never settled, even up to 1750 AD. There are huge empty bits of territory that one one, not Austria, not the Norse, France, or Poland settles even though they are prime city spots. Very weird and unrealistic.

Maybe we could solve this by giving all civs a "replacement" civ, that can settle most of the territory if the original civ is destroyed or very weak. Logically, Hungary and Austria could be each others; Genoa and Venice; Arabia and Cordoba even. These "replacement" civs can settle these territories, although they aren't very aiming to do so, because the settler value should be low.

So, when Germany is weak or even destroyed quickly, then France, the Norse, Austria and even Poland could slowly claim some parts of Germany. Also, this makes a respawn more likely. It wouldn't happen if Germany stays alive, since the settler values are so low. Only when there is nowhere to expand and there is some unoccupied territory, then the civ could decide to settle there.

Is this ahistorical: in theory yes, but in practice the difference would often be small. Also, remember that e.g. the Germans "colonized" large parts in Eastern Europe, small parts of Europe still have German as their native language.

I do have a question though: is it possible to make settler maps dynamic? If Germany is alive and kicking, then the Dutch wouldn't there, but if Germany is gone, the only logical step for them would be to claim the land theirselves.

Both ideas have the similar effect, I don't know which is best to implement (if any of them is good enough of course).

 

[Feyaria]

It seems like Germany is unpowered as well. I've seen them get stuck at one city two games in a row, to the point that the center of Europe is never settled, even up to 1750 AD. There are huge empty bits of territory that one one, not Austria, not the Norse, France, or Poland settles even though they are prime city spots. Very weird and unrealistic.

Its always barbarian horse archers killing the german capital when the stupid AI moves all troops out of the city on the second turn. Here is a picture of a typical german spawn, 2 horse archers in reach to destroy them.

Shouldnt units near the starting location flip on the same turn as the spawn? Maybe the german have wrong coordiantes for this flipping zone.

I solved the problem by giving the germans a free tagmata unit (the polearm from byzantium with strength 9 and 0 movement). After that change, in all my games germany survies the frist round, no more games with germany a tiny nation with Augsburg as the only city.

Maybe every AI should start with such a strong, unmoveable guard in the capital. In my last byzantium game i killed the turks with the same method, just moved a unit into their unprotected capital on their second turn. A strength 9 unit in the capital would make it a bit harder to kill a new civ so fast, maybe call it royal guard or something like this.

 

[kochman]

Either that, or just getting rid of the unnecessary horse archers... I think that would be the easiest thing to do.

 

[Feyaria]

Forgot to say what and where to change, so all can try it out.

For a germany that always survives: Assets/Phyton/RiseAndFall.py, Line 2228

after

                if (iCiv == iGermany):

insert

                        utils.makeUnit(con.iTagmata, iCiv, tPlot, 1)

 

[dragodon64]

Will civs never settle outside their settler maps zones or conquer cities outside their warmaps?

Could we have particular independent cities (Leipzig, Berlin, etc) appear past a certain date and give neighboring civs (and Germany, to a greater extent) a tendency to conquer them.

Would expanding the lightest color of the warmaps (yellow I believe) of countries like Poland (NE Germany), Austria (S, SE and E Germany) and France (S, SW and W Germany, for the Franks) make them likely to eat up weak independents but unlikely to challenge a (hopefully) powerful Holy Roman Empire when it controls this territory?

 

[FakeShady]

Yeah empty spaces due to collapsed civs is definitely a problem that needs to be fixed. i seen it once or twice now. Its interesting though cos original RFC seems to have a solution for this.

 

[Wessel V1]

In RFC there is much less land, and there is almost anywhere competition for land. If Egypt is gone, Arabia will settle it. If Carthage is gone, the Romans or the Spanish will be there. Empires in general are much larger in RFCE, so when one civ lacks, the open space is rather large.

In RFC, there are some forbidden tiles. The AI can never settle there. Many tiles however aren't forbidden, just extremely unlikely to be settled. This can cause intercontinental AI empires, like New Zealand fully settled, or South Africa. Look at the "OMG look what happened thread!" for more examples.

I don't know how this is done in RFCE. Judging the settler maps, it could be either forbidden or very unlikely. Anyway, I'd like it to be the latter one if it isn't already this way, at least for some territories (like stated in a previous post).

 

[fireclaw722]

On Germany: For me, it seems best to start the Germans out as Prussia(or the City-state of Berlin, and at normal time), and put in a Indy Frankfurt(that flips on 2nd[I think] turn).
[WORKS GREAT(both ways, most of the time)]
On France: France is reletively under-powered(beaten over BEFORE English spawn), or over-powered(Vassalizing Spain, Germany, and Austria)
[WORKS GREAT]
On Britian: England can be easy or hard(just depends on luck).
[ALSO GREAT]
On Hungary: Hungary(like most of the Balkan states) are over-powered as the player. Even so that Hungary is simple for the AI(it has to be simple then!).
[NEEDS ALOT OF IMPROVEMENT]
On Bulgaria: Can end up taking most of the Byzantine(or Ottoman) Balkans, if played right by the player, but the AI likes to expand into Macedonia and Albania.
[NEEDS MINOR TWEAKING]
On Austria: Austria(like Hungary) is over-powered as the player, but seems superly under-powered as the AI.
[NEEDS SOME REWORKING]

 

[Leoreth]

On Germany: For me, it seems best to start the Germans out as Prussia(or the City-state of Berlin, and at normal time), and put in a Indy Frankfurt(that flips on 2nd[I think] turn).

Disagree. Prussia only became important during the 18th century and is thus off the scale of this mod. Also it's impossible to ignore the HUGE importance of the Kingdom of Germany/Holy Roman Empire to the European Middle Ages. And that's what this mod is about.

 

[kochman]

agreed... though Prussia was awesome in its heyday

 

[fireclaw722]

True, I would make it so that if Germany Respawns it would respawn at Berlin instead of Frankfurt, and keep their spawn at Frankfurt(much more historically accurate[in a sense], but I'm not any sort of coder[Python is almost beyond me]).

 

[Leoreth]

Is that really worth the effort?

 

[Feyaria]

Spawn and respawn have already different areas, just look at the pictures Spawns and NormalAreas in the reference folder.

 

[The Turk]

Is that really worth the effort?

Yes it really is worth it, in fact I think it should be done for a lot of other nations as well, for example the Arabs should respawn in Cairo, to represent the Fatmids/Mamluks

 

[fdgsgds]

As Bulgaria, I had taken over Greece and Constantinople. Later, they wanted independence! I think that's cool, but they collapsed shortly after and I wanted to know what all the options (I think there are five of them) do.

 

[fireclaw722]

Is that really worth the effort?

Yeah, I think so.

 

[Daffy]

I've been playing a couple of games with Genoa lately and I've noticed that at some part in the game large amounts of money disappear from my treasury. Up to 600 gold in one rush, the treasury even went into negative amounts at times. My economy is flourishing, the treasury should be filling with about 100g per turn easily (Marco Polo's Embassy, Hanse, St. Georges Bank etc.). I've opened worldbuilder and noticed a spy running around Milan, Genoa, Florence.. but he was still there after one of these money drains(spies return to capitol). This has become kind of frustrating, it's been the 2nd or 3rd game now with Genoa and it always happens at some point on, I've had larger economical empires with Venice, Netherlands, Portugal and so but never noticed anything like that with them.
Any hints about what is happening? Possibly some kind of balance sheet about income and expense of last round and exactly where it went? Are my Merc's stealing from me? xD

Savegame should be added, first one is after i've noticed the loss of money and the second one 39 rounds earlier before I started to notice it.

 

[micbic]

And I thought the Byzantine UP was preventing them to collapse due to instability...
Does it have to do with the fact that they lost their capital (Constantinopolis) due to a Genoan crusade? (BTW nice to see the "financial control on crusades" feature working )

 

[Ekolite]

Yes. It only works when they control Constantinople.