RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

[kochman]

I would say that fish should be added to the map to the west of Sicily, one tile, because of the great tradition of Tuna there... it is a major deal to this day in western Sicily, and has been for centuries. To the west of current day Marsala and Trapani.

I am a huge fan of Sicily and things Sicilian, have traveled there extensively, and would be happy to get into lengthy monologues about Sicily and its history/geography/etc.

Just let me know if it is needed?

 

[The Turk]

Ya that would be fine, I really don't care where the fish goes, or what buildings are in Sicily, all I'm asking is for you guys to add the two cities I put in the picture, or at LEAST Palermo, which is more famous. Also you guys need to readd Sicily to the Arab War Map, so if they take Tunis, they could take Sicily. Also something which I have realized is that Alexandria NEVER gets conquered by the Arabs, maybe making its defence lower (just 2 archers or something) would be a good idea, so then they can go and take over the rest of the independent cities in North Africa.

 

[merijn_v1]

Ok, I'm so-so fine about the skirmisher, I still think it should be renamed Scout, and it should look like a scout.

Then why don't you just remove the Protestant icon from the Industrial Rev. Tech, and have it on the Printing Press Tech? Is it really that hard to sort out?

And according to your civiopedia, you cannot call a crusade AT ALL (because you for some reason can only call crusades on Jerusalem) if Jerusalem is controlled by a Catholic, Orthodox or Independent civ, so it HAS to be a Muslim Civ (ie. Ottomans or Arabs, or the rare chance of the Cordovans owning it)

Also what do you think about adding independent cities (1-2) in Sicily, and adding Sicily to the Arab war map? Since historically they owned the island, it was called the Emirate of Sicily (big surprise there )

I think the art of the skirmisher is OK. Only the name COULD be changed IMO.

I don't know if it has any consequences if we change Industrial Rev. to Printing Press. You should ask Panopticon about that. (Although I think it won't have any)

No, according to my civilopedia (or how you call me experiences), I can have a Crusade against an Muslim Civ or a independent civ. I think this is the best option. The real Civilopedia says it is only aviable if Jerusalem is controlled by a non-independent civ, but the crusade-code changed some time ago and from then you can have a crusade against a independent civ.

On the Sicily topic:
The barbs are removed because the AI didn't knew how to settle on islands. Palermo was added so Genova could conquer it. That was about the only option to have it an overseas "colony". But 3Miro taught the AI how to settle on islands. Palermo wasn't needed anymore. That's why it is removed. But I think adding Palermo can be a good feature, to represent the Kingdom of Sicily. But only 1 city, 2 is too much.

 

[Daffy]

The city on sicily could also help the human with the norse uhv.
I haven't really tried it, but having cities on iceland, ireland, brittany, normandy and sicily by 1050ad seems like a tough nut to me.
Being possibly able to conquer sicily with the two initial beserkers seems like an option to me.

 

[AdrienIer]

I tried the Norse UHV when there was a barbarian city in sicily, and it made my life MUCH easier. I just send a galley with two bersekers (not the initial ones though) to conquer it. I wouldn't have minded to loose them at sea, since I had such a big army. My troops were mainly in France to resist the French army, so it was easy to send another group of soldiers there, but I had no spare settlers, so I wouldn't have made it in time if I had to make another one. So I agree with the suggestion of adding a city in Sicily.
BTW, the Norse UHV states that you must have explored all sea tiles. Does it include the black sea ones ? cause that would be really hard.

 

[Ekolite]

It's also really tedious and boring. I think there are much more interesting UHVs that could be thought up for the Vikings then ''reveal all sea tiles''.

 

[The Turk]

Ditto ekolite, the Norse should have a better UHV, perhaps have x number of pagan shrines and build the Uppsala Wonder (forgot exactly it was called) built all by a certain date

 

[thwump]

If a city get added back to sicily and it ends up being palermo or something else off to the side can the resources be moved around? The city site in the middle gets all the resources in its BFC, and its kinda annoying to want to raze a city because of suboptimal placing.

Someone posted a little bit ago about foreign stability, and I was wondering too if its a little harsh right now. It seems like even for catholic civs you never get positive values, and if you aren't catholic it can be a real drag. I haven't looked at it in great detail, and am not sure what the desired effects are but I hope these values will be looked over again. That said on Monarch I'm rarely in danger of collapse (at most a far flung city will want to declare independence).

 

[Daffy]

Several different idea, questions, suggestions.
In regular rfc you could have 3 corporation executives.
In rfc europe this went down to 1. Is this to minimize spread of corporations?
I'd like to increase this to at least two. This way you could at least be building a second one while the first is on it's way to it's destination.
At least with the non military corporations (medici, hanse etc.)
Sent one of my hanseatic execs from Lübeck to Genova(vassal) in my last german game, no hanseatic spread for some time(no open borders with england).

Another thing is the plague which won't be changed anyway.. but just for the sakes of the idea..
currently when the plague hits you it starts possibly slowly and then takes at least 5 turns to fade.. this is usually represented by many years, a plague lasting 20-30 years is quite unrealistic imo. The plague usually hit and a year later it was gone and lots of dead people left behind.

A plague that would suddenly appear, smite 50% of the population or more in one turn in several cities, cause unhealh for several ongoing turns(dead bodies everywhere) and possibly unhappyness for several turns. This would seem somewhat more realistic, could also occur more often then.
What really annoys me though is the plague killing my precious ships.. With portugal and spain there are corsairs everywhere, and they just seem to know when a plague has hit and swarm out.
One thing that could help ist that they have to stop moving after having pillaged a tile or cannot pillage further. Sometimes they come and pillage an then wait just outside on an ocean tile where you cannot reach them with gun galleys. Even in peace times you should never leave a fish or crab unprotected by a ship. It just too risky. At least Portugal and Spain, Northern Europe has no Pirates at all, the Norse i.e. can pretty much send unprotected everything everywhere. No Barbs, not even animals to eat settlers.
Currently as portugal i.e. a Corsair shows up around Porto, immediately destroys crabs, fish and probrably the whaling boats towards lisboa in a single turn, next turn he's destroyed everything down to Faro and is gone. Since they can enter ocean allot earlier before you can(and thus twice the speed), you're pretty much at their mercy. Besides the fact that they are str. 10 whereas a Carrak or Galleon would be str.8 and I've never build Frigates. Way too late.. need Physics etc.. :/
You also have virtually no chance against enemy privateers, Carracks and Galleons don't really stand a chance(corsairs at least got -x% str. due to the fact that they are barbarians.
I've also noticed that some regions hardly get hit at all by the plague.
North-Africa(my portuguese colonies have never suffered plague), North east-spain, with Portugal, Pamplona, Saragoca, Barcelona usually stay uneffected.
As Austria Budapest(Ofenpest odd name) almost never gets hit. Wien down to size 1, Budapest stys size 12 i.e.

Currently once I hear of the plague somewhere I grab every essential unit and deposit them in my safezone(3tiles from any given city on a tile with no river or road and preferrably a forest)
usually somewhere cental in my empire.

whoever finds typos can keep them, have my dozen full
p.s.
idea
Coastal Fortress, something like a miniature great wall, keeping barb ships from entering the fat-cross of a city or causing them to slow down. Req. a Castle already built and only in coastal cities. (I know it won't get implemented, but I like the idea)

 

[Neroon]

Played Byzantium, Sweden, France and Kievan Rus' so far (Beta). All on middle difficulty.

Overall impression: very nice quality for beta stage, though some of UHVs were really easy.

1) Byzantium - Domination win 1588 AD

Originally tried to get historical, getting 1st one was pretty easy, killed arabs as soon as they spawned, and always suppressed their resurrections with cataphracts and later on knights.
First real challenge came at 11th century with Seljuks. Was completely caught unprepared 1st time, had to reload and build walls/guisarmiers/knights. After I fought them off, France asked to become my vassal, I accepted and got in the war with Germany. Sent like 7-8 knights, captured 2 cities from Germans, they capitulated.
In late 13th century failed 2nd objective (1 of cities revolted) and Turks spawned. It would be pretty hard to fight them off if thay wouldn't leave their only town with 2 or so defenders, which allowed me to just capture it with knights and thus eliminate their army. Later I suppressed 2 of their uprisings, 1 time they revolted simultaneously with arabs.
Went on to war with Hungary and Austria, Hungary collapsed, their cities went to me after, Austria vassalized to me, but collapsed 3 turns later, so I took their cities as well. Colonized Poland as well which also collapsed soon after. Then I sent my knights to capture mongol cities in what before was Kievan Rus' as I saw my tech situation worsening quickly (stability was always around -50 collapsing) and decided that only opportunity to win lay in quick rush to domination. 1566 AD save attached, close to victory.

2) Sweden - historical 1750 AD win

Easiest of all 4 I think so far. Killed Norse as soon as game started, settled Finland with 3 cities. Only setback was to have plague just at start. Karolins really do seem like cheat in a world that doesn't have flintlock yet with their 40 hammer cost to produce. Beelined cuirassiers-cannons-dragoons later captured German cities (Germany has collapsed before I started game), vassalized Poland.
There was nothing to do but wait for 1750 AD so I decided to make it more interesting, and when in 1686 Ad Muscovy declared war on me, I went with half of army to own them, this advance was stopped only near Moscow itself, and simultaneously declared war on France, which eventually lead to capture and raze of Paris. Morale : you can win a war on 2 fronts if you're playing RFC:E Sweden Save of 1730 AD attached.

Ah, forgot, made my Sweden orthodox

3) France - time 1800 AD win, 6x Industrial Revolutions

Just started a peaceful builder game, went on building wonders, vassalized Burgundy occasionally (misclick) so basically that put an end to UHV hopes. Still completed 2/3, had holyland region also after leading 2 crusades there. Had a war with Spain out of boredom in 18 century (cities basicly had all buildings, I built pretty nice army and had to use it ) Ottomans almost caught me on score in the end, but collapsed at like 1780s, my France finished with just over 4k points.

4) Kievan Rus' - Historical Win beginning of 15th century.

Was fastest of all (2hrs of play). Just built a lot of Druzhinas, held off mongols and spread along Black Sea coast. Vassalized Bulgaria (peacefully), captured Constantinople in 1300s (surprisingly it was guarded by 1 Arbalestier, who couldn't defend vs 5 Druzhinas even with this "so insane" Theodosian Walls bonus).

Now, being a Russian and knowing our history a bit, some remarks on Kievans (didn't play Muscovites yet). Starting year could be moved 880 AD -> 862 AD (it's widely considered as official start of Russian History (Primary Chronicle says it was the year when Varangian princes were asked to rule over Rus')). Second, it was lol whe I had a capital named Khabarovsk (actually, it was some wierd bug in that game - first, cities' names didn't change depending on location; second, cities didn't rename on capture, for Example, France had Mediolanum, Turks had Hadrianopolis, not Edirne etc.). Only thing I changed manually in python is that getcivilizationshortdescription->getcivilizationdescription in CvMainInterface.py twice.
Anyway, save is attached (just before victory).

At last, Veche Hall makes little sense as there were basically 1 city that was a veche republic for a long time, and it was Novgorod which at that time already was independent (Novgorod Republic), not under Kievan control. Though can't really think of anything better at the moment

 

[Aharon]

Not sure wether I should put it here, but some other poster did...
I don't think the plague is unrealistic, but it's a pain in the ass. Maybe you could insert Leoreth changes? (Units don't die, but go down to 50% health)

Otherwise, I tend to just use the "go out of city" thing, which accomplishes the same, but is rather unneccessary micromanagement imo.

 

[Daffy]

I had referred to the plague. I didn't call it unrealistic itself. The way it currently acts however..
The game is turn based, each turn represtented by several years. The plague generally lasts at least 5 turns, which would equal 15-20 years. That is what I think is unrealistic. If there had been a nonstop plague of say Constantinopel for 20 years I think they'd have abandoned the city. If I recall correctly, such outbreaks of plague were usually fast and deadly, only lasting max. a year or two.
I think I also recall some fix having been made to the plague, no plague so early on or so?
Currently if you play as French i.e. from 500ad to around 1300ad you'll have no plague(most likely) after this however about every 100 years. I'll take notes next games. At some point around 1500 I get the feeling that the plague hits you back again before you've even had time to rebuild. This is although only a general problem for smaller civs with less access to health and food and smaller cities. Or if you are currently engaged in a war(one where there is actual fighting).

And while I'm at it.. shiptravel or travel is imo way too slow. At least in comparision to the amount of 'years' that it takes to travel. In reality it took a crusader army about 1 1/2 years from Germany to Jerusalem, with fighting and capturing towns along the way. Referring to the german delegation of the 3. crusade. Ships would have been allot faster back then, they were after all the most important travel method of the time. Currently a worker is faster than a galley once there are roads (after vaulted arches). I think the reason given for the slow shiptravel at least was that the player wasn't supposed to circumnavigate so easily. Which wouldn't be an issue in this mod.
I'd petition for double movement points for all land units and 3x-4x speed for ships, perhaps gretly depending on make. Currently there isn't really much difference between a galley, cog or holk. Perhaps removing the double movement on ocean then.
Currently it would take lets a say Holk about 20+ years to travel from London to Rome around 1200 ad.
I know people hardly traveled back then because of the problems involved, but at that rate nobody would've ever left home imo

Other thing would be removing food from water tiles. So that standard would be 0 food 2 commerce on water once you can work water tiles, if you have a harbor 1 food 2 commerce. Possibly raising food boni of fish etc. by +1 then. Leaving freshwater lakes as is, if possible. This would get rid of these odd size 18 coastal cities that don't really have anything going for them except their size.

Thurso has 1.9 million inhabitants, Argyle has 1.6 million. Somewhat off imo.
And England isn't doing so well in that game since Spain and Austria(me) are the 2 main colony builders(buying AA for 30g/turn from spain)
Coal gets given away for free, as does south america/east asia access. Though I think the south america access etc. issue has already been resolved.
And I had posted an image where the Pope doesn't get a great personality(he's going for a prophet) but doest get one GP slider at 1500/100. I've kept an eye on it, in another game he went for great scientists and got them, had 5 sttled in Rome. Rome was larger than size 1 too
In my last spanish game the Pope went for the great prophet again, again slider at 1500/100 and Rome down to size 1(and stays there) since the Pope insists on getting that GP. An easy but not so elegant 'fix' would be to simply change the tile on which Rome is buildt to give 3 food so that Rome always grows. But as said, not really a solution to the problem.
I have added the Tagmata to germanys spawn units to ensure their survival, but I don't think that it has anything to do with the issue.


I hope this doen't get picked up as complaining or anything, I love the mod. Which is why I bother to even make suggestions. I also don't know which things are even possibly open for change or if some of the changes make sense(balancing/AI behaviour)or if they can be easily or at all implemented.
Anyway I'm used to speaking my mind and like to express my ideas, sometimes there's a good one among them

 

[kochman]

A very good post...
Conclusion... Plague effects are still way to strong, and shouldn't last for decades...
Ship movement should be faster...
And the USA had its winning goal against Slovenia stolen by a TERRIBLE CALL!

 

[Jusos2108]

I agree with Daffy, also the problem is that the plagues always spread throughout Europe, which makes them worse than in RFC and isn't historical.

And that lousy Malinese referee had no idea what he was doing. I had my money on USA, damn.

 

[Daffy]

I wouldn't say the plague is too strong, especially if you play Spain or France you hardly notice it's effects. But as you've agreed , this long term thing just doesn't fit.
If the plague duration would be shortend, then it would have to be stronger.
1 turn plague -25% population/turn
2 turn plague -30% population/turn
I think that would then hit larger cities harder than small ones.
Currently i.e. Leon(1sw of sp) would go from size 16 to size 12 maybe 10 if it's a bad plague.
With suggested rate a 1 turn plague would 'only' knock it down to size 12, a 2 turn plague down to 7-8. As an addition some unhealth/pollution for the turns to follow.

 

[FakeShady]

A very good post...
Conclusion... Plague effects are still way to strong, and shouldn't last for decades...
Ship movement should be faster...
And the USA had its winning goal against Slovenia stolen by a TERRIBLE CALL!

Your post is even better, i second it! Mainly because i too think the plague is too strong, and yes the goal should have stood my mum who knows nothing about soccer asked me why the goal was disallowed and i didnt know what to say lol. She went on to conclude that the ref is a USA basher LOL

 

[Thorik1492]

I''m playing Genoa right now and here are some thoughts:
- change UHVs for Genoa, current are faaar to easy. AI doesn't even colonise Crete or Cyprus. My suggestions for new are:
> Have X gold in ~1500. This time was end of genoan and venetian supremacy in european trade and thus they should collect most of their gold till this deadline. Also, Genoa as merchant republic should have some condtion relating to its wealth.
> Have 1 city in: Sardinia [not historical, but it's near to Genoa so why not], Corsica, Greece [in real world Genoa took Lesbos], 2 cities on northern Coast of Black Sea [some challenge here, but it is historical]. Crete and Cyprus are historically venetian, Genoa has nothing to do with them.
> found 2 corporations [very good - Genoa was one of main supporters of Knights Hospitaller, Bank of St. George speaks for itself], but build 8 banks? Maybe... Spread those corporations to X cities?

With such UHVs: take territory, collect gold and spread corporations, playing with Genoa will be real fun: using its special building and position to collect wealth, going aggresive across the sea as a real maritime republic should, and fighting for dominance of friends - Knights Hospitaller and its own Bank of St George. Everything historically plausible and fun.

Also: Sicilly is unbelievable good spot for city, with so many resources... I think there should be some independent sicilian cities, which are real nuts to conquer [let's say two of them - one on west peninsula, and one on east - Messina]

 

[kochman]

You could have Palermo, and then on the boot toe you could have Reggio Calabria (Rheggium or something like that in those days)...

 

[The Turk]

Well like I mentioned before the best cities would be Palermo and Syracuse, and you would need to move around some resources, look at the photo which I posted earlier on this thread

 

[Ekolite]

I think one city, and one good but empty city location would be better. I agree that the resources should be moved around so you don't always have to destroy Palemo to build the central city.