RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

The year is anno domoni 1026, our explorers have returned from the reaches of Europe and deliver the following report on the state of our rivals:

Byzantium is a corrupt unstable place. While being the center of Orthodoxy and research, the old man of Europe appears to be on the edge of collapse. The Islamic Arbian peoples are slowly expanding into Africa, having already expanded through the fertile crescent.

In the west, Iberia is a land split evenly between Christian Spanish and Islamic Andulus. They are about even in power and research, and we feel it will eventually come to war to determine who will control the peninsula.

Burgandy though is the power in the west. Having taken several of Francia's cities, the burgundian cultural power is slowly encouraging more peoples to flow to their cities, pushing their rivals to the rural areas. Currently they are at war with Germania, who appear to be a backward uncivilized people.

Italia is still controlled by small city-states. After the fall of Rome centuries ago, these people have yet to unify squabbling among themselves. Venice is emerging as a good trade partnered for us, but they seem unwilling to spread beyond their city. A new potential threat has emerged, as the Genoans have started to make waves in their desire to unify Italia.

Eastern Europe is still mostly a wasteland of barbarian settlements. Several civilized peoples have started to form governments to civilize the rabble, but the Moskovite, Kievan and Polish are still small, underpowered and surrounded by barbarian settlements. Hungary saw the writing on the wall and vasseled themselves to our glorious Bulgarian empire, while we expand to our lands. Spreading the word of the true faith Orthodoxy and bring the barbarians to heel.
 
Prince Miro of Varna will be pleased. Have we negotiated the film rights?:D
 
In past versions, I felt Bulgaria was too powerful. My next adventure will be as France to see if I can stem Burgundy, and to see how Bulgaria does WITHOUT my leadership :)
 
Is Burgundian culture too powerful? Their UP is +2 culture, plus their UB adds more culture. I guess I have seen Burgundy dominate France in almost every game.

Do we feel this is entirely historically accurate? After all, the French conquered the Burgundian empire in the 6th century.
 
I have mixed experience. Quite often the Franks overrun the Burgundians and are powerful, or vice versa. If neither wins an early fight they can sometimes be quite weak or even collapsed probably from continual struggle.

I would be okay with making Burgundy relatively weaker, so that the balance of power is normally in favor of the Franks.
 
I guess my issue is that the Burgundian CULTURE is too strong at the start. Although as I am playing the Franks, I see that the early war between the 2 nations obviously weakens one at the expense of the other.

edit: In this case, Burgundy declared war on me. I built up my Light Swordsmen and axes, used guerrilla tactics to build up their strength, then rushed Dijon and captured it destroying their civ.

[insert evil laugh here]
 
I have mixed experience. Quite often the Franks overrun the Burgundians and are powerful, or vice versa. If neither wins an early fight they can sometimes be quite weak or even collapsed probably from continual struggle.

I would be okay with making Burgundy relatively weaker, so that the balance of power is normally in favor of the Franks.

I've tried both recently. For the human player, Burgundy is just too easy if they start with 2 settlers. Without that, I've struggled a bit with them. But they are doable if they survive the first war with France. And they have lots of room to expand to the north and east.

France is a lot harder, esp. as their UHV requires them to control the whole of France but have little room to expand in the beginning, except north. I've just seen them found 2 cities, each only 2 tiles from Paris. And even if they capture Calais it will flip to the English. We've got to get rid of one indy to the west, prob. Nantes or even Tours to give them any room at all. And make the minimum distance between cities 2 tiles instead of 1, like I've said before.

This is how unbalanced it can be. I'm playing as Burgundy( on Monarch), with control of the Rhine Valley by 900AD. France has capitulated, becoming my vassal and has even captured 2 indys and gifted them to me. Germany has DOW'd on me but I don't care as the indies are wiping them out anyway. So what now? It's only 1002 and nothing left to do. Invade Spain and wreck my stability. Not likely!
 
Announcement: Here at this thread, from tomorrow on, I will post in parts my latest book "Diary of a Venezian merchant":D
 
In the latest Balance and Tech files that I posted both Burgundy and France are handicapped technologically. The reason is that if either one gets rid of the other, they become huge powers. I was using the Dutch start to determine who is too strong and who is not. Any comments on the tech rate of civs.

The test games that I ran, once Burgundy and once the Franks dominated. It can happen both ways.

Bulgaria is also technologically handicapped, since they expand quite a lot.

In any case I expect the human player to have huge advantage over the AI. To make the game challenging we can make the UHVs harder, but that is for later.
 
As a player, the handicap is beyond frustrating. Luckily, I know how to wage war being 2 eras behind in tech, but for the average player this is not so. I think you need to add a production handicap instead of a tech handicap, because in 1260AD, I own everything from Madrid to Edinburgh, to Rome to Carcassonne. I have 4 vassals and am just working on Machinery. If my production values were doubled or tripled, instead of my techs, I couldn't have built the 2 stacks of 50 units each to ravage my neighbors.
 
In my few test games, I like the changes to the tech rate of France, Bulgaria and Burgundy. They now seem to develop properly early on.

As France, getting a good economy going was a challenge at first. Plenty of production, but still feel there are not enough buildings to build. I got maxed out on buildings, and couldn't afford to train more units as it would hurt my economy. So I built settlers, then canceled the build with a turn to go. :(
 
Build units and dump them in the Mercenary screen.

EDIT: Also, I'm still playing a Dec. 3 version game to completion before installing the new patch. Things may be different.

You can also build units and gift them to friendly neighbors. Kind of risky, but as long as you keep a strong stack near your borders its a good way to hinder your "friends" economically.
 
In my French game, I built the Topkapi Palace, and with the Norse as my Vassal, should be able to build Berserkers.

But I cant. Axemen are still listed in my buildable list.
 
In my French game, I built the Topkapi Palace, and with the Norse as my Vassal, should be able to build Berserkers.

But I cant. Axemen are still listed in my buildable list.

But what happens when you actually build one? You should get a berserker (I hope). That will need to be improved or made more clear...
 
But what happens when you actually build one? You should get a berserker (I hope). That will need to be improved or made more clear...

Just tried building an Axeman in 2 cities. In both the city which built the Topkapi Palace and in another city i got Axemen not Berserkers.

edit: Correction...the button is still axeman, the notification stakes that an Axe was built, but a Berserker was what was created :)
 
Just wanted to note, for late game beta-testing people should be aware of the debug mode, which is very helpful for seeing how various teams stack up. For instance, after generating a late game (Ottoman - Dutch save) you can just enter debug mode to see what techs different civs have and what they're working on and everything. It has more information than just opening up WorldBuilder. Anyhow, hope some of our play-testers find this info useful.

Copied from here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/archive/index.php/t-279903.html

WARNING: Debug mode exposes the entire map, all cities and units (including spies). You may not want to do this on a game you intend to keep playing ...

1. With civ closed, open \My Games\BTS\CivilizationIV.ini and on the line CheatCode enter chipotle.

2. Start up civ and load/start a game. You can enter/exit debug mode at any time once the cheat code is entered, doesn't effect saves or anything like that.

Method 1:

3. Press Ctrl-Z to flip between debug mode and normal civ. (thanks Nor Me for the tip)

In debug mode you can get all kinds of internal information on the state of the AI from the map. All civs in the game will show up in the scoreboard and you can see what they're researching. You can enter any city to see what it's doing as well as see every unit and what AI they're running.

In addition, as you move your mouse over the screen you can get extra info by holding down various combinations of CTRL, SHIFT, and ALT. Some particular highlights (some of which are specific to this mod):


ALT over owned territory - Strategies the owner is using, their area AI plus info on all wars they are in and what war plan they are using.
ALT over land - Values for city founding in that plot for all relevant players plus info on the number of sites an AI has selected in the area. If the plot is one of the selected ones for an AI then a yellow X appears next to the player.
CTRL over city - Closeness calculations for city and sum for player/team. Info on num of defenders the AI has/needs.
CTRL or SHIFT over unit - Mission and AI the unit is using or stats on the unit.
SHIFT and ALT near city - Whether the plot is being worked by the city, values the city assigns to working the plot, plus info on how important various resources are to different AIs.
SHIFT over empty owned territory - Values the AI assigns to various civics.
 
In Dec9, the indies still are very overteched. Its 1119, and the indies, who are at constant war with my French empire, has caravels, heavy crossbows and macemen running around.
 
In Dec9, the indies still are very overteched. Its 1119, and the indies, who are at constant war with my French empire, has caravels, heavy crossbows and macemen running around.

Sounds fun. I don't see the problem of the indies being on a tech parity with the regular player.
 
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