RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

[sedna17]

Another reason to limit monastaries by state religion is that they now provide a more substantial research boost (+25%). Unless we dramatically increase the unhappiness/instability from multiple religions, this makes it generally advantageous to spread multiple religions. This conflicts with our (probably unstated) design goal of making our game play differently from BTS in this regard -- to whit, that generally single religion cities should be preferable and that there is a reason to use the prosecutor/inquisition unit.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Fine, I will allow non-state religion monasteries. Just don't come crying when your faith points and/or stability gets bad.

I don't want to push this no matter what, it's only a small detail after all
Just seemed that more people (including merijn on the other thread) think it should be this way for non-state religion buildings...

 

[AbsintheRed]

Another reason to limit monastaries by state religion is that they now provide a more substantial research boost (+25%). Unless we dramatically increase the unhappiness/instability from multiple religions, this makes it generally advantageous to spread multiple religions. This conflicts with our (probably unstated) design goal of making our game play differently from BTS in this regard -- to whit, that generally single religion cities should be preferable and that there is a reason to use the prosecutor/inquisition unit.

Actually 3Miro want's to decrease the research boost to IIRC 10%. Maybe already updated it on the svn, did not check it yet
You do make some good points here, but the unhappiness and instability from having multiple religions more than compensates that 10% research boost
So I would prefer to leave the choice to the player: which direction he/she wants to follow (in each games played)

 

[3Miro]

I don't want to push this no matter what, it's only a small detail after all
Just seemed that more people (including merijn on the other thread) think it should be this way for non-state religion buildings...

Monasteries have been nerfed to 15%, so this may be OK. We will allow them for the next Beta and see what happens.

In the mean time, I think it is time we concentrate our efforts on something else. So far, we have been working on game mechanics, techs and buildings, units, graphics and AI. We have a good looking, atmosphere full game, with an AI that is about as competent as it gets (there are a few issues like Turkey and Constantinople, but this is a relatively small one and it will be fixed).

The biggest thing that this mod lacks is good human player experience. Right now, I can only see Bulgaria as doable and somewhat challenging and fun to play. We should get all of them to that level. The first thing that I will try is to improve France. Building Charlemagne's empire is a great challenge, we just have to make sure it is doable and challenging at the same time. I think we may have to change the second UHV also, a conflict with England is going to happen one way or another, we don't have to force it. It may be better to ask for them to succeed in a Crusade (and later change the Burgundy UHV). I hope to have that done by Saturday and release Beta 5.

 

[AbsintheRed]

What about seminaries?
Should they require state religion or not?
Also, the +25% science boost is too much from the protestant church school
Seminaries are fine with 25%, buth I would reduce this to 10% (they also have a scientist slot)

I would also make that all seminaries allow thier religion's missionaries, not just the protestant ones
The way it is now, if a catholic or orthodox city don't build a monastery before scientific method, it can never build missionaries (at least without organized religion)
Imagine that a late civ chooses not to be protestant. Then it's forced to be in organized religion if wants to spread it's state religion

 

[3Miro]

Imagine that a late civ chooses not to be protestant. Then it's forced to be in organized religion if wants to spread it's state religion

We want to make religion change as rare and hard as possible. If you change your religion the normal way (i.e. not with Reformation or switching from no-religion in the first couple of turns), then you lose all of your faith points and you will have no benefits or whatsoever. Religion in BtS and even RFC are largely broken. They are 100% interchangeable and the general rule is "the more you have, the better". In RFCE you are supposed to make a choice based upon your UHV/UP and starting situation and then stick with that choice. To get maximum benefits from your religion, you have to make it make it one religion exclusively, block or even prosecute the others. Furthermore, the best religion for you is usually the one that the nation picked historically.

 

[AbsintheRed]

I meant if I choose with Netherlands for example to be Catholic
Then I can't have any missionaries, so can't spread my state religion, unless switch to organized religion

 

[3Miro]

I meant if I choose with Netherlands for example to be Catholic
Then I can't have any missionaries, so can't spread my state religion, unless switch to organized religion

With the Netherlands, you are supposed to go for UHV (that is what we are balancing). You cannot build the projects without the Protestant boost of science and production (actually, right now, I don't know if you can even do that). You will have very hard time to get any goodies from the Pope, since starting late you will have very little faith to compete with the large Catholic nations.

With Catholics in particular, you can always OB with the Pope and missionaries will come. Religion also spreads without missionaries on its own, if it is your historic religion, it will spread pretty fast.

 

[AbsintheRed]

It was just an example, I never tried Netherlands with catholicism (yet )
You are right on most things, to remain with this example UHVs are much easier with the religion that is meant for that civ.
I definitely want to keep that way, all the guidelines should point that you should follow this faith to be succesful with your UHVs.
But still, I'm the human player in the game so prefer to have my all my options open. If someone decide that in the next game he/she will choose another path, why not allow it?

Furthermore, I just hate that I don't even have the opportunity to train cath and orth missionaries in the relatively new cities - which didn't have enough time to build monasteries before scientific method
Of course this isn't something that would be used much, just find it strange in a mod where religion is this important throughout the whole game

 

[3Miro]

Furthermore, I just hate that I don't even have the opportunity to train cath and orth missionaries in the relatively new cities - which didn't have enough time to build monasteries before scientific method
Of course this isn't something that would be used much, just find it strange in a mod where religion is this important throughout the whole game

Are talking about BtS, RFC or RFCE. In our game, missionaries come only few techs before the end. Even with the current fast tech rate, you shouldn't have SM until about 150 turns before the end.

 

[Leoreth]

We want to make religion change as rare and hard as possible.
[...]
Furthermore, the best religion for you is usually the one that the nation picked historically.

Historically, Poland for example first accepted the Reformation, then returned to Catholicism during the Counterreformation. This contradicts your first sentence somewhat ...

(and in general it's odd that you want to represent exactly the era that was characterized by rulers changing their religious alignment based on the current political situation by decouraging state religion switches).

 

[AbsintheRed]

Are talking about BtS, RFC or RFCE. In our game, missionaries come only few techs before the end. Even with the current fast tech rate, you shouldn't have SM until about 150 turns before the end.

Yeah, and I hate it in the vanilla game too
And religion there isn't as important as here in RFCE. Not by far.

Won't post more on this, it seems I cannot convince you about this one, but I really think we shouldn't stall catholicism and orthodoxy to spread in the late game
I will definitely mod into my own games though

 

[3Miro]

Historically, Poland for example first accepted the Reformation, then returned to Catholicism during the Counterreformation. This contradicts your first sentence somewhat ...

(and in general it's odd that you want to represent exactly the era that was characterized by rulers changing their religious alignment based on the current political situation by decouraging state religion switches).

Reformation is the only different part of the mechanics. You can choose sides during the reformation and keep a good amount of your faith points. You can also change shortly after and then regain your faith points (with more effort of course).

The period of "unsure" is the period of Anarchy that follows religion and civic changes (which causes massive stability problems anyway). We cannot possibly accurately represent kings that were flip-flopping, too much Anarchy. There was a period of change like that, but eventually everyone made a choice and stuck with it. England picked Protestantism, France went Catholic, Spain - Catholic, Netherlands - Protestant, Germany is hard to call since there was no unified Germany, but rather small region going one way or another.

There is nothing that prevents you from changing religion at any point of time, just that the consequences are usually very bad (with Reformation being the exception).

 

[Mardouro]

Hmm may i remind you that Poland needs those monasteries and cathedrals regardless of the state religion, to complete the UHV. Actually Poland needs to be a catholic nation in the beginning, convert to protestantism, spread catholicism back to the converted cities, and conquer the kievan nation and spread orthodox back to the core poland. at least that's the way i can have 12 cath , 12 orthodox and 8 protestant churches.

 

[3Miro]

Hmm may i remind you that Poland needs those monasteries and cathedrals regardless of the state religion, to complete the UHV. Actually Poland needs to be a catholic nation in the beginning, convert to protestantism, spread catholicism back to the converted cities, and conquer the kievan nation and spread orthodox back to the core poland. at least that's the way i can have 12 cath , 12 orthodox and 8 protestant churches.

I am not sure the Polish UHV makes sense. I don't know about Protestants, but I don't think there are many Orthodox people there. Russians couldn't convert the Poles, even though I am sure they tried to get the Catholic church out of there.

Getting so many different religions basically means getting no positive effect from either one of them (just some culture and happiness, nothing based on Faith Points).

 

[ezzlar]

We want to make religion change as rare and hard as possible. If you change your religion the normal way (i.e. not with Reformation or switching from no-religion in the first couple of turns), then you lose all of your faith points and you will have no benefits or whatsoever. Religion in BtS and even RFC are largely broken. They are 100% interchangeable and the general rule is "the more you have, the better". In RFCE you are supposed to make a choice based upon your UHV/UP and starting situation and then stick with that choice. To get maximum benefits from your religion, you have to make it make it one religion exclusively, block or even prosecute the others. Furthermore, the best religion for you is usually the one that the nation picked historically.

I like that setup! It brings flavour to the mod.

Having more religions in a city should be beneficial but also very challening. It will not give new players the right ideas if all visible modifiers (like building those monastaries with nice research boosts) are welcoming while hidden modifiers like stability are negatively affected. The general rule should be one religion only.

I have an idea about persecutions. How about:

-1 pop
-1 relation to other nations with the removed religion as state religion for 10-15 turns ("You have shown your bad nature!")

 

[3Miro]

-1 pop
-1 relation to other nations with the removed religion as state religion for 10-15 turns ("You have shown your bad nature!")

Prosecutions usually consist of banishing priests and monks or in more severe cases kill them. The regular people were simply forced to worship at the "officially allowed" temples and had to pretend. Killing thousands of people like St. Bartholomew nigh was a rare thing.

Loss of population can be coded, loss of relations would be harder. I will take a look into it.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Hmm may i remind you that Poland needs those monasteries and cathedrals regardless of the state religion, to complete the UHV. Actually Poland needs to be a catholic nation in the beginning, convert to protestantism, spread catholicism back to the converted cities, and conquer the kievan nation and spread orthodox back to the core poland. at least that's the way i can have 12 cath , 12 orthodox and 8 protestant churches.

I am not sure the Polish UHV makes sense. I don't know about Protestants, but I don't think there are many Orthodox people there. Russians couldn't convert the Poles, even though I am sure they tried to get the Catholic church out of there.

Getting so many different religions basically means getting no positive effect from either one of them (just some culture and happiness, nothing based on Faith Points).

Actually I kinda like that polish UHV with the muliple religious buildings
(What a shock, after all the posts I wrote about this today, right? )
Anyway, if it's up to a poll, I definitely vote besides keeping the possibility of having multiple religious buildings in your cities (and of course the UHV for Poland)

 

[3Miro]

Anyway, if it's up to a poll, I definitely vote besides keeping the possibility of having multiple religious buildings in your cities

Lets forget about game balance and historical accuracy and vote.

I already said I will return the building of the monasteries under non-state religion and as for the missionaries form the Seminary, you totally missed my point. All I was saying is that Scientific Method comes so late and that it will make absolutely no difference, unlike RFC and BtS.

For the Polish UHV, I will have to do reading on Polish history, but I have a feeling it is totally unrelated.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Lets forget about game balance and historical accuracy and vote.

Hey, I (would) vote for that because I think it is better for gameplay and/or historical accuracy
And there were good reasons on both sides after all...

Anyway, let's move on to other things