RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

[3Miro]

Daffy, I like your comment, but i don't understand your point about the UU. If you can cross Ocean tiles with Shipbuilding (i.e. before anyone else), then settling the Islands is trivial. Also, once you have Astronomy and can cross Ocean tiles, then you don't need to go anywhere near Tanger.

The Knights of Avis are very defensive Unit, designed to help the Portuguese against their powerful neighbors. They are also good for attack, if Cordoba is still alive when you spawn, you can use your initial stack to conquer and collapse Cordoba.

 

[Michael Vick]

I find it annoying that AI Spain always goes after friendly Portugal, I'm guessing that Spain collapsed in this game before ever getting to Italy or the Low Countries.

 

[Daffy]

Daffy, I like your comment, but i don't understand your point about the UU. If you can cross Ocean tiles with Shipbuilding (i.e. before anyone else), then settling the Islands is trivial. Also, once you have Astronomy and can cross Ocean tiles, then you don't need to go anywhere near Tanger.

The Knights of Avis are very defensive Unit, designed to help the Portuguese against their powerful neighbors. They are also good for attack, if Cordoba is still alive when you spawn, you can use your initial stack to conquer and collapse Cordoba.

I'm not really sure what I was getting at, it's not really about by what means you get to settle those islands. It's more that settling those islands isn't a challenge or can be dragged out until the end of the game(I think Azores and Madeira aren't any any civs settle maps?). I'd like to settle them much earlier but they have so little to offer in general. I usually already have most of the resources and don't really care about the few more.

So basically I win UHV 3 (Colonies) first then either I settle the islands shortly before 1640 and get the GA and win the game in 1640 or I wait for 1640 get the GA and settle at any convenient time before 1800 on the islands to win the UHV. Even if all the islands were settled by say Spain you can at any time build a fleet and an invasion force to either conquer and win or conquer/raze then settle and win(sneak attack).

And Spain invades the Canaries, did so at least twice. Once when I settled Puerto de la Cruz where it gets 2 whale, banana etc.. Second time spain had already settled that island so I settled on Spain's Palma de Gran Canaria location where you get sugar, whale, fish. Spain DOW and invaded both times and were generally quite eager to settle everything down there.

I'm not really sure about this one but there's also one thing that's been bugging me a bit. There are quite allot of 'negative features' in the game. The plague, barb invasions, barb pirates, revolting provinces(Scotland, Jerusalem, Aragon), respawning civs. Imo the game could use a few more 'positive aspekts' like these free churches/monastaries/gold from the pope or so. I think I also read something against it but ideal would be something like the mini quests and/or random events in RFC. Succession crisis.. 'choose free GP'. Build xy amount of Harbors to gain bonus or something like that.

 

[3Miro]

I'm not really sure what I was getting at, it's not really about by what means you get to settle those islands. It's more that settling those islands isn't a challenge or can be dragged out until the end of the game(I think Azores and Madeira aren't any any civs settle maps?). I'd like to settle them much earlier but they have so little to offer in general. I usually already have most of the resources and don't really care about the few more.

So basically I win UHV 3 (Colonies) first then either I settle the islands shortly before 1640 and get the GA and win the game in 1640 or I wait for 1640 get the GA and settle at any convenient time before 1800 on the islands to win the UHV. Even if all the islands were settled by say Spain you can at any time build a fleet and an invasion force to either conquer and win or conquer/raze then settle and win(sneak attack).

And Spain invades the Canaries, did so at least twice. Once when I settled Puerto de la Cruz where it gets 2 whale, banana etc.. Second time spain had already settled that island so I settled on Spain's Palma de Gran Canaria location where you get sugar, whale, fish. Spain DOW and invaded both times and were generally quite eager to settle everything down there.

We are redoing the Azores right now so we will keep this in mind. The Canaries are in Spain's Settler's map, but I am not sure about the Azores. We may also add them to the French and English, just to create competition.

I'm not really sure about this one but there's also one thing that's been bugging me a bit. There are quite allot of 'negative features' in the game. The plague, barb invasions, barb pirates, revolting provinces(Scotland, Jerusalem, Aragon), respawning civs. Imo the game could use a few more 'positive aspekts' like these free churches/monastaries/gold from the pope or so. I think I also read something against it but ideal would be something like the mini quests and/or random events in RFC. Succession crisis.. 'choose free GP'. Build xy amount of Harbors to gain bonus or something like that.

There are many bad things in the mod because it is about the Middle Ages. If I have to pick a time period where I want to live, the Middle Ages would be last on my list.

Unfortunately at this point Random Events will not be added to the mod. Maybe others would want to add them for RFCE 2.0, but right now we will not have them.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Unfortunately at this point Random Events will not be added to the mod. Maybe others would want to add them for RFCE 2.0, but right now we will not have them.

I was toying around with the idea of events too, but it won't happen for 1.0
As 3Miro said, maybe for 2.0

 

[civ_king]

Maybe some way to convert unstable provinces to okay would be cool, for example if I hold an area for 400 years shouldn't it stop being so unstable?

 

[3Miro]

Maybe some way to convert unstable provinces to okay would be cool, for example if I hold an area for 400 years shouldn't it stop being so unstable?

If you hold the cities for so long, then you will have the opportunity to build lots of Stability boosting buildings. In effect, this offsets most of the negative stability for getting the city in the first place, hence the province becomes less unstable.

 

[ezzlar]

Is there anyway to group independents in the same area to belong to each other? If arabia collapses all the independents in the area would be the same. Otherwise its too easy to pick them out one by one.

There could be one anatolia/arabia region, one N.A/Iberia region etc. Or is it intentional that they split up?

 

[3Miro]

Is there anyway to group independents in the same area to belong to each other? If arabia collapses all the independents in the area would be the same. Otherwise its too easy to pick them out one by one.

There could be one anatolia/arabia region, one N.A/Iberia region etc. Or is it intentional that they split up?

This would somewhat defeat the purpose of the Indies. They are not supposed to be in large groups, but separate cities. Also, Arabs did often fight each other.

 

[ezzlar]

Indies tend to unite under external threats

 

[Michael Vick]

Just played a late game, loaded the Dutch. Biggest things that bothered me were the two colossal grey empires. France, Burgundy, Germany, and Genoa had all collapsed. In the East, the Ottomans had beaten the Byzantines, Bulgarians, and Hungarians and then collapsed. The first UHV for the Dutch was a challenge because I had to sail all over looking for civs that weren't collapsed and throw gifts at civs that didn't like me. I think that the destabilizing effect of losing a city as well as the instability from collapsing neighbors should be reduced.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Maybe some way to convert unstable provinces to okay would be cool, for example if I hold an area for 400 years shouldn't it stop being so unstable?

I don't think we should mess up with dynamically changing provinces connected to cities, would be a nightmare to code
But I had a similar idea a while ago: if you hold a city in an unstable province for ~100 turns, you get +1 stability points
This would effectively change your unstable province into OK after those ~100 turns, which seems realistic
Since the AI usually don't have many unstable cities won't really change stability or gameplay for AI civs at all
For the human player it also wouldn't change much (if you have to hold to city for long enough), but adds another interesting concept to your strategy

 

[AdrienIer]

But isn't there a civic that gives you stability for owning cities in less than stable area ? Wouldn't it be too much to have +1 stability in unstable provinces after some turns and the stablility from the civic ?

 

[civ_king]

But isn't there a civic that gives you stability for owning cities in less than stable area ? Wouldn't it be too much to have +1 stability in unstable provinces after some turns and the stablility from the civic ?

The +1 would represent a decrease in nationalism and cultural assimilation whereas Imperialism is about a better administration

 

[Wessel V1]

That wouldn't work. Stability is super easy for the human player and the AI usually doesn't control a far away province anyway for such a long time. If 1 of the stability buildings loses it's bonus, then I think we might discuss it but I think that will give the same result as it does now. Right now the borders of my empire is bounded by military strength, not by stability.

 

[Daffy]

I'm not sure how to say it but anyway..
I don't know how stable the civs in genaral should be but.. I started a game with Genoa and not once (after the first 10 turns) has my stability been at 10 or higher, usually around -2/+3 constantly fighting to keep it at least 0 or a positive number.
Although I built stability buildings with a very high priority, I rarely build that many Castles (every city received all stability buildings ultimately) and that without really bothering about stability, I build courthouses because of the corps and most other stuff for all kinds of reasons. I'm not even sure if I bothered with the 'Night Watch' with Portugal and certainly not all cities received castles.
The game I played with Portugal was much much more stable. Usually at around +10, at the last save point +18 and I am actively waging war against France (winning back those territories of my vassal Spain after they respawned xD)

or maybe I shouldn't have founded 5 corps.. you do get a stability hit -2 each time you found one, but that was something I just had to do

I'll just post the numbers from the civics screen.
Both civs running the same civics (Lim. Monarchy, Bureaucracy, Appr./Guilds Org. Religion, Imperialism) pretty much established the civs in the same order too.

1. switch manorialism/feudal monarchy(genoa), manorialism/militarism (portugal)
2. switch bureau. / org. rel
3. switch appr./guilds
4. switch lim. mon/imperialism

Portugal: 11 Cities, +18 very stable in 1772, Hanseatic League and Bank of St. George (built all colonies)
cities: 7/6
civics: -1/-1
economy: -5/7
expansion: 13/-8

Genoa: 10 Cities, +4 stable in 1566, 5 Corps (Hanse, Hospitaller, Medici, St. George, Augsburg Fam.)
cities: 8/-2
civics: -10/1
economy: -3/5
expansion: 11/-4

the stability figures are similar for both civs, except for the civics part as I just noticed.

Any ideas what I did wrong with Genoa? Besides taking Napoli which seems to have had the hardest impact on stability which I never got a grip on after that. Or still running Bureaucracy? Or razing those 2 annoying indie cites in greece?.. but they had to go. DOW on indies every time I passed through the area and the indie cities in sicily and north africa retaliated on my seafood resources and ships. That just had to stop.

So.. to get to the point, I really like the idea of a small stability boost for a city if you hold it long enough, but that might be way too much for other civs..
I just noticed one of these 'tip of the days' during game load..
Merchant Republic is great for peaceful small empires (something like that)
France in my latest Genoa game.. solid/very solid with 15 cities in France/northern Spain
running...
Merchant Republic, Bureaucracy, Apprenticeship, Manorialism, Imperialism
well with those civics and that 'Empire' I certainly wouldn't expect solid/very solid
with the proposed stability boost they would be 'rock solid'?

From that I guess my concerns about Bureaucracy possibly ruining my stability as Genoa were unwarranted.
And btw the game with Genoa was a UHV victory in 1640 so that's working fine
But getting open borders with 10 civs in 1640 wasn't easy since there were only maybe 12-13 civs around, luckily Bulgaria respawned early 1600's. And I finally did get Mercs with Genoa but only 2 'Condotorri' in the entire game, even founded Zurich (named Cumae) to have a settlement in Swabia for Swiss Pikemen, but didn't get any. Especially since it's the UP of Genoa (cheaper mercs). But all in all the new merc thing seems nice. But I'm not so sure about the part of only being able to hire certain mercs when you have a city in the province.

 

[3Miro]

The current SVN version has a very detailed Stability Guide in the reference folder. It should answer all stability related questions.

 

[Veshta]

Is it possible to code it to ignore the faith-points granted for Pope gifted buildings?

Seems to me that is the primary reason for FRA getting the first (and most important) Crusade as it is possible to build just a couple of religious huts due to him having an extended "alone time" with the Pope.
FRA is pretty damn strong and when he gets that free GA just when techs are getting expensive, it translates into a massive boost making him virtually untouchable by the other AI (Burgundy, England in particular).

 

[3Miro]

Is it possible to code it to ignore the faith-points granted for Pope gifted buildings?

Seems to me that is the primary reason for FRA getting the first (and most important) Crusade as it is possible to build just a couple of religious huts due to him having an extended "alone time" with the Pope.
FRA is pretty damn strong and when he gets that free GA just when techs are getting expensive, it translates into a massive boost making him virtually untouchable by the other AI (Burgundy, England in particular).

How much of a problem is this, the French should control most of the crusades as they did in real history, however, I have seen plenty of Crusades by other leaders. The AI isn't good with Faith Point anyway and the Pope doesn't build free buildings until 800AD, which means that the French get only 10 turns of "alone" time before the Burgundians come (which translates to basically one building).

 

[Veshta]

10 turns, is that it? Hmmm, they must be spamming buildings more than I thought then .. I need to try to play a FRA game where I ignore the UHV like the AI as I rarely have time to Temple spam .

It is a problem in the long game as that "early" (1st Jerusalem sack) GA acts as an insane booster as it happens at what is simply a perfect time. Whomever gets the 1st is generally first to Guilds, Chivalry, Education and all that follows, thus providing a staggering surge in power back home ..
GER sometimes manages to snag the 1st but it seems to be fairly rare, entirely dependent on how badly FRA is hit by the norse barbs I reckon. That GA is currently basically 'given' to FRA and it upsets the power balance in Europe quite severely:
Burgundy seems to be consistently wiped out when FRA gets the 1st,
ENG seems to be consistently invaded (yes, INVADED!) when FRA gets the 1st, and
GER rarely founds Protestantism when FRA gets the 1st.

Was some talk a while ago about making the loss of Jerusalem have a negative effect back home which makes sense historically and could help with the power-surge gained from it (even later Crusades due to resources) .. perhaps that is an option?

Could just be that I am being paranoid though.