RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

+1
Another key problem IMO is the overpowered bonuses from the wonders
They get stacked up, especially for the human player, thus making the game way too easy
Right now I'm working on this
New wonders will be added, but overally the wonders will be nerfed. Many of them by much
It's not necessary to nerf Wonders much. Just make them obsolete sooner. Take for example The University of Sankore in DoC. Its effects are very OP, but it obsoletes with Education (it's available with Paper, which is 1 tech before Education).

I agree with the rest of your post. Especially about the priorities. Many of the problems in RFCE can be traced to the research scaling. However, I don't think getting rid of it entirely is a good idea, especially in the very early game where only a few civs are alive and not in contact with each other (which means highly unpredictable outcomes, for example Bulgaria killing Byzantium or vice versa). Perhaps decrease the effect of scaling (up to +300% instead of up to +900%), and increase the effect of other tech balancing factors, such as how techs that your neighbors have will cost less.

Another tool is the standard "only your best 10 cities count towards your research" trick, aka research costs scale upward with number of cities. This will slow down HI France or Byzantium a bit, for example.

We could also reduce the effects of tech scaling by era. I feel that in Early/High Middle Ages, the scaling could be more severe, whereas in later eras it shouldn't be so severe.

----

Finally, on an unrelated note:

Been playing Byzantium on SVN. Really like the new soundtrack. Except the RobinHood song. I like Robin Hood - he's a lovable rogue and a hero. But why would anyone think "Down, down, down down down down" is good lyrics? It's like Lady Gaga's "Pa-Pa-Pa-Pa-Poker Face", except it manages to be annoying without being catchy.

I had to delete that song. It's so annoying.
 
1. Somewhat I agree. But if you compare to vanilla RFC or RFC:doc economy is really hard in the beginning. Often I end up doing 40% science because of cash issues. In this mod I am constantly doing 80-100% research while keeping economy in good shape.

2. Because of 1 it is no problem of hiring the few mercs that show up with their "minimal" impact on game turn cost. If economy was worse, cost would be relevant.

3. Colonies appear late in game. Resources other than colonies are also too many.
1. I think a lot of it is due to City Maintenance costs, instead of Unit Support costs. Unit Support costs in RFCE is comparable to RFC or DoC. City Maintenance costs are much lower in RFCE compared to RFC or DoC.

I understand that City Maintenance costs are scaled down in RFCE because of Corporations - but Corps are mostly local and appear late. So how about we scale up City Maintenance costs a bit while we decrease the costs of Corporations (or better still, make them auto-spread with no maintenance costs like in SoI and DoC).

2. Yes.

3. I don't think Resources are that abundant before Colonies. For one thing, their distributions are quite local, just as they should be. For example, no matter how well they're doing, it's likely that France/Byzantium/Spain will not have Fur/Amber; and Sweden/Germany will not have Wine or Olives. Another example is Silk/Cotton. To get them without Colonies, you pretty much have to conquer the Levant. France has no Barley. England has no Wheat. etc.
 
1/2: I guess that is a good solution!

3. But maybe combined with the fact that the AI usually always trade 1:1 health/happiness you end up with all the resources you need. Even if fur/sheep/incense is hard to get by there are usually enough other resources to trade.
 
It's not necessary to nerf Wonders much. Just make them obsolete sooner. Take for example The University of Sankore in DoC. Its effects are very OP, but it obsoletes with Education (it's available with Paper, which is 1 tech before Education).

It's necessary for a couple wonders
For example, Marco Polo: 2 silk, +1 happiness, 3 (!!) trade routes, a free merchant?
These bonuses are enough for 3 wonders

St Basil: 4 free specialists, and +10% birth rate??
Magellan: 2 free trade routes in all coastal cities?
Leonardo: free artist, free engineer, and +50% production?
Torre de Belem: 4 gold on all water tiles, and 2 free merchants??
These are just a couple examples, the list goes on...

However, I don't think getting rid of it entirely is a good idea, especially in the very early game where only a few civs are alive and not in contact with each other (which means highly unpredictable outcomes, for example Bulgaria killing Byzantium or vice versa).

Agreed, I don't plan to get rid of it entirely

Perhaps decrease the effect of scaling (up to +300% instead of up to +900%), and increase the effect of other tech balancing factors, such as how techs that your neighbors have will cost less.

Another tool is the standard "only your best 10 cities count towards your research" trick, aka research costs scale upward with number of cities. This will slow down HI France or Byzantium a bit, for example.

We could also reduce the effects of tech scaling by era. I feel that in Early/High Middle Ages, the scaling could be more severe, whereas in later eras it shouldn't be so severe.

These are good points, will see what direction to follow
But I'm not yet there to start the actual work for this...
Right now I want to finish the building overhaul and the inquisiton code, then release 1.1 as soon as I'm ready with those

Finally, on an unrelated note:

Been playing Byzantium on SVN. Really like the new soundtrack. Except the RobinHood song. I like Robin Hood - he's a lovable rogue and a hero. But why would anyone think "Down, down, down down down down" is good lyrics? It's like Lady Gaga's "Pa-Pa-Pa-Pa-Poker Face", except it manages to be annoying without being catchy.

I had to delete that song. It's so annoying.

The new sounds are only there for testing, not yet sure about all of them myself
Actually I'm waiting for feedback like this, so thanks :)
 
(1) There aren't many mercs around, especially good mercs;

I'm planning to redo some parts of the merc system, so more mercs will be aviable. This will be fixed soon.



The wonders should indeed be tuned down. Especially if we add some more wonders. Especially the wonders that boost religious buildings should be tuned down, because there are much more religious buildings in the game. How about +1:gold: (instead of +2) for La Mezquita and +2/3:culture: (instead of +5) for the Sistine Chapel?
 
After finishing two games over the last few weeks i have a question concerning the hungarian UHV: Why is Thrace left out of the Defender of Europe goal? Looks like an oversight to me.

And the other one is about Lithuanias Commonwealth UHV: Right now it leaves Poland out of the equasion, which is a shame. You really don't need Poland for the UHV and i just conquer it because it's right there and kind of nice;)
Here is my idea: Either put Poland in the other UHV, so it says "Conquer or Vassalise Moscow and Poland" or change the Commonwealth to "have 18 cities within the provinces of (insert historical area)".
I know it's a minor issue because players should conquer Poland anyway, put having to do it might spice up those UHVs.

As I stated before, I'm still playing the non-SVN version, up to patch 1.01, and there Hungarian UHV3 is:
Defender of Europe
Allow no Ottoman cities in Wallachia, Moesia, Thrace, Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Thessaly, Epirus, Arberia, Serbia, Bosnia, Dalmatia and Croatia in 1444 AD

Did it change? why?
If not, are you sure of this Krschtschn? Maybe you were playing an older version or just didn't see it on the list.

About Lithuania I don't see a problem here, but I can't see any problem in specifying the Provinces. 18 Cities to get from 5 fronts:
Livonia/Estonia - Naturally your first aim (or at least the most secure, but the smallest one too). Livonia is almost entirely in your flipping zone, so it's pretty easy.
Former Kievan Rus' - Naturally your over-expansion from Lithuania, as the barbs are a lot easier to handle then your neighbors (at least after the mongols stopped spawning)
Muscovy Contested Territory - Needed for UHV3, but you'll probably get only few cities because you either conquered it early, so not many cities to get there, or you left it for the finishing blow, one that you could do only to Moscow, but couldn't handle for the entire Muscovy Realm (they can't be left alone for many years, if not they will crush you)
Hungary - Far from you, maybe not the better of ideas, but a possibility
Poland - The easiest foe on RFC Europe. Seriously Poland is so pathetic that anybody can handle it. Germany usually vassalize them, if not it's Austria, if not it's Muscovy or Hungary, or they just collapse. Sometimes even Sweden strike at them (if they survived long enough). In my current game with Austria I took Hungary just after my spawn, and Germany was the next target. Because of me and my aim at somewhere else, I found Poland to be a good partner and they found enough partnership and room to expand. Soon they took the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. After they couldn't handle Muscovy, they declared war on me just to wait a few turns and ask for capitulation without a single city taken, just some dead polish troops discarded on my Silesia city (just outside of their capital). They were one of the major players (placed on top 5, with the third biggest territory - losing to me [1st] and to Cordoba [2nd :eek:])

18 cities are a lot of cities, and with this configuration, Lithuania player will most of the time get them from Poland and Kievan Rus', as the Rus' lands aren't enough (and Ottomans on Northern Black Sea are a lot worse to handle then poor Poland). But specifying the territories IMO wont change anything, I would put the following:

Get 18 cities in Lithuania, Livonia, Estonia, Volhynia, Galicia, Brest, Minsk, Polotsk, Smolensk, Chernigov, Kiev, Podolia, Sloboda, Pereyaslavl, Suvalkija, Pomerania, Masovia, Lesser Poland, Greater Poland and Silesia.
 
It's necessary for a couple wonders
For example, Marco Polo: 2 silk, +1 happiness, 3 (!!) trade routes, a free merchant?
These bonuses are enough for 3 wonders

St Basil: 4 free specialists, and +10% birth rate??
Magellan: 2 free trade routes in all coastal cities?
Leonardo: free artist, free engineer, and +50% production?
Torre de Belem: 4 gold on all water tiles, and 2 free merchants??
These are just a couple examples, the list goes on...
You see what all of them (except Magellan, which is as good as the Great Lighthouse) in common?

Free Specialists. It seems every other Wonder in RFCE provides Free Specialists. Kazimierz and St. Marco's Basilica (my favorite) both give Free Merchants.

In RFC/BTS this would be hilariously unbalanced, but in RFCE it's less so, because Specialists are useless except for Commerce/Yield, and GPs are only good for settling (except Priests and Engineers for Faith Points and Wonders), because:

(1) It's impossible to bulb techs due to the tech scaling;

(2) Great Merchant trade missions/Great Scientists settling are useless, again due to tech scaling;

(3) Great Artists are useless for most civs because there are no Cultural goals, and Culture is super easy to get - just build Minarets;

(4) Even Great Priest have limited utility. Faith Points have an upper limit, and your Faith Points will usually be very high already if you conquer a lot and build Temples/Monasteries/Minarets everywhere;

(5) So the only really useful GP is Great Engineer (yay!). But you hardly need Wonders like Leonardo's for them, as you can easily get GEs with Guild Hall (+1 Free Engineer? Can you imagine that in BTS or RFC).

TL;DR

- Free Specialists, Free Specialists everywhere.

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- Specialists are of very limited utility in RFCE (and in most cases can be replaced by straightforward Commerce/Yield bonuses, a la Noria/Chateau), so the effect is actually much less significant than one would expect.
 
As I stated before, I'm still playing the non-SVN version, up to patch 1.01, and there Hungarian UHV3 is:
Defender of Europe
Allow no Ottoman cities in Wallachia, Moesia, Thrace, Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Thessaly, Epirus, Arberia, Serbia, Bosnia, Dalmatia and Croatia in 1444 AD

Did it change? why?
If not, are you sure of this Krschtschn? Maybe you were playing an older version or just didn't see it on the list.

You are right, i actually typed in the wrong province. I meant Morea, the southern part of Greece. I tried it out with a quicksave because i thought that couldn't be right. I downloaded from the SVN, I think Rev. 973, but it's definetly higher than 1.01.


On an unrelated note, i think i found a bug. In my first hungarian game Islam had no Holy City. As far as i know Holy Cities are unrazable, so there must be something wrong.
 
Yeah, IIRC I had a few cities around 28 pop in one if my games
After a few more thoughts on this: very similar to the last one, just much more straightforward, and all the results are int: (x^2)/2 + 3.5x
Spoiler :
1: 4
2: 9
3: 15
4: 22
5: 30
6: 39
7: 49
8: 60
9: 72
10: 85
11: 99
12: 114
13: 130
14: 147
15: 165
20: 270
25: 400
30: 555

I don't think we should go below these, I would hate to see Europe's total population below 10 million through the whole game

I was thinking about populations sizes - again
I disliked the population popups (your glorious civ now holds 1 million population), so I changed all of them to urban population
Maybe we should also update the numbers for the cities, for even more realistic feel
Or do they look good enough for medieval city sizes?
 
I wasn't thinking about a big change, only slightly decreasing the numbers
For example, instead of the ( x * (x/2 + 3,5) ) we could use ( (x-2) * (x/2 + 3,5) + 7 )
That actually means -x from the previous one, so:
Spoiler :
1: 3
2: 7
3: 12
4: 18
5: 25
6: 33
7: 42
8: 52
9: 63
10: 75
11: 88
12: 102
13: 117
14: 133
15: 150
20: 250
25: 375
30: 525
 
On a related note, I plan to set the demographics screen as well
Change population and territory, probably soldiers too:

Population simply renamed to Urban Population there too, as the number only shows up the total population in your cities
Or we can add an era dependent multiplier there. So it shows 6 * your Urban Population when you are in the Early Middle Ages, 5* if you are in High Middle Ages, 4* if you are in Late Middle Ages and 3* if you are in Renaissance
Just an example, but you get the idea
The only problem with this is that the number what it shows for your population will drop on each era change
EDIT: More elegant solution to represent this would be to have X * (5 - (y/500)*2), where X is your urban population, y is the turn number
This ranges from 5 to 3, slightly dropping on each turn
Nevertheless, the drop will be there, but not as noticeable as in the previous example

Territory can be much more accurate as it is currently, as our map size is fix
We can have pretty close values to reality
 
Territory can be much more accurate as it is currently, as our map size is fix
We can have pretty close values to reality

On my calculation, a tile is somewhere around 2200-2300 km2 in the mod
 
No, there is no slavery in RFCE, so no whipping
Slaves were very rare in medieval Europe, thus it would have been very inaccurate to keep anything like that in
 
Yeah, I plan to update the concepts in the civilopedia
Already updated the reference files
Check them out for some general information under (Mods Folder)/RFCEurope/Reference/
 
I'm very pleased how the improvements on the demographics screen turned out:

- Tweaks to the previous stats: Urban Population, Military Power, Land Area, etc.
- New statistics on the demographics screen: Total Population, Soldiers

Total Population = Urban population * era multiplier + 1500 * unit number + constant
The era multiplier is based on turn number (slowly decreasing from 8 to 4). The result for total population is rounded to 5000
Military Power is an index for power (both current and potential), while Soldiers show the actual number of military units
 

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@ Absinthered

I see you made the Horse Archer a replacement for the Mounted Soldier. I can see the philosophy behind it, but I don't realy like it.

Now it looks like those civs have a 2nd UU, while they haven't really. It's just their version of the Mounted soldier. It just looks weird to see that some civs have a "2nd UU", while others don't. And new players could get confused.
And IMO, the UU in that are shown in the civilopedia should realy be an UU, not an unit that is share between some civs. When 6 civs (1/4 of the civs!) have an "unique" unit, it isn't unique anymore.
Because it's not really an UU, you could swap it around. You could also say the Mounted Soldier is a replacement for the Horse Archer. So you can't really say which one replaces the other. I would say neither of them replaces the other.

So I would rather have the changes reverted and have those 2 units alongside eachother. It doesn't make any changes in gameplay, but IMO, it's aesthetically better.

Along with that, the Horse Archer is much better. They have a 2 extra first strikes, are cheaper and have a bonus vs. catapults and trebuchets. I think they should be more equal. They can have a little difference, but the difference they have now is too big IMO.
 
Keep in mind that RFCE doesn't have to be simmetrical for the civs
Balance in RFC mods is a totally different thing than balance in "normal" BtS mods
Also, take a look at Realism Invictus for example. Not similarity matters, but overall balance

Having said that, I plan to further improve the Horse Archer and Mounted Sergeant thing in RFCE.
IMO the best would be to have a general unit type for the earliest light cavalry units
Horse Archers would replace that for Bulgaria, Hungary and Kiev, some kind of early beduin light cavalry would replace that for Arabia and Cordoba, and Mounted Sergeant would replace that for all the other civs
It's not an actual UU, only differentiating the unit type more.

So I would rather have the changes reverted and have those 2 units alongside eachother. It doesn't make any changes in gameplay, but IMO, it's aesthetically better.
I'm absolutely against that
The worst thing we can do here if we enable both units to be built by all civs
I don't want to see any horse archers for say France or Germany or Spain

Along with that, the Horse Archer is much better. They have a 2 extra first strikes, are cheaper and have a bonus vs. catapults and trebuchets. I think they should be more equal. They can have a little difference, but the difference they have now is too big IMO.

I see no problems with that
We can differentate them as much as we want to
Check SoI, embrydead made a fine job there regarding Horse Archers and Heavy Horse Archers
 
In SoI, horse archers and cavalry are on the same tier, but horse archers are only available to Turkic civs and they are a bit more powerful than cavalry. That's fine and realistic. So I think Absinthered's plan is good.
 
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