RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

[merijn_v1]

It's not strange, it's a feature. And it will only work for the Seljuks.

Maybe the AI doesn't attack my privateers, because mine are really experienced by the large amounts of ships they destroy. (Combat IV or V promotion is not uncommon)

 

[gilgames]

Oh, good to know,can you give a reason for it? itsnot obvious to me, maybe nor to others as well.

 

[merijn_v1]

Historicalness.

Otherwise islam would hardly ever spread to the Seljuk cities, which is quite ahistorical.

 

[Wessel V1]

The stone flipping to Austria is because of the core zones. Every civ has its core. In stead of being the dominant culture to control a tile, a civ only needs 20% culture to control a core tile unless the neighbour civ is the master of that civ. Prague is part of the Austrian core so it's hard to take the tile from the Austrians.

 

[gilgames]

Historicalness.

Otherwise islam would hardly ever spread to the Seljuk cities, which is quite ahistorical.

Disagree, this task belong to the Ottomans! in other words, its allah damn it, hard to keep your cities monoreligion in the game, prosecutors are expensive and 50%+ unsuccelfull...i know the factors affect the chance, but with any big emipre its way too big effort, and with Byz or arabs its impossible. plus teo doesnt give the rfc regular bonus, no other rel. spread! is it inly my problem the keep my empire mono religioned???

I tried a game as poland, on viceroy (to test a strategy) and razed prague! germans rebuilded that city 3 times!!! and when settled it instantly got a wall!!!!! I like to build wroclaw due to stone, although they new cites were named to Pilsen any time. And in general, city's remane on flips or raze-rebuild got new name!!! i.e. in arabia, in antiocha ect..

 

[Chep]

thanks for the info about the stone. still seems sort of bad that I'd need to raze Prague (which is pretty fortified and would usually give me border-trouble with the Germans, just to get some stone :/
With Genova I could buy some from Byzantium but there it's not that much of a problem as a bureaucracy-run capitol can manage without

I'm currently playing a nice game with Spain, where I had some sort of a lucky start:
Cordoba was reduced to Valencia and northern Africa, so I could just conquer Valencia with my starting units, upgrade my str7-lanzers to the str10-version and take Pamplona before peacefully settling the Iberian mainland.
Unfortunately France and Burgandy both wanted to keep their borders shut, so I didn't make much traderoute profit and couldn't trade techs for a long time, but I think else it would just have been ridiculusly easy for me
Portugal got crushed and I'm currently proud owner of Iberia, the Canary Islands and Aquitaine, having Burgundy vassalized, with France still stable somehow Oo (and me at +20 stability or more)
Now I'm considering conquering all cities with AA-resources or building huge stacks of ships that I'll then upgrade to privateers to prevent all other civs from ever owning a colony
(since my tech-rate drops from having so many cities I won't be able to keep my tech-advantage for long)
But Leon seems to be a rather bad long-term-city and I really had trouble deciding which city should become my GP-city.

The muslim nations have always been very weak in my games.
Cordoba once was really strong and conquered most of Spain and even southern France before collapsing, but usually gets its ass kicked by the barbarians who raze usually at least Cordoba, making it usually vassalize to Spain and it often is in this cycle of collapsing and reappearing, immediately becoming someones vasall and then collapsing again.
The arabs either become someone's vasall after the first crusade (the crusaders or Byzantiums) or just stuck to their starting region, boxed in by a strong Byzantine Empire (which never in my many games collapsed before the ottomans and usually stayed the empire with the highest score well untill the 1300-1400s.

I don't really get the point of Kiev. Their goals look a lot like the Polish goals, their UP does as well and they always get killed by the mongols.
My game with Genova went well, but never made half as much fun as the ones with Venice & Portugal (which are somewhat comparable). Your cities on Rhodos, Crete, Corsica and Sardinia never get any real production so you have to rely on your capitol, Milan and Palermo all the while battling severe health problems (never had a plague do this much damage before) if the pirates manage to cut off your fish/crabs-res.

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edit: I'm thinking of trying a "one-city-challenge", has anyone ever done that before? I think I'd choose Portugal, raze the 2nd city via the WB and aim for 2out3-UHV (6 colonies + never lose a city) plus maybe score-lead.

 

[gilgames]

You can only trade with Byz, until they loose Alexandria what has an 50% chance...and / or if they got the balkan stone after plate armor. But this trade true for any civ /w stone (i.e. sweeden)

I've seen som game where all civ where good or bad....its really very different which is the main power, can be france, germans, venezia, poland or austria too.

Your spain game can be consider as lucky, but its not that hard at all. The north part settle map is awfull! not a good site. Barcelona and pamplona is a moderate place, the rest is worse. leon good for pump out the necessery arm.lancers and thats all. best cities are Cordoba and toledo + lisboa. and thats all. But you can have very small impact on your 3. uhv goal. and can praise to gods, protestantism won spread europe wide

Kiev: the never ending challange however their goal looks similar, its aint so bad, without barbs, but they are there! But the real difference between them is how you should solve the problem. In kiev you must do everytging at once! Hard toget stone in time, hard to build the 2. cathedral, aside defend youland from constant barb attacks. I allways lose 1-2-3 uhv by a few turn Their UP is +2 food / city. (pole's no inst. for other religions)

You might be won the one-city-challange with Dutch!

ps: Btw one city, we want to play with Pope!!! to be playable AND wants ro Dow'em too DD

 

[Chep]

right, the dutch might be another candidate for a nice one-city-challenge, there even without any worldbuildering necessary

concerning the cities in Spain: see the screenshot I attached (I'm not sure a savegame would help you since I'm using the German version, though they SHOULD be compatible...)

with the exception of the stupid city south of Lisboa the portugese founded, the cities actually are pretty decent, with Cadiz probably being the weakest of the ones I founded.

all "inner cities" aka Leon, Merida, Jaen (!), Madrid and of course Pamplone are useful, the coastal ones are good as well...I like them. The Iberian Peninsula is SO GODDAMN RICH in ressources, it's amazing

I think I'll found protestantism myself, this way I can probably prevent one of the bigger opponents to go for it and I can play some Inquisition

and yes, sorry I meant the UB of Poland and the UP of Kiev have basically the same effect. And their goals are very similar as well. Of course Kiev has a much harder time with the mongols and that probably shapes their playing style, but on first glance they seem almost identical. Why doesn't Kiev have any UHVs connected to the continuing batttle against the barbarians?

And yes, they main power changes from game to game, which is good, but in almost every game I had the Byzantines stayed on top until the Ottomans arrived and France either got killed by Burgundy (rare) or was number two and the most technologically advanced civ (often) - well, besides me, of course. Germany and Hungary are always strong as well, with the others trading places. I had a game where Lituania vassalized Poland, one where Poland became "number 3" after my Portugal and France, etc. I haven't had one with a strong Arabia yet and only one where Cordoba held against the Spanish.

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edit: whats with the "Scholar" - GP? I am always sad/angry if I get one of these. Thanks to the insane tech boni you get, they usually contribute almost nothing if you "bulb" them, since there is no academy (for a long time) you can only settle them. I have to remember to stay the hell away from that Cluny-thing since the bonus is really tiny (1 per religious building? when I usually have 1-2 of those per city? pfft) and it really polluted my GP-pool in this game (3 GS one after the other -.-)
I even prefer the Artist from the Scholar now. I think the scholar needs some improvements, or would this go against the "Dark Ages" - idea?^^

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edit2:

concerning the Spanish UHV when it says "the catholic nations" does this mean it is sufficient if you just use some spies to change all major players to Catholizism for this turn and it is fullfilled? Even if they have Catholizism only in one tiny village and their "real religion" in all other cities?
Or does this only count for land size and I need to have more Catholics than any other religion in the religious advisor (F7)?

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edit3:
I have to say....while I have always been the most advanced, most powerful civ by 1500, I have NEVER dominated the way I currently do with Spain. I am techleader, I own Iberia, the Canaries, Aquitaine and Ireland and have Burgundy vassalized. With my "Piratebase" Dublin I can ensure that England won't ever use their AA, France doesn't have any, since I own their atlantic coast and the only AA not in my reach is the Dutch one - currently owned by Burgundy (who doesn't have Astronomy yet and as my vassal will never get it )
My pirates patrol the seas while my productive cities in central Spain build the wonders, soon I'll move to building some missionaries to gift to the other nations to spread catholicism a little more. If the whole world declared war on my, they MIGHT stop me. or get 1 colony. Might. Spain rocks.

 

[gilgames]

Okey lets get started:

DO NOT EVER found protestantism, or you'll ruin your UHV. If you are the first how finish PP, you get a pop-up asking you to get prot or not. if you choose yes, it will have a grea impact (with sucj an emipre) on others too and get a holy city, probably in uhv territory, thus fail the uhv gor sure. rather "help" to some poor guy get it! i.e. give him a GP to help pop is or donno. If not you are the first, you will be asked to do a counter reformation, mean you will recive several prosecuror, leave them in peace, prot sometimes reachs your cities....

Cities: not bad at all, just now playing a game /w Cordoba. With original city palcemant and for them thye work quite well. It doesnt matter if Leon, La Coruna, and others doesnt shining so brigthly, i have at least 5 very good one, thyts enough to do anyhing i need. Portugals are vassalized and Furious . Spain was surprisingly weak, killed them with 2 peace offer. 2. time time they gave me Pamplona with it Just having serious financial problems running with 50% taxes, have Katzimier, and the +10% wonder/city lots of banks ect.

UHV3: Catholic nations means: a Power with Catholis State religion! doesnt matter is its Cordoba and vassalized/reborend, if has a chat. than its count toward it too.

I just recently (in the dutch game) realized, how to make a city GP pushout But its true, GPs need to rethink
Great artist: was only usefull to complete egypt's 3. uhv. still not woth it
Great Prophet: not so bad to settle, realstic to need to found and religon related "corp." thus i never have one if needed
Great Scientist: need to enchance the bulb optoin, and add an "academy" option too. Might be renamed to Teacher?
Great Engineer: rarely comes, when i need him, but allways handy, might add an option to create workshop +25% hammers
Great Mechant: well this guy is very rare imo. maybe market/bank should add +1GM/turn ??? coffe house is too late, to make a difference!

 

[Chep]

I founded Protestantism
(but of course after 1492, so UHV 1 -> check)

the holy city is now lisboa which is also the City of the Johanniter & the Augsburger - 170 gold/turn (on 0% gold) and I haven't even started to spread them properly.

You ALWAYS get asked to do a counter-reformation by the pope if you are catholic and have Protestantism in your cities (at least that's my experience) - and I recommend to ALWAYS chose the stability. you can build as many inquisitors as you want, but stability? if you don't want to use exploits there is only so much you can get

and I wouldn't have vassalized Portugal if I were you, both Lisboa and Portu....well the city north of Lisboa that Portugal gets - they both are really nice.

for the UHV3: thanks, but that means it will be incredibly easy, as Spain produces lots of spy points...so one just has to make sure to prepare for the date (in my game I don't need this, since protestantism is only practiced by a minority in Europe, but still...)

about the GP:
Great Artists might help getting the culture needed to take over the AA-resource or give you the tiles you want against an enemy that you don't want to declare war on - I think this one is okay, the way it is. Especially with the Academy-Option later. Much more useful than in vanilla Civ.
Great Engineers: I always try to keep one for the next cool wonder. Other people settle them on islands where there normally is no production. I think this one is fine as well.
Great Merchants: With Marco Polo, the Marcus Dome or later the Torre or Magellan you get GM spots so you can train some. Also with Guilds you get the "guildhouse" that gives you a free engineer and 1 GM-spot. More would be nice, but then Genovas UHV of founding 2 banks would become to difficult. I think this is fine the way it is as well.
Great Prophet: Well I only ever started getting them with Spain now. I don't think the 10 faith points are worth it, but settling them is nice, so who cares?
Great Spy: I always settle them, how about you?
Only the Great Scholars really bug me. They suck.

 

[gilgames]

I'll reply you later, have to go now, but I've seen somthing, during my one city game and i must share it:

View attachment 348097

View attachment 348098

Did i missed something or what happend??????

 

[merijn_v1]

Disagree, this task belong to the Ottomans! in other words, its allah damn it, hard to keep your cities monoreligion in the game, prosecutors are expensive and 50%+ unsuccelfull...i know the factors affect the chance, but with any big emipre its way too big effort, and with Byz or arabs its impossible. plus teo doesnt give the rfc regular bonus, no other rel. spread! is it inly my problem the keep my empire mono religioned???

Islam did spread to Anatolia long before the Ottomans. The Ottomans weren't the ones that spread islam to Anatolia, the Seljuks did. That's why the Seljuks spread islam when they conquer cities.

It has nothing to do with the fact that it's hard to keep your cities monoreligious.

 

[gilgames]

Well I've refreshed my studies in histroy!
You are right about seljuks, but they did it at the END of the 11st century, not during the whole one. Translating it in the game language! reduces barbs spawn time to 1080-1090 in i guess 3 turns! they might top spawn befor and after that date. in my last Byz game thye keept coming over 50 years!

It has nothing to do with the fact that it's hard to keep your cities monoreligious.

why? insome case, its easy: like france or portugals, ect... but sometimes its way too difficult, and cause to big instability like in Byzants or by Arabs. Another religion conflict zone is Hungary-Poland, but they have no problem with it...

@Chep sorry i mixed your uhvs :s I thought about the 1. and wrote 3. I'm really unfamiliar with the spy system. (started civ4-rfc after civ2) So realyy donno how to deal with spy point, or does it worth any efforts. When i am big and just wait to the time, when my 3. uhv will count, i use it to reveal enemies map

how do you like the one-city game?

ps: Abisntred can you rename sassadins to persians? to be obvious, who are they?

 

[Chep]

I tried a few turns with the Dutch but in 1650 the game just sort of stopped. I kept waiting for the enemies turn and kept waiting and waiting. I reloaded....same...
And since the game also seemed to crash quite often (maybe too many units for my weak computer or something) I didn't finish it.
It seems like a very good choice for an OCC, but highly dependant on Luck. In my game Spain almost won, I was only saved because Portugal held 2 colonies while Spain had only 1. (Portugal only owned cities in the Canary Islands and was the vasall of Spain^^).
There would have been no way for me to stop them before 1640.

That brings me to an interesting question: What happens to colonies when
a) a civ crumbles and becomes independant
b) you take over every last city of a civ (usually Spain -> Portugal)

?

I also tried a few turns with the Ottomans, while it was easy to capture Istanbul the Byzantine "Stack of Doom" cost me almost half my total units, making it probably impossible to win all the provinces in ~20 turns. And the UP seems nice at first, but 1 unit every....8 turns? pff (and: Why do I get so many settlers? I had like 8 or 9 when I conquered Constantinople).

I have to say, my favorite games so far were with:
Venice, Spain & Portugal
the Dutch might be fun too,
Genova and Poland are also not too difficult to win, but not half as fun to play (for me). I should probably give Cordoba and Germany another chance some day.


Concerning the founding of Protestantism with Spain: If you do it after 1492 there is no UHV-problem and you still have a holy city that produces 20 gold per turn
you can easily remove all Protestants from your own cities and it should help in keeping one opponent Catholic.

@ gilgames: I went Civ2 -> Alpha Centauri -> Civ4 BTS (never played vanilla) -> Civ4 RFC (-> Civ4 Colonization AoD2 ->) Civ4 RtW -> here
So for me the Spy points were also something new, but hey, it's fun to try them
IF you're playing as Venice you might get some early great spies -> you can steal techs from France, might also work for Byzantium
For everyone else you get to see their cities (really helpful if you want to build a wonder/colony and they can too, so you can see how fast they are) but yeah, there are more options and they can be fun to try. (I often change France as the most powerful opponent to move away from Bureaucracy via Spies )

And yeah, I don't know what happened to the Pope in your game Oo How is that even possible? That must be some kind of a bug, since Rome holds holy wonders and therefore Catholicism can't be removed by the inquisition or something like that Oo

 

[Atlantic Pacf.]

I'm having two problems here.

The first is that in the late game, I often get crash-to-desktops. Hopefully this gets fixed soon, or else the late game is unplayable.

EDIT: Actually, I was wrong about the "late game" part. I started a game as Venice, and got a CTD on the next turn.

The second is that I don't like "control provinces x." To accomplish those goals, you'd need at least one city in each territory, which leads to some...interesting city placements. It's also nonsensical when your culture covers the entirety of a province, yet it does not count for the UHV because there are no cities in said province. I would like such goals to change from "having cities in a province" to "having dominant culture in a province."

 

[ezzlar]

If culture covers the whole province you should get the control IIRC. But that means every spot.

 

[merijn_v1]

Well I've refreshed my studies in histroy!
You are right about seljuks, but they did it at the END of the 11st century, not during the whole one. Translating it in the game language! reduces barbs spawn time to 1080-1090 in i guess 3 turns! they might top spawn befor and after that date. in my last Byz game thye keept coming over 50 years!

We have to stay within the limits of the game. It might not be completely historical that Islam spreads to Anatolia when the Seljuks spawn, but it's less historical if they didn't spread islam at all.

BTW, the eastern part of Anatalia was islamic before the Seljuks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_expansion_of_Caliphate.svg

why? insome case, its easy: like france or portugals, ect... but sometimes its way too difficult, and cause to big instability like in Byzants or by Arabs. Another religion conflict zone is Hungary-Poland, but they have no problem with it...

IIRC, we started why the feature was added. That's because of the reasons I mentioned above. That it's harder to keep your cities monoreligious has nothing to do with the inclusion of the feature itself. It's a result of that.

@abisntred can you rename sassadins to persians? to be obvious, who are they?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=sassanids

 

[gilgames]

Quote:
@abisntred can you rename sassadins to persians? to be obvious, who are they?
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=sassanids

do you think its obvious???? I'm intrested in history, specially in ancient and antique ages, but never heared about them, before rfce! That's why i asked to rename them...although i got your point (everybody can goolge it). yeah its dependable choise....

BTW, the eastern part of Anatalia was islamic before the Seljuks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ma..._Caliphate.svg

Regarding to your linked map: in game its touches only Antalia, and maybe Colonea, but not more! In game they spread it far more west! can you code it to spread islam only in mentioned territories, or it works like arab UP?

If culture covers the whole province you should get the control IIRC. But that means every spot.

I'll try this with Austria, because Bohemia is not the place where you can settle any city!

I'm having two problems here.

The first is that in the late game, I often get crash-to-desktops. Hopefully this gets fixed soon, or else the late game is unplayable.

EDIT: Actually, I was wrong about the "late game" part. I started a game as Venice, and got a CTD on the next turn.

It sometimes appear, but not that often to be that annoying, for me. I used to have "memory allocation errors" -- Maybe try to convert/refresh your SVN...

@Chep: In my ditch game, i was concerned about colony numbers, but had to focus on war (stop spain, please germany, and kick norse), Than i had some time to focus on GMs, and after i built East-West india, a had plenty of colonies to build!

@ colonies:
a, donno
b, I think its gona be lost....

@ ottomans:
I had a short game with them last night,,, and western anatolia was EMPTY....the only city there was izmir(5) and some road if thats not enough, Venezia was OP, vassalized Bulgaria, Byzants and 1 more....had no real chance to set foot in europe had to give up after a while...
But yes, their UP is not the best one.

@ Cordoba: I retried them recently! with the addition os Sevilla it became a realistic challange, almost easy However i could kill spain with two peace (1. was a sue, 2. was tactical) and had a nice game...

Hey Chep, german uhvs are a real chill, not hard at all

When I chacked the Rel. adv. it still showed Rome as Holycrap, but not on the map, it was a funny bug report

 

[merijn_v1]

do you think its obvious???? I'm intrested in history, specially in ancient and antique ages, but never heared about them, before rfce! That's why i asked to rename them...although i got your point (everybody can goolge it). yeah its dependable choise....

You can't know anything EDIT: everything. If you haven't heard of it doesn't makes it ahistorical. Before BTS, I have never heard of the Khmer. Now I do know who they are.

Regarding to your linked map: in game its touches only Antalia, and maybe Colonea, but not more! In game they spread it far more west! can you code it to spread islam only in mentioned territories, or it works like arab UP?

Currently, it works like the Arabian UP. The only difference is that the Arabians also get some free buildings in their city when they conquer a city.

It sometimes appear, but not that often to be that annoying, for me. I used to have "memory allocation errors" -- Maybe try to convert/refresh your SVN...

MAF (memory allocation failure) has hardly anything to do with bugs in the mod. The computer can't handle the information it has to memorise for the game to work. They happen more often on weaker computers. (especially 32 Bit systems) So updating the SVN won't solve the problems.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=12099999&postcount=96

They are really annoying, but you often play on after reloading an (auto-)save.


You can somewhat avoid it by doing this. (At own risk!)
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=224178

 

[Wessel V1]

You can't know *everything. If you haven't heard of it doesn't makes it ahistorical. Before BTS, I have never heard of the Khmer. Now I do know who they are.

Sorry had to intervene bro. Sounds a lot nicer this way.