RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

[AbsintheRed]

I dont know why, but settlement has really increased to strange places. Twice in a row I have seen Byzantium settle Crimea. And the AI conquers whole of Italy.

Awesome news, both of them

That's historical.

Indeed

 

[AbsintheRed]

Then we should rethink some of the Byzantium concepts. Random points:

- Seljuk Crossbowmen and guisarmiers should only spawn during the last 2 turns of the Seljuk area. First waves should be only Heavy Cavalry.
- Between the last threat (Bulgarian around 690) and Seljuks (1060) you get about 370 years of preparation. That is too much time. Or not too severe threat.
- Seljuks spawn in groups of three. It used to be five.
- Change strength of Seljuks or make them Light cavalry? A Guisarmier with one or two promotions behind walls/castle/Pressburg castle can easily take out several Seljuks. +25% against polearm?
- A strong AI Seljuk could give UHV2 some meaning. Today you win by just playing along.
- AI Ottomans should start with 5-6 pikemen to defend against my SOD of knights.
- AI Bulgaria needs to be buffed. More defensive units at spawn. Maybe one extra settler.
- AI Arabia was very stable. I conquered Jerusalem, Tyre, Damascus and razed Al-Aqaba (during a few turns in the 1040). They stayed stable. Nice.

Yep, you are right in most points
I also agree with your point from the other posts, that some of the older civs are currently too powerful in the SVN. Byzantium is one of them.

This would be useful for (e.g.) one square of Viking water in between two German cities, or one square of French water in the English(-controlled) Channel. There's not much in the Middle Ages that such detailed control of the high seas could represent.

Apologies for butting into your conversation....

Is there any consensus about Hanseatic executives?

 

[Chep]

Something like own at least 10 cities on the British Isles and in some of the French provinces could work.

O_o
Do you mean 10 on the Isles + X in France?
I think I prefer the status quo then.
I tried to reduce the cities on the isles to a minimum which caused some awkward city placement.

Since I don't want to start a discussion here I made a thread for it: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=12554414#post12554414

And why is there no river in Dublin? I mean how are they supposed to brew their Guinness without water!

 

[AbsintheRed]

No, I meant total 10 cities in Britain and France
About 7-8 cities in the Isles, and 2-3 in France (Normandy and Aquitania)
But more on that in the new thread

 

[ezzlar]

Hanseatic executive: Since they cant enter cities without open borders it should be fine to give them the "Can explore rival territory".

Edit: I still consider the free civic change during Golden Age as a game breaker. Thats when those older civs can change to modern society over a year. In real life the ancient civs often died off since they didnt adapt. And the earlier anarchy/stability penalty ensured that the player often had a bit backward Byzantium or France. Which got them into trouble in competing with the modern civs (civics).

 

[AbsintheRed]

Hanseatic executive: Since they cant enter cities without open borders it should be fine to give them the "Can explore rival territory".

That's their current status

Edit: I still consider the free civic change during Golden Age as a game breaker. Thats when those older civs can change to modern society over a year. In real life the ancient civs often died off since they didnt adapt. And the earlier anarchy/stability penalty ensured that the player often had a bit backward Byzantium or France. Which got them into trouble in competing with the modern civs (civics).

I don't think we should force the player to stay in backward civics through the whole game if they want to have as much stability (thus expansion) as possible.
Golden Ages are relatively rare, so I'm fine with the indirect loss because of sticking to the old civic while waiting for a Golden Age to avoid the stability hit.
This indirect loss might be increased for the human player, but I don't want to force a direct stability loss.

 

[ezzlar]

I dont really follow your line of reasoning. The old civs are already OP and needed not this boon. You only need 2 GP for a Golden Age, not that hard if you start year 500AD. Or UHV 2 out of three.

Besides, for me it feels historical that new civs like Sweden or the Dutch have some of their power from modern civics. And that Byzantium is really old style.

If you want a modern Byzantium then you have to forget some of that crazy expanding. Which feels like a real good trade off.

 

[Chep]

Actually, I can't remember ever changing civics with Byzantium
I mean the good, late game civics usually come after 1450 when their game ends, and I don't think the AI really uses this feature well.

With most other civs there are 3 times when I change civics:

towards 2 Feudal civics, Serfdom, Militarism or away from Manorism - beginning of the game
(Manorism almost always is worse than the basic civic for a long while so I never really use it)

towards bureaucracy (middlegame), maybe guilds

towards limited monarchy, the 2 free-specialists-civic and colonialism (lategame, using Palacio da Pena).

So changing it would only really affect the 2nd one, since I have to go through anarchy for the first change and there won't be any for the lategame-change anyway.

Sure for some civs like Venice, that are prone to stability problems, it is important, but for most others it just "feels friendler from the game" but it doesn't really matter.

 

[Chep]

okay since it came up in the France-thread which I don't want to derail:

I think the resource placement is really good in most areas.

Iberia for example is awesome (as I repeatedly said here, all 3 civs there are really fun to play). The only thing might be the eastern part of Andalusia:

currently it looks like this:

Both seafood resources are outside the city boundaries of Valenica and Sevilla, the cities next to this area (the third one being Cordoba in the centre of the country).

so basically you have 3 resources that can't be used by any of the other cities but aren't worth building a city there.

this combination would allow for a city with 2 seafood, 1 olive, some mountains, some plain hills and lots of water. It's not great but it's decent. (the fish has been moved 1E, the olives 1N, nothing else changed)
And it would give people some sort of incentive to settle in that area.
Also it might help AI-Cordoba a little, since they settle in that area anyway.

----

The UK is also pretty good. I mean sure, there could a tiny river in Dublin or between Exeter and Bristol but...it's fine for now. I wouldn't change anything here untill the new civ is in and we can judge it.

----

I think a stone resource in this area would be nice:

This is the "no-mans-land" between Kiev, Poland, Lithuania and Hungary. The first three have trouble securing stone for themselves and could really use it.

----

Okay, Venice...

since the crab is just outside of Raguxa (or whatever the independent city just east of this area is called), and the tile 1N of the "green" one (1W of the iron or 1S of the wine) is already in a foreign (!) province instead of the natural one "Dalmatia" I'd love to see the crab moved 1NW along the coast so there is a decent spot for a "stable" city 1W of the wine if you can't use the river tile...

but that's really minor.

 

[Hamir]

I disagree that the UK doesn't need changes - I think it could do with a few tweaks (see here for my reasoning / suggestions: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=12564754#post12564754).

 

[Chep]

I disagree that the UK doesn't need changes - I think it could do with a few tweaks (see here for my reasoning / suggestions: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=12564754#post12564754).

your changes seem quite good, but since the Scottish are "soon" (aka as one of the next civs) going to be implemented into the mod, there might be more changes necessary to balance them and the English afterwards. So while I think your suggestions should work in either way, the new civ will change the whole situation in the area.
Depending on the UHVs and the exact city sites some resources might have to be changed (so that both the English and the Scots have Iron + Horse for example)

 

[Chep]

I just had to share this one with you:

The Pope himself gave up on Christianity

----

edit:

this seems to be a bug (or I didn't understand the province stability correctly)

This province should be green and give me some negative stability due to Genovans settling there (right red circle), right? (I think I got the negative stability, -3 or something like that but then the colour would still be off)

 

[Chep]

Since I have yet to see a game where Bulgaria isn't either dead or vasallized by the year 1000, I'd suggest improving them, without giving them simply more Konniks as they, combined with the plague, would be simply to much for the Byzantines to handle.

Idea: 1. give Bulgaria 1-2 more settlers. They allow for more production and let Bulgaria occupy some more territory (Wallachia, Serbia, Arberia) quickly.
2. let them start as Orthodox or at least with State Religion pre-selected. The first two turns as Bulgaria are always spend in anarchy, lowering your stability (and to a lesser extent, time). It's not like there is much room for personalization of the civics, when starting Bulgaria only has 1 civic choice and that is to switch to state religion. And you obviously have to convert to Orthodoxy rather sooner than later for uhv2.

edit: I know that the Bulgaria-game is extremely luck-based due to the plague. that's why adding more settlers instead of military units should soften this effect. it allows both sides to produce some units over the first dozen turns.

 

[Swarbs]

Already wrote this in the French thread, but I think it is worth discussing in here as well:

After playing with a number of civs, I think that the frequency and number of barbs spawning should be the same in Monarch and Emperor, or only very slightly increased.

As far as I understand it, the major changes from Monarch to Emperor in terms of player difficulty are:

1. Slower tech as more beakers needed per tech
2. Worse economy as higher maintenance and fewer free units
3. No 10% bonus against barbs
4. More barbs
5. The AI cheats

The problem here is that the top four combine to make barbs far too hard to fight. Basically:

1. Means lower tech units to fight barbs
2. Means fewer units can be supported
3. Means it's harder to kill individual barbs
4. Means there are more barbs to fight

Personally I think if the number of barbs stays the same from M to E then there will still be a harder challenge if barb numbers remain the same, as you are at a disadvantage vs the AI. Fighting barbs will already take more effort, because of 1, 2 and 3, so the extra barbs aren't needed, and mean that 90% of your time in the early game is spent hoping you will win battles against the endless barb hordes rather than actually expanding and playing the game. It makes early civs like France, Cordoba and Byzantium almost unplayable as you have to spend so much effort fighting barbs rather than focusing on building or achieving UHVs.

Also, in general the first three changes from M to E mean you rely on improving your strategy when fighting, as you have fewer and weaker units with no bonus so have to be more careful. But the increase in the number of barbs means you rely on getting luck with the RNG, as eventually if you fight enough barbs you will lose several battles even at 80%+

The greater barb numbers also affect the AI on Emperor. Civs like Byzantium, Bulgaria, Kiev, Lithuania and Cordoba will often be completely dead or kicked out of their core by the barb hordes before later game civs like the Ottomans, Muscovy and Portugal appear. That can make Emperor games either very easy or ridiculously hard depending on what civ - an Ottoman game is a piece of cake if Byzantium and Bulgaria are both dead, but not much fun to play. Ditto Portugal if you can just mop up a few Cordoban barb / indie cities and double your size immediately.

I'm aware that the focus at the moment is on balancing Monarch rather than Emperor, but this is a simple change that would make Emperor a more playable and enjoyable challenge for all civs (with the possible exception of some like the Norse), without affecting overall balance.

 

[HockeySam18]

Hey guys!

Its been a long time (2 years I think) since I've posted here at CFC, and I think the last time I was helping playtest for this awesome mod was on Beta 12 or something

Anyway, I've gotten back into Civ4 a bit recently, downloaded RFCE v1.1 (of course ) and done some playing. I just won on Monarch as the French, and I was really liking the balance! I actually got the UHV1 with 1 turn to go (granted I'm a little out of practice, I could have gotten it earlier if I focused more). Later on, after the flips, it was a little easy though. I had forgone early city growth to spam workers in Paris and Tours at a cheap 6-7 turns, and run all of the Feudal civics. I can start a separate thread chronicling my game like others have (I periodically took screenies), but I have a few comments:

1. Just like stated with Bulgaria earlier, I don't like the mechanic of having to switch civics to State Religion and then converting. This usually means an automatic 2 turns of anarchy, which can really screw your stability (and your start on higher difficulties). In conjunction with racing to the techs allowing the feudal civics (very OP for civs like France with tons of potential farmland), you end up spending 4 of the first ~30 turns in anarchy.

2. As I have seen others post, Kiev (and sometimes Bulgaria, Byzantium and Arabia) are often too weak for the barb invasions. Byzantium and Arabia actually did quite well in my game though, hiring droves of mercenaries to supplement their armies of cheap units and driving off the Barbs after losing only 1 or 2 cities (and then retaking them). Kudos to you guys for the great work on those civs . Neither collapsed until about 15 turns after the Ottoman start. The only issue is when mass barb invasions coincide with plague, in which case a civ can be all but decimated.

However, Bulgaria and Kiev are helpless against the Mongols. Kiev collapsed in a mere 10 turns and never had really developed their land, also placing some questionable city locations (actually all AI civs do that, and I've come to the conclusion that its impossible to prevent). It's really painful to see cities plopped directly on resources (the one exception is when the improvement for the resource cannot be built until a far later date, or cases when you need a strategic resource immediately, like with Persia in regular RFC, where it is a good idea to settle directly on the horses north of Parsa, but I digress. Bulgaria never grows much and ended up vassalized to the Byzantines, clinging to a few cities on the Black Sea coast. They were able to survive the Mongols, but just barely.

3. Speaking of Bulgaria and Persia, a city that Bulgaria founded on the NW Black Sea Coast was named Pathragada. No, this is not a funny sarcastic joke on my part . I can post a screenie to prove it.

4. Venice got HUGE in my game! After getting UHV1, I gifted them Florence to help with my stability, which helped them a bit. They settled the entire Adriatic coast on the Dalmatian side, which was nice to see. Then they built a huge army of knights and steamrolled Hungary and Poland (capitulating both) and then crushing Austria. Frankly, I was awed that they didn't collapse.

5. Conquering Germany and Burgundy was really easy (I actually capitulated Germany and ended up with them, Genoa, and Leon as my vassals. The AI is noticeably better at warfare now, but still makes some plays that make you want to bang your head against a wall . While I was crushing Germany, a large stack of their units kept running around the countryside doing nothing, until they finally suicided into a stack of mine sitting on a forested hill across a river from them . Had they played better, they actually could have held me off for a while, as I underestimated them a bit and rushed their capital, taking it, but leaving my wounded army exposed to that huge stack a few roaded tiles away. Attacking there would have decimated most of my army.

6. Some civs flip cities before they build one, causing them not to have their historical capital. Germany's capital became Koblenz (my Coblence), Moscow's became some Barb city SE of their start, and Sweden's capital is rarely Stockholm. Also, I think that civs should not be able to found cities with just 1 tile between them in RFCE. Rhye allowed this in RFC since many civs didn't have enough space (Maya, Khmer, Babylon), but that isn't really an issue in RFCE.

7. I love what you did with the crusades. Now, it is essentially impossible for them to take any city other than Jerusalem since most return home. Though I was able to get every crusade as the French (I had 70 faith points and 3 vassals, and more money than Venice), the revolt mechanic in Jerusalem is very annoying. You have at most 60% chance to keep any city that has a scripted revolt, and the one with Jerusalem can be quite arbitrary and ruin your chance at the UHV if it happens in, say, 1280. I think it would be fair to the players if scripted revolts couldn't happen if you are Stable or higher, that way the player still isn't punished for strong play.

8. New mercenary system is BEYOND AWESOME!!! I love all the cool new dudes and the province system. I've always dreamed of seeing Huskarls, Varangians, Swiss Pikes, and Condottieri in Civ 4!

9. With my super-productive cities, I was able to build colonies before anybody else (even Portugal!), though I pillaged everybody's AA with privateers to be safe. In addition, I had the Templars, Medicis, and La Mezquita, allowing me to tech at 100%.

One last question: Whatever happened to 3Miro? I haven't seen him post lately.

Starting a game as Bulgaria now. Barbs sometimes raze Hadrianopolis, so we'll see how this goes. I'll post my observations and feedback soon

 

[AbsintheRed]

Actually there is a pretty long changelog since 1.1
Also, I have been promising the release of 1.2 for a couple months now, but something always came in the way.
Some good news regarding this: my final exam in this semester is tomorrow, and after that I will have 2 months with way more free time.
Expect 1.2 in a couple weeks!

About 3Miro: he stopped modding RFCE when he got a new job, he won't even posted in the forums since last february, right after the release of 1.0.
It's almost 1.5 year now? Gosh..
Anyway, it's only (mostly) me since then, with some help from Merijn and all the playtesters here. Huge thanks to everyone!

Here are the changes since 1.1:

Spoiler :

Stability improvements:
- Province stability levels:
- Core: Your core area; very stable, but huge stability penalty if someone else has a city there
- Natural: Your historically stable area; stability bonus for cities there, but also small penalty if it's not yours
- Potential: Your potentially stable area; becomes a Natural province when you settle or conquer a city there, but no penalties until this happens
- Border: Outer or contested area; small initial stability penalty for expanding there
- Foreign: Unstable area; large stability penalty and revolt risk for having cities there
- Removed Desired province type alltogether
- Stability Overlay:
- Color code for the provinces: Cyan for Core, Green for Natural, Yellow for Potential, Orange for Border, Red for Foreign
- The overlay may be toggled with it's button above the minimap, or with the Ctrl+K key combination
- It shows all province tiles color-coded on the map, including mainland water tiles (fresh and salt water lakes)
- When the overlay is up, there is a civ choosing table above the overlay button, so you can check province stability level for all civs, not just for yourself!!
- The overlay dynamically refreshes when a province's stability is changed for any of the civs
- Province border functions (ctrl + hover on the map) moved to python from the dll, easier to costumize this way
- Province borders got the same color code as they have in the stability overlay (but obviously it always shows the stability level of the civ you play with)
- Provinces are only colored and showed inside your visible area (both in the overlay and with ctrl + hovering) intentionally, so they may show up partly
- Tweaked the existing secession mechanics:
- Instead of total collapses, there is way more chance for a single city to declare independence
- Only one city can revolt in a turn, if it happens, there is no chance for collapse for the given civ
- May happen even with -1 stability, the chance for it starts very low, but exponentially increasing with lower stability
- Chance that one of your cities will declare independence is around 2% with -1 stability, around 25% with -6 stability, around 80% with -12 stability
- If a city does declare it's independence, one of your cities will be randomly chosen (any city can be chosen if it's not close to your capital)
- Cities in Natural or Core provinces may only be chosen if happiness or health is too low, or with some specific anger modifiers (religion, no military presence, etc)
- Cities in Border provinces have 4x chance, cities in Foreign provinces have 8x chance to be chosen, than your cities in more stable areas
- Increased stability penalty for having cities in Foreign provinces
- Revised all civs' initial province stabilty levels, and all the dynamic province stability level changes. Some highlights:
- Expanded and/or increased almost all civs' province stability to some extent, especially for Byzantium, the Ottomans and Kiev
- Byzantium keeps many of their previously important provinces as Border provinces (including southern Italy and the African coastline), for the human player
- Both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Islands (Azores, Madeira, Canaries, Balears, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, Malta, Crete, Rhodes, Cyprus) are better for many civs
- A couple more dynamic stability level changes, especially around the new provinces, in Central Europe and the Balkans, and for Byzantium
- France and Burgundy almost totally complete each other with their potential provinces

General changes:
- Spawn of Arabia moved back one turn, to 632AD
- Interface message when a resource appears/disappears within your cultural borders
- Interface message when wonders are destroyed/captured by you, by a known civilization, or from a known civilization
- Interface message for the preset religion spreads (same way as it is when religions spread "normally")
- Judaism got an additional random spread mechanics, with bigger chance for spreading in central european cities
- Dead civs won't show up on the scoreboard anymore
- Autoraze changes: if the city has 1 population, 60% chance to autoraze if culture is less than 10, 30% chance to autoraze if culture is at least 10 but less than 50
- All naval units can cross cultural borders during peace (without open borders), except work boats (to avoid exploration with work boats)
- Diagonal water tiles are passable for all naval units. The most important straits are represented this way on the map
- Removed 3Miro's AI regions, seriously hurt AI civs on the border of 2 regions, also every AI civ's units with somewhat automated functions (barbs, workers, missionaries, GPs, etc.)
- Ottomans spawn in Gallipoli (Dardanelles), so they have a connection between Europe/Anatolia. No second spawn stack needed, and Adrianople/Edirne doesn't flip to them
- Edirne becomes the Ottoman Capital if they conquer it before Constantinople, Constantinople becomes the Ottoman Capital whenever they conquer it (without stability hit)
- The Wattasid revolt moved to Fez province, so now Tanja in the Tetouan province (city on the African part of Gibraltar, with AA) is relatively safe
- Added compatibility for the Latin-1 set for provinces, so we can have all Latin-1 characters in the province names
- Minimal wait between revolutions is increased to 10 turns - both for civic and religion changes
- Culture modifiers per province type: all civs get 1/3 culture in unstable, 2x in solid, and 3x in core provinces
- Introduction of a new, generic city name map, which will be the base for all the other ones
- Adjusted visibility map for Poland, Hungary, England, Germany, Burgundy, Genoa and Spain
- Lowered the happiness modifiers (base happiness in your cities) for all difficulty levels: 4 for Viceroy, 3 for Monarch, 2 for Emperor
- Switched bonus of Westminster Abbey (now enables all Religion Civics) and Golden Bull (now enables all Labor Civics)

Map and province changes:
- Huge changes in the SE region: Egypt, Levant and Anatolia totally revised
- Smaller changes in the northern coast of the Black Sea, and in the south Balkans
- Revised rivers in Hungary (Danube, Drava, Szava, Koros) and south Poland (added river San), small terrain changes in the borders of the Carpathian-basin
- Removed the "lakes" (scattered coastline) from Dalmatia, it was strange with the new strait mechanics. Lake Scutari remains on the coast though
- Damascus is finally moved to a geographically more correct place (3S), obviously the Arabian spawn moved here
- The new map resulted in moving Jerusalem (1SW) and Constantinople (1S) too, along with almost all the preplaced Byzantine cities
- Changes in the preplaced Byzantine cities: Amastris instead of Nicaea (too close to Constantinople), Edessa instead of Aleppo (too close to Antioch)
- The most important remaining Byzantine cities (not preplaced in 500AD) are represented by towns: Nicomedia, Nicaea, Ephesus, Abydos, Ancyra, Attaleia, Aleppo, Trapezus
- New indy city Ras instead of Belgrad, spawns in 768 with the Serbian Principality (Rascia). Rhodes spawns as indy in 600 AD (Nomos Rhodion Nautikos)
- Egyptian city sites revised as well - realistic place for Alexandria, Cairo and Damietta, with better terrain and resource placement
- Balancing early food production near Constantinople, Alexandria and the Cordoban starting area - to be possible to make Cordoba the largest city for their 1st UHV
- Now that culture is passable on the sea, Orkney is back on the map
- Added the Dardanelles strait to the map, so the Ottoman spawn doesn't have to be separated into an Anatolian and European part
- Added the Oresund strait to the map - connecting Denmark and Norway will seriously strengthen the Norse AI
- New indy cities: Seville (spawns in 500AD as Hispalis, flips to Cordoba), Fez (780 AD), Beloozero (800 AD), Tanais (1392 AD, Timurid conquest)
- New indy cities: Graz (spawns in 1110AD, flips to Austria), Kalmar (spawns in 1050AD, flips to Sweden), Vologda is removed for now
- Added salt lakes (mesosaline and hypersaline) to the mod: Dead Sea near Jerusalem, Lake Tuz in Anatolia - same yield as coast
- Red Sea (the visible parts in RFCE) and Sea of Marmara are now coastal ocean tiles, instead of being fresh water lakes due to their small size
- The eastern part of the Black Sea got a line of coast tiles, the actual coast is only 1-2 tiles away anyway, and this way early ships can pass there too
- New provinces: Banat (representing the southern Banates of medieval Hungary), Holstein (buffer province between Denmark and Germany, also helps in the French first UHV)
- New provinces: Prussia (for the Teutonic Order/Prussia civ), Liguria (better to have a separate province because of the French UHV)
- Lots of small province adjustments: primarly near the new provinces, in the Austrian territories, in Scandinavia, and in the Polish-Lithuanian-Kievan territories
- Province Croatia merged into Slavonia, province adjustment in the area - the Dalmatian coast will be better shaped (culturally between Venice and Hungary or Austria)
- Both Alba Iulia / Gyulafehervar and Lubeck spawns 1 tile north, to follow the province changes
- Small resource rearrangement in Greece/Southern Balkans, and in the Levant/Arabia

XML and text updates:
- Cities built outside the corresponding CityNameMap will get a civ specific name (no Persian names for Bulgaria for example)
- Portuguese translations by Spirictum
- Rome renamed to Papal States
- Spelling mistake fix: Austria is called Ostmark instead of Östmark when vassal of Germany
- RFCE specific help texts for the handicap levels
- Translations for the Scottish and Magyar/Hungarian unit sounds
- Province Oppland renamed to Jämtland, Charsiakon corrected to Charsianon, Gotaland to Götaland, Osterland to Österland
- Improvements in the crusade texts
- German text fixes by Simplicissimus
- New city name map for England and Muscovy by iOnlySignIn
- German/Austrian city name map updates by 2phunkey4u
- Portuguese city name map accents by Spirictum
- Updates in some crusading civs' city name maps in the Levant/Egypt/Anatolia
- Changed the order of the Polish, Burgundian, Kievan and Hungarian UHVs
- Minor fixes in the Dawn of Civilization texts
- Civ-specific and UHV updates in the reference texts
- Texts connected to Province stability also got the new province color-code
- Changed the Genoan trade UHV text to be more clear
- Byzantine and Arabian city name maps updated by DC123456789
- Minor updates to the Dutch and Hungarian city name maps
- Renamed preset Byzantine cities to their Greek names (Konstantinoupolis, Alexandreia, Hierosolyma, Antiocheia, Tyros, Ikonion, etc.)
- French entries for Harald Hardrada, Maximilian, Abu Bakr, Yaqub al-Mansur, Muscovy

Art and sound updates:
- Added theme files for the mod
- New HUD button for the corporation/company screen
- Austria has german unit sounds instead of the HRE ones
- Lithuania has polish unit sounds instead of russian (until we manage to get proper lithuanian sounds)
- New Scottish voice set by Annomander
- Irish Brigade got Celtic sounds, Highlander and Highlander Infantry got Scottish sounds
- New art for Westminster Abbey and Krak des Chevaliers by hrochland
- Added a second art type for Dense Forests
- New LH art for Istvan, Yaroslav

Balance:
- Moved spawn area of Germanic Barbarians west, now some of them will actually attack France instead of wandering in Germany
- Minor tweaks to the French and Cordoban barb spawns, further separating it for the human and the AI player, less barbs for AI Arabia
- Lowered barbarian activity in the North African area (now that barbs can attack targets farther away it could be overpowered on the African coastline)
- Slightly lowered the base duration of the occupation resistance
- Removed free wins against barbarians - this means some of the early barbs might have to be rebalanced
- Increased the maximum XP you can get from barbarians (not from a single battle, the total XP) - was 10, now there is no cap
- Lowered preset diplomacy modifiers, overkill to have 10+ relations there
- Now that free wins are removed, early barbs for Byzantium are somewhat reduced for the human player
- Plague of Constantinople will hit Byzantium earlier than before (late 6th century), thus it won't hit on the very same turns as the Arab spawn
- The French got some additional starting units (1 settler, 1 archer and 2 axemen)
- Burdigala and Tolosa (Bordeaux and Toulouse) start with less archers
- All naval units got one extra move (3: Work Boat; 5: Galley, War Galley, Cog, Hansa, Gun Galley, Galleas; 7: Holk, Carrack, Caravel; 9: Galleon; 11: Frigate, Privateer, Corsair)
- Unit balance changes: Knights of St. John (+15% city attack, free march and medic_1 promotion), Paladin (no first strike, -15% vs heavy cavalry, +15% vs light cavalry),
Berber Cavalry and Ghazi (no city attack penalty), Boyar (no first strike, but has defensive bonuses), Musketeer (-1 first strike, +10% city attack, -5% city defence),
Templar Kinght (+1 first strike), Janissary (-2 first strike, +50% vs heavy cavalry, free march and cover promotion), Black Guard (can twarth spies, +25% city attack),
Corsair (+20% withdrawal chance), Highlander (free guerilla_1 promotion), Welsh Longbow (+25% vs archer), Huscarl (+5% withdrawal chance, free combat_1 promotion),
Condottiero (free tactics promotion), Varangian Guard (+25% city attack, -25% city defence, free amphibious promotion), Almogavar (free march and amphibious promotion),
Tagmata (free drill_1 promotion), Don Cossack (+10% withdrawal chance, +20% vs gunpowder, -10% vs heavy cavalry, -25% vs light cavalry, free combat_1 promotion),
Doppelsoldner (+25% city attack, +1 combat strength), Irish Brigade (+10% withdrawal chance), Stradiot (changed to be a light cavalry unit type, -1 combat strength),
Naffatun (+1 combat strength, -25% city defence), Nubian Longbow (-1 first strike chance, free drill_1 and drill_2 promotion), Zanji (+1 move, ignores terrain cost),
Zaporozhian Cossack (+1 combat strength, +1 move)
- Building balance changes: Moscow Kremlin (+1 happiness), Spanish Citadel (+10% trade route yield, -2XP for siege units), Cordoban Noira (+1 health, -1 production),
Ottoman Hammam (available with Arabic Knowledge), Norse Trading Post (+1 merchant slot), Venetian Arsenal (available with Optics, -25% naval unit build rate),
Austrian Opera House (+1 great artist point), Burgundian Winery (-3 culture, +10% culture, +5% commerce, +1 merchant slot), German Rathaus (-10% city maintenace cost),
Lithuanian Voivodija (-1 XP for land units), French Chateau (obsolete with Public Works), Jewish Quarter (-10% commerce, -50 production cost),
La Mezquita (-100 production cost, +1 free specialist, -1 gold from state religion buildings), Magellan's Voyage (-1 trade routes from coastal cities, +2 xp for naval units),
St. Basil's Cathedral (available with Chemistry, -10% GP modifier, -1 free specialist, +1 spy slot, +2 espionage points from state religion buildings), St. Sophia (-1 priest slot),
Cluny Abbey (+1 free priest), Palais des Papes (+2 happiness), San Marco Basilica (+2 trade routes, -30% trade route yield, -1 free merchant), Alhambra (cost increased by 50),
St. Peter's Basilica (no unhappiness in the city), Torre de Belem (-2 gold for water tiles, -1 free merchant)
- The German first and third UHV requires Holstein too, the Ottoman first UHV requires Banat, and the Hungarian anti-Ottoman UHV requires Banat and Slavonia
- Holstein and Prussia also count in the Swedish third UHV, Prussia also counts in the Polish first UHV
- Minor changes in the defensive crusades, also updated them with the new provinces
- Changes in the Ottoman core and solid areas (only western Anatolia and Thrace are their core), thus making their early collapse less likely
- Minor nerfs to the Byzantine, French, Burgundian and Venetian production modifiers
- Various minor changes in the tech modifiers for Cordoba, England, Venice, Poland, Burgundy
- Revised all civs' settler and war maps, significant improvements in AI city placement
- Bonus modifier for military units from the Triumphal Arch is reduced to 20% (until we find a better bonus)
- Cordoba and Arabia are less likely to build christian wonders
- Updates in the crusading units, bigger chance for more unique units in both "normal" and defensive crusades
- Caravels start with free Sentry promotion, while Privateers also have military maintenance cost
- Flanders and Netherlands provinces change to Border/Contested for Austria and Spain upon the Austrian spawn (Habsburgs), changes to Foreign after the Dutch spawn
- Spain starts with Blast Furnace instead of Aristocracy. Better for early offense, so for starting the Reconquista
- Somewhat reduced barb pressure for Arabia (both Beduins and Seljuks)
- Bulgaria starts with an Orthodox Missionary, and an additional Archer

Bugfixes:
- A couple fixes how the mercenary screen is called from the main screen mercenary manager button
- Fixed sound issues for Venice and Genoa
- Fixed bug where Judaism didn't spread to a second city in Poland
- Fixed stability calculating issue when some of the stability giving wonders were razed
- Fixed viewing issues with the GlobeView layers - now everything shows up without any problems
- Revised the hidden attitude modcomp, now every part of it should work (show up) correctly
- Fixed issue where AI built large number of settlers but didn't use them, also improvements in the settler move code
- Fixed critical bug, which caused most early autorun CTDs! - thanks to edead
- Fixed issue where all islands had the same area ID (which caused serious problems for the AI when to use naval/land movement)
- Fixed some mistakes with handling the PsychoAI, also reduced the connected bonus which was way too powerful
- Fixed mistake where you couldn't build protestant missionaries without Seminaries under the Religious Law civic
- Fixed issue where some of the python scripts couldn't handle Latin-1 characters
- Fixed "display bug" with the initial Byzantine stability
- Fixed serious bug in the secession mechanics (lose a single city if stability is too low), which basically prevented it from happening
- Fixed bug in secession provinces, where outer (ok) provinces had very low chance, while some of the historical (stable) provinces had decent chance
- Fixed bug where Hanseatic Executives couldn't pass straits, or enter into foreign territory without open borders
- Fixed victory screen for Burgundy and Poland, the way their victory conditions show up
- Fixed bug with automatic capital changes for the Ottomans (only changes to Edirne if you don't have Istanbul)

 

[Swarbs]

Looks great! Can't wait

Couple of things:

- Potential: Your potentially stable area; becomes a Natural province when you settle or conquer a city there, but no penalties until this happens

Maybe keep it as a potential until the player has built up sufficient culture points there? That would make it harder to expand there, and reflect how the province becomes acclimatised to the culture over time. Also the province can go back to potential if another civ has a lot of culture there.

Removed free wins against barbarians - this means some of the early barbs might have to be rebalanced

As in my previous post, I think this barbs to be toned down for Emperor level by making the barbs as numerous and frequent as Monarch, to give the player and the AI civs a chance. Have been playing the SVN without free wins, and no civ seems to have a big problem on Monarch level.

- Revised all civs' settler and war maps, significant improvements in AI city placement

The main city placement issue I find is that AI France often founds Liseux (sp) inland in Normandy instead of Caen. That makes it much harder for AI England, as you can't shuttle troops from France to England if France DOWs on you. I think the settler map for France should have Caen in just a single spot, or fixed to the coast with no chance to settle one of the inland tiles.

Also, is it possible to add Caen as an indie city spawning in 911AD. This is because there is no incentive for human France to invest in founding Caen, when they know they will lose it in 1066. But not founding Caen means the English have no base on the continent, so France doesn't have to deal with them at all.

Oh, and in my current game as Genoa I haven't been able to recruit a mercenary all game (merc screen is empty), tho' all my rivals had loads. Very annoying given my UP! Is there any reason this might have happened?

 

[AbsintheRed]

As in my previous post, I think this barbs to be toned down for Emperor level by making the barbs as numerous and frequent as Monarch, to give the player and the AI civs a chance. Have been playing the SVN without free wins, and no civ seems to have a big problem on Monarch level.

Yeah, sry
I saw all the recent feedback, including this one about barbs too
But as I said, exam is tomorrow, I don't want to spend too much time on civfanatics
Let's get back to them in a day, including the suggested resource changes and everything else that recently came up

EDIT: Btw, this is a good idea:

Also, is it possible to add Caen as an indie city spawning in 911AD. This is because there is no incentive for human France to invest in founding Caen, when they know they will lose it in 1066. But not founding Caen means the English have no base on the continent, so France doesn't have to deal with them at all.

If it's historic, then I will implement it ASAP.

EDIT2: I have no idea of the Genoa bug - yet.

EDIT3:

Maybe keep it as a potential until the player has built up sufficient culture points there? That would make it harder to expand there, and reflect how the province becomes acclimatised to the culture over time. Also the province can go back to potential if another civ has a lot of culture there.

This sounds good too, at least the first part
I'm not sure if it's good for gameplay if it can go back to potential

 

[Chep]

Minor things:
- could you maybe delay the horse archers around Germanys start? In about 50% of the cases I lose a city to 2 archers appearing "out of nowhere" within my first 5 turns in the game. I don't really like them since they can move further than you usually see which can be really hazardous during your first turns but since you seem to like them...please think about delaying them a bit or something like that

- Cordoba is supposed to build the Mezquita. However Arabia has it easier to get to Marble which is needed to build it. Cordoba has 2 possible sources: the one in southern Portugal and the one near Barcelona. The one at Barcelona requires 2 cultural expansions which means you have to get Literature and then some turns (especially since Barcelona is christian and you start with only 3 missionaries)
The one in Portugal: well it requires you to settle another city in an area where it will soon flip (assuming you're busy fighting the Spanish untill at least the year 1000). If thats the intention, okay, but I'd never do that, at least not before the Portugese appear. If the placement is not due to real-life quarries: how about changing either the Stone at Valencia or Tangiers with the Marble near Barcelona?
(since changes to the marble in Egypt seem improbable)

 

[Swarbs]

Yeah, sry
I saw all the recent feedback, including this one about barbs too
But as I said, exam is tomorrow, I don't want to spend too much time on civfanatics
Let's get back to them in a day, including the suggested resource changes and everything else that recently came up

No probs. Exams are probably one of the (very few) times when RL needs to come first!

Good luck with the exam!

If it's historic, then I will implement it ASAP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duchy_of_Normandy

The Duchy of Normandy was established in 911AD, with Caen as its second city, and main coastal city. William the Conqueror built his invasion fleet just north of Caen, and repulsed a French invasion from there, so it seems logical to have Caen in position before the English spawn, as the Norman invasion had to come from somewhere!

EDIT2: I have no idea of the Genoa bug - yet.

Save attached. It's the SVN from before your last post with the changelog. Not sure there have been any updates since then - don't want to check as don't want to lose the game!