RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

[Lexad]

Ok, that's your mod, so np about wool being luxury .

The still movement of arquibusier is redcoat - looks funny.

1. It could be that he didn't do it in the real world. (like Tukogawa (or something) in vanilla RFC)

In raw BtS itself there is no leader who refuses OB at Pleased, even Toku, spare the Friendly.
As for the historical personality of Stephen I, he actively participated in wars joining forces with HREmperor, Poles and Byzantines at different stages. Haven't seen anything that would allow to pick him as an isolationist.

 

[sedna17]

Thanks for the comments Lexad -- it's good to have someone play-testing Moscow. I've added a lot of new fixes based on your reports.

We haven't actually done ANY work on leaders, neither artwork nor personality. I'm sure Stephen I is just re-using some other leader's code (probably Toky as suggested). We'll address this eventually (which should also fix Louis' penchant for trading techs very cheaply), but it takes a bit of work to figure out which leaders we will have for each civ and which art to use, etc.

BTW If we could find a good pic of a walrus to use as art that'd be much better than elephants in Iceland and Norway to represent ivory, wouldn't it?

Yes. That would be good, but no-one has made a walrus model for Civ 4, and I don't yet have modeling capacity myself.

 

[Lexad]

I'm sure Stephen I is just re-using some other leader's code (probably Toky as suggested).

I've quasi-fixed the issue with OB - check Bugs thread - but he declared Friendly, which he isn't supposed to do.

 

[3Miro]

RFCE includes all of the leaders from RFC (in the XML) because of conflicts with Diplomacy and other XML files. I did not have the time to work on it tat the time, but attitudes and diplomatic behavior for all leaders would have to be considered in the balancing of the game (even for existing leaders such as Louis XIV). I wonder if we should leave that for the beta version, i.e. as long as we get all the features and most of the bugs fixed.

 

[Lexad]

Muscowy test, monarch level. City maintenance as if non-existent. Is it the same for other civs without Russian power?

 

[Wessel V1]

No, Russia has the lower maintenance power. What I can't remember though but I'd love to know, is what will happen when Russia builds all maintenance buildings. IIRC, Russia has -50% by UP, -50% from Courthouses, -15% from "that early building" and -10% from Public Watch. Is it possible in Civ to have negative maintenance?
I agree though that these city maintenance advantage is very powerful, especially with Corporations.

 

[merijn_v1]

No, Russia has the lower maintenance power. What I can't remember though but I'd love to know, is what will happen when Russia builds all maintenance buildings. IIRC, Russia has -50% by UP, -50% from Courthouses, -15% from "that early building" and -10% from Public Watch. Is it possible in Civ to have negative maintenance?

The UP has already lowered the maintance. Example: A normal Civ has 5 maintance. With the buildings it reduces with 75% to 1.25. Moscow has instead of 5 2.5. 2.5 - 75% = 0.63.

 

[Lexad]

Thanx. Still, might be revised upwards - currently is dwarfed by civic maintenance.

Anyone else finds corporations too expensive for their effect?

 

[micbic]

More specifically: UP=50%. Courthouse=50%x50%=25%. Early building=25%x85(100-15)%=21.25%. Public Watch=21.25%x90%=19.1%, or somewhere like that. So Russia gets around -80% maintainance, which is actually great for the (needed) REXing.

 

[sk8er AG]

question for Venetian UHV:
what counts as a luxury resource or where could i find a list of whats a luxury resource or not.
Does it matter if i have 8 of the same resource or do i have to find 8 different ones?

 

[merijn_v1]

question for Venetian UHV:
what counts as a luxury resource or where could i find a list of whats a luxury resource or not.
Does it matter if i have 8 of the same resource or do i have to find 8 different ones?

When you open a city screen, you see a resource list. The most right are the luxury. (the one that make your citizens happy)

 

[Lexad]

I propose some unit (associated with cost, presumably) to root out the corporations/religious orders from my cities. So far their effect is significantly below their upkeep cost, and they ascribe for 80-90% of city maintenance where present, while my founding neighbour keeps spreading them. No need to tell me closing borders, as I have great trade income from Bulgaria, need passage for my troops and hope to vassalize them peacefully soon.

Another point: diplo bonus/penalty from religion peak at 12 ~1450-s and drop to 1-2 just 100 years later, despite religious wars raging between muslims and christians and then christians of various denomination from 11th (Crusades) to 17th (30-years war) century. Propose prolonging the effect.

Balance suggestion on commerce amplifiers. There are two building currently, brewery and weaver, very cheap, which amplify commerce directly. That means their bonus goes then to both science and money multiplicatively, and if you have all 5 resources, which isn't too hard, you get +25% to commerce = half of bureaucracy effect. The problem is that those buildings are very cheap for their effect, which is stronger than observatory+half of bank, once you have at least one other science or money multipliers. So I propose increasing their cost significantly.

 

[Wessel V1]

More specifically: UP=50%. Courthouse=50%x50%=25%. Early building=25%x85(100-15)%=21.25%. Public Watch=21.25%x90%=19.1%, or somewhere like that. So Russia gets around -80% maintainance, which is actually great for the (needed) REXing.

I don't know if that's true. In civ, maintenance benefits are always calculated from 100%, so all building combined give -75% maintenance. I agree that your formulas would be better, but (unfortunately) it is modelled in an easier way. Is their maintenance -50% by default, or -50% like a building?

Corporations are indeed very expensive. Playing Cordoba, I had to pay 65 gold per turn (without modifiers, so app. 16 gold per turn) per city, only because of the corporations. However, the headquarters earn +4 gold, and even more with the right buildings, per turn, and in the end they make a huge profit. Building headquarters in the right cities contributes a lot, especially with the Wall Street wonder, which doesn't currently exist in RFCE.

 

[merijn_v1]

More specifically: UP=50%. Courthouse=50%x50%=25%. Early building=25%x85(100-15)%=21.25%. Public Watch=21.25%x90%=19.1%, or somewhere like that. So Russia gets around -80% maintainance, which is actually great for the (needed) REXing.

IF you're right on this point, their is still something wrong on your explenation. The buildings have -75 together. Not seperate. So youre calculation should be: 50%x75%=37.5%. So it gets around -70%, not -80%.

 

[Lexad]

@Wessel V1
Corporations in BtS were also (negatively) broken, it took patch 3.13 to make somthing reasonable of them. So I propose fetch some input-output ratios from BtS 3.17 patch corporations to get the idea, add mod's bells and whistles and call it something else.

So far the corporations are totally useless, and AI does not realise it, spreading them for his own demise. If we take Templars for he example, they give 5-6 bulbs per turn on a sunny weather, plus (if you have the HQ) 4 coins. Assuming the city bulbs and HQ coins amplifiers to be +100%, we get 20- bulbs and coins alltogether. Which is 3+ times less than the upkeep of 65 you've mentioned. And it costs you a GPerson to found and hammers+cash to spread.

Now the corporation can be marginally profitable (forgetting of GP and masters, otherwise have 100+ turns until breaeven point) if you have all the maintenance slashers: it costs you 16 coins while giving 18-20. However, I definitely see no sense in spreading foreign corporation, which should definitely be the case.

Also want to remind my proposal to introduce a measure to purge corporation from the city (Philippe IV - style).

 

[Lexad]

AFAI understand the Russian power, it's multiplicative to other powers: buildings give you in sum -75%, power cuts from 25% remaining half, leaving for you 12,5% to pay. Am I correct?

 

[Wessel V1]

I think you are. The effects of a corporation is indeed very low at the moment, especially in lands without resources. In a Cordoban game some time ago, I tried to get as many resources as possible and found as many corporations as possible. The results were that they were very profitable combined, +200 gold each turn. These results were before the Iberian balance patch, so it might be a bit worse, but in the end I think the corporations are worth it.
Downside is that the player must have ALL corporations that he can put in the same city. Personally I've never used the option to have competing headquarters, and reading your post you have, so probably you're much more experienced then I am in this case. This means that weaker civs who have to be lucky to get only one corporation, are disadvantaged.
So, I suggest to:

1. Rebalance effects (2 food is much more than 2 hammers)
2. Introduce the Wall Street building, to make sure that it's "safe" to have corporations.

 

[3Miro]

AFAI understand the Russian power, it's multiplicative to other powers: buildings give you in sum -75%, power cuts from 25% remaining half, leaving for you 12,5% to pay. Am I correct?

Buildings add up, special modifiers multiply.

Building 1 25% + Building 2 15% = Buildings 40%
Russian modifier = 50%, thus stuff now costs .6 times .5 = 0.36

 

[Lexad]

Buildings add up, special modifiers multiply.

Building 1 25% + Building 2 15% = Buildings 40%
Russian modifier = 50%, thus stuff now costs .6 times .5 = 0.36

Yes, that was generally the idea, but I have other maths
3 bbuildings = 50%chouse+10% nightwatch+15%manor, leaving 25%
And then multiply by .5, leaving 12,5%

 

[Lexad]

One more gameplay problem: the AI do not know how to refuse cities (well, except for Kazan in the far east - somehow noone wanted this one). I had an issue with my battle hamster Stephen of Hungary, when I pushed to him conquered Austrian and Burgundian (ex-Polish) cities until he just burst. Maybe put the consideration of stability in the code? Too bad one of his UHV conditions is to control the max land in Europe.