RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

[Panopticon]

I'm interested in how exactly the Crusades work. Could someone summarise it, or post a link to how they were developed and coded?

EDIT: There is a Python error in Venice's starting techs; Astrolabe is misspelled.

 

[sedna17]

Thanks Panopticon, got that bug.

3Miro did all the crusade stuff and would have to answer implementation details (mostly it's in the new Crusades.py class), but I can point you to his description of how it works.

 

[JediClemente]

Not having tested it, I'm concerned with the Encyclopedia project. Is it made clear in Python that it is not a colony? (I don't know if the "3 colonies" UHV requirement only looks for 3 world projects built).

 

[sedna17]

Good point. I hadn't noticed that this was a project instead of a colony. Luckily it is easy to add into the the python that this should not be counted as a colony (same way the India companies don't count).

 

[sedna17]

I like to generate Dutch spawns and look at the state of the world, though this takes > 30 minutes each on my machine, so it requires a bit of time commitment to get a good sample. I'm concentrating on two questions: 1) Can Spain/Portugal kill Cordoba by this date (mid 1500s)? and 2) Is Turkey strong enough?

Trial 1: Cordoba is dead, and Spain rules the Iberian peninsular with just a tiny spot of blue for Portugal. Turkey has taken Constantinople and is second most powerful nation behind Spain.

Trial 2: Spain killed Portugal and ended up taking much of southern France (France and Burgundy are weak). Cordoba is quite healthy. Turkey is dead, and Bulgaria is running away in score.

Trial 3: Spain is leading in score. Cordoba is weak (low in score), but still alive. Turkey has captured Constantinople and is pretty strong (with the Arabs also dead).

Trial 4: Spain is weak, Cordoba is a middle-rated power. Turkey is okay, but has yet to reach Constantinople. France is running away in score.

The frequency of resurrections (we need to decrease this) complicates interpretation somewhat, but I would say that Trial 1 and 3 are historically acceptable (for these regions anyway), but that Trial 2 and 4 are not so good. Small sample statistics of course. If anyone has a powerful computer with a fair amount of time to generate a larger number of Dutch spawns (say, 10), and upload them for me to look at, that would be awesomely helpful.

 

[3Miro]

Good point. I hadn't noticed that this was a project instead of a colony. Luckily it is easy to add into the the python that this should not be counted as a colony (same way the India companies don't count).

There is a function in Victory.py that asks is a project is a colony. Updating should be easy.

 

[Barak]

Playing the March 22 version (took a few months off, great improvements guys!) and i think that the Mongol Kashiks are great. I would only question if they spawn a tad too frequently. Once they appeared, I turtled in my cities and survived the onslaught, but 6 new ones every turn don't let my units heal. Even when I have Knights which are superior, 2 Kashik can knock one out easy.

Also, since they are barb units, my knights max out at 10 experience and get worn down too quickly.

Could we make the mongol barb units an unplayable civ? It seems that we should get experience for defeating them in these huge numbers.

 

[JediClemente]

I agree, perhaps mongols could be "natives".

Playing as Russia it's easy to defeat them. You have to build a kremlin in every eastern border city (just to be safe), but the most important thing is to get to the Boyars techs early and pump them out like crazy, even building the Heroic Epic in Moskva (great production city).

Building them properly and after the first or second combat, you can have a +50% vs melee, +20% strength, +25% vs cavalry boyar. One of the strongest middle-game units by far.

 

[Barak]

I agree, perhaps mongols could be "natives".

Playing as Russia it's easy to defeat them. You have to build a kremlin in every eastern border city (just to be safe), but the most important thing is to get to the Boyars techs early and pump them out like crazy, even building the Heroic Epic in Moskva (great production city).

Building them properly and after the first or second combat, you can have a +50% vs melee, +20% strength, +25% vs cavalry boyar. One of the strongest middle-game units by far.

I've been playing as Kievan Rus, and my strategy is pretty similar. Its just tough as they come from everywhere seemingly every turn.

 

[jessiecat]

As long as you've got a Kremlin in each city, 3 or 4 guisarmes and a couple of arbelests are enough to hold them off. And much cheaper too. The only annoying thing is that all your tile improvements are destroyed and it takes lots of workers to build them up again.

 

[micbic]

What I did for the Kievan and once worked:
1) Spammed settlers-pikemen pairs and got 6 cities by 1000 AD (Kharkiv, Kyiv, Petrilkovka, Azov, Khadjibie and Mozir I think)
2) Spammed Barracks
3) Spammed Forges
4) Spammed Walls. The production powerhouses (Kyiv and Kharkiv) should get a pikeman or a crossbow every 2-3 turns, the not so important after 6-7. Every city has finished the buildings at 1200 AD, the powerhouses phps before 1150 AD.
5) At the time of the invasion, every city has all these buildings (and phps Archery Ranges), cranks out pikes-crossbows and has 6-7 of them. Enough to hold them off.

The problem though is that it was done with the old battle system, and I don't know how it would work with the new one...

 

[sedna17]

There seems to be a general consensus that as the human it is possible or not-too-difficult to survive the Mongol hordes. The Kievan AI, of course, normally dies. This seems okay to me. Making them non-barbs would generally make them easier (due to getting more bonuses), and I fear they generally wouldn't be as aggressive.

 

[Barak]

Once I was able to stem the tide of Kashiks, I simply settled the area. My culture tamed the wild savages.

 

[JediClemente]

I agree Kievan Rus AI is supposed to be destroyed by mongols; and moscowans to hold back a lot their research and growth, BUT they should not be completely erased.

And that happens too often.

 

[Barak]

Playing as Kievan Rus I am noticing that most of the civs are solid and noone has collapsed.

 

[FuzzyRabbitLord]

Playing as turks:

On spawn, germany and kievans were collapsed states as well as bulgaria
Cordoba dominated southern Iberia while spain had the north, portugal had a small foothold in the west.

won UHV's, FIrst was easy buiult up for a couple of turns than took western Anatolia and the Constantinople (moved capital to here), took edrine and collapsed Byzantines, slowly took Greece, then warred arabia and quickly pushed them back taking all of the Levant, stayed at war with them, quickly became most powerful controlled Baltic's south of Danube and took Egypt collapsing the arabs, I began to become unstable, and sinop rebelled so I freed all of my cities in the Mediterranean on islands.

On onset of my getting the second UHV the papal states warred me along with burgandy, franks, and germany (germany had been reborn), and I took rome, and forced the other countries to pay tribute. In 1650's Byzantine was reborn wreaking havoc to my economy, (I had been running at 100% research and making 140 gold a turn due to corps in Istanbul) I quickly took the Byzantines back over though world war broke out soon after and I used that to take out Austria and capture vienna , UHV's complete, at this time I just had to wait in the time england began to run off a huge tech lead but I was so powerful that I could probably have taken all of the other civs in a war at once and have won, so I just sat on my empire till victory

 

[Wessel V1]

I just had an idea how to change the research penalty system: The 10 cities that produce the most per turn count as normal science cities. However, any other city produces less than 100%. Produced in city 11 only counts for 90%, produced in city 12 only counts for 80% and so on, until the cap of let's say 18 cities is reached: new cities only produce 20% of what they would normally produce.

Spoiler :

City 01: 100 --> 100
City 10: 100 --> 100

(these are not essentially your first cities, but your largest science producing cities)

City 11: 50 --> 45
City 12: 50 --> 40
City 17: 50 --> 15
City 18: 50 --> 10
City 19 and further: 50 : --> 10

Of course this means that new cities aren't useless, because when they are a top 10 city, they can use their full potential. To balance this, the research penalty should be removed.

Any other ideas?

Is there any civ that needs playtesting now? I have some time now, so perhaps I can start to contribute something useful now.

 

[BurnEmDown]

Try the Dutch, and give a report on the state of Europe when you spawn, that's pretty much the most helpful thing to do since it shows how the AI behaves when there is no human player.

 

[micbic]

I will try the Cordobans. It will be interesting to see if I survive...
Report expected later

 

[micbic]

Are there any hidden modifiers against Cordoba?