RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

[Michael Vick]

I noticed that the tile for Cairo is on the map. As significant as the area has always been, in the game nothing ever happens. I know that Cairo was founded in 969AD, but I think we should include it and the Great Pyramids in some way.

What if at the start of the game we had a city on the Cairo tile as Memphis. It would be under Byzantine control, with whatever name they would have had for it. (Memphis?) It would start out as very minor, with a small population and not a lot of culture, (and a spearman or archer) but it would have the Pyramids. Later, in the Arab spawn, it would flip just like it did in normal RFC, but as Al-Qahira.

 

[kbk]

Try May 25 1085 when after a brief siege Alfonso VI entered Toledo at the invitation of the inhabitants, if you want to be accurate. So more acquired than fought for, wouldn't you say?

In other words, a cultural flip, which is about what happens by then anyways.

 

[rob-art1985]

I think the mongols are a little bit too strong, not? I couldn't hold them back with the kievans, and I really did my best!!
BTW, why do they even spawn west of Kiev? I tried to defend my east-borders and then...

 

[operafantom]

About weak Austria: what about to have first an independent Salzburg from early times (around 800 maybe), and then Wien as an independent (the same type with Salzburg), and then later Austria would come, and these two cities would flip to them, and they might be more advanced. I think that the spawning date now (it might represent when Frederick I made it a duchy) is a bit early. Austria was the greatest under the reign of the Habsburgs. What about they're spawning in 1278 (battle of Dürnkrut) and having in the game Salzburg as an independendent from around 800 and Wien from around 1150? And then in 1278 Austra spawns, gets Wien, Salzburg, Prague, and should get something around Switzerland, too (in the game now they don't really like getting Switzerland). What's your opinion?

 

[Verily]

About weak Austria: what about to have first an independent Salzburg from early times (around 800 maybe), and then Wien as an independent (the same type with Salzburg), and then later Austria would come, and these two cities would flip to them, and they might be more advanced. I think that the spawning date now (it might represent when Frederick I made it a duchy) is a bit early. Austria was the greatest under the reign of the Habsburgs. What about they're spawning in 1278 (battle of Dürnkrut) and having in the game Salzburg as an independendent from around 800 and Wien from around 1150? And then in 1278 Austra spawns, gets Wien, Salzburg, Prague, and should get something around Switzerland, too (in the game now they don't really like getting Switzerland). What's your opinion?

Capitals can't flip. Wien has to be founded by the Austrians.

And Salzburg is in a horrible location right now. You'd have to add new resources and stuff around the site for it to be anything but a drag on Austria.

Actually, that reminds me: Please delete independent Augsburg. It's nothing more than a drain on Germany's economy because there is absolutely nothing worthwhile in the fat cross, most of which is taken up by useless Dense Forest tiles, and the city is usually razed by barbarians before Germany spawns anyway. If I were to play as Germany, I would hope for Augsburg to already be razed when I spawned, which is a sure sign that the city shouldn't be there (or should have some of the Dense Forest removed and some useful resources sprinkled about).

 

[operafantom]

I see. Another thing came to my mind: why do Hungarians not start on the tile of Buda? I mean Debrecen was never the capital of Hungary in that period of time. The Hungarian important cities, like: Esztergom, Szekesfehervar and Buda were all around the tile that we call Buda in the game. I know that its fat cross has some common tiles with Wien, but anyway Buda is one of the most important cities of the Hungarian history. And in fact Wien never really had big territories to the East. What do you think?

 

[Michael Vick]

I noticed that the tile for Cairo is on the map. As significant as the area has always been, in the game nothing ever happens. I know that Cairo was founded in 969AD, but I think we should include it and the Great Pyramids in some way.

What if at the start of the game we had a city on the Cairo tile as Memphis. It would be under Byzantine control, with whatever name they would have had for it. (Memphis?) It would start out as very minor, with a small population and not a lot of culture, (and a spearman or archer) but it would have the Pyramids. Later, in the Arab spawn, it would flip just like it did in normal RFC, but as Al-Qahira.

Any thoughts???

Oh, and I never understood why Hungary started with Debrecen... I think the Hungarian would know most about Hungary though

 

[operafantom]

I personally like the idea but I don't think that the Pyramids stayed in the game. And on the other hand I don't know if it influenced Arabia culturally. But they might have used the stone of it...

EDIT: But as for graphics it would be great I think

 

[merijn_v1]

About weak Austria: what about to have first an independent Salzburg from early times (around 800 maybe), and then Wien as an independent (the same type with Salzburg), and then later Austria would come, and these two cities would flip to them, and they might be more advanced. I think that the spawning date now (it might represent when Frederick I made it a duchy) is a bit early. Austria was the greatest under the reign of the Habsburgs. What about they're spawning in 1278 (battle of Dürnkrut) and having in the game Salzburg as an independendent from around 800 and Wien from around 1150? And then in 1278 Austra spawns, gets Wien, Salzburg, Prague, and should get something around Switzerland, too (in the game now they don't really like getting Switzerland). What's your opinion?

In my games Austria is more times powerful then weak. So I don't think Austria should be weakened.

 

[rob-art1985]

But the UHV to get 2 Vassals with the Austrian is nearly impossible. They are just too weak, I think!

 

[jessiecat]

But the UHV to get 2 Vassals with the Austrian is nearly impossible. They are just too weak, I think!

I didn't find that when I got the 3 UHVs. Expanding south and conquering Hungary seems to be the key. I had Venice and Bulgaria as vassals after that pretty easily.

 

[jessiecat]

I've been trying sedna's new UHVs for the Norse and I have to admit defeat. Either he's a much better player than I am or the first two conditions are nearly impossible.
1. Its fairly easy to have a city in Britain, Ireland, Iceland and France by 1050 but getting a settler through Cordoban waters and founding a city in Sicily in time just seems too hard IMO.
2. Same goes for revealing all ocean tiles by 1200AD. Getting as far as Constantinople with a couple of triremes after getting past Cordoba and Arabia is doable but getting an OB with Byzantium seemed impossible to me. And that's in 3 separate games.
I did it once without Sicily and entering the Black Sea. Can we please tone down these conditions a bit so a UHV victory is reasonably doable while still being fun to play?

 

[micbic]

An interesting variant of getting the sea-tiles proposed UHV is making what the Vikings (Varangians is more accurate for this case) did. Sailing down to the Black Sea by rivers (since there is no river sailing, here goes the idea for increasing movement speed in river sides ) and founding a city in the Azov. I will try it out, and I like it when UHVs are of climax difficulty (i.e. one easy, one requiring some skill and one needing a thought-out gambit)

 

[sedna17]

“Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?”

I do favor difficult UHVs in general -- at the same time I know we should definitely have some "starter" civs with easy UHVs which would be recommended for starting players.

I think the Norse UHVs are at an acceptable level of difficulty for now -- neither impossible nor trivial. There's no point absolutely fine-tuning UHVs at this point, as many parts of this mod are still changing, some of which may disrupt too-finely balanced UHVs.

Hmmm... you're not going to like the difficulty of the first English UHV now in the new test version (which is uploading right now)

 

[merijn_v1]

Now Constantinople has those extra defenders, the Theodisian Walls could be a wonder that build by yourself. It isn't really necesary anymore.

As you can see on the screenshot, one of the Catholic Indies is razed. I'm affraid the barbs will raze more cities by the time you're spawned. So Cordoba hasn't an opponent and Spain don't get those cities. BTW, I think Cordoba should have war with them already when they spawn. And those cities should have Catholicism. (or they aren't Catholic kingdoms IMO)

IMO the Moscowians first UHV should be changed. Personnally I don't have any idea.

 

[sedna17]

For some reason, those defenders "disappear" out of Byzantium after a while. I think the AI disbands them eventually (even though they have no upgrade cost). They are normally still around to prevent early/easy Bulgaria/Arab conquering of the city, which was the main concern.

The AI also tends to pull out all the other defenders, so I think the walls are still good to have pre-built.

Sometimes the barbs raze one or two of the "Spanish" cities in Iberia. Generally (in the test games I ran) most of them survive. I'm okay with not all the cities being there all the time, it adds a little bit of randomness.

We could make them Catholic though -- I guess right now they're "Christian" kingdoms only by virtue of not being Muslim. That would be a another favor to Spain.

 

[Cethegus]

The world project L'Encyclopedié requires only 500 hammers. Is this supposed to be the case?

 

[sedna17]

The world project L'Encyclopedié requires only 500 hammers. Is this supposed to be the case?

What do you think a reasonable cost would be?

 

[Michael Vick]

Now that we're on the topic of Cordoba... They always, ALWAYS found al-Qadis on the plain above the Guadalquivir river. the true location is under it. I guess this is an error in the settler map. You could fix that, or maybe we could take a settler and archer away from Cordoba and have Cadiz there as an independent that flips (or must be conquered) to Cordoba. In the games that I don't play as Spain or Cordoba, Seville is never founded, we could have that city as an independent that flips.. Maybe as Hispala, Gades for Cadiz.

Also, can we change the spawn tile for Tangier to one tile North???

 

[Michael Vick]

Playing as Cordoba, I had the intention of taking control of Spain but I never got the chance. The window never popped up? Also, the new settle maps for Cordoba and Arabia in Morocco haven't been included for some reason.