RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

[jessiecat]

Francis is somewhat late, but we may add him due to a lack of leaderheads. Joseph is outside the time period (Leopold would have been great, but unless we rename Francis, there is no Leopold's head).

PS do I need a FileFront account to download this file?

I think there's some confusion here. There never was a Francis I of Austria. That leaderhead is of Francis I of France (1515-1547) who is considered France's greatest Renaissance monarch.
One solution would be to use that leaderhead as Philip the Bold of Burgundy (1342-1404) and give the Charles V leaderhead to Austria and renaming him as Maximilian I (1459-1519). Both would be more accurate and look more authentic IMO.
The Francis I leaderhead (below) is a ZIP file. I've also found another good looking LH which is actually Christian IV of Denmark (1577-1648) but could be used for anyone of that period. Its in the Civ4 Downloads Database/ Leaderheads/Page 2.

 

[Michael Vick]

I just finished my Byzantium game. Here are the comments:

- I was pretty stable for the Byzantians. It was going up and down between -20 to +10. At the end (1500) I was +8.
- The 1st UHV was pretty difficult, but I got it. Around 100 more than Rome in 1000 AD.
- The 2nd UHV was very easy. The Arabs declared war to me a few turns after their spawn, but because I was more powerfull, I signed peace early.
- The 3rd UHV wasn't hard either. About 1300 I reduced my to 10% and got about +500/turn. About 1500 I had +650/turn. In 1500 I had about 27000, Rome had almost 19000.
- Now the tech-rate is slowed down, Sweden is (nearly) always the founder of Protestantism.
- Burgundy had cities allover Europe. Like Belgrad, a city near Kiev, and some more.
- Norse had settled allover Sweden, so Sweden could get (if I played longer) about 4 cities at the spawn and the Norse were left with just 2 cities.

Did you ever collapse?
How many cities did you lose to indy-flipping?
What was the overall stability like?

@Jessiecat: or just give the Charles V leaderhead to Spain...

 

[jessiecat]

Did you ever collapse?
How many cities did you lose to indy-flipping?
What was the overall stability like?

@Jessiecat: or just give the Charles V leaderhead to Spain...

Isabella will not be pleased with you.

 

[Michael Vick]

It would solve so many problems if we could just have 2 leaderheads for some civs and not others. Charles V could be thought of as the greatest monarch Spain has ever had, or was it Phillip II...?

 

[merijn_v1]

Did you ever collapse?
How many cities did you lose to indy-flipping?
What was the overall stability like?

In the beginning Cyrene declared indipendendce. (I wanted that so that doesn't mind.)
Later I gave Alexandria to the Arabs. The Bulgarians collapsed and I got Preslav by culture. Varna a bit later but I refused. I build Antaleia just before the mongols came and razed my cities in the Turkish spawn zone. (I was pretty stable at that time I wasn't unstable afterwards.)
My stability was all between -20 to +10. But most time around -10. (flat stability)

 

[Michael Vick]

Ok, I'm trying to think of ways to increase stability to actually allow some expansion for them, I had this idea to have a couple of cities in Italy, Spain and North Africa flip to Byzantium on the turn after, to simulate the conquests of Belisarius, and increase expansion stability a little. Just wondering if that would help anything.

 

[merijn_v1]

Ok, I'm trying to think of ways to increase stability to actually allow some expansion for them, I had this idea to have a couple of cities in Italy, Spain and North Africa flip to Byzantium on the turn after, to simulate the conquests of Belisarius, and increase expansion stability a little. Just wondering if that would help anything.

I think Byzantium gets about -15 stability each city if you include that. And why would you just get cities with doing nothing while it's representing a conquest?

 

[3Miro]

You cannot code individual cities flipping, only the core region. Cities will not flip to Byzantines unless they are in the Core area and you cannot make all of Mediterranean as their core (remember cities in the Byzantine core do not flip away).

I think they already have too many cities, the maintenance cost for more cities to the west will kill them. If you wish to test it, start with the Byzantines and on the first turn add a few cities. Then watch the economy collapse.

 

[Michael Vick]

Just as a boost to stability that the Byzantines need, the current gameplay for that civ is pretty much just construction and trying desperately to keep it together. I'm thinking some flips early in the game will give the Byzantine player the freedom to make some moves towards conquering Italy, the islands, and part of Spain, as Belisarius did. Maybe just Neapolis would flip, with some swordsmen, archers, and galleys, then the goal would be to capture Milan to the North, maybe an indy we could place in Sicily, and Valencia.

It was just an idea to give Byzantium a little military action, but ok

 

[3Miro]

Just as a boost to stability that the Byzantines need, the current gameplay for that civ is pretty much just construction and trying desperately to keep it together. I'm thinking some flips early in the game will give the Byzantine player the freedom to make some moves towards conquering Italy, the islands, and part of Spain, as Belisarius did. Maybe just Neapolis would flip, with some swordsmen, archers, and galleys, then the goal would be to capture Milan to the North, maybe an indy we could place in Sicily, and Valencia.

It was just an idea to give Byzantium a little military action, but ok

For the Byzantines, we could change the Imperialism civic, it is practically useless now. I was thinking about giving +1 stability for cities outside the core, that will improve the Byzantine stability (and will make it the civic of choice for large empires)

 

[Michael Vick]

Would that be added to the current benefit or replace it? I think the +2 stability for cities 15 tiles away is very useful

 

[3Miro]

Would that be added to the current benefit or replace it? I think the +2 stability for cities 15 tiles away is very useful

When do you even found a city 15 tiles away. Other than the Norse no one else would (Arabia and Moscow may get couple of cities, but that would be all).

15 tiles from Lion is London, 15 tiles from Constantinople is Hungary. No player ever can benefit from such a situation (consider that compared to the -3 stability from the anarchy to switch civics).

 

[Michael Vick]

Madrid to:
Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Naples, Milan, Siracuse, Bari, La Valeta (for strategic purposes), Amserdam, Antwerp. That's +16 stability, I think.
Paris to:
Not much
Frankfurt to:
Ok, I guess you're right

But a good idea would be reducing the distance to 10, and maybe including a bonus for colonies.

 

[jessiecat]

When do you even found a city 15 tiles away. Other than the Norse no one else would (Arabia and Moscow may get couple of cities, but that would be all).

15 tiles from Lion is London, 15 tiles from Constantinople is Hungary. No player ever can benefit from such a situation (consider that compared to the -3 stability from the anarchy to switch civics).

You're quite right. I like your idea. Are you able to code it so Imperialism gives extra stability anywhere outside the core area or would it be better to reduce the 15 tiles to less as Michael suggests?
BTW What do you think about my idea for the 2 leaderheads I posted (post1601)?

 

[3Miro]

You're quite right. I like your idea. Are you able to code it so Imperialism gives extra stability anywhere outside the core area or would it be better to reduce the 15 tiles to less as Michael suggests?
BTW What do you think about my idea for the 2 leaderheads I posted (post1601)?

I got sidetracked a bit. I believe I will finally be able to complete the language pack and we will have Bulgarian for the next version.

I still need to work on Ivan IV and for the other leaderheads, I was thinking that if Charles V was made for Charles V then we should not change that. We could use the leaderheads that you posted for Austria and name them whatever is appropriate.

I will eventually try to play with the image files themselves (as opposed to just using other people's files), then I can do Leopold I based on Louis XIV.

 

[sk8er AG]

What does "Control" a certain area for RFC europe mean? Tried to win the first uhv for turkey and controlled all of the cities in Anatolia and controlled Constantinople but still did not win the first one. Had assumed Control meant have the majority of all the cities. Does it mean i have to control all of the territory instead? Now Playing as arabia and got 1st uhv though controlled all of the territory in the given uhv. what do i have to control to win the third?
Also any chance of seeing more civs for RFC europe? Was thinking it would be nice to see germany replaced with prussia. In addtition an number of smaller states would also be nice to see. the Two sicilies, Moldova or wallacha, and maybe a north african arab state centered around tripoli or tunis, and a berber state to compete with colonizers of Morocco.

 

[3Miro]

Control means "have all the cities", that is no one else has cities.

For Turkey you must have the control "in" the specific year (at least for the first two victories). That means capture and hold until the specified year, the victory will not register earlier.

More civs will not happen until 1.0, which is many months away.

 

[Verily]

So, I just played a test game as the Cordobans where I went into Worldbuilder and deleted Ragusa before the Venetians spawned. Lo and behold, the Venetians actually did something instead of turtling all game! They expanded to cover a lot of the eastern Mediterranean. Could we remove Ragusa from the game, or at least make it spawn late enough that it doesn't disrupt early Venetian expansion?

 

[jessiecat]

So, I just played a test game as the Cordobans where I went into Worldbuilder and deleted Ragusa before the Venetians spawned. Lo and behold, the Venetians actually did something instead of turtling all game! They expanded to cover a lot of the eastern Mediterranean. Could we remove Ragusa from the game, or at least make it spawn late enough that it doesn't disrupt early Venetian expansion?

I don't know why you say that. Ragusa doesn't prevent Venice from expanding. In every game I've played it gets captured by Venice, Hungary or Byzantium pretty early. If I play as Venice its my first priority after founding Zadar. We could put it in the Venetian spawn zone so it flips at the beginnning which might help but I really don't think that's necessary, for the human player anyway.

 

[Wessel V1]

--> Imperialism: +1 stability from cities outside the core area is a good change.
--> Ragusa: When I play Venice I actually destroy the city and settle 2 cities near it, they get more resources and more production. Also, maybe we should test some games without Ragusa some more times, since it is usually well defended, sometimes they stay independent until the Renaissance era.