RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

[AnotherPacifist]

For the lateness of their spawn, the Dutch are way inferior to the Swedes. Some suggestions to improve the chances they can get their UHV (assuming that the Philippines etc bug will be corrected next time):
1. The fish west of Amsterdam needs to be moved closer to it since French culture always overwhelms it. 1 of the swamps needs to be changed to either a plains.
2. Expand the western cultural border of the Dutch. Belgium should belong to them, not the French. Many famous "Dutch" cities like Antwerp, Ghent and Brugge are currently in French territory.
3. They should start with Trading Companies. By the time I've spawned, most of the Euros have it, and there's no way you can compete with their production
4. Add a theater or smokehouse for better growth.
5. Change the 3rd criteria to: build both the West and East Indies Companies, and build East Indies and one other colony.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Can somebody clarify whether Iceland is the new island just NW of Scotland, or the island in the NW corner of the map (which I take to be Greenland)?

And please, please fix the rampant barbarians in Germany/Poland so that Germany has a chance to found a city and not have it be instantly razed by barbarians. The other option would be to increase the spawn area of the Germans so that some of them can be flipped, and they would pose much more danger to the Burgundians.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Why is Genoa starting on the iron rather than the more logical spot 1W?? It will overlap less with Milan, get the sheep in range, and still have the fish. Can we please change this?

On the same note, why is Germany starting around Frankfurt rather NE where the German heartland is?

 

[rob-art1985]

Can somebody clarify whether Iceland is the new island just NW of Scotland, or the island in the NW corner of the map (which I take to be Greenland)?

And please, please fix the rampant barbarians in Germany/Poland so that Germany has a chance to found a city and not have it be instantly razed by barbarians. The other option would be to increase the spawn area of the Germans so that some of them can be flipped, and they would pose much more danger to the Burgundians.

The land in the NW-Corner is now Greenland, NW of Scotland is Iceland now.

My oppinion about Germany is: They are too weak! I often told it. I think, there has to be another flipping City (Köln alias "Colonia Agrippina", a further Roman Colony ) and some more starting Units. French and Burgundians can easily attack the Germans after their spawn. And do you really think, Lübeck is important for the game? It's a terrifying bad spot, where it is

Edit: I (partially) agree with AP regarding Genoa. Maybe one tile East would be also a good spot, isn't it? One West of the Iron wouldn't be concordant with the reality.

 

[jessiecat]

The island NW of Scotland is the Faroes Is. The the one in the far west corner is Greenland. Between them, near the middle of the map. is Iceland.

 

[merijn_v1]

When I played Hungary, I already know 4 tiles of Greenland.

 

[Wessel V1]

Genoa is located on the iron to ensure that Genoa has iron; there is no iron there in reality; AFAIK there is also no iron in the Netherlands. The thing I find interesting about Genoa is that it is very hard to find the ideal spot for both Milan and Genoa, with rivers, resources, and a large number of workable tiles.

On Hungary (around 1200 now)

- Byzantium had, before the Arabs respawned, MORE cities than they started with. Even Cyrene was still under their control, they built 2 cities in Turkey and conquered independent Damascus. Arabia respawned and became a Byzantine vassal. The crusades are very interesting in this game. Exceptional, but fun.
- Burgundy controls the historical French territory. It seems that in most games, it depends on the respawn date of French whether they become strong or weak. England flipped most of their cities, and Paris turned indy soon. Perhaps this is related to their "safe" area; the area where they can settle without English or Burgundian influence. Currently, only Paris and Nantes are safe, but they usually don't get that far and if Burgundy goes to Luxemburg quickly, the French have nowhere to go. Maybe we should lower the settler values for territories north of Dijon for Burdundy?
- Germany was moderate, they had 5 cities. Some of them are very close but they seem to do well, although they are very low on the score table.
- Spain seems to like the Santiago de la ... on the spot where it just misses the coast. That is an awful spot, please correct that (like Aegae was "corrected" on the Greek settler map in RFC).
- Venice has 2 corporations, which I actually wanted to have myself. I think I'm going to get another combination.. Byzantium hasn't found any yet. Venice has also settled Zara as their second city, which I also wanted to have myself. I guess my next report won't have any notes on Venice, at least not a Venice that's doing fine..
- Strange things are happening with culture. The third cultural level isn't expanding to Dense Forests. I think that should be fixed.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

The fix for Burgundy expanding too much is to limit their settler area around Luxembourg and Belgium (same for France) and give some of that to the the Dutch and Germans.

Byzantium seems to like Singidunum (Belgrade) and a city on the north shore of Asia Minor. I would make their settlers more expensive but workers cheaper to discourage them from building more cities.

 

[rob-art1985]

my citizens in my last Kiev-game beefed, that they don't want to fight against brothers in faith, but I was in no war, only with an independant city and of course with the Mongols. But that should not count!

 

[Myri]

The Pope, at war with barbs, conquered a city in Kiev.
3 Pope missionars stand close to an orthodox hungary city, hungary catholic.

Saw a lot of very stupid conquering, Marseille, a city in northern Poland and northern Russia Bulgarian, took not long and all Bulgarian cities were neutral.

Edit: The ai likes to scout with armored lancers and those often can and will take barb/neutral cities around the world.

bye Myri

 

[operafantom]

Hungarian UHVs: right now there is no Triumph thing after the accomplishment of 2 UHVs, but when I failed the third one, I got it , that might be a problem.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Hungarian UHVs: right now there is no Triumph thing after the accomplishment of 2 UHVs, but when I failed the third one, I got it , that might be a problem.

Yeah, I notice that too after being the largest empire and having no Ottomans in Europe.

The third criteria is a non-issue. The Theodosian Walls can stop any AI dead since they don't know how to use spies to open gates. I think another criteria needs to be something else like capture any Ottoman city.

 

[Wessel V1]

Or something like: capture a city from at least 6 different civs. A strange idea, I know, but it would be really refreshing and fun to achieve. Maybe it would better suit another civ though. Byzantium, Bulgaria, Venice, Austria, Poland are nearby candidates, and then there is a target that is random for every game, like the Germans.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Can the wording for Poland's first UHV be changed? Looking at the code, it actually requires Poland to have the most population, not just in Europe.

And please clarify whether the population is counted from the statistics screen (your own population without your vassals) or the victory screen (your own plus your vassals)? I was so afraid that Arabia was going to beat me that I mass founded cities in the Ukraine and Estonia/Lithuania (see the emperor testing thread).

 

[Fanatik]

Excellent job designing this one, congrats. THe buildings and units work in perfect harmony. Very enjoyable emperor game, I think the best one. Yes there are allot of keshiks...historically accurate though. city placement is obviously important.

as for the 1st uhv u just need culture on the grain/barley. Dont need a farm or fort. (control) It will say you have zero to trade, but u control it.

To expand on my first point (bit of a spoiler i guess)
-The druzhina (sp?) may be a lancer but is immune to first strikes, perfect for keshiks
-you have +2 food a city, vechy house has +2 happiness
-obviously there must be castles in almost all cities, and this works very smoothly with those courthouses for espionage
-keshiks destroy roads- you have well placed rivers

the only thing i could imagine being added is stone further south

 

[Myri]

Genoa collapses (only had Genoa and Marseille, shouldn't happen), a few turns later became vassal and had only just captured Constantinople, hu?

Burgund collapsed just fighting Marseille, had a huge army close to Marseille, did not conquer.

Loosing troops seems to hurt ai stability far to much, attacking the ai often ends in conquering neutrals.

Changing civics hurts stability to much, went form very stable to unstable just for chosing guilds instead of merchant republic (only changed to build troops after i actually had won the game, merchant republic is far to good).

You don't need the 2 exp from feudal law because of archery range and siege workshop, there is no reason not to choose bureaucracy.

bye Myri

 

[eris23]

i feel that all the little isles should have atlantic access, as well as hamburg (the one with swine and horse). and how would i go about altering the corporate consumption since i dont think that teutonic order and hanseatic league should compete.
other than that, more independent and barbarian cities and civs collapse to fast from war and netherland has an incredibly tough start.
btw, where could i find the stability and spawn maps?

 

[3Miro]

i feel that all the little isles should have atlantic access, as well as hamburg (the one with swine and horse). and how would i go about altering the corporate consumption since i dont think that teutonic order and hanseatic league should compete.
other than that, more independent and barbarian cities and civs collapse to fast from war and netherland has an incredibly tough start.
btw, where could i find the stability and spawn maps?

Atlantic Access is deliberately kept to minimum. By default it is available only to the traditional colonial powers. Germany has to fight the Dutch or Norse to get one.

Maps are available in RFCEurope\Reference

More indies tend to slow down the game a lot and it reduces the player's choice on settling.

Corporations are in RFCEurope\Assets\XML\GameInfo. Remember that there is a level of abstraction involved, I don't think any of the "corporations" that we have in the game acted exactly like the real organizations.

 

[eris23]

thank you very much

 

[AnotherPacifist]

can we balance manoralism a little better? Right now the -1 food basically makes it a useless civic (I avoid it like hell). Maybe make it 5% extra military, -4 food per city but still allow the farms to retain 3/2 food for grassland/plains?