RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

[AnotherPacifist]

I will double check, but it is possible that the game does not consider autoraze. It is funny that sometimes in regular RFC you have to sink more ships for the Viking UHV.

Maybe the barbarian rampage (playing as emperor) in Germany screwed things up.

 

[kbk]

This turned out to be fairly easy. On spawn, I attacked Cordaba, taking Madrid and Cordoba, which was enough to force them to collapse. I slowly built and expanded my influence and got the first 2 UHVs. I ended up with a massive tech lead thanks to wonders. As the game went on, Moscow, Germany, Norse, and Austria all willingly vassalized to me. I turned down a couple more vassals to avoid getting into conflicts that I was not prepared for. Then, I invaded France, Arabian N. Africa, and eventually the Netherlands and Genoa.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Stability was amazingly only -4 at the end, and that's with controlling most of the Arabian core area. As you can see I had another 40+ turns of golden age. But one of the most powerful things about the Spanish is their UP of +2 stability per city.

Spoiler :

Balance thoughts:
This proved fairly easy. Stability was never an issue. Its quite possible that either stability in general is too generous, or that the Spanish UP is too powerful.

 

[jessiecat]

A couple of questions about playing as France against the Spanish.

1. If Spain is coded to eliminate Cordoba why does it prioritise attacking France and ignore Cordoba? In my recent game I only avoided constant war with Spain by gifting them techs. In the late game I was in constant war with Spain but Cordoba never lost a city.

2. Spain typically sends in waves of infiltrators to destroy improvements and halt production in cities. I've tried everything to stop them including spies on tiles, spies in cities and counter-espionage against them. But nothing works. I don't remember this either from RFC or Vanilla.

Any chance of somebody answering my questions?

 

[Myri]

A couple of questions about playing as France against the Spanish.

1. If Spain is coded to eliminate Cordoba why does it prioritise attacking France and ignore Cordoba? In my recent game I only avoided constant war with Spain by gifting them techs. In the late game I was in constant war with Spain but Cordoba never lost a city.

Just because it would be nice if the ai would act historically does not mean it can (easily) be coded. For the ai you are just the more interesting target. Hurt them hard until they have huge war weariness, offer peace, maybe give cities back, and you will have a new friend, maybe a vassal.

2. Spain typically sends in waves of infiltrators to destroy improvements and halt production in cities. I've tried everything to stop them including spies on tiles, spies in cities and counter-espionage against them. But nothing works. I don't remember this either from RFC or Vanilla.

Light cavalry helps a little but better as above, first they just build defensive troops and no more spies, later you are not longer the target.

bye Myri

 

[3Miro]

Any chance of somebody answering my questions?

1. The way the AI is supposed to go to war is broken right now. The AI judges the strength of other nations inappropriately. The short answer to this one is: I don't know. I hope to improve it in the future.

2. The Spanish UP gives them bonus espionage points, I suppose they are just trying to utilize them.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Can I say this again: please tone down the barbs in Germany/Poland. I started another German game and they all shied away from my spawn land, but then I counted 30+ axemen and 15+ horse archers plus some spearmen and bears!!

 

[kbk]

Can I say this again: please tone down the barbs in Germany/Poland. I started another German game and they all shied away from my spawn land, but then I counted 30+ axemen and 15+ horse archers plus some spearmen and bears!!

Little wonder that Germany almost always collapses and respawns about 3 or 4 times early in the game.

 

[Fanatik]

Have played for a while but I still dont understand a few things about stability.

1. Foreign stability= some games I seem to have no problem with this, but especialy with germany or hungary I have a big -. PLayed again with hungary and chose orthodoxy instead of catholocism and this wasnt quite as bad. War should be a minus to this but sometimes when I declare it actually goes down. how is this?

2. Giving away cities- I posted a while back on ths but no answer, why when I give a city away to a friend or vassal do I get a permanent reduction in stability? Or am I wrong about this?

3, Religions- Had problems with stabiity with arabs so I persecuted away some christianity from my cities, but my stability seemed to only get worse.

4. Money- Can High income, from shires or corps, decrease instability from building army? Is it gold income, production, commerce, or a combination of this that determines economic stability?

Thx.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

I had 40+ cities as Turkey and my stability went up as I gave away cities to my vassals. I think the magic number is about 25.

I never use Inquisitors except as Spain. You have unhappy faces after a successful persecution. What's wrong with a little more happiness with extra temples?

Again, economic stability is whether there is growth or decline in economy between moves. For that reason I convert mines to windmills one by one and build cottages over farms after my cities have grown (and after I go away from serfdom).

 

[kbk]

Just to clarify:

1. Foreign stability is affected by your neighbors. If you eliminate an unstable neighbor by war, this category might go up. This may not be specifically what is happening for you though. Also certain civilizations may have more unstable neighbors coded in or other modifiers.

2. Yes. You get a penalty that offsets the stability bonus from acquiring that city. HOWEVER, if your civilization is large enough (AP above suggests this is around 25 in RFCE, in RFC it was 15), shedding excess cities will in fact boost your stability as there are penalties on over expanding.

3. Not surprisingly inquisition hurts stability (Except for the Spanish and their unique power). But I believe so does running certain civics with cities that have extra religions. Those Islamic citizens could also protest your righteous crusade against Arabia, which would result in unhappiness which will result in instability. Which religions to maintain can be a delicate balance, but personally, I try to run less oppressive religious civics (Organized Religion, or Free Religion), and enjoy the extra happiness from extra religions.

4. Economic stability is calculated by crop yield, hammers, and gold income. I believe it accounts for gold spent on any of your sliders as well. It also includes your ratio of imports versus exports (The specifics on this one I'm not sure of. You'll have to look into the RFC forums or wiki on that). As AP pointed out, you want to have your total product (Food, hammers, gold) total slowly grow for the best long term economic stability.

 

[3Miro]

Have played for a while but I still dont understand a few things about stability.

1. Foreign stability= some games I seem to have no problem with this, but especialy with germany or hungary I have a big -. PLayed again with hungary and chose orthodoxy instead of catholocism and this wasnt quite as bad. War should be a minus to this but sometimes when I declare it actually goes down. how is this?

2. Giving away cities- I posted a while back on ths but no answer, why when I give a city away to a friend or vassal do I get a permanent reduction in stability? Or am I wrong about this?

3, Religions- Had problems with stabiity with arabs so I persecuted away some christianity from my cities, but my stability seemed to only get worse.

4. Money- Can High income, from shires or corps, decrease instability from building army? Is it gold income, production, commerce, or a combination of this that determines economic stability?

Thx.

1. War is bad for foreign stability. You want peace and OB and Defensive Pacts. Orthodoxy doesn't give stability yet, wait till the next version.

2. Don't know of hand, have to look it up in the code.

3. Foreign religion in a city -2pts. Prosecution -2pts, angry people because of the prosecution -2pts = -4pts. Here is the trick, it is temporary. Prosecution anger and unhappyness anger wear off eventually. So the trade off is, instant low stability for long term benefit.

4. High income is good for Economic stability, high maintenance is bad. Build Banks and Courthouses and other commerce enhancement buildings (Grocers...)

 

[3Miro]

I had 40+ cities as Turkey and my stability went up as I gave away cities to my vassals. I think the magic number is about 25.

I never use Inquisitors except as Spain. You have unhappy faces after a successful persecution. What's wrong with a little more happiness with extra temples?

Again, economic stability is whether there is growth or decline in economy between moves. For that reason I convert mines to windmills one by one and build cottages over farms after my cities have grown (and after I go away from serfdom).

Too many cities give bad stability. Giving away cities I think is also bad. Have to check the code.

Check the my post above (about Prosecutions).

Economic stability has changed for RFCE. In RFC you get negative point whenever economy went down (even for moving a person from working a farm to being a scientist). To get positive stability was incredibly hard. We changed that in RFCE. Now the idea is to work only improved tiles and to have Banks/Grocers and such in all your big cities. It has to be rebalanced for the new buildings actually.

 

[3Miro]

Just to clarify:

1. Foreign stability is affected by your neighbors. If you eliminate an unstable neighbor by war, this category might go up. This may not be specifically what is happening for you though. Also certain civilizations may have more unstable neighbors coded in or other modifiers.

2. Yes. You get a penalty that offsets the stability bonus from acquiring that city. HOWEVER, if your civilization is large enough (AP above suggests this is around 25 in RFCE, in RFC it was 15), shedding excess cities will in fact boost your stability as there are penalties on over expanding.

3. Not surprisingly inquisition hurts stability (Except for the Spanish and their unique power). But I believe so does running certain civics with cities that have extra religions. Those Islamic citizens could also protest your righteous crusade against Arabia, which would result in unhappiness which will result in instability. Which religions to maintain can be a delicate balance, but personally, I try to run less oppressive religious civics (Organized Religion, or Free Religion), and enjoy the extra happiness from extra religions.

4. Economic stability is calculated by crop yield, hammers, and gold income. I believe it accounts for gold spent on any of your sliders as well. It also includes your ratio of imports versus exports (The specifics on this one I'm not sure of. You'll have to look into the RFC forums or wiki on that). As AP pointed out, you want to have your total product (Food, hammers, gold) total slowly grow for the best long term economic stability.

1. True, it is also a factor.

3. Read my other post about Prosecutions.

4. Correct except for the comment I made on AP's post.

 

[Fanatik]

Thanks for the help- - clears allot up, though I still don't understand why as Hungary for 2nd game I end up with -15/3 foreign stability by mid 12th century while as other nations it never seems to go so high. Burgundy at same time I am only -5/1 and I am at war with two other natons..

I always sign open borders and try to remain neutral, by the way.

Thx

 

[kbk]

Thanks for the help- - clears allot up, though I still don't understand why as Hungary for 2nd game I end up with -15/3 foreign stability by mid 12th century while as other nations it never seems to go so high. Burgundy at same time I am only -5/1 and I am at war with two other natons..

I always sign open borders and try to remain neutral, by the way.

Thx

Many civilizations in RFC also took a hit to foreign stability as their neighbors spawn. Basically, each civ will have a different foreign stability baseline, that's just how it is. Its why in RFC Egypt and Babylon were never long for the world. These were factors in earlier versions of the game, and if you go back some pages in the thread you can see a discussion on that.

@3miro
The changes to economic stability are interesting and a lot more intuitive. I think I don't tend to see such huge swings in economic stability in RFCE as I did in RFC. However, I do see huge cities modifiers (over +100) as the game goes on, is there anything different about this category in RFCE? Or is that the effect of a harmonious religious situation?

 

[3Miro]

@3miro
The changes to economic stability are interesting and a lot more intuitive. I think I don't tend to see such huge swings in economic stability in RFCE as I did in RFC. However, I do see huge cities modifiers (over +100) as the game goes on, is there anything different about this category in RFCE? Or is that the effect of a harmonious religious situation?

I have so see about the cities. Unlike RFC we have both Courthouses and Manor Houses, which makes part of the difference. I will see what else can be making it go to 100.

 

[Myri]

Would be nice to be able to read victory conditions longer than a short sentence in the victore conditions screen. Gets annoying to start new games over and over just to find out what to do

Shouldn't happen that Kiev becomes a vassal of Corbada because 2 light cavalry meet somewhere in the middle of Europe?

Wars are always to easy to win not just because the ai does not know how to fight, but because everything i attack will collapse very fast.

bye Myri

 

[3Miro]

Would be nice to be able to read victory conditions longer than a short sentence in the victore conditions screen. Gets annoying to start new games over and over just to find out what to do

Shouldn't happen that Kiev becomes a vassal of Corbada because 2 light cavalry meet somewhere in the middle of Europe?

Wars are always to easy to win not just because the ai does not know how to fight, but because everything i attack will collapse very fast.

bye Myri

Victory condition screen cannot be changes (or it will be very hard since all victories are different length). Victory conditions are listed in the Civilopedia, you don't have to restart the game.

Vassal mechanics need more work.

Stability needs more work.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

I hate to refer to the ROTK mod, but there if you are very far away, weaker civs won't vassalize to you (unless you have the civ with the "famous" UP which makes others more willing to vassalize). I would love for Germany to have this power --basically you have to war to get vassals soon and it's not fun. (Right now in a monarch Burgundy game I have Portugal, Austria, Genoa and Norse as vassals just because of my techs). If this were to be implemented I would say if you're 1 country removed from your potential vassal that vassal needs to be capitulated.

For the victory screen, maybe put the date in front so that at least people can see what date they're supposed to do stuff. E.g

Burgundy:
2. In 1300: control Jerusalem [almost didn't make this since I captured it in the early 1100's, and just kept building troops there and upgrading whenever possible]
3. In 1470: control the most luxury resources, etc.

 

[SF23]

Are there eventually going to be strategy guides for RFCE on the wiki like there are for Rhye's of Civilization and RFC?