RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

[3Miro]

I'll see if it changes in beta 4, but right now, Cordoba collapses very early, (sometimes by 1100!?), making for a very uninteresting Reconquista, as taking indy cities is a pushover.

The Bulgarian start is extremely difficult, with the Byzantines sometimes having guisarmes, arbalests, and macemen when you spawn. This makes it 9 out of 10 times impossible to take Odrin, not to mention Constantinople, which had longbowmen once! Is it possible to have Konniks start with flanking I & II so they withdraw more? Otherwise defeating the Byzantines is impossible with their huge tech lead.

Finally, I am appalled at how the Portuguese AI loves to build cities 2 tiles from each other, making them half as productive as they could be. They have the room to build good cities 3 tiles away, they just choose not to.

Will check Cordoba.

I just got two starts with Bulgaria and I got both of them. So long as you can get Odrin (and often times Thessaloníki) right from the start you should be fine. You don't attack Constantinople with Konniks, just use Lancers or Heavy Lancers and lots and lots of Catapults (8-9 Cats, 4 H Lancers 3 - 4 Lancers is enough to get them out around 950AD).

I will look at Portugal, what do you mean two tiles? City - tile - tile - City is a very good scheme for building cities.

 

[AbsintheRed]

I have also seen in some of my games Portugal cities too close to each other
This means city - tile - city
Maybe we should change the map (resources) slightly to improve some city sites so the AI will settle there more
And of course increase the value of those tiles in their settlermap

 

[3Miro]

I have also seen in some of my games Portugal cities too close to each other
This means city - tile - city
Maybe we should change the map (resources) slightly to improve some city sites so the AI will settle there more
And of course increase the value of those tiles in their settlermap

Nope. There is an AI city clustering setting in RFCEBalance.py. I will take a look at that.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Nope. There is an AI city clustering setting in RFCEBalance.py. I will take a look at that.

Hm, I was curious and checked it, but portugal seems to be the only civ without citycluster modifiers

EDIT: Probably it should be 1/2 like it is for Cordoba and Bulgaria
Also, I get why Netherlands got 3/4, but why Burgundy has 2/3? They don't have that little territory to expand to

 

[3Miro]

Hm, I was curious and checked it, but portugal seems to be the only civ without citycluster modifiers

EDIT: Probably it should be 1/2 like it is for Cordoba and Bulgaria
Also, I get why Netherlands got 3/4, but why Burgundy has 2/3? They don't have that little territory to expand to

I will have to look into this. Some of those values have been modified for specific reasons that may or may not be valid any more. In the case of Burgundy there may be a conflict with them being too close to Genoa , but I am not sure. Have you seen problems with Burgundy.

 

[AbsintheRed]

No big problems with Burgundy
A few times I saw their cities too close, but if it's just occasional than it's fine IMO
So you can easily leave them as they are, but on the other hand changing them back to 1/2 won't hurt either

For Portugal, if you don't want to mess up with the code, I still think improving specific city sites for the AI by moving a couple resources and increasing those spots in the portuguese settlermap will do a better job

 

[3Miro]

For Portugal, if you don't want to mess up with the code, I still think improving specific city sites for the AI by moving a couple resources and increasing those spots in the portuguese settlermap will do a better job

Lets try clustering first, if it works we should leave it like that. There is no point in reinventing the wheel if a simple fix gets things done.

 

[HockeySam18]

Lets try clustering first, if it works we should leave it like that. There is no point in reinventing the wheel if a simple fix gets things done.

Good point. There are already perfectly good spots in Portugal that go City-tile-tile-City (I was complaining about them having all of their cities City-tile-city) and get the same resources, coastline, and workable terrain. I'm sure it can be fixed without changing terrain types and moving resources.

Thanks for the advice on Bulgaria, I was only having difficulty with getting both Odrin and Thessaloniki with starting units, its about a 50-50, which is good and challenging. Constantinople is no problem with 3-4 double city raider trebs.

One more thing-
Can Austria spawn one tile north than usual? The only complaint that I have here is that when they build Wien in the starting spot, it goes Wien-tile-Steinamanger, making both cities less productive. One square north of the start is a better spot anyway.

 

[3Miro]

One more thing-
Can Austria spawn one tile north than usual? The only complaint that I have here is that when they build Wien in the starting spot, it goes Wien-tile-Steinamanger, making both cities less productive. One square north of the start is a better spot anyway.

Will look at it. When you start as Austria, you can move one tile and found the city. Can you check to make sure it is correctly named Wien as well.

 

[AbsintheRed]

I never had that problem before. Which spot exactly? 2 tile south and one east from Wien?
The Austrian AI shouldn't settle there on its own. Maybe Steinamanger is a Hungarian city flipping to them? Or Venezian?
Anyway Wien should be on the Danube, so I don't really think we should move it north.

 

[AOS9001]

I never had that problem before. Which spot exactly? 2 tile south and one east from Wien?
The Austrian AI shouldn't settle there on its own. Maybe Steinamanger is a Hungarian city flipping to them? Or Venezian?
Anyway Wien should be on the Danube, so I don't really think we should move it north.

Steinamanger is a Hungarian city, which is very detracting from Wien's productivity. Well, can't do anything about that, unless you make it so they never build that city, but that could be too deterministic.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Steinamanger is a Hungarian city, which is very detracting from Wien's productivity. Well, can't do anything about that, unless you make it so they never build that city, but that could be too deterministic.

Oh, so it's Szombathely, and 2 tiles south of Wien
I have never seen the AI find that city for Hungary, but I guess it cannot be helped even if it does

Funnily enough there is no Szombathely in the hungarian citylist, so the city of Sopron becomes Steinamanger if it flips to Austria

 

[HockeySam18]

Oh, so it's Szombathely, and 2 tiles south of Wien
I have never seen the AI find that city for Hungary, but I guess it cannot be helped even if it does

Funnily enough there is no Szombathely in the hungarian citylist, so the city of Sopron becomes Steinamanger if it flips to Austria

Maybe the Hungarian AI should be "told" not to found Sopron, and instead build one tile S or SE of it. This should be a general rule of thumb: the AI should not settle a city with one tile between itself and another (future or existing) civ's capital.

 

[AbsintheRed]

It is possible to make some spots less attractive to the AI by seriously lowering the values for them on the civs settlermap
But this is up to 3Miro to decide (personally I don't think it's a problem unless it's happening in the majority of the games)

 

[3Miro]

It is hard for me to figure out what you are saying. Can you put a screenshot or two saying "Here is Vianna", "Here is where it should be", the "AI should not found this city" ....

 

[AbsintheRed]

I think this is the case (altough I never experienced this in my games):
2 tiles south of Wien the Hungarians settle the city of Sopron/Szombathely, which flips to Austria in 1163 as Steinamanger
When both cities are in Austrian control, they are too close, and Wien has limited production

 

[ezzlar]

There are many suggestions in this forum, UHVs, buildings, balance etc which tend to be drowned in each thread due to the amount of posts. It would be nice if the first page for each topic always was an updated summary of all the proposed changes so far!

 

[3Miro]

There are many suggestions in this forum, UHVs, buildings, balance etc which tend to be drowned in each thread due to the amount of posts. It would be nice if the first page for each topic always was an updated summary of all the proposed changes so far!

I cannot keep track of changes in the past (I don't have time to go back and read 200-300 posts), but I do keep track of all the resent proposals.

As for Hungary and Austria, the two nations are very close and this is causing some trouble. I will think about a solution, but it will probably have to wait for after Beta 5.

 

[steampunk1880]

Venice lost the capture Constantinople historical victory right off the bat

 

[3Miro]

Venice lost the capture Constantinople historical victory right off the bat

Got it. It will be fixed for Beta 5.