RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

[Steb]

Hi there; I've been following RFC Europe for a while without posting, but the recent developments are too exciting for me to stay silent any longer...

Those ideas about Germany are good. I'd probably give the Crusade to them, and certainly not the conquest. In general, I think there are way to many UHVs involving controlling a bunch of provinces from a list. Almost every civ has that in a way or another except the Netherlands... More uniqueness would be welcome here (although I know it may be hard to find many good new ideas).

Another not very original UHV is to found XYZ colonies, especially for France, which was certainly not the most impressive colonial power. Since it is the only civ to last for the entire timeframe of the mod, and since for most of it it was among the strongest countries in Europe, I suggest a new UHV to replace colonies that would span the whole game: Have X Golden Ages, where X would be about 5 I guess (1 from 2/3 UHV, probably 1 from a Crusade, 1 from Versailles, 2-3 from great people). I think no date is necessary.

With this idea, there is an incentive to win a Crusade, so that UHV could be changed, and given to Germany. What do you think?

 

[3Miro]

Hi there; I've been following RFC Europe for a while without posting, but the recent developments are too exciting for me to stay silent any longer...

Those ideas about Germany are good. I'd probably give the Crusade to them, and certainly not the conquest. In general, I think there are way to many UHVs involving controlling a bunch of provinces from a list. Almost every civ has that in a way or another except the Netherlands... More uniqueness would be welcome here (although I know it may be hard to find many good new ideas).

Another not very original UHV is to found XYZ colonies, especially for France, which was certainly not the most impressive colonial power. Since it is the only civ to last for the entire timeframe of the mod, and since for most of it it was among the strongest countries in Europe, I suggest a new UHV to replace colonies that would span the whole game: Have X Golden Ages, where X would be about 5 I guess (1 from 2/3 UHV, probably 1 from a Crusade, 1 from Versailles, 2-3 from great people). I think no date is necessary.

With this idea, there is an incentive to win a Crusade, so that UHV could be changed, and given to Germany. What do you think?

That is an interesting idea. However, you are replacing two of the French UHV conditions (Crusade and Colonies). I think the Colonies were originally the "ahistoric" UHV, now we can use one historic or otherwise.

- Charlemagne's Empire
- France through the ages (Golden Ages)
- ??????

As for control of Provinces, yes many civs are required to get them from a list, however, you should note that in all cases, there is a twist. The uniqueness doesn't come from what you are supposed to do, but from the idea of how you do it

- France: very fast conquest from MANY independent cities
- Byzantium: no conquest, just defense, defense and more defense (from Arabs, Bulgarians, Seljuk, Crusaders)
- Arabia: conquest is easy, but you have to defend from the Crusades
- Bulgaria: you have a very strong opponent in the most heavily fortified city
- Norse has to make a naval Empire with cities at random places around the map
- Burgundy has to go for a conquest, driving a wedge between two superpowers
- Venice has a financial Crusade mechanics involved
- Kiev: conquest is just easy settlement, defending a large territory from the Mongols is hard
- Spain/Cordoba have defensive Crusades involved
- Lithuania has to deal with conquest after the Mongols and nearby Poland
- Ottomans have a ridiculous amount of land to conquer from relatively strong opponents

Civilization is a very militaristic game anyway, conquest comes naturally as an UHV.

 

[youtien]

Having German flippers in Dutch territory may not impact a German player much since UHV has come and gone, but a for a Dutch player ..
Have you seen the hardware/tech in Frederick's hands in the late 16th century? Imagine a flip declaration from that monster .. he is a dog-pile all on his own
And I have never seen him be anything but solid after 1400 or so when he has all the land he goes for and spends his time building up the cities.

He does have a lot of stability issues early on with barbarians and expansion, I have seen him collapse several times and still come back to be among the top 2-3 ..

Maybe German are usually supposed to be solid and strong, but in our history they collapsed early and was still scattered in 16th century, so Dutch got time and space to grow.

 

[The Turk]

Can you make it so that if the Germans collapse later in the game, they will respawn in Berlin? Or even better, could you have them build Berlin in the late game, and move their capital there. I think that would be a very cool thing to see.

 

[FakeShady]

Having German flippers in Dutch territory may not impact a German player much since UHV has come and gone, but a for a Dutch player ..
Have you seen the hardware/tech in Frederick's hands in the late 16th century? Imagine a flip declaration from that monster .. he is a dog-pile all on his own
And I have never seen him be anything but solid after 1400 or so when he has all the land he goes for and spends his time building up the cities.

He does have a lot of stability issues early on with barbarians and expansion, I have seen him collapse several times and still come back to be among the top 2-3 ..

Either Germany or France will be dominating Central Europe in the game. Its not historically wrong, its just that when one of them gets the better of the other, the victor becomes unstoppable

 

[Steb]

That is an interesting idea. However, you are replacing two of the French UHV conditions (Crusade and Colonies). I think the Colonies were originally the "ahistoric" UHV, now we can use one historic or otherwise.

- Charlemagne's Empire
- France through the ages (Golden Ages)
- ??????

Yes, I know I was suggesting a big change for France's UHV. The original idea was to change the colonies one, but then I realized there was some overlap between Crusade and Golden Ages, and since you suggested it for Germany I figured something better could be found. But I think it does fit more for France, until we think of something else.

As for control of Provinces, yes many civs are required to get them from a list, however, you should note that in all cases, there is a twist. The uniqueness doesn't come from what you are supposed to do, but from the idea of how you do it

I think most of them are fine, but sometimes building cities in very specific spots isn't fun at all. In the original RFC, not many civilisations have such specific "control such areas" criteria, and yet the player will most likely get those areas because of stability and historiciy; and because it's good to expand even without the incentive from UHVs! For example, to win with Japan, it is a good move to capture China, even if it is not asked.

The idea of a UHV is to bring the player to do something they wouldn't be likely to do otherwise. So, the Frankish conquests, being quick and historical, are good. But UHVs like Venice's control the Adriatic sea provinces are a bit boring. Venice should be about dominating the trade of the Mediterranean, not founding random cities in a bunch of provinces; but you won't make a very good trading empire if you stay confined to the city of Venice.

I just think some civs could use more flavour. Like insanely gold-oriented Mali. Or culture-oriented Egypt. Just for the sake of variety.

But then again, you're doing very good work!

 

[FakeShady]

just played a game as the Venetians. Few interesting things to note:

1) Right on the turn i captured Jerusalem through crusade, the pope chose France to lead a new crusade. Since Jerusalem is now under my control, France declared war on me. Lol

2) The crusaders from France never showed up though. However i still had to wait for France to cool down before i can make peace with them.

3) i never get the golden age promised to me for capturing Jerusalem. In fact Jerusalem gave me nothing but stability problems. The only golden age i had is from completing the first 2 UHVs

4) Imperialism looks horribly weak. I settled on an "unstable" province, and right away my stability took a -5 hit. How is Imperialism supposed to work like this?

EDIT: 5) I beelined Banking and Optics right away from the very first turn, and somehow i still lost the St Marco Basilica to Germany. IMO Germany and France are too strong, especially France with their UP

 

[Jusos2108]

...I just think some civs could use more flavour. Like insanely gold-oriented Mali. Or culture-oriented Egypt. Just for the sake of variety.

But then again, you're doing very good work!

I totally agree! The UHVs need to be more challenging and complex. Figuring them out is the hard part, but gladly it is possible to just implement some ideas straight from RFC.

 

[3Miro]

just played a game as the Venetians. Few interesting things to note:

1) Right on the turn i captured Jerusalem through crusade, the pope chose France to lead a new crusade. Since Jerusalem is now under my control, France declared war on me. Lol

2) The crusaders from France never showed up though. However i still had to wait for France to cool down before i can make peace with them.

3) i never get the golden age promised to me for capturing Jerusalem. In fact Jerusalem gave me nothing but stability problems. The only golden age i had is from completing the first 2 UHVs

4) Imperialism looks horribly weak. I settled on an "unstable" province, and right away my stability took a -5 hit. How is Imperialism supposed to work like this?

EDIT: 5) I beelined Banking and Optics right away from the very first turn, and somehow i still lost the St Marco Basilica to Germany. IMO Germany and France are too strong, especially France with their UP

I need a safegame from the turn right before you capture Jerusalem.

 

[FakeShady]

I need a safegame from the turn right before you capture Jerusalem.

Sorry, dont have one i completely forgotten about it. i can try recreating the problem. Or you can try it yourself, control crusade with money, lead a crusade to Jerusalem, and then wait till the pope calls for a new crusade, THEN you capture Jerusalem

 

[The Turk]

A few more comments:

1. The Norse need to stop converting to Orthodox Christianity, and in general the random spread of Orthodoxy really needs to be capped and stopped from spreading to the west. I believe you can do this through your province system,
2. The Mercenaries screen needs to be cleaned up. Again, now that you have a province system, you can use it to have local recruitment, so you can't for example hire Cuman Horse Archers if your playing as Spain or England. Otherwise currently you have Minoan archers for sale and other oddities which shouldn't exist.
3. Liked the Viking Vinland idea that was great!
4. Why do the Vikings need to build a city in the Crimea? Shouldn't Russia (North of Kiev) just be fine?
5. It should be La Reconquista or even better the "Spanish Inquisition" for the Spanish UHV. By the way does that mean you need to get rid of all the other religions, like Islam and Judaism? Or just conquer them all under your Catholic state religion?

 

[Wessel V1]

2. The Mercenaries screen needs to be cleaned up. Again, now that you have a province system, you can use it to have local recruitment, so you can't for example hire Cuman Horse Archers if your playing as Spain or England. Otherwise currently you have Minoan archers for sale and other oddities which shouldn't exist.

That's a very cool idea! I hope this can be implemented soon.

 

[FakeShady]

A few more comments:

2. The Mercenaries screen needs to be cleaned up. Again, now that you have a province system, you can use it to have local recruitment, so you can't for example hire Cuman Horse Archers if your playing as Spain or England. Otherwise currently you have Minoan archers for sale and other oddities which shouldn't exist.

Well the thing about mercenaries, is that they fight for the higghest bidder, not the ones nearest to their home, isnt it?

I like the idea of Germany and Austria having less stability penalties for expanding into each other's territory (or having each other's territory in their war map, whichever works.) Reason being they're both technically in the same empire back at that time

 

[ezzlar]

I agree with fakeshady, mercs did pop up in strange places didnt they?

I my current Arab game I conquered Constantinopel in 672 AD thanks to those 10 horse archers you get at start which I sent away at once. Now I was somewhat lucky with plague but that retreat option and bulk of units would make it repeatable.

Edit: Byzantines collapsed in 684 AD.
Edit 2: Bulgarians followed a few years later.

 

[The Turk]

Well the thing about mercenaries, is that they fight for the higghest bidder, not the ones nearest to their home, isnt it?

I'm sorry, but isn't it common sense that there were no Cuman Horse Archers offering their services to the King of France or England? If you have mercenaries by region, you can have regional mercenary recruitments, like a Breton Horseman for whomever controls Normandy, or owns a province next to it.
Basically you will no longer have "Minoan" spearmen, which don't make any sense anyway, popping up as mercenaries for the Norse. "RR" as its called Regional Recruitment, and thats what you can include in your mod, now that you have provinces.

 

[merijn_v1]

It makes sense what The Turk says. We all know that the mercs fight for the highest bidder, but I don't think mercs from Egypt or so will fight for England, even if the pay double the price of, let's say, Arabia.

That reminds me of something. It will be nice if the Germans get another UU, so that the Landsknecht realy can be a merc. (as the were IRL)

 

[Wessel V1]

At least the preposition of the mercenary could change, like Crimean x or Lusitanian y. If there is a city in region x, then there is a possibility of unit y. So, for example, if Prague exists, there is a possiblity of a Bohemian unit. And if a city in for example Normandy trains a unit and then rent it, it could be a Norman unit. The first option should be quite easy to code although I don't know python, the second may be a little harder but a nice touch as well. These ideas give the mod lots of flavour so I hope they can be modded in.

 

[The Turk]

At least the preposition of the mercenary could change, like Crimean x or Lusitanian y. If there is a city in region x, then there is a possibility of unit y. So, for example, if Prague exists, there is a possiblity of a Bohemian unit. And if a city in for example Normandy trains a unit and then rent it, it could be a Norman unit. The first option should be quite easy to code although I don't know python, the second may be a little harder but a nice touch as well. These ideas give the mod lots of flavour so I hope they can be modded in.

All I know is that Edead was able to do it for SoI, with his provinces idea. Also comment on my other comments and tell me what you like and don't like

 

[FakeShady]

whatever, its just extra work and no impact on gameplay.

Just had a game as the Austrians. I had the "would you let these cities flip?" bug too, and when i pressed yes the cities flipped to me. These cities had 70% foreign culture though. Germany had 20 units in Leipzig, and only 3 in the city that flipped to me, Salzburg. How does the Germany AI know Salzburg is gonna flip to me?? Weird. Not right. And why is Tuscony in Austria's core area? When the only things there are... a mountain. lol. Germany is definitely too strong, and Austria starts off with way too little techs. Other observations are that the Seljuks always fail to spread Islam into Anatolia. And that Byzantium is back to crappishly crap now. The pope seems to be failing in his job to spam missionaries, and Orthodoxy pops out in weird places. Overall tech rate is still too fast.

So my suggestions are:
1) Put Germany and Austria into each other's "OK" zones
2) Fix the Austrian spawn bug, duh
3) Throw in Monument Building and Patronage to Austria's starting techs.
4) Slow down the tech rate. Its about time someone move Protestantism back to Printing Press, timed to be founded around 1500?
5) Make the Pope more efficient in spreading Catholicism and building temples/monasteries, giving gold etc
6) Control spread of Orthodoxy, at least by a bit. Its understandable for Orthodoxy to spread, but its ridiculous when as Austria almost all my cities has Orthodoxy.
7) Increase number of Seljuks Turks to spread Islam in Anatolia BUT
8) Decrease number of Ottomans on spawn

i would like stress something about 7) and 8). There shouldnt be any Ottomans west of Constantinople in 1300. believe me with Islam in Anatolia the Ottomans can more than make up for it. Come on the Turk, you know thats true.

EDIT: Germany should really be settling into Brandenburg Province more often.

 

[The Turk]

5) Make the Pope more efficient in spreading Catholicism and building temples/monasteries, giving gold etc
6) Control spread of Orthodoxy, at least by a bit. Its understandable for Orthodoxy to spread, but its ridiculous when as Austria almost all my cities has Orthodoxy.
7) Increase number of Seljuks Turks to spread Islam in Anatolia BUT
8) Decrease number of Ottomans on spawn

5) Agreed; plus did that ACTUALLY ever happen in real life? The Pope giving away money and building churches?
6) YES! As I mentioned below in my list, Orthodoxy keeps coming up in the WEIRDEST places ever! It's just really strange, have an Orthodox Bourdeux or Toulouse
7) Yes, the Seljuks are too weak against the AI Byzantines, and they don't capture the interior of Anatolia like they did. BUT... I would give a boost to the Byzantine stability, just to represent that great lose of territory. But basically when the Ottoman come along the Seljuks/Barb's should AT LEAST have nominal control of the interior of Anatolia.
8) I'm actually surprised you don't know this, considering the fact that you claim to know more about Byzantine history than I do, but you should know that the Byzantines were shipping Turks over to the European side (across the Bosporus) to use them in their own armies and to counter barbarians, thus starting the Turkification of the Balkans. I would therefore recommend the Ottomans starting off with an army near on the European side, but not with an actual city. But that is something the game creators can think of, whether to do or not, as I believe it will be a balancing issue.
As for the huge Ottoman army, I think if you increase pressure of the Seljuk Turks on the Byzantines, the Ottoman army should be decreased, but I would like to stress more the decrease in settlers, the Ottomans really don't need any settlers anyway.


Also on a separate note, are you guys thinking of making a unique "Dawn of Mankind" text for RFCEurope? If so, I have a few ideas for a couple of entries.

@FakeShady
Perhaps more people on this forum would be more welcome to your ideas if you were politer and less aggressive/dismissive to people; I think I speak for quite a few people. Just a friendly suggestion, as some of your ideas are quite good and I would hate to see them wasted
And yes, that type of new mercenary system would have a HUGE impact on gameplay, as I for one would actually start hiring USEFUL mercenaries, rather than crappy minoan spearmen