RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

[Ambreville]

The flip of the cities in Northern France represents the Norman invasion of England. Basically England becomes the Norman Kingdom.

Calais is not a part of Normandie. Caen makes sense to flip over, Calais does not. I understand what the present flip is supposed to represent, but it in the case of Calais, it doesn't makes sense. It did not become officially English-controlled until 1360, under the Treaty of Bretigny (before that, it had been besieged in 1346). The Norman invasion of England started in 1066, about three centuries earlier. William the Conqueror's forces mustered well south of Calais before shipping out. Much of the remaining gains of "England" took place a century after the famous invasion, during the mid-12th century, as a result of Henry Plantagenet's marriage to Alienor of Aquitaine (and his inheriting Anjou, Normandie, and the throne of England).

By the way, Normandie never was a kingdom. IIRC, technically it was vassal duchy of the King of France. Brittany should really be in place as a neutral early in the game. It was a duchy that flipped back and forth between France and England, before becoming permanently a part of France in the 1500's. But I'm sure you know all this. Naturally, that kind of a change will result in modifying in some way the UHV's for both France and England.

Political marriages were considered in the mod early on, but at this point it is too much work to implement and balance.

Of course... It was just a pie-in-the-sky idea.

 

[3Miro]

Could we make Scotland and Ireland independent cities instead? They are harder to combat, more intelligent and would be much harder to conquer. The unification of a barbaric United Kingdom is only a few years while in reality it took hundreds of years. Independent would take time!

Indies are very passive, Barbs are more aggressive and overall tougher to beat. Indy Scotland would be easier to capture.

 

[Barak]

In Beta 11 playing as Britain, i have control of all the culture of the British Isles, but it says I have not control of Northumbria. Do I need to settle a city?

 

[3Miro]

In Beta 11 playing as Britain, i have control of all the culture of the British Isles, but it says I have not control of Northumbria. Do I need to settle a city?

You need to get the couple of off-shore islands. It was an omission on my part.

You can just build a city with the Wb to get the UHV and then delete it (it shouldn't hurt your stability too much, although you should save before that anyway).

 

[Barak]

You need to get the couple of off-shore islands. It was an omission on my part.

You can just build a city with the Wb to get the UHV and then delete it (it shouldn't hurt your stability too much, although you should save before that anyway).

Gotcha. I hate how research gets killed as your empire grows in cities. Is there any way to do away with the "more than 10 or 11 cities and your research gets killed" mechanic of regular RFC? Our empires are bigger, and i feel it should be an economic hardship not a research one.

 

[Opera]

Seljuqs and Keshiks still aren't strong enough.

The former never take much of Anatolia, instead Byzantium keeps most of it (and sometimes even mop up the indy cities left by the usual Arabian collapse) and stays strong until the Ottomans pop up and... wait, why did they pop up since the turks never actually had any holding in Anatolia?

Similarly, the Keshiks only threaten Kiev. You never see Bulgaria, Poland or Lithuania being destroyed or at least quite wounded because of the Mongols. At that time, all of Europe feared them, for a reason.

You may consider adding events/popups for these kind of historical invasions. History-savvy people won't be surprised but some other players may be. And it still adds some flavor

 

[3Miro]

Gotcha. I hate how research gets killed as your empire grows in cities. Is there any way to do away with the "more than 10 or 11 cities and your research gets killed" mechanic of regular RFC? Our empires are bigger, and i feel it should be an economic hardship not a research one.

The research penalty in RFCE comes later than RFC. We have accounted for the overall larger Empires in our mod.

 

[3Miro]

Seljuqs and Keshiks still aren't strong enough.

The former never take much of Anatolia, instead Byzantium keeps most of it (and sometimes even mop up the indy cities left by the usual Arabian collapse) and stays strong until the Ottomans pop up and... wait, why did they pop up since the turks never actually had any holding in Anatolia?

Similarly, the Keshiks only threaten Kiev. You never see Bulgaria, Poland or Lithuania being destroyed or at least quite wounded because of the Mongols. At that time, all of Europe feared them, for a reason.

You may consider adding events/popups for these kind of historical invasions. History-savvy people won't be surprised but some other players may be. And it still adds some flavor

- popups are a good idea, I was thinking about them, but they are low priority for now.
- Lithuania shouldn't be destroyed by the Mongols, Bulgaria, Poland and Hungary should get to fight them and maybe lose a city, but no more than that.
- the Ottomans can take on the Byz, but the Byz are very strong. I have couple of ideas on how to fix that, but I am afraid that it may lead to too much historical predictability.

 

[The Turk]

There nee to be pecheng and kypchak barbs that threaten eastern Europe around the black sea. But more importantly they need to target Bulgaria, thereby diverting their interests from attacking a early strong Byzantium to defending their Borders. Historically the Byzantines often bribed these barbarian groups to attack the Bulgarians from the north

 

[Opera]

The research penalty in RFCE comes later than RFC. We have accounted for the overall larger Empires in our mod.

Relatedly, I noticed (several revisions ago) that the turns left for completing the current research are off, I guess because they are modified in python at some point. Could this be fixed sometime down the road? It's a bit confusing.

- Lithuania shouldn't be destroyed by the Mongols, Bulgaria, Poland and Hungary should get to fight them and maybe lose a city, but no more than that.

Okay, long-winded answer. Putting it in a spoiler...

Spoiler :

See, I'm a proponent of alt-historicity so I'd like things like those to happen sometimes. I already sait it multiple times but, what is the point of trying to always stick to history? I get it that some people are rather vocal about the fact that everything must happen like it did in RL but I'm pretty sure others enjoy seeing how 'their' world evolved differently in this instance.

I barely see civs collapsing currently, even Cordoba lasts a long time when it had the habit of being killed off by the Spanish very soon. The only civs I ever see fall now are Kiev (but then again they seem to do better now against the mongols) and the Arabs, who always fall at some point and come back at another. Usually the French control Jerusalem (maybe that's why the arabs fall).

Don't get me wrong, RFCE is one of my fav mods but it has already fallen into predictability. Some impredictability is lacking, IMO. The best part of the map to play in is Greece/Anatolia/Levant because things happen there. Be it the fight for the Balkans cities between Venezia, Hungary, Bulgaria; the Bulgaria/Byzantium conflict, the rise of the Ottomas, the problems with Arabia, etc. The Seljuqs used to be frightening and to literally reduce the Byzantines to a few cities around the greek sea. Another part I like is the Iberian peninsula which can be a lot of fun.

Elsewhere... not much is going on.

TL;DR: I think RFCE has already fallen prey to predictability and that some parts of a game plays always the same, no matter what. I say, strict historicity is bad for appealing gameplay. Sadly, I don't have an answer about how to change that...

 

[ezzlar]

Indies are very passive, Barbs are more aggressive and overall tougher to beat. Indy Scotland would be easier to capture.

Barbs zerg your well fortified troops and die. They have ten percent combat penalty and most die tothe free barb wins.

 

[3Miro]

Relatedly, I noticed (several revisions ago) that the turns left for completing the current research are off, I guess because they are modified in python at some point. Could this be fixed sometime down the road? It's a bit confusing.

They shouldn't be more than one turn off. The formula for research is quite a bit complicated as it involves modification on the research depending on the historic date for the tech, but the accuracy shouldn't be more than a turn off.

Is it consistently one turn more or one turn less, if so, it is easy to fix. If it varies, then we may have to live with it as it is due to rounding in the formula.

 

[3Miro]

Barbs zerg your well fortified troops and die. They have ten percent combat penalty and most die tothe free barb wins.

You mean the spawning Barbarians or the Indies. The spawning ones can only be Barbarians since you can be at peace with Indies and then they will not attack at all.

The Highlanders should pillage improvements more than attack the cities.

 

[Caliom]

Indies are very passive, Barbs are more aggressive and overall tougher to beat. Indy Scotland would be easier to capture.

I once opened the worldbuilder and saw all barbarian cities
building culture. I checked it some turns later, they tried to build culture for the whole game. They are somehow prevented from enlarging the city radius but they try it anyway.

When the barbs would build units instead they'd be overall stronger and could maybe get an hold in Anatolia. (Usually Byzanz recaptures their lost cities quite fast).

See, I'm a proponent of alt-historicity so I'd like things like those to happen sometimes. I already sait it multiple times but, what is the point of trying to always stick to history? I get it that some people are rather vocal about the fact that everything must happen like it did in RL but I'm pretty sure others enjoy seeing how 'their' world evolved differently in this instance.

I barely see civs collapsing currently, even Cordoba lasts a long time when it had the habit of being killed off by the Spanish very soon. The only civs I ever see fall now are Kiev (but then again they seem to do better now against the mongols) and the Arabs, who always fall at some point and come back at another. Usually the French control Jerusalem (maybe that's why the arabs fall).

Don't get me wrong, RFCE is one of my fav mods but it has already fallen into predictability. Some impredictability is lacking, IMO. The best part of the map to play in is Greece/Anatolia/Levant because things happen there. Be it the fight for the Balkans cities between Venezia, Hungary, Bulgaria; the Bulgaria/Byzantium conflict, the rise of the Ottomas, the problems with Arabia, etc. The Seljuqs used to be frightening and to literally reduce the Byzantines to a few cities around the greek sea. Another part I like is the Iberian peninsula which can be a lot of fun.

Elsewhere... not much is going on.

I hink the reason why Greece/Anatolia/Levant is the place "where things happen" is because there are the only civs that declare war on each other - aside from those wars that are scripted.
England never declares war on France after their first daclaration of war upon spawning. France never declares war on Germany or Spain or i think even Burgundy as long as those nations are controled by the AI. In general i would say i have never seen any catholic nation declaring war against another catholic nation. Maybe that has changed recently but that was my impression two month ago.

I tried to make the AI more agressive by editing some xml files, and i think i improved the situation a bit. Maybe someone knows more about this xml stuff than i do.
Here are my thoughts on this i wrote two month ago:

Spoiler :

I played around with the LeaderHeadInfos.xml. I set both iSameReligionAttitudeChange and iSameReligionAttitudeChangeLimit to zero, so that nobody gets any diplomacy boost for sharing the same religion. The penalty for having another religion still applies, but it is small (-1 or -2) most of the time. I hoped that this would lead to more battles among the catholic nations, as someone already sugested in this forum. But i didnt see much of a difference. Most nations still had pleased or even friendly diplomacy status. "Open borders" often gives +2, and another +1 from "years of peace". That makes +3 and that is often enough to get a pleased status. At least between AI palyers.
I would have liked to change the tresholds for the different diplomatic status but i didnt find out how to do that. They seem to be different for each civilization. I know that there are some hidden modifieres in RFCEBalance.py but i think there are more that i dont know of. Is someone familiar with this kind of settings?

Then i found these settings in LeaderHeadInfos.xml

<NoWarAttitudeProbs>
	<NoWarAttitudeProb>
		<AttitudeType>ATTITUDE_ANNOYED</AttitudeType>
		<iNoWarProb>10</iNoWarProb>
	</NoWarAttitudeProb>
	<NoWarAttitudeProb>
		<AttitudeType>ATTITUDE_CAUTIOUS</AttitudeType>
		<iNoWarProb>60</iNoWarProb>
	</NoWarAttitudeProb>
	<NoWarAttitudeProb>
		<AttitudeType>ATTITUDE_PLEASED</AttitudeType>
		<iNoWarProb>90</iNoWarProb>
	</NoWarAttitudeProb>
	<NoWarAttitudeProb>
		<AttitudeType>ATTITUDE_FRIENDLY</AttitudeType>
		<iNoWarProb>100</iNoWarProb>
	</NoWarAttitudeProb>
</NoWarAttitudeProbs>

They seemed to high to me. Although they are the same as in standard bts.
I lowered these values by 20 points for each leader (except for ATTITUDE_FRIENDLY) and it worked. There is a lot more war going on in europe. At least declarations of war, the a AI is still very bad at attacking cities, but its more fun now. I also saw the AI ganging up against others, especially me
I changed some other values too, but i dont know exactly which one. I think it was iMaxWarRand and iDogpileWarRand but it is impossible to track the impacts of every little change.

I also lowerd the MemoryDecays values to make the AI forget about past events faster, and added entries for MEMORY_DECLARED_WAR, MEMORY_DECLARED_WAR_ON_FRIEND, MEMORY_RAZED_CITY to make the AI forget about such things too. (as suggested in this thread)

I dont know what are good numbers for these settings but i see greater potential here.

 

[El Bogus]

How can i overtake the crusade by financial power? And how can I know if anyone has more money than me?
(And maybe we can open a RFCE Questions thread...)

 

[rock_star]

How can i overtake the crusade by financial power? And how can I know if anyone has more money than me?
(And maybe we can open a RFCE Questions thread...)

I still haven't played a capital civ, so I don't know the answer to the first question. However, to deduce your rival's treasuries, I'm sure you've realized by now, the diplomacy screens are often off in relating how much gold the civ has. The only exact way I know of is opening world builder, and clicking on "Enter city mode". From there choose a civ and double click on any city, and you'll see the contents of their treasury. If worldbuilder feels like cheating to you, the best non-cheating way is to open the Espionage screen and see how many points it would take to steal an AI's treasury. If it's astronomical (I once had 101,000 points for a gold heist against Genoa), then you'll know they're loaded. I don't know of any formula do deduce how much gold a civ has based on spy points, though, at least beyond the obvious (if it's alot of points, they have alot of gold).

Always assume Venice and Genoa have money. I've often seen Spain take financial control of crusades, so they are also prime hoarding suspects. In my Byz game, I failed my last UHV, so I entered worldbuilder and discovered Izzy had 66,000 gold in her purse. Fortunately I save games during my golden age in case of FUBAR, so I went back and collapsed her and won.

 

[Opera]

I hink the reason why Greece/Anatolia/Levant is the place "where things happen" is because there are the only civs that declare war on each other - aside from those wars that are scripted.
England never declares war on France after their first daclaration of war upon spawning. France never declares war on Germany or Spain or i think even Burgundy as long as those nations are controled by the AI. In general i would say i have never seen any catholic nation declaring war against another catholic nation. Maybe that has changed recently but that was my impression two month ago.

Maybe this is related to the faith power of christianity? They already all share the same religion but they also get bonuses diplo points towards those sharing the same religion.

If I'm right, most wars in europe were due to territorial claims and other stuff like royal marriages and all. Even though they shared the same religion, they still fought each other. Frankly, the power of christianity could simply be: "the more faithful you are, the more the Pope favors you" (hopefully it isn't this already, else I'll look like a fool!).

Then since there's even more room than in RFC, borders tension points could be doubled once more. That and maybe some more dramatic changes if you trade with someone's worst enemy, if you refuse to go to war with a Pleased+ civ, etc.

Then the other arcane is to get the AI to actually attack

I tried to make the AI more agressive by editing some xml files, and i think i improved the situation a bit. Maybe someone knows more about this xml stuff than i do.
Here are my thoughts on this i wrote two month ago:

You were on good tracks yeah. This is quite some work though... the LeaderHeadInfos file is so big

 

[3Miro]

- To get financial control over a Crusade you must be the richest Catholic. You cannot control the fist Crusade and you cannot have two consecutive Crusades taken over.

- Only Catholics gain small boost to diplomacy based on the Faith. It shouldn't prevent too many wars. The West should be relatively peaceful until the Reformation.

- Note that Orthodox and Catholics don't like each other after 1053AD.

 

[Opera]

- Only Catholics gain small boost to diplomacy based on the Faith. It shouldn't prevent too many wars. The West should be relatively peaceful until the Reformation.

Why? Like there was no wars before the Reformation?

- Note that Orthodox and Catholics don't like each other after 1053AD.

That doesn't matter. The Orthodox are out of the West and in the part we actually said was okay, war-wise. Byzantium and Bulgaria, the two most prominent Orthodox countries, are at war or annoyed most of the time... It's barely ever the case in Western Europe.

 

[El Bogus]

I still haven't played a capital civ, so I don't know the answer to the first question. However, to deduce your rival's treasuries, I'm sure you've realized by now, the diplomacy screens are often off in relating how much gold the civ has. The only exact way I know of is opening world builder, and clicking on "Enter city mode". From there choose a civ and double click on any city, and you'll see the contents of their treasury. If worldbuilder feels like cheating to you, the best non-cheating way is to open the Espionage screen and see how many points it would take to steal an AI's treasury..

I tried the WB option before posting... it said every city had 308g. Every city of every Civ, even mine. Maybe i will try this later again.
However the diplomacy screen is a smooth option! Thx for the advice.

- To get financial control over a Crusade you must be the richest Catholic.

I thought so.