RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

[Chep]

The Arabs took Alexandria and Cyrene in my Cordoba Emperor game. [...] There's also a nice balance between going for growth and tech for the first two UHVs and fending off repeated attacks by Spain, which usually has superior military tech. Mercs are quite crucial, particularly bringing the Tuaregs and Zanji spearmen over from Tanjah.

Maybe it is due to the Emperor level but yeah in my last 2 games (Cordoba&Spain) the Arabs conquered Alexandria and expanded (albeit slowly).

When dealing with Spain I found this usually helped (also is the case for other civs that start at war with you):
wait 2-4 turns and then use Skirmishers/Horse Archers/Berber Cavallry to capture their workers mining the Iron and pasturing the Sheep.
They will make peace with you and not having a single worker should keep them back for a few turns.
this gives you 10-20 turns to prepare for your assault. you still might have to go with Berbers vs armored lancers if you're unlucky but still, I managed to take Pamplona and their other city east of Leon.
Then again you might make peace or just wait for their counterattack, but they should be rather easily dealt with.

Portugal...yeah, their Knights of Avis are quite formidable city defenders but on the offence you don't have to fear them and they usually go down in my games between 1200 and 1250 (no matter whether I'm playing Spain or Cordoba).

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Does the AI get some sort of constructing bonus on Emperor? Because it manages to grab quite a few wonders from me, even when I have a headstart in producing them.

 

[DC123456789]

Also, Moskva (the plot which Moscovy spawns on) should be in the Moscow province, not Murom.

 

[Swarbs]

In my game, the Arabs finally took Alexandreia near the Ottoman spawn and just blitzed all the way to Morroco. Great, except a few centuries too late.

In my Venice Emperor game they got Alexandria around 1000-1100AD, went all the way to Algiers, and also made it as far as Tarsus, Sinop and the city west of there, helped a bit by me grabbing Constantinople then all Byzantium's European territory. I then vassalised the Byzantines and Ottomans, and around 1400AD had a massive all out war with the Arabs, with me defending Turkish Sogut against a death stack of around 50 knights and ghazis with bombards. Was a whole lot of epic, and big relief when that stack went down!

One thing I've noticed in my current Byzantium game is that mercs seem to be spawning then leaving on the same turn. I regularly get the "new mercs available" message, followed straight away by the "mercs left" message. Is that a function of the fact that I already had a huge army of mercs, having taken every Varangian, Tagmata and Medjay I was offered?

 

[AbsintheRed]

Thanks for the feedback, from everyone
I'm not at home until the weekend, but will be back with updates in a couple days!

 

[gilgames]

i am playing now a Byz game with svn1084, its aint bad, now, its the first peacefull time in 13. century. till now my life was constant fight againt barbs and arabs (i killed them 3 times). I am 1-2 tech behind the rest of europe :S but will take the lead in 100 years..... now it seems to me balanced till now....

 

[Swarbs]

i am playing now a Byz game with svn1084, its aint bad, now, its the first peacefull time in 13. century. till now my life was constant fight againt barbs and arabs (i killed them 3 times). I am 1-2 tech behind the rest of europe :S but will take the lead in 100 years..... now it seems to me balanced till now....

Actually I now find Byzantium a bit too peaceful in the late game. Now the Sassanids and Slavs are toned down a bit you don't get lots of cities razed in the first 200 years, so you can build up quite a lot of infrastructure quite quickly. So when the Seljuks and Mongols arrive you can crush them with your Cataphracts and Knights whilst all border cities are easily protected by castles.

In my last Emperor game I found myself only devoting 30-40% of my effort to keeping the Seljuks and Mongols under wraps, and had plenty of spare time and build to kill the Bulgarians and the Arabs in the Levant, conquer / colonise the Balkans right up to the Carpathians, retake southern Italy and Sicily, and form a new Exarchate of Africa by vassalising the remnants of the Arabs who held Cyrenacia and Libya and Cordoba after Spain had kicked them out of Iberia. I also vassalised the Genoans, extending Byzantine power to north Italy.

Justinian would have been so proud

 

[DC123456789]

No, you would have had to defeat France to do that.

 

[gilgames]

is it only my idea to build an emipre peacefully? only i do love peacfull expanding??? or i am initialy wrong with this idea?

 

[DC123456789]

No, I do too. Sometimes to the point where I neglect my military a bit too much.

 

[Swarbs]

No, you would have had to defeat France to do that.

Or conquer Rome. Tho' with Naples and Palermo in my control and Genoa holding western Italy I did have Rome pretty much surrounded.

Interesting you mentioned France - they controlled Corsica and Florence for the first time ever (in my experience), so there was a real split between Franks and Byzantines around Italy.

is it only my idea to build an emipre peacefully? only i do love peacfull expanding??? or i am initialy wrong with this idea?

I prefer peaceful expansion too - most of my expansion as Byzantium was founding nine or ten new cities in the Balkans, Egypt, Cyprus and Anatolia, and retaking the ones the Arabs took on spawn. The only cities I actively conquered were Damascus, Naples, Palermo and the Bulgarian capital (which was after the barbs captured it and collapsed the Bulgarians). And of those I only took Naples and Palermo as I was bored waiting to turn my gold slider up to 100% five turns before the UHV

 

[gilgames]

so you colored your gamereport red(bloody)?

 

[AbsintheRed]

The Byzantine third UHV could be something more interesting, I agree
Any ideas?

 

[gilgames]

I aint so familiar with the byz late history...defending Istambul doesnt sound good or challanging either....it could be something "they planed to do..." thing. maybe restore the Roman empire, could be a source of ideas, like do some part of it or donno...

 

[Chep]

yeah, a "go out and expand/conquer"-UHV might be good, since all they do is fighting anyway

while "build wonder X" would be the most obvious choice (to get some diversity), I think expanding might be the way to go.

Reconquer Italy. Or Arabia&Egypt. Or settle around the black sea (i.e. controll all provinces there).
Or, to shake things up a little, ask them to research some tech before everyone else. That would mean less expansion, less focus on military...

 

[ezzlar]

Edit:

UHV 1: The Glorious City. Largest city and most culture in 950 AD or Settle 3 great persons in Constantiople in 1000 AD
UHV 2: The Eastern Roman Empire. Capture all the province in the old UHV2 but add all the provinces around the Black Sea in 1242 AD.
UHV 3: The Enligthened Civilization. Be first to discover Renaissance Art or build Bibliotheque Corvinius

Would force you to deal with Bulgarians, maybe Kievan Rus and the Mongols. Would also deter some overexpansion since you need the tech.

 

[gilgames]

ezzlar, sounds good

but idk why black sea! whats the reason for it? Italy sounds better, like take italy AND ROME too DD
Renessaince art aint bad, but i'll chech the tech tree for a better fitting one

 

[AbsintheRed]

Edit:

UHV 1: The Glorious City. Largest city and most culture in 950 AD or Settle 3 great persons in Constantiople in 1000 AD
UHV 2: The Eastern Roman Empire. Capture all the province in the old UHV2 but add all the provinces around the Black Sea in 1242 AD.
UHV 3: The Enligthened Civilization. Be first to discover Renaissance Art or build Bibliotheque Corvinius

Would force you to deal with Bulgarians, maybe Kievan Rus and the Mongols. Would also deter some overexpansion since you need the tech.

I like the idea of expanding the second UHV for an Eastern Roman Empire
But that would mean two ahistorical UHVs for Byzantium

 

[Chep]

I'm not quite convinced about the "new" 2nd UHV. So far I always felt UHV2 was okay (1 was easy but still made you build at least some culture buildings in Constantinople).
Increasing UHV 2 by this much would seriously increase Byzantiums difficulty level.

It was always only after UHV2 that Byzantium got too boring (in my opinion) because all you have after that is the Ottomans a good 100 years later, then another 100 years just clicking "next turn".

"Be the most advanced Civ by year X" or the already suggested "research tech/build wonder" seem okay to change that.
but if you're forced to build 5-6 more cities, that you just have to give away the turn after fulfilling the UHV (either another civ or let them be overrun by mongols) to decrease your research penalty, that doesn't really feel "right" to me.

I think my favourite 3rd UHV would be:
"Start rebuilding the Roman Empire: Conquer <UHV2-provinces> + Greece, Italy (including Venice, Genoa and Palermo)" plus a few other provinces. (black sea, northern Africa, something like that)

 

[ezzlar]

Yeah, I know. Thats the weak part of the UHVs. You would probably gift away the cities near the Mongolian spawn. The idea was otherwise:

1. Deal with barbs and plague
2. Deal with Bulgarians and Arabs
3. Force Constantinople to focus on other than military (UHV1)
4. Expand around the Black Sea (UHV2)
5. Deal with Kievans and Seljuks
6. Stall the Mongolians
7. Survive Ottoman spawn
8. Win (UHV3)

There would be no 100-200 years of pressing enter here was my idea.

 

[Chep]

but expansion right before the Mongols seems...like a bad idea. There is no time to get up some walls in the new cities, so they'll be overrun (unless you defend them with lots of knights) anyway. The UHV-date of 1250 helps here as most of the Mongols appear after that...

But if there is a reseach-goal after an expansion-goal for Byzantium it always means giving up some of the weaker cities to hasten your research.

And expanding around the Black Sea before 1300 means you probably have to fight one of the weakest civs in the game (Kiev) and you'll increase the difficulty level for Moscow.
A human Kiev-player will probably get one or two declarations of war from Byzantium, which could just take the fun of their game completely (since they usually vassalize Bulgaria).

Thats why I feel a new 3rd UHV that is conquest-based would be better than increasing UHV2s difficulty.

In your suggested game, I'd just settle all the "black sea"-provinces the turn before the time limit, then gift them away (Bulgaria, Kiev, France, Genoa). And then it's again "next turn, next turn" untill the tech is researched. I might even try to get 1-2 GEs to rushbuild the wonder, just in case.