RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

[Chep]

you should

too bad the development for this mod is paused (@ all new to RFC:E both the regular and the SVN-version are fully playable and bugfree and give you a lot of fun, promised).

I hope that there's a lot of good stuff going on in the developers lives and that they (nevertheless) will be back soon, to give us even more awesomeness.

Untill then: Thank you for this great mod, by far my favourite.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Thanks!
The really annoying thing is that I have a huge amount of half-finished things already implemented in the WIP version, but recently I can't seem to find the time to finish them

 

[gilgames]

I agree with chep and understand absint too. many good game does not have the time tp become more better

but a small secret is: do only 1 thing at once....

 

[archcapitalist]

im almost done with a sweden game. that last goal is great.

the bad thing is that essentially, its the only goal. the first goal accomplishes itself with flips and the starting settler. the second is passive and doesnt influence gameplay. there has to be something else sweden can do while conquering.

the other thing is that the last goal is exploitable. you could just do about half of the conquering and then settler spam those territories on the last turn

that said, ive been having a blast playing it the way that it was intended. my first effort was abandoned after my stability cratered. my second try included conquering denmark early, for the extra stability buildings and it looks like i will make it. conquered norway and denmark with starting troops while building infrastructure in my core. switched them to troops around 1590, took six cities from germany, made peace, then 4 from lithuania. there are three more lithuanian cities i can take in the target area. the last two will be tough to do honestly as moscow is strong and has been my ally since the start. (and now has a long border with my new cities that will be tough to defend. i'll probably wait till as close to the deadline as possible to take st petersburg and one other city.

overall, nice game. nice to have a uhv in which stability is an issue.

 

[ezzlar]

Had my first game as Moscow. At first the Boyar seemed to be a meh knight but then I discovered it gets defensive bonuses and can fortify. Is that really intended?

 

[gilgames]

if you can take denmark too with starting units, then you are lucky, and got a week kalmar union. back in my sweeden game, i barley could take the must have territory for uhv1. but later its not a problem, sweeden is a powerhouse still 2. uhv could be something constructive!?

If you do the first 100 years properly, Moscow is unstoppable

 

[Chep]

I never like the lategame since my laptop is too weak, so I can't really weigh in on the Sweden issue. In my only game I had no trouble conquering the UHV1-area in the first few turns after the spawn.
however it might get really tough if they bring in Germany with their hundreds of highly experienced units...

concerning Moscow:
possible historical reasons aside, I think the intention is to give Moscows player a good way to defend against technologically advanced civs like the Ottomans or maybe Hungary/Poland...
still, I think they're not that useful, but don't have any real ideas for alternatives.
I don't think Moscow needs a stronger unit, their only potential problem as a civ are the barbarian Keshiks at the beginning of the game.

 

[archcapitalist]

if you can take denmark too with starting units, then you are lucky, and got a week kalmar union. back in my sweeden game, i barley could take the must have territory for uhv1. but later its not a problem, sweeden is a powerhouse still 2. uhv could be something constructive!?

guess so. not sure what happened before i started and wasnt watching denmark careully during the replay. although im fairly certain theyd been at war with germany. because germany took one of the cities in denmark proper before i could.

 

[velosipederast]

Finished a Hungary game, initially I thought I wouldn't achieve The Black Army UHV because I did not notice that it said to control most territories in Europe so I thought I should compete against the Byzantines with their large empire. However, when I won I felt sorry that I played on Monarch as it was just too easy. The strategy: initially, I had only 6 cities including the one in Transylvania that always joins. Stayed like this for a long period of time and made my way through the tech tree almost straightforward to the tech required to build the Golden Bull. Traded a lot of techs with the Pope to compensate. The Cumans weren't a problem and I easily defeated them using my starting units and maybe 2-3 additional spearmen/archers/horse archers. After some time I started gathering an army in order to be prepared for the Austrians (where I did not settle any cities). When they spawned and built Vienna, captured Prague, settled Salzburg and Klagenfurt, I declared war on them and easily defeated them, vassalizing them and leaving them only with Klagenfurt. At that time Belgrade which was Bulgarian declared independence so I immediately went for capturing it. Since my armies were in that region I decided to declare war on Venetia and took Raguxa and Zara. Unfortunately the Venetians captured Austria's Klagenfurt so I had to take that one, too. Since I did not want to overexpand, I left their capital intact and went for the peace treaty. In the beginning they were not willing to capitulate but it was fine for me. Luckily, two turns later they proposed to become a vassal state which was good enough because of the proximity of my cities to Venezia (you know that when a nation is your vassal you get the work squares around your cities no matter the culture of the vassal). After that I did not know what to do since the Ottomans have already spawned but did not manage to take over the Balkans, the Byzantines crimped them and vassalized them with Sogut and Bendirma. I was hoping the Byzantine Empire would collapse (since I thought I needed to be the largest civ) but it did not happen so I attacked Bulgaria and left them vassalized with only one city which was outside my OK area. I was still second in terms of land area but suddenly I won. I then realized the victory condition so there was little to do except to get the most territory just for fun. This is the result at the end of turn 500:
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/9160/ftmk.jpg
The Byzantines had declared war upon me and after I captured almost simultaneously 5 of their cities including Constantinople, they collapsed. Since Turkey captured a large portion of the newly independent cities, they collapsed as well.
Btw, the Portuguese managed to achieve all UHVs which I observe for the first time. Also, as you can see they are exceptionally strong and hold most of the Iberian peninsula, even 'outculturing' Spanish cities.

On the other hand, I tried playing as the Bulgarians and I think it is way too hard, impossible. Constantinople does not fall easily even with only two archers inside and the river between the Constantinople tile and the Balkans gone. If that was the only Byz city to conquer, it may have been balanced but you already lose enough time healing your units upon conquering Thessaloniki and Hadrianopolis. On the other hand you have to spam settlers to capture Macedonia, Arberia and Serbia, while successfully defending against barbs that spawn ridiculously often on not obscured by fog of war tiles. Yes, they are easy to defeat but since they always destroy improvements around cities it is a lost battle of cat and mice where you have to play the cat. I think the initial troops are far too less than should be.

 

[Chep]

Hungary is one of my favourite civs. Rich lands, good timeframe. Lots of action. Great UU/UB.
Bulgaria is tough, you really need to get a good start (possibly get 1-2 suicide-cats for Constantinople) and even then...
Apparently you have to expand a lot, so that you can get the 100 faith points mostly via building state religion buildings (I think I only went up to 8 or 10 cities).

Kiev is really enjoyable and possibly demanding (if you go for the food challenge). Spain is awesome (rather easy but you get such a powerful empire and basically rule Europe for a few centuries)...
The later civs (Ottomans and after that) usually suffer from strong and huge armies by the existing neighbours but most seem pretty doable.

 

[velosipederast]

In the latest version Byzantium is a pain in the ass, I know they should have the bonus not to collapse but it is getting annoying when other civs UHVs cannot be fullfilled because of Byzantium and I am writing about Cordoba here. Constantinople simply beats the hell out of the first UHV... Granary, harbour and smokehouse are present and they need 7 turns to expand from 12 to 13 while Cordoba struggles with unhappiness in most cases and needs 20 turns to expand from 12 to 13.

 

[Oregon Lee]

Arabia's stability really needs to be taken down. They had all (literally every settleable location) in Africa and they were keeping the Ottomans from going into Syria. They vassalized Genoa. The year is about 1610.

Hungary's UB should be tweaked. Their damage to units near them makes it so the AI stays there trying to heal indefinately. This is a known problem with anything that does that. Taking that away, it makes it so the AI can actually fight Hungary without losing atrociously.

Burgundy should be given more stability in France if they defeat them, so there isn't a hole in the colonization race. Currently, if they win against France and Germany and become superpowerful but stay relatively dormant and unstable having the lower tier of score.

Several civilizations should be given the Cross as their symbol, just like Genoa. In my game I have Denmark its red civilization color that matches their current flag, along with the cross.

A lot of wonders should require a specific branch of religion. It is too easy for once civilization to get almost every wonder. For instance, the Renaissance wonders should require Catholicism. That would also make it worth sticking with Catholicism for a little longer.

The ottomans should focus more on the Middle East first instead of rushing into Europe making enemies.

Portugal has not settled the Azore islands in my game. Spain has though.

Islam and Orthodox needs to stop spreading in Scandinavia. Especially islam.

 

[The Southerner]

Hear, hear! All very good points.

Top game this one - love it. Thanks to those that made it.

 

[Oregon Lee]

I found that by tweaking some war maps and spawn sizes, I can make some civilizations do better. For instance, Burgundy with a larger war map becomes as powerful as France if France loses a war. Spain does better in colonization and world affairs if it is allowed to war into South Italy and France and Britain. Russia should expand as far as it can west. Austria should flip a little bit more of Hungary and Germany. Germany should have a huge war map. Spain should have less focus on warring Portugal. Arabs should flip Egypt (this will make them take all of Africa) -- to counter this, Ottomans should flip most of Turkey. This will create a more interesting, dynamic, and accurate depiction.

The Cordobans should collapse easier, as they often are pushed off of Spain and become a vassal in Morrocco; never turning into Tunis.

 

[rob-art1985]

the french 2nd UHV sometimes can be impossible. In my game, I always was been chosen to lead the crusade. I captured Jerusalem 5 or 6 times. But every time, after a few turns, the arab rebells increased and flipped Jerusalem into an independent country.
In the end, Jerusalem flipped again in 1287. No way to take it back in 2 turns. So maybe the 2nd UHV should be something like: "hold Jerusalem for at least 20 turns until 1297"

 

[Swarbs]

the french 2nd UHV sometimes can be impossible. In my game, I always was been chosen to lead the crusade. I captured Jerusalem 5 or 6 times. But every time, after a few turns, the arab rebells increased and flipped Jerusalem into an independent country.
In the end, Jerusalem flipped again in 1287. No way to take it back in 2 turns. So maybe the 2nd UHV should be something like: "hold Jerusalem for at least 20 turns until 1297"

This is an issue which has been raised before. The only way to reliably win this UHV is to capture Jerusalem with the first few crusades, then move all your units out of it bar one, leaving the others on a hill two or three squares away. It will rebel, but you will still have a large army nearby.

Keep doing this and stacking up more units by leading more crusades, so you get a big army in the Levant. You can use this to take a non rebelling city nearby like Alexandria if you want. Then in 1289 use this army to take Jerusalem, and win the UHV.

It's a bit spammy, but it's the only way to be sure of winning it at the moment. I think the devs wanted to change the mechanics of the rebellions to stop this, but updates seem to have dried up in the last year or so.

 

[rob-art1985]

Okay, thanks. For sure, it's a bit of expoit, but it works

next one:
In my opinion the ressources in Great Britain and Ireland are misplaced, you need 4 cities to get all the ressources in Ireland. But Belfast wouldn't be necessary. Furthermore you won't settle on rivers, while France, Germany and most other civs have no problem to do so. The crab 6 of the Isle of man is out of reach because of presettled York and Edinburgh. The only way to work this tile is to found on the Isle of men or 2 tiles west of York. But it's useless because of the increasing tech costs.

On the other hand I tried to win by UHV with England, but France is way to mighty! They have an huge horde of knights, bombards and other stuff near Paris. No way to capture it and force them to collapse.

 

[Spirictum]

I would love to help RFCE too, but my time now is minimum, and my primary project is based on LoR (my secondary objective is to finish college, which should be the primary one but... well in most things it sucks).

I hope we can see RFCE shining again soon

 

[gilgames]

I cant belive!!! almost a year and nothing happend.....

 

[AbsintheRed]

What do you guys think about some further city attack penalties for mounted units?
It feels a little wrong to see almost all-cavalry armies do the heavy lifting in most conquests.

Currently a longbowman defending a city without any defence buildings has less than 50% odds against an attacking knight.
We can add city attack penalty, or even negative modifiers to general city strength (both attack and defence)