RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

Opened WB and checked everybody out. Sedna's changes have made a huge difference to the Indies. In fact there's very few of them left outside of Russia and Italy....

Have we gone too far, folks? Have the indies gone from dangers to doormats? :lol:

That's quite possible. Are there specific indies you would rather not fall by 1000 AD? I thought of felt like a lot of them in the west should be captured by that time. Individual ones can be propped up with better starting defenders I think.
 
Just noticed something.

When in the civic Common Law, we get a unhappy citizen with each military unit. But, that wouyld include foreign units that you cant control. I guess I could close my open border agreement, but the trade is helpful.

Was this an intended feature?
 
That's quite possible. Are there specific indies you would rather not fall by 1000 AD? I thought of felt like a lot of them in the west should be captured by that time. Individual ones can be propped up with better starting defenders I think.

I guess it's pretty balanced now. Though seeing the Norse venturing so far to raze Lubeck and capture Prague was a surprise. Same with Venice razing Milan, Florence and capturing Beograd. Maybe an extra axeman or two might help some of them last a bit longer.
 
Just noticed something.

When in the civic Common Law, we get a unhappy citizen with each military unit. But, that wouyld include foreign units that you cant control. I guess I could close my open border agreement, but the trade is helpful.

Was this an intended feature?

It's the same way for regular Civ 4's Hereditary Rule, too. If we wish to change it, someone has to do a little coding and playtesting. However, I don't know if it's such a big issue for foreign military units to give happiness too. After all, they're going to leave your city in a couple of turns anyway.
 
Just noticed something.

When in the civic Common Law, we get a unhappy citizen with each military unit. But, that wouyld include foreign units that you cant control. I guess I could close my open border agreement, but the trade is helpful.

Was this an intended feature?

Really?:lol: Actually, you could use it in your side, building hordes of units and settling them in civs with common law... The result would be fun;)
 
It's the same way for regular Civ 4's Hereditary Rule, too. If we wish to change it, someone has to do a little coding and playtesting. However, I don't know if it's such a big issue for foreign military units to give happiness too. After all, they're going to leave your city in a couple of turns anyway.

Playing as Venice, i had conquered Genoa and was building up that city as a research powerhouse.

Of course the Spanish has put 10 units there causing great unrest among the citizenry. So the Doge announced all Spanish people persona non grata, and solved the issue!
 
Currently playing as Arabs. Built Dimashq and Petra, and captured Homs, as well as the flipped cities. Then peace.
Until 800 AD I built some infrastructure (and Gime in Cyprus-Aqaba in South Israel) and then second DoW on Byzantines. After a difficult siege, after around 100 years (OK I didn't give attention to it) Antakya fell. Some questions:
1) What does the first UHV mean? All tiles in the area, every city in these areas, or a certain number of cities?
2) Same for the third UHV. What means ''all Africa east of Oran''? All tiles, a continuous line of cultural influence, every city, or what???
 
Currently playing as Arabs. Built Dimashq and Petra, and captured Homs, as well as the flipped cities. Then peace.
Until 800 AD I built some infrastructure (and Gime in Cyprus-Aqaba in South Israel) and then second DoW on Byzantines. After a difficult siege, after around 100 years (OK I didn't give attention to it) Antakya fell. Some questions:
1) What does the first UHV mean? All tiles in the area, every city in these areas, or a certain number of cities?
2) Same for the third UHV. What means ''all Africa east of Oran''? All tiles, a continuous line of cultural influence, every city, or what???

For the first UHV, if you've already got Antakya and Homs then all you need now is to control Egypt (have the only city there).
Spreading Islam to 25% of the world is harder. You're best to capture as many Byzantine cities as you can and build them up in pop. ASAP. They convert to Islam automatically but you must use the prosecuter to wipe out all other religions in every one of your cities to have any chance. But it can be done. See my signature.

The third UHV is easy. 1700AD is a long way off. (Should be 1500 IMO). Just capture the indies and build them up in pop. You don't have to have cultural control of the whole coastline. Just make sure neither Cordoba or anybody else founds a city east of Tangier.
A pretty easy UHV as long as you get the 25% as soon as possible.:)
 
I'm getting the crash on late-spawning civ loads too. Tried starting a game as the Dutch, and it crashed to desktop sometime after turn 280 (the last autosave). I'm attaching a .rar file with the last several turns of autosaves - my assumption is that there's just too much stuff for it to keep track of.


Also, we may want to tone down the Mongol invasion just a bit. I started a game as the Ottomans earlier today to check for progress, and counted 118 barbarian keshiks on the map. Kiev and Bulgaria had collapsed, and Moscow was clearly on its way.
 

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As far as I can tell these crashes are simply generic late-game "too much stuff" crashes. Perhaps 3Miro will be able to investigate at some point.

In the meantime, we can certainly focus on the earlier game. One thing (among many) that I'm concerned about right now is getting an effective "reboot" approaching 1000 AD. As I understand from my reading, the break-up of the Carolignian empire about this time was seen as sort of cataclysmic event. The external pressures of the Norse, Magyars, Islamic attackers from the south is something we do not capture well in this mod. I would love a plague, but I guess there isn't an appropriate one.

Keeping the number of civs as low as possible is currently critical to good performance. I realize this line of thought goes counter to the philosophy already articulated of making collapse rare and secession common, but...

For instance, I would be fine with France normally wiping out Burgundy early on. An over-extended Frankish empire collapsing would then be appropriate with both civs respawing later. Bulgaria could collapse as well, marking the end of the first empire.

Even if we don't induce collapse, the external attacks of this period would elsewhere modeled as barbarian uprisings. The problem is, we have the Vikings and Magyars as civs, and their rise isn't directly on top of other civs. With the current setup and the AI we're simply not going to get many Viking raids, and there's no way the Hungarians will wreck havoc across Europe.

One option is to increase the destruction wrought by these two civs by throwing in some barbs at the appropriate time. So we could make some extra (barbarian) Viking raiding parties appear off coasts, and some horse-raiders appear on the eastern edge of France and the West edge of Bulgaria.

On another topic, having just played a lengthy test game as Burgundy, I will take a look at any useful modifications to the early tech tree and increasing the number of things for cities to do. Partly, Dijon is ridiculously productive, and neither health nor happiness is an effective constraint, so of course this city ends up without enough things to build.
 
Playing as France on viceroy, a couple of notes:
1) Consider requiring Gothic Architecture for Notre Dame and Renaissance Art for the Sistine Chapel.
2) Germany is covering it's geographic area well, but with only four cities.
3) In 1440. (turn 280, last autosave when the game crashed), Austria and Turkey are totally turtled. Austria has four cities, all within 4 tiles of Vienna, and is my vassal, Turkey has a couple more, but they're small and backward. It's a vassal of Arabia. Perhaps Bursa or Adrianople should flip?
4) Byzantium is middling, and, for the first time since I've played, Bulgaria is not kicking ass.
5) The Norse and England are doing well, England has settled all of Britain, the Norse have Pomerania, Denmark, southern Norway and Sweden, and (drumroll) Augsburg. I was about to destroy Germany.
6) Genoa capitulated after I destroyed Burgundy, and is matching me tech for tech with Milan, Florence, Genoa and Rome.
7) Venice is doing okay, it beat me to the Topkapi palace (built in Trieste, it's settling the Adriartic much better now).
8) I think Moscow spawns a little early
9) Portugal is completely controlled by a rather dumb Isabella, who has about 2/3 of Iberia.
10) Some Genoese cities that I captured and returned are middle-eastern looking.
 

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1) Good point, these wonders are too early
3) This crash seems to be remarkably consistent, maybe it is something specific. Also, Austria really needs a larger spawn/flip area. I'll have to get unlazy and make some real non-rectangular areas for this.
8) I agree. Muscovy starting like 1300 seems more appropriate to me. I'll have to dig through the old thread and see the thinking for 1000 AD.

EDIT: Looks like our ancestors :) thought that Moscovy should start out with the Vladimir-Suzdal Principality, which is reasonable. Even so, a later start date (mid-1100) is appropriate, and I wouldn't have much problem moving them to start after the Mongol invasion.
 
While I'm in brain-dump mode:

-Perhaps Moscow should spawn closely related to the Mongol invasion?
-Might it make sense to require a vassal to build the Topkapi palace (or at least be running vassalage?)
-Given it's UP and UHV, it's highly unlikely that France would collapse based upon conquering Burgundy. Further, I think that would significantly complicate things in a bad way. Perhaps the closest thing to a simulation of some of the greater problems caused would be to make Milan and Bordeaux strong barbarian states, approximating Aquitaine and the Lombardy/Burgundy situation.
 
1) Good point, these wonders are too early
3) This crash seems to be remarkably consistent, maybe it is something specific. Also, Austria really needs a larger spawn/flip area. I'll have to get unlazy and make some real non-rectangular areas for this.
8) I agree. Muscovy starting like 1300 seems more appropriate to me. I'll have to dig through the old thread and see the thinking for 1000 AD.

EDIT: Looks like our ancestors :) thought that Moscovy should start out with the Vladimir-Suzdal Principality, which is reasonable. Even so, a later start date (mid-1100) is appropriate, and I wouldn't have much problem moving them to start after the Mongol invasion.

For enlarging the Austrian flip zone, I'd suggest going NW into Bavaria, out to around Augsburg. If this puts us close to conflict with the German flip zone, we can move that a little further north.

I'm fine with moving Muscovy back until after the Mongols hit. I'd also like to see Kiev re-spawn later in the game.

In the late-spawning games I've played in the last few days, France has frequently held not just Burgundy, but the Netherlands, the Rhineland, Lombardia, Rome, and Barcelona, and has been stable. They don't seem likely to collapse just by taking Burgundian territory.


If we're enlarging or changing flip zones, I'd like to make the following requests:

-Enlarge the Portuguese flip zone so that it extends to the modern borders. It's rare that they end up with more than one good city. I'd also suggest having them spawn with a fairly large defensive army - pikes and crossbows. Strong enough to defend themselves against any post-flip invasion, but with units useless for attacking.
-Extend the Cordoban flip zone one tile over to give them Tangier. The Cordobans are ideally supposed to expand in N. Africa, and I've never seen them do it. We may shrink the flip zone in the north to compensate for this, and make sure they don't start with too many cities.
-Extend the Norse flip zone to Tonsberg, so they've got a foothold on both. Take away one of their settlers to make up for it.


Other observations:
-Both Austria and Hungary are weak - possibly too weak to be viable. There's just not much territory for them, and Hungary builds densely packed cities in an area that should be fairly spread out. I hate to suggest it, but should we consider contracting one of them?
-You're correct in pointing out that Dijon is overpowered. The resources in the area are legitimate, and it was done in part to counterbalance French expansion, but there are too many hammers there. I'll water it down a little in the next update.
 
Just to report a good early UHV victory as the Norse. The key to the 3rd. UHV condition is not an OB with Byzantium. Its settling on the Black Sea. Instead of founding my second city in Sweden, I sent the settler and an axeman by land to found Birka in the Crimea. And yes, they don't flip Tonsberg but they should. After that, getting the other 2 conditions is a breeze if you crank out settlers and archers. Beelined to Optics and won a UHV victory just before 1300AD.

On the points made above. I agree Iberia is unbalanced. Cordoba should flip Tangier and have to capture Valencia and Toledo. Spain is strong enough but Portugal should have a bigger spawn area to the north and flip anything up to but not including La Corunna. Its dumb to see Spain found Braga and keep it after the Portugese spawn.

The 1440 /Turn 280 bug is interesting. I've had it twice. But last time it didn't crash but froze. I could move my cursor but it just stuck at "waiting for other civilizations" forever. I could access the menu but the game just stopped, waiting for the next turn. I've tried replaying it from the autosave 4 turns earlier but it always freezes at turn 280. I've included the saved games below for somebody to look at.

I agree Moscow should spawn a bit later but the problem in that area is Bulgaria. Instead of expanding west as it should it always pushes north and east along the Black Sea. Sort of reverse of what it should do historically. And the city/name map doesn't even cover there so all the names end up as Persian. I think its core area should extend no further than 3 tiles north of its start.

Burgundy is powerful but so is France in my games. Generally they outstrip Burgundy every time and even settle in Iberia, as has been mentioned. The problem of re-spawning is tricky. Do we allow everybody to respawn? Or is that just too ahistorical? I'm not sure how we go with this.

Anyway. Here is the saved game stuck at turn 280 and the last auto-save before it at turn 276..

EDIT There is definitely some happening on or after 1440. This time my game went to 1444 then crashed to desktop. It happened when Spain respawned a 2nd. time within 10 turns. That can't be right. Is this being triggered by the respawns??:confused:
 
Report of my game till 1200AD:
After one funny and one serious invasion pack, Al Iskandaryah fell at 987 AD. First UHV completed. Didn't do much expansion, only built Al-Qahira seaside (From what I know, it is the Arabic name for Cairo, and Cairo is not seaside). At some years, I will prepare a stack to capture Cyrene. Anyway, around 1100 AD, I have suffered a DoW from the Byzantines. Nothing went to plan. My small stacks failed to win a Sword-Archer combo defending, and then they learnt to built Crossbows and Light Cavalries when I came up with a decent stack. Since Antakya was lightly defended, but a stack was at the way, I evacuated it, surrendered it, just to recapture it 12 years later:cool:, and Tarsus after that. Then peace. I also like the barbarian invasion concept-Homs was getting an attack every 3-4 turns (Pikemen are the key) at Viceroy level, so I suppose it is even more challenging at higher levels. They also conquered Cayseri, but Bulgarians (knights:eek:???) beat me to it.Some other questions, since I am kinda dumb:confused::
1) Does spreading islam to 25% for once, and for example making it 22% at 1700 AD, since counts as victory?
2) Is capturing every city east of Alger and Alger itself enough for the third UHV, (EDIT:)or do I have to capture every thing until Tangiers?(END EDIT)

Generic observations:
1) No bug yet what means either the last version is well-worked or I am very careless (and I don't have such opinion for myself)
2) It is strange that the top 5 consists of: Me (normal) Byzantines (the same) Venice (???-maybe we increased tech rate too much??) Frankia (hmmmm, not so odd, since they collapsed Burgundy) and Kievan Rus (:eek:).
3) Spanish powers seem declined. I remember in older versions one or both of them made it to the top 5.
4) I agree that Portuguese spawn area should be extended- Spanish built Lagos and kept it!!!
5) Norse keep expanding more at Scandinavia than Denmark.
6) I am happy that the Hungarians don't smallpox anymore-but on the other hand only two cities???
7) Aggressive Genoan AI: Have five cities: Genova, Nizza, Milan, Firenze and Roma.
8) I also agree that we should extend Austrian spawn area-moving Prag northwest put it out of their spawn area.

Don't worry guys. 1440 AD is not a bug-Satan comes to Europe and ends history:D
 
Playing as Venice, i had conquered Genoa and was building up that city as a research powerhouse.

Of course the Spanish has put 10 units there causing great unrest among the citizenry. So the Doge announced all Spanish people persona non grata, and solved the issue!

Oh, Common Law gives negative happiness points for military units? Sorry, I forgot how it works. :sad: What other effects does Common Law have? I'm not at my own computer so I can't download RFCE and see for myself.

If no-one's willing to try to code it to work properly, players will have to try to live with it and use it to their strategical advantage against other civs.
 
Report of my game till 1200AD:
After one funny and one serious invasion pack, Al Iskandaryah fell at 987 AD. First UHV completed. Didn't do much expansion, only built Al-Qahira seaside (From what I know, it is the Arabic name for Cairo, and Cairo is not seaside). At some years, I will prepare a stack to capture Cyrene. Anyway, around 1100 AD, I have suffered a DoW from the Byzantines. Nothing went to plan. My small stacks failed to win a Sword-Archer combo defending, and then they learnt to built Crossbows and Light Cavalries when I came up with a decent stack. Since Antakya was lightly defended, but a stack was at the way, I evacuated it, surrendered it, just to recapture it 12 years later:cool:, and Tarsus after that. Then peace. I also like the barbarian invasion concept-Homs was getting an attack every 3-4 turns (Pikemen are the key) at Viceroy level, so I suppose it is even more challenging at higher levels. They also conquered Cayseri, but Bulgarians (knights:eek:???) beat me to it.Some other questions, since I am kinda dumb:confused::
1) Does spreading islam to 25% for once, and for example making it 22% at 1700 AD, since counts as victory?
2) Is capturing every city east of Alger and Alger itself enough for the third UHV, (EDIT:)or do I have to capture every thing until Tangiers?(END EDIT)

Generic observations:
1) No bug yet what means either the last version is well-worked or I am very careless (and I don't have such opinion for myself)
2) It is strange that the top 5 consists of: Me (normal) Byzantines (the same) Venice (???-maybe we increased tech rate too much??) Frankia (hmmmm, not so odd, since they collapsed Burgundy) and Kievan Rus (:eek:).
3) Spanish powers seem declined. I remember in older versions one or both of them made it to the top 5.
4) I agree that Portuguese spawn area should be extended- Spanish built Lagos and kept it!!!
5) Norse keep expanding more at Scandinavia than Denmark.
6) I am happy that the Hungarians don't smallpox anymore-but on the other hand only two cities???
7) Aggressive Genoan AI: Have five cities: Genova, Nizza, Milan, Firenze and Roma.
8) I also agree that we should extend Austrian spawn area-moving Prag northwest put it out of their spawn area.

Don't worry guys. 1440 AD is not a bug-Satan comes to Europe and ends history:D

Maybe you didn't read my reply to you above?

Anyway, once you get the 25% then after that it doesn't matter. And the longer you leave getting it, the less chance you've got. You should already have it by the time the Ottomans spawn. ie before 1300AD. Preferably much ealier (like 1100).
You have to own all the cities east of Oran. ie Alger and everything east of it. It's possible the Cordobans could found Oran (3 tiles W of Alger) but very unlikely. If they do just burn it down before 1700.:D

Just wait till you get to 1440. The end is nigh, sinners!:eek::lol:
 
Other observations:
-Both Austria and Hungary are weak - possibly too weak to be viable. There's just not much territory for them, and Hungary builds densely packed cities in an area that should be fairly spread out. I hate to suggest it, but should we consider contracting one of them?

What do you mean ''contracting''? Removing them?

EDIT: @jessiecat: thanks for explaining. Now waiting for the big year!
 
Oh, Common Law gives negative happiness points for military units? Sorry, I forgot how it works. :sad: What other effects does Common Law have? I'm not at my own computer so I can't download RFCE and see for myself.

If no-one's willing to try to code it to work properly, players will have to try to live with it and use it to their strategical advantage against other civs.

I'm not sure why you're running Common Law in a test game unless its very late and you've got all the other civics to go with it. Its not the best civic for warmongering in general as you take a hit on stability from too much military.
Personally I just stick with Feudalism, Feudal Law, Manorialism, Vassalage and Electorate all through the game. (best for military, free units etc.)
Check out the RFCE Wiki at Rhyes of Wiki for more details about civics.
 
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