RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

[civmademepoor]

I noticed that the barb spawn in Scotland kept going on and on too until the area was civilized. Kinda liked that feature.

I think Harald Hardrada, Canute or Sweyn Forkbeard would all be great as the starting leader and the generic leaderheads would be fine. A later one might be Queen Margrethe, maybe based on Victoria, or Mao in drag, if we're doing the leader progression like in RFC.

For Moscow, Ivan III or IV would both be appropriate. Peter might be the last one.

 

[BurnEmDown]

I'm playing a game right now as Germany and I'm having a great time. One thing I noticed is lots of AI-AI wars, especially 2v2 and stuff like that, which is really cool. What I'd like to know tho is what does it mean east bank of the Rhine for the UHV? Does it mean I need to control the tiles of the river that splits Germany and France? Perhaps a UHV-map could be made for territorial UHVs, like the one we have for RFC.
Over-all tho the mod is great, I love the new buildings and units, altho if I'd have to choose one thing that's kinda annoying is that there's only 2 siege units until gunpowder. I mean, there's so many kinds of other units, why only 2 siege? A new siege units could be made, maybe one that's focused on city attacking and less on reducing cultural defense? (A ram of some sort maybe?)

 

[sedna17]

@civmademepoor: I really want to give the Scottish barbarians kilts.

@BurnemDown:

I freely admit I didn't give the siege units as much thought. In particular, I made the catapult upgrade to the trebuchet -- dunno why really. A ram would be a fine addition for a little variety. I do strongly want to limit early siege weapons to only being useful in attacking cities. It's ridiculous to use catapults to attack medieval armies in the field -- never happened.

If you have a pretty recent version you should find a folder in the mod with UHV maps:

RFCEurope/Reference/*_UHV.png

Here's the Germany one.

 

[jessiecat]

I'm playing a game right now as Germany and I'm having a great time. One thing I noticed is lots of AI-AI wars, especially 2v2 and stuff like that, which is really cool. What I'd like to know tho is what does it mean east bank of the Rhine for the UHV? Does it mean I need to control the tiles of the river that splits Germany and France? Perhaps a UHV-map could be made for territorial UHVs, like the one we have for RFC.
Over-all tho the mod is great, I love the new buildings and units, altho if I'd have to choose one thing that's kinda annoying is that there's only 2 siege units until gunpowder. I mean, there's so many kinds of other units, why only 2 siege? A new siege units could be made, maybe one that's focused on city attacking and less on reducing cultural defense? (A ram of some sort maybe?)

Open up the Reference folder in RFC Europe and you'll see all the UHV maps as well as the spawn and war maps. For Germany you have to control the area east of the Rhine including where it turns west below Amsterdam. Just east of a line between there and Basle would be right. See snapshots.

 

[micbic]

Playtesting the English. Unified the British Isles at 1300 AD. Opening moves: Built London, Chester, Bristol and Plymouth, took by Spawn Evoracum and Calais. Scots issue: simply razed Edinburgh, gathered 5 Arbalests, put them in a well defended forest tile, and let the 20-unit axe-spear barb stack attack me. Imagine the result Irish issue: Underestimated them, they had a Spear-2 Archer defense. After a painful siege, Dubh-Linn fell at 1310 AD. Welsh issue: I used the Warriors to give Archers XP. Resettling: Aberdeen and Argyle in Scotland, Waterport and the city on that SW tile in Ireland. French: Keeping Calais. French are the national majority, so I plan a GA sent to Calais to generate a Great Work. Not afraid of them, as in a Defense Pact with the Spaniards. Ideas: Make some warriors spawn as Cornish (Plymouth area) and some Gallic Swordsmen in Ireland as Celts.

 

[civmademepoor]

For England, what do y'all think of not having York flip on spawn? Can we choose whether or not it does based on level? E.g. if viceroy yes, if monarch yes if indie, no if Norse, if emperor never? Is that even possible? The model we have based on timespan is Norman conquest, and Durham and York gave (relatively) stiff resistance.

 

[micbic]

For England, what do y'all think of not having York flip on spawn? Can we choose whether or not it does based on level? E.g. if viceroy yes, if monarch yes if indie, no if Norse, if emperor never? Is that even possible? The model we have based on timespan is Norman conquest, and Durham and York gave (relatively) stiff resistance.

1) I agree that York shouldn't spawn, that would make quite a little more of a challenge the unification of the Isles.
2) Another idea. Put an indie Londinium (500 AD) which will flip as English capital, and have them start at Plymouth, where king Alfred launched his counterattack again the Norse from.

 

[sedna17]

1) More barbs as suggested by micbic are certainly possible.
2) I think York should flip. First, the resistance there was put down in only a few years. Second, spawn zones are the same as resurrection zones, and I think we would want a re-rising England to at least get all of England.
3) It's not possible (without major new code and work) to have spawn areas be difficulty-dependent.
4) Part of the challenge (I think) of the Norse 1st UHV is that if you settle English cities they will flip to England on rise, hurting you. Alternatively you can occupy Scotish/Welsh/Irish cities and deal with barbarians . If we shrink the English spawn zone it makes an obvious (and thus boring) place for the Norse to always settle.
5) The idea of giving civs a pre-existing capitol which flips rather than a settler has been floated before. It is an idea with some merit, but some drawbacks. Drawbacks I see: reduces human choice (what if you want an alternate history with London not on the Thames?), the AI may react strangely to having multiple troops and no city for the first 1-2 turns (this is why workers spawn a few turns late BTW), the way we currently have it is the RFC model and any changes we introduce to the basic mechanics should be strongly justified.

 

[3Miro]

We had the "building vs flip" capitols discussion for Damascus. The arguments for a pre-build Damascus were very strong, however, for the reasons described by sedna we left is as begin build on the Arabic first turn.

 

[kbk]

On the Dutch:

It seems that initially Amsterdam is really sometimes crammed in by Calais, Antwerp and Utrecht. In my last Dutch spawn, I had Utrecht only 2 squares east of my spawn point, as a massive size 23 city (inside the flip zone), with Antwerp 1 West and 2 south.

Maybe tweak the AI settler map to give Amsterdam a little bit more space when the dutch spawn? I really felt compelled to just let Utrecht flip and become my capitol on this one.


Also, the playstyle for the Dutch seems to require colonizing N. Africa and the islands in the Atlantic. While the dutch did do a lot of Colonization, I don't believe any of it was on the islands shown on the RFC Europe map. Maybe if no one else settled cities in the Netherlands and Belgium, I'd feel less compelled to expand in that way.

 

[Wessel V1]

1) More barbs as suggested by micbic are certainly possible.
2) I think York should flip. First, the resistance there was put down in only a few years. Second, spawn zones are the same as resurrection zones, and I think we would want a re-rising England to at least get all of England.
3) It's not possible (without major new code and work) to have spawn areas be difficulty-dependent.
4) Part of the challenge (I think) of the Norse 1st UHV is that if you settle English cities they will flip to England on rise, hurting you. Alternatively you can occupy Scotish/Welsh/Irish cities and deal with barbarians . If we shrink the English spawn zone it makes an obvious (and thus boring) place for the Norse to always settle.
5) The idea of giving civs a pre-existing capitol which flips rather than a settler has been floated before. It is an idea with some merit, but some drawbacks. Drawbacks I see: reduces human choice (what if you want an alternate history with London not on the Thames?), the AI may react strangely to having multiple troops and no city for the first 1-2 turns (this is why workers spawn a few turns late BTW), the way we currently have it is the RFC model and any changes we introduce to the basic mechanics should be strongly justified.

1) Agree
2) Agree
3) Would be a very interesting RFC modcomp, however I think it's better not to include this (yet) in RFCE.
4) Currently it's not too hard, Scotland has 2 strong city spots and London can be the third. I'd rather see this goal become a bit harder, such as control England in 1000 AD (conquer York) or control (have more cities than England) England in 1300 AD. Edinburgh is quite easy to conquer because of the free wins against barbarians. Perhaps RFCE doesn't need this feature.
5) I agree totally.

 

[jessiecat]

A word about the Mapa Mundi for the start screen. Good choice though its a bit hard to see. Maybe if it was shifted left a bit to minimize the map border. Even better. Could the start box be near the bottom of the screen instead of the middle?

 

[sedna17]

I'm actually not too happy with the image because it is impossible to read anything (well, I flipped the map so it was recognizable and thus the text is upside-down). If someone can find a better one... It has to be pretty large (1024x1024).

If we keep this one: 1) probably the progress box could be lowered 2) I was going to use some of the margin-space to write the name of the mod, but then I wasn't really sure what to put.

Rhye's and Fall: Europe
500 -1800 AD
?

 

[jessiecat]

I'm actually not too happy with the image because it is impossible to read anything (well, I flipped the map so it was recognizable and thus the text is upside-down). If someone can find a better one... It has to be pretty large (1024x1024).

If we keep this one: 1) probably the progress box could be lowered 2) I was going to use some of the margin-space to write the name of the mod, but then I wasn't really sure what to put.

Rhye's and Fall: Europe
500 -1800 AD
?

I like that map. If you could move the box that'd be good. And if you shifted the map left so Ireland was on the left edge and lowered it a bit you might have room for the name across the top. My choice would be:
Rhye's of Europe 500 - 1800AD ( It hasn't fallen yet.)

EDIT. I've just found another couple of maps that might be possible though the resolution on the first one probably isn't really high enough.

 

[BurnEmDown]

Is Prague supposed to be in Austria's flip zones? I remember it flipped to Austria when I played as Germany, but I just started a game as Austria and it never flipped. Unfortunately I don't have the save or a screen shot since I quit the game 5 turns after I realized it didn't flip.

 

[Wessel V1]

Playtesting Burgundy, now roughly at 1000 AD.

- Venetia is indeed very advanced at spawn, they are at least 8 techs more advanced than me, and Frankia.
- Maintenance costs are pretty high. Controlling 6 cities, I must run 40% research to earn some cash per turn. Example: Toulouse costs me 4.01 gold per turn (2.02 city distance, a little too much), and 2.70 for number of cities. Of course I've built the -15% building.
- Stability is something to watch out for, I'm already at -13. Civics at -6, economy at -6, foreign at -14. I think that's Burgundy's weakness, as the other civs commonly have a +15 foreign rate. No idea what's causing it though.
- Barbarians have destroyed Kiev and Bulgaria very early, within 15 turns IIRC.
- I've never seen a civ map that beautiful. Southern France is almost as wonderful as in reality. Amazing!

 

[3Miro]

I like that map. If you could move the box that'd be good. And if you shifted the map left so Ireland was on the left edge and lowered it a bit you might have room for the name across the top. My choice would be:
Rhye's of Europe 500 - 1800AD ( It hasn't fallen yet.)

EDIT. I've just found another map that might be possible though the resolution probably isn't really high enough.

Jessiecat the map is awesome. As for the name, I thought we had agreed on Rhye's and Fall of Civilizations: Europe (hence the name I have been using all over the place). It could be changed, if needed.

We could use a briefer version:
RFC Europe 500AD - 1800AD.

 

[BurnEmDown]

I'm currently playing a game as Corduba and I must say the UU is way too strong! 50% withdraw chance is just too much. I took over Spain in less than 5 turns after declaring war, same with Portugal (declared about 3 turns after they spawned). I'm about 1st in tech, except Venezia some times get a tech or two I don't have and I skip some techs I don't need while the catholic civs research them. Other than making sure I get SM which shouldn't be too hard This game is a real breeze. My thoughts: Decrease the withdrawal chances of Corduba's UU to 30-40%, any more and it's over-powered.

 

[kbk]

I think stability is too high. No one collapses unless I invade them, and everyone has 'U' for solid/very solid.

 

[jessiecat]

Jessiecat the map is awesome. As for the name, I thought we had agreed on Rhye's and Fall of Civilizations: Europe (hence the name I have been using all over the place). It could be changed, if needed.

We could use a briefer version:
RFC Europe 500AD - 1800AD.

I don't really disagree. I've always thought the other name is more accurate but the majority don't agree with me. But we're a democracy so RFC Europe it is. Glad you and sedna like the opening map though. You win some, you lose some. Right?