RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

[civmademepoor]

Haven't yet been able to devote time to the Civilopedia, (soon, I promise), but I did feel it worth some time to post.

-More than a few UHV's aren't working. This is particularly acute for the "minor" civs and needs to be sorted out. These do need to be worked out, along with the cottage fix.
-The Portuguese UU has been an issue for a while. A foot knight replacement isn't a bad idea. My quick internet research has lent a lot of credence to either a samurai or an artillery unit. Portugal wasn't much of a land power in Europe, but was no slouch overseas, especially where artillery was concerned. Perhaps a replacement for the field artillery with the same strength as a cannon BUT with a defensive bonus would be a good UU.
-The "no good reason" DOW from Burgundy on France should be fixed. It happens every game and hampers both civs. While these two should be rivals, Burgundy shouldn't be suicidal about it.

 

[merijn_v1]

I jut finished my Kievan UHV Victory. I think the first UHV must be much harder. 6 Grains is way too easy. I think it should be 8 at least. Totally I had about 12 in my own land. The condition had I reached with just 3 cities. (I had 4 cities, but the 4th was spawned to my and their was no grain.)

 

[JediClemente]

Had a dutch start. Some thoughts:

- German, French and English culture steal a huge deal of land from the dutch, as they've had their cities there (mainly London, Paris and Frankfurt/Kiel) for so many turns before the dutch spawn. In regular RFC this "problem" doesn't usually appear because americans are far from the older civs.

- Colonial projects are too expensive and apparently no other civ builds them (maybe for no one choosing the civic?).

- Cordoba/Al-Andalus is far, far too powerful. They should be a doomed civ from the beginning, like Babylon or Egypt in regular RFC. I know RFCE isn't supposed to be 100% historically accurate, but it hurts my eyes to see in 1540 a tiny Spain and huge islamic kingdom south of it. Byzantines and arabs also should not be so powerful in the end-game.

As another matter, it's probably too late to make this question but, why aren't there any projects equivalent to the spanish colonies??

 

[JediClemente]

Two more things:

- No one build cities in Sicily.
- Shouldn't it be better to require Atlantic access as a prerrequisite, rather than what it is right now? As I understand it, it's theoretically possible for the Ottomans (or anyone for that matter) to build colonial projects.

 

[Wessel V1]

Played Germany until 1383 (because I got a CTD then). It was a normal game, Cordoba, Arabia, Germany and Venezia were almost equal in score (1300 points). Frankia was the runner-up, they would have catched up within 20 turns.

- Respawns are common, but none of the respawning civs seems to survive. Probably they don't get enough cities. A respawned France just can't survive with only a few city, surrounded by evil independents (that wasn't actually my game, saw it somewhere).
- Austria, my vassal, conquered Jerusalem, while my troops were slaughtered before. The very next turn they lost it again to Arabia, who razed the city. The end of the Crusades.
- My stability is rock-solid.
- Germany can have zero city maintenance because of their UB. The same thing might apply for Moscow, I'll have to check that.

 

[sk8er AG]

sorry still a bit of a newb and don't know how to post pics. but i founded the city 1SE of the salt resource and i think 2 west of weins normal location on the Danube. wasnt a smart decision seeing that's where Austria spawns.

 

[micbic]

It was Linz or Graz, I think. Anyway, added them to the Hungarian cityname map as they are, as they have no special namings to the Hungarian, I think.

 

[Verily]

Just wondering: What's with the hideous new models for Catholicism and Protestantism, why did the old ones go away, and can we get them back?

 

[sedna17]

Just wondering: What's with the hideous new models for Catholicism and Protestantism, why did the old ones go away, and can we get them back?

I assume you mean the buildings. The orthodox ones are worse I'm not sure what you mean by "the old ones", since these are the ones we've always had (and obviously there are no base Catholic/Protestant/Orthodox buildings).

That said -- these were one of the first set of new buildings I put into the mod when I was still learning how to do things. I definitely plan to put in some better buildings when I get around to redesigning the religious building system. That isn't going to come right away, however.

 

[Verily]

I assume you mean the buildings. The orthodox ones are worse I'm not sure what you mean by "the old ones", since these are the ones we've always had (and obviously there are no base Catholic/Protestant/Orthodox buildings).

That said -- these were one of the first set of new buildings I put into the mod when I was still learning how to do things. I definitely plan to put in some better buildings when I get around to redesigning the religious building system. That isn't going to come right away, however.

I mean the new designs for the religion icons. They changed in a recent patch, Protestantism from the vanilla Christianity cross to a black cross on a pale blue oval, and Catholicism to a sort of neon orange cross from the ornate older version. (I think it's orange, anyway, my colorblindness doesn't help on this.)

 

[sedna17]

I found the old icons very annoying. You couldn't see the Catholic one at all in the city bar (so I darkened it) and the protestant one (though otherwise fine), was not distinguishable from the Catholic one, as they were both little brown crosses.

 

[Verily]

I found the old icons very annoying. You couldn't see the Catholic one at all in the city bar (so I darkened it) and the protestant one (though otherwise fine), was not distinguishable from the Catholic one, as they were both little brown crosses.

No offensive, but the new ones look absolutely awful, especially the Protestantism one. I don't see how they're hard to tell apart at all.

 

[sedna17]

Fair enough -- you're entitled to your opinion. I like the new icon, but if there is a general agreement with you I will change it.

I do insist that whatever icons we end up with they must be easily distinguishable from each other at small sizes against a variety of backgrounds.

 

[jessiecat]

I've just discovered something playing as England. I've built both the East India Company and the West India Company. Production speed was doubled because I had Atlantic Access. But when I built them I got no benefit from them. No wealth or culture increase. No affect on colony building. Not even any screen art. I thought we decided that having either project would decrease building times for colonies and might have to be built first before you could build certain colonies. Perhaps all this hasn't been coded yet but at the moment there really is no point wasting all that build time for projects that have no use. Anyway, these were the pictures I suggested for the East India Company and the West India Company.

 

[Wessel V1]

This screenshot says it all: Cordoba can support huge cities very early. Maybe Iberia has too much resource diversity.

 

[3Miro]

I thought that we had slaves as increasing the production of colonies. Everyone would make an initial colonial project. get slaves and use those build more colonies.

Colonies are not buildings, so t hey cannot give culture and commerce to a specific city. With more coding we could make it so that they give culture and commerce to all cities.

 

[sedna17]

The East/West India companies are supposed to be prerequisites (i.e. requirements) to build colonies. Clearly there is some bug in this.

 

[jessiecat]

The East/West India companies are supposed to be prerequisites (i.e. requirements) to build colonies. Clearly there is some bug in this.

Finally finished that England game. The first two UHVs are easy. Getting to the Industrial Age first is much harder. Anyway, after building 2 Trading Companies I managed to build 9 colonies before the end. Got to 1760 with 3 turns to go and lost on points. But able to play on to 1763 and got all 3 conditions but didn't get the UHV victory. (see screenshots). This 1760 finish has got to be fixed. It should end in 1800.
Anyway a few observations on colonies and colonial projects.

1. Colonial trading companies have no effect, no bonuses, not even a score boost for building them.
And you can build colonies without them. I did it with Venice in a previous game.
2. Colonies do give the correct wealth and resource effects but they are not listed as being built in the city box or anywhere in the Info Screens.
3. There is no screen art for the Founding of the Hudson Bay Company. I did suggest the one below but if its not OK I'll look for a better one. The rest of the colony art looks really nice though.

 

[micbic]

Now that the Spanish and Cordoban modifiers were tweaked, shouldn't the territorial Cordoban UHV changed to something more easy? Eg control (conquest or vassalage) 70% of Iberia plus 4 cities in Africa by 1400 AD?

 

[sedna17]

People were complaining the condition was way too easy before (and I agreed after one test game). I mean, the Cordoban AI is never going to conquer Spain, but...