RFC Europe playtesting feedback thread

[kbk]

BTW. I'm currently playing as France and had no problems with stability despite wars with Burgundy, Germany and Spain. Yet France remains solid at at least 20+. Why shouldn't Burgundy be the same? I've never had any such problem with stability in any other civ I've played in over a hundred test games. And I'm not the first person to point this out.

Spain also has really good stability. I can grow 15+ cities, occupy Burgundy native land, and take all the N. African cities, and stay Solid or better. Of course, Spain has that awesome power of +2 stability per city. That said, there seems to be some very severe stability penalties upon switching civics. As soon as I modernize my civics away from Manorialism and Serfdom, I'm collapsing.

Do we know what the civic bonuses and penalties are? Are they working properly, and not too severe? Are there hidden bonuses/penalties for certain civics based on eras?

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Even if the foreign civs are dead, it doesn't mean that foreign stability is "reset" to whatever CURRENT foreign relations are.

If this isn't true, then how does one explain -150 foreign stabilty when near the end of my conquest games, I usually have 2 voluntary civs (fully open borders, with vassalage and friendly), and 2 enemy vassalized civs (unfriendly but stable after I liberate cities to them), and 1 unstable/collapsing foreign civ that's about to die, and not even remotely near my borders (since it's usually either Mali, Japan, or Khmer)?

Here's the stability screen from a previous Carthage (mind you, an EARLY civ also massively impacted by multiple spawns near it and its long history) conquest (using the previous version of RFC). Aztecs and Incans were friendly for a long time (after the conquistadors), Turkey a voluntary vassal, and Mongolia a friendly capitulee after 8 liberated cities.

Spoiler :

 

[lifelessgamer]

hmm, I have an idea 'bout the walrus. Kael(maker of FFH) used many animations for the game featured on this site site www.zootycoon.com for artwork. Though he never said it(he might have but I'm lazy to look 4 it)

 

[sedna17]

Even if the foreign civs are dead, it doesn't mean that foreign stability is "reset" to whatever CURRENT foreign relations are.

If this isn't true, then how does one explain -150 foreign stabilty when near the end of my conquest games, I usually have 2 voluntary civs (fully open borders, with vassalage and friendly), and 2 enemy vassalized civs (unfriendly but stable after I liberate cities to them), and 1 unstable/collapsing foreign civ that's about to die, and not even remotely near my borders (since it's usually either Mali, Japan, or Khmer)?

Here's the stability screen from a previous Carthage (mind you, an EARLY civ also massively impacted by multiple spawns near it and its long history) conquest (using the previous version of RFC). Aztecs and Incans were friendly for a long time (after the conquistadors), Turkey a voluntary vassal, and Mongolia a friendly capitulee after 8 liberated cities.

Spoiler :

Our code is a little different than plain RFC, but there is a hit on foreign stability every time you lose a city, and I believe this includes cities traded away to your vassals. Furthermore, unstable vassals will cause you to be unstable.

Also, relations with other Civs isn't directly important to stability. Friendly agreements (Open borders, defensive pacts) increase stability and wars decrease it, but your basic friend-status doesn't matter.

@kbk: Assets/Python/Stability.py has the civic combos laid out. It should be pretty easy to find, read and understand. I haven't looked at this section in detail for a while -- some changes have already been suggested and more recommendations are welcome.

 

[kbk]

Spoiler :

As far as I can tell, here are some of the combos/penalties

Government
Electorate
-1 per city beyond capitol

Divine Monarchy
+2 for combination with Theocracy or State Religion.
+5 for combination with Religious Law
-3 for combination with Paganism
-5 for combination with Free Religion


Constitutional Monarchy
+2 for combination with Common Law
+2 for combination with Free Peasantry or Free Labor

Republic
+2 for combination with Common Law
+2 for combination with Free Peasantry or Free Labor


Legal
Feudal Law
+4 with Manorialism
+4 with serfdom
-7 with Free Peasantry

Religious Law
-10 with electorate
-5 with paganism or free religion
+5 with theocracy

Common Law
+5 for free labor
-7 for theocracy

Bureaucracy
+5 if you have less than 5 cities, otherwise -(5-number of cities) up to a maximum of -7

Free Peasantry
-7 for theocracy

labor
Apprenticeship
+3 with guilds

Merchant Republic
+2 per city less than 3 (no modifier for 3 cities)
-2 per city beyond 3, up to max of -7
-5 for non republic government civics
+5 for republic

Most of the combinations make some amount of sense, but I have a few thoughts:

I think a number of the penalties are too harsh (e.g., a 10 point swing for combining merchant republic with republic vs. other civics).

Why does divine monarchy not get a bonus with organized religion or other religious civics?

I don't think I'll ever use electorate again now that I know the penalties for it. Sure its an early civic, but there just aren't a lot of other options early game. You should lower or remove this penalty, as overall its a very weak civic anyways.

Mercantilism should have a bonus with Bureaucracy.

Its curious that you lump the penalties and bonuses for Feudal law combining with Serfdom/manorialism under feudal law. I think instead you could do smaller bonuses and combinations and put them under each civic (e.g., +2s instead of +4s, and smaller penalties too). That way you remove the all or none combination that exists now.

There should be a civic combination that was similar to Nationalism/Police state/communism for larger civilizations in RFC. Maybe Divine Monarchy/Religious Law with Mercantilism or Serfdom. I'm thinking of Large Russian and Spanish empires here.

Colonial projects should give bonuses to economic or expansion stability. Maybe require a combination with Mercantilism and/or Colonialism.

If you really wanted to, you could add colonial revolt events where you take a hit to stability if you want to quell the colonial uprising, or you lose the colony. Although most of that happened after the scope of this mod anyways.

 

[jessiecat]

A quick report of something odd that just happened in my game as France on Monarch. Paris has been the number 1 city for centuries but when I get past 1700 it says that it isn't the most cultured city in the world. You can see I have the most culture and am top of the city list. What's going on?
I've never had this problem before.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

I wonder where's Constantinople which is usually one of the more cultured cities? I'm glad I didn't play my French game till 1700 and found out I didn't win.

In general, can we move the last UHV criteria a little earlier? It's tough to sustain a continuously growing economy till 90 moves are left till the end.

 

[sedna17]

@Jessiecat, can you post a save? Did you found Paris on the starting spot?

I'd have no problem moving this UHV forward in general, but I'd prefer to do it in concert with a general close look at what a game is like for France -- I feel like it's rather unstructured and aimless at the beginning. Two solutions would be to change one of the UHVs to be an earlier goal or just to ramp up the number of barbarians in early France to keep things interesting.

Or perhaps I'm alone on this, and other people don't get bored playing France

 

[jessiecat]

@Jessiecat, can you post a save? Did you found Paris on the starting spot?

I'd have no problem moving this UHV forward in general, but I'd prefer to do it in concert with a general close look at what a game is like for France -- I feel like it's rather unstructured and aimless at the beginning. Two solutions would be to change one of the UHVs to be an earlier goal or just to ramp up the number of barbarians in early France to keep things interesting.

Or perhaps I'm alone on this, and other people don't get bored playing France

I agree with moving the 3rd. UHV to 1600. I don't agree about more barbs. Now that Burgundy should be more stable with the bug gone the balance between them should be restored, as Burgundy won't just collapse in the early game as it does now. And I don't think France is that boring. Getting the 1st. UHV is fairly easy though keeping that territory isn't easy with Spain being so strong and aggressive now.

BTW. Here's an autosave of my French game.

 

[sedna17]

hmm, I have an idea 'bout the walrus. Kael(maker of FFH) used many animations for the game featured on this site site www.zootycoon.com for artwork. Though he never said it(he might have but I'm lazy to look 4 it)

That's not a bad idea. That's where the penguin and giant tortoise in FFH came from you reckon?

 

[civmademepoor]

I don't get bored playing as France, maybe make England a little more demanding of my territory (and it'd be nice if Isabella stopped suiciding against me while Cordoba is still around). Perhaps further down the road difficulty could be rated by Civ chosen rather than the viceroy, monarch, emperor, etc. . . E.g. easy = France, hard = Austria.

I am curious though: If I'm France and make Spain my vassal and I have the Topkapi palace, what should happen if I build musketeers? Or, even better, I'm a 3rd party and I've made both France and Spain my vassals?

 

[sedna17]

Hmmm... right now with the Topkapi palace you should retain your own UUs in preference to your vassals and randomly get one of your multiple vassal's UUs.

So France with Spain as a vassal would train musketeers. If Burgundy had France and Spain as their vassals they would get musketeers half the time and tercios half the time.

This appears to be what the code says, but I haven't tested this aspect of it.

I wish Spain would stop attacking France too. Some of that is the fault of the indy/barb cities in southern France which are just too tempting for the AI. Some of that is probably the fault of the Spanish Netherlands getting too "French" and triggering Spain to attack France. France (and Germany) need to be told much more strongly not to go into the Netherlands anyway, so fixing that should help.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

The Topkapi Palace should be tweaked to allow ALL UU's (there's a similar wonder in HOTK) because it's tough maintaining vassals now, and it's MORE FUN!

In my France game I never had a Spanish attack, probably because I was nice to them and gave whatever they wanted. Having a big stack right next to them helps. I even have Barcelona and most of Cordoba's territory.

 

[lifelessgamer]

That's not a bad idea. That's where the penguin and giant tortoise in FFH came from you reckon?

Yea, even more, FFH uses the sea monster the warthog and numerous others.

 

[jessiecat]

Just reporting probably the easiest game I've ever had on RFCE. Playing as Sweden on Monarch for the first time I got the first UHV easily in 1600AD. Filling Sweden and Finland with cities is easy when Stockholm pumps out settlers every 3 turns and military every turn. After Goteborg and Lindkoping flipped to me the Norse collapsed within 10 turns. Incredibly they didn't found Kalmar. So I founded it myself and later took Copenhagen and Tonsberg from the indies. I now control Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark too, all before 1600.
Next I went for the 2nd. UHV, 3 cities east and south of the Baltic (not the Balkans as it says in the intro and the wiki!). I founded 2 cities and captured Novgorod by 1660. It helped that Russia had collapsed and I had good relations with Germany and Poland. Job done. Wait for 1700 and get the Triumphal Arch. Nothing to do now except turtle and don't lose a city to Germany or Poland. No problem as I've got defence pacts with both and no Russia to worry about. The Norse have respawned and become my vassal. No trouble there then.
Frankly, guys. Sweden is just too flipping easy. This is surely top of the list for a revamp of UHV conditions. In fact, I'm working on a list of revised UHV conditions for all civs to try to make them hard but doable and as historical as possible. We need to get these properly sorted out before this mod goes to beta IMO.

 

[FuzzyRabbitLord]

Sweden is to easy
I completely agree with jessiecat now that I think about it the sweden game I played a while ago was amazingly easy. (last version)
When I spawned norse had built 3 cities in my zone I warred them and collapsed them taking all of norway and denmark, then colonized finland and invaded russia taking novgorod, and another city, then I moved south to poland taking riga, down to gdansk, then moved on to germany taking all of northern germany.

This was amazingly easy as I paced myself and used mass troops (formation really helped against russia and poland) to quickly overwhelm my opponents, UHV where to easy as I had completed them well before the time, with poland collapsed russia as my vassal and germany (the southern part) also vassalized it was extremely easy to sit out for a win

Point is I never once really felt like I would lose, it was way to easy.

 

[jessiecat]

Just a postscript on my Sweden game which I played out to the end and again it didn't register the 3rd UHV condition. Just like the French game. This is really getting annoying.

 

[kbk]

Frankly, guys. Sweden is just too flipping easy.

Its not the only one. Most of the civs who have colonial project UHVs are easy too. This is probably because the AI doesn't build colonial projects. I think you should get the AI to build projects and give them a bigger effect than they currently have (I made some expansion stability recommendations in an above post).

I'd like to see some civs have some wonder based UHVs once those are flushed out. England could need to build the Magna Carta. Spain to build Magellan's Voyage. France to build Notre Dame. Some of those will be tough to balance given the huge tech lead of Byzantium and Arabia though.

 

[sedna17]

A quick report of something odd that just happened in my game as France on Monarch. Paris has been the number 1 city for centuries but when I get past 1700 it says that it isn't the most cultured city in the world. You can see I have the most culture and am top of the city list. What's going on?
I've never had this problem before.

Actually you don't have the most culture. Rome has 19363.50 culture while Paris only has 18153.65 culture (in turn 400/ 1700). Top 5 Cities doesn't rank cities solely on culture. Meanwhile, Rome has no chance of beating you to cultural victory (with only one city), so I suspect that's why Cordoba shows up as your closest rival on the victory screen. On the far-off to-do list would be to improve the transparency of this UHV.

 

[sedna17]

Just a postscript on my Sweden game which I played out to the end and again it didn't register the 3rd UHV condition. Just like the French game. This is really getting annoying.

Okay, this one was our fault. The condition is really to have 3 cities south or west of the Baltic sea -- outside of the rectangle shown in the reference map. Otherwise, as you note, this is redundant with the control Finland UHV. I will update this description.

BTW, you say: "not the Balkans as it says in the intro and the wiki!" What do you mean by "Intro"? The reference map has it wrong, but it looks like the text description in the Civilopedia is correct on the Baltic/Balkans thing.